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.