Distracted By Something Shiny

So much family drama. I was going to post about this over the weekend, when I was all wound up, but I thought it better to take a breath first.

But now…: My youngest uncle on my dad’s side - let’s call him Uncle DBag - has always been kind of a self entitled ass. A late-in-life birth, baby-spoiled, you know. A blowhard of sorts. When he was married, his wife kept him in line. Then they got divorced and he bought a fast car, got an earring and brought two dates to a family wedding. I figured he’d settle once his post-divorce wackiness was out of his system. Nope.

( Cut for spaceage. )

Death in the family brings out the worst, I know. I’ve seen it before when my maternal grandma passed. It shouldn’t be about money or things. For me, it’ll always be about the memories I carry in my heart for my grandparents and the farm. The DBags can keep the stuff.

It's a birthday! Two, actually. It's my birthday and The BFF's birthday, liptonrm! We're birthday twins! Except she's a year younger than me and she never let's me forget it, lol. We celebrated on Saturday, with The Nephew, opening his gifts from last weekend and our gifts from this weekend, together. Our real celebration was Comic Con though, obvs. And yesterday my mom brought me a giant piece of triple fudge cake, so I'll have that with dinner tonight!

On Saturday, The BFF asked me how it felt to be 38 and I groaned at her and yelled, "Not for two more days!" But then she pointed out that I shouldn't begrudge every year older I get, I should celebrate it, because I have made it 8 years past what the naysayers said I would. As a kid, everyone always said, "She'll be lucky to make it to 30." My parents told me that a lot - (the horrific parenting there is a topic for another day). Idk where in their ass they pulled out this arbitrary number anyways, but here I am at 38, still going strong! Well, maybe not strong, but stronger than even I expected!

So, indeed, a day to celebrate! And now, my yearly baby picture! I swore I posted this one before, but I went back through my bday posts and it seems not, so here you go...


I apparently labeled this one 'Buckethead'. It must have been my superhero identity as a child - Buckethead!

I have already gotten so many nice birthday messages and love from you all, thank you, my lovelies. It is a beautiful day out here and I hope it is a beautiful day wherever you all are too!

Can you believe I have been on LJ all this time and I have never sent them a complaint before? I once sent them a help-ask, but never a complaint. Can someone point me in the right direction to do that? I need to inform them how, every time they make a new 'update', it gets harder and harder for me to see. The background color and text font/color keep getting changed - (to look worse and more boring, imo) - and I have to blow my screen up bigger and bigger and even then, my eyes are straining. I changed my own journal and my Flist page back to look like my layout again, but can't get my inbox page to go back to the old version. I always view my LJ on my IPad these days and so it was converting it to this new 'improved' mobile layout. Yeah doucheholes, if I wanted a cheap, hard-to-see mobile viewing option, I'd look at LJ on my LJ-app! I don't though, because IT'S TOO HARD FOR ME TO SEE!! I always view on Safari, but even that was being affected by this new update. Now I have it mostly changed back, except for my inbox page, which I have to strain to read, thanks to the update, and I can't seem to find a way to change that page back to the old viewing system. Or when I view your individual pages either.

I also am not a fan of how the little inbox-icon is no longer at the top of my blog page, that I have to click a little dropdown menu just to see how many messages are waiting for me, but that's more a inconvenience and non-helpful change than the background/text thing, which I find really inaccessible for people with vision issues. I finally got used to Tumblr's inaccessible updates where all the menu buttons are so close together that my warped fingers keep accidentally 'reblogging' when I don't mean too and that I can't blow the page up as big to make tags anymore, so I strain my eyes and shit, but damn, LJ, why you gotta screw me over too? Don't do it because you want to be cool like Tumblr. Tumblr's not that cool.

Can anybody point me to where I can bitch and moan about how hard the new update is too see? Thanks!

Why are so many people of the opinion that being a stay-at-home dad is ‘doing nothing’? You should hear some of the things people in my family say about my little brother, just because he doesn’t have a ‘job’. It’s so sexist. If it were his wife who chose to stay home and take care of the kids, she’d be doing her duty as a wife and mother. But because he, a man, that society has set up as the breadwinner, is staying at home to care for the house and kids - (and two elderly parents, as well as volunteering at a soup kitchen) - suddenly it’s ‘doing nothing’. It irks me to no end. It’s basically saying, “Man make money, Man pay bills, Woman rear children, Woman get back in kitchen.”

My brother worked construction for ten years. His wife worked at the same fast food place all through high school. When they had their kid, they made a choice together that she would work and he would stay home. Construction is not a consistent job - he’d work 60 hour weeks for two weeks and then not work again for a month. That’s not possible to make money on an even scale that way. They tried both working for awhile, but with the construction gig, it wasn’t worth it to pay for the full-time spot at daycare for The Nephew when my brother wouldn’t be working regular hours. My S-I-L was being offered management positions and consistent promotions and it made more financial sense this way. My brother still picks up weekend gigs whenever his old construction crew is on a deadline, but he has a full-time job raising those kids. And running a household.

My mom called him the other day and he was all, “I can’t talk right now, Mom, I’m making dinner,” and she said, “Why are you making dinner? Your wife doesn’t make dinner?” My brother was shocked to hear her ask that, after he’s been a stay-at-home dad for almost nine years now. He was all, “No, she works. I run the house. I have to feed the kids, give the baby a bath, help my son with his homework, put the baby to bed and then do the laundry.” My mom scoffed at that, the idea that he did all of that, that his wife didn’t work a full-time mangers job and also run the house. What does she think he does with his time then? My cousin was here tonight and I was saying that Mom has been driving my brother nuts, calling him all the time, and my cousin was all, “Good. It’s not like he does anything else with his time.”

I am so offended! I am offended on my brother’s behalf and on the behalf of all stay-at-home dads and on the behalf of women, because apparently we belong in the kitchen and not men. Now if you'll excuse me, I apparently have to get back in the kitchen and make someone a sandwich.

Thanks to everyone for your support and advice last week. It made me remember that I am not crazy for freaking out about things like this. I did kind of feel like a drama queen and even though Sis and The BFF were like, “No, this is a terrible thing,” I thought maybe I might seem bent for being all, “No, my dad and I can’t go to the same clinic!” I know there are parents out there that if you said to them, “This is a little weird and uncomfortable for me. That’s the same place I go,” - they would be like, “Oh, that hadn’t even occurred to me, I’ll look into one of their other locations, no problem, honey.” But not my parents.

I was suppose to see my counselor today, but she rescheduled for tomorrow as her mother is ill. But I was already up and dressed, so I thought, “Fuck it,” and called PT to see if K could squeeze me in. He couldn’t, but then they wanted to put me with his PTA - whom I like, but I can barely stand the thought of going in there and I need somebody I am more comfortable with. Or like if my anxiety spikes, I could say to K, “You know what…let’s call it a day,” and he wouldn’t make a big deal of it. I didn’t want to explain why I can’t work with someone else right now, so I just said I’d get back to them. They called me back 15 minutes later to say K said he’d stay late on Friday to work with me. Fuck, he can be such a jackass sometimes, but I really love that guy.

Actually, I was meant to go to PT the day after I found out about my dad going there and I called to ask K if I’d be working with him. But I was on Baseball Guy’s schedule, who I like, but whom I’ve never worked with before. So I said, “I have to cancel then,” and K was all, “What, why?” and then I told him a quick version of what was up and that I thought I could make it through the appt if I was working with him and he was all, “Wait, why me?” like an idiot. At the end of the conversation, I said, “Make sure BG knows it’s not him or anything,” and K said, “I’m gonna tell him it’s all because of him,” and I said, “Thanks, asshole,” and he said, “No problem, babe.” Which oddly made me feel better.

Anyways, still haven’t made any plans for a long-term solution there, but am slowly calming down and trying to move on to other things. And also painting. Lots of stress painting.

I just put up a post on Tumblr, because I was pissed as hell when I heard this, and it is definitely up Tumblr's alley, but since I typed it all out - and since I'm still pissed - I thought I'd go ahead and share it here as well.

I turned on the TV the other day and The Wendy Williams Show was on and she was talking about the Jennifer Lawrence nude pics, so I figured it would be full of great talk about rape culture. It was not. Instead, Wendy Williams had this to say…

"Jennifer Lawrence, you want to know what? Don’t sweat this, young lady. I mean, you’re the one who took the pictures. And now she’s telling us why she took the pictures. She took the pictures because she had a four year long distance relationship with her boyfriend. Mind you, she’s only 24 years old. She said, ‘Either he could look at my naked pictures or he could look at porn.’ Well how about - well, no, 24, she’s still young - men would look at both. You know what I mean? I mean, not for nothing. If you ask any hot-blooded man, he would say he’ll look at your naked pictures, but he’s also going to look at porn. But, she was young when the relationship started. She said that having him be able to look at her pictures is what sustained that relationship for the four years, because they were long distance. In my opinion, if she would just stop talking about the cloud and the naked pictures, it’d go away! We’d all forget - like we’d forget about it. Really! Besides, Jen, you don’t look bad under your clothes. And this - I think the hackilation has actually made your career even hotter. Because she was red hot before, but now it’s like heat-seeking missile hot. So hold your head up with pride."

And the audience cheered and clapped and agreed with her. Listen, Wendy Williams, we shouldn’t just stop talking about it and forget about it. THIS IS A CONVERSATION THAT NEEDS TO BE HAD.

Jennifer Lawrence has stated - and I agree with her - that what has happened here is a sex crime. She has made it very clear how she feels about all of this…“It’s my body, and it should be my choice, and the fact that it is not my choice is absolutely disgusting. I can’t believe that we even live in that kind of world.”

But what Wendy Williams is basically saying here is, ‘Don’t worry about it, Jen, cuz it’s totally done wonders for your career and you're a hottie anyways and what did you expect when you took the pictures?’ And that should not fly with anyone.

First, let me just say that two days ago it was 70F outside and today it is 30F and there is snow on the ground. Damn you, Spring! I knew you were a tease, you fucker!

Now that that’s out of my system - I want to give a big THANK YOU to everyone who commented on my post about my mom’s dog and who has sent me emails and PMs and inquiries about how he is doing and all the offers for help and support and good wishes. My mom has been in tears at every good wish and prayer in her name, just clearly moved by the love she has been shown.

Winston came home last week and is doing well. It seems being home has done him good - his spirits are certainly up these days. And he managed to stay infection free! And today he had both the stitches on his leg and the staples in his stomach removed. He has had some digestions issues; loss of appetite, bathroom accidents, vomiting - but considering the damage done to his insides, I am not surprised. It will probably help to get off all the pain killers and antibiotics - hopefully by the end of this week if he keeps improving - as those have to be messing up his stomach as well.

( More under the cut, including a picture of Winston in his new shirt! )

Definitely some frustrations still going on, but when Winston came up in our house the other day, prancing all over, showing off his new shirt and greeting our cats, it was a wonderful moment and we will just keep fighting for him, as long as he keeps fighting too.

So, here's a story about the Idaho forest fires, as told to me by my sister who heard it from my dad's nurse, who's daughter is the one that actually lived through it.

( Under the cut for upsetting topics. )

I was wary of re-telling this story here, mostly because it's not my story to tell, but I also feel like this story is the kind of thing that needs to be told when we talk about these kinds of wildfires. Because this is what these people go through - when you hear of them packing their family photos into the car and leaving, it’s really just not that simple and I, for one, had never thought about it quite like this before.

As I was a little uncomfortable sharing someone else's story here, please do not repost this anywhere. Feel free to link to it, but no reposting of the text, for this woman's privacy who doesn't know her mother is sharing it with strangers who happen to have an internet blog. Thanks, guys.

Okay, so that moment when you hear a song - or more specifically a lyric within a song - and you go, “THAT. That’s it. That’s the tile for the fic I am working on.” And then you go to change the fic’s name…and you can’t remember what it was. Or what song you were listening to. Or even where you heard it. And then you have to retrace your steps just to try to figure out what you were doing when this epiphany happened. Yeah, that’s my life right now. And just having the title figured out got me so enthused about a fic that I have kind of let fall by the wayside and now I have lost it! /headdesk/ I am retracing my steps. I will find it! All is not lost.

So, I did a clean sweep of my Friend’s List; unfriended people who have no entries in their journals (oh the days when I just automatically friended anyone who friended me, without even looking at their ljs), unfriended a few people that I had friended for their fics who have moved onto other fandoms, and friended back a few people who had friended me but I was lazy and never got around to friending them.

Wow. I just used the word ‘friended’ a lot in that paragraph.

But mostly I left communities; most of the Glee ones because I’m basically done there, some newsletters because I’m not invested enough to really need daily updates, and several SPN/CW RPS comms because when I first got an LJ I joined a lot of those. I still belong to an abnormal number of them, but I’ve weeded it down a little.

LJ was pissing me off for a few days though, because it kept listing that I had still had posting access to those comms, even though I was no longer a member and I just...need my organization to be complete, not all messed up because LJ is being wonky! It seems to have corrected that issue now. Although I did belong to a comm that has been shut down now but it’s still listed on my profile with a line through it and yet, because it doesn’t exist, I can’t go unjoin, so I can’t get it off my page and...OMG, that one’s bugging me. I have these weird organizational things that you would not expect from me.

Also - does anyone know how to send PMs now? It seems to have disappeared from our profile pages. Or is it now called ‘Nudge’? Because that seems to be an option we have.

I have happier notes but I had to go to the doctor today and now I am all tired and sore, so maybe I’ll be back tomorrow - though tomorrow’s first priority is to clean out my inbox, so comments first, then posting, then writing. Bed now. Night all!

So, I’ve started back at therapy. This last appointment I had this new PT. And I feel everything tightening up again already. For one, his actual stretching was not nearly aggressive enough and also apparently he doesn’t believe in heat after a massage, despite that’s my usual routine. I told them they could switch up my therapist whenever they need to because I know my routine and can just tell a new person what to do next. I’m not a hard case when it comes to my neck, and I am very active in my own care, so I pay attention to what all is done during my sessions. But none of that matters, if the guy won’t listen to me when I tell him what’s next!

And it’s really too bad he didn’t work out, because I liked him. He didn’t even make me wear the stupid gown. As you can probably guess, I have issues putting on what is basically a hospital gown and I always end up in a fight with a new therapist over it. Except for K, and Idk if that’s because he always lets me have my own way or because he knows my weird PTSD issues without me having to tell him, but with every therapist since K, it’s been a fight. Yes, I have my shirt off, but I’m wearing a bra and they should be a professional and I’m behind a curtain in my own space, so why do I have to wear a gown? I just never feel comfortable saying to someone new, “I have issues.” Mostly it’s okay because the atmosphere there is so easy going and un-medical, but I’d still rather not. And this guy actually offered me the chance to forgo the gown, without me even bringing it up. He said, “I’m fine with it, if you’re fine with it,” and I said, “Omg, I love you!” So it really is too bad he wasn’t up to the job of beating my neck into submission.

So, K was there when I came in and we haven’t seen each other in months. I went right back to my booth and got started on my ultrasound. I was working with a new aide, some young girl who was saying how she has only been there three months and is still getting her footing. So, you know, newbie. I was facing the wall, away from the curtain, chatting and all of a sudden, someone is slobbering all over the side of my face. It was very wet! And then K just runs off. And the poor newbie girl goes, “Omg, that wasn’t me! I didn’t do that! Oh no, he was signaling at me to stay quiet, but I didn’t know what he was going to do to you! What was that?!” Her reaction was hysterical! Then when I described it to my sister, she said, “Kind of like a dog licking up the side of your face?” and yes, yes, that is exactly what it was like.

In final exercise news, I have this new Punky Brewster ‘exercise’ icon. It’s cute, cuz Punky is cute, but I looked everywhere for a suitable exercise icon; Oliver and/or Diggle working out, Eliot Spencer in the boxing ring, CJ Cregg on the treadmill, Jayne pumping iron. But to find those, I have to wade through endless other icons, just searching for that one needle in the haystack of the person in question working out. So, anybody got an exercise icon that’s cool if I snag? Something along those lines? Punky’s good for now, but eventually I’ll want to change it up again and I just can’t seem to find anything out there to my liking.

That is all.