Open Thread for Personal Stuff: March 2014 Flying Cat Edition

Another hit and run update from someone who mostly lurks: Not only are we not homeless, I’ve got contract work lined up, my partner is on EI so at least we have 1 stable source of income for the time being, we’ve moved to a place where we’re paying less than half of what we were at the previous rental, and we’re getting our debts under control.

2014 is looking up. Hopefully others can say the same.

Here are a couple exploring the racial empathy gap:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3108582/

http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0048546

Good to hear damselindetech, I hope it’s a good year.

I’m going to try to quit drinking. Not alcohol. Diet soda. As soon as my current case is finished. I know it sounds ridiculous, but that shit is so addictive. I drink 2-3 cans every day and get massive headaches if I go without. It isn’t the caffeine because coffee doesn’t get rid of the withdrawal headache. It’s some other chemical.
I quit smoking successfully 5 years ago but have never been able to kick the soda habit. Wish me luck!

On the upside, my crankiness will give me the necessary aggression to combat trolls that wonder into our lair.

weirwoodtreehugger, good luck with the desodafication process. It could still be lack of caffeine for the headaches, though. Housemate dumped his diet soda habit in favor of iced tea made at home to get his caffeine fix and was miserable for a while (his was a 2 liter per day habit) and one thing he found from research is that coffee and tea don’t have anywhere near as much caffeine as soda, especially the colas.

damselindetech, congrats and best wishes for continued good stuff!

Preemptive brain bleach:

The fact that they did this in a continuous shot is pretty impressive IMO. That must have taken a lot of planning and practicing.

Good luck, bluecat. Might I recommend some Jem & The Holograms-esque wigs?

Jem and the Holograms is a new one on me, Damsel – will google it in a mo. I’ve now got 2 synthetic wigs, one black and one shocking pink, both of a cut suitable for the kind of gal likely to do the shimmy and say “boo boo buh doo!” at any moment.

Gillyrose – that’s the plan. I actually own a Victorian-style hairpiece already that I made from my own hair combings a few years ago (it was astonishing how quickly I got enough!) I wear it when I do historic costume storytelling.

I was thinking of plaiting my cut off hair and sewing the plaits into a hairband that I could tuck inside hats or use in a medieval hairstyle – I’ve been booked to tell stories at a medieval fair in September and have been wondering what to wear!

Sorry to hear about things, Breakfast Man but glad the financial situation is better. As my old mum used to say, money doesn’t make you happy but at least you can be miserable in comfort. Hope the rest improves soon.

Weirwoodtreehugger,
Oh my, yes diet soda is hard to quit! Orange Diet Rite and Diet Mt. Dew have their hooks in me. I have a friend who is quitting Sundrop because she’s trying to quit smoking and she knows that her ritual is Sundrop in one hand and a cigarette in the other. Best wishes. You can do it. 🙂

Enh, I’ve been collapsed for the past six days now, and it suuuuucks. (Collapses are what we call it when suddenly I get hit with weakness, frailty, and have to use crutches or just not leave the apartment for a while.) I’ve been having them off and on for the past four years, and the doctors can never find anything wrong with me; last time I tried, the doctor broke it to me as gently as possible that she thought they were psychosomatic.

Sometimes, I truly hate being mentally ill. It means that I can’t just trust myself to be sick anymore, it’s always a double-guess over whether my brain is upset about something.

So, basically I’ve been trying to just wait it out, but it’s frustrating because the burnout is in art AND decision-making, meaning that most of my usual ways of coping are out of commission. I can’t do art, I can’t do tedious business tasks, I can’t exercise, I can’t even freakin’ CLEAN. There’s also the nagging fear that I DO have something physically wrong with me — starve-variant eating disorders can really fuck up your body, and so it’s not impossible I’ve done myself some kind of neurological damage or something that’s eluding notice.

I don’t know. It’s just really upsetting, especially since I’m having to get a new health team here in Ohio, and so don’t have a doctor or a shrink yet. And I hate having to try and figure out what the deal is when I feel like I’m missing half the information, and because it sounds like such an excuse.

LBT, forgive me for being intrusive, but have you ever been tested for vitamins B and D deficiencies? The reason I ask is because B and D deficiencies can really knock you for a loop, with symptoms like: fatigue, body aches, depression, anxiety, hair loss, and weight problems (loss or gain).

Last year I started having all those symptoms but no one could figure it why since most of the usual lab tests came back within range. Then one of the doctors I used to know at a hospital I used to work at opened up practice and I went to see her. After hearing me talk about what was going on, she said it sounded like I had B and D deficiencies. Sure enough, my levels had bottomed out. I went on vitamin therapies and feel much better now.

@theladyzombie, hellkell knows Austin! Hopefully she’ll be around.

I’ve been there twice. My impression is that it’s one of the better places to live in Texas … but it’s still Texas, a very conservative state. The first time I was there I had this hilarious Iranian taxi driver who had moved there from LA because rents were cheaper. He started out being very diplomatic about the city, but by the end of the ride he admitted that moving to Austin was “the worst fucking mistake I ever made.” In his case, a lot of what he hated was the anti-Arab sentiment that he faced constantly — even though he wasn’t an Arab, he was perceived as one and got a lot of shit for it.

Hellkell – I’m reminded of a quote attributed to Sam Houston – “If I owned Hell and all of Texas, I would live in Hell and rent out Texas.”