Thundersnow Returns!

Booms from this intense thunderstorm keep shaking my office chair. Oh yeah, and it's snowing so hard I can barely see across the street. Spring already?

First appointment at the sports rehab center today because of [content redacted]. I have my fingers crossed that they can help me out.

I am inking the next pages of my comic today. I can barely contain my excitement over the huge plot revelations I had the other day. It's still hard for me to believe a short side project could have evolved into something this complex with so little effort. Like it was already in my head, waiting for me to uncover it a bit at a time. I know it'll never be on par with the Great American Novel, but I'm pretty comfy with what I've got.

More Medical Fun

The other day I spent 3 hours driving around in blowing snow with maybe 200 feet of visibility in order to find the dentist who takes Medicaid. Mapquest fucked me right in the sigmoid colon and then turned around and didn't pay. You know how sometimes numbered streets also have names? Yeah. They gave the street's name but not its number, and the signs showed the number but not the name. Also, "Highway 5" is not the same thing as "County Road 5" except that it actually is.

Also, going 35 on the interstate is for stupids.

At the end of it all, I got my teeth cleaned and the dentist told me I need fillings. Either I developed three cavities in six months or the last guy missed them on my previous visit. Ah well, I can always use more needles in my gums.

Then today I saw the podiatrist about my arch pain and toe numbness when walking. He said I have good arches but they don't have much support, and slapped some wet plaster socks on my feet to make orthotic inserts. They'll come in the mail next week and then I have to break them in over a week or so. It sounds a bit draconian but whatevs, as long as I can look forward to someday being able to jog and walk without my shins catching fire I'll be a happy guy and suffer minor annoyances.

Next week I see a nurse-practitioner who has allergies training about my eye. I've been getting a firespot in the exact same place every other day for a week or more. Feels like grit is caught under the lid, but there isn't anything there. What really causes the sensation is chemosis--the conjunctiva swelling up in a bright red lump like an itchy, burning nipple on my freakin' eyeball. No idea what causes it but I have had it happen before when I lived in my sister's backyard party house. Dusty place, maybe that's the connection? We shall see.

I inked the pages today and went on to pencil another one. Why not? I'm slacking at the computer so I might as well catch up with pen and paper. I don't like how the art came out (forced my way through a block and it shows) but probably a bit of digital touching up will at least bring it up to standards. I can't worry too much about it because in the end it's only 2 out of 700+ pages, which brings the grand total of pages I can't stand to admit to drawing in my comic to 4. I'm a picky motherfucker, so that's actually not a bad track record at all.

The Zoloft seems to make me sleepy, but I need extra rest anyway. This cold is still kicking my ass. I've gone into the "dry hacking" phase, and it's so uncomfortable I've begun to almost long for those long nights where I would wake up with my entire body cocooned beneath a brittle crust of leaking snot. Fuck, but that's grim.

This Is My Milwaukee

Ho damn I'm sick. Head pounding, dizzy, eyes and body aching. I'm weak and out of breath over little things like climbing the stairs or bending over, and my tonsils are so swollen that when I try to swallow they get in the way and sort of squish around painfully. Pleasant.

After the first half-hour of being awake, I feel better, but after a while I get drowsy and the symptoms come back, so I go back to sleep. Very vivid dreams, mostly of the disturbing variety, but I'm OK with that.

With what little of my time remains to me after sleeping and whimpering, I am following an ARG. It's the second time in my life I've come across one when it was just getting started, and the first time (I Love Bees) I didn't know what it was and wandered off long before any of the good stuff showed up.

If you're into this stuff, here's the website that starts it off, and here's a thread where clues and possible leads are being posted.

Really Stupid Things To Be Scared Of

I just discovered that I'm genuinely frightened of the leaning tower of Pisa. The photos squick me right the fuck out--especially the ones where the uneven floors and curve are especially prominent. Ugh, it's just horrible.

Sometimes I have dreams where I'm trying to get out of a high building that's slanted like that. There's usually a staircase on the outside that I'm trying to climb (up or down) and it usually comes apart. Even noticing the places where our old house's flooring is uneven from a century of settling makes my heart beat a little too hard and I have to think about something else or I'll start to think about what it would feel like to be inside a collapsing house.

I don't even like to be in a place with more than five floors. I had to stay in a hotel with 50 of them once and I had panic attacks.

Shit, I dunno. Maybe my parents let me watch the Towering Inferno at too young an age or something.

Never Rains But It Pours

...And now my scanner has died.

Somebody just shoot me already.

PANIC! AT THE OLD HEIDELBERG

WOO! Time for another venty post like my old LJ days!

I can't talk about Fight Club, but if I could, I'd tell you all about how close to screaming I am right now. Isn't it weird how humans can rev themselves up into a geniuine fight-or-flight panic over paperwork?

I've never wished so hard to be like everybody else. The whole affair seems tailored to press on all my psychological sore spots, and I honestly don't know what to do anymore. It just gets more and more complicated, and I was barely hanging on to begin with. There is no move I can make that's not going to drop this whole thing on my head. Logically I recognize that this means I should pick the least negative one and smash right through. But there's also this paralyzing worry that clangs and screeches and runs around in circles until I'm exhausted.

The deeper I get into the situation, the more I daydream about just running away and letting everything fall apart. It's easier to abdicate responsibility when the alternative is complete shutdown. I've done it before, and I remember how bloody awesome it felt.

I also remember how badly it fucked up my life. I'm not about to slide back down into that pit just as I'm starting to see daylight.

*Twitch*

For the good news: I saw the shrink on Tuesday and I think I lucked out. She's clever, nice and completely non-threatening, and she has a German accent. She is the uber-shrink. I can't afford her on my own, so I have to get MinnCare like now.

Please GOD, let this help me get better.

Getting Out Again

FINALLY.















Update tonight, kiddies. I apologize for the flakery; I needed to get my mind right after recent shitstorms. Tomorrow I get to see a psych on orders from the Fleet. (They're installing a tracking device so I won't even have to call in my location during the next Scientology protest.)

I am nervous, but I endure. Glory Marcabia! Glory Xenu!

Hacking My Life

Oh I am in so much trouble. And I didn't even do anything. BLAH BLAH BLAH ANGST STORM ABOUT HOW I AM ENTITLED TO AN EASY LIFE BLAH.

Sorry for the cryptic. I'm not supposed to talk about Fight Club. :(

The tiny banana republic of Lukadia is being attacked by the Nation of Meltdown. Current forces in place include financial worries, oh-god-what-am-I-doing-with-my-life-I'd-be-better-off-dead panic, anxiety over Fight Club, obsessive thoughts and tics, and of course your friend and mine, the crippling fear of social interaction.

Luckily for me, the invasion began at a very good time. I'm energetic, functional and relatively perceptive. Best of all, I'm not so depressed that I'd rather just hide in my room for the next five years (that has historically been my response to these episodes, and look where it's gotten me). There's still time for decisive preventative action.

And so, instead of hoping the nasty invaders just get bored and wander off and leave me alone, I'm going to call in an airstrike. Money woes and pride be damned; I've got options here that haven't been tried yet, and the volition to try them. Tomorrow I am going to make that fucking appointment and get some help.

DID SOMEBODY SAY 'TORNADO OF STABILITY?'

[[ENTRY REDACTED DUE TO RULES 1 AND 2]]

Got 1x New House!

Back online at the new place! I fucking love it here.

Inked most of a page of Kagerou today and my carpal didn't flare up at all. This is the best they've been in weeks, so I'm taking advantage of my good fortune before I help finish moving the rest of the boxes and fuck my wrists up all over again.

However: my knee went boom just as my fingers stopped going numb, so now I'm having to stay off it as much as possible. This is a problem since I live on the second floor of the new house, so going up and down stairs is a real adventure.

One benefit of having to sit on my ass all day while the knee mends: time for art! I think I'll be able to post an update and start the Sketchbook Raffle this Saturday.

At this moment, the Captain has taken his evening whiz, so I'm going to go flop down on the futon mattress I'm using for a bed and pass out. Bliss!