Just a Sci-Fi Kid Like Me

CURRENT TALLY OF COMPLETED FIC WORDAGE: 431,692
All Star Trek stories are Kirk/McCoy unless otherwise stated.
All Avengers stories are Steve/Tony unless otherwise stated.


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So it's spring now. I am still snowed under. I took a long weekend just because and spent more of it napping than I meant to.

Me: I don't know why I'm so tired.
Friend: You have a lot going on, and also the Fascism.
Me: ... Yeah that would do it.

Mom was briefly in the hospital with a UTI, her vitals were stable, but she still had to ham it up, "WHY are you asking about my HEALTH INSURANCE? Can't you SEE I am on my DEATH BED?!"

I have a doctor's appointment on Tuesday morning and I am going to ask him about anti-anxiety meds. (I'm on some mild anti-depressants but the anti-anxiety could be nice.) I am trying to deal with the capitalism in my brain scolding me about all the things I am behind on when in fact I do a lot and have more than earned a break.

I hope all of you are as safe as can be. Don't let the bastards grind you down.

Just really busy with Real Life and trying to stay on top of things (usually with mixed success). I've also joined Bluesky this week because I feel like I'm watching my social media starting to stutter in the wake of politics and still want to keep track of people, so, here's hoping.

NB. Composed as an addendum to the story of Gimli and Legolas in the Appendices.

The Elf Maid and the Dwarvish Prince

It is said that in earlier times that there was another such pair of friends, although they were not borne of battle. In the last days of Eregion when the children of Eru and the children of Aulë had not yet come to their strife, a minor daughter of the Gwaith-i-Mírdain was chance acquainted with a Dwarvish prince from Mount Gundabad in those days before it fell to the orcs.

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Scott and I finally caught Covid. Most likely from a friend who went to a con.

Tonight we were feeling sorry for ourselves and decided to go full RotK: DO YOU REMEMBER THE TASTE OF STRAWBERRIES, FRODO? NO, SAM, I DON'T REMEMBER THE TASTE OF FOOD, OR WATER, OR THE TOUCH OF GRASS!

It's a good thing we're stuck together, we'd drive everyone else in the world batshit.

 I took a whole week of staycation and did very little beyond sleep, play records, read, and play video games. So I feel calmer than previously.

Let's see: Todd's Mom died; she didn't wake up from her surgery and she'd made her wishes known, so after a week she was taken off the ventilator. He said that despite her wishes it made no one feel less shitty. The last week and change he has been involved in memorial and funeral planning and stuff.

My Mom's not well and I was thinking about how I should try to be more thoughtful about "present" about our interactions, and yet she is still her same awful self, so that's... something.

My friend with breast cancer has been to multiple appointments and is opting for a double mastectomy with reconstructive surgery. On the plus side once that's done she need never wear bras again. Although she also noted before this she had JUST bought new ones which are expensive, so fucking real life man.

My boss came back from leave and then went on leave again for surgery and she is ... herself. I am part of a cohort to receive "executive coaching" which starts next week and I'm kinda like "so are there plans to give me any kind of real authority or am I just here to be counted?" I don't know.

Did I tell you guys I got a record player? Scott bought it for me because watching me dither endlessly is apparently exhausting. I've spent the last two months getting records and enjoying listening to them: a mix of recommendations, happenstance, and things I already love. I entertain the local record store clerks with my choices. Example: This week I bought Taylor Swift's Folklore, Mdou Moctar's Nigerien EP No. 1, and The Goo Goo Dolls' rerelease of their first album when they were still punk. The clerk, a grizzled old dude who is actually pretty entertaining if you get him going, surveyed them, paused, and said, "Okay, you take the award for most diverse collection. I have never seen this combo before. Good for you!" 

Todd calls record collecting Emotional Support Vinyl and he started during the pandemic. He is fucking brilliant. It's been soothing as hell these last weeks.

 When you tell your therapist why you have anxieties because of specific family traumas and she gets so outraged on your behalf she doesn't know what to do, so you tell her to turn Linkin Park up on high, and then 15 minutes after your session she messages to say that yeah, that helped, and also "In the End" is a great song.

Yeah it is, now put on NUMB!

I know where the past two months went, but they were minor eternities all the same. There was the day of frightening ice, and there was the day of doctor's phone calls, and there were days dark and bright spent with my bestie doing our little poetry workshops.

I am so overwhelmed with real life but I am doing my best, and as ever there's no way out but through.

 I've been meaning to write a post, it's just that I don't have anything real to say right now. I continue to tread water and keep swimming. Yesterday I had a bad mental health day and texted Todd (Scott was away traveling), who frets about the psychological load I am carrying with regards to health/work/family stuff. I dutifully go to my therapist each week, but the reality is that I am Not Good about emotional vulnerability and it is what it is.

At least we can stay home for the holidays this year. I have a doctor's appointment on the 27th for an ultrasound to make sure I don't have any blockages or anything before my next round of stuff, since I haven't had one of those in a while (I was clear last time, so knock wood).

Currently reading the Dutli biography of Osip Mandelstam, because while super depressed reading stuff about Soviet dissident writers who get sent off to die in the Gulag ... provides perspective? Or something?

About to go to my first in-person conference since before the pandemic--flying out Wednesday and back Sunday. I will get to see beloved friends and colleagues. I will give the most disorganized paper of my career, and it will be fine. One way or another.

Friday night I got the new covid vax and spent all of yesterday in bed with fevers and chills. I am glad my immune system is working, but man. So today I am tiredly doing all my chores while feeling incredibly sore.

I am so overwhelmed, but no way out but through.