Overextended my spoons unpacking Lego

Tuesday I made it out of the house and to hospital for my brain poking.  Psychodynamic psychotherapy had got to the point he asked me to talk through something mentioned in the referral letter that he had avoided reading for weeks so it didn't colour his view of me.

And so we talked about "the reason I dislike Anglicans".

It was not fun but it is done.  Then did some examination of very present things rather than follow the trauma trail, so by the end of the session my brain had been rubbed fresh enough that I wasn't left fixating on pain from the mid 90s.  The notion that some of my anxiety things may be PTSD was raised, which I am not sure how I feel about.

Then home, after some shopping to get the Lego viking I failed to get last week and use it to make a centaur-viking.

I think mostly all I did for the later part of the day was read that fat book.  As I finished it slightly after midnight.

Wednesday, I spent working on my Pathfinder game with watching too much YouTube.  In the evening I met a friend coming out of work, having shamelessly abused our friendship by getting her to do the printing for my game for me.   I grabbed noodle soup and then headed to me game.  It went very well.  I think my players are enjoying it - it is not going exactly as I planned but it is working enough.  Though the walk home after took well over an hour as my body had started to complain about the moving and the heavy bag.

On Thursday morning I noticed Cyberpunk had updated again and decided I should give playing it another go, possibly for the first time this year - it seems a long time since I had given up on the game.  At lunch time Oli dropped by for a cuppa and a chat, which was very nice.  Then after work Firmin came around to borrow my Nintendo Switch, so I got a second decent chat in.  Yay for friends.

The day also featured a video call "breakup" with someone I'd never met because the internet and my sending people confusingly mixed messages.  I am bad at talking to people.  But it had been a month or two since I possibly broke anyone...

Today, I finally started to unpack Lego.  Having got rid of my big box of clothes I don't intend to keep last night, making it a viable next step.

My new flat has so much less space to Lego.  It is a problem.  Almost half my castles will have to stay in boxes as there is nowhere to put them.

It hurt my neck, but it is done.

I should be asleep, but just finished Y: The Last Man and felt I should gloat to my mostly non-existent readers before I head to bed.  The awkward position the giant book forced me to read in has left me with a sore neck and unhappy back.

I am testing out my heatpump because the thermometer on the car that dropped me home had read 3 degrees

I have been reading Y: The Last Man on the floor, with the book between two pillows as it is too thick to open flat without breaking its spine.  And it is too heavy to hold and read like a normal book.  It is basically a giant bother.  Buying the omnibus edition was a terrible misstep.

This afternoon I went to Claire's house for boardgames as Firmin has picked up the European expansion for Wingspan.  It was fun.  I lost horribly.  We played a couple of other games after and I excelled at coming 4th or 5th of the 5 players.

Then up to Carla's for D&D, and dinner grabbed from the chip shop along the road.  The spring roll was nice but that chips were not good.

And home to a flat that feels genuinely cold.  My flat hadn't felt cold at all until a couple of days ago.  Stupid turning of the seasons.  So I turned the heat-pump on for the first time.  Set to 16 degrees.  It did nothing for quite a while and then blew quite the storm of stink, followed by loud creaking and cracking heat expansion noise.  I guess the first time running needed to be dramatic, or some such thing.

ANZAC laziness

I slept through the guns, assuming they fired this year.  And slept through being able to get a free disappointing Navy breakfast of mince on toast (something I have never abided).  When I did wake I had dad's home-made ANZAC biscuits for breakfast as they are basically solid porridge and then finally finished reading Jasper Fforde's Constant Rabbit.  It was very good.  For some reason I was slightly too taken with the line "London is just one massive money-laundering scheme attached to an impressive public transport system and a few museums, of which even the most honest has more stolen goods than a lock-up garage in Worcester rented by a guy I know called Chalky."  I also enjoyed the complaining in text about surnames that start with Ff.

Now about to start a book I had arrive in the mail earlier in the week - something I bought purely as it had won a bunch of things.

[Edit:13:38 but don't want to make another whole entry for a single note]

I read the book.  Flamer by Mike Curato.  It was too close, too much like a gut punch, too familiar, to be enjoyable for me.  I think it might be good, but I regret buying it.  I guess I will lend it to people, or maybe donate it to the library (since I bought it in hardback).

Now taking the plastic off the Y: The Last Man Omnibus that has been sitting on my lounge floor for a couple of weeks.

Oh, I didn't mention that yesterday I watched the Shadow and Bone first season.  I have some issues with the adaptation making everything rushed, underdeveloped and with very flat characters.  It is better than I expected but did screw up some of the only things the books did well.

Ditto

So Tina dropped me home from the outing with Giffy and family, and I was utterly out of spoons.  So I blobbed in front of my TV, opened up TVNZ on demand and for some reason opened its OutTV 'channel'.  Some terrible homo dating show ran for a while as I did some nothing.  And every ad break was the Ending HIV ad about the free toothbrush with the at home testing kit.  So I went to the website to get myself a toothbrush.  The site says one every six months so I fill out all the forms honestly and it then prude-shams me and says I don't qualify for two rainbow toothbrushes a year as I don't have enough of a sex life for them to consider me to need regular testing.

Rude.

So rude.

Thursday, first thing I decided I needed to uncover and air my weird weeping allergic reaction as having it covered wasn't stopping it leaking.  I hate my stupid body.

Then I met Oli outside his work at lunch time to get satay soup and chat.  Then i had a bit of time to kill so squeezed Lego bags at Farmers to find another centaur, then stopped at EB Games and saw they had a new box of an old series but I was rushed as I realised I was now going to be late to my doctor's appointment so in my rush I bought an Olympic athlete instead of a viking.  I felt the spear and got cocky.

I made it to my doctor's office, for my last appointment with him, exactly on time.  If a bit walk and sweaty from hurrying.  We had a chat about why he was leaving - and I can't fault any of it.  And he lowkey encouraged me to think of changing to a different office (though not the one he is going to, which isn't taking new people).  Then we went through the list I had brought of symptoms I thought might be caused by my new meds.  Combined with my blood tests results I was apparently just proving I have Graves' disease now.  But none of the weight loss it is famous for.

Friday I didn't leave the house.  But a friend visited for a few hours in the afternoon between his shifts, to return my Neverwhere DVDs and borrow Good Omens instead.  I make people watch the good things.  

In the evening I made sensible stir fry dinner.  Like a mother fucking adult, mother fucker.

Today, I wanted to do nothing but my family turned up and made me go out for lunch.

Just as I got home from getting very frustrated with my sister, I realised I had a text reminding me I had a BBQ to go to, on a wet and thundering day.

Bridget picked me up and it was off to see the new-build house of friends (who are more Oli's relatives than actually friends of mine) as Mel was back from London and it had been her birthday.  It was a pretty good night, even with far, far too many children.  I was only entirely childless adult there (the one other non-parent has a step-kid).  It was loud and chaotic.

My brain doesn't love the noise of children.

I am blaming it for how bad my tinnitus is tonight.  On which note I should be sleeping.

I did the thing again

 So once again I have failed to finish a post before I got to the point I had titled it after.

This time was Stellaris's fault.

Anemic sex life robs me of free toothbrush

Monday I spent the day in my Oodie, playing Stellaris and watching... something.  I had showered and dressed for D&D, but was not bothered when it cancelled on me - even if it messed up my relying on the group dinner for my meal planning and had to delivereasy instead.  I had also had an allergic reaction to a bandaid I had put on and it had taken away a chunk of skin leaving a raw, weeping, hole.  Not ideal.

Tuesday, I failed to get started.  Only washed and dressed after my dad messaged to say he was coming to get me for dinner.  We went to Speights and I had ribs.  Then after a short supermarketing, I got home and played more Stellaris.  Still not enjoying it, still feeding it all my life.

Wednesday, I went to town at lunch time to catch up with Giffy, a friend from undergrad who is visiting town with her family.  Got lunch with them and Tina at Governor's Cafe.  Then we headed to the museum and Giffy shouted me into the Butterfly house with her family.  Her kids are so lovely I suspect they have been replaced by Stepford robots.

Still picking glue out of my not-that-substantial chest hair

Last Sunday I spent the day in my Oodie, not going out of my unit or doing anything much, Still recovering from the wobbles.

On Monday I had to force myself up and dressed, was still feeling a bit off but had an appointment to get to.  Dietician, who is surprisingly good at acting like she doesn't judge overeating at all and acts like she only cares the important nutrients are being got and can happily overlook all the excess carbs.  She did convince me to buy the Monash FODMAP app, which at some stage I have to learn to use.

In the evening I went to Carla and Ian's for chicken stew and D&D.  I don't know how long the game will keep going.  The DM has done a lot of prep work over many years of preplanning, but we keep going off script and her partner does not seem to be enjoying it.  So two marks against the effort she has put in.

I got home and discovered my hot water cylinder in my new build flat was leaking, after only six weeks of use.

Tuesday, my brain poking was moved a little earlier than usual.  But fortunately we got distracted and didn't get on to the stuff I had been worried we were up to.  Got briefly gone over at the end when he admitted to having finally read the letter from my one session up the hill, and thus some ballpark stuff came up.

Then hurrying home to sit and wait for a plumber due between 1400 and 1700.  So I waited and he arrived at 1650ish, was a tiny pimply child and made it worse rather than better.  Then my family arrived so I ended up going to Chopsticks101 for dinner out.

Wednesday was again waiting for a plumber, while writing the session for my weekly Pathfinder game.  Older plumber turned up and quickly fixed the problem, a cracked pressure valve.  No leaking since.

In the evening, after a sandwich for dinner, and got a ride from my dad for my game (so I only had to carry all the books home).  Game was fine.  Went a bit quick and I ran out of things I wanted them to do while still first level.  So we levelled up to kill some time.  And I bought belgium biscuit flavoured buns on the walk home - because sugar.

Thursday, I slothed at home until Firmin picked me up for dinner with Simon.  Nando's goodness.  We didn't hang out after as non-me people have lives and other plans.

Friday morning I had to be at the hospital before 9am - so obviously I barely slept.  Fortunately, I was surprisingly non-wobbly.  I got up and washed, breakfasted and dressed a bit earlier than I needed to and then had an anxiety attack about bumping into Shitlord's former bestie (who I mostly like, but earlier in the week I was being pestered on a dating app by one of Shitlord's other partners (who I had blocked on facebook when things happened, and who had found me somewhere else)) so slowed myself down.

I got to the pre-appointment ECG and there was a queue.  The place was opening an hour later than usual and people had been there waiting for a while.  It was still only about ten minutes before I got ECG'd (it was unremarkably fine so far as anyone told me, I stupidly didn't take a snapshot of it while I was carrying the printout around).

[I did that thing I do where I get distracted and don't even get to the point that I had titled the entry for, so now continuing many hours later]

After the ECG there was a long wait until the appointment as the doctor was running late - he walked back and forward with files a bunch of times, and looked pretty busy.  Some of it was probably quickly reading through my file.

Meeting was depressing.  Pointed out how serious the surgery would be a few times.  And fat shamed me so very, very much.  (The internet suggests this is fairly normal for anaesthetists.)

Afterward I wondered through town to get blood tests, bumping into my dad on the way.  He was standing in uniform on a corner doing the ANZAC poppy thing.   After my long wait for the blood tests meat that I got out just as dad was finishing so I got a ride home and escaped the rain that my washing was out in.....

After a quiet afternoon my father and sister turned out for a stressful and exhausting dinner outing (just because family was being difficult - Sampan was fine).  And in the early evening my GP had emailed me, asking that I double my dose on the pill I am anxious about taking at all as the blood tests show I am pushing over into full Graves' disease.

Friday night and all Saturday went to playing the new Stellaris update while wearing my Oodie.

This morning I was writing the above when I realised I still had goop from the ECG stickers on me.  Revealing I hadn't washed yesterday.  I then wasted another day in Stellaris, a game I still don't particular think I enjoy.  But then I am not particularly skilled at finding pleasure in things that aren't books or the first build of new Lego.  (I really should build my blacksmith.)  I also had a podcast series on in the background, Maintenance Phase.  It is pretty good.  They seem to actually do their research.

Effort

Am supposed to have a support person for the appointment I am heading to, but I only got the letter yesterday and didn't read it until last night.  So it was too late to try to organise something so awkward.

I have only showered and left the house once since Tuesday - I am not doing great

Tuesday seemed to be going fine.  Writing group was cancelled because they were taking anniversary day as Easter Tuesday.  So the first thing I really did with the day was brainpoking.

We talked Shitlord, I had put it off as long as possible.

Trying to explain why I had thought staying with him when he was only very occasionally nice to me was not fun.  And left me feeling pretty drained.

Then in the afternoon I caught up with my god-daughter to get her her birthday present and went to her school sport game - some kiddified version of football.

Wednesday I spent in my house in my PJs feeling destroyed.

Ditto Thursday, except I had to shower in the evening so I could go have dinner with my dad.

And then on Friday I was supposed to be going to a funeral but I woke up in the morning to get ready and found I couldn't stand without support.  I spent most of the day on my lounge floor as even sitting up caused some nausea.  Yay for being me.  So I didn't roadtrip to southland.  I did nothing instead.

Today didn't involve much more - though my family visited with a few bits of groceries and I managed enough uprightness to heat and eat dinner.

Oh yeah, as of yesterday I have been living in my new flat a month and I am still growing into hating it....

Another week that happened

I think it was last Sunday after writing the last entry that I went, compared prices and model and bought a smart TV.  Then I got home just in time to meet with a friend and head to Sutton Salt Lake.  I have wanted to go there for years and made super vague plans with friends that have never happened on several occasions.  So it was great to finally go.

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Monday.... I had a flat inspection.  So instead of cleaning I spent the day rearranging furniture to prepare for my wall mount installation for my TV.  And when hanging out laundry being told some unsettling gossip about a neighbour in the building.  Then the landlord didn't arrive until the very end of the window I was told to expect her during, which meant a lot of waiting and feeling sore from having moved some furniture.  The meeting went fine, if seeming a bit pointless.

Oh, and the landlord pressured me into taking responsibility for the communal glass recycling bins that I don't use (I have my own as everyone is supposed to) and which I made very clear that I don't approve of or want anything to do with.  I am not happy about it.

Afterwards, I was picked up by Lisa and Bruno for a lazy night of pumpkin soup and playing D&D5e.

On Tuesday morning I actually made writing group, for an exercise I really didn't enjoy.  Then off to the hospital for my weekly brainpoking where I managed to defer from the intended plan for the session (talking about Shitlord) by talking about my (rather too similar to Shitlord) mother.  After brainpoking I had lunch with Claire.

I honestly don't remember what I did with the rest of my day after I got home.

Wednesday, I pottered for the morning waiting for the TV installation and getting a surprise visit from the friend with whom things got weird last month (I think to prove we are allowed to pretend his making stuff weird didn't happen).  The installer came at lunch time.  New TV went in fine.  It is off centre because of where the studs are, but that also works for watching it from my desk as well as the couch.  Later in the afternoon I had a phone call from the hospital booking me in for a first thing appointment the next day.

So Thursday morning, April Fools, I started by heading the the Ear, Nose and Throat specialist I was booked with at the hospital.  He had a med student, which I am fine with but which was slightly an issue later.  The specialist did not mess around, I was pretty quickly having anaesthetic sprayed up my nose and then having a endoscope feed up my nose and down to my throat.  I got to watch it all on a big screen in front of me.  Inside are weird.  And vocal cords are really just meat curtains.  And when they move it is a little pornographic, because meat curtains.

Also my vocal cords are not quite where they are supposed to be.  The 'toxic nodal goitre' (they are back to avoiding the word 'tumour') is pushing things out of alignment.  But it is contained enough that they think they can get all of it only opening up my neck, so I am on the semi-urgent list (2 to 4 months) for surgery.  Main risks: bleeding out, loss of ability to manage calcium, possibly permanent reduced control of vocal cords.  The last one was presented as utterly unimportant, they seem to fail to realise how important being able to speak is to me.

Then the student was talked through removing the creepy snake of a camera, and she went a little fast.  It was a bit uncomfortable, even with being very numb.

I got home to have lunch before an event at the my complex but got a message from my mother demanding I drop by her work, and so I did as a quick mission.  Getting home to see the Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs (I totally thought he was Minister of Health, and google led me wrong by incorrectly informing me he still was) standing out outside my building, I had not known he was coming.  Then, realising the event was having more people than expected, I decided to flag it and just go hide in my flat.  A while later I made the stupid decision to go check on my laundry on the clothes line but the moment I opened my apartment door I was face to face with my landlord and multiple government officials.

And so my landlord awkwarded me into letting the Minister of Police, the Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs and the MP for Taieri all have a nose around my flat and ask vague questions I wasn't able to answer honestly because the most threatening and bully-ish of the Kainga Ora managers was herding them.  And that lady scares me.  Poto and Ingrid both seem very nice.  David Clark rubbed me the wrong way, waving his class privilege around, when he commented that reduced storage space was an improvement because it was more modern. Opinions like that are why I will never vote for the NZ Labour Party.  Don't pretend to lean left while being that much of a poor-hating dickhead.

That evening I had dinner with Firmin, Simon and Joe.  Nando's.  And then hung out at Simon and Joe's for a while.  We watched Guardians of the Galaxy 2.  Which I don't think I had seen since seeing it at the theatre.  It is fun, but not exactly as good as I had remembered.

I spent a chunk of Good Friday at Claire and Jesse's, playing boardgames with Firmin.  The Dune Imperium game was quite good.  And I enjoyed the worker placement game using D&D IP, the name of which I do not recall.

Friday night there was a loud, drunken, party in the unit below mine again - filling the glass recycling bins I had just had emptied.

Saturday I went to Beds R Us and picked up a replacement mattress protector after the rubber had separated off from mine while still under warranty.  In the evening I went to dinner at Speight's Ale House with my dad and sister.

Saturday night there was again loud partying coming up through my floorboards.  I am pretty cranky.

Easter Sunday was a mad hot wind weather extravaganza.  The wind slightly ripped my mattress protector's skirt while I was giving it the pre-use wash.  But I got three loads washed and dried, never hanging out one until I had brought in the load before it.  Productive.  I was feeling a bit off in the evening so started reading a terrible young adult fantasy novel, Shadow and Bone (preparing for the TV series).  Finally a night off from loud drunks and I still failed to sleep.

Today the lack of sleep had caught up with me and I have been extra weak and wobbly.  So more reading of that novel.  The only thing I have actually done was help (read 'supervise while not doing anything') my bad screwing my slats onto my base after 12 years of their being loose and moving around a bunch.  Hopefully my bed won't sound so much like a sailing ship now.