#anyways. i also have to get my syringes from the pharmacy i pick up my T at instead of planned parenthood and they give me different shit—

[itsc]

someone stole bear’s insulin and syringes off my front step yesterday before I could go pick them up and its been such an unbelievable amount of bullshit to deal with lol. I tried to get his normal vet to send the prescription to my pharmacy so i could just go Pick It Up, and they called me back to tell me they absolutely NEEDED to do a glucosamine test before they could approve the prescription which they didnt need to approve it literally 4 days ago. both scripts were still valid! i’m p sure it was just to make sure i have actually been giving bear insulin. anyway they wanted me to physically bring him in for this test yesterday that was going to cost either $90 or $130 (they couldnt tell me exactly...???), plus $60 on top of that for the visit fee, and this would require me to drive in my absolutely broken down car for 20 minutes each way to a usually crowded shopping center during a pandemic, spend either $150 or $190 before the usual $90 that insulin + 100 syringes runs for him, ????????

I told them that I, like many people, have been recently laid off, and they were like “ya thats why we got you a quote ahead of time”

then after i was like “i mean i guess if i have literally no other choice to get my cat the supplies he needs to not have a diabetic episode! i will go put myself and others at risk since yall are holding this over my head! :)” they were like “oh btw we cant get the script filled at your regular pharmacy so you still have to order it”

like cool cool ok so it can get stolen again? do i have to sleep in front of my apartment to make sure i physically receive it? since fedex emailed me yesterday morning shortly before my package was delivered to say that required signatures have been waived bc of covid-19, which is why they just.... left the box.. not even inside my apartment door gate, which every other mail carrier knows how to open, for someone to grab in the 40 mins it took for me to finish the call i was on and go around the block. lol !

I filed a claim with fedex, had a meltdown, called my mom, called my old vet in GA, and they agreed to approve the script if i sent it to them,

then i spent 40 minutes on the phone with chewy trying to make sure the insulin would be over-nighted, they said they were actually going to re-send the order for free and would call me back,

I called and cancelled at bear’s regular vet, never got a call back from chewy, and have now received two separate emails telling me they are ABOUT to mail out the order and giving me a 6-8 day delivery estimate, which is stressful also since the insulin has to be over-nighted or else it will go bad

like i know that delivery/shipment services are overloaded and having a really awful time right now but like. if this is more than a week late it will turn into a medical emergency for my pet and im stressed!!!!! 

[sunflowerseedsandscience]

Someday Your Child May Cry

Previous: Question | Preparations | Irrational | Confession | Collateral | Thoughtless | Interrupted | Recovering | Irresponsible | Possibility | Devastation | Confrontation | Generous

14. Confirmation

Autopsying and identifying every single body recovered from the hangar at El Rico Air Force Base takes three full days and an entire team of pathologists. By the end of it, Scully’s feet are covered in blisters in spite of her comfortable shoes, and she’s relatively certain that the cramps in her neck, back, and shoulders are going to be with her for at least a week.

(She's also had to leave the table to vomit in the bathroom three times today alone. She could put it down to the horror of having to autopsy the bodies of small children who had been burned alive, but, she’s never gotten sick over an autopsy before, and anyway, she’d been nauseous before she’d even picked up her scalpel on the first day.)

Two weeks ago, Scully would have whispered her suspicions in Mulder’s ear, savoring his excitement over the idea that this time, it might work… but right now, even though he’s been buzzing around the morgue constantly, getting underfoot, it feels like there’s miles of empty space in between them. Scully assumes that all of Mulder’s attention is focused on waiting to find out whether or not any of the remains will be identified as having belonged to Diana Fowley (they won’t, of course), and it’s unlikely he has any space in his head for her just now.

When the last victim has finally been identified, Scully peels back her gloves, tosses them into the biohazard bin, and approaches Mulder, who is leaning against the wall near the door, having given up his restless pacing at last.

“She’s not here, Mulder,” she sighs. “None of these bodies were hers. You’re sure she went to the hangar when she left you?”

“Completely,” he says. Scully nods and looks down.

“Well, then… either this all happened before she arrived, or… she found some way to escape it.” She pauses.  “The smoking man isn’t here, either.” Mulder scowls.

“Doesn’t mean anything, Scully,” he says stubbornly. “So if you’re gonna start in on that crap again, you can just-” Scully holds up her hands, forestalling him.

“Mulder, I don’t want to fight with you,” she says. “I just want to go home, wash this stink off of me, and sleep.” She rubs at her neck as Mulder continues to glower at her. Another surge of nausea begins churning in her gut, and she knows she needs to get away from him before he realizes anything is wrong. “We’ve got an early meeting with Spender, Skinner, and Kersh tomorrow morning. I suggest you go home and try to sleep, too.” She turns and walks quickly away before he can say anything else, and makes it to the toilet in the changing room just in time.

Scully doesn’t go and find Mulder before she leaves the morgue; she doesn’t have the stamina to get drawn into another argument just now, not when the hurt of his accusation and his dismissal of her at the Gunmen’s is still so fresh. She buys a pregnancy test at the pharmacy near her apartment and uses it as soon as she gets home.

It’s positive.

Scully picks up the phone, about to call Mulder... when suddenly, his voice sounds in her head again, telling her that she’s wrong, telling her she’s making all of it personal.

Very slowly, she puts the phone back down.

———————————

They’re busy reclaiming their office when Mulder’s cell phone rings, and much to his surprise, it’s Frohike. He and the Gunmen hadn’t exactly parted on the best of terms after the scene in their offices over a week ago, when, according to Frohike, he’d behaved like “a self-righteous, self-centered, stubborn son of a bitch.”

“Mulder, we need you to get over here,” Frohike says, his voice grim. “Bring Scully with you.”

“What’s going on, Melvin?” Mulder asks.

“We’ve done some more digging, and we found something that we think you should see. Both of you.”

A half hour later, the five of them are standing in a semicircle around one of the Gunmen’s computers. On the screen is what appears to be a hospital hallway.

“What is this?” asks Mulder, frowning.

“This is from a security camera at Holy Cross Memorial Hospital,” says Byers. “Where Agent Fowley was taken after she was shot last summer.” Mulder scowls.

“Come on, guys, not this again,” he grouses, but Byers talks over him.

“This footage is from the hallway outside of her room in the ICU,” he says. “The day that she was admitted.” He leans over and sets the footage rolling with a click of the mouse, and Mulder heaves a sigh and turns his attention to the screen.

For about a minute, there’s nothing but the normal bustle of a hospital corridor, nurses rushing this way and that, doctors carrying charts, and the occasional visitor. But then, at the top of the screen, two figures come into view, walking towards the camera, their faces completely visible for ten full seconds before they turn left and enter Diana’s room. The one on the right, whose face is completely unfamiliar to Mulder, is built like a linebacker.

The one on the left is unmistakably C.G.B. Spender.

Byers reaches down and clicks the mouse again, fast-forwarding the recording.

“They stay in there for maybe five minutes,” he says as he returns the recording to normal speed. “And when they leave, Spender is on his cell phone, and the tall one is clearly slipping something into his pocket.” He pauses the tape and, with several more clicks of the mouse, he zooms in on the man’s right hand, which is tucking a cylindrical object out of sight.

“That’s a syringe,” says Scully. ��They gave her something while they were in there.” Byers nods.

“We think,” says Frohike, watching Mulder carefully, “that they slipped her something to speed up her recovery, and that’s why she got better so quickly.” Byers shuts off the computer monitor and stands, turning to face Mulder.

Everyone in the room is waiting for him to speak... but the realization that he’s just come to is even worse than the truth that Scully had been trying so hard to convince him of.

“It was her,” he says, almost to himself. “She told them.” He looks up at Scully, barely able to meet her eyes as the guilt crashes through him. She merely looks perplexed for a moment... but then, understanding breaks, her face going from confused to horrified to downright furious in seconds.

“You told her?” Scully’s anger fairly explodes outward at him, and it’s all he can do to keep from cowering under the intensity of it.

“It slipped out,” he says, fully aware of how pathetic of an excuse it is. “I didn’t mean to. I knew it was a mistake the second I said it.” Scully opens her mouth to speak, but her rage seems to be beyond words. She turns sharply on her heel and races for the door. Mulder has just enough time to see the identical looks of disgust on all three of the Gunmen’s faces before he turns and races after her.

“Scully, wait!” he calls, as he runs out of the door and sees her striding down the sidewalk towards her car. He doesn’t think she’ll listen, but quite suddenly, she turns and charges at him.

“How could you, Mulder?” she shouts. “I didn’t even tell my own mother what we were doing, and you, you go and tell some woman I don’t even know?” She’s so livid that she actually reaches out and shoves at his shoulder. “And then you treat me like I’m nothing more than a petulant, jealous girlfriend when I have the audacity to question her loyalties? And I was right, Mulder! She was with them all along, and you refused to see it!”

“I know you were right, Scully,” he says. “I know that now. But you have to understand, I didn’t want to believe it. I couldn’t believe that of her, not after-” He cuts himself off. This is the final secret, the one he’s never told her, at first because it didn’t seem important... and later, because he knew how hurt she’d be that he’d kept it from her for so long.

“After what, Mulder?” Scully asks. “What possible reason could you have to trust her that much?” Mulder looks down, the shame of it all pressing heavily on him. He’s failed her so thoroughly that maybe, just maybe, he can’t possibly hurt her any worse.

“Diana is my ex-wife, Scully,” he says quietly. And when he looks up and sees her face, he knows immediately that he was wrong, that his capacity to inflict pain onto the people he loves may well be limitless. She says nothing, and he doesn’t try to call her back as she turns and rushes back to her car, climbing in and taking off so fast that the tires actually squeal. 

His shoulders slumped, Mulder digs his cell phone out of his pocket and calls for a cab.

[lovecrafts-iranon]

1. I guess it’s a bit of a hoarding thing in that my tiny studio apartment has hundreds and hundreds of books that I’m not planning on giving up. Most of them are in boxes because I’m still working on putting the bookshelves together. I don’t have any need to keep all the wrappers and used syringes and tissues and stuff all over the floor though.

I don’t have the time or energy to do tasks.

When I get home from anywhere including work, the grocery store, or some other errand, I immediately lie down and rest for at least an hour or longer, browsing tumblr or reddit. I used to not even know I did this because I would kind of forget afterwards because my brain is pretty foggy when I get home. Kind of same when I arrive at work. It is enormously stressful and unpleasant to try to counteract this and I fail half the time when I try anyways so I don’t. I generally also spend some time both in the parking lot of my work and in my parking lot at home in the same state before driving home or entering my house. I often sit in the parking lot to a grocery store or pharmacy for a half hour before entering as well. This... recovery period? eats up a lot of my time, but I feel worse if I try to stop it and grab those extra minutes and I don’t want to suffer.

It is hard to mentally prepare myself to do a task. To make it as stress free for my brain, I bargain with myself along the lines of, “you can read a webcomic page first, then do the task, then read another page.” This is my biggest productivity booster ever actually even though it means I get things done really slowly. Before, I tried making myself do an hour of tasks a day set by a timer, I tried the pomodoro method, I tried every anti procrastination method I read about or could think of but nothing worked. With the webcomic thing at least I can get my rent paid and my work tasks done and not fall even further.

I generally also study for the tech certification that I was pursuing as much as possible, using that same webcomic idea. I would do one study unit and then one task.

When I try to just do things without this bargaining and frequent breaks I just end up quitting and can’t will myself to do anymore.

Tasks are a small unit of work, like getting gas or picking up twenty items off the floor or putting the laundry into the washer.

Naturally, though this is as fast as I can go and an improvement over no methods at all, I am very slow to do anything. This is compounded by my not having much time after work because I try to sleep eleven hours a day. I am tired all the time and if I sleep less than that I am even more tired, causing misery and suffering which is what I want to avoid. I only have time/energy most days to do one or two tasks, so I do whatever is most urgent and leave unimportant things like the trash layer alone.

2. I work as a night auditor at a hotel. I work full time and sometimes get overtime in the form of working six or seven nights a week instead of five. Showing up on time at 11PM is not a problem for me. I do not change my sleeping habits on my days off except to sleep in a bit as that would cause suffering, which I want to avoid. Before applying for night auditor jobs, I did a lot of research into what easy to acquire job has the most free time and least human contact. I hate working with people, hate coworkers, hate customers, hate talking to people face to face in general. And of course doing tasks is not playing video games or reading and is therefore suffering, so I wanted to minimize the amount of actual work at my job. The best things about my job are that I am the only employee there, there are few customers, and the large amount of downtime, which I use to psych myself up to do the work tasks one after another until the night is over. I hate doing the actual work but I know that every other job has more work and I need to support myself because I sure as hell don’t want to live with somebody else. When I briefly had roommates I was the roommate from hell due to all my mental issues and my lack of cleaning, and I hated every minute of it. I would listen at my door for my roommates to be gone from the common area before leaving that apartment. I also feel like having mess, even extreme mess like maggots and mold, is preferable to having social pressure from people nearby to clean it up, which is unbearable.

The problem with my job is the pay. I have medical debt from a couple psych ward visits that I have been slowly paying off and I would like to be able to have an emergency fund and donate more. However the main thing I want is to be able to afford somebody to come in while I am gone (because in-person human contact is suffering) and do all my tasks for me. Then I would have real free time to do stuff that is fun, not just time where I psych myself up to do the next task. And all the tasks piling up around me would actually get done rather than staying on my shoulders forever. I thought a night shift NOC job was my ticket to happiness but I have been informed that there is not actually downtime at that job, meaning I would go insane in a month from the stress and suffering and get fired, like I did when I tried to work fast food. Now it seems there is no ticket to happiness and I am doomed to live like this forever. Suffering forever.

@bpd-anon and anyone else dealing with executive dysfunction-based mess. disclaimer over this post that it’s mostly just “stuff that’s helped me, you may or may not have tried it, i’m not gonna pretend I know the road to salvation because I’m not there yet.”

Keep reading

[inexchangeforyoursoul]

chapter... 9? will need to open a new document because scroling down too far and then up to find the point I left off before all the fragments start is getting annoying

now... let me waste an hour figuring out a title for this one on the fanfic sites

“You know... you made my bed, and this is probably rude of me to say,” she muses while assessing the captain's cabin where she will apparently spend training time, which is to say, a lot of time in the foreseeable future, “but... I have the greatest itch to tidy up this mess right now.”

The desk, dresser, bed and bookshelves are doing fine, but anything below that... there's barely room to maneuver in there if the goal is to not step into anything. It's cluttered with all kinds of junk; clothes, maps and papers, a notebook, some of the thickest tomes she's ever seen, at least three chests, various surgical instruments -that better not be a syringe and scalpel poking out from behind that bag,- and just... dirt and dust everywhere, which are likely remnants of various herbs and powders he's fiddling around with down here. Because, no matter how stale the hot air is inside, there's just not enough “musty attic” to kill off the distinctive “consulting room” that engulfs the place; stepping inside was like hitting a solid wall made of heat and pharmacy. Law really ought to vent in here sometimes.

“Forget about that. Get rid of the bag and let's start already; we've wasted tons of time,” is all he has to say to that while making some room himself by kicking some stuff to the side.

She sighs and drops the bag of clothes on his bed. Of which she's a little jealous of because of its size. Doing so, she spots another shiny item at the corner of said object.

“Oh, 10 Belly...” she murmurs once having it in her hand. Flipping it around, it seems a little unusual. “Hey, I have one of these lying around, too” she says once realizing that it's a rather unique one from about three years ago. No idea what kind of anniversary it was anymore, but the tail got a fancy makeover.

Taking interest in her statement, he stops fiddling around with what it seems to be wooden building blocks and takes a look himself.

“Ah,” he says with the realization, taking it from her; “must have fallen off the case.”

With that, he squats down and lifts a small blanket off a suitcase that has some more change lying on it. Picking them all up and opening the object reveals... at least a hundred, -but rather twice as many with some pockets hidden from view,- coins and bills, and just by seeing some examples of the latter, they all seem to be unusual.

She crouches down next to him to take a better look. “... you... collect these?”

“As you can see? Yes.” he answers, slipping them each behind likely home made leather strip pockets. Getting to the last one, which is the coin she jut found, he takes an identical piece out for comparison's sake; the one he held in his hand seems to be in a worse shape, so he puts the coin he just took out back where it came from and tries to put the other in a nonexistent pocket. Goddamn lady jeans.

Concise summary of Kat: “Nerd.”

“I'm no nerd,” he assures her, downing the coin in an actual pocket at last.

“Not to be that person, Law, but the only thing nerdier than a surgeon collecting commemorative money in his underwater dungeon is the guy in speedo building gigantic robots next door and being really enthusiastic about it.” Having said that and seeing his unimpressed expression, she pulls a nonchalant shrug.

He's just rolling his eyes at that.

“You act as if I just ate the last cookie in your jar,” she sighs, shaking her head, then stands up. “Being nerdy is not a bad thing, you nerd.” Turning around, she decides to see what he's been meddling with on the dresser.

“Are you saying this because you are a nerd, too?” he asks, also getting back onto his feet.

“Darn straight I am,” she informs him, turning back with two finger guns before walking backwards to her current stop.

“...” Should have expected a similar answer by now. He's not even mad, neither at her, or himself.

She leans onto the piece of furniture to survey what's there. What appeared to be building blocks from afar seem to be small wooden boxes with tiny hook locks to make sure they stay closed; some almost too small for any use, others big enough to hold a thick necklace or so easily. Judging by the worn labels, he probably kept raw material for medication in them; likely to be totally empty right now. There's also a couple of untouched note blocks and some other stuff that seems to be broken, plus tiny objects like a small syringe tube. “So... what exactly will be my task here?” she asks, drumming on the hard wood with her fingers. Doing that she notes that he also should wipe the surface; the fingers of her right hand are now covered in more or less fine dust.

“First, you'll just try and switch around stuff from one of these,” he pulls a note block to one end of the surface, “to another.” Putting another block of paper notes in front of her, he places a pocket watch that hasn't ticked for who knows how long on top.

Simple enough; cannot cause too much harm to the paper, either. “... and this until I don't make see-through paper, then some more?”

“Exactly,” he nods.

She sighs. Monotony is one of her greatest enemies... it shouldn't take that long to get it right, though? Right...?

Not quite. After about 5 hours of fooling around, she's sitting on his bed opposing the chest of drawers, resting her head on an elbow. She's managed to bore herself to nirvana next to the insufferable heat and low buzzing of the submarine and not even think of what he's supposed to do while swatting the pocket watch around, doing the same thing, and making the same mistake, over and over. Sometimes she takes the other hand to lean on and continues like that; the occasional other thought that surfaces is of what to draw or paint next time she's free. Which feels like a time that will never come. The upper sections of the unruly paper blocks must be minutes away from getting ground into the finest powder by now; she managed not to decimate shit about thrice. That's where the counter was two hours ago at least, before she gave up on life.

Law, meanwhile, has been reading a book at his desk; a bit earlier he stopped and started writing something rather furiously. Even before he left for those and just watched her, he didn't say a thing. It's been really quiet, which is usually nice, but under these circumstances she'd rather have at least more background noise than the occasional page turn, deep breath, and the hum of... whatever is nearby, probably an engine.

As the gears in her head start turning again a bit while thinking about this, he puts his pen down, sorts the paper sheets, then stands up. Crossing the gap between her and the target practice for the first time works like a magic charm, and she snaps out of her coma enough to stop doing what she's been told a while ago. Words are yet to be an option, but her moan is enough of a question to him.

“Going out to eat,” he informs her while picking up his hat that she has put down next to her ages ago. Before he leaves, he stops in the doorway to turn back to her, which brings some much needed fresh(er) air: “Are you not hungry? It's half past two.”

She grumbles, rubbing her eyes. “Will be fine till a late brunch... slash dinner.” This power practice business has been rather taxing now that she's regained control over her senses.

“Alright, will be back soon. Try not to slack off too much.” With that, he closes the door and she's left alone.

The second she cannot hear the clanking of the stairs, she leans back onto the bed. This sucks. Goddamn. There's no progress, either; she has probably more problems other than energy management, but hell if she has the slightest idea what it may be.

She looks to the side with the view to the sea; there is only a few schools of really tiny fish to be seen. More interesting is the wobbly book pile next to the bed, and especially the one that slid its way onto it. She reaches out to grab that one.

A book on the respiratory system. Wild. She flips through it; as expected, there are some illustrations inside. Including stuff like blackened lungs and cancer, how to cut open one's throat in an emergency, cysts, thrombosis and other lovely ailments; one of the first ones is an overview of the human body, though, with the skeleton, muscles, and skin in six images. She stops at the three pairs of pages to get a better look; been a while since she's seen any of these, might as well revise a bit.

Memorizing where the humeral muscles connect and how the shoulder blade looks again, the book is getting really heavy while holding it above. She starts lowering it ever so slightly, until it finally hits her temples; at this point, it's impossible to read. Or even see anything. Everything else is also rather hard right now; she doesn't feel like moving and just lets the book slip down her head. The pages are nice and cool, the room is still unnecessarily warm. At least she's used enough to the air to be unable to smell the antiseptic anymore. She could use some more lighting, it's rather dark in here... book with lighter half still on her head notwithstanding. If she had the willpower to stand up, she'd look for another switch. But she doesn't, and makes the mistake of closing her eyes for more than a moment.

Law enters again ten minutes later, and immediately sighs in resignation. He should have known...

Stepping over, he takes the book off his-her face. He considers waking her, but if she's done in enough to fall asleep, that wouldn't be of much benefit anyway. It's not even much of a surprise; the power is not meant for extended use, after all, be it a small Room or a big one. Having said that, he checks on the book- he studied the case studies in the back last week, but what she could gather from any of this? A mystery.

Having no better idea, he leaves and kicks a bag into the doorway to let physics do its thing; the room has been needing more oxygen for an hour and now that he stepped inside, it's also been way too hot in there. Even for him. Or his temporal body. Thinking about it, the stuff he's wearing is rather thin, while his clothes on her... oh well. She really has all the rights to be knocked out. Should have done this earlier.

Stepping outside, he takes a deep breath. He hasn't come up since  they arrived; it's nice and sunny with a breeze out. Being in the shadow of the Thousand Sunny makes it rather chilly, though, especially after the sauna inside; so he boards the allied ship instead. Leaning onto the railing, he can hear someone approach; it's Robin with her last cup of coffee for the day.

“Out alone? Where'd you leave little-big Miss Kat?” she inquires before sipping.

“KO'd herself on my bed while practicing as soon as I took my eyes off her,” he says while enjoying the sunshine on his back.

She chuckles and puts the coffee and newspaper down on the nearby table. “She's an amusing girl.”

“That she is.” He sighs. Amusing is one way to put it; not a ditz, thankfully. Speaking of amusement, though, there was that word she said when she was ranting outside her house... what was it again... goddammit. “By the way, Nico-ya, do you know what a... 'trogomite' or whatever is?”

He's never seen Robin laugh that hard.