This is my life now, apparently.

I got a new sensor. Thank you, Julian. He was nice enough to go fetch it from Doctor Caswell’s office for me after I called up and asked nicely for it.

Now I just have to work up the nerve to try applying it, hopefully this time without breaking it, and then hopefully get the fucking thing up and running so I can finally play with my new toy.

Um, I mean monitor my blood glucose like a good diabetic.

With my new toy.

It’s even my favorite kind of toy : the kind that makes SCIENCE!

Like I have said before, some people dream of living in a mansion, driving fancy sports cars, and going everywhere in limo.

Me, I dream of owning my very own Gas Chromatograph Mass Spectrometer (GCMS).

It can identify the exact elemental composition of any substance you feed it! And it does it with LASERS! ^[1]. How cool is that?

The answer is “very”. Very very cool./

Oh, and Joe has supplied with me with batteries for that blood pressure monitor I bought like a month ago then promptly forgot about due to lack of batteries.

Now I will finally get to try the damned thing.

Assuming I can find it. It kind of got sucked into the chaos nexus that is my desk.

One of these days I will learn to throw stuff out.

Oh, and I had a nice conversation with the diabetes nurse from Richmond Hospital. She was late, grrr – the appointment was for 1 pm and I didn’t hear from her until 1:20 pm.

But whatever, she seems quite nice. Another nice older lady. I could get used to this. I want all my medical professionals to be sweet little old ladies now.

It would reduce my anxiety considerably, because sweet little old ladies with kind voices and a gently attentive manner are people I trust implicitly by default.

Because they sound like they truly care. Ergo I trust them to look after me. Male doctors never give me that feeling, although Doctor Chao is pretty nice.

But he does not give me the feeling he cares because he rarely seems to remember much about me.

Well I only see him every three months except for when I have problems. But still.

I need both the compassion and the competence before I will trust someone with something as important as my health.

I need to be seen as a person. An individual. Someone with a personality and feelings and who is, despite prodigious intellectual abilities. quite fragile and delicate in many ways, and who needs quite a bit of gentleness and understanding in order to feel safe enough to really relax.

I am a strange blend of confident and delicate. Opinionated and vulnerable. Powerful and helpless. Magnificent, and pathetic.

I sometimes wish I was a more well rounded person instead of this cluster of extremes.

Then again, if I was more well rounded, I wouldn’t be nearly as interesting.

I think I prefer being a freak.

More after the break.

---

Progress at last

Well I finally got the ferschlugginer thing to work.

Just got my first home blood glucose reading in a decade. 19.7 mm/L. That is pretty damned bad. Normal is 7 mm/L.

But that is hardly a surprise. I knew my diabetes was out of control. That’s why I wanted this glucometer so bad, so I could get some hard data and react accordingly.

Right now, my plan is to wait until an hour after I finish my supper, take a reading, and act accordingly. Presumably, the reading will still be super high, in which case I will give myself a stiff shot of insulin and check again in an hour.

I’m going to get that damn thing under control no matter what it takes.

Supper tonight is chili and cheese toast, and normally I would not bother mentioning that, but I would like to share the results of a little experiment of mine.

See, I had this little container of 7-11 nacho cheese sauce left over from the last time I ordered a cheddar smokie from there, and I thought I would just mix that in with the chili before heating it up.

Nacho cheese and chili seemed like a smart combo to me. Basically a chili cheese dog without the bun.

So I made my little concoction, heated it up in the nuker, took a bite, and unsurprisingly it tasted like…. mustard, kinda?

Wait, I was wrong, that is SUPER surprising!

Tastes enough like mustard that I had to stop and wonder if that’s what was actually in the container. But if so, it was a much duller yellow and much more viscous a mustard than I have ever seen.

Not even Dijon is that thick.

So it probably actually WAS nacho cheese that went in. In which case, there is a very good chance that this stuff wouldn’t taste like mustard to anyone else ever.

My taste buds, like me, are a tad eccentric and sometimes lock on to one obscure note in a flavour and then that’s all I can taste.

I still bear the scars of Bullseye BBQ Sauce tasting like a dirty ashtray to me.

Still, I should not be so quick to self-persecute. Maybe it really WAS mustard. Next time I am in the kitchen, I will sniff the container before throwing it out.

If it IS mustard, that will still be a mystery, albeit a lesser one. Because why the fuck would some DoorDasher give me a container of mustard when I definitely did not order it? I rarely have mustard on my hot dogs. I find the stuff obnoxious.

Which is why when I DO have it, it’s in a miniscule amount.

Oh well, it’s just one of my life’s many tiny weird experiences.

My reality has always been a little wobbly.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.

Otherwise known as the answering machine.

Noticed the red light was flashing on our answering machine ^[1]. Normally, I tend to ignore that signal because my complicated psychological issues make me freeze up at the possibility of having to write down a message for someone else and then take responsibility for making sure they get it and then it’s become a whole thing.

And we all know that things becoming things is the worst possible thing.

But that is, to put it mildly, silly. Getting messages to people is no big deal. I did it all the time as a kid. I actually kind of liked it, despite occasionally getting flak from the recipients about not asking the right questions or whatever.

Plus, to be honest, the vast majority are going to be for me anyhow.

Turns out when you body is falling apart, your social calendar really heats up.

So I pressed the red button and got my message. Turns out I have a phone appointment with the nurse at the Diabetes Clinic at Richmond Hospital tomorrow.

Wow, imagine that.

I missed what time the meeting was the first time I listened to the message, so I hit play messages again. This played all I stored messages, of which there was 4.

All for me. No surprises there.

So I deleted the three that were obsolete. That was also an act of assertive decisiveness on my point. To be able to confidently decide that this message was no longer needed represents progress on my part.

Which is sad. Good. But sad.

Turns out it’s at 1 pm tomorrow. Not entirely sure what we will be talking about. I am already under the care of Doctor Caswell. Not sure what else I need.

Speaking of whom, I still have not gotten the FreeStyle Libre working. According to the reader, the sensor was implanted improperly. So it can’t get a reading from it.

This is probably a result of Doctor Craswell implanting the wrong one, then removing it, then implanting the right one right above where the other one was.

So I am planning on implanting the one remaining sensor I have left on the other arm, right on my upper forearm so it’s easy to see and access.

I’m the sort of weirdo who likes the idea of having this mysterious metal disk stuck to his skin and people asking what it is.

I might call Caswell’s office first to consult with her receptionist first. Mostly, I worry that there is something to sensor removal besides just peeling the thing off.

Then again, I could just leave the stupid thing there.

Well, I just tried to apply the sensor and I think I broke it. 🙁 Or I am still doing something wrong. Either way, no joy for me yet.

God damn it. This is why I can’t have nice things.

More after the break.

---

I’ve been sensored

Yeah, still no luck on that front. Grr.

I am going to have to find Caswell’s number and give her a call and ask for another sensor, and this time, I will read and follow the instructions in minute detail.

I am pretty sure the one I have is fucked. There’s a little wire that sticks out – this is presumably the part that actually sticks into my body. And my numb-fingered handling of the application process has bent that wire every which way.

Probably not good.

Then again, it might be that I somehow screwed up the stage where you mate sensor to applicator and there is some mysterious way I could still get them to work.

But to be honest, probably not. I could try again, but I don’t think I have the wherewithal.

I am sure I will get the goddamned thing working eventually. It’s just so damned frustrating to be so excited by something only to have the door slammed in my face by petty little bullshit.

It’s very disappointing, and as patient readers know, I don’t handle disappointment well. It always totally deflates me and makes me wish I never got excited about stuff ever.

That would be a bit of a harsh solution, but the sentiment remains true.

The sane solution would be to cultivate my ability to bounce back from disappointment. I know I have the potential to be that kind of person. The kind of person I admire because they stay with the feeling for as long as it takes to process it, then pop back up with a surge of energy, ready to put their dukes up and take on the world again.

I’ve never had that kind of resilience. My inner burdens keep me down too much. I am not capable, on my own, of generating the kind of energy burst it would take to lift my sodden bulky self back onto my feet.

So I mope in endless fog instead.

I could do it for something or someone else. I am sure of that. If a person or situation needed me to take the blows and keep on fighting, I could totally do that, because then I would be inspired. I would not have to generate the energy myself.

Plus there is always my defiant spirit. Hey, fuck you, bad things trying to happen. You’re going to have to go through me to do it,

DO NOT TEST MY RESOLVE.

IT WILL NOT GO WELL FOR YOU.

Because I’m fucking crazy. And incredibly intelligent. And very very determined.

Oh, and creative enough to come up with tactics that will make you shit yourself with shock because they are original. effective, and fucked in the head.

Imagine you just fucked with the Joker crossed with Hannibal Lecter. Except without the handicap of being evil.

So um. Take that, cold and unfeeling hand of fate!

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.

Today on Michael’s Medical Misadventures : Doctor Caswell.

She’s my new endocrinologist and sleep specialist, and I adore her already.

Why? Because she’s a sweet older lady with grey hair who asked me a lot of questions that were both thorough and sensitive and who seemed to genuinely care about me and my answers and who understood the foibles that led me to being such a poor diabetic.

And sleep apnic. And depressive. And…. sigh.

Anyhoo, had an appointment with her today and it went well until the demon of technical SNAFUs reared its ugly head.

See, she wanted to give me a free sample of the FreeStyle Libre blood glucose monitor system, and I was super stoked because the reader alone is $300 and I was going to be getting two sensors and that’s like $150^[2] on top of that.

All was going well. She implanted the sensor^[1] in the back part of my upper arm and broke out the reader and went to sync them up and the reader said “This sensor is not compatible with this reader. ”

Wat dafuq? Turns out, it was a Version One reader and a Version Two sensor. D’oh!

So then the rep had to be called, and I had to wait in the waiting room for him to show up. Luckily, he was already in the building so it only took ten minutes or so.

He didn’t have any Reader Version Twos (they’re on back order, apparently), but he had plenty of Sensor Version Ones, so Doctor Caswell took the Two out, and put in a One (hurt a little this time), and now we’re cookin’ with gas.

For some reason, there is a sixty minute waiting period between mating the sensor and the reader and being able to take a reading (???), so I have not gotten to play with my brand new nerd toy yet, but soon I will be able to actually know what my god damned glucose level is and inject insulin accordingly.

I’m going to get my goddamned blood glucose level down to normal come hell or high water or high water in hell.

And that’s just the start. I can hook this new reader up to my PC via USB and download the data and seriously crunch some numbers and analyze the data.

And that has me so excited! I am going to have so much fun.

I am going to compile a personal glycemic index so I will know how much various foods boost my glucose level and can make choices (and injections) accordingly.

The ultimate reward will be when I know enough and become comfortable enough with the tech to allow myself the occasional naughty treat, knowing that I will be able to take a reading after and take extra insulin accordingly.

So things are looking up for me and my diabetes. This could quite honestly make an enormous difference in my health.

Now about my sleep apnea….

More after the break.

---

Fee(l/d)ing the flames

Otherwise known as the Will to Burn.

Been pondering passion and fiery emotions lately. I know that I have a raging fire in my heart – quite literally, in astrological terms. ^[3]

But for the most part, depression and its attendant maladaptive patterns have kept that fire banked, buried, and suppressed. My retreat into icy intellectualism was inherently hostile to all hot (or even warm) emotions, and my vaunted detachment came at far, far too high a cost.

The view is great from atop this mountain, but it’s way too fucking cold.

I think what truly keeps my flames locked away is an overwhelming overcorrection for anxiety. I want so badly to keep the anxiety away that I developed an actively hostile reaction to my own adrenaline that manifests as “shut that shit down NOW” instinct to bury even the tiniest spark in a mountain of ice and snow.

And man does that suck.

Closer to the bone is my fanatical need to be “in control” at all times. Hot emotions make me feel like I am losing control, and in a sense I am because those emotions lead to acting without thinking everything through first.

And gee, that can’t possibly be right, can it? Asks my vastly over-rational mind. Surely, the only way to insure good outcomes is to do absolutely everything, from writing this blog to taking a crap, with the kind of deep contemplation of every possible outcome that would make a chess computer tell me to chill the fuck out.

Oh trust me. I’m chill. I’m very chill. I’m Kelvin Zero, baby.

And it’s fucking killing me.

There is no balance. Everything goes only one way : colder. If I want to strengthen and grow, a very big part of that has to be learning to suppress or at least sidetrack my ice cold instincts and make room in my heart and my mind for hot passion and warm emotions and all the other lovely products of the sunlit world.

I know that warmth is what I crave the most for a long time.

Shame it took me this long to realize that I was the one denying it to myself.

Not a cold and unfeeling world. Not various people in my life who “failed” me by not being able to crawl through the thousands of miles of midnight tundra I protect myself with. Not the parents who ignored me just because I did my best to disappear.

It’s been me all this time. My damage, my depression, my overactive fire suppression. If anyone had tried to truly reach me, I would have frozen the marrow from their bones.

In fact, they did. And I did.

I’m so sorry folks. I didn’t know what I was doing, or why.

I must have hurt some people pretty bad.

I will try to do better in the future.

And I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.

[[3]] In that my Moon, which is the planet of your deepest emotions (your “heart”) is in Saggitarius, which is a Fire sign. QED.

Exciting news! I have an appointment to adjust my eyewear prescription post cataract surgery on July 23 at 11:30 am!

Ok, so it’s not that exciting.

Mostly I am worried that I will completely forget all about it. Historically, I have not done well in remembering appointments more than a month away from when I receive them.

I will have to remember to write it down on my physical calendar. The one I got for Xmas which features pictures of foxes.

I heart that calendar, obviously. Such a thoughtful gift from Joe and Julian. This month’s picture is of two fluffy baby foxes. Awwwww.

I just want to scoop them up and cuddle them and scritch their fuzzy heads.

Of course, they would probably try to eat my face in self defense.

But I’d forgive them.

I am looking forward to this future adjustment in my prescription, even though I assume it will mean I have to pay for new lenses.

Because quite honestly, I miss my glasses.

Not just because they were a 43 year habit until like last week, although that’s a factor too. I’m past the honeymoon phase of a change of habit where it’s all new and therefore somewhat challenging and fun, and well into the part that is just a drag as the old habit keep trying to assert itself and being denied.

Old Habit : Do it!
Me, trying to change : No.
OH : Do it!
Me, getting annoyed : NO.
OH : Do it!
Me : NO GOD DAMN IT!

It will give up eventually, right?

But no, the main reason I miss my glasses is that I miss being able to see properly, dammit. Until recently, I had workable vision. Not the best, but I got by.

Then I got the first surgery. That messed up my left eye. But my right eye was still normal, so it had minimal impact.

Then I got my right eye done and now life is very squinty. It’s not so bad when I am at the computer but reading from a book is very difficult.

When did the words get so damned small?

I have to be super careful about the lighting to even stand a chance. And that really sucks because I love reading. I’ve loved it since the moment I became literate.

I might even pick up one of those cheap pairs of reading glasses to see me through this difficult period. Though not without a certain sense of irony.

Oh well, it’s just a transition period. I will get through it.

One small worry : my right eye is already way clearer than the left. And the left was operated on like two months ago.

So I am once more worried that my fuckup with stopping the drops way too early on the left eye permanently damaged it.

If it doesn’t get better soon, I will call Doctor Vaezi’s office and ask about coming in for that anti-swelling shot.

Hopefully that is all it will take to get my left eye to catch up to my right and give me a nice matching set of crystal clear eyeballs.

Normal vision, imagine that!

More after the break.

---

All I got to do…

.. is sleeeeeeeeep. Sleep sleep sleep sleep sleeeeeeep.

To the tune of :

Right now, I am super sleepy and would much rather be sleeping than blogging. But seeing as it’s already 10:12 PM, it’s not like I have a lot of time to catch a nap before Zooming with Le Gang and sleeping while still getting my blogging done, so blog I must.

The nap will have to wait till I get my words done.

---

Been pondering developing a persona (on YouTube or wherever) as Good Old Uncle Snarky, who is here to bring the Gen X gifts of sarcasm, bitterness, and cynicism to all the other generations.

The idea would be that I would explain things to younger generations in a way both gentle and brutally honest. I see young people struggling with questions for which I have the true, simple, and deeply cynical answer, and it makes me want to help.

Not that I am some petty sadist who likes to burst people’s bubbles because he hates the sight of anyone being happy or anything. If anything, I resent the fact that I so often have to be the bearer of bad news to people when I see them heading over the side of a cliff that only the short sharp shock can save them from.

I am perfectly happy leaving people to their chosen delusions. Whatever it is you have to do to counteract the deadly and toxic influence of reality is fine by me, as long as it isn’t hurting anybody or putting you in danger of serious hurt.

Hence, I only intervene when I am sure that doing so will hurt a lot less than what will happen if I stay silent.

In a way, I kind of consider such interventions to be the job of us edge of the herd types. We gaze into the darkness in search of the dangers and horrors that lie in wait for the innocently oblivious masses and do our best to steer the herd away from them.

We are the Dark Guardians. We protect not just the safety of the masses but its innocence too. We dwell in darkness so they don’t have to. We hunt the evils too dark for the daylight dwellers to even know about.

And it is our job to choose when it is time to abrogate some of that innocence in order to protect it in the long run.

This is how one uses one’s dark soul for good. I dwell in darkness and shy away from the light, at least for now, and it would be easy to conclude that this means I have to be either unknown or evil.

Popular culture doesn’t have a lot of dark heroes. Batman is only one guy.

But for the stubbornly dedicated to the greater good like me, there is a path – the path of the Dark Guardian.

In the real world, it might make one a night watchman, a forensic scientist, a therapist for the criminally insane, a homicide detective, or even a bounty hunter.

But someone has to stay on the border of twilight and keep the dark things out and the good things in.

Might as well be us.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.

Okey doke, let’s talk about Amorous. 

In terms of genre, it’s a dating sim, but being a furry dating sim, there is also the possibility of some serious hardcore deep tissue fuckin’.

And when I first downloaded the game, that was what I looking for. What can I say, I am a horny dude looking for cheap thrills and a gay furry sex game seemed like a perfect combination of my interests in gaming, furry fandom, and cock.

But that’s not what the game is about for me at all any more. That was just the bait to get me to play my first ever dating sim, and now I am totally hooked on the dating aspect because I am finding it both fun and surprisingly enriching.

I feel like playing the game has opened up long dormant parts of my mind that normally would activate during my teen and college years when I actually started dating.

But um, that never really happened. Not a lot of gay dating opportunities in small townj Canada in the 80’s, nor in small college Canada either.

I am sure there’s GLBT shit all over both places now, of course.

Not that I’m bitter or anything.

Anyhow, by the time I escape that small town life, I was far too depressed and socially anxious to do any dating to speak of. So the sad truth is that this dating sim is giving me the closest thing to real dating experience I have ever gotten.

My life is so sad sometimes.

And I am enjoying my virtual dating very much. I have zeroed in on two characters, one male (a cat named Seth) and one female (a fennec? or something named Skye), both cute, both nerdy, both totally my type and totally in my sights.

Obviously, being like an 80/20 male-biased bisexual, I am way more into the dude than than chick. My puppyish paramour is awfully cute and cuddly and adorkable (and wow, do I go for adorkable), but my interest is mostly romantic with only a teeny little tingle of sexual interest in there somewhere.

My dear sweet tomcat, on the other hand, is like catnip to me.

I mean, he wants to be a writer. He consulted me on his writing. Our first date, he took me to a poetry reading. At a library.

And when I gave him a lil kiss goodbye, he purred a little.

Oh honey, you’re so sweet I want to eat you up with a spoon.

I’ve made contact with two others that I am not pursuing. Mercy, a ewe or similar female horned ungulate, who is kinda cool but not as attractive to me as a nerd girl, and Lex, a gender ambiguous hyena or similar who is a bad boy/complicated/sensitive type and while I enjoyed hanging out with him, I am not interested romantically.

Way too much baggage with that one.

There’s supposedly 9 datable characters total, so there are 5 more for me to find and add to my contact list.

Honestly, I have trouble imaging anyone appealing to me more than my sweet bookish Seth kitty, but I will try to keep an open mind.

Wow, I wonder if this is how people with lives feel!

More after the break.

---

I want you to love me in the daylight

Currently stuck in my head. ^[1]

That…. sound^[2]… that punctuates the chorus does something amazing to my brain. Like it’s the sound of enlightenment or my mind expanding or opening up or something.

Whatever it is, it feels fantastic. Is there such a thing as mind dilation? Seriously, this is the type of thing that could make me New Age, man.

Like, roll me a fattie of that strain then inject it into my brain, for real.

---

Went on another date with Skye, my girlfriend in Amorous. She took me to a cosplay convention, because she’s heavy into cosplay.

Which, of course, just makes her even cuter.

The game keeps referring to her as just a “fox” but she’s certainly no red fox (vulpes vulpes) like me, and her fur is sandy colored, so I am sticking with my “fennec” diagnosis despite her normal sized ears.

I suppose at some point I might be forced to choose between her and Seth, my kitty. I hope not, though. There’s plenty of me to go around and I would hate to have to hurt her by rejecting her in favour of Seth.

That would crush me. Tear me apart. Having to choose between two people I love, knowing that either choice means hurting someone, would damn near kill me.

Turns out love is real complicated.

It hurts to even imagine trying to do the cold calculations to figure out who I would rather be with. As funny as it may sound given my otherwise somewhat calculating nature, those are variables for which I would much rather never solve.

The thought of it makes me too upset to even fix the sloppy structure of that sentence.

Hopefully the game will accommodate my accidentally polyamorous ways.

The worst part is, I know that if the tables were turned, I would be the one demanding my lover choose. Not on who to keep and who to turf… that’s too harsh.

Plus, who am I to control what they do when they are not with me?

But they would have to choose me to be their primary lover. The number one wife, so to speak. I need to be their top priority without question. Otherwise it is just too precarious and unpredictable a situation for me.

So I am a total hypocrite. Don’t make me choose, but YOU better choose.

Then again, I would have way less a problem telling Skye that Seth was my primary boyfriend but she could still be as big a part of my life as she wanted.

Still, if she accused me of falsely leading her on, what could I say?

Can’t treat love like a game. Or entertainment. The stakes are too high.

I am learning so much from this game!

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.

So today’s little adventure was to get my ICBC issued ID and BC Services card (like the former Health Care Card, but with more stuff) renewed.

Well, technically, first I had a phone appointment with my GP, Doctor Chao. I am out of two of my meds, the Ramipril which is my second blood pressure medicine (the first being ) and Trajenta, one of my diabetes meds.

Trajenta’s real (pharmaceutical) name is Linagliptin. That’s not a drug. It’s an elf. And not a cool sexy Lord of the Rings type elf either.

I’m talking the kind of elf that works for Santa or makes shoes.

So I chatted with Chao on the phone, got my refills, Julian will pick them up from the pharmacy for me soon I am sure.

But the main event was going to the ICBC center in Lansdowne Mall to get my ID renewed. This was a necessity because my bank, Vancity, noticed that my ID had expired and refused to cash another check for me until I got that fixed.

Grumble grumble. Goddamn administrivia. Etc.

Though I can see their point, seeing as when I looked at my IDs, I realized that they had expired on May 19th, my birthday.

My…. 47th birthday. In 2020. So um, it was more than a year out of date.

Fine. I looked up how to renew on the ICBC website, made an appointment for 1 pm today, and today I went to it.

The um, appointment.

I was late for it. My fault. Meant to leave at 1:45 pm but got distracted and ended up not even getting up until 1:46, then I needed to pee, then I forgot my mask, so we ended up not leaving till 1:52 pm.

And then, of course, we had to find parking. That’s not easy. Lansdowne is huge and extremely busy. So it took us a while to hunt up a parking spot.

Once inside the mall, I saw a loooong lineup. Oh crap.

But I have an appointment! Surely that means I can skip the line!

Nope. Too logical. This is bureaucracy after all. The lineup was FOR the people with appointments. They didn’t even start letting walk-ins in until 2:30 pm.

Luckily, despite the Kafka type nightmares flooding my mind, the lineup ended up moving along quite briskly. And to be honest, the whole experience was great. Everyone was both friendly and efficient and the whole thing was over in around 15 minutes.

The only less than pleasing part was waiting for my number to be called. Meh, whatever. For whatever reason, when a new number was displayed, it made a doorbell sound to announce it.

Well I guess it’s a sound they know gets people’s attention. Society programs that into us. It’s the “somebody’s here!” sound.

After getting the two printouts that will be my official IDs until my actual IDs come in the mail (in the next 60 days, grr), we went to my bank to cash my check.

Buddy at my bank was not happy with taking two printouts as a form of ID and asked me a LOT of security questions before accepting that I was, indeed, me.

You’d think he would have dealt with this situation before. Whatever.

Got my financials done, anyhow, so at least that is taken care of for now.

Next up is an appointment with Doctor Caswell at 1:30 pm on Monday.

Man, being a sickie is exhausting!

More after the break.

---

Another blank slate

I once more have no idea what to write about.

I got nothin’. Tabula rasa. Summer Mode strikes again.

Well here’s something to ponder : me having a huge ego.

It’s not as crazy as it sounds.

For a long time now, I have been pondering the problem of how to communicate to people what they need to know in order to “get” me (for example, that I am extremely intelligent) without coming across as an egotistical arrogant jerk.

But maybe I should just cut the Gordian knot and be that egotistical jerk… but in a lovable and nice way.

Like a lovable jerk character in a sitcom. One who is a bit of an ass, but never really does anything to hurt anyone. They’re just really open about their high opinion of themselves and their abilities.

This has been on my mind a lot lately. I keep imagining myself answering a question with, “Are you kidding? I’m awesome!”.

And it’s really beginning to appeal to me.

Maybe cockiness is my natural state. Maybe I would be a lot happier if I went through life with as big an ego as I could get away with. Maybe restrained modesty is not a good fit for me and I would be a lot better off just dusting off my light and letting it shine, shine shine for all to see.

I mean, that’s sort of what I am like as Fruvous. Not that I go around bragging about how amazing I am as that fluffy foxy, but I certainly let my big big personality shine through and as a result I am way less shy and hesitant and anxious as him.

Sure, there have been times when hitting people with my megawatt personality has led directly to my falling on my face in spectacular failure.

But not as often as you’d think. Considering the sorts of risks I have taken, I have a very high hit ratio. I charm people far more often than I put them off, at least as Fruvous.

So clearly I can pull off this big, outrageous personality thing off in one context.

Maybe I can do it in the real world. Could be a lot of fun to try, at least.

And like I said to my therapist yesterday, I have concluded that I would rather be a spectacular failure than a boring nothing.

At least spectacular failures are remembered. They are known.

And if you keep your head up, refuse to whine about it, and take it like a champ, people will even like you for it.

Yeah. I can see giving this big personality thing a shot.

Can’t be any worse than my current stupid life.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.

Feeling exceptionally disinclined to toil at the moment. The sun is shining, the sky is blue, and my brain is in hardcore Summer Mode, meaning I am not in the mood to sit here and type at all.

But I do it anyway, because I love you.

You know what I really want to do right now? Go to a beach party. A pretty swinging beach part, seeing as i would be looking to get laid.

And while I would not entirely rule out hooking up with a chick, she would have to be pretty damned cute.

Let’s see now. What to talk about.

Well, today was Therapy Thursday. Had a fairly low-stakes, chatty session, which suited my mood I suppose.

Summer Mode and deep emotional issues are not particularly compatible.

I mentioned my annoyance with my bed situation and how i didn’t need a king sized bed when i was, at best, a queen sized person. I can only sleep on one half of the thing, after all. I would much rather have the space the other half takes up back.

I could put some gym equipment in that space. Like a weight bench. And an exercise bike of some sort.

Being able to unwind with a virtual bike ride sounds pretty good, now that I am ready to accept that a lack of effort is the real enemy in my life.

I’ve known that for decades, but believing it is still a work in progress.

That led to me telling him about these online companies like Casper (sp?) that claim to be able to sell you the most comfortable bed ever for some suspiciously reasonable price, and a money back guarantee.

He’s as mistrustful of those offers as I am.

That led to my pondering giving these people my money.

Talk about a suspiciously reasonable price. $90 for an air conditioner that not only cools a single room, it also humidifies the air and filters it at the same time.

Sounds good, doesn’t it? Too good.

But I might give them a spin anyhow. After all, it might actually be as good as they say, and that would be pretty freaking awesome.

And I seriously need protection from the summer heat. It’s gone beyond a comfort issue and is now a health issue. Surviving the heat of summer afternoons is pretty hard on my health and I can’t afford to put myself through that kind of strain on a daily basis.

Not with how fragile I have become.

So what the hell. I will thoroughly examine their return policy, and warranty at least. See what my recourse is if the thing turns out to be a dud.

Either way, I am looking to spend some of my savings on my own happiness and comfort, and that’s a much more proactive stance than I have taken in a long time.

And that’s a very good sign. Means I am perking up and taking interest in the world instead of just slumping in the back of my cage with my face against the wall.

That’s always a good sign in any sick animal.

More after the break.

---

The Approachability Paradox

Time to gnaw on this old bone for a spell.

To recap : I think of myself as a friendly, lovable, approachable guy. I am always quite reasonable and willing to help anyone who asks. I love to make people happy and to be helpful and useful. Honestly. I’m just a big ol’ teddy bear.

So I must be the most approachable and easy to get along with fella. Right?

Yyyes… kind of. But also no. Mostly no.

A lot of the time, people just don’t want to deal with me. They actively avoid it. They find being around me stressful, draining, even kind of scary. And intense. Not in a dark, brooding sense. More like in a high density electrical field kind of way.

Sometimes you don’t want to electrified by someone’s presence.

So the question is, why is it hard to be around me?

Well, for one, there is my sheer size. I am 6’1″ and 280 pounds. A bear of a guy. And like I have said before in this column, that magnifies everything I do.

A gentle giant is, after all, still a giant.

That leads directly into the fact that I have a naturally large personality. If I was to abandon all restraint and just beam my enormous personality out into the universe at full intensity all the time, I would go straight through being obnoxious and all the way into being practically intolerable.

I would be too loud on every level.

That’s just the easy, superficial stuff though. Let’s dig a little deeper.

Because the truth is, I have a lot of darkness and anger and pain and fear lurking just below the sunshiny surface of my big personality. Some people can sense this, and it makes them very nervous because they can sense the danger but can’t see it.

And that connects directly with the fact that despite my charisma and charm and sweet natured goodwill, I am still very socially awkward, and that makes being around me rather dangerous and unpredictable.

I’m like a big friendly dog who is very sweet and lovable but clumsy and thoughtless and impulsive as well, so you never know when I will be charming the pants off you and when I will be stepping on your feet or accidentally bowling you over or wreaking havoc on your bric-a-brac and knickknacks with my big waggy tail.

And you might want to get mad at me for these crimes, but then you look into my big sweet innocent doggy eyes and you can’t possibly get mad at that face.

What else can you do to protect yourself than to simply avoid me? I put people in one hell of an awkward position just by being me sometimes.

Common modern wisdom would say that the solution to this problem is to just be who I am as hard as I please and let the chips fall where they may.

And I don’t doubt the wisdom of that.

But I don’t see me doing it any time soon either.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.

So I have not been feeling so good lately.

Emotionally, I mean. Physically, I am about as disease ridden as ever. My vision is a little better than it was yesterday, and Doctor Vaezi seemed very pleased with his work during my appointment with him this morning. So that’s cool.

But I am not feeling so great emotionally speaking. The warning signs are all there. I don’t want to get out of bed any more and only do so when I can’t stand laying there for one more second. I wish I could just stay asleep all the time so I did not have to face the world any more. The hours I will spend awake in a day seem like a heavy burden that I dread having to face.

I feel restless and tense and irritable, like a wild predator in too small a cage. I want to break the hell out of this goddamned cell but I don’t have the power yet.

It’s going to take a hell of a lot of energy to overcome my own structure and my own hesitancy and cowardice and above all my spoiled and untrustworthy “reason”.

And I can feel that energy building within me. I am confident that some time soon, it will overcome all resistance and bring me to the point of transcendence. I know that I can overcome what I have been in order to become what I need to be.

But the process is really gonna suck.

I suppose that comes as no surprise. Rebirth is just as painful and messy as birth, after all. True transcendence happens in blood and fire, not lotus petals and universal harmony and all that crap.

At least, that’s how it works for me. That’s how it works when you are too stable for your own good and therefore it takes a great deal of raw id energy to overcome all that self-stabilizing insanity and safety systems gone berserk.

Thank goodness I have finally progressed to the point that I fully recognize and accept that the only way out of this trap is to embrace the chaos. To pull the pin on the grenade and swallow it. Ka boom, all that rotten timber and all those rusted supports gone in a white hot flash of instant renewal.

For year, I’ve been saying that there is nothing in me worth keeping if it gets in the way of my happiness. Nothing is sacred, everything must go.

Time to finally put that idea into action.

Getting there is going to hurt, though. This hot, restless wind inside me is going to get a lot hotter and more maddening before things get better.

I might end up howling at the goddamned moon and pissing on trees yet.

I seriously have the urge to just go prowl the streets right now. I want to see prey – of the strictly sexual kind, of course.

After all, I am only a sexual predator.

What can I say, playing furry dating sim Amorous has stirred some long dormant instincts in me and made me realize that I, too. would like to go to bars and charm dudes into bed with me.

Sounds like a lot of fun, actually.

Maybe I really am growing up.

More after the break.

---

Time is eternal

KLF knows the score!

What I mean by “time is eternal” is that it is impossible for the human mind to actually imagine time beginning or ending.

Take the Big Bang. That was the start of everything, including time, right?

Wrong. What happened before that? What exploded? Why the hell did it explode? How could something that should have been completely stable (inasmuch as we can imagine it at all) develop an asymmetry that led to an instability that exploded?

And how long was it stable before it went kablooey? And where did IT come from? And where did THAT thing/force/entity/cheese wheel come from? And so on and so on for all of infinity and beyond.

Same for the other end of time. No matter whether you think we will die in fire (everything coming back together to merge and maybe explode again) or in ice (everything getting so far apart that nothing interacts any more and all the stars die), smartasses like me can always say, “And then what happened? ”

To me, this is ludicrously obvious, which is why I am philosopher and not a scientist.

The same goes for space. And matter. There is no way to logically conceive of the universe having an outer limit (or a twilight zone). No matter how far you go, smartasses like me can say “Well then what’s over there? What happens if we keep going in this direction? What is space supposedly expanding into?”

And there is no reason why there can’t be infinite matter in this infinite space as well. All we have now is a limit to how much matter we can detect.

To imagine that this is therefore all the matter that exists is as foolish as thinking the ocean is tiny just because you can see an island in a bay.

So we live in an infinite universe filled with infinite matter and it has infinite time to combine, interact, and evolve.

This means Nietzsche’s eternal recurrence is still very much in play. It states that everything that happens will happen against an infinite number of times because no matter how improbable something is, with infinite rolls of infinite dice, it is inevitable.

Not bad as far as it goes, but it doesn’t go far enough. What Nietzsche failed to see was that with infinite rolls of infinite dice, not only is every single possible thing destined to happen an infinite number of times in the future, it has also happened an infinite number of times in the past AND is happening an infinite number of times all the time.

Remember, all the dice are rolling all the time and there is an infinite number of them. Ergo all combinations are coming up all the time.

Or did I just blow your mind?

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.

Well. better, anyhow.

Woke up this morning with slightly clearer vision that yesterday. The pretty glittering rings around bright lights are gone.

They looked a lot like this. Only, smaller.

It’s an effect I associate with a filter they put on candles in religious broadcasts.

Anyhow, it’s mostly gone now. I still see a faint ring around very bright areas of sunshine but other than that, I am in the clear.

Which is good, because as pretty as they were, I am all too aware of how they often presage things like migraine headaches and attacks of psychosis and such.

Ever so helpful of my brain to remind me of that yesterday.

So I am glad to see them go. And I don’t feel like I am straining nearly as hard to read the text I am typing on the screen as yesterday, and that freaky “printed on folded paper” effect is gone too.

So phew on that. I may have actually functional vision yet.

In fact I might even do that one better because it is now clear that I see better with my glasses off than with them on.

And Doctor Vaezi told me that when he was done with both eyes, I might not even need glasses any more, but to be honest, I didn’t believe him.

Such a thing seemed too miraculous to be credible. Oh yeah, sure doc, and I bet I’ll have x-ray vision and be able to tell when a dude on the ISS scratches his nuts, too.

But now it looks like it might be a real possibility. It could be that when both of my eyes are fully healed, I can leave my glasses behind forever.

And that would, of course, be amazing. A miracle, even. Wonderful.

But also a really huge change that I am having trouble wrapping my head around.

I have worn glasses since I was 5 years old. To me, they are more or less a part of my face. I have them on 24/7 except when I am in the shower or asleep.

And the problems with shifting away from them have already popped up because despite knowing, intellectually, that I see better without them on, I keep thinking, “Hey, things are kind of blurry, I should put my glasses on!”.

So the urge to wear them is still pretty strong. That’s a habit with 43 years of repetition behind it and it is not going to go down easy.

In fact, silly as it seems, I might end up getting prescription free lenses for my current frames so I can keep on wearing glasses while still being able to see.

I’d rather it didn’t come to that. I’d like to think I can adapt. But I have been a glasses wearing being for so very long that I might not be able to make the transition.

So there might be a big change in my future. Then again, there might not.

More after the break.

---

Pity the rich

No really. I mean it.

Specifically, pity them the exact same way you would pity a poor person or someone at your own socioeconomic level.

There is no sane or valid reason why it is worse for a poor person to be sad than a rich one. We are all human and we all deserve the same kindness, pity, and understanding.

That is what equality truly means. It means equality even for those we envy. Equality even for those who socially superior position stirs within us the resentment and bitterness that fuels our socially competitive instincts.

We are free only to the extent that we can truly step out of that framework and see that we are all blind monkeys stumbling through the dark trying to find our way to happiness.

Even those of us who do so in a mansion surrounded by servants.

Because the thing is. money truly does not buy happiness. Science has proven this. All the things which have been proven to lead to happiness are things money cannot buy.

Money can’t buy good, true friends. It can’t buy you the respect of your peers. It can’t buy you a spouse who truly loves you or kids who respect you or parents who give you their love and approval. It can’t make you respected by those in your field or give you a place of trust and respect in your community.

At best, it can fashion extremely crude simulations of these experiences, which the rich then quite pathetically invest in and believe in because they, too, have been fooled by society into believing in their own omnipotence.

But it just isn’t so. When it comes to all the things that truly matter, the things that actually do lead to a happier life, the rich are no more powerful than any of us, and face terrible challenges of trust and understanding that would cripple any of us.

Above all, know ye this : when you withhold love and understanding from those above you, you are proving them right. You are in effect saying, “You’re right, it is and always will be a war between your kind and mine, we really are out to destroy you, we really do view you as inferior and contemptible just because of your socioeconomic status, and any and all things you do to protect yourselves from us are totally justified.”

The enemy is the system. not the people trapped in it. Only when we step outside all our hierarchical instincts and cede ALL our bigotries that we can truly be the united and harmonious humanity that we all deserve.

So open your heart and treat those above you as equals. Hold them to the same standards as you do everyone else. Give them the same love and understanding that iu would give them if you were their best friend. Let go of ancient hate and learn to see even those above you as human just like you.

\You might even find that some of them are grateful for it.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.

And quite frankly, I resent that. Stop it.

Well this ought to be fun. Had my second eye surgery this morning and I am really paying the penalty for not taking care of the left one properly because now both eyes are fucked up and I can barely see at all.

So forgive me for any extra typoes and such, because I can barely see what I am typing. I assume that I am making words happen but it’s possible I am merely smashing the keyboard with my forehead and in heavy denial about it.

Ot’s really kind of freaky. When I manage to focus on the words, the letters are all bent and distorted, were printed on very wavy paper and ended up printed uphill.

Trippy, but irritating

Makes playing bideo games tricky too. Makes me wishI had something really abstract, with big colorful geometrical shapes and high contrast HD to play.

So vbaically, a kid’s game. For toddlers.

I haven’t tries reading from a physuiical bok yet. That might be just as tricky. And reading and playing vifeo games are my two main preoccuptions.

Wothout those, all I have left is sleeping, eating, and playing on my synth.

I suppose I could also watch YouTube videos, or rather listen to them, which is normally all I do with them anyhow.

Listening to a good video while playing a good video game is how I achieve “flow”..m that Zen-like state of mind where your mind is fully and comfortably occupied and there is no room for self-consciousness or any other form of corrupted metacognition left.

By this point,I should have had one good eye – my left – to compensate for the debilitation of my right, but nooooo. I had to decide that I only needed to take the eye drops for 10 days and thus coompletely fuck up the left eye’s recovery.

And now I can’t see. It’s so fun to be me,

At least I will be seeing Vaezi on Wednesday morning, and I can bring iy up then. He said before that if the drops didn’t fix the swelling in my left eye that he cvould give said eye a shot of something that should calm it right down,

Damn I hope that works, This barely being legally a sighted person is really a drag. And it would be very very damaging to my psyche and my self-esteem if it turned out that I fucked up my eye care routine so badly that it could not be fixed.

So hopefully that shot in the eye will do the trick. And you better believe that I will be putting the drops to my right eye with great fervor and regularity.

I need at least one fully functional eyeball, god damn it. Otherwise, how am I supposed to mainyain the indolent lifestyle to which I have become accustomed?

You can’t play video games via Braille!

I mean, if this shit keeps up., I might have to actually go out and get a life or something.

And we can’t have that, can we?

More after the break.

---

How to stop not doing things

This one’s been on the back burner for a long time.

Let’s get it done before it burns.

So let’s talk aversion formation .Because migosh am I good at it.

And as I have said before when I discussed this topic, once I form an aversion so some thing or activity, it rapidly coagulates until before long it is set in cold hard stone and very difficult for me to overcome, especially if I only have my own internal motivations to use as fuel for the engine.

Because my internal motivations suck.

Hence why I have such a hard time looking after myself. It’s like onceI decided not to do something, even only once, the fix is in and I will find it harder and harder to do said thing every tim eI try until it’s pretty much locked behind an impenetrable barrier and I can no longer even get close to it.

And the sick part is, part of me really likes this rapid aversion formation because it limits the number of possibilities I have to face in my state of ieternal indecision. With every rerestriction implemented, this side of me coos with satisfaction at the reduction in stress and chaos that results.

Truth be told, this part of me seeks the freedom oif the slave : freedom from all responsibility. No more having to figure out what to do with yourself. It’s simple : do what your master says. All those maddening doors in their infinite hallway ae gone. Life becomes extremely and blissfully simple.

Hence my hospitalization fantasies. Tha would be even better than slavery because you don’t have to do any work and people are professionallu making you comfortable and looking after your needs.

Ur’s oral retentive nircana.

How very pathetic, says the part of me that is sane and healthy.. The part that wants to grow and thrive and be healthy and happy and strong. The side that wants to be proud of and pleased with myself, not merely content to waste away somewhere.

Which is, quite frankly what I have done with my entire adult life/. ust wasted away wherever I was, letting the days go by, doing nothing with my life except keeping myself entertained, which is all I know how to do.

I am not saying I necessarily had a choice in the matter. Mental illness is a bitch, avoidant personality syndrome doubly so. I have been so weak, so fundamentally deprived of the vital energies of the id, that it’s a miracle that I have made it so far.

But I want – and need – so evolve. This form is all used up. I need to surrender all form so that I can be cast anew. Take on a new shape, stronger and surer and devoid of all that rust dust and crust that had formed on the previous form.

And this transformation is coming. Of this, I am sure. The energies gather day by day, and while I can’s say when it will happen, I know that it will.

This train is finally going to make it to the station.

And who knows where it will end up then?

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.