look at me still talking when there's science to do

i can have all the ice cream i want. which is a lot. they took out twelve salivary glands. cannot use straws. stitches feel weird and i must not bite down on them. pain just started and it's already awful. i can has loricet. oh god it fucking hurts.

bad pain day despite sleeping in until i was really ready to wake up plus three different pain meds. i'm sitting here trying not to move too much. i meant to go out today to pick up the few things that i'd forgotten, but i just put in an amazon fresh order for them (and a few other things - but they have a thirty dollar minimum and how can one resist a star-icecube-tray? it can go with my ''titanic and iceberg' tray and my 'lego blocks' tray.

clickies:

brought to you by dolphingirl, ohhbertie and hitchhiker

from FMyLife, a short vignette about sex, and House. slightly textually nsfw.

DNA origami design of dolphin-shaped structures with flexible tails. OMG.

woman, 78, sues to get back into senior center card game. this sounds exactly like a plot out of Golden Girls, doesn't it? (i love that show. we have all seven seasons.)

seals and robotic subs monitor antarctic climate chnage.

how are you all? i'm having a bad pain day, as i said, but it's friday which means dinnert burgers and shakes and there's no cooking involved; the kid may well go swimming this weekend, and we may be visiting with nihilistech. so my day is okay despite that.

i actually cooked last night's dinner. i honestly don't remember the last time i cooked (beyond heating things) for whatever reason. i'm pretty sure it was when gizmometer was here, which is just sad. chris has been doing dinner a lot. i

couldn't sleep last night due to naps in midday. took ambien last night; slept in. really bad pain day; can't find a comfortable position for the life of me.

clickies are brought to you today by tourmaline1973, bernie_laraemie, dolphingirl and mydwynter (and i need to go out for coffee with every one of them <3)

school warns parents dead daughter can't go to prom. *wince*

best shepherds ever. this is seriously the coolest thing i have ever seen. a must-view: worksafe, sound not necessary, vision kind of needful.

elephant angel sought by belfast zoo wonderful story. <3

children born into f/f relationships in NYC can now list both female parents as mothers.

astronaut tests space-age underpants.

sir ernest shackleton's last photograph and autograph sold at auction.

amazing antarctic pics of the day: one (lovely sunset/ice pic), two (this one has a twin otter in it, which was made by the company my father worked for before he retired), three (lots of near-adult emperor penguins!)

( cut for melancholia, same old same old. )
happier things:
yesterday i found a really great coffee shop that's much less crowded than vivace and makes amazing crepes. i had a latte and a lovely crepe with lemon and sugar, filled with strawberries and topped with whipped cream, and i got change back from a ten. i also found a little movie theater basically at the end of our street.

i found the library last week; it's a really nice library and only two or three blocks.

i've been getting some wonderful mail love this week, from adularia and benjimmy. *squeezes both of them* <3

i have many amazing friends. how are you all?

jane_hidell's cat came back! i'm really happy about that. <3

i have a really good view at the end of the block.

( cut for bigness )

having a spectacularly bad pain day/previous evening at the moment i can't remember who sent me what clickie (i know several people sent me the dolphin one). but you're all amazing people, okay?

pluto's atmosphere is pasted on crooked yay (it's actually upside down. which is really, really cool.)

humpback whales in costa rica found to be the longest animal migration.

public wants hubble to study hugging galaxies.

sport inspirational jesus statues.

albino pink dolphin appears in US lake. i love this so much i can't even begin to explain.

was up half the night due to pain and chills. slept in until about 10. still hurts. i want lunch but that would mean i'd have to get up. augh.

On the upside; amazon fresh delivered me House s2. my very favorite one that seems to be lost after the move.

I watched 'Paternity' last night - the one where there's a bet about the patient's parents - and I cracked up when House said that 30% of fathers don't know that they're raising someone else's kid.

Sean had a mostly unexplainable panic/meltdown last night. What with this and the pain etc. i had to call in a pinch-hitter for purimgifts (which makes me feel kind of lousy, but eh.

We gave the child benadryl as a mild sedative/calming agent and it seemed to help. It used to make him hyper but I guess that'a no longer the case.

I did manage to get to Pike Place Market today.

And this is where I have to thank whatever great fluffy lord is watching my steps because now that i have the wheelchair, i can go somewhere, enjoy myself AND not have to cut out early or take three times my usual pain meds as a result. And I feel GOOD afterwards, not like something that's been run over by a fleet of ravening postal demons.

I actually went to parts of the market I usually miss or glance over. I had a sandwich and could eat while travelling (something I could never do before). I can actually do a decent amount of shopping and not worry about getting it home (thanks to these bags that i keep in my purse and this bag that i use for heavy shopping - the second one is about three feet across and two feet deep and made of super strong canvas. It fits perfectly across wheelchair handles, for those inclined toward that method of transport..

And to make my life even better i found a perfect replica of my favorite tim horton's chocolate dip donut. i bit into it and almost cried.

americans do not as a rule know how to make donuts. seattle is luckier than most cities because it has two relatively decent local-chain style donut bakers, and Portland has Voodoo Donuts (i adore the Captain Crunch one) but most other places are left to suffer with krispy kreme. (yes, i know they're better hot. they're still not real donuts. and dunkin' donuts are suspicious.) canadians know how to make good donuts. this is one of the things which make us special. we can also watch hockey as it was meant to be: without the goddamn blue dot on the puck.

mmm. canada.

oh, right - i figured out what to do about the guarantour thing. i think.

chezmax was right, it can be done by any canadian passport holder - but they're hard to find in Seattle, and they would have to fill out the form AND sign the back of one of my photographs - god, i detest this stupid bureaucratic bullshit. It's put there supposedly so Bad Guys can't just get a passport, i guess - although the folks in Ottawa apparently didn't realize that if the Bad Guys really wanted one they could just pay off a doctor or some other "authorized" person. (under the old rules you had to find a person who was employed in one of a certain set of white collar occupations that you had known for two years that could supposedly vouch for you not being a Bad Guy. this strikes me as unbelievably classist, but whatever.) so i'm hoping to use the old rules (because i still can, filing from the US) and get my rehab guy to do it. I hate this. I'm going to have to Explain This To Him. and it doesn't help that I find it unbelievably stupid. I don't know what the hell i'm going to do if that doesn't work. AUGH.

(THIS is one of the things that makes us annoying. residue from the old British colony days. Douglas Adams always said that most ex-colonial governments are drowning in paperwork because it's meant to stuff you up until they get word back from the mother country. I can believe this.)

in further news i'm going to sell the child because he's been home from school an hour and he's WHINING CONSTANTLY.

so, the short version of the post.
canada = good donuts, bad paperwork
uncle bill/microsoft (otherwise known as the Great Leader) = good because he pays for Leah's wheelchair and all of her meds (believe me, you don't want to see me off my meds)
child = living on borrowed time, whining, destroyed another one of my pens, cannot leave him alone for ten minutes when i am making the snack he whined for incessantly and he's about to go to his goddamn room.
me = pretty good although pain is about a 4-6; bought lavender heatwrap bag in lieu of neck/shoulder wrap/heating pad.

there's a lot of good stuff on the intertubes these days. <3

thewlisian_afer has clickies posts that are much more awesome than mine a lot of the time, seriously. Here's a sample of today's best ones:

world's youngest divorcee takes on Paris and a real childhood. She's TEN. and seriously brave. what an amazing girl.

racoon bites off man's manhood in rape attack. dude. if you are stupid enough to try and rape a raccoon (there's a phrase I never thought I'd use) you DESERVE getting your tallywhacker severed. (tallywhacker ™ Chris's late grandmother, who I sorely regret not getting to meet. she liked the golden girls and law and order and old movies and coffee. we would have gotten along famously.)

redneck wedding cakes. just ... WHAT. the deer ones ...

my new favorite photo, from my girl: dolphin meets zebra I want this in a larger version. <3 SO CUTE OMG.

Once again, pain is up to eleven, although strongarmed down to a seven or so with the methadone and celebrex. Tried lidoderm patches on the worst parts last night, which helped to a certain extent. This is nucking futz. I think this is what people call a flare. ugh. I'm going to try and get some work done today regardless. Hopefully.

pain up to eleven today; also bad for last several days but not this bad. probably why I've been feeling awful and emotionally screwy all week (not helped because sleep is broken etc.) methadone + celebrex + two percocet + heat help some but not a huge amount. exhausted. lowgrade fever? something. sweaty anyway, pain in all diodes down left side and some in right.

taking today lightly. tempted to rebook tomorrow's psych appt. (thursday night plans good for emotional health and would be kind of depressed if missed. anyone else want to come and see a documentary about Antarctica with me and the (larger) boy? 7PM showing at the Grand Illusion (50th and University Ave); cute little independent theater. my friday plans will help a good bit with pain actually. and also mental health.

blood tests came back inconclusive. getting saliva test w/ dentist (better indicator than blood test).

resting.

cool stuff:

from awils1 (who frequently finds extremely awesome stuff) synthetic biology, ethics and the hacker culture.

from my beautiful and amazing girl: arctic unicorns (narwhal).

eta: found movie on dvd. cancelled that. have nothing until friday (which is at spa so will help w/ pain).

I am exhausted and in pain, but I have been to the breakfast (and lived through it) and the post office and the Lesbian Bookstore™ and the drugstore, and I have purchased Things; and I have not died (although I really want to given this pain) and the breakfast was not as bad as I dreaded. I talked to a few people (a very few) and Chris talked to more people than I did (he generally does, he doesn't have the anxiety problems). And I have a crutch holder attached to my wheelchair now, and a second heating pad for the living room, and some gifts for people, and some more gifts for people are sent.

And I am seriously in pain.

And here is an article about cello scrotum. I should at least make an attempt at lunch at some pont.

I woke up with my left hand in a random claw shape and my left shoulder (lesser extent the elbow) screaming at me for a multitude of imagined sins. The hand was comforted by some stretches, and the new heating pad (which largely rocks because it has moist and dry heat and therapy settings so it can shut itself off after a certain amount of time, but best of all it has strings to tie it to various parts of your body so you can actually keep it where it needs to be - HIGHLY recommended - it's made by Softheat, amazon has their products here.

Nifty things for the day:
joe_pike_junior (who is pretty awesome himself) posted illusions of steepness and height and how the brain handles them.

Also, someone asked me if they could translate one of my femmeslash fics (smoke: cuddy/stacy, post-infarction, angsty for me anyway, rated r-ish) into Russian. I was amazed and intrigued, so I said "hey, sure!". I know a few of you read some russian: the entry is here.

Kid has the day off. Kid is being astonishingly good *touch wood* these days. Many of my chores and writings are being interrupted with hug-and-kiss breaks. Sadly had to postpone the Children's Museum trip with the_misha, tiggrrl and their wee sproglet due to elevator outage on this end. (it's being intermittently weird, getting stuck between floors. No one knows why. They generally have a one-day turn around these days but it fell apart Saturday morning.)

Found out at IEP meeting how awesome he is at eating with a spoon; gave him some tapioca-thickened pudding (because ricemilk does not thicken) and he managed it without making a gigantic mess. Also handwashing, some progress on toilet training, putting on and taking off shoes and to a lesser amount coat. (question to the masses: i would like to buy him a couple zipper pulls (you know the things that attach to the zippers?). anyone know of a place to get kid-useable (ie: not fancy/decorative, more utilitarian) ones?

They are working on the pressing-buttons issue also, with something called IntelliKeys, which his vision teacher somewhat explained (buttons that can be programmed to make different sounds, etc.) In search of Sean-adaptable (ie: sounds more than visuals) computer games that can be adapted with a switch, so if you know of anything (maybe nihilistech? machineplay? gizmometer?) give me a shout.

Okay, shoulder is settling into at least quieter bitchiness. Gotta get a few things done. <3 I hope you're all well and as happy as you can be today.

I have yet to figure out how the heat works in this apartment, which means that every single joint in my body is all 'HI THAR PAIN FOR YOU HA HA HA.' every morning. We have heaters and thermostats but the heating controls lack any sort of indicator as to what is 'on', nevermind temperature.

So anyway - happy Friday; my kitchen is about half-unpacked, and I even got to have coffee in one of my own gigantic mugs this morning. Very reassuring, that.

Today's plan: perhaps unpack a small amount, largely relax, and hopefully some writing. My dreams are insanely detailed these days; I dreamed a whole cyberpunk 'verse this morning that may well fit in with the geishas.

Tomorrow evening is Chris's department's holiday party. I am half hoping to get a haircut before then.

Clickies of clickiness:

euclase is quite possibly one of my favorite people in the universe. These links are a good example of why. <3 Nautilus shaped house (I so want to live there, but I may have to content myself with knitting one instead) and Spend time with your own private moon. (I seem to recall one of these pics was on musecrack a while back, but this one has MORE OF THEM, and they are AMAZING.)

And from the most awesome and brilliant shutterbug_12: the most disturbing animals on earth..

edit: I forgot to post this earlier. As of now I have done a small amount of unpacking (meaning - one kitchen box, moved a few small nonessential pieces of furniture to the closet, set up the table) and I think I will call that done for a little while. We sort of almost have a dining room, which is very good; this weekend when tallin is home we can probably make more headway on it. I think if we can get the kitchen, coats/blankets for the hall closet and bathroom finished this weekend (all the blankets and coats are in garbage bags, the bathroom has only one box left to do and the kitchen has two or three) that will be good.

I can hear planes more easily from here, and a train in the distance.

son of edit: you know who else does amazing clickies? thewlisian_afer. I'm just going to link the most recent post in its entirety because it is truly amazing.

overcoming learned fear and depression. (also deals with anxiety, fibro pain, etc. etc.) clickie from my lovely girl, who has a beautiful brain.