#also money + insurance + getting a ride are all problems :/

[aropride]

[dullgecko]

I think the Bad Kids and their parents often have to look after each other. Just like family.

(AKA I never see bad kid parents headcanons so have mine)

Like, the parents help all the kiddos out, with meds and patience and love.

But Jawbone still sometimes gets shaky from withdrawal, and the Mordred kids all know to help him make meals when he can't hold anything. He goes far off and away and Adaine helps him with the same grounding tricks he taught her. (He can't be put on medication because there is such a strong risk he'd get addicted again (this needs to be a fic I'm realising)).

Sklonda may be better off than right after Pok died, but she still is underweight from sacrificing food so Riz could eat. She has passed out before from forgetting to eat out of habit, and has a lot of guilt around food.

Gorthalax was never meant to be trapped in a gem, so he's quite claustrophobic after multiple instances of it happening. Fig has had to coax him down from a few panic attacks when he is summoned into a smaller space.

Gilear does sometimes have night terrors, and they're VERY bad. Mostly about him dying (a lot). He wakes up screaming and the first couple times scared Fig to her core.

Sandra Lynn is forever guilty for Fig and Jawbone, and she sleep talks about it unknowingly.

Halariel is an awful mother, but she does love her darling boy. She also has withdrawal symptoms.

Bill is bipolar, although he is medicated.

Wilma and Digby are... Wilma and Digby, I really don't think they have any specific issues other than feeling disconnected from their big beautiful boy.

But like these parents have gone through so much man. Nobody thinks about it.

Jawbone feels really lucky that he met the kids in the first place, and feels like a bit of a burden when his past comes back to bite him in such a bad way sometimes. At the very least he has medical insurance so he can get his problems dealth with professionally but sometimes there's nothing they can do except ride it out with him. They make sure he has spaces where he's comfortable and safe (and wont accidentally wolf-out on anyone) and make sure he stays fed and hydrated until he feels better. Once he does he makes sure to give his girls the BIGGEST hugs to show he appreciates them (he gives the best hugs).

Sklonda sacrificed a lot for Riz after Pok died, and Riz realised she was doing this when he was still fairly young. She doesn't know that he was doing his best to make sure she was fed too (and he will never tell her that on some of the nights he said he wasnt hungry so she would eat he was dumpster diving in secret). Now that he's earning money of his own with his detective job he makes sure to sneak an extra twenty into her purse every now and then so she'll buy herself something for lunch. The other parents make sure to send Riz home from sleepovers and outings with armfulls of leftovers too so she has some food in the house she has to eat before it goes bad.

Gortholax gets anxious if anyone wears jewelery with stones larger than a centimeter or so across. None of the other parents will wear any when they meet up, and all the bad kids will only wear solid metal bands, pendants or studs as their jewelery. They hold any bad kid and family get togethers in big open spaces so he feels more comfortable.

Poor Gilear needs a hug, but things are getting better for him now that he lives at Seacaster manor (and his daughter and not-stepson-yet arent dragging him around on horrifying nightmare adventures).

Sandra Lynn has some pretty deep-seated issues revolving around faithfulness and commitment, but Jawbone and Lydia are helping her work through them somewhat. She feels lucky that Jawbone is such an understanding partner, and her friends are lovely as well.

Hallarial spent so much of Fabians life being drunk that she's not really sure how to mother him now that she's trying to be sober. He's basically an adult, so she defaults to trying to more or less treat him like one even though he's starving for parental affection after his dads death. She hasn't spent much time around the other parents so they havent managed to scold her for her behaviour yet, but Gilear is trying his best to steer her in the right direction.

Bill, the absoloutly UNHINGED pirate captain being one of the only parents to sortof have his shit together is hilarious. No notes. He acts like that for the aesthetics. He loves his darling boy! He's loving his afterlife! He loved his life!

Wilma and Digby are precious and are doing their best. They tend to be the ones to help the other parents out the most, and scold them when they need to so they'll act right by their kids.

[lastoneout]

Y'all I am so fucking tired of the like, privatization of healthcare and also the way medicaid works. I've been trying to get this blood work done that I need before my surgery next month and there are apparently only two types of clinics I can go to, SonoraQuest, which has reasonable hours and is open on Saturdays, or LabCorp which is only open on weekdays and closes at 3pm.

Turns out I actually can't go to SonoraQuest because they don't take Medicaid, something I found out after going there and sitting in the lobby for an hour. I have to go to LabCorp.

The problem with LabCorp is that my fiancé works until 3:30pm and he's having a very busy week and thus hasn't been able to leave early to take me. I can't take public transit because I'm disabled and don't have a wheelchair yet and going on foot or with my rollator would ruin my ability to do anything for the rest of the day and possibly the next couple of days too. I can't take a lyft or Uber because my fiancé is the sole breadwinner for our household(I can't work) and right now his shit idiot credit union is straight up breaking the law and repeatedly flagging his cards for *possible* fraud despite there being no fraud, and he's gone through like 5 debit cards in the last two months over this(he's gone in to complain about all the ways this is fucking him over big time and they told him there's literally nothing they can do). He's moving his money to a new credit union atm but that takes time, so he legit cannot access his money and thus he can't give me any to pay for the ride. (The bus also costs money I don't have so that's another reason I can't take it.)

I decided this is all horseshit and called the hospital my surgery will be at and asked if there is somewhere else I can go because this isn't working, and the lady told me I can just go to the hospital for it and that they're open until 7pm. So I went there yesterday, only to find out that the people who do the blood work at the hospital is fucking SonoraQuest and they close at 4pm.

LabCorp does have a service where they'll send a mobile team to your house to collect the blood, but it costs $35 which again. We cannot access my fiancé's money atm. Also that's more than a lyft would cost so even if I had access to money I would prefer to go there myself.

So I am hoping my fiancé will be able to get off work early today so we can go down to LabCorp when they're open and hopefully they won't tell me I need an appointment or that coming in like an hour before they close isn't allowed.

Anyway call me a boomer but there is no fucking world in which I shouldn't be able to just go to my fucking neurosurgeon's office and have a nurse take my blood. Like I should just be able to do that. Or just walk into the hospital which overall does take my insurance and have one of the like 100s of nurses take my goddamn blood. This used to be how this shit worked. Why the fuck have we outsourced this to for profit clinics that suck ass, forcing me to try to move heaven and earth to get myself to a clinic with insanely unreasonable hours, stressing me the fuck out. Also why does having Medicaid mean I have to go to the worse clinic like this always happens, the clinics that take Medicaid are always garbage compared to the ones that don't it's such crap that the poor folks have to put up with sub-par medical services just bcs we're poor.

Anyway I'm going to go scream into a pillow for a while and hope to god I'm able to get this out of the way today bcs if not I'm probably just gonna have to call the neurosurgeon and let them know I might not be able to do the blood work because unfortunately it's fucking impossible.

[liminaltey]

Make a difference in a disabled woman’s life for the holidays? Read this:

I’m only $115 away from my goal!!!

Hi my name is Tey but I also go by Jas, I’m an unemployed autistic woman. I made a GoFundMe in an effort to obtain a bike, to aid in my independent traveling endeavors. I cannot legally drive, and even if I could I do not have the means to afford a car, car insurance and other car related expenses like gas. I cannot afford Uber or Lyft, and I can’t always afford the bus. I cannot rely comfortably on relatives or friends to take me places because they are their own people with their own agendas, and as mentioned previously I cannot afford to compensate them with gas money. I have been searching for a job for months and have had a couple interviews but they all have lead to nothing.

I have done much walking lately in an attempt to exercise my independent traveling muscles but it’s harder than I thought. Despite being young (24) I have dealt with foot related pain/ problems for as long as I can remember. I had surgery to address it at 9 or 10 years old. That did not solve everything of course. I used to sprain my ankles a lot due to them being unstable and floppy. I have lost feeling in my toes for weeks just from standing from working at Bojangle’s. I have an osteochondral lesion on my left ankle that may require surgery, and just two days ago I was diagnosed with a stress reaction on my right foot, a precursor to an actual fracture from all the walking I’ve done. I was also freshly diagnosed with Ehlers Danlos syndrome.

Having a bike would help me be able to travel more often, and further. My partner has a beautiful bike and I’d love to be able to bike ride alongside them on our city related adventures instead of lagging behind on my unreliable feet. See look at how pretty! It’s even more gorgeous in person:

I’d also really love to be able to take myself to my doctors and mental health appointments without begging my relatives to take me. I would like to be able to pick up my prescription medication, and do independent grocery runs. I’d love to be able to get out the house more often on my own terms rather than wait for someone to get into the “feel like going out” mood. I have depression, anxiety and other health problems both physical and psychological and I’m trying to actively overcome them. Biking is a good form of physical activity while simultaneously exposing you to vitamin D since it generally is considered an outdoorsy activity. I lack vitamin D.

So if you read all this, I adore you.

If you have the means to donate $1 I’d really really really really really really really really appreciate it, and if you can’t (I understand, my bank account closed itself because I’m that broke), reblogging would also be very very very very very very very very very very very very much appreciated!

I’m $115 away, it’s so close I can almost taste it (imagining that one Patrick licking SpongeBob popsicle scene)

Being $115 away means:

If 11 (and a half 🤭) people donated $10 the goal would be reached or 23 people donating $5, you get the picture

This is me if you care btw:

[swamp-spirit]

So You’re in Effexor/Venlafaxine Withdrawal

Had some provider change bullshit and went from 225 mg a day for years to cold turkey for five days. Effexor’s pretty famous for being The Fucking Worst withdrawal wise, but it honestly works great for me. I’m a dumbass with ADHD, so I often end up without a day or two, but HOO BOY five days was a lot.

Unfortunately, most withdrawal advice I’ve found it targeted at people who are intentionally going off Effexor and focused on working with a doctor and weening slowly, not super relevant to me. I wanted to write up what I’ve learned to help other people who might be going through the withdrawal and not have access to Effexor or a doctor. None of this magically fixes it, it’s just making the shit timeframe until you can get your meds a bit less shit.

Note, this is pretty much all personal experience, and there’s not much research. This is not formal medical advice, and if you can talk to a professional, please do. Also note that I have a number of side conditions that may influence my experience. (Withdrawal is actually something that can be so personal.)

Know the Emergency Signs I’m not gonna fully list symptoms here, plenty of people have done that, but know which symptoms are normal ‘yup this sucks‘ symptoms and which are ‘oh shit‘ symptoms.  If you’re in this situation, I imagine the odds are good money is part of the problem, but know Urgent Care and the ER will usually give you an emergency prescription, so if you feel like things are getting that bad anyways, it’s good to go before it gets worse.

Don’t Drive I can’t drive ever, but pls don’t do this in withdrawal. I know you might have obligations, and I know calling a ride is expensive, but getting in a car crash is more expensive.

Try Not to Be Alone If you can, ask a friend over, go to a family members house, whatever you can. A lot of the emergency signs (delirium, seizures, losing consciousness) mean you can’t seek care for yourself. It’s good to have somebody around who knows what to look for. The biggest danger to people in Effexor withdrawal tends to be the mental symptoms. If it’s safe, let your loved ones know that you’re at higher risk for self harm and suicidal thoughts, and what you’d like them to do if  they’re worried. Most situations aren’t going to be that bad. Usually, it just sucks, but like... it’s good to have somebody around who can bring you soup and listen to you feel sorry for yourself. Treat it like having the flu, and know you deserve the same care as anyone else in that situation. (Yes, even if it’s ‘your fault’ you ran out of meds. If punishing yourself for not thinking ahead/missing an insurance detail/forgetting something worked, I’d never miss a dose.)

Chill Out Your Nervous System A lot of the symptoms (brain zaps and shivers esp) are your nervous system going out of control, so doing calming techniques can actually help. Getting hugs, bundling up somewhere cozy, and doing deep breathing is legit medical treatment for soothing out a haywire system.

Track When In the Day It’s Worst Being sick, unfortunately, does not always mean you don’t have shit to do. I realized pretty quickly my shakes were a ton worse at night, so, even though I didn’t want to do much during the morning, if it had to get done, that’s when it was going to happen. It can also be good just so, when you’re symptoms are at their worst, you can remember that it won’t be like this the entire time until you get meds.

Indulge Cravings When your body’s doing heavy lifting, it starts yelling for whatever weird shit it thinks might help. That’s what weird pregnancy cravings are, and that’s what you need now. Save the diet for later, get a little lax on the grocery budget, and have zero shame about replacing dinner with pickle juice mixed with gatoraid or whatever. If you deal with nausea, try to stick to small meals of whatever seems doable. My personal buddy was Morningstar Veggie sausages since they’re high protein without being too dense or fatty.

Medicine Cabinet Helpers Dangerous layman advice!!! I saw medical pages advise it but still be careful!!! That said, holy shit, those dramamine lemon ginger chews are my best friends now, followed shortly by melatonin gummies and advil.

Room Temp Baths Hot baths can be a lot on an overtaxed nervous system, but I found pleasantly warm water was very pleasant.

Sick Day Entertainment When electronics are overwhelming, books are hard, you can’t get out of bed, and you desperately need a distraction, it’s good to have things you can handle. Some ideas -Calling somebody -Audiobooks/podcasts -Coloring Honestly, more suggestions here would be great. My go to was podcasts, but I know a lot of people, trying to track a podcast in withdrawal sounds like hell.

Anyway, cheers to making it out the other side, because you will. In the meantime, spoil the shit out of yourself.

[riddlerosehearts]

very long and very negative/depressing vent post under the cut because i don't wanna bother my friends at 7 am and don't have anywhere else to put this lmao

i'm gonna be real i'm in my late 20s and have never, ever had what i'd consider a happy life. i've had a few days of happiness here and there but i just do not know what a genuinely happy, fulfilling, hopeful life is like. i might've known when i was like, younger than 10, but my memory sucks so bad that i hardly remember that time and the only thing i was holding onto for a chance of getting to find out someday was keeping trump out of office forever. my mental health gets worse all the time and trying to do anything about it is so, so hard.

and this is going to sound so fucking silly when it's the least of anyone's problems right now but i am the most disney-obsessed person who's never been to disney world because my family could never afford to take the trip. i used to dream more than anything of getting to go with my whole family even just once someday and i lost that dream permanently when my mom died, far too suddenly and far too young, and now i just want to go there for a few days with my dad and brother before my dad gets too old and his health too bad to be able to enjoy it. i just want a nice week-long family vacation where we get to laugh and smile and eat overpriced mickey mouse-shaped food together, my mom's spirit joining us from heaven while we ride peter pan's flight and ask my favorite princesses for their autographs, just once in our lives like so many other families get to do, but i no longer believe we will ever be able to afford that because i'm so scared thinking about if we'll even be able to afford to live the same way we have been under a second trump presidency.

for so long i've fantasized about my family getting out of alabama someday, about being able to move to a state where we could have access to things like health insurance and public transportation that would help mitigate so many of our worst problems, and not to mention abortion rights in case i ever needed one. but moving has always been too out of reach and under a second trump presidency with the rest of the government full of fascists i'm terrified that those states will no longer be able to exist in the same way.

i've dreamed about being able to get a breast reduction--not even full top surgery, just a good reduction because that's truly all i need or want--so i can stop wanting to tear my giant chest off out of soul-crushing gender dysphoria on some days but again, i've lost hope of ever being allowed access to health insurance that could cover that. it's only going to get less and less safe to even be trans, or queer at all, in alabama in the first place. my sister who also lives here in alabama has a wife and two little boys and i'm so scared for them. i'm so much more terrified of everything than i was in 2016 and i am just so, so unfathomably tired. like literally what is even the point of anything anymore? why do i not deserve to know what being a happy person feels like? why does my family not deserve comfort and financial security when they are such wonderful people, so much better than i am? why am i even bothering to cost them so much money and stress by still being alive? what is the point of anything in this world?

[kwisatzworld]

Vale's Last Year in 250cc - 1999

Malaysian GP, Sepang “The winter was fun. Usually I don’t like the winter because it' s too cold, but where I live, near the Adriatic coast, there are so many people in the summer. That didn’t used to be a problem, but now everyone recognises me, so it’s Rossi! Rossi! Rossi! all the time. I don’t like it!” “I spent a lot of time with my friends, as that’s when I’m happiest. We went skiing a few times, a big gang of us. Mad! Snowboarding is more fashionable nowadays but I’m faster on skis, so it’s better! Melandri came with me once, he’s my best mate in the paddock, plus Alessandro Brannetti, a new Italian 125 guy.” “I moved into my new house just before Christmas and that was great, though my mother came with me! I wanted to live alone, but she said no. It’s okay living with her, I’m so busy it’s good to have her around.” “My girlfriend Eliane came out to Malaysia with me. We’ve been going out for almost two years now, though she doesn’t come to so many races. Women need a lot of attention, so having her with me at races is both good and bad!”

Spanish GP, Jerez “Halfway through my victory lap I knew I’d never make it back to the pits without a piss, so I had to stop in that marshal’s toilet, otherwise disaster!”

French GP, Circuit Paul Ricard “I got into some big trouble for my celebration at Jerez. The GP bosses fined me after I won the race and then stopped at the toilet on my slow-down lap, but you’re not allowed to stop on the track after the race. But I was right off the track, so I wasn’t being dangerous. I don’t care if they fine me anyway, because Aprilia pays! Seriously, they should worry about really improving safety and also improving the show. For sure I will do the same thing again because I like to amuse the fans.” “I think the GP bosses want to make motorcycle racing like F1 cars and I don’t think that’s right. Sure there is more money in F1 and there are more fans, but bike racing is more fun and more exciting. The bosses don’t seem to understand that bike fans are very different from car fans, maybe they’re a little more crazy. I don’t like F1 because it doesn’t seem like a real sport to me. It seems that everyone in F1 is only there for the money, while motorcycles are about passion.” “You may have noticed I had some new stickers on my bike in France, they are insurance and tax stickers, just like you have on the street. Just for a joke!”

Italian GP, Mugello “Races in Italy are always difficult for me, so much pressure, so many people. But fun also. I’m used to all the fans coming after me now, the only way I can get around is to ride my scooter fast, and don’t stop; otherwise I get a hundred autograph hunters. Of course, I sign a lot, but I wouldn’t have time to ride my bike if I signed them all! A big gang of my fans camped out at Curva Casanova at Mugello. They made a lot of noise, but not as much as the crazy fans who rev their engines all day and night at Mugello. You cannot believe the noise!” “They liked my special paint job and leathers, it was a homage to the seventies, the age of love and peace: Valentini Peace&Love! I think they were good times and they were also the times when my dad won some 250 GP races. Respect!” “I crashed twice at Mugello, once on Friday morning and then once on my victory lap. It was crazy, the fans came on the track and tried to take my gloves, helmet, anything. Then I ran into Gigi [Soldano], one of the Dorna TV cameramen, and toppled off my bike. I guess he was looking through his lens, so he didn’t see how close I was!” “Before Mugello I spent some time at home, riding my 250 road bike and going motocrossing. I have a new motocross bike at home, but I can’t tell you what it is, because it’s not an Aprilia!”

Catanlan GP, Catalunya “People are already asking me what I’ll be doing in 2000. I’m not sure at the moment but I think I’ll stay in 250 for a third year. If I win the title I’ll probably stay, and if I don’t I’ll definitely stay. I’m not worried about running the #1 plate before I change classes again, #46 is better than number one.”

Dutch TT, Assen “After Barcelona I drove my camper van with my friend Uccio to Assen, but we broke down because the engine lost all its oil and water. We got it fixed and then carried on to Euro Disney. We spent a day there, very funny. I’d already been there once, back in ‘95 between two European championship rounds and I like it, it’s for kids and big kids like me. It’s a lot of fun, but you spend too much time waiting in queues for the rides.” “My favourite? The space mountain rollercoaster, it’s very, very, fast and turns left and right really suddenly and you’re in the dark so you don’t know which way you’re going to go next. I wouldn’t say it’s more fun than riding a GP bike, but you can sit there and enjoy the ride without worrying about your lap times.”

British GP, Donington Park “I like Donington Park; the only thing I didn’t like was the weather. I still don’t like racing in the water, so I just asked God to make it dry for the race. He did what I wanted, but only just!” “Me and my girlfriend Eliane dyed our hair bright green for Donington. Why? Because I like green! I’m almost running out of colours now, I’ve had my hair orange, yellow, grey, blue, yellow and black and the colours of the Italian tricolore. Tell me if you have any other suggestions!”

German GP, Sachsenring “I have been doing a lot of thinking about my future over the past few weeks. It’s not easy to decide what you want to do, especially when you have so many people offering you jobs. Number one, I know I am very lucky to be in this position and it’s very flattering to have so many people wanting me to ride for them. I’ve even been approached by Mick Doohan who wants me to ride for his Honda 500 team. Mick has talked with my father Graziano and my manager Gibo Badioli, and to get a job offer from a five-time World Champion is incredible.” “Basically, there are three offers open to me. The first is to ride a 250 again with Aprilia, who I’ve been with since 1996, and then two from different Honda 500 teams, Mick’s new team and the official Honda Racing Corporation squad. Everyone expects me to move up to 500 one day and I suppose I will some time, but I’m in no hurry, I’m not obsessed with doing 500. I love riding the 250 and this is only my second season in the class. Also, I’m still quite young so I believe time is on my side. Ideally I want to win the 250 title before I go to 500.” “That’s a problem because all the people who have offered me a ride want me to decide much sooner than that, whereas I would prefer to finish the championship and then think about next year during the off-season. Anyway, at the moment I feel like the three offers are in this order of priority: Aprilia, the official Honda team and then Mick’s team. So I think I will stay with Aprilia in 250s for 2000. I have a good relationship with the factory and I see no reason to leave them in a hurry.” “Now we have a four-week holiday, hooray! All I really want to do is sleep. During the break last year I went to Tunisia with a bunch of friends like Melandri, but all I want to do now is stay home and rest. My home is near a holiday resort anyway, near the Adriatic Sea, but to be honest I don’t like the sea so much. I prefer snow...”

Czech GP, Brno “I did pretty much nothing during the four-week break after Germany, just stay home, stay quiet and sleep very much! I did a bit of motocross with my friends, also some water skiing and a few parties. On weekends when I’m not racing, I never go to bed before six or seven on Sunday morning. If it’s a party, maybe even later, but going to bed at six in the morning is quite normal for me!” “Even when I was 14 I used to go to bed at 4am. Quite often I’d be riding around the local minimoto tracks until after midnight! If I go to sleep at 11 or 12 I just lie there, my eyes wide open. Maybe I would be good at 24-hour racing!” “Next race is Imola, another home GP for me, so big stress from all the media and all the fans. But that’s okay. As usual for an Italian race I will have a special paint job on my bike and special leathers, but I can’t tell you what they’ll be because I don’t know myself! We never plan this kind of thing, I’ll sit around with my friends, having a few beers, and someone comes up with some crazy idea and that’s what we go with!”

Imola GP, Imola “As always, I had to do something special for the weekend because it was an Italian race, so I had my hair done exactly like my chief mechanic, Rossano Brazzi. He’s a great guy, fantastic to work with, and he does such a great job on my bikes. I shaved the top of my head just like him, because he’s all bald up there, and you could hardly tell us apart! He’s quite old, but so am I nowadays. Twenty isn’t so young!” “Everyone was asking me at Imola about what I will do next year. If I got a few thousand lira for every time someone says ‘Valentino, what bike will you ride in 2000?’ I think I would be a very, very rich guy! Anyway, I’m planning to decide very soon and, of course, I’ll let you know as soon as I make up my mind.” “I’m looking forward to heading down to Australia, I like the place and the people have a lot of spirit, maybe that’s why they also seem to appreciate us Italians. My only worry is the weather. You always think of sunshine when you think of Australia but the race is too early in the spring and it can be really cold. The track even has a corner called Siberia!”

Australian GP, Phillip Island “As well as the cold, the other big thing about Phillip Island is jetlag. I arrived in Melbourne on Tuesday and you’re really tired for the next few days, waking up at four in the morning and all that. A lot of people use sleeping pills but you can’t really do that if you’re a rider, your head feels a bit dizzy the next day, which isn’t good at 280km/h. I was better by the time the GP started but still tired.” “Last year I was so tired I fell asleep during dinner at a restaurant in Cowes. It’s funny because we go all the way to Australia and everyone thinks it’s a very hot country, and it’s maybe the coldest GP of the year. They have penguins down there too, so maybe they should rename it the Grand Prix of Antarctica!”

South Africa, Welkom “We got to South Africa on Tuesdayand went straight to Welkom. This was my first time in Africa and I have to say I didn’t like it so much, though maybe we didn’t visit the best place. A few days before practice we went to a small safari park, not a zoo and not a game reserve. Some of the animals were in cages and some weren’t, the lions were. It’s better that way!” “Before I go to Brazil next week I’m going to spectate at the Italian round of the World Rally Championship at San Remo. I love rallying, it’s a fantastic sport and maybe I’ll have a proper go it if I ever get bored of bikes. I already do some rallying every year, in November I’ll be competing in a rally at Monza, probably in a Subaru. I know [Carlos] Sainz and Liatti, they’re great guys.” “Everyone says I have signed to ride 500 for Honda next year but it’s not true. Honda has made a great offer but the Aprilia offer is still more money, not that money is the most important thing. The big thing with the Honda is that it’s the best bike in 500, so I have a great chance to enter the 500 class with a really good machine and a great team.” “The Italian press is already going crazy about the whole thing, they make a big casino, a lot of noise about it! This is because I will be racing against Max for the first time, if I go to 500s. For sure Max would be difficult to beat, especially in my first year. He’s one of the best few 500 riders in the world but at the end of the day he’s only another rider.”

Rio GP, Jacarepagua “I am the champion! It' s difficult to compare this with the 125 title I won in ‘97 because while the 250 title is obviously more important and more difficult to win, the 125 was my first world title and it will always be special for that reason.” “Aprilia organised a big party at a Rio yacht club on Sunday night, right near the Sugar Loaf Mountain. It was fun because I paid for 20 of my best friends from my home town of Tavullia to fly to Rio. The guy who came around with me on my victory lap, dressed as an angel, was the 21st of my friends. He paid for his own ticket! I’m sure Aprilia will arrange another big party when I get back to Italy, but for sure the best party will be at my house, with all my friends!” “For sure there was even more pressure on me over the weekend, with the championship ready to be mine. But I don’t have a big problem with that kind of thing. So long as you can keep your concentration, nothing else matters, because you don’t let anything bother you when you’re on the bike. Life definitely gets easier when you’re on the bike, because you can stop worrying and get on with the fun part: riding!” “Before I went to Rio I spent a couple of days at the San Remo round of the World Rally Championship. I had a lot of fun there, even though I had to get up at 6.00am two mornings in a row, and as you probably know I hate getting up early.” “I spent some time with (Didier) Auriol, the French Toyota driver. He’s a crazy guy with a crazy face, he has really wild eyes, but he’s a good guy, very friendly. I also did some motocross during the break after South Africa. I’m much faster on a motocross bike than I was last year but I have to be very careful, especially because of the championship. I know how easy it is to hurt yourself doing motocross because I injured myself like that in ‘95 and I was in so much pain that I lost the next round of the Italian championship I was fighting for. My father was very angry!” “As far as next year goes, the situation is still the same, and I’m not going to make up my mind until I get home to Italy after the Argentine Grand Prix. I’m getting a lot of advice about what I should do from a lot of different people, but in the end it’s only me who can make the right decision.” “I have to be careful. I know that if Honda offer me whatever I want, the money I want, the team I want and so on, and I turn them down, maybe they won’t ask me to ride for them ever again. But if we can’t agree on which team, money and that kind of thing, maybe we can talk again another year when I’m ready to make the move.”

Argentine GP, Buenos Aires “So long as I’m up there fighting for the wins I don’t care if I’m on a 125 or 250. Or a 500! The biggest difference for me is off the racetrack. Every year there’s more journalists and television guys that want to talk to me. One day it will get to the stage where I won’t have any time to go out and ride the bike! I guess in some ways I preferred life when I wasn’t famous, but if I wasn’t famous it would mean I wasn’t winning races. So maybe I have no choice but to like being famous.” “I’m probably going to have my championship celebration party at my house in the middle of the month. It’ll just be my team and my friends, not a big press event like the one we had at Rio. Parties are more fun without cameras everywhere.” “The Rio party was a bit crazy, we had it at a big yacht club and everyone got thrown in the pool, fully clothed. I got thrown in twice and thought I was going to die of pneumonia.” “Then when there’s some snow I’m going to do a week’s skiing somewhere in Italy. And I want to go somewhere hot too, maybe Miami or somewhere in South America, so long as there’s sun, sand and sea, I don’t really care. I’m just going to spend seven days on the beach asleep. Perfect.” “As you know I don’t like riding under the water. I feel my wet-weather riding is improving and that’s important because it seems to rain at pretty much every GP these days.”

[angeltreasure]

If I may make a prayer request, I've been crippled by anxiety. I've been in a few nasty car wrecks just a few years apart from one another, and the experience has left me with such severe anxiety around driving, I can't bring myself to do it anymore. It's been three years now that I've driven a car. I still ride in cars with others, but I get so tense over the slightest thing, it makes me fear that if I wear to just try and push through and do it again, any tiny little thing would set off a mini panic attack and I'd cause a wreck. It's awful. I feel like a burden on my loved ones who I have to rely on to go places, and I'm severely limited in job prospects bc I can't drive. It doesn't help that I don't have access to a reliable vehicle to practice anyway, plus outrageous gas prices add another layer of challenge. Please, I feel this is getting in the way of so much in my life, and that most of my other problems would clear up if I could just drive again. It's freedom and independence that I just don't have access to because of my own disordered brain and it's getting in the way of everything. I don't have access to therapy either, and have very little money (again, can't get a job because I can't drive). I just want to be able to get behind the wheel of a car and actually enjoy the process of driving and not freak out if something happens. Cautious but not in a panicky way. Confident but not in a cocky way. Alert but not in a way that's exhausting. Sorry this is so long. Thank you for reading. 🙏🏻

I know this exact feeling and that situation of not having a lot of money. I caused my second car accident in a thunderstorm when I was sharing my mom’s car before I bought my own. The people all around who were witnessing laughed at me and took off. I panicked so much I couldn’t breathe. It meant a mark could be on my insurance and my mom’s for at least 6 years. On top of that I had to rent a car out of my own pocket and give even more to my parents. I was scared that the driver of the other car could drive around to find me or worse, sue me. I was afraid to leave my bedroom. I was scared it would happen again. I felt like I was burden too. As crazy as that sounds, those were real feelings I felt. I had no money for therapy either the only thing that calmed me was God. It took me a while to get over my fear of being on the road again, but I had to keep my job too. Perhaps if you are lucky enough you could carpool with someone for a while or take public transportation (which is very cheap sometimes)…there is also Uber but that can be pricy. You could try this until you get over your fear if that is possible. Keep in mind that it is freedom to drive, that could be your motivation. Take it day by day and don’t be too hard on yourself. I will pray for you.

[manish123manish]

Navigating Monsoon Commutes in Delhi: The Ultimate Guide to Ride Sharing and Safety

Greetings:

The annual hardships of heavy rains, flooding, and unexpected traffic conditions are anticipated by commuters as the monsoon clouds gather over Delhi. It takes a calculated strategy that combines environmental responsibility, safety, and convenience to get beyond these obstacles. We discuss how ride-sharing applications, carpooling services, and other transportation options can make your monsoon commute more enjoyable and productive in this guest article.

A Monsoon Commute Solution: Ride Sharing

In Delhi, ride-sharing applications such as RideBuddy become indispensable for commuters during the rainy season. By facilitating the connection between drivers and passengers, these platforms lessen traffic congestion and the number of vehicles on the road. Above all, they provide a practical means of securing transportation even in the event of abrupt weather fluctuations. By lowering their carbon footprint and saving money, commuters who share transportation also help the environment.

Carpooling Apps: Increasing Involvement in the Community

Carpooling applications, including Best Carpool App and Car For Share, encourage community involvement and sustainability in addition to providing rides. By sharing rides with neighbors, coworkers, or other residents, these platforms enable commuters to cut down on both vehicle emissions and transportation expenses. In busy cities like Delhi, this cooperative strategy not only reduces traffic jams but also improves ties among the community.RideBuddy

Renting Cars: Making Sure It's Safe and Dependable

Renting a car close to Delhi is quite helpful for people looking for freedom and flexibility during their monsoon commutes. To ensure both safety and comfort throughout the trip, it's imperative to use well-maintained vehicles that can withstand inclement weather. To ensure a stress-free commute during bad weather, compare rental choices and confirm complete insurance coverage.

Priority One Safety: Crucial Advice for Monsoon Driving

Although using ride-sharing and carpooling services has many advantages, safety must always come first during the monsoon season. The following are some essential safety advice to keep in mind:

Weather Awareness: Pay attention to weather reports in order to plan ahead for delays or altered routes.

Selecting a Car: Pick out cars with sufficient safety features and up-to-date maintenance records.

Organizing Forward: To assure on-time arrivals and save last-minute problems, book rides in advance.

Emergency Preparedness: To handle unforeseen delays or crises, carry necessities like waterproof clothes, umbrellas, and portable chargers.

Route Navigation: In the event of severe traffic or road closures, use navigation apps to look up alternate routes.

https://www.linkedin.com/company/ridebuddy-app/posts/?feedView=all

[defilerwyrm]

hi! I've come asking questions about transition (as a trans boy) more specifically, you mentioned that you've used both testosterone cream and injections.

Do you mean the cream/gel kind of HRT that is used once daily? If so, I was wondering whether you noticed any difference in the uptake or changes in the rate of your transition compared to injections. Did changes happen at the same rate as injections or a bit slower, since I've heard there can be problems of the skin not absorbing T as well as injections. Do you have any personal experiences of this?

Also if it's not too personal, which kind of HRT are you on now (injection/cream) and why did you choose to stick with it, if that was your own choice? (ik there can be insurance/supply issues that might affect it)

Howdy! So: this was a ride.

My first provider (not naming names, but she’s a doctor who works in downtown Austin) gave me two choices: find time to take a 1- to 1.5-hour round trip downtown, pay the $20 copay, and have a nurse give me an injection every single week; or use a daily cream from a compounding pharmacy that delivered. For reasons of time and money, I went with the cream.

I was on it for a year; I don’t remember my dosage exactly, but it was something like two clicks of a finicky dispenser. I was on it for a solid year and the only change that occurred was I got a couple more annoying, embarrassing PCOS hairs on my throat. Absolutely nothing else. Meanwhile, every 3 months or so I’d express my frustration with this to my doctor, and she’d just tell me to be patient. Or, you know, come in and pay the copay every week instead.

Now any number of things could have been going on here. She could have had me on a comically-low dose (I really have zero memory of what it was). My biochemistry could have overpowered or resisted it. The compounding pharmacy could have been bullshit. Who knows.

By comparison, right around three months on testosterone cypionate injections, my voice broke and I started sprouting facial and body hair in spades.

Between what my second HR provider (the one who got me onto cypionate) and other trans men I’ve heard from have said, the gel version is a much slower ramp-up usually because you’re adding T to your system in small, daily doses, and the cream version seems to be pretty uncommon; both of them are better if you really want to ease into the changes instead of just getting the whole second puberty thing over with, or if you’ve already been through testosterone-dominant puberty and just need to maintain your levels.

Since July 2017 I’ve been on a weekly 0.4 mL injection of 500 mg/mL testosterone cypionate. It was pretty challenging at first with my phobia of hypodermic syringes, but I’ve inured myself to it over time. My habitual injection site has also acclimated to it so that there’s literally no pain at all if I get myself in just the right spot, so that’s pretty great; and using the bathroom mirror instead of looking directly at myself has proven a great little trick to hoodwink my brain about what’s going on, thus reducing my anxiety about it a great deal.

I’ve stuck with it because it gets results, it’s a lot less messy and aggravating than a topical treatment, getting the right dosage is MUCH easier, it’s become a little ritual of sorts, and I only have to remember it ONCE a week instead of seven times. It’s also lessened my anxiety when I have to get blood drawn or have IVs in (though I still really fuckin’ hate IV lines). YMMV, but for me, it’s been a great experience overall.

We’re not gonna talk about the thinning hair, though. -_- One more crappy thing I inherited from my dad’s side, and wouldn’t you know it, it’s activated by testosterone….

[dollsonmain]

My brain just goes at night instead of letting me sleep because that’s the only time it’s actually quiet.

I had to go back to bed this morning, which I’m grateful I can do. When I DID have a job, I had to call out for exhaustion so often that I ended up disqualifying myself for health insurance through my workplace.

Anyway, I was laying there thinking about affordable transportation and how, even if I did somehow manage to get a hold of something (other than a very cheap used car which, of course, is an option if I had enough money to do that), it wouldn’t do me any good.

A kei truck, while more useful than a sedan, also costs more than a used sedan (though honestly not by a lot since used cars are running around $6k for one that’s about to die these days) being between $5k used to $11k new.

A cargo bike is very affordable at less than $500 and I could order one right now! I almost did! Until I thought about it more. (whew for not impulse buying one...)

A vespa or similar motorized scooter is also about $5k. That Guy offered to get me one years ago so I could get to town and then changed his mind when he found out they cost more than a computer and I can’t use it anyway.

The problem with all three options, other than lol money, is that I would still not be able to get out of the housing complex.

None of those three vehicles can even get to 45 mph. People tend to go closer to 65 on the road right outside the complex and if they came around the blind corner going 65 my little 25 to 30mph ass would be obliterated just like the dozens of deer that get hit on that corner every year.

There’s no shoulder for a bike. I do see people biking along there sometimes, but they’re riding sport bikes that are narrow and faster where a cargo bike (which I would need to haul my shit if I were going to and from work because a backpack is right out) is 2 to 3 times as wide as a sport bike and I would be going very slowly due to having garbage spaghetti for hips.

Vespas, with a top speed of 30mph, aren’t legal to drive on a highway at all (not that a bicycle is.....) and when you get east of downtown it’s highway in all directions.

Kei truck tops out at 25mph, too.

So any one of those three vehicles, one of which I could afford (I could sell everything I own and would not be able to afford the others, still), would only get me to the border of the housing complex.

I guess my point is that I’m very frustrated. There are so many solutions but none of them for the situation that I’m actually in.

But hey I could go play golf if golf were something I were even remotely interested in or physically capable of doing...

[home-cleaning-expert]

Why Home Improvement Is Right for You

Gutter cleaning is a job that can be a pain to do. A clogged gutter can trigger water to pool and ultimately ooze. This can damage the roof, foundation, as well as inside of your house. Cleaning your rain gutters can conserve you countless dollars in repairs. Cleaning your gutters is a task that takes competency and proper devices. Some people choose to do it themselves, yet there are benefits to working with an expert. You'll conserve money and time, and you can have a cleaner that recognizes what they're doing. Plus, you'll have a professional that's properly insured. If you're seeking someone to clean your rain gutters, you can look for companies that offer totally free estimates. The cost of cleaning your rain gutters depends on the kind of residence you have as well as the dimension of your roof. Tiny residences with little debris can be cleaned in 60 to 90 minutes, while bigger residences can take two hours or more. Your residence's rise, landscape design, and also weather conditions also figure in. Residences that have trees or various other blockages that obstruct accessibility to the gutters can likewise add to the time it takes. Gutters can become messy with leaves, branches, seeds, or other materials. These can all damage your shingles and gutters. Getting your rain gutters cleaned is a task that should be done at least twice a year. Along with removing clogged rain gutters, you'll intend to fix any kind of seals or fasteners that are broken.

Clean Pro Athens can check your gutters as well as repair any issues that they discover. They can detect problems before they grow even worse and also you'll have less to fret about. Likewise, they'll do a better job than you could. That's why they're often in high demand throughout the autumn when leaf debris is plentiful. Gutter cleaning is a job that calls for a ladder, which might not be a good suggestion for older homeowners. If your house is built on a slope, it can be tough to access your gutters. Conversely, if your roof is made from an unique material such as slate or cedar, your cleaners won't have to stroll on it. Nevertheless, if your home is multi-story, they might not be able to reach all of the gutters. When picking a rain gutter cleaning company, ask concerns regarding the amount of ride as well as time they will certainly require to do the job. Some firms will bill extra for traveling. Others will offer you a fixed price quote. As well as some will certainly give price cuts for numerous services.

You'll additionally wish to examine that the business you choose is covered and also a certified contractor. Having an expert execute your rain gutter cleaning will certainly ensure that you do not make any blunders that might harm your home or its worth. It's worth spending the cash to have a professional do the benefit you. Depending on your location, gutter cleaning can be a little bit pricey. Typically, labor costs represent a substantial part of the price. Homes with more roofs, high-pitched roofs, as well as steeply-slanted roofs will be much more costly to clean. As well, if you stay in a remote location, the cost of the service might rise.

[jodilin65]

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 30, 2014 First I had to clear my head, get some fresh air, and go for a bike ride. Then I listened to some music. Now I think I’m ready to write.

Tom and I talked it over some more and oh, the anxiety and frustration with this doctor/medication shit! There are so many different things I could do and they all seem both ok and not ok. I could just stick with my current doctors, one of whom I like a lot and who is attractive as hell. The only problem is that my endo doc isn’t very helpful, her staff is a bunch of idiots, she’s overbooked, and Sutter as a whole sucks shit.

I thought of asking my PCP if she could refer me to another endo, but have put that idea on hold for now. The only problem is that if I get an endo not connected to Sutter, I have to first get a new PCP not connected to Sutter cuz I can’t go to a new endo without a referral from the PCP connected to the same medical group.

This new group we might go with is Mercy. Four coworkers of Tom say they like them, one likes Sutter, and another went to Sutter and refuses to ever see another doctor ever again. So I think it’s safe to say they thought they were pretty awful.

I would prefer an American female doctor, but she is the most sought-after doctor in the US and she is the most overbooked. Most females of any color/nationality are preferred when it comes to the health field, so they’re always going to be harder to see. Still, when it comes to Americans vs. foreigners, Americans want to see Americans and I don’t blame them. What is it with all these fucking foreigners becoming doctors here anyway? I asked Tom and as he reminded me, a nobody doctor can make more here than a popular doctor in another country.

I was amazed that he could get me in to see Dr. F in just two weeks, but I’m not at all thrilled at the idea of seeing a Muzzie either. These people hate Americans! So it’s gotta be all about the money for him. On top of that, I’m not used to Arabic and Indian accents and I don’t want to have trouble understanding the guy. Hispanic, German, even Asian or American Indian would be fine, but I not only can’t stand Middle Easterners, but I also have a hard time understanding them.

Even so, I’m usually willing to try most things once. Just because most Muslims are bad news doesn’t mean they all are. Just because most blacks are running around crying false claims of racism and are loud, rude, vicious, vindictive assholes who don’t care who they hurt, doesn’t mean they’re all like this. Most doesn’t mean all. So maybe he doesn’t hate Americans and maybe he’d do a better job of helping me than Doc Sexy. Damn, I’d miss her, though! I don’t know why and I know it may seem silly as hell but I’m going to be sad to let her go even though she hasn’t even been my doc for a whole year. There was just something about her. I never had a doctor so young, so pretty, and so damn nice, though Tom didn’t think she was that nice. I guess her tone of voice on some things came off as less than kind to him, but when I see her alone she’s very kind and compassionate. But there are other things I don’t agree with that she’s done or hasn’t done, and again, she’s with Sutter and Sutter’s fucked up.

Dr. F, an internal medicine doctor, has a 4-star rating while his staff has 2 stars.

All 3 of my sister’s doctors are American and 2 of Andy's are foreigners. I asked if Andy would see a Middle Easterner and he said he’d go to whomever he was recommended to see and then tell his insurance company if he didn’t like them.

Tom thinks he should make more calls and keep calling around till I at least get a female doctor, and while I told him he could do that if he wants to, I think he’s going to find the same thing… the women are overbooked, and males will see you right away. For non-emergencies, that is.

As Tom pointed out, though, what’s the urgency? Not that we’re ready to give up on doctors altogether, he read up on what could happen if I opted to go to no doctors at all and found that I’d most likely be many years away from anything life-threatening IF I got there in the first place, and it probably wouldn’t be the thyroid itself to kill me, but a heart attack or a stroke because Hashimotos drives your cholesterol up. That’s why I’m making a point to avoid cholesterol. I have no idea if this will help the numbers in my favor, but we’ll eventually find out. Even though I don’t cook, I’m staying away from processed and fried foods as well as red meats and eggs. What frozen foods I do eat are cooked the same way they’d be cooked fresh, only they’re thrown in a box and frozen.

The most surprising thing we learned was that Hashimoto’s can sometimes go away on its own. Also, my highest TSH level was 32 which is actually considered subclinical. There are some people over 100 that say they feel fine. Again, I went to the doctor not because I felt bad but because I wanted to know why my body wouldn’t respond to diet and exercise. I later learned that the symptoms I do have were symptoms I’d simply written off as aging. Hey, we do lose a degree of our memories, libidos and some hair as we age. And our skin dries out, too. Some of the symptoms were ridiculous, though… puffy face, hands and feet. Well, if you’re fat of course you’re going to have a puffy face and of course your hands and feet are going to be swollen. Water retention at the wrong time of the month is a symptom I also have, but those late and light periods I thought was a symptom…? Well, according to what he read, they should be heavy, not light.

He said if anything, he has more symptoms than I do – very dry skin, brittle nails, a pulse under 60 upon waking up, etc. His point is that if he does have Hashimoto’s, he’s had it for decades and yet he’s fine. Neither of us has fatigue. He did for a while but found that Co-Q 10 supplements help him, and I only get fatigued before periods.

The problem is that everything seems so scary right now. I’m afraid not to treat it, but I’m afraid to take pills and risk insane side effects, too. That is if I can ever even get up the nerve to take them again in the first place. We’re going to try the selenium next as part of busting through this phobia last summer’s nightmare put on me. Words CANNOT express just how terrifying it was on me both physically and emotionally. To be sitting there one minute and then to feel your heart suddenly go booming to hell the next is utterly terrifying. So were all the other symptoms. The weight I lost was more due to being too sick to eat and cuz I was always on the toilet, more so than the meds themselves.

I knew years ago that I would never lose weight. At least not the healthy way, since I either have to be sick or on damn near-lethal doses to lose on and it’s not worth it at all. Better to accept myself the way I was meant to be. Trying to get thin would be as foolish as me trying to get tall. But I DO have to work most days at staying within the same 5-pound range cuz entering the obesity range is NOT ok for me. I refuse. I will NOT go there! Uh-uh! No way. So I will count calories and ride that bike most days of the week if that’s what it takes to keep on being able to polish my toenails, wipe my ass, and put shoes on easily enough. I can’t bend over as far as I did at 100 pounds, of course, but I am determined to keep picking objects up off the floor with ease.

What’s got me a little worried right now, more so than Hashimoto’s itself and what medication I may end up on and how it’ll affect me, is all the anxiety I’ve been having lately. Even though I still have almost half of the lorazepams she gave me months ago, I wonder if I’m becoming dependent on them because the thought of not having them around worries me. I don’t want to go down the road of addiction ever again. And just what is causing all this anxiety anyway? I don’t have it every minute of every day, but I shouldn’t have this much for one who has a wonderful husband, a beautiful house, and more money than she needs. I don’t have as much as I want, but I have more than I need. I’m hoping it will ease up once this doctor/med situation is finally worked out. Sometimes I wonder, though, if Hot Doc could’ve been right and maybe I do need a shrink for a while, but if I need more lorazepams I can always get them from whoever my PCP ends up to be at the time. Lorazepam, Xanax, Ativan… they all seem pretty common.

Still, those anxiety attacks keep coming. They’re getting less and less frequent but last night I bit into a Tic Tac that tasted funny. Sure enough, my mind goes to nasty places like the possibility of it being tampered with and I break out in a sweat and my heart goes thumping madly. This went on intermittently for about half an hour.

Later…

Nothing woke me up so far this week, but how much do you want to bet that if I asked Bob if he were making a racket this week, he’d say no. How much do you want to bet that our lovely God is just waiting until I’m back on days for him to get the urge to saw and hammer so I have to listen to his shit?

And how much do you want to bet that God made sure to have circumstances arise to pull me away from my sexy PCP, knowing full well she’ll never get my future friend request or accept it if she does? I swear it’s like He wants to make sure everyone I’m hot for isn’t in my life for long unless it’s someone I never met like Nane. I totally see a definite pattern there.

I’d like to think in the mode of and take on the attitude of, “I’m going to get what I want and if I want a friendship with her, a friendship I shall have no matter what any God thinks/wants,” but I’m not stupid. I can pray for her, I can not pray for her, but in the end, I know what’s meant to be and what’s not. She’s not meant to be, like it or not. But does that mean I shouldn’t at least send the friend invite when the time is right? It can’t hurt and all it takes is one click, so I can at least do that much even if I can never change fate and what’s a definite and obvious pattern in my life over the years.

Tom called around today but couldn’t find any female American doctors or even just female doctors who could see me this century. I’m not surprised. So unless something else comes up, I’m on for seeing the foreign male internal med doc on the 13th who will hopefully refer me to a much more helpful endo than my old one.

There are two other options we discussed. One is to stay with the same medical group but see if I could get both a new PCP and endo closer to home. Another is to message my current PCP, tell her about the runaround Dr. D gave us, and then ask if she could refer me to a different endo. Certainly, they’ve got more than one.

I don’t want too many appointments too close to when Andy visits cuz I need to focus on aiming my schedule at that. Appointments can be rescheduled, Andy can’t.

Meanwhile, since Tom highly suspects his own thyroid may be even worse than mine, we ordered these mineral supplements for him to try.

Where thyroid meds do what your thyroid is supposed to do, this stuff makes your thyroid do what it's supposed to do, from our research, by giving the body the proper minerals it needs for a healthy thyroid. One reason we think my thyroid may've gone bad is that I don't like salt. Well, iodine is in salt and that's one thing the thyroid is dependent upon to function properly.

Tammy said she wouldn’t take it and that I absolutely need the right dose of medication. Oh, I still intend to get that taken care of. I just don’t know how long it will take. I’m not sure, though, if I’m going to try this or the selenium while I’m waiting to see an endo. While most reviews were good, a few mentioned side effects similar to what I went through on the levothyroxine - heart palpitations, anxiety, sleeplessness, headaches and nausea…

Along with ordering this, we got some stuff for the car, flags and poles for the brackets on the front and back of the house, and a knit beanie for when I’m biking in cooler weather.

The AC didn’t run for a few days, but since the heat is to be rolling back in, it will be on again in the afternoons.

LOL, found Maryann on Facebook and wrote: Did you know that your drunken brother drove me crazy by letting his damn dogs bark for hours at a time when he'd be out somewhere? If it weren't for us being stuck on unemployment so long we'd NEVER have stayed there 5 years. It was just horrible. I couldn't even mourn the deaths of my parents in peace. He had the nerve to tell us to just "yell" at them. First of all, that only shut them up for 10 minutes at best, secondly, HIS dogs were HIS responsibility, not ours! If it wasn't the mutts it was the damn motorcycle or some project he was working on. I can't believe just ONE person can generate so much noise!

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 2014 I have unfriended some dead accounts on Facebook that don't seem to be used, or those I never hear from, as well as those with multiple accounts. I hope I haven't offended anyone in doing so, but I try to keep my friends there limited to those I keep in touch with at least a few times a year. Deciding who sees what is so much easier if I don't have tons of people on my friend list.

I had a dream that Mary G came bursting into a two-story house I was in with this old lady to tell me that while she may not like me, my life was in danger and I needed to hide and be real quiet because she didn’t want to see me hurt.

Then she ran out of the house and the woman and I locked all the doors and closed the blinds on the windows. I don’t know who the people were that were after me, but we kept still and quiet while they came knocking on the doors.

Then we were living on a huge piece of land somewhere in the next dream with sprawling fields of grass. I was riding my bike past an older person sitting on a lawn chair and thinking about how Jesse lived next to us and what I’d tell my friend Jessie in my next message to her.

As always, the details of my health and the doctors involved will only be shared with those I’m closest to in case anyone involved stumbles upon my blog. I will say this much… good news: I have an appointment in just two weeks. Bad news: It’s a foreigner. That is unless we decide to try to get someone else, even if they may not be able to see me till the spring.

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 2014 I dreamed that I stayed with Andy at his place. In reality, he has a very nice and stylish condo. In the dream, it was kind of dumpy. Where he really has a nice washer and dryer - nicer than ours - he had a huge old ancient washer in the dream. Even worse was that I had to climb this really long ladder and pull these ropes across a hollowed-out attic area in order to hang-dry clothes.

When I went to use his dishwasher I was in for another surprise. There were no baskets or racks of any kind in it. Just a flat floor with a spinner at the top for the water to shoot out of. There were little drain holes at the sides of the floor.

"Where am I supposed to put the dishes?" I asked him. He told me to just place them in wherever. I placed the plates facing upward but laid the glasses on their sides so water could get inside them.

Then half a dozen guests arrived, mostly guys, and I wasn't in the mood to socialize, as I wanted to tend to my blog. They seemed young, dumb, naive and potential trouble anyway. So I climbed the stairs to my room hoping Andy wouldn't be pissed. They were, after all, his friends and not mine.

Later…

Last night I started off calm, then as crazy as I know this may sound, I felt anxiety in my throat. You know how we can feel physical waves of anxiety in our chest or our head or elsewhere? Well, it felt like a wave of it swept up into my throat, which still has that slight feeling of there being a lump in it, then it almost felt like it moved up into my mouth, toward the sides of my tongue. I don’t see how it could be from the thyroid itself nor did I ever have this sensation before the levothyroxine nightmare. So I’m guessing it’s just leftover anxiety from that trauma, as well as future worries pertaining to doctors/meds. I took a chill pill, which helped relax me.

Sometimes I’m still torn between going on something regularly at least for a while, and other times I agree with Tom when he said I’ve coped for over 20 years without pills. Meanwhile, it’s nice to know they’re there if I need them.

Still successfully taking those necessary baby steps toward getting over my phobia. This is the second day I downed a vitamin D without freaking out. The next bigger step will be the selenium. I’m still at the point where if I was suddenly given a prescription drug (unless I was in a hospital full of doctors and nurses when it was administered) I’d be scared shitless.

I doubt I’ll ever see her again, but we agreed that if I ever do see Doc Hottie again, I’d face her alone. For some reason, she’s much friendlier, open and relaxed if it’s just me instead of the both of us. Might have to lie and say I at least saw a shrink once just to keep her happy. I’d hate to lie to her, but if I tell her, “Look, I’m not crazy. It was the levothyroxine causing 95% of my anxiety, not me. I need a new medication or a lower dosage, not a shrink!” she’s not going to be too happy with me. I know she doesn’t literally think I’m “crazy,” but let her if she ever does. What she thinks doesn’t matter so much as what she does. Because of this, she is better off not knowing I haven’t seen a shrink. But maybe I will. We haven’t ruled that out completely at this time. The shrink isn’t affiliated with Sutter so she couldn’t prove or disprove if I actually saw one or not.

This week the hunt will begin and the phone calls are on in search of a new endo who will hopefully care about what’s best for ME and not a bunch of numbers. Numbers don’t mean shit when your heart’s racing like a motherfucker, you’re constantly on the toilet with the runs, and you feel intense dread when life is otherwise great.

I definitely don’t want to see Dr. D, but have mixed emotions about Dr. C. Yes, she’s a hottie, and she’s super nice (when I’m alone), but if she’s going to refer me to shrinks whenever I have a bad reaction to a medication, then I can’t be dealing with her. I just can’t. I gotta see beyond those 5 feet, 10 inches of slimness, perfect teeth, and sexy lips, and right into what’s best for me. I’d rather a 300-pound black or Muslim that knows what’s right for me than some hottie making all the wrong moves.

Really sucks to know that Molly’s going to be harder to block when she sticks her nose in my blog. Marbridge re-did their computers, as she told Aly, and now instead of having the same IP#, she always has a new one each time she visits.

Later…

Tom went for a bike ride with me and then he kicked my ass in lawn darts on the Wii. He is definitely much better at that than I am.

So glad I’m on nights now. I don’t want to have to be awake to listen to Bob’s shit (his racket better NOT override the sound machine!) and this way I don’t feel as alone so much of the time. The OT is likely to go on for the rest of the year.

We discussed our options for replacing the broken radio in the Caddy. We could get a new one, or get one at a junkyard, or just take the one we bought a little over a year ago from the Ford. We decided to take the Ford’s. It’s a nice stereo and I love its waves of color. That’s the main reason I chose it. Frau Regenbogen loves her rainbows.

In February when our 21-year-old Ford needs to be relicensed we’ll sell it to a junkyard. It was a great car for the last 7 years even though it had a few problems, one of them being a broken AC. Then, assuming there are no major malfunctions that require us to tap into our line of credit, the Caddy will be ours for the next 8-10 years or so.

AGAIN we forgot to do my phone! Argh. Gonna have to get to it soon and set up VM cuz my MJ phone dies on the 15th. People may be able to leave messages on it for a while afterward, though.

If we do move when Tom retires, whatever our car is at the time should be enough to move in cuz I’ll be willing to sell or donate almost everything by then since it will be getting old anyway. I like shiny new stuff. :) We’ll just take our clothes, electronics, some kitchen/bath stuff, and a few of the dolls. I will admit that even though I love it here (minus the landscapers, saws and hammers) the thought of this being it forever with never any new change/variety in the future doesn’t sit well with me. Sit back and enjoy the ride till you retire, I told Tom… we’re going tropical in the end. :)

I finished my story last night and will take the following month to edit it before November’s NaNoWriMo.

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 2014 Forgot to mention a couple of days ago that after more than a week – yes, that’s how prompt and courteous Cali docs are – the shrink finally returned Tom’s phone call. He told them, “Thanks but no thanks. My wife isn’t crazy. She just needs the right dosage of thyroid medication.”

Except for the occasional feeling of a lump in my throat I’m 100% back to my old self and we’re 100% sure the levothyroxine was what fucked me up so bad both physically and emotionally.

Today it was back on the vitamin D. I was slightly nervous, but not too bad.

Kinda missed posting on my-diary, so I’m bringing it up to date. Already the trolls with bogus email addies are out and about, this last one in German. What was cool was that I understood every word without looking it up, even though it made no sense. Meaning that it would make no sense even if it was in English. Ich bin dein Soldat? I’m their soldier? Really? And I will always have their love and heart as they wait for me?

LOL, doesn’t sound like any kind of a joke Nane, who’s now vacationing in Turkey, would play on me. Probably just some bored American with a handy translator.

Grape Tic Tacs don’t taste like grapes at all. I’m not really sure what they taste like, but I’m definitely done with Tic Tacs for a while since the store we usually shop at stopped selling my Strawberry Fields.

Went to KFC, which the rats and I enjoyed and that’s pretty much it for today.

Later…

Ok, I know this sounds crazy but I felt anxious in the throat. You know how sometimes you feel anxiety in a physical sense and not just in an emotional sense and it can be in your chest or other parts of your body? Well, I felt anxiety in my throat, that lump was still there, so I chilled pilled. Also, my pulse was over 100. IDK, sometimes I think Tom’s right in that I’ve coped this long without head pills, but other times I wonder if I should be on something regularly at least until I get the doctor/meds thing worked out so long as it isn’t anything hardcore.

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 2014 My hair has thickened up since stopping the levothyroxine, but I’m beginning to wonder if my rash will ever go away. Oh well. Next week we should hopefully have appointments scheduled with whomever my new doctors are going to be, even if they can’t see me till next year.

I don’t get why my TD has been acting up. It even woke me up once! :(

Other than that, I’m looking forward to the weekend. I’ll be mostly on nights, but we can still do things together that we want to do, and come Monday I won’t have to listen to Bob hammering away or his circular saw. Whatever he’s been doing once or twice a week lately isn’t likely to stop anytime soon.

I watch what I eat during the week to stay around the same weight, but on weekends I eat whatever I want. Haven’t had any KFC in a while, so I think I’ll enjoy some of that after Tom checks out some new games for the Wii and radios for the car and stuff like that. We’re going to just take it to the Caddy dealer and have them install us a new one that’ll have an MP3 player.

We’re also going to look into a new laptop/tablet for me, and he still wants a 3D printer. We should still be able to get these things, along with a living room set, and still hit our goal by the end of the year, thanks to all the OT he’s been doing. That’s to owe only what we still owe on the house and car.

As for my own job, I watched a video on a mock criminal trial, though the events really did happen, and acted as a jury member.

I have till November 1st to finish my current story and then I will be participating in this year’s November NaNoWriMo. I’ve got my plot mapped out in my mind! I just gotta do a few days of words at once, though, because of Andy's visit on the 24th.

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 2014 Once again Bob is driving me crazy and once again I don’t get how Tom can say we’re not neighbor-cursed. We’re not? No one else around here is sawing and hammering twice a week or coming and going 2-3 times a day but the one who happens to be closest to us.

At first I was glad to see a garage next to us when we moved in here, figuring the walls of it would muffle door slamming. However, they park in the driveway half the time and use the garage as a woodshop, so what’s the point? Really, does this guy want to drive me crazy or does he just not give a shit? This trend he’s been on obviously isn’t going to stop anytime soon. It’s just occurring later in the day since the weather’s cooling down. It was only 59° when I went biking. Perfect daytime temp as long as the sun is shining.

I’m really sick of the male neighbors! Virginia’s not noisy at all. All the noise is coming from her husband. Females can be noisy, but the males make 10 times the amount of noise. I don’t usually hear female neighbors unless I’m attached to them. But the males’ shit is so damn loud it carries quite a distance.

Despite being in his 80s, Bob’s health isn’t likely to decline for years. Then the bastard above can pick out someone else who’s just as noisy or worse for me to have to deal with as if I’m oh so noisy myself that I actually deserve it. I just hate being forced to crank up the music or sound machines to drown it out when I just want to hear nothing at all. I hope to hell all that hammering doesn’t start overriding the sound machine when I’m sleeping!

They’ve got this beautiful patio set up in front of their place with all this nice, comfy outdoor furniture, yet he wants to hang in his fucking garage right by us all day. It’s like the guy’s restless like Jesse was and just can’t sit still. Really hope he isn’t pulling this shit when Andy visits. He’s just two months away now!

Later…

It really pisses me off that we’re forced to go through the hassle of starting all over again with doctors and all that all because of people’s lack of competency. As always, when we fuck up, we pay. When others fuck up, we still pay.

Why, though, do I have a feeling God has made sure this happened due to my being hot for C? Let me guess, He’s going to make sure she doesn’t accept my future friend request if He even lets it go through in the first place, right? All the hotties are so temporary in my life. Too temporary to be a coincidence.

I thought about telling her on MyHealth something like: Due to some problems and changes within our insurance we will need to drop Sutter. Meanwhile, I would love to add you on Facebook once the changes are final.

However, I don’t know how she’d react to that or if that could cause more headaches for me, though I don’t see how it could. But you never know.

I’m just going to be pissed as hell if we make all the changes just to get the same shit from both doctors and their staff.

Ok, that just made up my mind as to whether or not to send her a message on MyHealth. I just noticed that beneath the message box was a note saying that that documentation would become part of my medical record. No thanks! I don’t think it needs to be on record that I’m asking a soon-to-be ex-doctor to be my Facebook buddy.

I will just send the friend invite once we’re officially de-Suttered. If that isn’t accepted, I will send a message asking if she got the friend invite. If that isn’t answered I will send another message letting her know WHY I left Sutter, for whatever it may be worth to her, and assume she’ll never get it or that I’m not getting her replies. Really wish that after all these years Facebook would make their messaging more reliable, but they obviously want it this way for some reason.

This may be a good test to see if she gets and replies to the message. Or not. The message I last sent Norma appeared as unseen, but Norma not only got it but she replied to it, too. If she doesn’t at least appear to get the message she might not get a friend request, but we’ll see. If things are meant to be or not, then it’ll all come down to fate. My guess… I’ll never hear from her, but at least I’ll have tried.

Later…

Was surprised to wake up down another 1.5 pounds, though I’m not even trying to lose weight right now. Just to stay the same. I don’t expect it to keep dropping.

The AC never ran today and I’m sure it will be chilly as hell in here come morning. That’s ok, though, I’ll be under the covers.

While Tom and I were right to leave Arizona and will always hate that state for the way it raked us over the coals, we miss certain things about it that have nothing to do with people, crazy laws, or anything like that. He misses the intense heat. I don’t know if I miss the intense heat, though I’d take it over the intense cold of Oregon and New England. What I do miss are the storms and being able to see so much sky at once like we could in the open desert of Maricopa. You could see for a million miles in every direction. But in the end, there was more bad than good to living there, or anywhere in that state for that matter.

Tammy was telling me her Vitamin D count was also low even though she’s in the sun a lot. Meanwhile, I look like Casper.

LOL, I do and I always will. That’s because A, I don’t tan but burn instead and then get sun poisoning, and B, I have no patience to just sit there and tan. I could read for a while, but then I get bored shitless.

Those pics of her dressed in a sexy costume at a party didn’t disappear like I thought they did. I just missed them when I was combing through albums to re-download stuff.

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 2014 So an elderly Asian couple has purchased the condo next to Andy’s. He’s thrilled there are no brats but now he just has to hope they have no mutts. Or do things like blast their TV/music, slam doors, have tons of company, etc. LOL, he and I don’t have a very good track record for getting quiet neighbors.

It sure has been quiet here the last two days. I love it. Wish it were always like this. Got up at the same time the last 3 days. Rare but not unheard of for me. The only problem is I’m still having that “lump” in the throat and a slight burning sensation. You know how you sometimes don’t manage to swallow something all the way and it gets stuck in your throat? That’s sort of what I’ve been feeling. I took a chill pill to see if it would alleviate it and it did. Does this mean it was anxiety? But why that one symptom if it was? The burning is more likely to be caused by my thyroid, enlarged or not, than the lump. People can live with enlarged thyroids. I’ve seen pictures of them. How it doesn’t press against the windpipe is beyond me, though. I guess it bulges outward instead of inward.

Tom’s on his way home after being crazy busy at work, as he says, and then we can make plans.

Later…

It’s official. We’re definitely dropping Sutter, these incompetent doctors, and their equally incompetent staff. I hate to give up my sexy PCP, but my health is more important than her looks.

As Tom said, it was ridiculous of my PCP to tell me I have high cholesterol but to never suggest any kind of a special diet. I had to figure things out on my own, even if some of it is common sense. She also never followed up after removing my ingrown toenail, nor did she follow up with other testing as the endo doc had pointed out.

The only area within the psychic world I readily admit to is mood influencing and dream premonitions. There’s one thing I don’t tell people other than Tom and Nane, cuz it sounds crazier than crazy even to me. Well, when I was about 10 years old I discovered my ability to communicate through photographs. I’ve written about this in Word before. No, I don’t talk to the dead or anything like that. I don’t know who the entity is that “resides” in the pictures (usually of celebrities that I used to collect who served as the hosts). It wasn’t the celebs themselves, that’s for sure.

In my teens, they thought I was talking to myself and hearing voices. That’s why they started me on the Navane and many have thought I heard voices, and well, I couldn’t have come out and said, “I’m not hearing voices, I’m just psychic.” Like anyone would’ve believed me, especially in the 80s? The problem is that I have to mention this to any doctor I see because certain drugs can make it worse. So that’s why I have this problem with doctors thinking I’m crazier than I am and hearing all these voices and shit. It puts one in a very rough spot when you were given a medication for the wrong reason, you KNOW damn well what was really going on, but you know no one’s going to believe you either. It’s really embarrassing and frustrating. I just can’t tell them they mistook psychic for crazy and have them be like, “Oh, ok. No problem.”

The biggest problem with Doc Sexy is that thanks to being misdiagnosed as a teen when they were turning me into an experimental walking pharmacy in search of the perfect drug to make me “normal,” she thinks I’m crazier than I am. I know it may sound funny, but it’s not in this case. Again, one of those teenage/early 20s drugs was Navane. It’s not an anti-anxiety. It’s not an anti-depressant. It’s a fucking anti-psychotic. I didn’t understand this back then, but they seemed to think my “picture talk” meant I was hearing voices. Well, I wasn’t. I never heard voices in my life that weren’t from real people.

I still have to tell the doctors I once took the shit, thus putting it into their minds that I’ve heard voices or hallucinated at one time. Saying I don’t give a shit what people think stops rather quickly when it’s someone that’s got my health in their hands. I think this is why Doc Sexy felt that the extreme anxiety I was experiencing was more from me than the levothyroxine. Now, I’m not denying that I can get anxious on my own just fine without any help from any medication, but never in my life had I experienced anything so horrible, intense and extreme, and well, it’s quite a coincidence that many others have complained of the same thing. Still, I think she thinks I have this mega-serious anxiety disorder, though she did admit the levothyroxine can add to it.

Still… why should one have to take a pill for their physical problems (some of which aren’t right for them), and then see a shrink for daily psych pills so they can stand to take those pills? That’s just fucking ridiculous, as I said before.

In a sense, though, Dr. D, the endofucker, is worse. She’s a very cold, unfriendly person that lacks compassion. Tom and I agree she’s not going to help me. She’s too all or nothing. You can’t just treat everyone the same because we’re not all the same and we don’t all respond the same to various medications. There are lots of people that can take 75mcg of levothyroxine just fine. But I can’t, and her attitude is Armour or nothing when there are still other options out there like lowering the levothyroxine dose or using natural remedies. So going back to this endobitch is no option at all.

We still have to deal with the pill phobia thing the levothyroxine put on me, one step at a time. Little by little I’m able to take some things again. I wasn’t even able to take ibuprofen for a while at first. Or my kiddy vitamins. Yeah, Fred Flintstone never seemed so threatening before. That’s another weird thing – why did she recommend Vitamin D to me when I get that from Fred? Tom brought this up and I had been wondering this myself earlier. Still, I’ll take the damn Vitamin D next weekend when he’s home, and then the Selenium the weekend after that.

Tom also pointed out that my PCP didn’t go to medical school in the US but in Grenada. This might mean her grades weren’t high enough to get into medical school here in the US. It could also be that the Grenada school was cheaper. Who knows for sure? I just hate to give her up. Despite not being a very good doctor, she was hot and super friendly. It isn’t every day a doctor will ask what you’re writing about (I told her I write romantic suspense with gay characters in support of equality, which she seemed pleased to hear), then share a little about their own personal experiences, and tells you you’re beautiful even when you know you’re not. I’ll send her a friend invite on Facebook later on, and kill the endoshit in my story.

In the meantime, thanks to the fucking side effects and how fucked up Sutter is, we’re starting over from scratch. My general trust in doctors is really shot right now. I never had much faith in them to begin with, to be honest. There are just so many quacks out there.

Tom has to contact his insurance company to make some changes, then hopefully I’ll be able to have doctors who are willing to work with my specific needs and not the needs of the majority with Hashimoto’s. At my size, I’m just not the majority. Never have been, never will be, 20-30 extra pounds or not. I also hope we won’t have to play phone all day long just to get nowhere when scheduling appointments, and hopefully when we do manage to make these appointments they’re not 3 or more months away.

I’m doing my best with the self-help – foods low in cholesterol, keeping active, keeping calories down, etc. I don’t ever expect to lose the weight, which is ok, but it looks like I can do a good job of not gaining after all.

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 23, 2014 Was a little surprised to wake up and find I’d lost another pound despite going easy on the food. When I first stopped my meds I thought I’d keep gaining away but I’ve been pretty stable.

Wouldn’t the good doc just love to know that my pulse is usually down in the 70s these days WITHOUT seeing the shrink she wants me to see? Still don’t know what, who or when I’ll be seeing anyone. We don’t want to rush things. I need to fully recover from all the damage they caused me and am just about there. The only strange sensation I sometimes have is suddenly feeling slightly anxious and like my heart is racing, only it’s not. Still feel that pressure on my throat at times too, but we know the thyroid couldn’t enlarge itself that fast, nor would it come and go if it did.

Speaking of a certain hottie, oh what fun it is to meet with her in dreams like I did last night. It’s like having a fun affair to spice things up without actually cheating on the one you love, only we didn’t “do” anything. Loved the shirt she had on, though I’m sure she would never wear such a revealing one to work, even under that white coat of hers.

I sometimes wonder if she ever reads my blog unbeknownst to me, thus my confessions of attraction for her, but she’s not stupid either way. She may not know it all, but I’m sure she figured out 2 or 3 appointments ago that I like what I see. What straight man, lesbian or bisexual male/female wouldn’t?

My sister surprised me by asking for a good place to learn Spanish and said “mucho gracious” when I linked her to Duolingo. LOL, try “muchas gracias,” I told her. I’m just surprised because she’s never shown an interest in languages and the idea of her studying any language would be like me taking a math course. People’s interests do tend to change over the years, though. That’s why I rarely dance or sing these days. If she finds the Spanish to be over her head, she can forget about Italian and she can really forget about German and French.

I killed Aly in her dreams last night with a water gun, so she told me, and I was accusing her of stealing my silver glitter wallet. ROTFL! She knows, though, that I would never kill anyone who wasn’t trying to kill me, kill Tom, or break into the house. There are very few exceptions to that rule. Such as those who had a direct and indirect hand in swiping half a year of my freedom from me, costing us thousands of dollars, and a world of mental anguish I won’t even begin to get into. Five minutes with each of these folks would be as exciting as going on a mega-shopping spree.

Went out biking yesterday afternoon. It was 86°. A bit warm even though the sun was setting. I just hate it when people park right in front of the speed bumps because then I can’t swerve around the very edges of them and am forced to slow down. Might wait till after dark even if it’s a lot harder to see then. I know my park, though, and could navigate it blindfolded. I know right where all those evil little speed bumps are.

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 2014 I was chatting with someone who knows someone who’s going through a really rough time in life. She said to me, “You know, Jodi, sometimes when she pours her heart out to me I really don’t know what to say.”

Oftentimes it isn’t about what you can say to one who’s down, but how well you can listen. Sometimes just being there for them and being a good listener can go a long way toward helping to boost someone up. It’s usually better to remain in the gray areas. You don’t have to respond to every single thing they say, but if you say nothing at all it can make a person feel like you don’t give a shit, thus making them feel worse and regret reaching out to you. No one expects you to have a magic wand to wave that would make their troubles disappear. If you could do that, they could probably do it, too.

Anyway, I hadn’t even been up 15 minutes when sure enough, Bob’s saw began to grate on my nerves. Fortunately, Virginia returned shortly afterward and hopefully reminded him that others live here too, since he did shut up pretty fast. Then they both took off after slamming SUV doors. Hopefully by the time they do return it will be too hot to play outside. Once the sawing escalates to 2-3 times a week I will remind him, in the kindest yet bluntest manner I can, just how few feet lie between his saw and the walls of our house. Hell, not even weekends are always guaranteed to be quiet around here. They spent an hour or so trimming palm trees across the street yesterday. After next door left I could hear them mowing the common area, but all is temporarily quiet at the moment.

My pulse was slightly above 100, and yes, it was anxiety. When someone’s sawing just outside your windows and you see that your rash is getting worse all of a sudden, you’re not exactly calm, cool and collected. If my rash isn’t better in a few weeks I’ll need to let her know. I’m still nowhere near needing a chill pill, mind you, but due to a combination of it being a bit warm and my pulse being elevated, I’m going to wait till the sun starts setting before I go out riding.

Oh, shit! Next door’s already back and slamming the shit out of their doors as they unload whatever. Wait… now the SUV’s in the garage. Why would they unload shit in their driveway, which is further from their door, then pull the thing into the garage? Either way, the fact that it’s in the garage tells me they’re not going out again, but that doesn’t necessarily mean I’m safe from Bob’s power tools. I probably am, but it’s not that hot out. Only 79° now and I’ve heard him working and seen him riding his bike up to 90°.

I tell myself they’re better than getting next to welfare bums, college kids or the Brady Bunch, and they are, but they can still get annoying enough at times.

Later…

Tom will be working a long day today. Some special project going on, I guess. At least I slept in a bit so his absence won’t seem as long. I asked him if he thought he’d have mixed emotions about the day he retires. Like would he be happy but sad at the same time, feeling old or something like that? He said, “No, not at all. Everyone looks forward to the day they no longer have to work.”

Well, my BIL was thrilled to retire and he seemed to like the work he did, too. Maybe not all of the people involved, but the work itself seemed to suit him well.

Rats “jump for joy” when they get excited much like people, cats and dogs do. Oh, how funny it was seeing their reaction to last night’s lobster ravioli that I shared with them and the way they kept begging for more! LOL

Bob’s tucked in for the day and then Xfinity came to steal my peace, though not much of it. Just some scattered door slamming of their van. They were working on the other side of the house somewhere.

I’ve been asked about my music and Twitter preferences and what types of people I follow. I don’t usually follow individuals with “personal” accounts unless I know them. Tweets like, “I’m in the bathroom,” “I just ate dinner,” “I have a headache,” “Running late for work,” and “I have to go to the store now” bore me to tears. I mostly follow those that show pictures of nature and animals as well as funny/educational quotes and facts. I like to learn things I didn’t already know and see places I’ve never been to. Following some 22-year-old who tweets about mundane and immature stuff with the writing ability of a 6-year-old isn’t my thing.

I was also asked if I was into oldies. I used to be into them big time, but now I prefer to listen to new stuff. One can only spend so many years, or better yet decades, listening to the same old stuff, though I do like a lot of stuff from the '70s and '80s.

Gonna be getting a new living room set pretty much anytime now. It’s just a matter of finding a convenient time to go out looking. As experience taught us, never go out and buy something expensive as soon as you’ve saved the money for it. Wait till you’ve saved twice if not three times the amount, so that if an emergency comes up you haven’t drained your savings.

Aly dumped Molly again. I knew she would, but sadly, I also know it's just a matter of time before she forgives her and starts the same old cycle of shit all over again. I'm sure I'm in for more blog views from Molly, seeing if I mention her or Aly, too. Maybe not Mommy Dearest because it's off for cancer surgery next month. Anyway, I’m not going to give her the satisfaction of acknowledging her in entries, and am even thinking of deleting a lot of “Molly mentions” from old entries. I’m not going to respond to any contact I may receive from her either, begging me to contact Aly for her or to ask if I’ve heard from her. She’d know that anyway as I’m sure she follows our tweets.

Anyway, Aly swears she’s washed her hands of that relationship, but hopefully, she won’t ever dry them. It’s up to her. As I told her, though, every time she acknowledges her or her crazy mother, it’s like hitting the reset button on a timer as far as her getting the message and moving on. She’ll never get over her obsession with her if she puts her two cents in every so often. It’s gotta be all or nothing with people as crazy and unstable as Molly. As an old lady told me, don’t even bother trying to figure crazy out cuz crazy has no logic or reason. Crazy is just crazy!

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 2014 It turns out that the casino in town is just a card room for poker and blackjack and doesn’t have any slot machines. We’ll go to the real casino, which is about 15 miles from here, some other time.

We did grab a bite to eat at Carl’s Jr., though, and that’s pretty much it for today other than changing the rats’ cage. It’s cloudy out with a bit of a breeze. It only rained like two drops, but we’re coming to that time of year when it’s more likely to rain.

My new pillow was comfortable in any position I’d lie in and my neck feels a lot better today. I got caught up on sleep and am starting to sleep in later in the morning, which is a good thing. That way I can sleep through most of the weekday noise so long as it’s not as maddening as when they were cutting trees down, and then be up later when it’s quieter.

My anxiety has been virtually non-existent the last couple of days and I love it. I wish I could always feel this good. Not being alone so much helps, and as Tom said, I’m getting better and better each day. The further away from my last ordeal we get, the better I’ll be. That’s usually how PTSD works. As new memories are formed, they help not so much to replace the old ones but to push them further back into our minds. Still worried, though, about when it comes time to get up the nerve to go back on medication of some kind. As it is I don’t know that I’m ready yet for Novocain at the dentist, which I’ve had a million times already.

Later…

It isn't every day I get to use my Italian around here. Some guy was at Carl's Jr. and another guy asked if he was Italian and if he spoke it while we were all getting drinks. He said yes and asked the guy if he knew any. The guy said he knew a little. In Italian, I said, "Io so un po d’italiano anche," which means “I know a little Italian too.” That sure threw the both of them, LOL.

Last night I had a dream involving that hot-looking black judge in Detroit I saw in a documentary. We moved there, not that we’d ever move to such a lousy city and climate, but in the dream, we moved there and the judge left me a voice message. She said someone had been calling her asking for me, and then she said something like, “You’re here now and we will be watching you.”

I debated whether or not to ignore her message or call and let her know I had no idea how or why anyone would call her looking for me, and that I didn’t appreciate her threats.

Swimming season is pretty much over here. I hate that winter's coming even if it's nothing like New England or Oregon, and even though there is some good in it. It's better for sleeping and working out but I hate wearing robes and slippers. I like to be barefoot and in short shorts and sports bras. It's still usually warm enough for shorts, just not swimming.

Since yesterday was warmer, I was pissed to have had this Caddy for less than 6 months just to have a half-assed working AC. We seem to be so cursed with car ACs. Yet it turns out that it’s just a case of the computer losing its mind and needing to be reset. It would only come out the floor before, but a reset should hopefully get it working again at chest level. His online research says it will anyway.

There are brackets for flags in both the front and back of the house, so we’re going to get poles and flags on Amazon soon enough. I chose one with a hummingbird and flowers, and one with a cat and flowers.

Later…

Tom and I were discussing how much progress I’ve made in undoing what they did to me (the meds and doctors). I’m getting better each day and haven’t even mentioned chill pills all week, let alone taken one. Despite my improvement, the pill phobia isn’t 100% gone and I’m not 100% back to my old self. So we devised a plan to help me take the necessary steps to get there. Next weekend (when he’ll be around more) I will resume the vitamin D. I’m already able to take my chewable kiddy vitamin and things like ibuprofen. Then in two weeks, we’ll have me take 100 mcg of selenium, which according to Tom’s research, should help my thyroid a lot because it suppresses the antibodies that attack it. By then I should be brave enough to face whoever my new endo doc will be, not that I expect they’ll be able to see me this year. California has TERRIBLE healthcare!

I told Andy that while I was happy for him, it’s sad that he gets great healthcare for free while we PAY to get shitty healthcare. Our home state is a great state with a shit climate, you could say, LOL. I think that no matter where you go, though, so many doctors are quacks who don’t know what they’re doing and don’t care about each individual patient’s particular needs. Instead, they have a “one treatment fits all” attitude, which is totally ridiculous since everyone’s different and we don’t all respond the same to various medications. My trust levels are definitely down right now.

Going to the doctor after all these years ended up making me less healthy, in a sense, so I’ve got to proceed with caution from here on out. No sense in taking something that’s going to make me feel a million times worse than any disease itself ever could. We weren’t talking about taking chemo to fight cancer or anything like that after all. We were just talking about something that’d do what my thyroid can no longer do on its own.

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 2014 Here’s a health/work update. Tom has not only decided to put his foot down at work and work maybe an hour overtime instead of the ridiculous 10-11 hours he’s been working, but we’re putting our foot down where Sutter’s concerned, too. We’re definitely going to get a new endo (this may take months), and I’m not sure right now if I’m going to keep my PCP, good-looking or not. She’s super nice as well as attractive, but the more Tom and I thought about some of the things she’s said, the more we agree it’s just ridiculous. As Tom said, “They want you to take something for your thyroid, then something for your cholesterol, then something (psych pills) so you can take those pills while you live in a fog… that’s just ridiculous. You may have a phobia to overcome, but you’ve coped without psych pills in the 20 years I’ve known you. You’re not crazy.”

While there’s absolutely nothing wrong at all with taking something here and there to help ease our anxiety during those super rough moments, do I really want to go back in time, take something daily that I would eventually get dependent on and suffer yet more side effects, some of which could be permanent like tardive dyskinesia? Hardly! Yes, the thought of returning to medication scares me a bit thanks to the levothyroxine’s side effects, but as he said, I’m not crazy. Weird? Eccentric? Strange? You bet. Most people definitely don’t paint their hallways hot pink or have naked body sculptures hanging from their walls, and I’d say the chances of them keeping a journal for 28 years straight and ranging anywhere from familiar to fluent in 8 languages isn’t very good. So yeah, there’s a touch of uniqueness to me. But crazy? Not likely, even if I may feel like I’m losing it at times when the shit really hits the fan in life. I know right from wrong (even if I don’t always make the best choices in life), and there are never any voices in my head telling me to kill the first person I see wearing bright yellow because then I’ll get to live happily ever after in some magical kingdom in the afterlife or some crazy shit like that. I imagine, I fantasize, but I don’t actually believe the shit I conjure up in my head or in my stories. So if having a phobia that I can and will overcome in time after having a very traumatic experience that most people probably couldn’t understand until they went through it too, renders me a case of at least temporary insanity, then so be it.

My PCP isn’t the main reason why we want to drop Sutter and get a different medical group that hopefully – HOPEFULLY – will be more competent and helpful to my particular needs. I’ve always been prone to side effects and in most cases, I can’t take adult doses. Yes, we want an endo that will do what’s best for ME and not lump me into a group of “norms” I don’t fit into, but we want to be able to contact doctors and make appointments without the fucking all-day runaround. The question is, do good doctors, along with an organized and competent staff, actually exist anywhere? It seems there are so many quack doctors out there. Like as many as there are corrupt cops. It’s scary and sad to know this, too.

There are doctors who can hopefully treat my thyroid with natural remedies or maybe at least mostly natural remedies like a certain type of diet, and that’s what I’m hoping to find. I’m already doing what I can to help keep my cholesterol down by avoiding red meats, eggs and stuff like that.

Tom actually was able to get through and talk to someone who gave him information that would help us hunt for what we’re hoping will be both an endocrinologist and a PCP all in one. The only problem is that the good doctors are usually the ones that aren’t accepting new patients while the bad ones are so overbooked. I’m tired of so many doctors not being able to see me for months unless it’s urgent. Why the fuck do they take on so many patients then?

As Tom said, we were too nice, especially with Doc Sexy, when we should’ve put our foot down at least with some of the things she was saying. It really bothers me that THREE so-called experts kept telling me to keep up the 75mcg when I knew damn well that dose was too much for me. I never had 4 years or more of medical school yet I knew it. That’s the problem with so many of these damn doctors; they don’t get that we sometimes know our own bodies better than anyone else. The extreme anxiety I was experiencing with the booming, racing heart, intense negative emotions, and feeling of panic and suffocation was NOT normal for me in my worst of times. Why would it be in my best of times? I think doctors need to be willing to work with their patients and meet them halfway, within reason, the same as auto mechanics, waitresses and people of other fields do, instead of one of you being so all or nothing.

My pulse has come way down since stopping the levothyroxine. I was astonished to find it only in the 70s and 80s instead of the 90s or higher, though it was in the 120s when I got off my bike, as is reasonable.

Tom said he’s not going to worry anymore about taking time off from work when I need to deal with doctors and if they don’t like it, tough shit. “But what if they fire you?” I had asked him, and he basically said, “Tough. If they don’t like it I’ll go work somewhere else and we’ll sue the crap out of them.”

Well, I did promise myself after I got screwed in Arizona that that would be the LAST time I didn’t fight back. I could’ve fought back yet I just let them fuck me over and that pisses me off almost as much as what they did to me. Eh, just something I have to live with, though I certainly have learned from it. As I told God, one day you’re going to let someone fuck us over that not even You can protect. We’d prefer not to get shit on, of course, but if we ever are, we WILL fight back. In fact, they better hope we can sue them cuz if we can’t, well, then they’re really shit outa luck cuz we’ll move onto Plan B and that would be so, so much worse for them. I doubt it will come to that, though, with any place he could ever work or any doctor we could ever see. We hope not!

On the bright side, if we do drop Sutter I can send a friend request to Dr. C (don’t know that she’d accept it) and kill Dr. D in my stories as many times as I want to.

Later…

I was going to use LiveJournal as my main blog because it cross-posts to Facebook and Twitter easier, but then I decided not to. I don’t want to have to go around and change blog links on various profiles.

I had such a fun and relaxing day today. Why can’t I feel this good every day? My only complaint is that the ingrown toenail I had removed a while back may be on its way back. The doc said this might happen, too. Fucking figures.

Tom and I went bike riding and I was too fast for him (I set the pace and he follows me). The poor guy felt like he might puke when we got back. We went 2.1 miles in 14 minutes. Our fastest speed was 22 MPH with our average being 8 MPH. Wow, I didn’t think I ever went over 15 MPH if even that! That’s gotta be going down the steepest section at the beginning of my route. I love flying down that rollercoaster and just letting the bike take me down the hill. I told him that next time he can go slower if he needs to. I can always double back for him, LOL. His wife may be fat as hell and always will be cuz she loves to pig out on weekends, but she sure is in better shape!

I realized that my metabolism has gotta be moving at least somewhat. First of all, if it was totally dead, I would be dead, too. Secondly, on days I don’t eat more than 1000 calories, I do find my weight is down the next day. I make up for it on weekends, though.

We didn’t go to the casino. We’ll go tomorrow. Instead, we went to Kmart. It may not be as crowded as Walmart, but those screaming brats are everywhere!

He got a couple of things for the Wii and I got a regular pillow said to be good for tummy sleepers. I love my memory foam pillow but I’ve been waking up with a stiff neck lately. The memory foam pillow is really only good for when I’m lying on my side. But since I like to fall asleep on my stomach, the regular pillow is good for that. Tom actually got this pillow at Walmart when he went grocery shopping earlier.

I sprayed on perfume testers as I always like to do and got some vanilla body mist for a buck.

I got Pumpkin wax cube melts as well as Stressless for a total of $4.

I got two pairs of Joe Boxer slippers. One pair would’ve been fine, but they were selling them in doubles for $10, so I got a pink and black checkered pair and one in solid black.

Got a calendar with the last 4 months of this year, plus all of next. I checked out the tropical pics, but thought they all looked the same. I didn’t want mutts, horses or religious shit, so I got cats. I think that was just $5 instead of the usual $10.

The best thing was the hair clip I got for just $5. It was the same one they tried to sell me in Hawaii for $20 with these stretchy beads with combs at the sides. I don’t know what they’re called, but I love it! Putting my hair up has never felt more comfortable whereas barrettes tend to allow the hairs to pull in certain areas. This holds it up more evenly as if a hand was holding it in place. I almost didn’t get it, but I’m glad I did, even though the beads are just plain black. That was the only color they had, but since it’s behind my head I can’t see it anyway.

Got a dazzling Barbie in a hot pink mermaid gown, as they call it, with silver accents. My first full-sized Barbie in a long time.

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 2014 I hope I’m wrong but I have a feeling today’s going to be noisy because yesterday ended up being quieter. It seems to go back and forth like that for some reason.

Yesterday ended up being mostly cloudy, but we never got any rain. It’s partly cloudy today, too.

I forgot to mention that when Tom got home the day before yesterday, I told him about the dream I had where the weird-looking plane with the colorful dragons on it crashed. Well, he said that on his way home a plane was flying super low, and although it didn’t seem to be in trouble, it was way lower than usual.

Tom’s decided to say no to working tomorrow so we can have the whole weekend together. :) Looking so forward to going to this new casino/restaurant in town! Maybe we’ll win since the rich do seem to get richer while the poor get poorer. We’re not rich by any means, but we’re doing well and not desperate or anything. Hell, his OT alone from just yesterday was over $100.

If Tom doesn’t have any luck getting an appointment made with a new endo doc today (that can see me this year) I’m going to be really damn tempted to just say “fuck it” and treat it with natural remedies.

In last night’s dreams, Tom and I were in what appeared to be our Maricopa house with my mother in one of the bedrooms just off the den. Tom was dancing around in a robe that was too small for him and joking about how funny it made him look. I started laughing and teasing him and then he got all offended, saying I was picking on him. He called to my mother in the other room and asked if she would say the things I said and she said no.

“But I was just laughing along with you,” I insisted. “You were the one that started making a joke of how you looked.”

But Tom was still offended and so I said, “Fuck it,” and went into the master bedroom. Lined up along the headboard were several 16” Tonner fashion dolls I used to have and I decided it was time to change their outfits, LOL.

After doing that I picked up a guitar and realized I no longer remembered how to play anything. I could still play by ear but could only remember a couple of chords. In reality, I’d be lucky to remember more than 4 or 5. I haven’t had any interest in musical instruments in centuries. I was always better with words than with music anyway, and just a so-so singer.

I also had a couple of dreams we were vacationing somewhere. In one hotel I was picking something up off the floor when Tom said, “They’re coming.” It was someone we were supposed to be meeting, though, I don’t know who. I said that I had to pee first and entered a humungous bathroom with a mini pool that might’ve been a giant bathtub. It had a dolphin design on the bottom of it and the water was about 4’ deep. Then I looked toward the left and saw there were a few other “pools,” one slightly deeper. Then I took a step forward and slipped onto a water slide that disappeared into the wall. Surprisingly, I wasn’t scared to be in the darkened tunnel for the few seconds or so that it took to loop around and dump me back in one of the pools.

At another hotel, we entered a room with a hot tub and a bar of some kind. A nice black man said the water shouldn’t be too bleachy and I was relieved not to be able to smell any bleach.

“How do you like your smoothies?” he asked, preparing to make us some as a few other people moved about behind the bar. Tom hates smoothies so only I had one.

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 2014 Was out riding just after 6am and was surprised to find it a bit cloudy and muggy. I could even hear a distant rumble of thunder. Sure enough, though, the sun is now shining brightly and Bob, tree services, and other sources of insanely loud and annoying shit are now free to disrupt my day.

Yesterday was worse than Jesse ever was at his absolute worst with some tree service that was here for 8 hours tending to one of the houses in back. It was terrible. Just terrible. Tom asked if I escaped to the Windows PC in the laundry room and I said, “Are you kidding? It was so incredibly loud that there was no point in the house, as big as this place is, that I could run to.” I would have had to blast the shit out of my music to drown it out but that would’ve only doubled the insanity.

Andy asked if we were going to move to a quieter location. Nope. It would only be a matter of time before that “quieter location” became chaotic during the weekdays just like most weekdays are here. Besides, I just painted all these walls! Almost all of them, anyway. We still have the laundry room and bathrooms to do. So, no moving unless the economy collapses again and they lay him off and we lose the place, or we move when he retires, or we die. If you can’t get peace in a retirement community, you’ll never get it anywhere. I’ve learned that. Weekdays are just a noisy time of day no matter where you go. I’m just glad the nights are peaceful and I hope it stays that way! If it doesn’t, then we have grounds to complain and demand something be done about it. Otherwise, people have a right to build birdhouses and butcher their trees in the daytime no matter how annoying and distracting it may be.

I saw Jim at the start of my ride. He prefers to stick to walking continuously around the circle where Bob circles the park, then joins Jim for a few rounds. I passed Bob at the other end of the park, briefly entertained the fantasy of running him over, waved and said hello, and now I’ve got a rainstorm vid going on YouTube to drown out any smaller sounds out there.

I wonder if Bob ever even gets colds? Better yet, I wonder how many more years it will be before I do. That’s part of why I got Hashimoto’s; because my immune system is so damn good (since quitting smoking) that it kills both real and imaginary diseases.

More importantly, I hope I don’t have any “flashing arcs” in my eye again today. I’m dismayed at how scary things have been for me after the nightmare I went through with the levothyroxine side effects. I didn’t panic, but I was still a little too freaked out for comfort. In the past, something like that would’ve been weird and I’d have been curious, but not scared. Now, the slightest off thing and I’m nervous as hell. It’s like what happened a while back messed up my head for life, though Tom assures me I don’t need a shrink and I’m getting better and better each day. I know he’s right, but sometimes it doesn’t feel that way. Also, if seeing a shrink just once is going to keep my lovely PCP from nagging me, then fine. I also want someone who will restock my lorazepam as needed, because even though I only take 1-3 a week, it’s still nice to have. Then again, maybe my PCP would refill me. I still have about 20 left, so I’m set for a while.

Tom said the flashing in my eye could be a sign of a detached retina, but that you can’t know anything for sure with just one incident. I hope it stays just one incident!

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 2014 Was so glad to see both of them, especially Bob, take off about an hour ago. Hopefully, they won’t return before it’s too hot to play saw and hammer games outdoors.

Noticed we didn’t get any garden goodies from them this year. Is it because they didn’t have enough to spare, or did they decide they don’t like us very much due to the age difference?

Passed both Jim and Bob on my bike this morning, and the other bikers, joggers, walkers and mutt walkers stayed out of my way, so that was nice.

Surprisingly we’re on for a storm tomorrow, but the “storms” here are often wimpy if they occur at all.

Had a weird dream last night that I was in a high-rise when I saw a plane flying overhead. It was low enough to see the design on it and the “plane” was this oval-shaped thing with colorful dragons painted on it. I was thinking that I’d seen that plane before, or at least one with that particular design. Then it arced downward and just seconds before it crashed I realized it was about to do just that. It hit the ground thunderously and a plume of smoke and fire arose from it immediately. Just seconds afterward, sirens could be heard. The dream ended with me running to close the windows to keep the smoke out.

Later…

Andy's such an airhead at times. He told me his SIL trimmed his toenails cuz he’s too fat to do them properly. I told him to get on his knees like Tom does when he does his nails and puts his shoes on, and he asked how the hell he could trim his nails on his knees. “Well, you don’t trim the one you’re kneeling on, you dipshit,” I told him.

Alison created yet another new email addy, which she says is because of Molly’s mother. Apparently, she was hounding her to spy on Molly for her. Couldn’t she just mark the bitch as spam? Speaking of spam she said she was also suddenly getting a huge amount of it when only a few friends knew of that email address. One of mine got a huge surge of spam a while back, too. I’ve always wondered if there was some other reason I’m not aware of as to why she keeps changing emails and accounts on various sites so often.

She needs to stop creating accounts in her real name. If you’re willing to pay for them, email addresses can be found. I’m amazed Mommy Dearest hasn’t found and emailed me yet. Still, if she doesn’t know what name to look for, she can’t stalk her. I also still think that her continuing to be friends with the likes of Kim and Molly is like a woman who won’t leave an abusive lover. We know, though, that we can’t just confront and dump them or else they’ll lash out at us. We simply have to ignore them at all costs. I’m willing to do that and that’s part of why they’ve finally fucked off (besides the fact that I think they knew they were pushing me into going after them), but Aly’s never been able to fully let go. There’s always one last reply to their shit she has to make in order to defend or explain herself. Like they’re going to get it anyway?

The mother’s definitely scarier than Molly and now that she’s retired she has more time on her hands. Molly’s just crazy, but not smart. When you add intelligence to crazy, however, as is the case with the mother, you could have more of a problem to deal with. Pretty sad that she not only stalks people right along with her daughter but would enlist someone online who she never met to spy on her own daughter for her.

Lost 3 of the 6 pounds I gained since going off my meds, but I’m not stupid. Reset mode will begin anytime after the 20th. Staying around where I’m at, though, is better than gaining and gaining.

Later…

Had a freaky, almost scary eye experience. It’s like my left eye lost its mind for a minute. A thin flashing arc of what almost looked like an abstract design was visible with my eye open or closed. I could see it no matter which direction I moved my eye in. When I first noticed I had trouble seeing the screen I thought something was on my glasses at first. Fortunately, it didn’t last long.

Today has been incredibly noisy for hours and probably will be for yet a few more hours. No, it’s not next door. It’s whatever the fuck they’ve been doing in back. The park has been working on something and I’m not sure if it’s cutting trees or digging up the road or both. We know they did something in a small section of the road in back, but I’ve heard horrendously loud machinery running all day that sounded like chainsaws, wood chippers, and God knows what else. All I can see from here is a large utility vehicle of some kind and some orange cones.

I am totally, totally dismayed at how noisy most of the weekdays are here. Totally. It saddens me to know that this is how it will always be no matter where we go and no matter what we do. There is just no getting any peace in this world if you’re me. I wonder how many more years the nights will at least be peaceful before that too, is gone.

If they’re going to make so much damn racket, why don’t they do something useful and flatten out the sides of the speed bumps for us bikers?

Next door was only gone for a few hours. Yeah, I knew I couldn’t get lucky enough to have them make a day of it, but they’re not the noisy ones today. Saw Bob take off on his bike not too long ago. Wow, he can take the heat better than I would have thought. It’s nearly 90° out, but on a bike, it doesn’t seem as hot.

Does this guy own anything other than white T-shirts? LOL, it occurred to me the other day that that’s all I’ve ever seen him wear. And where does he get so much energy? He sleeps 6 hours or less a night, goes out and walks a couple of miles, comes home and runs errands (if he isn’t working in the garage), then he goes off on his bike. So much for thinking our energy levels decline with age!

Getting really sick of having to spend so much time alone, though I know I should enjoy it because one day Tom will be retired and I’ll be wishing I had more space like I did when he was unemployed. Unfortunately, he has to work Saturday, too. He said he could always say no if I really wanted him too, but nah. As he pointed out, the money is great. If he keeps it up till the end of October, we will have eliminated all our debt except for what we owe on the house and car. Plus we can get me a new laptop and him a 3D printer. We can still get by easily enough on his base pay, but the OT pays things off faster and builds our savings and the 401 faster.

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, 2014 Let me do some Bob bitching before I get into the latest shit with the doctors. I swear that guy has become the Jesse of the park minus the mutts and motorcycle! That damn cock was definitely what some would classify as “noisy” yesterday and I don’t care that it was daytime or how much of a right he may have. Over 3 hours of sawing and hammering his little birdie house was a seriously annoying thing to have to listen to just outside our windows. We didn’t come here to listen to such insanely loud tools and machinery being used which seems to be more often lately. The landscapers are bad enough. I don’t need him on top of it all, especially so close to the house. So much for Virginia telling me air pumps for the bike tires would be “all I’d hear.” Maybe I should be like some of my friends who aren’t so quick to believe what others tell them. Not those close to me that I know well, of course, but it just fucking figures that I should get stuck with this shit, even if that mutt in back would be way worse. The few quiet neighbors I’ve ever had always seem to get progressively noisier, and this guy isn’t going to slow down anytime soon. As past experience taught me, no use in saying anything to them. They’ll simply say they’re oh so sorry to bother me… ah, but they do have a right to play workshop during daytime hours, and technically they do no matter how much I have to be the one to deal with it. If it becomes an everyday thing, then you bet I’ll say something. Gosh, I would hope they’d never become that rude and inconsiderate.

As soon as today’s shit starts up I’ll crank up the tunes and let them hear me for once if they can even hear me at all over all that noise. I heard circular saws, I heard routers, I heard hammering, I heard heavy metallic items clinking that would fall on the ground… I heard it all.

The first time I heard the racket it was in that same area behind the house where they were working on the street a couple of weeks ago that was also horrendously loud. They built a wood frame in which they’ll be back to pour concrete in and I’ll have to hear all about it, of course.

Then when I heard it again, I walked to the front of the house and saw him in back of his garage sawing some shit on sawhorses. I asked what he was doing and he said he was making a birdhouse for his… I didn’t catch the rest of what he said. He waves to me on the streets when we’re out exercising but is otherwise not nearly as friendly as his wife. He never even cared to ask how I was, if the noise was bothering me… nothing. He just went right back to sawing, deep in his own little world.

sighs It sucks that I once again have to arrange where I am in the house and what I do around what the neighbors do, but this is the way it’s going to be for me no matter where I live. I’m sure that when this birdhouse is done he will build a shelf for someone else, and then a bench for yet someone else, and so on and so forth. The only difference is that he’ll be out later in the day doing this shit as the weather cools down. If he’s this active in his 80s, I really hate to think of how he was in his 50s!

Our solution is to check into something we want to get for me anyway. Tom said he forgot what they’re called but they’re a combination laptop/tablet that I could take anywhere around the house or even down to the clubhouse and pool if I wanted to. Then we might set this big Mac up in the laundry room and use the desk in the living room for the color laser printer and eventual 3D printer he wants to get. I’ve wanted to downgrade to a smaller screen so I can wear just my bifocals. I’d like to be able to turn away from the screen, glance out the window, and actually be able to see outside. My single visions are only for seeing close-ups, so the distance is even blurrier than without any glasses at all.

Well, I guess this Bob bitchfest got a wee bit long, so I’ll cover the not-so-good doc in the next entry.

Later…

My rash appeared to spread, deepening from a red to a purplish color, and now it may actually be starting to fade, thank goodness! It’s been itchy as hell.

Saw Bob trimming bushes in back of his place with pruning shears while I was cleaning the bedroom, and thought I heard some hammering, but if anything else is going on over there, I wouldn’t know it because I have the music cranked up. They’re landscaping across the street as they always do on Tuesdays, but that only goes on for about 20 minutes.

I haven’t done much work or much story writing yet because I’ve been cleaning and doing dishes and laundry. Had to clean the rats’ burrow, too. Took out the recyclables and went for my bike ride. Always keeping busy. :)

We need to replace my toilet for sure because a small trickle of water is leaking into the bowl. We want newer, smaller ones anyway that save on money and water. For now, Andy swears that a pumice stone will remove the stains without scratching the porcelain, so I’ll pick some up at Walmart this weekend.

Ok, about Dr. D. Well, it’s simple. She’s an overbooked, compassionless, all-or-nothing doctor, and her staff is beyond disorganized and incompetent! I was told they could only see me yesterday morning, this morning, or at the end of December. No way Tom could get me there that soon. To think that so many doctors can only see me either right this second or in 3 or 4 months from now is utterly ridiculous.

When I emailed Tom at work to let them know what they said, he said he’d call them, but the idiots did nothing but waste his time. He was forwarded from one person to another. Then after being on hold forever, he’s asked why he called that number. “I didn’t call this number. You forwarded me,” he told them before he finally gave up.

So fuck it. We’ll get someone else. I just hope that they and their staff won’t be this bad. No wonder this shit doctor has horrible ratings. She sucks shit! If the next one’s the same then maybe I’m just not meant to treat my condition but to learn to live with it instead. Or at least treat it with natural, over-the-counter remedies.

We don’t know yet if I’m going to keep the same primary care doctor, though I’d certainly like to. She’s very kind (and good-looking), but we’re not sure we agree with her urgency to get me into a shrink on account of my anxiety. My anxiety has never hindered my everyday living, and hey, what happened was a very scary experience. Anyone would have a mental block against taking medication for a while. I mean, I’ll see one if she insists – I wouldn’t be ashamed and I don’t see how it could harm me so long as they weren’t eager to drug me up just because it’d be easier – but to quote Tom, “You don’t need one. There’s nothing wrong with you. You just need to adjust your medication dose.”

But while we have to scramble to find a doctor who’s hopefully more willing to work with me and who has a staff that knows what they’re doing, I can’t be on any medication. This means I’ve got myself on a low 1000-calorie diet since my body can’t burn fat/calories well right now and am avoiding cholesterol. Unlike those with a working metabolism who would keep losing on this diet, I should yo-yo within the same 5-pound range. The idea is to just keep me from gaining.

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 2014 My youngest niece turned 24 yesterday. In one of last night’s dreams, I was with both Sarah and Becky at a bar of some kind and we were discussing life in general. I warned them that once they got to be my age they’d find many things to be no big deal that once excited them when they were younger. This is true, too.

For the most part, I don’t miss my youth. But there are a few things I miss like not needing glasses, finding excitement in new things, which are no longer new to me, and living more in the moment. Sure I would wonder in my 20s what my life would be like in my 40s, and who would help me as I grew old and feeble, but not like I do today. These days it seems death is on my mind every single fucking day, partly due to getting older and fearing we won’t have anyone to help us in the end, and also thanks to a few brushes with death that were very traumatic for me. Not everything makes us tougher. Some things can actually make us more fragile. More anxious, more aware, warier. Is there a right or wrong way to feel or handle past/current hardships? Probably not since everyone’s different. Even so, I’m hoping that as soon as I can begin counseling they can help me help myself to deprogram my “deadly” way of thinking to a more positive one that lives in the present more often.

The other dream I had last night didn’t exactly help jump-start my day with a smile. It was a nightmare involving a shooting at a mall. Tom and I separated so we could each look in shops we wanted to look in without the other having to be bored silly. Suddenly some guy got trigger-happy and I ran and hid behind a chair or something. But the guy found me and said something like, “Hey, you shouldn’t be here. There’s a lot of blood back here,” and proceeded to cut the back of my neck in a slow, downward swipe. I awoke screaming, “No! No! No!” I never tried to run or fight back as I was simply too frozen with fear.

Later…

I was going to wait till sunup to go riding, but opted to take the darkness and the lack of traffic I knew I’d find at 3am instead. I didn’t even see any skunks, possums or other signs of life. The weather was gorgeous. Totally perfect for riding. It was funny how Tom came back with a “booming” heart of 92 when we rode together on Saturday while mine was 122. I’m lucky if I’m 92 just sitting on my ass.

What shocked the shit out of me was finding that the mutt in back is an outdoor-only dog after all, after it went off on me when I rode by. That’s so not allowed here! How do they get away with that? It seems so many people in the West don’t want pets. I wonder if those who are dogless are that way because of the pets-only rule that forbids them from storing them outdoors like old furniture, as opposed to them actually not wanting dogs. And again, what’s the point of getting a dog in the first place if you’re just going to toss them outside and forget about them?

While I’m sure they’ll come and go until they’re too disabled to drive, I hope next door doesn’t spend the morning bopping around in their garage working on God knows what. I don’t want to hear any sawing, hammering or banging. The traffic and landscaping are enough, though there isn’t much of the latter on Mondays.

We put in a request for an afternoon appointment with my endo doc between Wednesday and the 3rd. How she treats my situation will determine whether or not this will be the last time I see her.

When Tom was jumping the Caddy the other day, it hit us that if he couldn’t get it to start, how would he get to the Ford, since the Ford’s blocked in by the Caddy? The end of the driveway is steep and would be too risky to roll the Caddy down, so he’d have to get the damn thing towed.

I think I forgot to mention this, but while we were at Denny’s the other day, his phone vibrated. He listened to his message and an amused smile appeared on his face. I wondered who’d be calling him so early on a Sunday morning. It was from the electric company apologizing for yesterday’s power outage, saying they were working on it and that 64 homes lost power.

We got these “Plink” balls you drop down garbage disposals. Maybe this will help keep it from seizing up again and we won’t have to get a new one, after all.

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 2014 Tom and I went biking early yesterday morning and we got a new shower massager for the master bath. Despite that bathroom being huge enough to place a twin bed in it, its shower stall is rather cramped and I got sick of the big, fancy shower massager I so stupidly got for it when we moved in. Tom loves his in the other bathroom which he showers in and which has a roomier stall.

This cheap $11 one we got for the master bath is perfect, plus I prefer white to silver. It has just 3 simple settings and a holder that’s much more secure than the other one. It’s lighter and much easier to use. What I was really getting to hate about the other one was that because water came out of two separate pieces (one removable, one not), I’d still get a little trickle from above when wanting to use only the water coming out of the hose if I wanted to quickly shave my calves or something. I would still have to get all of me wet, which sucked.

We relaxed most of the day and did various things around the house. Tom reset the codes in the Caddy and I’m beginning to wonder if luxury cars are really worth it. The wire-shorting incident left the AC on the passenger side only blowing at my feet and not my upper body. It’s better than nothing, but we’re so cursed with car ACs that I have a feeling this will be our last summer with one that works at all. If that ends up being the case, why pay 10k for a year of a working AC when you can pay just 2k for the same thing?

We also played around with the Wii. It feels strange at first, but it’s fun.

The shitty moment was when I had a 60-second anxiety attack. The last time I had a full-blown attack, although it too, was brief, I wasn’t thinking of anything bad in particular. This time I was wondering if I should’ve eaten the frozen tortellini I ate since a corner of the box it was in was lifted slightly. Deep down I knew it wasn’t tampered with and that it just got jostled around, and I don’t know that that’s what caused it for sure. For about a minute there, that woozy feeling came over me, I felt warm, and my heart began to race. Tom ran and got the pulse reader and it said I was doing 120. It quickly dropped, though it still sucks to have to live with this shit. Is this my new life or something? I’ve always had anxiety, but this still seems rather extreme for me. I didn’t have that feeling of suffocation, though, so that’s good I guess. Still, trying to learn to live with this as a regular part of my life isn’t easy. I’m even afraid to go to the dentist now for fear of a Novocain injection triggering an attack, even though I’ve had the stuff a million times before.

When I first got up I had a few slightly off moments where I felt like I might have an attack, but never did. No, nothing bad was on my mind. As I’ve learned, you don’t necessarily have to be thinking the world’s coming to an end to have one of these things.

I don’t remember the name of it, but in an ad, I saw for an injection that fights wrinkles, it said you could die because there was a chance that the muscles in which you breathe and swallow could become very weak. I find it rather sad that some people would risk their lives all in the name of appearance. When we get older, we get wrinkles. It’s a fact of life. We get fat, we go gray, we lose our vision, etc. I don’t see why we’re so quick to fight what’s meant to be. This doesn’t mean we can’t try to eat healthy or dye our hair or get glasses, but taking potentially deadly injections?

Just the other day I was thinking how nice it was that after 14 months of living here, we’ve never had a power failure. Sure enough, though, I was woken up 3 fucking times by our power going out (the fan, AC and sound machine went out).

Heading out to Denny’s for one last round of cholesterol-filled steak and eggs and then I’m going to make a point of really trying to eat healthy. More fruits/veggies, fewer calories. Most days I eat healthy, but there is always room for improvement in that area.

I vaguely remember being at a huge lake where I was staying for a while in last night’s dreams. I don’t remember Tom being there and I don’t know if I was there willingly or not. Shannon, my dentist’s assistant, was there. She was writing a letter home to someone who supposedly lived in Wisconsin.

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 2014 “Sadly, there are so many false or exaggerated claims of racism these days that the true victims are getting harder to identify.”

I agree with the quote above which someone tweeted. Playing the race card has become so common that once our society finally gets fed up enough with the automatic cries of racism, the small percentage of people left who are truly discriminated against aren’t going to be believed.

Trying to schedule an appointment yesterday with a shrink to help me overcome the anxiety my medication nightmares have brought me was a bust. I guess they think no one is crazy in Cali before 9:30 am, and definitely not on Fridays or weekends.

I’m trying not to let my worries and questions about doctors and medication (and the fact that I’m beginning to wonder if my rash is ever going to heal) get to me, but sometimes the anxiety is there. Trying to hold my weight back right now is like trying to hold a raging bull back. It’s screaming to the scale, “Let me up there! I want to climb like crazy! Let me go, let me go!”

The low-cal diet I put together for the week which consists mostly of a large variety of fruits and veggies will hopefully send the proper message to my metabolism-less body. One saying, “Shut the fuck up! I’m the boss here, not you!”

The Caddy wouldn’t start the other day and Tom had to jump it. My first thought was, oh no, another problem already in just 5 months? But it turned out that it was just a radio wire shorting. We want to eventually upgrade the thing anyway to something that’ll play MP3s. This car came out right before it became popular.

Last night I had a dream I won a trip to Europe and Tom and I were driving around as I took pictures. I don’t know where we were, though. At one point I said to Tom, “Isn’t it frustrating being this close to Nane, but still not close enough to meet her? How far are we from her anyway?”

He said 5 or 6 hours and I said, “Oh, I thought she was 2 or 3 hours away.” In real life, she could probably arrange to meet us.

I wonder if this dream is a sign that I might’ve won a trip or something else nice, though I doubt it. I haven’t been able to win regularly since all the competition came to stop my non-stop wins (damn those people!).

Another dream that suggested a possible win was when I looked out the window and saw what might’ve been someone pulling up to it with a small boat. My dream self seemed to think it was something I won. In reality, though, since winning was once my job – literally – I would’ve been notified first via certified overnight mail, and probably called and emailed as well. They can’t just send big prizes like that.

Then there was the dream that would’ve been fun and interesting had it not been for the shitty circumstances surrounding it. Tom died and I called Nane on the phone to say goodbye to her because I was going to join him on the other side. She talked me out of it and said to at least fly to her place and stay alive until the sale money from the house and what we had in savings ran out. When it did and I was fixing to check out of Hotel Earth, she told me Germany started allowing gay marriage and convinced me to marry her.

Again, this dream would’ve been kinda funny if it wasn’t for the shitty fact that Tom died. Also in reality, I wouldn’t stick around if he went first, nor would anyone ask me to live with them no matter how much money we had, and we should gain more security with age too, unless something unforeseen comes up along the way.

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 2014 So now I’ve learned that not only do my messages sometimes fail to go through, but I can also fail to get some people’s replies to my messages. Norma read my message and replied, but I never received it. She thanked me for it on her wall where I asked her if she’d gotten it, and said she was glad I sent it.

What was weird was that she searched my 80s blog and looked up a story I shared and later deleted, around the same time we communicated.

Makes me wonder if the good doc not only got my message but replied to it, too. My first guess is that she never got it. And if she is one day no longer my doctor and I send her a friend request, God above and Facebook will make sure she never gets that either, right? And it hit me last night that no, she won’t be my doctor for much longer. Something will happen to see to it that she isn’t because as Oregon taught me, those I’m hot for or that I like very much don’t seem to stick around for long. Liz, Jane, Jan and Randy all taught me this well.

I can’t believe Facebook continues to let these hit-or-miss messages be an issue after all this time. It’s always going to be a seriously unreliable place to reach out to others. There’s no need for this either and it makes me wonder if they want it to be that way for some reason. But why? To deter users?

I slept well and don’t remember any of my dreams. Wish we could play them back on the computer or something after waking up! That would be so neat, though given how dark so many of my dreams are, it may be like watching a really twisted Stephen King movie.

Next door came and went as usual yesterday, but didn’t slam doors a million times or work in the garage.

Went out riding after midnight. That’s a great time because the park is dead. Only one car went by. It’s harder to see the speed bumps and all that, but easier to see oncoming traffic due to the headlights. In the daytime, the roads are easier to see, but the mutt walkers tend to get in the way.

I was passing a dark section of the park when I noticed something by the side of the road. I swerved to the middle of the road and saw it was a skunk that turned and ran in the opposite direction.

Further down I saw something big run fast from the road down toward the ditch. It was too fast for a turkey and they’re not out at night anyway. A coyote? Loose dog?

For a park that’s obsessed with mowing, blowing and trimming, there sure are a lot of leaves and twigs along the outskirts of the place.

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 2014 I had a dream where I found my mother’s Facebook account she was using before she died. Only Facebook lets us customize background colors in the dream. In reality, though, they were offline 4 or 5 years before they died in 2012. They simply had no use for the Internet, let alone social media.

In another dream, we were living in Phoenix again, and I think it was the same house, too. Only the house now had modern windows that raised up and down instead of those old-fashioned cranks that push the windows outward. I was in the front bedroom and sick of the circus from next door as I was in real life 15 years ago. There was a huge and loud Mexican family over there. Adults were shouting, kids were screaming, dogs were barking and music was blasting.

My anger really came to a head when a couple of guys in their 20s, drunk as hell, peered into the window. As they giggled and muttered in both English and Spanish, I jumped up and ran to open the window. Then I said, “Here, do me a favor by making yourself look even worse to the cops by breaking and entering instead of just your little voyeurism games. I opened the window to make it even easier for you fuckers. All you have to do is bust the screen out.”

They took off before the cops arrived and when one of the cops was talking to me, she asked if I knew their language. I said I did for the most part and then she asked if I knew Spanish swears. I said, “Well, when they ran off calling me a puta, I got the message, but if you think this is about race, color or nationality, I can tell you right now it’s not. It’s about chaos turned to trespassing and more.”

The dream ended with her assuring me she understood that.

Below is what I told Norma tonight in a Facebook message.

I have been toying with the idea of telling you this for some time now and decided that for whatever it may be worth, I’ll go ahead and let you in on the truth. If you feel the need to mention this to Andy (that’s what I’ve always called Mark) you’re welcome to do so, though he shouldn’t be too surprised I’m telling you this, haha.

I know that after all this time you wouldn’t think any different of me, guilty or innocent, by my saying what I’m about to say. That’s not the point. The point is that I don’t like to leave those I care about with the wrong idea and not defend myself in some way, and well, I figured what I’d have to say now would be a lot more believable than what I said 25 years ago. :)

As you may remember, my aunt and uncle Marty and Ruth weren’t very nice people. At least not to me they weren’t. Ruth spread a lot of vicious lies about me (ok, so some may’ve had a grain of truth to them), and things that should’ve been kept private. One of the lies that got back to me was that I supposedly prank-called you. When I mentioned this to Andy and then he later told me he told you he “knew I was guilty no matter what I said,” I was both angry and hurt. As he himself admits, he’s been burned so badly in life that it is often hard for him to trust and believe in anyone, and I mean anyone.

As I pointed out to him, though, what would I possibly have to gain by lying to him? He had no hold on me of any kind and couldn’t punish me like my parents could as a child, so I had no reason to hold back on him if I had been calling you, but in truth, I NEVER did. I swear. Our rules were that we called people we disliked or dialed randomly. Not that it was right of us, mind you, but we never called those we liked unless it was an obvious joke in which we came out and said, “Haha, it’s us!” in the end.

He then offered to go back to you and admit he had trouble taking people at face value, including me, but at the time I told him not to bother because I felt that may only confuse you even more and you wouldn’t know who to believe. Now, normally I don’t care what others think in general. But when it comes to those I care about and that has always been good to me, that’s different. Again, I know that what did or didn’t happen in the past doesn’t change the here and now. It’s just that you and other family members may have thought for years that I once picked on you for no reason at all which really bothered me over the years, and I just wanted to let you know that was absolutely not the case. :) I’m also very sorry that anyone ever harassed you.

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 2014 Did a perimeter run again and was fine. Good things happen when you don’t take your thyroid meds. Instead of your heart blowing up, your gut, hips and ass do instead.

I was a bit chilly starting off. Remember, I’m moving so fast through the air, especially going downhill. I warmed up a bit after I got going. Better to be too chilly than too warm when working out. It won’t have a damn bit of effect on my weight at this time, but it’s still fun and keeps me in shape. Keeps the muscles strong and gives me the endurance to do physical tasks without getting breathless.

The Sitara wax burner I got for the bedroom is beautiful. It glows softly without being blinding and bright like the Pink Lemonade burner in the living room. It takes longer to melt the wax, though, probably because the metal dish is thicker than the glass one, and is hotter to the touch for if I want to change scents. I used to be an avid incense burner but I burned the last stick that I’ll ever burn in this house in the bedroom earlier. I quit incense cuz it makes the same mess cigarette smoke makes.

I chilled pilled at 9:30 before my ride and it seemed to help with that “lump” in the throat I sometimes get. IDK, maybe I need to be on this permanently at least for a while. I hope I sleep better next time around. Last time I was up forever and kept waking up constantly. It seemed I couldn’t stay asleep more than 20-30 minutes at a time.

Love my Nude, Rude and Tattooed figurine that’s almost like a mini statue. She’s pretty big at 10” long and very heavy. I thought her hair was a bit dull so I put glitter nail polish over it. She’s a touch yellowy-orange, though. Is her liver failing?

Had a dream I was in hotels with both Nane and Hot Doc, though it was two separate dreams. I don’t remember anything Nane and I said or did, but Sexy Smile was sicker than a dog. I probably put a sick spell on her for thinking I need a therapist instead of something that treats my disease without making me feel like I’m going to die, haha, not that I’m not a bit on the anxious side. No doubt about that.

Later…

Went riding for the fitness part of my regimen and am now trying not to put the calories into my body that it can’t burn without thyroid medicine.

The only thing that bugs me about being ok with something is knowing I could change my mind later on down the road and that doing anything about it at that time may not be an option. What I mean is, just because I’m ok with being fat right now… what if I change my mind a year or two from now and decide it’s not ok? Well, let’s hope I don’t since I’m unable to stand the doses high enough to get my body to respond to dieting and therefore I’d be shit outa luck.

Someone asked me if I thought it was possible that deep down within my subconscious I may not just be ok with being big but actually like it, and I was like, how the hell am I supposed to know? That’s why we call it “subconscious,” right? Because we don’t know what’s in it.

On a conscious level, it’s not important right now. All that’s important is getting on a medication that will not only stop me from gaining, but that will treat my disease as a whole. Yes, the thought of feeling differently and changing my mind in the future bugs me, but as others love to remind me, why worry about what may or may not happen in the future until and if it does?

Ok, so there is some good in being big and ugly. It keeps perverts away, that’s for sure. But I don’t think I’m subconsciously “thinking big” as opposed to not worrying about being skinny. At my age, you realize there’s more to life than that. Furthermore, when we’re older and married our priorities aren’t what they were in our 20s and single. Lastly, with hypothyroidism, you don’t have to “think big.” You ARE big. I’m just trying to stay fat big instead of obese big. :)

I’m also trying to fight this fungal rash that doesn’t seem to want to let up, though the doctor did say it could take 6 weeks to kill. I was really dismayed to find a couple of red dots under one armpit earlier. Please let it just be irritation and not fungus! I swear I will never ever stop using the antibacterial body wash ever again no matter how much it dries my skin out! My lotion will help counteract that to a degree, though. I can’t believe I have this shit in such a dry climate, but working out does cause me to sweat. Guess I wasn’t drying off afterward as much as I thought I was. At least I don’t sweat as much on the bike as I did when I was running because I’m going so fast through the air that it’s like having a giant fan on me.

Doing my nails before a ride is a great time to do them because then my hands will just be sitting on the handlebars for a good 20 minutes or so. I have such nice, naturally long nails, but they can be a pain in the ass at times.

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 9, 2014 I’m already up FIVE pounds since being forced to stop my thyroid meds. :( It seems no medication at all makes me gain, 50 mcg makes me stop gaining, and 75 mcg makes me lose. But the 75s are out of the question with their killer side effects, so that means losing is as well. Fine. Just let me STOP gaining! But those in my shoes know how it is – no matter what we eat or how much we exercise, a dead and untreated thyroid is going to hold every damn calorie we take in.

I was microwaving some frozen honey BBQ chicken wings last night when I noticed the microwave not only got quiet long before it should have but that I never heard the thing beep in the end either. Sure enough, after just over 6 years of service, our Emerson microwave has died. I’d have been pissed if we were broke, but since we’re not I’m kinda glad it crapped out on us cuz I never really cared for it. I didn’t like how its metal exterior had rust spots. Even the inside was rusting a bit. It was also the loudest microwave we ever had, especially when we were back in the tiny old trailer and I was trying to sleep. Our new, white Hamilton Beach microwave is really nice. Very easy to use and with handy features the other one didn’t have. Its only negative is that it’s harder to see inside it when it’s running.

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 2014 I was both surprised and disappointed to be feeling a little depressed earlier. Funky period or not, shouldn’t I be over that shit? Lingering or permanent effects of the levothyroxine? The stress of the health/medicine/doctor thing as a whole? Something else? It makes no sense that I would feel depressed, empty and like I’m going nowhere in life at this time, so I don’t know what to think. My life is fine other than the medical drama. Been a bit anxious and shit-happy, too. It seems that between my wacky period, my racing heart and my emotions, the levothyroxine really messed up my body. If not, then what did? My boobs are still a bit sore and my weight’s up a few pounds. Again I think the only way to ever lose it is the old-fashioned way – not eating. Other than sluggishness and hunger, it has no side effects and doesn’t cost what Nutrisystem costs.

We considered having me try a supplement called selenium but decided to wait for now. Also, I was dismayed to learn that Armour may actually be more likely to cause your heart to race.

I am at a serious crossroads right now where my health is concerned and have to make some decisions as far as whether or not to continue on with the same doctors. Tom did more research and found that my endo doc didn’t test for T3 like she should have, but only for T4. Also, the TSH numbers are basically worthless. I guess the levothyroxine converts T4 to T3 and the Armour converts it from T3 to T4. The point, as he pointed out, is to treat the symptoms. Why treat me so aggressively if a percentage of my thyroid still actually works? Again, I didn’t go to a doctor because I was sleeping 15 hours a day but because I wanted to know why I couldn’t lose weight. I didn’t realize the hair and memory loss, as well as other smaller symptoms, were a sign of hypothyroidism.

I was thinking of how Tom pointed out that doctors are extra careful and eager to send you to specialists to avoid lawsuits and all that. He said that if I mention chest pain she’ll send me to a cardiologist and it’s frustrating because I don’t want to not mention something that could be more important than I realize, but I don’t want to be given the runaround at our expense all for nothing. I appreciate and understand that they want to cover their asses, but it’s tough cuz it makes me unsure of what I should and shouldn’t mention.

I’m just as torn between getting new doctors and keeping the ones I’ve got. Sometimes you can fuck up a drawing enough that it’s worth tossing aside and starting anew and maybe we should do that with these doctors, but then again, I wonder if they’d all be the same no matter how I presented myself to them. I just worry that both docs have the wrong idea about me and that Dr. C thinks I’m anxious every minute of every day while Dr. D wouldn’t be willing to work with me. I wonder if she’s as knowledgeable as I first thought. I just wonder if I made the wrong impression and spoke in ways I shouldn’t have, putting unnecessary emphasis on things that weren’t as big an issue as they may’ve sounded and vice versa. I also worry that neither of them realizes just how much of an impact the levothyroxine had on me vs. external anxieties. Regardless of what either of them thinks, I worry I may be untreatable if everything I take gives me side effects. I had no problem on 50 mcg but what if I do now? And what if no doctor will agree with that dose?

There may be a slight pro to dumping Dr. C, the one I’ve become totally hot for, though it’s a long shot. If we’re no longer doctor and patient, I could send her an invite on Facebook. Can’t imagine she’d add me, though you never know. I probably have very little chance of that or even of keeping in touch here and there by email, so I’m hoping I can still see her but maybe get rid of Dr. D.

Later…

Had to take a chill pill cuz I’ve been feeling a bit anxious on and off all night. My heart was averaging at just over 100 (it was as high as 112-115) and now it’s in the low 90s, and again I’m not sure why. Leftover levothyroxine effects? Just worrying about the whole damn thing? Both? I’m beginning to wonder if I’ll ever get back to the old me.

Molly’s using Aly to blog for her on Thoughts since she’s been restricted from doing so at Marbridge. I guess she texts them to Aly and then she posts them for her. I see familiar patterns here. Molly may care about Aly in her own way but she’s using her, once again, and making demands of her. Even in her blog, she asks if she’s around and to please help make Josh stop stalking her. I guess he’s not taking “no” for an answer and has texted, called and harassed both her and her mother online. Hmm… maybe karma really does get some of those that have screwed me. Maybe at least those that have screwed me in the smaller way that she has as opposed to the black bitch down south. Still, I couldn’t help but smile when I read that the stalker is now being stalked.

God help us both, though, should Aly dump her and Kim yet again. Both of them would no doubt make our online lives a bit hellish, and of course Mommy Dearest will have to set her wonderful example and be sure to join in at some point, too.

No! I refuse to ever take that shit from them again. Even if it means having to go to them and stop them myself.

Later…

To give any newcomers a quick update – I went through weeks of hell with side effects from my thyroid medication, which gave me the heart-pounding anxiety from hell. It was very intense both physically and emotionally and so I stopped the meds. Not sure what’s going to happen next, but the traumatic experience has put a block on me as far as taking anything at all goes and even working out. I had an attack when I was working out one time and it was absolutely terrifying. So to elevate my heart when it either already was elevated or could become elevated was a scary thought. I knew, however, that I had to finally conquer my fear of working out now that I was off the meds. I mean really working out and not just making a few rounds on my bike around the block.

“You can do this!” I told myself over and over. “Your heart is not going to explode in your chest!” Trying and failing to succeed at conquering something I’ve tried multiple times to conquer, or some whole new fear like bungee jumping is one thing. But doing something I’ve done a million times before without incident is another. So off I went in the dark of night around the park’s perimeters, all by myself. I only passed two vehicles along the way. Came back with a pulse of 133, as it should be for the type of terrain I covered, and it dropped quickly. Yes! But will I be able to treat my disease free of side effects and able to go riding without feeling like my heart’s gonna jump outa my chest? I hope so!

Later…

Our barstool cushions arrived and they’re definitely more comfortable to sit on as opposed to the hard wood.

Two nights ago I dreamed of losing one of the rats through the floor in a large building somewhere. Funny I should dream that too, as I awoke to find I’d left their door unlatched. If anyone came out exploring, they went back home afterward. Right now they’re having a blast playing with the paper packing our stuff was shipped in. Insanely annoying, but making me smile at seeing just how much fun they’re having.

Last night I dreamed of receiving a voice message from Officer Palma of all people. She filled me in on how her life has been over the years and said to give her a call, only there was no number to call. It also seemed like 5 or 6 years had gone by since I last saw the hottie and not 14. I wonder how she’s been all these years? I wonder about several of the officers I used to know, actually.

Decided to partake in some of the activities at the clubhouse more often and start meeting more people around me. Not because of what society thinks is “correct” or “normal,” but just because I want to. The only sucky thing is that I’d have to do most of it by myself. Oh, I’m far from shy or anything like that, but it would be nice to take Tom along. The problem is that during the daytime he’s working, and he has to crash early in the evening, making it nearly impossible for him unless it was the weekend. The weekend, however, is mostly reserved for doing fun stuff together and going out. Tom would gladly tag along if he could, even if he’d rather just relax in peace after 10 hours of dealing with nothing but non-stop people all day long. Oh well. The guy’s not going to be working forever. His 70th birthday really will arrive someday!

I don’t intend to be a major social butterfly because that’s just not me. No matter who you are, no matter what you look like, I still like to do things on my own, and I need my solitude when working on the job site, writing stories, etc. I’d also prefer to clean the house when only I’m in it. But I definitely feel more comfortable meeting other people my age who are respectable homeowners than a bunch of 20-something renters who can cause all kinds of headaches. Furthermore, I may not be perfect, but I feel I’ve matured quite a bit over the years and so I prefer to hang with more refined and mature people that are also older. Not so mature that they don’t know how to laugh and lack a sense of humor, but not so immature either, that they speak and act like college kids.

They don’t have to be carbon copies of myself. I have no problem with those that are different than me or that are into things I don’t get or can’t relate to. I just don’t want the high school kind of drama that mainstream apartments tend to be filled with is all I’m saying. On the other hand, befriending a 95-year-old with Alzheimer’s may not be the best thing for me either, LOL. I’m usually a good judge of character, though, so one of these days I will expand my social horizons within the park when I find the time and some activity that may actually interest me. Embroidery groups? I don’t think so. Bingo? Yeah, I could go for that. :)

I don’t expect perfection in people, but older people are less likely to cause problems or do drugs, and are more likely to be secure with who/what they are. I like a guy whose top priority in life isn’t how many beers he can hold down in one night, and I like a woman who knows there’s more to life than getting thin and pretty. The best part is knowing it’s all up to me. If I decide I don’t like someone in particular, I can just not have anything to do with them.

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 7, 2014 A while back I downloaded 80-something pics of Doc Sexy, then deleted them. Deciding I missed them and would rather view them on my computer than in her Facebook account, I combed through her albums and once again helped myself to what I wanted. It just occurred to me that the photos of her dressed on the provocative side at some party have been deleted or at least no longer public. This makes me wonder if she really did get my message complimenting her pictures and she decided she didn’t want her patients seeing her that way, LOL, though she still has some bikini shots available.

I can’t help but wonder if she’s checked me out and read any of my blogs out of curiosity without my knowing it. I was curious to see if I could get a sense of how often doctors Google their patients, and as a few doctors said on this forum that answers questions like that, they sometimes do. Not so much because they’re curious and have nothing better to do, but to see how a patient is doing, particularly the crazy ones that make suicidal or homicidal threats. It’s not unethical in any way if the patient’s using a public domain.

If I had to guess, she didn’t get my message, knowing how unreliable Facebook can be with delivering messages, and she’s never checked me out either.

I applied the pink tulip stickers above the stove. They look great even with the wallboard seam visible where we popped the strip. It would’ve looked way worse, though, had we not removed the strip, and harder to apply the design as well.

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 6, 2014 Andy's been catching up on my August entries and not even a simple, “I’m sorry you’ve had to go through this with your meds,” or anything like that. This tells me how insensitive and lacking in compassion he still can be when it comes to medical/emotional issues.

Not much to update on right now. No news is good news in some cases. :) I’m going to go out riding once it cools down. I know it would be safe to venture around the park now that I’m off the evil levothyroxine, but since I can’t see as well at night I’ll just circle the block.

The rest of the night will be spent reading and writing, for the most part.

I had some dream where Andy and I sat at a picnic table across from two women to which I introduced us. Don’t know where this was, though.

Then I was talking to cousin Michelle on the phone about someplace in Mexico and I was speaking Spanish at times, too. Well, I do know Spanish but I’ve never been to Mexico. I once lived a couple of hours north of the border, but that’s as close as I got. Tom was in Mexico City when he was a musician in the Air Force. He said it was gorgeous.

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 2014 Although it’s a week late, my period finally arrived and woke me up an hour or so before I’d have liked to have gotten up. I got back into bed after a bathroom run, but between traffic and my being caught up enough on sleep, I decided to get up to what I thought would be a quiet day since it was already coming up on 3pm. Wrong! Sure enough, they started working with some loud equipment in back (we’re still not sure what they were doing), and this went on for nearly 4 hours. Why oh why is there always something going on in this park? So now I’ll have to get to sleep as early as I can in case they return tomorrow. Whatever it was they were running sounded like a wood chipper with a jackhammer built into it or something. Tom said he saw a tractor too, on his way in from work.

Tom’s going to work for a few hours in the morning but that’s an extra $100, so he doesn’t mind. It’s helping to get the credit card debts paid off and it’s really jacking up the 401.

My brass figurine arrived the day before yesterday and today my patchouli wax melts arrived. I have to let them firm up before I can pop a cube out of its container since it was so hot in the mailbox. The heat made it super soft and it’s hard to break off a piece that way.

I was changing sheets when I noticed my pulse was a bit elevated, so I checked it to find it was 113. It’s a good thing I wasn’t at the doctor’s, LOL, or else she’d be worried even more about my anxiety. We all know, though, that the levothyroxine isn’t completely out of my body yet. Recovery takes time, but it sure was ever my pleasure to finally flush the rest of the shit down the toilet this morning! Realizing I would never again take a dose that high, and probably not even that same medication, I happily flushed the remainder of the bottle down the toilet. It felt as good as it would to beat the shit out of someone who beat the shit out of me, or someone I care about. After all, the shit caused me so much physical and emotional torture! I still can’t believe how bad things got, especially since I had no problem with the lower dose. But now we can recognize the signs of oncoming trouble. I had no idea that those few days before the first big attack where my heart was a bit racy and I was a touch short of breath was a sign of trouble ahead. Even Tom knew something was wrong just by how fast I was dropping weight. As he himself said, nobody should lose weight that fast. Well, I’d take a 100-inch waist before I went through that kind of hell again!

Last night I felt a touch bummed out, but I knew and recognized it as just typical PMS that would soon pass. Sometimes knowing what’s causing our depression or anxiety can help. I always suspected the levothyroxine, but when you don’t know for sure, that can make it twice as bad. Other than noise annoyances and distractions, I’m starting to feel a lot better, and so I can enjoy that uppity, carefree feeling that most of us love… until the next round of PMS or they start me on whatever new medication Doc D’s going to order up for me. I guess I’m going to Armour, but we’ll see.

For now, I kinda have mixed emotions about not seeing Doc C till December, LOL. Each time I see her, she gets a little hotter. At least in my opinion, she does. :) I can see where I’d still have the same damn problem I always had if I were still single… those I’d want would be out of the question. Even if she’d been with women before her BF and meant it when she told me I was beautiful, she would be taken, and well, my damn doctor after all.

If I’m ever unfortunate enough to have anxiety attacks of such a kick-ass and extreme nature sneak up on me again, the hard part will be not panicking and trying to think rationally. It totally twists and alters your way of thinking. Imagine trying to stay calm and rational in a pit of fire? Yeah, right! The shrink and therapist will help drill in those breathing exercises and that cognitive thinking thing we discussed before. I asked Tom if he really, really thought a shrink was necessary to get over my medication block and he said he didn’t think it was necessary but would probably help things progress faster. Yeah, he’s probably right. For now, I’m enjoying being pill-free and the lighter, shorter periods that come with untreated hypothyroidism, which is the only good thing the damn disease has to offer.

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 2014 How can Google Analytics tell me I'm in Roseville in real-time, while my page views are in North Highlands, and while TIP says Sacramento???

Well, I can’t figure the analytics thing out, but I can say that it’s both sad and appalling how many people out there still lack compassion when it comes to those suffering from PTSD, depression or anxiety. I was combing through different blogs/forums on different sites about different people’s experiences. While the response and support vary from individual to individual, I think it’s rather sad that there are still so many people out there who still believe the best way to go when dealing with anxious or depressed people is to just desert them. Just blame them for their problems, tell them to “get over it,” tell them to “smile,” tell them it’s all in their head, and if that doesn’t work and they don’t appear all fine and dandy overnight, just dump them.

I can see if the person is truly crazy and even more so if they’re dangerous, but unless someone goes through the exact same thing, it seems they are totally compassionless and unable to grasp what it’s like. I never experienced PPD, but that doesn’t make it any less real to the women who have. Brain chemistry and body hormones and other things is a very complex thing. Not the simple, cut-and-dry thing we may wish it was. Furthermore, while most of these issues can be overcome with the proper support, and in some cases medication, things take time. You can’t expect miracles overnight. So and so can’t get over her problems today simply because you’re getting impatient, you don’t really give a shit, and just because you want her to.

Next time you make fun of someone who’s broke, fat, ugly, emotionally off, in a wheelchair, etc., remember that when it happens to you people just may be laughing at you and call you a hypochondriac who needs to just “pull themselves up by the tail and get on with it.” Normally, I believe in the saying, “Two wrongs don’t make a right,” and have always found it to be rather counterproductive. Not in this case, though. If you’ve ever picked on someone because they were abused, have phobias, nightmares, or any other problem I’ve mentioned here, I hope to hell you DO get a taste of your own medicine, same as I hope the ISIS members are beheaded, slaughtered and simply tortured to hell and back before they are killed. Then again, some people do have the same problems they rank on others for. It’s why they’re called hypocrites. I guess the psychology behind it, from what I’ve heard, is that when they see a part of themselves they don’t like in someone else, they lash out at them, thus lashing out at themselves in return.

Yes, we need to get on with it and do the best we can do in whatever situation we’re in in life, but I highly doubt it helps some of the people who are in certain situations when no one seems to care or all they can do is make jokes of it. Not everyone’s lucky enough to have the kind of support like I have in Tom and those are the ones I feel really bad for. If you’re with the wrong people when you’re happy, you can become miserable. If you’re with the wrong people when you’re miserable, you’ll likely become even more miserable.

Saying someone who hides their depression is a sign of strength is such a crock! Did people ever stop to think that maybe they hide it because they know how many ignorant, compassionless people are out there waiting to make them feel even worse? People with emotional problems don’t usually need to be led through life by the hand – they’re not all crazy or incapable – but they don’t need to be discarded like defects either. Everybody wants to stand out, make a show of themselves and be different, but God help anyone else that’s different than them. Well, when you get home from work or school, instead of going on and on about yourself, why not take the time to care about others as well and ask them how they’re doing instead of just assuming they are how you want them to be?

When we were in Carl’s Jr. the other day, not one person working there was from here. Diversity may be interesting until it starts getting to be overkill. Just wish we could put the American back in America, ya know? They say they come here for more opportunities, but in doing so they rob those that are from here of opportunities.

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 2014 This entry is about doctor/medical stuff. If this subject bores you or you find it hard to understand things you haven’t experienced yourself firsthand, you might want to skip this entry. I can totally understand how what I’m about to discuss may leave some people confused, especially since my situation is rather complex instead of as cut and dry as developing a fungal rash from excess moisture, for example. Yes, I have somehow managed to snag one of these in the groin area for the first time in my life, despite how clean I keep myself (I thought they were mosquito bites at first despite the odd area of choice for mosquitos), so she’s ordered up a special cream for it. I just seem to get one thing after another lately, and if I develop one more problem, big or small – just one more – I’m going to totally believe there’s a medical curse on me! And I’m not even “unhealthy.” Imagine if I were, though!

Doc Sexy was both kind and late, as usual, but our visit went as expected. I am still frustrated, anxious and worried, though I’m certainly feeling a lot better than I was before seeing her. I took my notes to her and told her everything that’s been going on with the meds and anxiety, and we all agreed (Tom was with me this time) that it’s not just the meds that caused me to have such severe anxiety. Here’s where it could get confusing to some people, so bear with me. The meds had side effects, yes, but they also brought back the old, anxious me as they normalized my metabolism. If you’re hyperactive to begin with and are on drugs like levothyroxine, you can experience the kick-ass side effects I experienced which were very traumatizing for me and have put a real complex on me.

As Tom told her, 20 years ago I was pretty high-strung, then I mellowed out due to what we both thought was age. In truth, however, I mellowed out due to my thyroid dying. Them normalizing it with the levothyroxine brought me back to abnormality if that makes any sense. In other words, it's back to Basket Case Land and so the therapist and shrinks she wants me to see have to get me to relearn how to deal with it, especially before I go back on any medication, so as to avoid the “placebo effect.” To spell it out for you, Tom could give me a pill that’s really just a Tic Tac and I’d be freaking out over what side effects I may have. A decade or so of living in Not Quite So Basket Case Land as my thyroid died off has made my coping skills a bit rusty. The meds made me abnormal while making me normal and so I have to learn how to be normal while being abnormal. Ain't life just grand? At this point, I’d be too terrified to take anything, so the statins have been indefinitely discontinued (they’ll check my numbers later on), and the thyroid meds, which may be changed to Armour, are on hold till I return to the endo doc.

Again, a few months off the meds won’t hurt me. But the thyroid does eventually have to be dealt with because if I ignore it long term it’ll probably kill me or cause some other complications that are serious, if not deadly, not to mention the debilitating amount of weight I could gain no matter how little I eat.

Anyway, she wants me to deal with the anxiety before going back on the meds so I don't freak out when I do (can't deny it's a terrifying thought). While I’m glad I don’t have cancer or anything like that, this whole thing is still frustrating, time-consuming and costly. I feel like I’m going to be at doctors, therapists and shrinks more than I’ll be at home. But if that’s what it takes to get me to be able to take even an over-the-counter painkiller I’ve taken for years without freaking out, so be it. I can at least take my multivitamin now, LOL. Lucky me, huh?

Even though I know I shouldn’t feel this way, as even she said, I feel like a real wimp. I wish I could tell myself to just not be anxious over taking meds, but if it were that simple, no one would need to see therapists or take psych pills. Anxious or not, the side effects are still an issue that also needs to be dealt with, plus there is blood work and the thyroid ultrasound I gotta deal with too, argh! How can 2 lousy issues (side effects and anxiety) seem like 20?

I mentioned not being very fond of the endo doc and her low ratings, but as the doc pointed out, she is very knowledgeable.

After seeing the doc with the perfect teeth and sexy smile, it was off to grab a bite to eat and browse the Goodwill that was right by it. I didn’t find any goodies but he got a Wii for $40 that he’s always wanted but never got around to actually getting. He did the Wii Fit thing and the funny thing was that even though it told him he was 25 pounds lighter than he actually was, it still told him he was obese out of the underweight, normal, overweight, and obese categories, LOL. It would probably tell me I was normal when I’m really overweight. I haven’t played with it yet.

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 2, 2014 Hydrocortisone didn’t help my rash, so now I’m trying the prescription cream, which Tammy recommended giving a try. You know, I’m really, REALLY going to go from annoyed and frustrated to downright scared if all these issues, big and small, don’t stop soon. Enough is enough!

Meanwhile, I’m as nervous for me as I am excited for Tammy as far as tomorrow’s concerned. Mark will be there in the late afternoon or early evening. I’m so glad she’ll no longer have to be alone. If being alone just while Tom was at work when I was feeling my worst could be as hard on me as it was, I can just imagine what it’s like for her!

As for me, I’ll be seeing the doctor and hoping for the best. I really do hope there’s a way to treat my condition without such horrible side effects. As it is, I’m already up 5 pounds since having to stop my meds, my period is 4 days late, and I’m retaining enough water for 5 people to take a bath in.

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 1, 2014 Why is it that whenever a white person gets away with something it’s automatically assumed it was because he’s white? And how come whenever a black person gets a raw deal it’s automatically assumed it was because he’s black? How about considering the fact that sometimes life simply isn’t fair. Period. Why am I sitting here dealing with health issues while murderers sometimes get much older than me before they have any problems? Life just isn’t fair. Never has been, never will be, as much as it sucks to know. An 80-year-old can die broke that worked their ass off all their life, while a 20-year-old can win the lottery or inherit a fortune and be set for life. So before focusing on just one or two groups, I think we should keep in mind and remember that EVERYBODY gets shit on.

Got up a few hours ago and feel amazingly calm. Now I just gotta figure out what’s causing this rash I developed a few days ago in the groin area. I haven’t changed soaps or detergents, so I don’t know what to think. I just know I’m tired of having one thing after another.

Yesterday I had slight but obvious feelings of anxiety and depression and took a chill pill, which did the trick well. We’re guessing it’s the lingering effects of the meds fucking with my head, but we’re still not sure if it’s one or both of them or what. As I said before, sometimes the best way to deal with a problem is not to deal with it at all. Whether or not I decide to drop doctors and meds altogether, however, will have to be up to me and me only.

Anyway, we’re still working on trying to go pineapple in the kitchen. Yeah, trying to get sunny yellow walls in there has been a real bitch with that damn paneling. Had I known it’d be this rough I wouldn’t have bothered to do that room. The design on the wallboards wasn’t hideous, just dull.

Paid holidays are great, but I still hate this time of year. There are simply way too many holidays between now and New Year’s, and it only tends to bring out the chaos and the worst in people. As it is there are tons of RVs coming into the park now, kids, and people visiting with loud stereos.

Molly is apparently using Aly to update her Thoughts blog for her. God help her when she is forced to dump Molly again, and of course… God help me, too.

[candy-floss-crazy]

A Ferris wheel is one of those iconic funfair rides that everyone remembers. They not only make regular appearances at funfairs up and down the country, but you can also hire them for private events. Here are 6 tips for hiring a Ferris wheel to make sure you get the best for your money. 1 What Size Wheel There are two basic wheels you will see in the UK. What we tend to term a traditional wheel, which in actual fact is more than likely to be American in origin, more specifically from the Eli Bridge company of Jacksonville Illinois. This is the type of wheel that was in the final scene of Grease, the movie. They are also what you most probably rode as a child, and they are what is usually hired for private events. Ferris Wheel Hire The other big wheel type, is big, really big. They have been christened Continental Wheels in the UK, but are generally referred to as giant wheels on the continent. They come in a multitude of sizes, the travelling models tending to be 50-60 metres in height, with some fixed models of 100m up over. These can be hired privately, however keep in mind that a typical 50m wheel would come on 5-6 trailers, with each one being towed by a vehicle averaging perhaps 6-7 MPG. They would take a number of days to set up and similar to take back down, using a crew of perhaps 6-8 staff members. So unless you are Elon Musk or the likes, you aren't going to hire one for a 5 year olds birthday party in your back garden. 2 Where Will The Wheel Be Built We will proceed under the assumption that you aren't Elon Musk and wish to hire the smaller Eli Bridge type wheel. For the other type, much of what we advise is equally valid, but you would need a specialist survey to ensure the ground can take the weight and stress of a true giant wheel. Ideally a perfectly flat tarmac or concrete surface such as a car park is what we like for a wheel. Realistically, this isn't always possible. Grass is fine, as long as it isn't too soft. This is more for the vehicles carrying the ride rather than an issue with the ride. A wheel is a stable structure, well balanced and with large outriggers to prevent it tilting. Getting it into position on extremely soft ground is where the problems arrive. We carry wooden boards to drive on across soft ground, and if you need us 50 or 60ft across a field its not an issue. If you want us half a mile across a swamp it isn't going to happen. Access The other issue people seem to be oblivious to, is actually having an entrance large enough to drive the ride through. We have turned up on site visits many a time, to find out that although there is a 300 acre field available, the only access is through a gate 4ft wide, or around a sharp bend that you would be lucky to manage with a classic mini without a couple of shunts. Imagine the large vehicles you see on the motorway, then widen it a foot and add perhaps 10ft on the end. That will give you an idea of how long a typical ride is. If in doubt ask about a site visit. There may be a small charge, but a decent operator will waive this if you end up booking. 3 Ensure It Carries The Correct Documentation Thankfully, with the funfair industry being so highly regulated, the cowboys have pretty much been forced out. But, that doesn't mean you shouldn't still undertake due diligence when hiring attractions. Circumstances can conspire to create a situation where someone may cut corners, be it down to greed, or desperation. The best way to ensure your safety, is to make sure your chosen operator can actually supply a full set of safety documentation. The following list are all legally required documents, if they can't provide any of them, run away, quickly: - Public Liability Insurance (Self Explanatory) - Risk Assessments (To how the ride has been assessed to ascertain what risks exist) - Fire Assessments (Like the Risk assessment, but looking for fire based issues) - Method Statements (A document showing what has been put in place to mitigate the risks identified) - ADIPS Certificate (Much like an MOT, showing the ride has been tested by an independent engineer for safety) - Daily Inspection Record (To show that each day the ride is operated it has been checked by the operator) Adips One the mentioned documents, the ADIPS cert bears a little more explaining. Each ride has to undergo an annual inspection to ensure it is safe to operate. This includes electrical and mechanical safety, and may well include non destructive testing such as x-rays or dye penetration inspections to check for metal fatigue and cracking. A certificate is issued once the ride is passed as safe. This has all the relevant information about the ride. It also has two important things to look out for. One is the ADIPS inspection number, If you visit their website, you can actually input this number to ensure the document is correct and up to date. The other is the photograph in the top right hand of the document. This should match the ride you have hired. If it doesn't it could mean that the ride you have hired isn't covered by that document. A big no no. Adip 2021 Above is an example of what the DOC looks like, you can see the image in the top right hand corner, directly below this image will be the DOC number. 4 Ask For Photos Of What You Are Hiring There are some absolutely immaculate wheels on the hire market. There are sadly a few poor examples, and the majority are comfortably in the middle, quite presentable rather than exceptional. You are certainly entitled to ask for a photo of what the operator is proposing to hire to you. Beware of tiny thumbnails that show no details, and ask for how old the photos are. Something immaculate 20 years ago could look very different now. Any professional operator wants his client to be happy. A successful job isn't just one where they earn money, its one where the client is happy and will use them again. pexels wendelin jacober-1411445 (1) Take a look at the wheel above, this can quite accurately be described to you as one hot wheel without telling any lies. Thing is, it's hot, not because it's a fabulous wheel, but because it was in the vicinity of Chernobyl when the nuclear reactor exploded. So don't trust to descriptions alone, unless it is someone you have worked with before and trust. 5 Ensure The Quote You Have Includes Everything Although we haven't really heard of it happening with wheels. A favourite tactic of one competitor when offering dodgems for hire, was to quote a price roughly halve of everyone else's. When your ride turned up, it didn't have lights or music. There was no top cover so it wouldn't work it it rained, and you only got 4 cars. They would inform you that the ride supplied was exactly what you had paid for. If you wanted all the additional extras and the more usual 14 cars, then they were extra. Your choice at that point was to pay what could end up being more than you had been quoted from other operators for the same service, or put up with half a ride. Most companies quote within a narrow price band. If something is exceptionally cheap it is for a reason, and not usually a good one. Another Cowboy Another cowboy we came across had an ingenious scheme. He would quote a price about 40% less than anyone else. To secure it you had to pay an immediate £500 NON REFUNDABLE deposit. The day before your event, you would receive a phone call informing you that sadly, the ride you had booked had been destroyed by fire/stolen/kidnapped by space aliens. But not to worry, they had a couple of children's roundabouts they could bring you. When you complained the event wasn't for kids and you were cancelling, they were happy to let you do that. Of course the deposit was non refundable. Cowboy Operator Is it legal? Hmm, probably not, getting you money back by going to court probably outweighs the £500. If you give the guy too much hassle he had the option of refunding your money to stop the case. He kept far more than he lost though. 6 If You Have Any Unusual Requirements, Agree Them Beforehand Do you want only Max Bygraves records playing on the ride. Or the lights switched off for some reason. Perhaps you want your pet donkey to be allowed to ride. Talk the to supplier and make sure this is possible, before the day of the event. It isn't fair complaining that they had none of Mr Bygraves songs to play, if they were totally unaware that you were a fan. Most reasonable requests we are happy to comply with. We enjoy a bit of fun, and want you to be happy. (Not sure about letting the donkey ride though). But be aware of the fact that we will not, compromise safety to please you. No amount of offering to sign waivers will make any difference, (and for the record, judges tend not to view the practice very kindly, their take is that the fact we had a waiver signed meant we knew it was unsafe to do), we want the job, and we want you to be happy with it, but not at the risk of hurting or killing someone. If you want any more info on the ins and outs of hiring a Ferris wheel, drop us an email, or pick the phone up, we are quite happy to talk to you about it without obligation. Read the full article

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Your Comprehensive Guide to Uber Safety Inspections in Orlando

As an Uber driver in Orlando, your vehicle is more than just a mode of transport; it’s your business. To ensure both passenger safety and compliance with regulations, undergoing a thorough Uber safety inspection is vital. At Fix My Rideshare, we specialize in providing top-notch repairs for rideshare vehicles, and our expert technicians understand the unique demands of rideshare driving. we’ll discuss everything you need to know about Uber safety inspections in Orlando, from the requirements and process to how we can help keep your car in prime condition and ready for the next ride.

Why Are Safety Inspections Essential?

Passenger Safety

First and foremost, safety inspections are designed to protect you and your passengers. They help identify potential issues, such as worn brakes or faulty lights, before they lead to accidents. By ensuring that your vehicle is in optimal condition, you create a safer environment for everyone involved.

Compliance with Uber Regulations

To drive for Uber, you must adhere to specific vehicle standards, which include passing a safety inspection. Failure to meet these requirements can result in deactivation from the platform, which means lost income. Regular inspections help you maintain compliance, ensuring that you can continue to earn while driving.

Improved Passenger Experience

Passengers are more likely to leave positive ratings and tips if they feel secure in your vehicle. A well-maintained car reflects professionalism and care, enhancing the overall experience for riders and improving your reputation as a drivers

Prolonging Vehicle Lifespan

Regular safety inspections help identify wear and tear on your vehicle, allowing you to address issues before they become significant problems. This proactive approach not only keeps your vehicle safe but can also extend its life, saving you money in the long run.

Preparing for Your Uber Safety Inspection

Preparation is key to ensuring that your vehicle passes the safety inspection. Here are some steps you can take:

Perform a Pre-Inspection Check

Before heading to the inspection center, conduct a quick check of your vehicle. Look for visible damage, ensure that all lights are working, and check your tire tread and pressure.

Keep Up with Maintenance

Regular maintenance is crucial for the health of your vehicle. Schedule routine checks and repairs, such as oil changes and brake inspections, to prevent any issues from arising before your safety inspection. At Fix My Rideshare, we can help ensure your vehicle is always in top condition.

Clean Your Vehicle

A clean car not only looks professional but also makes a good impression on both passengers and inspectors. Take the time to clean the interior and exterior of your vehicle before the inspection.

Have Documentation Ready

Prepare all necessary documentation, including your vehicle registration, proof of insurance, and any previous inspection reports. Having these documents ready can streamline the inspection process.

Finding Authorized Inspection Locations in Orlando

When searching for places to get your Uber safety inspection in Orlando, you have several options:

Uber’s Official Resources: Uber provides a list of authorized inspection centers on their website. Always check for the latest updates to ensure compliance.

Local Auto Repair Shops: Many local auto repair shops are certified to conduct Uber safety inspections. They can also provide additional services to help keep your vehicle running smoothly.

Fix My Rideshare: We specialize in inspections and repairs for rideshare vehicles. Our experienced technicians are well-versed in the specific requirements for Uber inspections, ensuring that you are well-prepared.

The Inspection Process: What to Expect

Duration of Inspection

The inspection typically takes about 30 minutes to an hour, depending on the workload of the inspection center. It’s a good idea to schedule an appointment to avoid long wait times.

What Happens During the Inspection?

During the inspection, a certified technician will evaluate various aspects of your vehicle. They will check the brakes, tires, lights, and other essential components to ensure everything is in working order.

Receiving Your Results

After the inspection, you will receive a report detailing any issues found and whether your vehicle passed or failed the inspection. If repairs are needed, we can assist you in addressing those concerns quickly and efficiently.

The Role of Fix My Rideshare

At Fix My Rideshare, we understand the unique challenges that rideshare drivers face. Our expert technicians are committed to helping you keep your vehicle in excellent condition, ensuring you are always ready for your next ride. Here’s how we can help:

Comprehensive Inspections

We offer thorough inspections to help you meet Uber’s safety standards. Our knowledgeable technicians know exactly what to look for and will provide you with a detailed assessment of your vehicle’s condition.

Quality Repairs

If your vehicle needs repairs to pass the safety inspection, our skilled technicians can handle everything from minor fixes to major repairs. We use high-quality parts and workmanship to ensure your vehicle is safe and reliable.

Ongoing Maintenance

We can help you establish a routine maintenance plan to keep your vehicle in optimal condition. Preventative maintenance is key to avoiding inspection failures and keeping your vehicle running smoothly.

Conclusion

Navigating Uber safety inspections in Orlando is an essential part of being a successful rideshare driver. By understanding the requirements and preparing adequately, you can ensure that your vehicle remains safe, compliant, and ready for passengers. Regular inspections and maintenance not only help you meet regulatory standards but also contribute to a better experience for both you and your riders.

At Fix My Rideshare, we are dedicated to helping you maximize your earnings by keeping your vehicle in top shape. Our expert team is here to support you with all your inspection and repair needs. Contact us today to learn more about how we can assist you in your rideshare journey!

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How to Evaluate Used Cars: A Comprehensive Guide

When buying a used car, you want to ensure you're making a smart investment. There’s a lot to consider, from the vehicle’s condition to its history, which can feel overwhelming. Fortunately, with some guidance, you can make the process easier and find the right vehicle for your needs.

 In this guide, we’ll walk you through evaluating used cars in Illawarraso you can drive away confidence in your purchase.

Why Buying a Used Car Makes Sense

Affordability and Value

Buying a used car often means getting more value for your money. Not only do you avoid the sharp depreciation that comes with new vehicles, but you also save on upfront costs like taxes and insurance. If you're in the used cars Illawarra market, it's worth exploring local dealerships and private sellers to find various options at various price points.

Environmental Benefits

Used cars are a sustainable and eco-friendly option. They are often as fuel-efficient and environmentally conscious as newer models, reducing the need for new vehicle production.

Step-by-Step Guide to Evaluating a Used Car

1. Check the Car’s Exterior and Interior

Start by thoroughly inspecting the car’s body and interior. Look for dents, scratches, or rust on the exterior, and make sure the interior is clean and well-maintained. Upholstery tears, worn-out seats, or dashboard damage may indicate how well the previous owner treated the vehicle.

Exterior checklist:

Paint condition (look for fading, mismatched colors, or rust)

Tire tread (check for even wear)

Window condition (cracks, chips, or operational issues)

Interior checklist:

Seat comfort and fabric condition

Dashboard functionality (check electronics, including radio and AC)

Cleanliness and odor (mold or smoke can be a red flag)

2. Review the Car’s History

A comprehensive vehicle history report can reveal essential details, such as previous accidents, ownership changes, or any outstanding recalls. Always verify that the used cars at Illawarra dealerships or private sellers are transparent about the car's history before committing.

3. Take a Test Drive

Nothing beats getting behind the wheel. A test drive is your chance to feel the car's performance on the road. Pay attention to:

How the engine sounds (are there any unusual noises?)

The smoothness of the ride (is the suspension comfortable?)

How the steering and brakes respond

During the test drive, drive on various terrains to see how the car handles. Ensure you’re comfortable with the car’s performance in stop-and-go traffic, highway driving, and making sharp turns.

4. Have a Mechanic Inspect the Car

Even if everything looks good on the surface, getting a professional mechanic’s opinion is essential. They can spot potential issues that aren’t visible to the untrained eye, such as engine problems or transmission issues. This inspection can give you peace of mind knowing the used cars Illawarra options you’re considering are mechanically sound.

5. Negotiate the Price

Once you've gathered all the information about the vehicle, it’s time to negotiate the price. Do your homework to understand the market value of the car you're interested in. Tools like Kelley Blue Book or Edmunds can help you determine a fair price based on the vehicle’s make, model, year, and condition. Be firm but polite in your negotiations.

Conclusion 

By being aware of these common pitfalls, you can avoid potential issues and make a more informed decision. Evaluating a used car doesn’t have to be an overwhelming experience. By following these steps — from thorough research to test driving and negotiating — you can confidently purchase a reliable vehicle that fits your budget and lifestyle. Whether in the market for used cars in Illawarra or browsing other regions, evaluating a car properly will save you money and ensure your new ride is one you can trust.