Double cat trouble.

Today my roomie [SL] and I went ostensibly to drop off stuff -- for the barn cats of Saved By Zade, our local cat rescue.

Little Cheetah began smooching my fingers. I thought I was lost, and then some little girls took an interest in his cuddliness. I stepped back, but no... their mom backed out.

Yeah, we came home with two kittens. How did you know? :P :P :P

Cat update -- or, Sweetpea's day RUINED forever.

I let in both cats -- as Sweetie hadn't come in earlier, and this was about to be Jack's third breakfast -- and prepared. They were eating, and I'd spooked Sweetpea by bringing "kitten crunchies" aka the kitten food they both like as snackage.

( Lately I've been adding "crunchies" to their first breakfast as a greeting, to rejoice that they made it to their First Meal, and Sweetpea especially considers this a new and excellent greeting/habit.

( It began about a week ago, so it's a habit for life now. :p )

MORE hypo-medical stupid...!

Briefly, if possible, but perhaps that's unhelpful... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I've been arguing for some time that my doctors should listen to me on meds*. When it comes to mania and near mania and hypomania and near hypomania -- they don't. In recent years, I've gotten wayyyy too close to all four of those latter stages. Multiple times.

Now, I am starting to enter menopause. That could be the other problem.

Thing is, I just don't know. 

This year, I began having really erratic menses, like nothing I'd have before, and/or normal menses mixed in with crazy throwbacks... as in, blood levels from over a decade ago, or even my first decade of periods!

=-=

July 2018 to now.

It's been nearly a year since I posted last. With four posts last year, and this the first posted in 2019--

The short version of the past year is this: Tiny Cat chose to live inside with us; six months later, he vanished; his family nearly all vanished; I've been struggling with depression for many months...

I did get a new shrink. So that worked out. :) Except for the other problem, which is that I appear to be speeding BACK into effin' hypomania. Again. Not my current doctor's fault, he is very good at working with me, unlike the previous few doctors.

More on my health later...


Looking back, I posted about the cats and our cat colony, so I'm glad I documented it at least. :/ Having one beloved cat disappear, and then not just one more cat, but four more--! It takes a toll on you.

Gatito was just a couple days away from his first birthday, dammit!

I tried not to get close to his cousins -- Shadow had her second litter two years after her first -- but I failed.

I loved Cali, little scamp that she was.  She somehow projected an aura of "small human girl in a pinafore" as she rocketed around.  You could feel her determination as she did whatever she wanted, all the time, and focused intensely on those things. Beautiful little bratling, Cali was. Dammit...

Smoky update: pica.

Months ago, in late October, we took Smoky to the vet. Twice. The first visit went well.

After the second visit, I wasn't happy with that vet, for she insisted he was "eating something from outside" and that Gatito be kept indoors.

What she didn't make clear is that "you can mix in his old food when he's better" was not really what she meant. Um, be clear. I'm not a vet, if you tell me it's okay, and then it's not--! Because on his second visit, the vet was upset that I'd fed him his old kibble.

Just like she said. So her premise was that I'd messed up his stomach bacteria. Even though she couldn't figure out what was giving him loose stools.

Cat spay the second.

Short version: In the last five days [back in July] that seemed like aeons... we hosted another mostly tame/semi-feral cat during her post-op recovery.


{ Written 21-July-2017 }

We got Sweetpea fixed this past Monday.

Hell, once inside carrier Monday morning, Sweetpea methodically shredded every piece of paper I'd put in there. Not the towel nor the shirt, though.

Friday night we loosed Sweetpea back out into her kingdom.  My grey cat of friendliness still loved us, and proved affectionate -- but her trust in her humans was decreasing.

=-=

Feline news: summer.

We got Sweetpea spayed in July. THAT was an adventure!

Short version: I had to get her a cone of shame. Sweetie did NOT like that. But being trapped in the house was what she hated the most. My poor baby. 8(

May post about it at some point...


Gatito, our Smoky-kitten, became friendly and then affectionate during the summer... now he is an indoor-outdoor cat. (AND a lap cat!) I don't think Tiny Cat even realizes how much more he stays inside.

He can sleep in the house, where it's cooler during the day... and where the monsters aren't invading his space at night. Lately Smoky has been trying to explain to us how he should be allowed to roam free at night. Like he does during the day -- when he mostly sleeps, fwiw.

Saturday he became five months old.

Smoky is the chattiest cat we have. The little purrball. :D He will mrrrrrrrrow at you when he doesn't want to be picked up, among other vocalizations. 8)

Cat: Jekyll and Hyde.

Yesterday [?] I introduced Smoky to the fish toy. At first he wasn't too sure about this odd thing. What was it? Why was it on a string?

The fish seemed like a toy, but it resisted. Smokepuff could smell that Mommy had gnawed on it, and his aunt Vee too. Hmm!

Then Sweetpea played with the toy right there: Mommy liked it, oh, it must be fun then. 8) He was enthralled.

Smoky played like any cat does with a pole toy, and he clearly enjoyed himself.

Medical stupid. -_-

[ Written 10-May-17 ]

I'd been wondering about the adverse effects of the second drug my doctor "layered" onto me, as a friend wisely put it.

I'm still having those effects. They appear to cycle.

MANIA may cycle. If a drug is somehow cycling in you, that's perfectly horrible. It shouldn't do that.

I took frickin' Risperdal  Vraylar for three [3!] days. I stopped it myself. Same as the previous drug the doctor tried on me; after barely two weeks on RisperdalVraylar, I realized I was seriously hypomanic.

I stopped taking that and told him why.

[ Edited Feb. 2018: Apparently I mix up these two, maybe because I took two drugs too close together!]

Cats a-questing...

It is so cold out. :/

Last night Vee pawed at the doorwall.  I opened it again, pretty sure I knew what she was saying. Sure enough, :: Let me in, I want the warm! :: was what she was communicating.

Shadowcat now comes indoors too.  She remains wary, and any movement can spook her.  But she got used to the microwave making noises, and has been trying to figure out if she feels safe enough to walk out of the dining room.  She can scent that the kittens have done so, that Vee often sits under the dining room chairs...

Cats...

We have yard kittens.

This is good in that the home owner is deeply allergic and we cannot have indoor pets. And as a guest [also with allergies] pointed out, this is the best of both worlds -- cute cats whose dander does not affect the watchers!

The rest of my life--

"Let me sum up.

"No, that will take too long."


A short recap of my life lately:

I went to Penguicon and came back with a new boyfriend.

Then I turned in a deadline the following weekend for a new client.

Those are part of why I lagged in Twitter, email, and blogging.  (But wait! there's MORE.)

You're better than you think.

Thanks to Christie Yant for pointing this out!

A day in the life of women in SF.

The magificent @HelBell adds more context to @seananmcguire's words: A day in the life of women in SF http://t.co/WZ90INmpI0
— Christie Yant (@christieyant) September 5, 2013

We need a different world.  We need to make it happen ourselves.  All of us.

It's my freelance anniversary.

This month marks my sixth anniversary as a freelance copy editor.  Many highs and lows, certainly, but it's still just perfect for me.  I love my career choice.


My rates will update today to match the EFA's, which are currently at $30.00/hour for basic copyediting.

Note that I won't suddenly raise them in the middle of a project.

Three links...

We have always fought; challenging the women, cattle, and slaves narrative from SFWA.

Wes Chu's debut novel, The Lives of Tao, got reviewed at HuffPo.  I really enjoyed Tao myself -- lovely snark! -- and I'm glad that the sequel is coming out soon, btw.  8)

New Writers, eBook Publishers, and the Power to Negotiate from Whatever.


Food for thought.  How can you change the world?  Don't think you can?

Why not?

You might surprise yourself... far more than you can imagine.  Let yourself try.

Market news: Duotrope's 2013 change.

An author friend mentioned Duotrope's Digest to me -- and how they've chosen to close their listings to you unless you subscribe there.

Here's another author's take on why "free" isn't owed to users, which I found refreshing and pragmatic.


If you're seeking an alternative to Duotrope for market research, there's a variety to choose from, courtesy of Author Alden -- including the long-standing Ralan.com, of course.

Market listings:  Ralan, SFWA's Pro Market List, Spec Lit Foundation's List; submission trackers:  Sonar 3, Writer's Planner, The Writer's Database, LibreOffice; and market response statistics:  Black Holes, the Write 1/Sub 1 Forum at Absolute Write, The Rejections and Acceptances Log.

Two are new market listings:  Submitomancy and The Submission Grinder.  I've linked the Grinder in case you'd like to help them out; for all ten links, please see Author Alden, above.

Taking the day.

Every so often, once a week, sometimes twice, I'm not online at all. At times this random break is more like ten days from the last.

(I'm a somewhat random person, y'see.)

Usually, but not always, I get twitchy after the day's gone by. It feels a lot like I do if a day's passed and I haven't read a book AT ALL.

I might be a con all weekend and not feel the need the entire time for being online. It depends on what I do that day. Some days after being with my niece and nephew, I come home and want a book -- I might read an entire book then, rather than do email or get on Twitter.

The interesting thing is the difference. Twenty years ago, I didn't have that withdrawal twitch. Ten years ago, I was online quite infrequently. I could read email once a week or even less, and it didn't trouble me.

I had a hard time persuading others of this. That my jobs then -- I was a temp -- didn't involve computers, and I didn't have 'Net access reliably, so that they'd just have to wait on when I got online.

Most other people found that incredibly hard. Email is instant! How could it be that I wasn't responding right when the message popped into my inbox???

So I've been on/off addicted to email and the 'Net for years now. That doesn't trouble me.

Two years ago, I'd been online a great deal, something which really began in 2005. That's probably why I resist texting so much. Boring: been there, done that, sold the t-shirt on eBay, made a profit.

But one needs breaks; *I* need breaks. Still, last night, I had to keep rolling my saves versus "get online" because by midnight, I could feel the 'Net calling.

Change the world yourself.

There was a great discussion that Scalzi brought up: SWM Setting in the Game of Life. Jim Hines has written about this as well. So has Michelle Sagara: Please don’t tell me how I should feel oppressed, thanks.

Does this all matter? Absolutely. I remember one of the first times I looked at a guy and realized he'd just discounted me because I was female.

I was disappointed in him. I'd thought him better than that. I don't think I've slammed into race -- for myself -- as a problem very much; I only remember it happening once, at a job.


Getting eaten by the rape culture.


Why do these things matter? Buying into oppression by gender or race, perpetuating abuse and the rape culture -- makes you a smaller person. It means you'll hurt someone else. Domino effect.

Once I managed to stop a sexual predator from preying on someone else I knew. I'd do it again.

I don't want to live in a dystopia. Do I have a choice? Sure. You and I and everyone can change the world.



Plus I'm all pleased about a friend of mine, author Sarah Frost. :) She sold her first story to Analog, she's sold more stories, and I noticed a link to her work blog about her sold work. So proud!!

(Yes, it is my own fault for not knowing Sarah has a work blog. I am very erratic about noticing things online. Nor do I get on G+ very often.)