Facebook Catch-up
Jan. 31st, 2023 12:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stormdogCatching up from some Facebook stuff I posted.
Sometimes the clunk interface here combined with my lack of spoons/energy keeps me from posting things here. That makes me sad because I want this space to be, at the least, a record of all the stuff in my life as it's been for nearly the past 20 years. Anyway...
==========================
January 20
As I've thought about potentially going to events in the future should Covid be somehow under better control, and/or I have a well-sealed P100 respirator, it's occurred to me that I don't have a way to prove I'm vaccinated for venues that require it.
My first vaccination was in the Netherlands and I don't have access to the records. I was able to log in to their system on my old phone, but I lost it in the fire and have no way to validate my new phone on their security system. My boosters have been here in Canada, where I don't have health coverage yet. I got them at large public vaccination events (a pharmacy told me that they are not allowed to vaccinate people without provincial health coverage) and I don't know whether there's a record of them.
I suppose this is something I'll need to figure out in the future, though for now things like replacing my passport are more important.
---
January 20
I managed to find a number at the US consulate that a real person answered. I don't know why I had so much trouble before. I blame trauma-brain. Honestly, I'm still having a lot of cognitive difficulty with certain tasks since the fire.
Apparently, rather than do the lost or stolen passport process, I need to just apply for a new one. So I'm starting on the document gathering process for that. First in line: replacing my birth certificate that burned.
---
January 20
Purrsephone was briefly closed in the refrigerator today. I heard plaintive meowing and looked around but didn't see her. "Kitty?!" I asked, feeling suddenly building panic. Miriam said she'd just been in the fridge, so I opened it and she popped out. I picked her up and held her, trying to dispel the chill in her fur as she purred against me.
Before, I would have just giggled about our silly, curious cat who wants to get into *everything*. Now, after the fire and Seregil, I made sure she was ok and collapsed against Miriam on the couch, in tears.
I've been crying a lot more since starting HRT, but I know this was mostly trauma.
---
January 21
I'd been expressing disappointment at the limited nature of RGB control on my computer, and Mark sent me a soldering iron, some ATMegas and an addressable RGB strip for me to work with.
I may not have a little workshop space anymore like in this picture from 2019 (Facebook memory here), and most of my tools are in Wisconsin, but thanks to Mark, I have some basics again. After I moved here, he sent me a soldering iron as a gift, which got me back into trying to do some work, including turning a big AC adapter from a thrift store into a power supply for said iron. I lost that iron and power supply in the fire, and now he's sent me another one. Having something to work on will be good for my brain, in a couple ways.
Thank you Posi. I really miss you.
---
January 22
I'm making pulled pork in the crockpot for the second time today. I've been making dinners from frozen meal kits too: things like carnitas, bibimbap, or peking duck. I'm slowly feeling more confident with various cooking tasks.
---
January 23
Ella and I were at the dog park for about half an hour today. It seems as though her paws are ok as long as it's not much colder than freezing, so I'm going to try to get there more often with her.
I walked twice around the loop, and kept thinking about everything going on in my life and Miriam's. I didn't come back in a depression like the last time I went walking, but I did come back with the certainty that all I really want from this new year is for it to end in a state where she and I can lie down together at the end of a day and know that we won't feel the need to reassure each other that it won't always be like this. That things will get better.
I *do* have a little hope. And some things *are* a little better than they have been. Please let them keep getting better.
---
January 25
One of the LPs I have that was damaged in the fire was Earl Bostic Plays "From Russia With Love" & Other Great Film Themes.
There's only one entry for this album on Discogs.com. The catalog number, runout etching, and description match, but there are no sales recorded. Two people are selling it, with prices starting at $803 CAD. I have no idea how to figure out whether these people are high (figuratively and/or literally) , or if this record actually is worth that much. (Mine is missing the sleeve, too, so if most of the value is in the sleeve then this question is moot. But I just have no clue.)
I bought it at a thrift store because it was red translucent vinyl and I thought it looked cool.
---
January 25
You make it through nearly 43 years of life without your home and possessions catching on fire even *once*, and then you have just oooooone little incident and suddenly you're afraid to leave the apartment.
So silly. Ha. Ha.
I was having a lot of extra fear about leaving to drop Miriam off at her meeting this morning, but I have returned and all is fine again. I hope it doesn't take another 43 years to internalize that leaving the apartment by itself is safe.
The therapist I see off and on when money allows has said the best thing to do is just keep accepting that fear and doing the thing regardless. I'm trying...
---
January 26
Because I should note positive things:
An automatic laser toy we bought for Purrsephone has a wire in it that had popped out of it's retaining groove and was intermittantly blocking the laser beam as its mechanism moved around. I opened it up and fixed it.
Fixing broken things makes me feel unreasonably good about myself, and this was extra valuable for me after being kind of a fear-disaster last night and then having dreams about Ella being in pain and not knowing what to do.
---
January 27
A friend said someone noticed one of her bumper stickers at a stoplight and asked what it meant, and it was kind of too much to explain in the available time window (a reference to a specific piece of fiction).
It reminded me of when I was biking a lot and had bumper stickers on my saddle bags that said "This Machine Kills Sprawl," I only had one person ask me about it while I was stopped at a light in Chicago. I couldn't quite figure out how to explain who Woody Guthrie was, why his guitar said "This Machine Kills Fascists" on it, or why I felt like there was a sort of analogy in my approach to inclusive urban design. Especially when he asked me what "sprawl" means.
Then, when I was doing my geography master's at Syracuse, one of the other students saw my bike and commented something about how I must be a real urbanist and it kind of made my day!
Here's a picture of one of my bikes from when I was living in Syracuse (picture embedded in Facebook). I wasn't allowed to have animals in my apartment, and I thought maybe a plant would help me feel less lonely, so I biked to the hardware store and bought one.
Sometimes the clunk interface here combined with my lack of spoons/energy keeps me from posting things here. That makes me sad because I want this space to be, at the least, a record of all the stuff in my life as it's been for nearly the past 20 years. Anyway...
==========================
January 20
As I've thought about potentially going to events in the future should Covid be somehow under better control, and/or I have a well-sealed P100 respirator, it's occurred to me that I don't have a way to prove I'm vaccinated for venues that require it.
My first vaccination was in the Netherlands and I don't have access to the records. I was able to log in to their system on my old phone, but I lost it in the fire and have no way to validate my new phone on their security system. My boosters have been here in Canada, where I don't have health coverage yet. I got them at large public vaccination events (a pharmacy told me that they are not allowed to vaccinate people without provincial health coverage) and I don't know whether there's a record of them.
I suppose this is something I'll need to figure out in the future, though for now things like replacing my passport are more important.
---
January 20
I managed to find a number at the US consulate that a real person answered. I don't know why I had so much trouble before. I blame trauma-brain. Honestly, I'm still having a lot of cognitive difficulty with certain tasks since the fire.
Apparently, rather than do the lost or stolen passport process, I need to just apply for a new one. So I'm starting on the document gathering process for that. First in line: replacing my birth certificate that burned.
---
January 20
Purrsephone was briefly closed in the refrigerator today. I heard plaintive meowing and looked around but didn't see her. "Kitty?!" I asked, feeling suddenly building panic. Miriam said she'd just been in the fridge, so I opened it and she popped out. I picked her up and held her, trying to dispel the chill in her fur as she purred against me.
Before, I would have just giggled about our silly, curious cat who wants to get into *everything*. Now, after the fire and Seregil, I made sure she was ok and collapsed against Miriam on the couch, in tears.
I've been crying a lot more since starting HRT, but I know this was mostly trauma.
---
January 21
I'd been expressing disappointment at the limited nature of RGB control on my computer, and Mark sent me a soldering iron, some ATMegas and an addressable RGB strip for me to work with.
I may not have a little workshop space anymore like in this picture from 2019 (Facebook memory here), and most of my tools are in Wisconsin, but thanks to Mark, I have some basics again. After I moved here, he sent me a soldering iron as a gift, which got me back into trying to do some work, including turning a big AC adapter from a thrift store into a power supply for said iron. I lost that iron and power supply in the fire, and now he's sent me another one. Having something to work on will be good for my brain, in a couple ways.
Thank you Posi. I really miss you.
---
January 22
I'm making pulled pork in the crockpot for the second time today. I've been making dinners from frozen meal kits too: things like carnitas, bibimbap, or peking duck. I'm slowly feeling more confident with various cooking tasks.
---
January 23
Ella and I were at the dog park for about half an hour today. It seems as though her paws are ok as long as it's not much colder than freezing, so I'm going to try to get there more often with her.
I walked twice around the loop, and kept thinking about everything going on in my life and Miriam's. I didn't come back in a depression like the last time I went walking, but I did come back with the certainty that all I really want from this new year is for it to end in a state where she and I can lie down together at the end of a day and know that we won't feel the need to reassure each other that it won't always be like this. That things will get better.
I *do* have a little hope. And some things *are* a little better than they have been. Please let them keep getting better.
---
January 25
One of the LPs I have that was damaged in the fire was Earl Bostic Plays "From Russia With Love" & Other Great Film Themes.
There's only one entry for this album on Discogs.com. The catalog number, runout etching, and description match, but there are no sales recorded. Two people are selling it, with prices starting at $803 CAD. I have no idea how to figure out whether these people are high (figuratively and/or literally) , or if this record actually is worth that much. (Mine is missing the sleeve, too, so if most of the value is in the sleeve then this question is moot. But I just have no clue.)
I bought it at a thrift store because it was red translucent vinyl and I thought it looked cool.
---
January 25
You make it through nearly 43 years of life without your home and possessions catching on fire even *once*, and then you have just oooooone little incident and suddenly you're afraid to leave the apartment.
So silly. Ha. Ha.
I was having a lot of extra fear about leaving to drop Miriam off at her meeting this morning, but I have returned and all is fine again. I hope it doesn't take another 43 years to internalize that leaving the apartment by itself is safe.
The therapist I see off and on when money allows has said the best thing to do is just keep accepting that fear and doing the thing regardless. I'm trying...
---
January 26
Because I should note positive things:
An automatic laser toy we bought for Purrsephone has a wire in it that had popped out of it's retaining groove and was intermittantly blocking the laser beam as its mechanism moved around. I opened it up and fixed it.
Fixing broken things makes me feel unreasonably good about myself, and this was extra valuable for me after being kind of a fear-disaster last night and then having dreams about Ella being in pain and not knowing what to do.
---
January 27
A friend said someone noticed one of her bumper stickers at a stoplight and asked what it meant, and it was kind of too much to explain in the available time window (a reference to a specific piece of fiction).
It reminded me of when I was biking a lot and had bumper stickers on my saddle bags that said "This Machine Kills Sprawl," I only had one person ask me about it while I was stopped at a light in Chicago. I couldn't quite figure out how to explain who Woody Guthrie was, why his guitar said "This Machine Kills Fascists" on it, or why I felt like there was a sort of analogy in my approach to inclusive urban design. Especially when he asked me what "sprawl" means.
Then, when I was doing my geography master's at Syracuse, one of the other students saw my bike and commented something about how I must be a real urbanist and it kind of made my day!
Here's a picture of one of my bikes from when I was living in Syracuse (picture embedded in Facebook). I wasn't allowed to have animals in my apartment, and I thought maybe a plant would help me feel less lonely, so I biked to the hardware store and bought one.
no subject
Date: 2023-01-31 09:53 pm (UTC)*hugs*