Two of my friends instigated hugs with me today. Win.

When I finally stumbled out of bed today I had a text from Oli inviting me to lunch, so I left the house today when I otherwise might not have.  Satay noodle house noodle soup for the lunch win.

Then I pottered in town a little.  Making much use of my COVID tracing app.

After he finished work Firmin dropped by and did a very good job of pretending he was visiting for selfish reasons while he checked up on me.  I have better friends than I deserve.

And I got to show off my sandfly bites from the weekend.  So eaten.

First game in ages

 I need to be in more than one game.  After weeks of the one game being off I found myself utterly without roleplaying.  Was very nice when game happened tonight.  The session had no combat, was purely social and investigatory challenges but was great.

I need to write enough of my Laboratory Animals game that I started with friends many years ago to give another go at running it.  I hate GMing, but accept it is probably the only way to get some Pathfinder 1e in my life again.

Away and back

 On Thursday I had lunch with Oli in town and chatted about the trip away.  Otherwise a quiet day of not much.

On Friday morning I got up and ready to go swimming with Midget, instead the plan was tweaked to getting fancy breakfast out instead (Nova waffles with bacon).  Then I watched her do some shopping before I came home to pack.

Then off for a weekend away.

Oli picked me up shortly after 1700, and we went to his place where I entirely failed to help him load the far too much stuff into the car.  Mostly I just harassed his eldest spawn - by three-and-a-half-year-olds are easy to get worked up and I am a monster.

Then we headed to Oturehua.

On the drive, with my luggage wedged in around my feet, I killed my good jandals by moving my feet too much while the jandal was rather pinned in place.  Which is irksome.  They were good jandals, I bought that pair to go to Canada.  They have served me well.

Then it was long weekend away.

Much socialising.

So much dealing with preschoolers.

It involved.... I think five, under-four-year-olds.  Small people are so damn much work.

At least Dave and Adrian joined me in the not-parents camp - so it wasn't just me sticking out for having failed to reproduce.

For reasons I don't really understand small children mostly continue to like me (except Oli and Greer's youngest, who mostly seems to dislike my face).  Combined with my pathological need to appear helpful even when people wouldn't rather I didn't, I ended up imposing my help a bunch.  Utterly exhausting myself in the process.

By the time I got back on Monday evening I was reading to tumble into a pile of useless and kept zoning out.  This zoning out left to missing my 2200 meds, and not taking them until I woke in pain and came out to find painkillers in the small hours of the morning and saw my evening meds sitting out and ready to go on my desk.  I don't understand how I failed to notice anything that obvious, and thus take them after I put them out.  And I had been awake stupidly late anyway as over-tiredness had made me fussy and unable to sleep.

Oh, and in the shower when I got home I found I had hives hiding under my beard.  I guess I wasn't being careful about what I ate, as group meals.

Tuesday, I did basically nothing.  I hurt a lot and so I spent the day in my PJs watching youtube and being too out of it to do anything more than the idlest of playing on the internet - I definitely wasn't up to playing computer games.  In spite of having realised I had had the expansion on Pokemon Sword for a while now and haven't loaded it yet.  In the evening I made a stupid mistake in loading up a dating site to reply to a message and looking at the locals.  I spotted something that appear to be about Shitlord in the profile of the man he got his residency through and it was something I really didn't want to know.  Might be useful though as I have been worrying recently that I was too harsh in the comments I made that led to our not being friends.  This all reminds me that the problem isn't me.

Today my face pealed off.  The hives from Monday where now like a slightly scabby dandruff coming out of my beard.  The grossness.  Otherwise I have done nothing but some laundry today.  About to go to roleplaying, hopefully do not look too gross.

New meds still suck

 I don't remember Friday, so I probably didn't do much.

Saturday was election day.  Since my weekend away was cancelled I spend the day being that weirdo who tells people to vote on facebook.  At dinner time Firmin and I got pizza and went to Simon's to watch the results.  Simon is so much more up on the who did what of NZ politics and cares so much more than I do.  I just get quietly angry that the "left" is really centre right and everyone calls the Greens radical leftists when they are barely left of centre while ignoring the radical right as just being economically conservative and possibly even 'responsible'.  I mean, technically the left won the election - except they didn't.  Over half the parliament has gone to a single party for the first time since I was a kid - and it is the aggressively centrist (in a neo-liberal framework) party that led the last coalition.  I am not that comfortable with them ruling alone, but stealth my shithole country has resisted the global trend to Nazism for now.

Sunday, I read.  I spent the day on the 17th Dresden Files book.

Monday, I was feeling destroyed,  I was shaky and I could barely stand.  Yay new meds.

So I gave myself a haircut with shitty clippers and mostly by feel.  I look like a spaz (as usual).

Yesterday, I went to writing group and did no writing.  Mostly I just nodded while they talked about World of Warcraft.  Sometimes I think I should have got into that game a decade ago to have more in common with the social group I see the most of - and maybe it would have tipped me off to the fact Shitlord wasn't actually that good at it and thus not actually spending as much time on it as he claimed.  I caught up with an old friend I haven't really talked to in years last night, led to the Shitlord thing being back in my head today - which is fucking annoying.

And I got chop suey on the way home from Great Wall.  After ordering it and having the woman taking the order act exactly like it was a perfectly normal order, I sat waiting and realised it wasn't actually on their menu.  Oops... or not.  I guess it was actually fine.  And the result was good.

Today I have watched youtube.  Hopefully about to go to roleplaying - though things are being drama because reasons I don't understand.

 I am not allowed to talk about the anxiety dreams that left me awake much of the night.

Legally.

Not today anyway, even though this has no New Zealand readers so nothing I can could be taken to encourage any biases in anyone else's voting.

But still, I am surprisingly rules oriented.

Fambly

 On Tuesday morning I rolled out of bed and rush, via my mother's work, to Vogel St Kitchen to have breakfast with a cousin and her parents (my aunt and uncle (why am I wording things awkwardly)), along with my mother and transsister (who my mother continues to reliably misgender).  I only had a cinnamon roll as I had got there  a bit late and was worried ordering actual food would leave me eating after people left (a wrong and irrational worry).  It was nice to see them, and to see that my simultaneously favourite and least favourite cousin has mostly grown up to be an entirely likeable person.  They were in town for a family funeral (the other side, so someone I think I only ever met once or twice and that 30 years ago), so it was not all cheerfulness but was still nice.

As I was leaving I chanced into one of my friends, Carla, and ended up walking with her to vote.  Then it was home to spend the rest of the day in my undies watching animated history videos on YouTube.  Oh and also rang and made a phone nurses appointment.  Wen she rang back I got some results, my mass biopsy returning a result of 'benign' which is nice.  And I found out what the weird script was for, it turns out my kidneys are fucked and no-one had bothered to tell me.  Yay for medical professionals caring about informed consent.....

Wednesday, I pottered.  Until mid-afternoon when I went to Countdown to fill the scripts from the specialist.  It was the wrong decision.  After they had taken the scripts the pharmacist (or maybe assistant, it was hard to tell) told me to come back in 45 minutes.  So I spent almost an hour in town window shopping and buying a bunch of stuff a New World before returning to Countdown and finding it still wasn't ready.  Then it turned out the specialist had only given me scripts for a month - which is awkward.

So today I started new meds.  And otherwise mostly just zoned out to YouTube.  Did go for a walk to South D though, to get Firmin-candy for when I see him in the weekend (my trip away plans postponed again, this time because miniature people have illness).

A Grouch

I am having one of those days when friends sending me a 'hi' on messenger has me grumbling "fuck off" at my computer before I attempt to fake typed polite humanness.

Anyway, days that have been.

Thursday I went to my CT scan.  I got anxious about how long it would take to get there so was wandering around Mercy hospital 40 minutes before I had reason to be there.  And that is the best way to start to become anxious about things there are no reason to be anxious about.  Which was when I noticed my neck lump was smaller than usual (I have since worked out that it swells and reduces slowly, with no connection to anything I have been able to recognise), and convinced myself the whole being sick is in my head - in spite of the fact the walk up to Mercy had the stabbing lung pain really drawing attention to itself.

Anyway, after much pacing and then much waiting in a hallway (the same hallway waiting room the featured before my MRI in 2011(I tried to check on facebook, but can see the thumbnail of the shot but the picture with the date on it isn't loading - because facebook is shit and should be set on fire (got the picture eventually, and yes 2011)), when I got the DVD), I went in for the scan.  Even though I had worn light metal-less clothing as I wouldn't have to change into a gown, they still made me and the gown was far too snug.  It was clearly made for a much smaller (and, thus, more person sized) person.  So then I got slid through a thin (compared to an MRI anyway) doughnut of tech a bunch of times and then injected with 150mL of contrasting agent, which I believe was called omnipaque, so I could be slid through a few more times.  After the scan I was asked how I was feeling and admitted that the contrasting agent had left me face feeling painfully hot, so one of the techs got me a cold facecloth and talked a bit more.  She asked if anything else felt wrong and I awkwardly went 'ah, yeah, something'.  She smiled a bit and asked "like a hot chilli rubbed on your butthole".  It was not the explanation I would have gone with but was very correct for the experience.  Nice to know the weirdness was common (though when I got home I realised whatever reaction had caused the feeling had also burst a rhoid, which I assume is less common).

On the way home I got Korean food for a late lunch to make up for the hours of fasting before the scan, then spent the evening feeling weird and gross (which I am assuming was the contrast at work).

Friday.  I don't remember at all.  I think I spent it as home in my PJs.  Yes, I spent it dozing and playing a little Crusader Kings 3.  Late Friday night I bought Baldur's Gate 3 on GOG and spent too long trying to install it.  That fact my computer had issues with that should have made it more obvious that this machine is slightly too old for the game I am trying to make it run the yet-to-be-optimised early access game.

But by lunch time Saturday I had managed to play with the character creator a bit, and the first bit of the game.  When the map is tiny I can run it.  Moving into the first proper map and things went badly.  I really need to replace my PC.  I have been saying that for over a year, but now that games I care to play properly are starting to come out I am actually going to have to start acting on it.

Saturday afternoon I went to a BBQ, so was socialising for the afternoon and it was nearing midnight by the time I got home.  So much being around humans.  Ick.  But one of my favourite people was briefly there, so I guess it was worth it.

Sunday, I spent in my PJs and did nothing more productive than wash my mattress protector.  The weather didn't do as the metservice had suggested so it didn't dry as fast as I would like.  Combined with falling asleep in a chair for a bit, the day finished with showering and then fighting the protector and clean linen onto my bed at 2am this morning.  Yay fitted sheets and a high profile mattress.

Today, another PJ day.  Playing some CK3 as the BG3 takes over twenty minutes to load a save and doesn't run great.  As I said paragraphs earlier, I have to look into buying a new machine.

I waste too many great lines in conversation with people who don't appreciate them.
Sometimes I think I should record all my great lines for my one reference, but most of them would seem stupid outside of their very wasteful context.

Outside is the wrong side

 I had completely forgotten about the Brick Show until Simon texted me about how much Joe enjoyed it.  So instead of going on Saturday morning when i could have got cheap or unusual Lego from the Toyworld stand, I went on Sunday.

And no-one there was wearing a mask so peer pressure made me pocket mine.  And there was no Lego that I wanted to buy (that part is probably a good thing).  I did buy raffle tickets for another of the tree-house - because if I won it I would feel more about about just using it for parts and not the intended set.

On the walk home I got some stuff from Couplands.  Because pie.

Yesterday, I had a dietician appointment where I wasn't fat shamed or food policed.  It was amazingly unexpected.  I have been given some advice on dealing to my IBS and some simple first steps to avoiding explosive poops.  That is basically all I remember about the day.  I think i also played a bit of NWN2 because I been watching too much hype for BG3.

Today I left the house for a "Hip" (health improvement practitioner) appointment;  i.e. the OT who is trying to manage my mental health.  She is better than any of the people running the group things I did, but it is still an exercise in awkwardness.

Then came home thinking I was late for a drop off from Firmin, but he rearranged things and is now coming later, if I interpreted things correctly it will now involve socialising.  Which is good for me.  Socialising more was pretty much the main instruction given by the OT in the HIP appointment.

Bad choices and snapchat

Thursday, I went and got my chest X-ray.  Hopefully it finds nothing but, also, if it finds nothing it doesn't help solve my issues.   Otherwise didn't do a hell of a lot, even had TV dinner because cooking was too much effort.  I haven't actually cooked in over a week, has just been heating pre-made stuff or takeaways.

Yesterday, Oli came around to visit for a bit and then we had a picnic in the Botanical Gardens with his 9 month old (who isn't very mobile so couldn't act on her desire to chew on seagulls).  Then I hung out back at his house until a bit after Greer got home from work.  It was nice to see Greer, she had avoided me entirely for months.  Then they went off to their plans for Friday and I got Kenko buri box takeaways and watched some TV (The Boys and Lower Decks amongst other stuff).

I woke this morning from a dream where I was melodically speaking a lot of pop songs because I had had to prove my 80s pop music knowledge but wasn't allowed to sing (for reasons that I don't remember and may have never known, because dream logic).  Quickly after the random Saudi I have been chatting to online convinced me to install snapchat so he could video chat me and prove he was an actual person.  Was actually slightly surreal for a foreigner on a dating site to be a person and not a scam bot.  Though I don't know why we are continuing to talk when we appear to have pretty much nothing in common, not really even a language.

Still very sore and moving is unpleasant, but I have an X-ray appointment in a bit over an hour so I have to get sorted and leave the house.
And have pants on before I leave the house - that part is important to remember.