Happy Thanksgiving, to everyone who celebrates it! And a very merry Thursday to everyone who doesn’t.
Because I haven’t provided a health update in a while (outside of the comments) I just wanted to reassure everyone that I am still here, and still trying to sort through a bunch of medical issues with the help of assorted doctors, some very competent and others not so much.
The issues I’m facing aren’t lifethreatening, but they are still debilitating enough to keep me from regular posting here. Sorry to be so vague; I’ll offer more details once some of these issues are sorted out a bit more. I’ll return to posting as soon as I am able but I cannot predict when that will be.
I appreciate everyone’s patience and continued support. Thanks!
Same as WWTH. Privileges don’t mean everything is rainbow and unicorns.
@David, @Dalaillama @Poglodyte, @Z&T
And @Poglodyte there is no law against writing bad fiction for your own amusement and/or therapy. If you forget about selling it and just write, it may or may not turn out to be good eventually. Every writer is different, but I always find that telling myself that I have to write something good is a sure fire way of writing a very small amount of utter crap. I’ve been playing hide and seek with my muse lately, because she likes to play and won’t work. She’ll turn up while I’m writing emails, or using the note-taking app on my phone, or once, in the middle of German homework. But if I sit down with the clear, obvious intention of writing a story, she’ll stalk off with her tail in the air.
@Z&T
There’s something very soothing about plants. If you have the space to make your own compost, that works even better. But go very easy on animal protein or it’ll stink, and don’t let it get waterlogged, or it’ll stink. Meanwhile, when you finish a carton of juice or milk, you can swish a cupful of water around in it and use it as plant fertiliser.
@poglodyte
I posted earlier today (up-thread) about personal issues, & had a guilt trip soon after, considered deleting my post, yada yada. I get where you’re coming from, & reminding oneself of others’ troubles can be a useful shield against self-pity. But your pain is your pain, & it doesn’t care if it’s large or small, structural or personal. It just hurts.
That’s a special & awful kind of loneliness, right there. Feeling lonely when you’re with family or friends is its own kind of hell. Being alone in a cabin somewhere would no doubt be way more enjoyable.
Shadowplay, WWTH, & Sheila have already posted excellent responses – please take care of yourself & like WWTH said, feel free to post here more often & talk, if it helps. It’s an open thread, anyways 🙂
(also, the black cat in your avatar is adorbs)
Happy Thanksgiving plus two days.
David, thanks for all you give us. Be well.
Cute kitties for everyone!
Glad to hear it’s not life threatening. Hope you feel better soonest.
So, that asshole cousin of mine? Called up my aunt today and informed her that none of us are allowed to attend my uncle’s memorial service.
Part of me is relieved because I didn’t really want to go. I would’ve done it to support my dad and grandmother, but I was dreading it because I didn’t want to see any of those people. However, this shit is further upset for my grandmother so I’m also really angry. She did absolutely nothing to deserve this. She’s being punished because she allowed my dad and aunt to protect her financial interests.
@wwth
All the internet hugs your way. I had a somewhat similar situation with my uncle and my dad, who found only found out his brother had cancer when he was told that said uncle had passed away and, oh, we’ve already had the funeral several days prior.
@wwth
Hug if you want it. Or a shoulder if you need punch something. Both options are there.
Families can suck. 🙁
However …
There’s no law saying you and your Dad and your Gran and your aunt can’t have a memorial of your own for your uncle, should your grandmother wish it, is there?
Done that a time or two.
@Jesalin:
That last one ends up corrupted if I right-click save-as. Which means that the much-ballyhooded vaunted ring-the-church-bells throw-a-ticker-tape-parade big-frigging-deal Firefox “Quantum” update didn’t fix one of the most annoying and stupid long-standing bugs in Firefox. There is simply no reason whatsoever that it shouldn’t be able to take the image data that it is DISPLAYING RIGHT THERE ON THE SCREEN and send it to the disk without making any transcription errors. No reason whatsoever. It’s such a simple function. And it still doesn’t work right. *grumble*
@Surplus
Works fine for me.
@Surplus : same here. I never had problem with save-as in Firefox, to be honest.
To everyone with troubled family relationships, (I guess that’s pretty much everyone), I commiserate.
This Thanksgiving, I chose to stay at home alone.. My spouse went to see his family, but not for fun and games. His very elderly parents live with his sister, who works full-time, and doesn’t drive. So, their time was spent attempting to sort through 60 years of accumulated stuff. They’re all pack rats…I’ve got a touch of pack-rat in me as well, so I’m no one to criticize. She’s paying around $200 a month for a storage unit. She lives in an apartment, and there simply isn’t enough room for everything.
@poglodyte: I feel your pain…I’m unable to have meaningful, frank conversations with my own family. I’m just too different from them, I think. It would only end in an argument.
I’ve got our 2 cats for company. However, they don’t get along. I woke up around 2 in the morning to a cat fight. This was in a room directly above mine, and it STILL woke me up, that’s how intense it was.
Thanks, folks. Y’all are great. I feel a lot better now in the light of day. ?
Poglodyte – big ups for feeling a lot better.
Husbeast and I had a simple roasted leg of lamb with mashed potatoes and mixed veg. I can eat it (with lots of garlic) but it’s not my favorite. The leg of lamb was mainly for MILbeast; I’m making lamb stew for her with the leftovers as a special suprise. We will be having a nice meal out with MILbeast next weekend; she’s blind and can’t safely navigate my cluttered house.
My last remaining aunt (mother’s sister) is someone I’ve had to mostly cut ties with, I just haven’t told her. She doesn’t contact me much anyway and she lives a thousand miles away. She used to be a lot of fun until she got sucked down the Rush Limbaugh sinkhole and then started into Alex Jones. She and her husband (possibly their kids as well) are now ardent Trumpids.
The last time she called (earlier this year, on my birthday) I blew her off and then felt guilty and called her back a couple of days later. She talked for nearly two hours straight about her ailments, her daughter’s MIL’s ailments, and her pastor’s wife’s ailments O_o. Never even asked how I was doing >:/. Two hours of my life I’m never getting back, as they say.
@Jesalin – thank you for the pretty kitties.
I also want to add my wholehearted support to the idea that just because others may have a worse time of it absolutely does NOT mean that our own pain is stupid or unfounded or something to be ashamed of/feel guilty over.
Internet hugs and/or nods of commiseration to everyone having a less-than-optimal experience with their relatives. Relationships are complicated, and family relationships even more so. I hope everyone gets a chance to take care of themselves afterward.
@poglodyte – I’ve been divorced, too, and even though it was (what seems like) a lifetime ago, and even though I’ve had other relationships since then, divorce was probably the hardest thing I’ve ever experienced in my life. I’m glad I’m no longer married to my former spouse but, even so, it was incredibly painful. It’s like a death except no one is actually dead. It does get better eventually. It took me years to deal with the grief, so feeling down only a few months later is totally understandable.
Internet hugs or preferred gesture of support to all who need them
I’m processing something a bit prickly myself this week. Long story short, a few years ago I got bullied/trashed by a couple who are … well, hard for me to describe. They tend to surround themselves with people who are 5-10-15 years younger than they are, people they can manage and mold. (I don’t fit into those categories.) They love playing Lord and Lady Bountiful, but woe betide you if you decline their help. They drove my best friend to near-suicide with their bullying, not that they would ever admit it.
Well, this week I accidentally learned that Lady Bountiful has recently been diagnosed with a chronic condition. It’s not exactly life-threatening, but it is the sort of condition that is both visible and embarrassing. And what with one thing and another, insurance is being non-cooperative. The cherry on top is that their fundraiser is well below goal and they may need to double the goal due to the aforementioned one thing and another.
I’ve worked in healthcare for decades. I’m usually sympathetic in these circumstances because a good person (as I try to be) doesn’t kick somebody when they are vulnerable, and patients are always vulnerable. I’m struggling to feel sympathy now. I can do so if I put myself in professional mode, but there’s that little voice that keeps whispering, “You put out garbage into the universe, sooner or later it piles up and falls on your head.”
I never wished them harm. At most I wished that they would stop being cruel. But I can’t deny that her diagnosis feels like an appropriate punishment.
So I’ve been doing a lot of thinking the past couple days (thank you, vacation time!) and I’m still searching for a definite conclusion.
@Victorious Parasol
Someone will probably have a better response than mine, but the first thing that jumps out at me about your situation is this:
Being a “good person” (something I strive to be as well) doesn’t mean we never have unworthy thoughts or feelings; it means we don’t cultivate and/or act on those feelings, that we try not to put them to the forefront. That we deal with them much the way you already are – consider them fairly and figure out a way to encompass them without giving them undue influence over us.
You’re a human being, and human beings have human feelings. It’s not at all surprising that you’d feel a little “poetic justice” was being served, or feel some schadenfreude. That’s all human and not inconsistent with being a good person.
If you were calling or contacting them to rub it in and mock them for their misfortune, or running Lady Bountiful down every chance you got, that would be reprehensible. But just feeling the feelings? Human.
@Victorious Parasol
What dreemr said!
Thank you, dreemr and Sheila. I’m pretty much okay with how I’m feeling, but y’know, part of being a good person is making sure you haven’t become a bad person when you weren’t paying attention.
@Victorious Parasol
Ironically, the time to start worrying is the time you stop worrying about it.
Internet kitty headbutts to Dalilama, WWTH and everyone else who could use them.
On a less serious note, did someone say Info Wars? Hbomberguy just released a mammoth-worthy video of some guy associated with Info Wars who declares the newest enemy of men/testosterone/sperm/conservatism is…soy.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/nov/25/donald-trump-time-magazine-incorrect
Time Magazine called to say that I was PROBABLY going to be named “Woman (Person) of the Year” for my work as ambassador of the feminist government in exile.
I would have to agree to an interview and a major photo shoot. I said yes! Yes, yes, yes!
Look for me at your newsstand soon-ish.
I am sickened by all the misogyny I’ve seen in progressive spaces this week. Same shit, different day – I genuinely thought we’d come further than this.