As Always, Dancing In My Chair

Hi!

It has been a long time since I even logged in here. It has been a roller coaster ride for Gary and me since last July. We moved to a new state to be closer to our daughter. She is now less than a mile away and I have been happy to be here when she needs help.

Gary overworked himself preparing our old house for sale and ended up in the hospital multiple times over the span of 3 months with 3 surgeries. It took a while but he is getting back to his usual energizer bunny routine and is skiing at a local area.

I overdid myself with the house move and doing everything while Gary was sick. I am paying for it now with the worst chronic fatigue and brain fog flair I have ever had that started just before Thanksgiving. Doing a load of wash can flatten me for a day or more. Ugh.

Basically, anything fandom-related flew out of my head. Tarlan nudged me to reopen a Dreamwidth tab on my browser and I will edge my way back in as my fatigue and fuzzy brain allows.

I do hope everything is going well for everyone. Take care!

Everything went well this morning and I'm back home. The procedure ranked as more obnoxious than a gastroscopy/colonoscopy, but much less than a manometry. I'm pretty awake because the doctor used as little anesthesia as possible, although I foresee a long nap in the near future.

My throat is raw and I'm coughing (not a big surprise) and will likely be sore and feverish for a day or two. No instant findings beyond bronchitis/bronchial irritation from the persistent cough - the biopsy may come back with something, but the doctor doesn't hold out much hope. Next up, a potential referral to a cough center in Massachusetts.

I'm going to make a separate post on an upsetting little thing that just popped up in a comm I frequent and then I shall indulge myself by reading the longer stories I've been saving.

In more ways than one. I just started a 6-day cortisone pack for a major pain flare and, from experience, my temper will be (hell, it already is) appalling for about a week. Little things that I can usually let slide become major issues and my editors go offline. It's better for all concerned if I back away from the keyboard, my flist, (and meta) and focus on attempting to make headway on my challenge fics. Gary's lucky he'll be out of the house most of the time and then leaves for Minnesota on Saturday for two weeks.

In short: I'm here, I'll likely make the occasional comment even shorter than usual, and there's the SGA Newsletter. That'll be about it unless the short story fairy waves a magical wand and fic falls out. Hmmm, is that the fairy for short stories or the short fairy for stories. This is why the hyphens that drove my former beta crazy are my friends.

Please, drop me a PM if I haven't responded to something needed or as expected.

In between sga_newsletter duties,
squeeing and trash talkin' *grin* about mcshep_match,
fixing the broken links on my import from LJ to DW,
and reformatting certain stories in AO3 (darn bug doesn't like large chunks in italics or bold so needed to add html to fix),
( there was my physical )

What it all boils down to is I didn't get to write anything and I have two April deadlines looming. *sigh*

Ah well, there is tomorrow after I tag and post the newsletter, and then the weekend because Gary is going skiing in Vermont for a last hurrah for this season.

*scurries off to catch up on f-list*

Today I started my third round of antibiotics for the cough/infection that won't clear. According to the latest set of x-rays, it's not pneumonia, but there's something going on, so I'm supposed to see a pulmonary specialist next week.

My life is currently sleeping and reading and Gary hovering while trying to coax me to eat something. I'm very thankful for the fanfic I have lined up to read and comment on. I just wish I could write something myself.

I wish I could blame work or Gary or insomnia for my lack of productivity, but still disabled, Gary's been off riding his bike for almost two weeks and won't be back for almost another two, and I've been sleeping almost ten hours a day.

I suppose the sleep issue should be worrying me a little. I've been feeling a little worse than usual - probably a sinus infection - and I know I've been using sleep as an escape, a way to make time pass by since getting out of bed holds little attraction. Yes, I know that's a symptom of depression and I'm already on meds for that, so I'll be visiting the doctor so he can put me on antibiotics again and hopefully back in a better mood. Actually, I know it will, it's not as if I haven't been through this before.

Back to the writing. I've been doing the butterfly thing, fluttering between files and adding a paragraph here and there, but nothing that can be posted. Worse, I've woken up two days in a row with a very dark story poking at me and I'm afraid nothing will get anywhere unless I write it. I'm sitting here thinking that I'd have a hard time convincing myself, let alone my readers, that there's a 'happy' ending to it, even though my OTP ends up together and alive at the end. I thought To Race Apollo, Intentions, and The Seeds of Change were grim. *shudders at the unexpectedly dark place in my brain*

What I'm not going to do is post any new WIPs. The next update to a WIP will be to finish it. I'm determined to get at least one done in the next few weeks - likely The Kent Identity since that's the one I've gotten the farthest on lately.

At least I've been able to get a few pieces done in Photoshop, although even that's dropped off.

I'd really like my brain back on line sometime soon.

A recent phone conversation with my mother-in-law, filtered through Gary:

"How's Val doing?"

"Same as always, she spends most of her time on the couch. She's online all day."

"She must be getting bored. Do you think she'd be interested in listing and selling stuff on Ebay for me?"

I managed to croak out a very emphatic NO and left it to Gary to couch it in more pleasant terms. Boredom is really not a problem for me, unlike too many days I spent at work in the past ready to scream at the monotony. If anything, the days can be too short, even for an insomniac like me.

I read fanfiction and follow links to puzzles and interesting articles and discussions (not always fandom-related) that are provided by my flist. I work on manips and plot out stories and spend a lot of time researching. I've spent hours looking up tidbits about a time period or location, accumulating pages of notes that may or may not appear in the story I'm researching. I get obsessed over details like whether or not the people in Cleveland would call a 'cab' or 'taxi' (and that would be one reason why Willoughby is inching along so slowly).

In addition, I now have the time to give free rein to my compulsion to sort and organize the thousands of stories and pictures I've collected, an obsession that I've put to use in the past with my rec lists. I'm revisiting those and working on adding to them in between the reading and so on. With two fandoms and OTP's, I'm having twice the fun. :-D

I also watch movies occasionally, although I don't follow any television shows. I'm getting ready to watch SGA from the beginning again now that I've finished the complete SG-1 and S-5 has been ordered. I'm sure many more plot bunnies will end up hopping around me, joining the 40 or so currently occupying my hard drive.

On the rare occasion that I want to switch my brain to something entirely different, I play Mahjonng Titans. That scratches my pattern recognition and strategy itch and I love checking my statistics and trying to beat my previous scores.

So boredom? Not a problem, at least not for very long. :-D

You guys have got to be as tired of hearing about me being sick as I am going through it.

I'm not posting this for sympathy comments, just to let you all know that I will finish the beta work and I will post the final list at enter_tzone (and read ALL the stories and feedback on them) and I will get something written.

Just not today.

The bronchitis/pneumonia has pretty much cleared, but my fibromyalgia/rheumatoid arthritis has decided to flare with a vengeance and my fever's spiked to 102 again. I'll be spending the day reading old favorites for comfort. Hopefully, tomorrow will be better.

To be honest, having these 'chores' are what keeps me going on the mediocre days, so please don't be afraid to ask me to beta or make you a manip.

*hugs you all*

Damn it. I finally feel well enough to write something, and then I spend the day filling out the online forms for Social Security Disability. I've been having panic attacks at the thought of going through all the torture - stupid 'feeling of doom', can't take a deep breath, head between the knees panic attacks whenever I opened the damn web page. Absolutely ridiculous reaction from someone who worked for the state worker's compensation board thirty years ago.

Then again, it's probably because I know what fresh hell they put people through when they make a claim. At least I wasn't one of the people wielding pitchforks, I was the one facilitating claims against insurance companies, invoking penalties on late payments, and expediting cases to be heard.

But it's done. I'm exhausted, but the forms are filled out and submitted and now I wait...and wait...and wait some more. Then I'll get my rejection notice and I'll have to start all over again with an appeal.

wahoo

What I really dread is the thought of getting a phone call from them while Gary's gone on his thirty-five day trip and not being able to answer their questions and being forced to go out in public and encounter germs. Hello, Social Security person - woman in virtual bubble here! Did you read how many times I've gotten sick in the last three years alone?

I seriously need to get out of whining mode here.

Hold on! Just switch an 'h' for an 'r' and that first 'n' for a 't' and...writing mode!

There that's much better.

*dusts off hands in satisfaction and opens A Stop in Willoughby*