Incredibly delighted

It was brought to my attention, and I'm not sure who it is that originally linked it, but I appreciate it greatly, that my "sociopathic tendencies" blog was picked up somewhere, and brought in heavy traffic, and as a result the keyword search put me at the #5 spot on Google.

Obviously, I'm thrilled. I guess I ought to put together more interesting or useful blogs more often, if somebody was linking me from somewhere big enough to bump me high up on the Google-meter.

*wanders off feeling quite content and pleased*

On posting by "Invitation Only" blogspots

As someone who is a long-time poster here on Blogspot, and who has a fairly healthy following, and who pisses a *lot* of people off with my writing, and by my mere fact of being alive and breathing a good portion of the time, I'm going to sit and write this evening about 'Invitation Only' blogging.

For those who are joining us for the first time this evening, I don't pull punches on my blog here. I write about a whole variety of things, and I've actually covered topics that range from my how it feels to be a brain cancer survivor, to sociopaths, to how it feels to be an overweight woman in a thin society, and everything in between.

This place truly spans all things, depending on my mood. I locked it down, one time, due to a legal issue at the request of the local police department, and that only lasted about a week before I decided that I wasn't willing to be silenced by the idea of petty threats, when *someone else* was threatening me. I'm a firm believer in the right to free speech, and I admit that I say some completely snotty things on here from time to time.

This is my venting spot, and the place I feel free to express anything I damned well choose. But I have that freedom, and I find it somewhat sad, to see "Invitation Only" blogs, when they were once public.

I truly don't have a problem when someone starts a private blog, and it has always *been* a private blog. That makes perfect sense to me, as I have one of those myself. But when someone switches from one medium to the other, it shows that they're in some fashion ashamed of what they're writing, or that they fear what others think of them, and I find that sad.

Everyone who has enough confidence to post to the internet, and write things here, especially if they were already known and public, should have enough confidence in themselves to *continue* to be known as that public figure. Going into hiding because you're ashamed, or because you feel a need to hide something you're saying shows that you have two faces, and I find that to be pathetic.

Because I do write so publicly, and so many people see what I have to say, I have no respect for others who don't show the same honorable attitude I display.

I might be a complete bitch, but I'm honest about it. Everything I have to say about someone, is right there in front of them, displayed on these pages. There's no secret handshake that is necessary to access my words.

There is no "Invitation Only" here.

A near miss

I almost crashed the Thunderbird. My legs went numb while I was driving home yesterday, and my already screwy depth perception got about 10 times worse, and I almost cracked the car up. Yes, obviously, I'm fine. I wasn't then, and by the time I actually got it parked safely into the stall, and got myself into the house, I just wanted to sit quietly and have a nice little emotional breakdown. Which is why none of you got phone calls.
And as I don't really want to be yelled at, or lectured (and I was *FINE* when I left the house, or I wouldn't have LEFT the house), and the medications that was causing the problem has now been abruptly stopped, such things should no longer be an issue.

Although my skin looks atrocious. I gather about 95% of people can safely take Plaquenil, without side effects. It would appear that I'm not one of those 95%. So what else is new? Rest assured that I'm not in any big hurry to be 'treated' for my RA just now in any form, since all that being 'treated' for it has done is completely thrash my skin, make me violently ill, and cause me to nearly wreck my car. Oh, and make my already pain-filled joint pain *worse* instead of better. Gee, thanks. Let me try "treating" it so it can "improve" my life a little more. Not in any rush to do that.

I've actually been more and more and more exhausted physically recently. And not just tired, but actually weak. Just trying to get the pitcher of water out of the refrigerator and pouring a glass sometimes is enough to make me want to take a nap, and that bothers me. I'm not certain what's changed, that's causing me to be getting so much weaker physically.

I forced myself today, to use the trampoline, and it took a while before I finally started to get a bit of energy. And I at least feel awake instead of wanting to go and crawl into bed to take yet another nap. I'm still physically tired, but my mind is less foggy than it's been in a while. So I figure I'll force myself into the daily exercise and see if it improves. *tips a hat in Sissy's direction for the suggestion*

There has been a lot of bad going around lately. People's lives are coming apart at the seams, or so it would appear. People whose lives I'm not actively involved in, but that I used to know. I still notice what goes on around me, and I still acknowledge when things suck. I don't wish harm on anyone, even from a distance.

A lot of people have passed on recently, and there's been a lot of pain and a lot of loss. It strikes me as peculiar that in the midst of all of that loss, instead of everyone clinging to each other, sometimes we push each other away. It's almost as though when we hurt the most, that's the time that we choose to inflict more. To...prove something? To make certain that nobody asks anything extra from us? I don't know.

I know that when I'm feeling uncertain and frightened and angry, I strike out at the people I want and love most. Counter-productive, I know. Utterly stupid. But I figure nobody can hurt me more than I can hurt myself, and if I leave first, no one can leave me. I won't give anyone the opportunity. Yay for therapy, which has taught me quite a lot over the years. I don't always do the stupid thing anymore, but I did that a lot, for a very long time.

I'm probably rambling, so everyone can take whatever I might have to say with a grain of salt, or they can find wisdom where they may.

I'm not particularly full of wisdom. No one ever listens to my advice. They ask for it, but no one actually heeds it. And then they come back later, and want to know why something went horribly wrong, and ask what they could have done to prevent such catastrophe? Honestly, I've sort of gotten to the point of just shrugging and patting people on the head and letting them say/think/do anything they like, because I tend to believe no one is really listening to whatever is coming out of my mouth anyway. They're mostly talking to me so they can hear themselves speak, and the occasionally word that filters through that I say confuses them.

I suspect we're both better off that way. Perhaps I'll test the theory sometime, and say what I'm truly thinking, and see if anyone actually notices the difference between my editing politically correct statements, the ones I'm using these days, and my actual thoughts, and see if they notice that I've changed what I'm saying most of the time. That might be fun. Of course, if someone actually is listening, I suppose people might stop speaking to me...then again, that being the case, if they get that mad, oh, hell with it. I think I'm getting a headache.

I'm going to go make a pot of tea, and start working on my Psychology assignment. Sadly, that will probably less confusing than my current line of reasoning. I'd rather debate Psych theory.

...and so it continues...

It isn't supposed to be like this, you see...things are supposed to be so much better now. And I want to cry, because they're not, and it seems so unfair, because they aren't perfect. My shiny, happy, easy time only lasted what seemed to have been such a brief moment. I knew I was playing the odds, I did. But waking up in the morning, full of energy and life, it was *so easy*, and it made me hope against hope that maybe it would continue to be that way.

I felt so alive, and so *good*. The sun didn't hurt me. Most of the major pain, it wasn't there. I kept hoping that was going to be normal...That maybe *I* was finally going to be normal.

I guess nothing lasts forever, huh?

They've diagnosed me, at long last, with Rheumatoid Arthritis, which isn't altogether surprising, when you figure in lupus and fibromyalgia. The lupus, as it turns out is very nearly completely in remission. But I'm going to be playing a round robin of new medications, and it's making me sick again. Plaquenil, which I've already started and is making me both dizzy and nauseous around the clock. Flexeril, which is making me sleepy as all hell, and I don't like at all. They want me on Methotrexate, which is a cancer/chemotherapy medication and if I can't talk the doctor out of it will simply make me yet more nauseous I'm sure, and since my Topamax already makes my birth control unstable, Methotrexate is incredibly dangerous for me to take. Methotrexate causes both birth defects and/or spontaneous abortion in women. It's *not* a good drug for any woman who is fertile to be on, which is why my neurologist doesn't want me taking it, but the rheumatologist knows that he's put patients on that mix before with no problems. My instinct tells me all his patients who take the mix have been either past child-bearing age, or male. In both those cases, it wouldn't be a problem...*sigh*.

And the really sad part is, because of all the stress, I just get more and more tired and more depressed day by day. All I want to do is sleep, and not have to deal with any of it. And I'd been feeling so good, and now I just want to give up again. Why can't I just wake up one morning, half the size I am now, and healthy? Is that too much to ask, to be normal, and healthy?

I got into it about my weight with someone recently, because his 'opinion' was that it should be pretty simple. I have two options as he sees it. I can either eat less, and exercise more, that's pretty simple, right? Or I can go and have the weight loss surgery, and take care of my problem that way. Either way would solve my problem.

The trouble is that I actually do eat pretty healthy, and I do exercise. Yes, I could probably do a little more than I do, but overall? I do not spend my days laying on my bed eating ice cream and potato chips, and drinking Pepsi, while having someone hand me junk food and watching soap operas. I get up and get what I want to eat, and I exercise. I take care of myself.

So I fear, greatly, that if I have weight loss surgery...what if it doesn't work, because I actually *am* already eating healthy, and it won't do me any good? If it cuts my calories down, but because I've already *done* that, it isn't going to do that awesome result that so many heavy people get? Then what? I've let someone do surgery on me, for no end result?

And being told by someone who doesn't actually have a weight problem, *and* who hasn't got physical restrictions limiting him from doing more exercise, and who can eat anything he wants, and does, majorly hurt me. Because it made me feel awful, about myself, and about everything I've done to get to where I am now. And as someone who couldn't walk from the living room to the car, I know what a major fucking deal it is, the fact that I can walk to anywhere I want to go. I might not get there very fast, but I can get there.

I own two canes, and I actually still *need* to use them, sometimes. They aren't here for decoration, or as toys because I just want them for my personal entertainment. That's what 'disabled' means. It means that it sucks to be me, and I have to cope with that, even when it isn't convenient. It means that some days, I'm going to be dizzy, and unbalanced, and whether I like it or not? Whether I'm heavy or skinny? I'm still going to need a cane. Because that's just how it is.

And I wonder sometimes, if he thinks that my losing weight is some kind of choice, and that if I really wanted to, I could just...write out a little plan, and hang it on the wall, and follow it, and it would just fall into line. That weight loss works that way, in some kind of "I want it this way, and if I would just have enough determination, then I'd be thin" sort of reasoning.

If it was that simple, I'd weigh about a hundred and fifteen pounds. I have determination in spades, what I don't have is a body that cooperates, and actually does what it seems as though it would logically do, in spite of what I put in, or take out, or exercise, or anything else. I can eat 600 calories a day. I can eat 2600 calories a day. I can, and have, followed x, y, z diets, to the letter, and the end result is still the same, every time. My weight doesn't move. I just don't know why :(

And now I'm more depressed than I was when I started writing this. I was rather hoping that the process of writing it was going to make me feel somewhat better, for working it out in my head, but it doesn't seem to have. So I'm going to go, and work on my never-ending homework, and then read a novel, where make-believe people solve make-believe problems, in some other world, that isn't mine, until I fall asleep.

Goodnight, internets. I hope that someone, somewhere is having a better night than I am.

respect for the people who have been lost and acknowleding the loss for a friend

I am so sorry, and no amount of words or sympathy will make it better. A prince among men, and a loss to many.

*silence and respect for the memory of*

I don't understand it when adults are selfish and immature to the point of ruining others' happiness. Perhaps I truly have removed myself from the rest of 'society', that I just stand/sit around and observe a lot of the time, instead of participating actively, and because I observe, I just don't understand how people can do so much harm to each other.

How can anyone be so narcissistic as to not notice the misery on someone else's face, the complete unhappiness radiating off of a person they're supposed to love? And it's an ongoing thing, not just a one-time event, which is part of what's disturbing me.

Reminds me of the smile now, cry later masks that I used to see, because if I ask, everyone swears that everyone is happy, and things will get better, of course they will. Just a little glitch, and everything is great, just needs a little work, and some time, and a little adjustment.

The trouble with 'a little work, some adjustment', and things of that nature? When you're building something new, if all the adjustments are one side? What you're building is just going to fall down. You can't make everything be happy, and you can't force everything to work, and correct all the little glitches yourself. It takes everyone working together to make things better.

It's a lesson I had to learn the hard way, that you can't force someone to be happy, when they're not. You can't make someone love you, who doesn't, and you can't turn someone into something that they just aren't. No matter how hard you try, and no matter what you do, people are just going to be who they are. It's a sad but true fact. You accept them, all of them, and not while wearing rose-colored glasses. You take them as they are, faults, limitations, flaws and all, or you don't take them. And you don't try to change them, or it just won't work. And if the person you think they are, and want them to be, isn't the person you want? Then, ultimately, you have to let them go, without hate and without malice, because that's just the way it has to work.

You cannot build a foundation on something that isn't real, because the cracks will keep splintering underneath you, and you can't patch holes forever. Fights, and facades kind of drains the life of a person, over time, no matter how hard someone tries. Nobody is that strong.

And I wonder, when the people who blithely drift through life, doing only what they want for themselves, and leaving wreckage and carnage in their wake, I wonder about the people they've destroyed. I wonder about the people who've been left by the wayside, or the ones who are still being damaged, and if they realize that walking away is a viable solution. I wonder at the sadness and the anger, what will come from that, over time? You can only abuse people so much, before revenge and havoc attempts to pay back for a lifetime of neglect and disinterest, or worse. The seeds of that kind of damage can be dark, indeed. And I wonder, if anyone ever thinks about that?

...testing, testing...is this thing even on?

Yeah, it's on. I haven't fallen into a chasm, and gotten trapped down at the bottom, although I'm sure it appears that way sometimes to those of you who I never talk to anymore. And that's an awful lot of people. I'm working on that, sorry about the lack of communication, I've been a combination of busy and exhausted. Today is what, Wednesday? Yes, it must be, I just got home, after spending the entire day either in doctor's offices, getting lab work done, or picking up new prescriptions from the new doctors.

I admit it, I'm...hopeful? The new guy seems incredibly competent, in addition to being very nice, and very willing to explain things to me, so that I grasp what it is that he's doing whatever he's doing. Downside? Mountains of lab work, and what I can already tell is probably going to be the round-robin game of MRI's in the near future. But as long as it's for a good cause, I'll deal with it.

Competency in the medical field goes a long way with me, and this gentleman certainly seems to know his shit. It's been quite a while since I sat down and had a conversation with a medical professional who I didn't need to educate on my various problems, and instead, who already knew what was wrong with me, and had suggestions on how to fix them. I'm feeling rather upbeat as a result.

But they took a lot of blood today, and I was incredibly stupid, and didn't think to eat before I left the house, nor did I think to take food with me, so I was woozy as hell after that blood draw, and now I feel kind of, no, incredibly run down. And I'm not sure how I'm going to react to the new stuff, but I'll give it a chance, because anything is better than the way I've been going on.

In other events, I'm looking forward to the paper I'll be researching for my crim class this week, it sounded interesting when I saw the assignment. I'll probably put it together either tomorrow, or Friday afternoon/evening, and tweak it Saturday before I turn it on Sunday. The child development/psychology assignment is also due this weekend, and I plan to put that together tomorrow, after I take C.A. to her appointment. She's nervous, and I want to be there for her.

If J's free Friday, there will be Angel, and if not, I'll do the fine tuning on the crim assignment. That's how that works. Either way, there won't be homework tonight, because I have other plans for myself tonight. I'm already too run down to try and focus for school, and I require cuddles and attention and love. And a shower.

I always want a freaking shower after the vampires at the lab take all my blood away. Not sure why, but I always feel all yucky and dirty, and want a shower. Weird. And I'm freezing cold, and want nothing more than to curl up under a blanket with someone who has a lot of body heat that I can steal. I suspect dinner will be something very fancy, like hot soup, and sandwiches. Right now, Ezz is laying on my lap, trying to keep me warm. He's such a good boy.

Maybe he'll come back to my lap after I get out of the shower. Mmm...maybe I'll make hot chocolate? That suddenly sounds incredibly good. Nummy hot chocolate and a warm kitteh and my warm blanket and a book, or maybe a movie. Hmm. I have earplugs in, to escape the evil that is the gardeners, since I have a headache, and I don't want to hear them.

So that's what I did today, I went and got jabbed with needles, made plans to do homework, and cuddled my kitteh. In a little while, my source of warmth and loves will get back home, and I will snuggle with him, so I should go and shower, so that I can cuddle on him and be all clean and not feel icky.

And away I go...g'night internets.