Thursday

May. 4th, 2023 04:48 pm
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After several bad days in a row (low energy, brain fog, depression, anxiety, etc.) I ditched my usual morning routine. Instead of making tea then doing my morning meditation and tarot study I started my day the way I used to, back when I was writing Ghost Story and Deconstruction. Make tea, check in on social media, then write. I got 500 good words done in an hour! I wanted to write more but didn't want to ruin myself for the rest of the day. Instead I rewarded myself with making gimbap for an early lunch, then did a bit of work in my art studio, and then laid down for an hour although I didn't fall asleep. After that I did my tarot meditation, then a very little bit of stuff for my website before popping in on social media again. I can feel my brain starting to misfire and fritz out at this point, the way it usually does at this time of day but at least I don't feel like it was another wasted day.

I have got to start generating some income soon. It's getting very yikes in here.

In other news, I should have run the caffeine experiment for a bit longer before ordering three tins of new tea. I started having problems sleeping after about a week and a half. I'm back to decaf black tea in the mornings and will save the caffeine for special occasions. sigh
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Twitter Guardian and Guardian-adjacent:
Apparently Japan is releasing Guardian on DVD. I was lamenting to [personal profile] 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.

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Twitter:
Dogs bless this person's dedication to keeping that image of Zhu Yilong in frame as long. as fucking. possible.
bb!SW is so incredibly pretty.
Need help picturing Bai Yu's face when he's enjoying something extremely pleasant? Like maybe thinking about Zhu Yilong's tongue? I mean, even one of the directors ships it.

Untamed
Light-bearing Lord? I think you mean FIGHT-bearing Lord. (thank you thank you I'm here all week don't forget to tip your waitstaff)

Thanks to[personal profile] kimboo_york for the link to this thread about the Minoans. Parts the second and third. I had no idea about 90% of this and it certainly doesn't affect my appreciation for the images they did produce.

Scheduled productivity project is not happening this week. Migraine + fatigue = another few days of limping through as I can.

However! I've made the small step of donning items that aren't house clothes while I'm sitting around the house. Most of my wardrobe is stretch knits anyway, so they still feel like house clothes, but at least they're things I wouldn't feel weird wearing to the grocery store. I'm also going to self-test for Spanish on Duolingo today. At least get that set up for when I have brain to actually learn. Baby steps baby steps.

This is me not freaking out that my herbalism apprenticeship program starts in less than two months and I'm still this physically frail. I already warned the instructor that I have fatigue issues, so...


My life motto.
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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.
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Okay, who told me about the band Hidden Citizens? Was it someone here? I want to thank you because they are the-bomb-dot-com. Angsty, emo hard rock anthems are my jam and angsty, emo hard rock anthem cover songsFUCKING SOLD.

Am about 1k words into the next Guardian fic. I wanted to get something down before I left for Con*Strict, so that's a relief. Had a hard time getting started because my brain can be annoyingly linear and I couldn't write the parts I knew were going to happen (the sex) before I wrote the things I didn't (the build-up/UST). As I mentioned in a comment to [personal profile] naye , apparently my writing needs adequate foreplay. [personal profile] mckitterick talked with me a bit (so convenient, having a live-in writing instructor) and something, not sure what, sparked an insight for that first, crucial paragraph. Thanks, my dude.

Finally watched Good Omens and enjoyed it very much! I can appreciate David Tennant and Michael Sheen's performances while still mourning the loss of less-white casting. Can't lie, their chemistry is fantastic and sorry not sorry those characters are so in love. I thought the middle two episodes dragged a bit, but not enough to stop watching. The scriptwriters did a good (and necessary) reworking of Shadwell's character but I was disappointed how they (visually) cleaned up Madame Tracy's character at the end. Was that in the book? I don't remember, but even if it was, I could've done without it.

It's been a long time since I read it and [personal profile] mckitterick never read it at all so that's the next read-aloud project. The two other books I've read to him are Jitterbug Perfume (problematic but I love the language of it) and Little, Big (best. novel. ever.). I assured him I am not going to attempt any accents.

ETA: speaking of Good Omens, I almost forgot to share that this happened on Tumblr. [personal profile] naye, have you seen that? When fandoms collide.

In Health Shit, I'm back to sucking up 60cc of ozone. *knocks wood* After today's session I have three weeks off since my schedule conflicts with the clinic's during vacation time of year. It'll be helpful to track how I feel with that much time off. Am still weirdly uninterested in food which will probably serve me well while traveling so not complaining.

Motivating myself to do food prep so [personal profile] mckitterick doesn't starve while I'm gone is difficult when I just want to write or art. It's such a fucking pleasure to do things for fun again.
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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 [personal profile] 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*!
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Ozone treatments are going okay. We had a few sessions where we couldn't get more than 30cc in me before my body said NOPE (the NOPE manifests with what feels like a cross between extreme muscle ache and someone shredding broken glass under my skin so that's Fun Times) but this morning I took all 60cc with no problem. In Dr. Sexy's words "Sometimes the body just says no."

I ate at two restaurants this week with minimal issues! I had to spend a few hours downtown on Tuesday while the tires on the Crossfire were getting replaced so I risked eating at the restaurant where I used to dance (I had a roasted cauliflower appetizer and a side of shawarma chicken). Then last night I went to a sushi place with the Burgomaster's workshop group (because apparently they like my company). No GI pain or poop problems, although I'm pretty swollen in my belly. But hey, at least I know neither of those will cause me an immediate run to the bathroom so I'm counting both as a success. SMALL VICTORIES.

Oh, and I posted my first-ever fic on AO3 ten minutes ago, so that's...um. I'm gonna go with "exciting."
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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).
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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... )
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Saw Dr. Sexy on Tuesday. T3 counts have been not looking great, so we're trying a compounded T4+T3 pill. All my sex hormones have apparently plummeted as well (that would help explain the missing libido) so we're going to try some of those, applied topically. Tomorrow I go to Kansas City to test for biotoxins and hormone disrupters (bc apparently those must be done in a lab). We know I have some of both thanks to that Visual Contrast Sensitivity Test, but this will tell us which ones they are so we can figure out what we might be able to do about them.

Fun news, though! An acquaintance of the Burgomaster invested heavily in this company and the Burgomaster bought some of their products on his recommendation. I've been taking them (the sublingual powder form) for about six weeks and my blood results showed a massive improvement in some-or-the-other cell function which is critically tied to NAD (which this stuff supports). Dr. Sexy was pretty convinced that improvement was due to my taking the supplement. Also, he remarked on my improved Omega 3 numbers and said the fish oil supplements must be helping. I told him I stopped taking them a while ago and switched to just eating a lot of canned sardines. So that's apparently working, and doesn't contribute (as heavily) to over-fishing issues (and is better absorbed, anyway).



VCSTest

Mar. 14th, 2019 09:11 am
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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. )

Squirrelly

Nov. 3rd, 2015 09:01 am
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I got the picture of my live blood analysis, finally. So here's what healthy red blood cells look like. Here's the sort of thing you find when you do an image search for Rouleaux. Here's what my blood looks like behind the cut )

Today's Tumblr collection is Tuesday, November 3: Squirrels.
clevermanka: default (sin like you mean it)
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.
clevermanka: default (Reefer Madness)
Back in my frivolous days of youth, I had a particular affection for this little thing called an ECA stack. Being a frugal DIY-er, I made my own with ephedrine tabs (I preferred Mini Thins, but would also use Truckers Luv IT brand), No-Doz, and baby aspirin. One tablet of each in the morning after a particularly late (or rough) night and I was good for the day. Alert, focused, and happy. No shakes, no jitters, no headache-nausea from multiple cups of coffee...ECA stacks were the shit. Then of course, ephedrine became illegal and the replacement (I can't remember its name) wasn't the same. I haven't taken an ECA stack in over a decade.

Well.

Last night was bad. Real bad. Between the coughing (still) and the itching from these fucking mite bites (worse), I got maybe three hours of cumulative sleep last night. I felt horrible. Just wretched. I should note, I went to bed at 9:00 last night because I was so tired from walking back and forth to the union twice yesterday for meetings. This morning I could barely climb the stairs to wake up [livejournal.com profile] mckitterick to ask him to give me a ride up to campus. No way I could call in sick, since the other secretary is out.

Before we left, I rooted around in our medications drawer for an Emergen-C packet. I saw a bottle of this stuff that I bought [livejournal.com profile] mckitterick ages ago. There was still one tablet left and I thought Well Why Not. I brought it to work with me, popped it in my tea mug full of water and drank it first thing when I got here.

Holy Fucking Shit y'all. Z-I-N-G! Energy and euphoria just like what I remember from my ECA stacks. I am happy! I am motivated! I am looking at my to-do list for today and thinking Hooray! Filing! My Favorite! (I actually do love filing, but it's a weirdly exhausting task when one is chronically tired and brain-foggy.) I'm looking around my office and there is just not enough here for me to do. I can tell I'm not going to be content paging through screen after screen of Tumblr. I want to be making things, talking about things, doing things. I want to go to the gym!

I feel so damn good. I honestly don't remember the last time I felt this basically...great. I mean, it's Friday, and that helps, but you guys I could barely string together a sentence when I left the house and now I've cheerfully helped two people with the copier, chatted with someone about art projects, answered all my work email, gossiped with someone about her weekend plans, and just generally been Let's Do Today, Folks! on three hours of sleep. While itchy. And still coughing/stuffy. I feel like a normal person. A normal, happy person. This is amazing.

It's gonna be difficult not to take one of these things every day.
clevermanka: default (winter)
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, [livejournal.com profile] 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 [livejournal.com profile] 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.
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I want a print of the fourth piece of art in this Toast essay.

Maggie Stiefvater posted a really great techno/electronica playlist on Tumblr.

My left hip is still bugging me and I think it's two things. One, I might have been overstretching and...sprained it a little? Oops. I've been babying it during my PT exercises (which omg you guys so exhausting) and it's feeling a little better already. Two, though. Ugh. Two, I think it's the extra weight I've put on in the past couple months. I had a hard time returning to structured eating after 221B Con, which I mentioned at the time, but I still am snacking way too much (like, at all) and so much dried fruit and nuts. I know my joints hurt more and regularly when I creep over 165lbs. I haven't weighed myself in ages, but I bet I'm up around there, if not over. [livejournal.com profile] mckitterick's also unhappy with the bit of belly he's acquired recently, so the two of us made a pact for a full calendar year--until Memorial Day 2016--to be the most physically-conscious versions of ourselves and see how fit and healthy we can possibly get in 365 days.

As always, if doing stuff like this with other people helps inspire you or keep you on track, feel free to join us!

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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 [livejournal.com profile] 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 [livejournal.com profile] 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!

Scamper

May. 19th, 2015 10:10 am
clevermanka: default (blah)
My hips are getting sore and stiff again. Hurray for seeing Star again tomorrow! And the PT guy, and Dr. Jonah--it's a long morning in KC for me. In a way, it's kind of cool that the issue is returning. Very few issues are solved in a single fix-it session, and this slight regression somehow makes the healing process more real.

Here are more office stretches that you don't even need to leave your desk to do.

There are squirrels or birds (or both) in the dropped ceiling at the office. This happens every year. Oh, spring.

I've been eating for crap lately and I can't be assed to care. Last night I had a green salad with dried fruit, toasted almonds, and chopped strawberries. For dessert (like I needed dessert--that salad was sweet enough to be a dessert), apple slices with almond butter. WTF, self. There's this stuff called protein. And remember how you're supposed to limit your intake of raw food? Yeah.

Today's Tumblr is Tuesday, May 19: Rain.
clevermanka: default (i dance now)
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 [livejournal.com profile] mckitterick. Now, my circulation is usually crap, and after rolling out (or when [livejournal.com profile] 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.

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