but the railroad track will bring me back when the lonesome whistle cries

[[Insert, belatedly, from the Editrix: I'm getting there.]]



I TOLD myself, I was not going to leave without blogging SOMETHING, because dear gods...February?! Was the last time I did??

Ignoring the eight unposted drafts, I may post them, I may not, they weren't "official"... whatevers...

Then THREE DAYS WENT BY...



So I told myself I was going to run all the shots so I could work on it offline! And...I spent the next two days largely unconscious. I....I Hate. This. Brain thing. SO much.

But okay. Okay okay fine, it's only been nearly a week, I'm still on...some kind...of track...and now I have pictures!

.........

And from two to now (7:26 pm PST), I have just been editing pictures. And they're calling me off for dinner.

I....I Hate. This. Brain thing. SO. Much.



HEY GUESS HOW LONG IT TOOK ME TO FIX THE BLOG GUYS
GIVE ANOTHER TWO WEEKS *AT LEAST* TO FIGURING OUT THIS IMAGE WAS MISSING
DID I MENTION I HATE MY BRAIN RIGHT NOW?!

So expect a full review. Soon. At, uh...some point.



Also I really need to figure out what to do with the now four staggered half-complete builds floating over Cardew that were meant to be a new store....

AND THE BLOG CODE IS STILL BROKEN....

It...it...yeah. I'll get there. At some point.

I have tangled things thoroughly, and I never meant to

Text of a card I just sent out to a love:

Sooo...I want this to be a short breezy capsule response, but...

Okay. Vague causes worry. So, I haven't fallen again, though there have been some near misses, but towards the end of Aprille there was a severe pain ramp-up. And I thought I could just wait it out, and then get back in touch with people.

And..Aprille became May. And May became mid-May. And pulling open the IM window so I can send this and/or talk to you...it's been over a month since I said anything!

I am so, so sorry. Yes, a lot of it can be attributed to just--head pain scatter, or concentration scatter, and I'm beginning to accept that these may be long-term things. But the bulk of it has been waiting--apparently in vain--for the pain levels to drop back down to...well. What I consider "normal". Normal it's not, but my usual state of ow-everything-hurts-why.

Along the way, I did talk my doc into a trial run of oxycodone. Unfortunately, I live in a town on the west coast that is considered "drug-seeking". I have done *everything* in my power not to have that label go into my file, up to and including taking the MOST conservative doses possible on new meds, and then ramping up--again, conservatively--on dosage if needed.

And I'm being insanely conservative with the oxy, too. I get 20 pills every time it's refilled, and if I took it according to package directions--"every six hours as needed for moderate pain"--I'd be refilling it every six or seven days. I'm only taking a pill when it's that or drink three cups of chamomile tea and go back to bed. And try to sleep.

But *all* of this is explanation, not excuse. I don't have one. I should have reached out, even if it was to say, 'hey, there's an incredible amount of ow, sorry I haven't been in touch'. I...well, as usual, I didn't want to worry people--which makes people worry more, and I really should connect the dots on those by now.

I love you. I'm sorry. Still working on the pain thing.

Em

I've got a three day headache and it's all in my head

It's the 30th of March. One day before Ostara. And there's been a lot of...well.



Conversations like the one below.

[18:43] Emilly Shatner-Orr (emilly.orr) hugs you
[18:44] Emilly Shatner-Orr (emilly.orr): I was just starting to pack things up for dinner. Though I don't know if I'm going to be in tonight--the pain of head and the head pain and did I mention the head? It's kind of distracting.

Which was followed soon by:

[18:43] Emilly Shatner-Orr (emilly.orr) smiles, tilting up her face for a kiss. Dinner's dragging its feet--or, well, his or her feet, depending on driver. I was going to go check on progress.
[18:46] Emilly Shatner-Orr (emilly.orr) will see how she feels, she may be taking the night off. The head is...bad. I feel like I should tuck a "Bridge out" sign behind one ear.

Yeah. It's been...it's been a day.


All of it, all the mysterious fatigue, the odd tremors, the patches of growing nerve damage...the headache that occasionally tries to kill me for funsies...it doesn't look great.

Though, I should say, anyone new pops up with a diagnosis of somatoform disorder, I'm just going to full-scale bite people.



At SOME POINT, which I'm hoping is today, but may need to be tomorrow--I'm putting out the rabbit monster from Ever Green. Even if it stays out after Ostara, because damn it, I bought it to put out, I AM GOING TO PUT IT OUT.

And...then decide on the rest of the night.

Time for Em to faw down again, maybe.



No, not really.


(And why yes, Noah Finnce's "3 Day Headache" was the song playing...very, very, *very* low as the background for writing this. Why do you ask?"

hide away, they say, 'cos we don't want your broken parts

Yeah, so...remember that thing I was recovering from? You know, last year?

Yeah. I did it again.



So this is Em Faw Down Go Boom part III: Return of the Back Issues. Or something. I didn't outright fracture anything, nothing in the spine was broken or out of place, no cracks in the skull--just brain sloshy and pain.



Okay, no actual dying. Dying would hurt less--er, I mean...Rephrased, I have a concussion, I'm in a ton of pain, because I fell back and hit nearly full-on (some fun new muscle knots in the left side notwithstanding) to the back and the back of my skull. And while I would adore having the freedom to just get effective painkiller, the US is still reeling from the opiod crisis so everyone's scared to prescribe much beyond a leather belt to bite.

I didn't even injure myself in a thrilling story-type way--I was on my way out of the apartment, I hit the elevator button, then tried to throw my coat on--and felt myself falling backwards. And failed utterly to stop the fall.

I remember swearing, loudly, and hearing someone on the second floor say they heard a thump--next thing I know one of the attendants is looking at me, saying "Call 911!"

Like, don't get me wrong, I like the fact that we live so close to a fire station, I like the men and women who work there--I just don't like looking up at a ring of them, from the floor, for the third gorram time.

So. WILL do the shoes. Will also work up a thing for the latest tattoo release. But my time at the keys for anything--SL, computer, or straightening out the desk--is limited right now. I will get better, but I think the universe is tired of playing at this point. So yes, I will be more careful and yes, I will rest when I need to (which right now is many hours at a time), and I will do my best not to let this happen again. This month.

(Because I'd love to promise "until next year", but void stars, it's been three falls already, and I was still recovering from the first two!)



I'll get there. It's just put even more time between me and recovery than I had before, and I had a lot of time before this trip to the ER!

it's me, hi, I'm the problem, it's me

I know. I know, okay? The last...if I'm being honest with myself...month has been...difficult.



Well...no. For a variety of reasons, including my brain's not useless, just hobbled, but mainly that if I actually hit my head on the desk, I'd scream and pass out.

Soooo. Part of the absence was, I got far too focused on finding high heels in SL, to compare them to the Daitengu all-but-stilts--(seriously, they pass so far into ridiculous that they circle around again into perversely amusing) and forgot that I didn't actually need to get (or demo) EVERY single fetish-height platform spike on the grid.

That's on me, I fully own that.

And there's--slowly, laboriously, I hate that building is so hard right now--rebuilding the Duchess' Garden in Tannhauser Gate--the new "origin" point to work out from being a set of giant redwood trees LOVE put out last week.

And last, the physical situation in RL...it is getting better, the upper tibial fracture healed, and at this point the dual hamstring injuries are, if not healed, substantially better...but there are still problems.



So yeah...lots going on, and I both need and want to get back to regular entries...or, well, entries at all...but it was becoming an overload condition on its own, the more days went by.

So, I am cutting my losses and will work on covering the stilts this week, and will pick up semi-regular coverage from there.

Including two AOs which I promised to cover...Yeah.



I'll get there. Everything's a process, right? Right.

I can't fix you

Drumroll please, the Duchess is BAAAA--

--wait. What's that word that means "back but only occasionally and Em still has to limp around once an hour and make whimpery sounds until likely January because no one's going to be doing physical therapy visits over the holidays"?

Oh, English doesn't have a word for that?

Well, damn.

In the meantime, let me present to you the horror.



The two footrests, while I was in residence, at least, never moved. Other footrests did. At one point we had four separate wheelchairs and ten separate footrests in various spots in the room.



A better close-up. Several of us swear these have to be the original curtains, because no one makes that shade anymore.



And one night, when it was exceptionally cold due to the big bay windows behind said gold curtains, I asked for a blanket...and they brought me one in avocado green.



I rest my case.

Off for walkies.

I am brave, I am bruised, I am who I'm meant to be

Hey, kids? Wanna know what's better than trying to human with a headache that never leaves? I'll tell you--trying to human with that headache and a fractured tibia!

It's...something, I guess.

Right now Em-beyond-the-screen's reality consists of:

1. Trying to put weight on the leg;
2. Trying to move and/or walk on the leg;
3. Trying to put weight on the leg AND walk on the leg.

Thrilling stuph, lemme tell you.

The lack of a computer, where all my graphics live, is also starting to make me twitch. Which also makes the leg hurt.

So...yeah. That's where we are. I am so, so tired of the original 1970s everything here, too. You think I'm kidding, but the curtains are Harvest Gold, the striped wooden seats--one in gold pinstriping with teak-stained wood, the other a wine, gold and black wider-striped affair--that chair looks like cherry wood, and who knows, it might not be staining, but actually teak and cherry wood!

And I don't remember the pattern name--it was something like Sunshine Meadow or Meadow Gold--but it's covering the floor, authentic sheet linoleum.

Don't get me wrong--I want to be here. I want to get stronger. I want to do the work. But everything hurts, and walking feels like knives stabbing my feet, and even laying down is a challenge, because at some point, the leg with the fracture will move, or shift, or muscle fibers will pull....just...Argh.

Or maybe auurrooolllgh... One of those.

But onward through the frogs, or something.

who by high ordeal, who by common trial

<i>(Obviously, this is going to be more RL than most blog posts.)</i><br />

<br />

You want some solid, white-knuckle action? We're talking high stress, low coping, chewing fingernails to the elbows insanity?<br />

<br />

Break a bone at the end of a holiday month. Extra points for the month following to be December. A <i>savage</i> amount of points additional if you're also an internet addict and nearly everything you like to <i>do</i> online involves the computer you no longer have access to.<br />

<br />

Challenge rating impossible if all the advent calendars start tomorrow.<br />

<br />

<img src="https://i.ibb.co/8rwm5gt/goddamn-it-intensifies-Danny.gif" alt="goddamn-it-intensifies-Danny" border="0"><br />

<br />

So...<i>obviously</i>...I'm not going to be around in SL until this thing resolves. I'm on official hiatus from Vae Victis until net presence increases. I may have to reschedule a surgery because I'm stuck in physical rehabilitation.<br />

<br />

I am just having <i><b>SO MUCH FUN Y'ALL</b></

I>...<br />

I'll post updates when I can, but "not a happy bitch" seems to be the steady state.<br />

<br />

lock it safe in an urnful of summer

Wanted to push to get at least ONE post out, and whilst doing that, decided to wander an event I hadn't finished yet, and whilst doing THAT, decided to say hello to a dear friend...

Three days ago, things were terrible. Two days ago, things were terrible. Yesterday, things were grindingly awful but for a couple bright spots--talking to you being one of them. And today my system is still reeling from the past three days of leading-up-to, and then actually-having, a crushing migraine, to the point that my entire system fought getting out of bed due to ow. I'm hoping it's going to get better from here?

...and then backspaced ALL of that to say

[15:20] Emilly Shatner-Orr (emilly.orr) says hello as she's wandering a random event.

I mean...I'm not outright lying,exactly, I'm just not...going into everything?



I know. I KNOW. But...it gets tiring answering The Question some days. I'm trying to be accurate while also not dragging everyone's mood down, y'know?

AKA, Em is Trying to Find the Balance. Or maybe balance in general.

"There's no right way to forgive a person who hurt you." Also known as Ladyknighthebrave's take on Mike Flanagan's A Haunting of Hill House. And it's a miniseries that has a lot to say, on a lot of topics, but Ladyknight's take on it, I think, is sound for the material. It's an hour of how we, as individual beings, process trauma, but also...how we, as families, process trauma.

And in the meantime, processing through new realities and new issues and trying to sort everything out. And still only a couple haunts for the year under my belt. Agh.

and you better start swimmin', or you'll sink like a stone

for the times they are a-changin'...

Yeah. Sometimes it do be like that.

come gather ’round, people
wherever you roam
and admit that the waters
around you have grown...

August 28th, 2023, fell on a Monday, at least in the northern hemisphere. Monday was also family dinner at the mansion. The family knew it was the anniversary. It was...an uneven night, not unsurprisingly. How does one celebrate having an unending tension headache for a full solar year?

I'm the one on the end with the moths.

and accept it that soon
you’ll be drenched to the bone
if your time to you is worth savin’...

Dinner also featured a spritely vintage from Darkmere, and I was grateful for it.

I think even virtual wine goes to my head occasionally. I wasn't exactly effervescent, but I did seem more...open is not the word? Fluid, mayhap. Confessional. Something.

the line, it is drawn
the curse, it is cast
the slow one now
will later be fast

So, it's been a year, and what have we learned? I beyond the glass may have Celiac's, and if not, then a fairly unstable version of gluten intolerance. No one knows why the headache persists. Half my doctors are treating me as if I am diabetic, and the other half aren't--and meanwhile, my pursuit for a diagnosis of SOME kind keeps driving off the cliff, the latest being my (new resident) doctor's confidence in the latest A1C being "fine" (even with some other symptoms and readings in other tests).

Let's not forget that in the course of one month (with blood tests at either end) I went from some issues we needed to work on to HOLY FARKING DUCKLINGS YOU HAVE THIRD-STAGE KIDNEY DISEASE...which, by the way, disappeared with the next blood test...



Oh, and my neurologist's officially thrown me away, because there's "nothing neurological" she can fix. But if I develop something...something that's not migraines, headache, nerve pain, and a kicky little tremor, apparently...she says I should feel free to call her.

Sure. Let me just make a note about that....how does the 32nd of February next year work for you?

But that...admittedly, adapting to that led to some very dark days.

Witness this was supposed to be shot, and framed, and written, and posted, on the 28th...and I slipped a couple days due to sudden depression slogging through the mire.

as the present now
will later be past
the order is rapidly fadin'...

Stone-home truth, here: I started wondering what was the point. Now, no one call in wellness checks, guys, I am not in danger, believe me. But there was some staring into the abyss, namely...Should I still keep counting? Should I stop? If I stop, what do I replace it with? If I keep counting, when does it become another obsession? When do I get to pick up the threads of my life and get back to reality, fractured as it was?

And the deep, midnight-in-sealed-crypts dark question: is this the new baseline, and I just have to suck it up from here?

So, yeah. Took a couple days to catch up with everything.

and the first one now
will later be last
for the times they are a-changin'...

If nothing else, I have the garden. It keeps me occupied when I have spare non-hurty time. I stay in touch with friends and loves as I can. It's not a terrible life. I may have to ask Aiko where she gets her running-in-circles animation from, because I bet it would be mad frenetic on a Dinkie.

I will admit, it is a struggle some days NOT to go huge (like, giant thorn vines huge, mysterious earth portals that fling folks in a random direction huge), but so far I'm constraining things. I'm working on changing out all the no-copy flora (and the non-seasonal flora), so it will be easier to change from season to season...

...because WHY YES I have noticed the lack of seasons on the land and I miss it, and that, at least, I can start pushing out in Tannhauser and Gearhaven.

For the rest of it...well, I am a very stubborn muffin. I may be bruised, battered, staggering and broken, and it may take me longer to stand up...but I intend to keep standing up for some time yet. This weekend I may spend more time with the offworld partners, and idly make new things out of old things while we watch the next episode of Mentopolis on Dropout. (I am still convinced that Hank Green is just playing himself in that season...or, at least, Hank Green if he was bright red, in a weird 40s noir mystery, and of his hands were bigger than his head...but otherwise, yeah, that's my working theory.)

And life will move on, as is the way of such things. And I'll get back to product reviews soon, because I do like them, first, and second, for baffling reasons they haven't slapped my wrist for going past some event times, so if nothing else, they're building up unswerving brand loyalty from me. It helps that I adore Grim and Mesmer to death, too, it must be said.

But now it's late, and it's been a long day, some of it spent dashing between transport and clinic doors with ice-cold rain in between, so I suppose this is as 'done' as it gets, right now. G'night.

I don't have far to fall but that didn't help at all

Yeah, it's been...another of the bad weeks. But I move forward. I will crawl if I have to and count my progress in inches, but I am not giving up.

Expect an update on a /Vae Victis\ group gift next, and remember, to get that gift just drop ten Lindens in the till and join the chaos.

oh, the monsters, they ain't just inside my head

So...it's been some time since I updated. I would like to say, I've been thrillingly occupied with a fascinating new development RL that is taking the whole of my attention, but...while it does involve new developments in RL matters, they are developments I neither wanted nor asked for.



I'm fairly sure I've missed at least one offering each from /Vae Victis\ and Arkivet when they were at those particular events, go me. And I so want to say, well, it was a drop in productivity, but that's done now, so let's GOOOOO...but I'm trying to be a realist in this. At Day 218 of the Eternal Headache, and coming up on three full weeks with the new horror, it is safe to say the Em no longer functions.

I'll do what I can, y'all. Okay. Back to your regularly scheduled whatever.

so tied up, we've been here before

(Considering I've been up since three, and it's now nine...I will try and be in world later, but that may not work...

(In the meantime, it's dangerous out there, take this with you.)

what is left now that it's over?

I think we're past fire at this point...



I like to think, whether this is self-delusion or not, that I'm at least adequate at working out issues between people. I try not to fly off the handle these days; I try to listen and then try to articulate what I need to have said. No one's perfect, I'm not, no one is, but...I thought I had at least a minor ability, there.

If what just resolved, in spite of every attempt I made, is indicative of skill...I've been lying to myself.



I'm finding it morbidly amusing currently, that when I started my Twitch account, I chose the name I'd just started running under, emptydoll. Because I'd just suffered a very bad breakup and at the time, I felt very small, very empty, very broken.

Fast forward to this moment, these feelings, and I just feel...hollowed out. I'm not mad, I'm not crying hysterically, I'm just...exhausted. It takes effort to breathe. Everything around me is very, very quiet, in that excruciatingly loud way.

Once again, I am the empty doll, trying to figure out what I do now.



I never wanted another ban of anyone else I cared for. I never wanted my dominant to feel as if he had to step in to protect me from hurting myself, as well as continuing to be hurt by someone else. I never wanted to feel like this again.

We don't always get what we want.

Eventually, I'll be back to some form of steady state. The walls are going to be very high for quite some time. The masks are going to be riveted in place. I'll do what I can to drop them around others I love, but it certainly won't be easy, and depending on where I am, what I'm doing, and definitely who I'm interacting with...it may not even be possible.

But we'll deal with that when it happens. All I can do is keep moving forward. And picking myself up when I fall down, when the weight of my heart is too much to carry.

I get through this. I've gotten through worse things. I just mourn, yet again, that I have to.

Still spinning in the heart of Hagalaz, I suppose. And waiting for the hail to thaw.

don't get near me, I'll only sear your skin, in the state I'm in

And then, another night fell, a darker day dawned...



I am not at all happy to have you back.



I suppose I should at least thank you for the warmth...



It's been mentioned recently that I court my own destruction to reinforce my brand. Which is laughable, in one sense, but...I have based this entire blog on emotional pain. Am I truly surprised that it then keeps...cropping...up?

The question now is...how do I change that?



And I am so, so very tired...



Maybe I can push it back through the mirror. Think there's a chance of that?



In the meantime, this is where we are. Hagalaz, the rain of hail. The eye of the storm. Crisis, catastrophe, the emergence of the shadow to stain the light...The acceptance of the unalterable.

That's depressing.

Spun out to get here, spun out once I leave, the intensity for current pain inflicted, to ensure the lack of pain in future. And the chill in the air grows...Hagall brings it all to my door. With the tenuous hope of crops to feed the soul in future...if I accept the upheaval of now.

I never wanted this upheaval. But here I am again, anyway. Best to find more coal, the way this thing is burning.

At least one good thing happened today. It's something to smile about, at least. There may be precious little of that for a while...

you have to understand that the one I killed is me

the sky is a neighborhood
so keep it down...

I'm here again. Why am I here again? Why is there never enough air when I'm here?



heart is a storybook
a star burned out...

I wander funereal zones, feeling half-buried myself. Everything is far too loud in my head, and far, far too quiet outside it.



the sky is a neighborhood
don't make a sound
lights comin' up ahead
don't look now--

I seek out the wild places, hoping to find calm. I seek out memorials to tell myself I am not the only one suffering loss, but...it's only depressing me further. I'm...stuck.



oh, my dear, heaven is a big bang now
gotta get to sleep somehow
bangin' on the ceiling
bangin' on the ceiling
keep it down--

Even going through a haunted maze didn't cheer me up. This is...bad.



mind is a battlefield
all hope is gone
trouble to the right and left
whose side you're on?

Breathing ash again...this is familiar. The torn and bloodied sky. Very familiar. And every time, every single time I think I can park the train forever and just leave it to rust...the train wreck comes roaring back towards me.

And I'm still naive enough to be surprised.



thoughts like a minefield
I'm a tickin' bomb
maybe you should watch your step
don't get lost

Playing tag with past ghosts...I've been here before, too. Pain always echoes, especially this soul-deep.



heart is a storybook
a star burned out
somethin' comin' up ahead
don't look now--

We're told, when we can't see the solution to something where we are, to change our perspective. It doesn't seem to be working. Maybe the change needs to be deeper, this time. Maybe it needs to alter me, not just my view.



oh, my dear, heaven is a big bang now
gotta get to sleep somehow
bangin' on the ceiling
bangin' on the ceiling
keep it down...

I don't know what forms will come out of this. Maybe nothing at all. Maybe it's just going to be the walls don't come down, again, and...there's something in that that's kin to swallowing acid, because--I fought so hard, for years, to dismantle them. But maybe better boundaries are needed.

Because I'm feeling less sane by the moment, so...reconfiguration, of some sort. It's coming.

the sky is a neighborhood...

I just don't know how much it's going to hurt.

(Lyrics taken from The Sky is a Neighborhood by the Foo Fighters, off their album Concrete and Gold. Otherwise, the entry was written to Everything is Moving So Fast by Great Lake Swimmers, The Long One by the Beatles {[which as a remix comprises You Never Give Me Your Money, Sun King, Mean Mr. Money, Her Majesty, Polythene Pam, She Came Through the Bathroom Window, Golden Slumbers, Carry That Weight, and The End], Spirit in the Sky by KEiiNO, Evil by Interpol, and Crooked Still's Ain't No Grave. Shots taken in Caledon On Sea, Atheneum, the Endless Graveyard, the Dollhouse Forest, Living Echoes, and Mythspire Ridge. [Atheneum, Living Echoes and Mythspire being Fantasy Faire sims this year.])