Clever Manka is dressed and undressed

Twitter Guardian and Guardian-adjacent:
Apparently Japan is releasing Guardian on DVD. I was lamenting to mckitterick last night about there being an Untamed DVD set but no Guardian one. Too bad this doesn't work with me complaining about never having million-dollar-winning lottery tickets.
Also there are new gifs from the ReFa ad campaign. Here's some stills.
Fanart: Wide-eyed Shen Wei getting a kiss. A nice ZhuBai manip.

Those first two facts threw me so hard that when I finally came down to make tea this morning I forgot to put tea in the teapot before I poured in the hot water. So that's my morning! Once there was successfully-made tea in my system, I posted the January chapter of Ghost Story. It's much shorter than December (sorry about December, y'all), not as intense, and (spoiler!) tragically no fucking.

Cooking friends: When I make egg and seaweed soup, I leave the eggs whole so I can break the yolk right before I eat it. I like the flavor and mouth feel that it adds to the broth. I'm not going to change my cooking habits, but I am curious how appalling this practice would be to a traditional cook.

Am having lunch with my friend from China today and not sure how much I should contain myself over my Guardian and Untamed love. The last time we hung out in person I'd only seen the first few episodes of Guardian and hadn't gotten hooked, yet. When I emailed her about it several months later, she never replied. But she didn't reply to any of my emails, so... idk. This is the first time I've heard from her since we fell out of contact in May. Maybe I'll ask her about the soup thing.

I thought my health/fatigue levels had been kinda dicey lately and I got confirmation of that yesterday when I noticed the horizontal ridges in my thumbnails were back. They're about one and a half millimeters grown out from the cuticle so that's from about two weeks ago. *checks calendar and journal for dates and symptoms* Yeah, that checks out. Wonder what's going on. Sunspots? Probably sunspots. Or, you know, thinking about how I'm a person with a fucked up immune system and no health insurance while we're looking at a global pandemic.

Which, speaking of, someone on cm.net linked to is it canceled yet? which is informative and also has some nicely subtle gallows humor if you're into that sort of thing.

I'm taking 60cc of ozone regularly now. Which means, I guess, that my body is adjusting better to it--and (one hopes) better utilizing it? Sleep has gone well three nights in a row (*knock*knock*) which is good bc I'm out of sorts mood-wise thanks to ~relationship discussions~ we've been having since fuckin' Monday so overall I'm feeling very blehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

Felt physically motivated to move several times since last week, though (like, move my body, not move house), so that's progress. Maybe committing to a specific time and activity every day is the next step. But right now, blehhhhhhhhhh.

First chapter of Ghost Story came together nicely. Very happy with how I introduced the SID members. But today I'm slogging through the description of the house (spoiler: the haunted house!) and it's actually kinda...rough? I thought it would be fun to base it on the house I rented for most of the 90s because I fucking loved that place so much (also it might have been lightly haunted?) and it's gonna work great for the story. But every once in a while my memories sorta overwhelm me with...idk, what is it when it's nostalgia for something that actually happened? Reminiscing, I guess. I miss being in that place, I miss the me that lived in the place, just...eh. I fuckin' loved you, 1011 Tennessee Street. I STILL DO.

So yeah, having Feels about my old place. AGAIN.

I got all three name badges for next weekend's con done (here's mine), posted my first fic, went out to eat three times, and then came down with a bad case of The Tireds yesterday (extreme fatigue, nausea, low spirits) but! finally got a decent night's sleep last night--six consecutive hours and then another 90 minutes or so after I got up to pee at 5:45a.

The sleep might've been a result of eating a shit-ton of carbs yesterday. It was an intentional experiment. Today I'm going to eat more carbs than usual but not quite yesterday's level to see if I sleep okay again tonight. Then wash, rinse and repeat until I see if there's a minimum carb intake I need to sleep more than four hours at a time.

Today I'm working on an art card to thank solo for the amazing beta and then I have company coming for dinner--the last time my (former) work BFF and I will get to hang out with the (former) student worker before she leaves for grad school *sob*!

Apparently Lawrence made national news for our bad storm last night. The Burgomaster is watching some news clips (one of them from NYC!) talking about us. They said the U.S. has experienced weather resulting in eight tornadoes a day for at least 12 consecutive days. Another channel reported over 500 tornadoes in 30 days. This is Fine.

Had my first ozone treatment yesterday. It was also fine (but actually fine). Dr. Sexy said I might feel some tightness in my chest and some burning at the needle site but I didn't experience any of that. Once I was in the car I started to feel a little bit of the chest tightness but a minute or two of the recommended lamaze-breathing cleared it up. I go again at noon today and tomorrow. Three days a week for the next few months. I'll report when I start noticing improvement/changes.

YouTube gave me this as a recommended video. I mean, it wasn't wrong. I have zero plans to watch the show, but that's...a pretty good recruitment vid and even though the trope of psycho chick is so so so worn out and over I can't lie the song is catchy.

I don't buy into astrology at all, but 90% of Tumblr memes are about 90% correct for me (Aquarius) and this FB post isn't doing anything to change that statistic. The inexplicable images on my phone would probably be accurate if I ever took photos of stuff (which I don't, like, hardly ever, even on vacations).

Felt terrible on Monday (bad headache, low energy, dispirited) but better yesterday and am feeling pretty okay today. Okay enough to be annoyed instead of depressed at my lack of activity levels which is always better than otherwise.( Click for more... )

Dr. Sexy told me to take this online evaluation to test to see if I'm having problems with my visual contrast sensitivity. A low visual contrast sensitivity indicates (from the website): "the presence of things like  nutritional deficiencies, the consumption of alcohol, drug/medication use, and exposure to endogenous or exogenous neurotoxins and/or biotoxins, including volatile organic compounds (VOCs), venom from animal or insect stings or bites, certain species of mold and the mycotoxins and microbial VOCs they produce, cyanobacteria, dinoflagellates (particularly Pfiesteria and Ciguatera), apicomplexans, parasites, heavy metals like mercury and lead, and the pathogens responsible for Lyme disease and its common co-infections."

Of course I tested positive. ( Click for deets. )

Reasons to get down. Reasons to jump around.

I'm on week four of tracking my energy levels. It's been an interesting experiment. I don't know if my increasing energy is actually increasing, or if I'm able to better notice that I have more good days (than I thought?) by recording them, or a combination, or maybe the journaling has forced me to have a better attitude, or or or ...but things have improved.



So that encouraging! I still have low days, but I'm gonna have low days and that's just life. I'm considering decreasing or ceasing my sessions and supplements from Dr. Jonah for a couple months to see how I feel. That would be a lot of money (and time). The few weeks I've taken off from driving to KC every week has, perhaps, helped my energy level increase. The hormonal supplements from Dr. Khosh will remain very much in my daily use, though. I've seen what happens when I go off those and it's not fun.

I leave for Indianapolis tonight to visit the folks for a few days, so I won't be around much until Sunday. Ciao, bellas.

Here's some food for thought for those of us with tight hip flexors. And here are some (more) suggestions for SI Joint issues.

I myself don't buy from Amazon, but I don't force (or even encourage) others to share my shopping politics. If you do buy from Amazon and you're in the market for some exercise/therapy bands, redheadfae posted a link to this incredibly good deal on Flex Active bands.

Aging is B.S. The Myth of Missed Opportunities. PREACH.

Recommended in a comment on The Toast's Friday Open Thread was this site called Storywonk. It's about writing, publishing, fandom, meta-analysis, and has podcasts that talk about a few shows, including Star Trek, Buffy, and Outlander.

Eighteen minutes of behind the scenes clips from Fury Road.


Soooo after doing a lot of thinking about it, I am leaning toward cosplaying Nux and not some interpretation of a female War Boy. How the hell I'm going to get this amount of hair under a bald cap I'm not sure, but I at least want to try. TBH, I think dealing with the issue of how to appear shirtless (and abide by public nudity laws) will be easier than hiding my hair. This was mostly motivated by my desire to recreate Max's jacket (which Nux wears, briefly), and then aprilstarchild is considering putting together a Capable costume and wouldn't that be fun to cosplay together at 221B Con?

Although I gotta be honest, right now I'm in a pretty low place and the idea of putting any sort of costume together seems like some pretty fucking high goals. I can't even muster the energy to do my PT exercises every day.

Today's Tumblr is Tuesday, June 2: Lightning.

I'm so excited! I love three day weekends, and I get to start this one a little early, even. Today is a half day at work for me. I'm off at noon to get my hair cut. It's getting pretty straggly and even though I like the wild rat-nest look, I want a healthy rat nest, you know? Right after that, I'm off to Warrensburg, MO, to pick up my entire hog that I bought this year (previously I've only bought a half). So. Much. Pork. It's kind of a long drive (about an hour and a half), but this pork is special. And their sausage blend has nothing in it I can't eat. AMAZING. And DELICIOUS.

I had a follow-up session with Star on Wednesday and my hips are already so much better. I had a few hours where I was just freezing that evening, and yes, we're having colder than normal weather right now, but I was inside and under blankets for godssake. I remember the same weird chill happened last time, too, only a day later. Things seem to be on an accelerated schedule this time around. Neat!

Although I've been diligent in my physical therapy exercises, my yoga practice has fallen by the wayside lately. I've been trying to stock up on time with mckitterick before he takes off for his annual Month of Unavailability. He's at the local SF convention this weekend, though, and starting May 31 he'll be gone most evenings and weekends. I'll be using that time to re-incorporate my yoga practice. I'm looking forward to it.

I'm also looking forward to a month of not cooking dinners on a regular basis. I enjoy making dinner for us most nights, but it'll be good to have a few weeks of eating pre-prepped Bowl of Food in the evening instead of using that time to cook and then clean. It'll also be a chance for me to clean up my act eating-wise. I'm just gonna put all the nuts in a cabinet and consider it off limits. I might re-arrange the kitchen a bit so those items aren't right at eye-level, too. Just put all the snack stuff for mckitterick in one cabinet and then let it become invisible to me. Oh, the weird little tricks I have to play on myself sometimes when it comes to food. Goes to show you never really get over an eating disorder, I guess.

The collection of Mad Max articles is going up on Tuesday, the day after Memorial Day, along with a Tumblr collection of Mad Max articles, gifs, and commentary. If you've got anything you think would make a good contribution, please leave a link in the comments!

I could not not use that title, sorry.

I've seen some amazing changes lately, friends! Some great stuff! Of course few of those things are the things I'm actually trying to change, but It's All Related and I like to think it's just a matter of time before I notice improvement in my targeted problems.

The biggest thing is the improvements in my hip mobility. And it's also the most, well, awkward thing to talk about because it's so hippie woo-woo but fuck, if hippie woo-woo works, I'll take it! I went to see a friend of mine who does all sorts of energy work. Reiki, Aromatherapy, Chakra balancing, that sort of thing. She's re-starting her business after a break and I thought hey, what's to lose? I get to help a friend with her bills and it can't hurt. Now, I don't know beans about the sorts of things she was doing--during the debriefing time she told me generally what she'd done to balance my five-sided star (my six-sided star was just fine) and it was all very woo-woo and I was all "mmmmmoookaaaaay"--but it worked.

Not gonna go into the details of what she did (because honestly, I don't remember and it's not important), but it took me several minutes to return to grounded, aware mentality afterward and I am someone who always wakes from sleeping immediately and with full consciousness. So this wasn't just a nap. I should mention that although my hypnotherapy experiment wasn't very productive (at least in the way I wanted), I am aces at falling into a liminal mental state when I feel safe and adequately engaged/involved in the process (I often fall into a liminal state during a well-led Savasana). Even though she didn't say a word, Star was fantastic at helping me fall into that trance space. Anyway, it was a couple days later before I noticed huge changes but wow, it was amazing when they did.

The first time I noticed Something Was Definitely Happening was during some post-orgasmic glow time with mckitterick. Now, my circulation is usually crap, and after rolling out (or when mckitterick is kind enough to rub my legs and feet super hard) is the only time my legs and feet ever feel alive and connected to my body. Suddenly, my legs, from hip joints down, felt just like they do after an intense myofascial release session. And it lasted for nearly an hour! Bliss! And then, and then, the next morning I got out of bed and I wasn't stiff and miserable. Later that day, I squatted down to put away some pans and nothing creaked or popped. For weeks, my hips had been sore and stiff and just...angry-feeling, and then it was like someone (Star) had just fire-hosed out all that congestion and stagnation.

The kicker? My hips are still feeling great. I had a bit of a moment with my back on Saturday, but I babied it most of the rest of the day and there's only the tiniest little knot back there now. Hips? Still Great.



So. Energy work. Who knew? I have my next appointment with her on the 20th.