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my exciting life personal

Fixing Small Things

Unintentionally, today ended up being a fix stuff around the house kind of day. I was planning to take it easy and get some writing done, so maybe this was me avoiding writing when my house is already pretty clean. But honestly, it felt really good to do. I had a light fixture falling a bit out of the wall, which I got back into place using a madison strip. And then I had a big crack in a different wall (which I accidentally caused with my sit-stand desk… long story) and I got that spackled and painted.

I’m not a big home improvement guy. Most of the time, I am well aware that I am not The Guy and I need to find The Guy and pay them to fix the thing that’s gone wrong in my house. But I can spackle, goddammit, and I can paint. And apparently I can stick a Madison strip in the wall after I’ve watched a sufficient number of YouTube videos.

There’s a tiny bit of magic in fixing a small thing. Even if at the time you’re sweating into your eyes and wish you could just figure out why the fucking screw isn’t going in properly. Maybe it’s a way to exert control over your environment, similar to cleaning and organizing. At least when it’s something small and manageable like this, rather than soul-destroying like drilling out a broken fence post so you can set a new one. And right now, I think I needed something that would let me feel like I had even a little control over my surroundings… since right now I seem to be drifting back into my bad old habit of sleep procrastination, something I’ve classically done when I don’t feel like I have control over anything else.

Though at least this time I can say I’m not sleep procrastinating because I hate my job. I do hate being trapped in my house because of a pandemic–and all the other shitfuckery going on out there–and I know I’m not the only one. I can’t do anything about these things except phone calls and letters, and I’ve already done those. Doomscrolling Twitter doesn’t actually accomplish anything. It’s made it difficult for me to write, if I’m being honest, because I’m just so damn tired all the time–and sometimes tired means actually tired, and sometimes tired actually means depressed.

So today I fixed a light fixture and I spackled a wall. They weren’t big things, or urgent things, but my house is just a little bit nicer because of something I’ve done. Tomorrow, I’ll bake a loaf of bread for my housemate and I to enjoy for the week, and my house is going to smell lovely. For today, that’s enough.

(I am also putting more into my Patreon, by the way. So far this weekend, I’ve watched and written about Love and Monsters and the first two episodes of WandaVision.)

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my exciting life

A life in boxes

So I’m now t-minus two days from the movers arriving to put 95% of my possessions into a couple of shipping containers where they’ll live for the next couple of months until I get my living situation in Colorado settled. And t-minus five days from embarking on the long drive back up to Colorado. (Without my cats; the boys are staying with Mike until, again, my living situation is settled, and bless Mike for that.)

I used to think that moving was pretty much the worst thing in the world, but I’ve stumbled across something even more awful, which is moving while you have a hideous cold. I wish I could regale you with awesome anecdotes from my first ever Nebula weekend, but to be honest it’s mostly a cough-syrup-colored blur, though I do remember Alyssa Wong’s absolutely fabulous dress. And that I managed to hand her award over to her without either dropping it or getting snot on it, so I feel like I stuck my landing as a presenter.

Here’s hoping I can make the Nebula weekend next year (fingers crossed for gainful employment) and not be sick for it this time so I can actually talk to people and shake hands and stuff.

For now, I’m going to go back to wandering around my apartment, searching for things that still need to be tossed into a box before the major project of packing my portion of the kitchen tomorrow.

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my exciting life silly texas

In which my housemate saves my life

So no shit, there I was.

Which is to say, I was in my bedroom, because I needed to take a shower and wash the gel out of my hair. I turned on the light, and there was a thing on the wall above my fucking bed. A big, brown thing. It had approximately five million legs and a switchblade. It was a cockroach. A fucking cockroach. And not just a little one. One of the Texas-sized ones. You know, these.

I need you to understand something. I grew up in Colorado. Until forced to move to Texas, I literally had only seen one cockroach “in the wild” in my entire life. And that was an incredibly well-fed german cockroach in a super sketchy Chinese buffet. I am not psychologically prepared to handle this shit.

Which explains the next thing I did, namely scream, “KATHY, I NEED YOU RIGHT NOW. RIGHT NOW. KATHY. KATHY. COME HERE.”

My housemate, bless her forever, hurtled into my room. Yes, that sure was a massive cockroach that was SCURRYING DOWN MY WALL AND AAAAA

There was an undignified scramble to grab the vacuum cleaner, because that’s apparently an amazing way to kill giant cockroaches. Then we had to figure out how to get the long tool attached. Then THE COCKROACH WAS ON THE FLOOR OH MY GOD and Kathy tried to suck it up with the vacuum but it ran under the file cabinet.

Suddenly I was like that guy in the action movie. You know, the guy who gets sent to open the door that the evil alien monster is drooling behind by a jerk of the chin from the guy who has the BFG? I HAVE SEEN THESE MOVIES. I KNOW WHAT HAPPENS TO THAT GUY OKAY. Carefully I turned the little file cabinet over. Nothing. “Open the drawer,” Kathy ordered. I righted the cabinet and, very carefully, opened the drawer. THESE MOTHERFUCKERS CAN FLY OKAY.

The cockroach ran across the files in the drawer. I totally didn’t scream.

(She totally screamed.)

Kathy thrust the vacuum cleaner attachment into my hand and I tried to get the roach as she ran out of the room and LEFT ME ALONE OH GOD WHY. But the roach was wily, and strong, and it called me a bitch and spat at my feet as it ran out across the carpet, murder glinting in its evil little eyes. I got it a good one with the attachment, but then THE ROACH JUST RAN RIGHT BACK OUT OF THE FUCKING HOSE OKAY THIS ROACH WAS WEARING DEPLETED URANIUM ARMOR OR SOMETHING.

As my life flashed before my eyes Kathy charged back into the room, shoe in one hand, can of Pledge in the other. With a mighty battle cry of “LEMONY FRESH, MOTHERFUCKER!” she sprayed the roach with furniture polish. It slowed the ravening beast and then, at great risk to her own life, she beat it to death with her shoe.

And that is the story of how my housemate saved my life tonight.

(The cockroach was subsequently buried at sea.)

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cycling my exciting life

Remember that time I accidentally biked almost 80 miles? Yeah, that was great.

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I had this plan for my Sunday. I was going to do the Red, White and Bike Annual Bike for Little Heroes today. Probably the short course (~20 miles) or if I was feeling really froggy I’d maybe do the 36 mile course. You have to understand, in the last month and a half I have quite literally ridden my bike once, which was yesterday when I did 10 miles to make certain my bike was still functional and the chain didn’t need to be greased.

Well, that plan got scrapped the minute I arrived at the event and found my normal riding group. Scott and Alex are evil geniuses and we are all screwed if they ever start cooking meth or something. They arm-twisted me into doing the full course, then shamed me into keeping going when the hills (THERE ARE HILLS NEAR HOUSTON NO REALLY) had me completely demoralized. I really need to learn to fight peer pressure like my DARE officer told me to in junior high.

I don’t think I’ll be able to move tomorrow. I’ve already hit the stage where I can’t stand up without groaning. But I rode nearly 80 miles today, without training for it.

It just makes me think about how important it is when you do something scary for the first time. I rode a century (100 miles) for the first time this year, and also ran a 5k. Before I did those things, I was always intimidated by the idea of doing that kind of mileage. But now that I’ve done them, that block is gone. I know I can do it. I ran a bit over 5k a couple of times in London, and then once I got home just because I knew I could do it and it wouldn’t totally destroy my knees. And now this, because I knew that it was possible for me to do 100 miles and not die. (This time it was just much, much harder.)

It was a bit like that, the first time I submitted a story to a magazine. I got rejected and it didn’t kill me, so I knew I could do it again.

That’s why it’s important to try new things. Whether you succeed or not, it proves that something which seemed so scary can’t possibly kill you. It takes away the fear, because either you beat it once, or it didn’t beat you. It really does make you stronger.

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my exciting life the human body is made of bullshit

Tattoo Rash (The Human Body Is Made of Bullshit)

I’m normally not one to talk about my various biological issues on my blog, but I kind of feel like I should mention this one. When it happened to me and I was frantically googling to find out if my skin was about to explode and cause me to die, I had a hell of a time finding anything and I was scared half to death.

So this is what happened:

While I was in London–the day we interviewed Elliot Grove, actually–I got hit by sudden, painful, oh sweet Aphrodite let me scrub it with a wire brush why god why itching on my right arm. Specifically on my new-ish tattoo, which at that point I’d had for nearly a month with no adverse effects. And even stranger, it wasn’t even the entire tattoo–it was just under one particular circular area, the stylized galaxy on my right forearm.

It was weird, and sudden, and I had a minor freak out because I though it might be some kind of insect bite, and oh shit what if it was bed bugs. Though I quickly realized that made no sense at all, because why the hell would bug just bite me on that one spot, and only where I had ink?

The itching got continuously worse, and the skin in that area got very inflamed. I actually stopped wanting to scratch it pretty quickly just because it was so damn painful, to the point that wearing my shirtsleeves down felt like scrubbing that bit of my skin with sandpaper.

What little I could find with google indicated that it was likely I’d developed a random allergic reaction to something that was in the ink from the tattoo. Which did make sense, considering the rash was limited to one area, and that was the only area in any of the tattoos where I had gray ink. What I managed to glean from some random forums where other people had this issue was that it would probably go away in a few weeks on its own (argh), but if not I might have to have the tattoo removed(!!!!).

I’m happy to report I haven’t had to get the tattoo removed. And the rash has now officially gone away. I don’t know if it was environmental or what, since it felt like it got a little bit better as soon as I left London. Guess I’ll find out on that one when I go back to the UK for Christmas.

Mostly, I just want to tell you, if you get a random tattoo-related rash, it will most likely be okay. Here’s what you do:

  1. Do not freak out.
  2. DO NOT ITCH.
  3. Take some kind of allergy medication. I used Claritin (generic: Loratadine) which didn’t make the rash go away, but made it significantly less itchy to the point that I lasted the next two weeks without losing my goddamn mind. If you can take Benadryl (generic: Diphenhydramine) without being completely fucked up by it, you might want to give that a whirl.
  4. I had some limited success with using hydrocortisone cream on the rash. However, what really seemed to make a difference was when I got home and had access to a different (stronger) steroid ointment that I have via prescription (I normally use it to treat eczema I occasionally get on my hands and feet). Which brings us to:
  5. If you can do so easily and cheaply, just go to a dermatologist and get something prescribed to treat the itching.
  6. Wait for the rash to go away.
  7. If it hasn’t gone away in three weeks, definitely go to the dermatologist.

My rash started getting less awful after about a week, which just so happened to coincide with when I got home and had access to my better steroid ointment. (We have a slight and unanswerable correlation/causation issue here, I’m afraid.) After a week of self-treating with the ointment and claritin, I’m off both and just fine. Though the skin on that portion of the tattoo is a little dry and scaly, which I expect to correct on its own in a little more time.

And hopefully that’s the end of it. Random allergic reaction go go go!

Categories
my exciting life

And because you asked: pictures with ties

I attempted to take some pictures with the new ties. Or rather, I attempted to have my picture taken, and my housemate Kathy tried to take my picture. I’m not very good at this picture taking thing, I’m afraid.

IMG_20130811_165937_819This picture kind of indicates how I feel about the whole exercise, really. I feel weird and self-conscious and never know what to do with my hands. But anyway.

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Funny story, I actually did a shoot once with a photographer when I was in my goth phase. And I actually had a lot of fun doing that. Because she told me what to do. I just can’t come up with anything on my own.

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Moral of the story: I need an adult. Or I just stand there and look awkward. Someone tell me what to do.IMG_20130811_162426_201And Mike says hi.

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my exciting life

In which I have a good time… shopping?

 

 

The weirdest thing happened to me today. I went clothes shopping, and it didn’t end in an internal whirlwind of self-loathing and depression. In fact I… had a good time. I. Had a good time. Shopping for clothes. No really. Do you understand how bizarre and inconceivable this is?

I approached the trip with my normal sense of dread. I needed to get some nice work pants, and pants are historically one of those things guaranteed to make me feel like shit. Because, you know. If you’re fat, you are banished to the plus-sized section (if the store even has one!) or a specialty store. And frankly, for me to try to find pants that I like isn’t easy to begin with. I want pockets, damnit. I basically just want men’s pants that will fit over my generous ass and I don’t know why I can’t have that.

The last time I went to Lane Bryant, I actually was too small for most of the clothes, so I figured I would try Nordstrom and just see if they had anything that even fit me. I asked the clerk for size 18 pants, and she said they didn’t sell anything bigger than a 16. Uh oh. Sinking feeling. But she said I should try, so… okay. We picked up every pair of 16s we could find and I went to try them on.

I had to ask for about half of them in a size 14 instead. This is something that has never happened to me. Ever. I haven’t been able to wear “regular” clothes since I was in high school. And suddenly… I can go anywhere, and be able to find something that might fit. I still can’t quite mentally grasp that.

It’s amazing what a little thing like that can do. Even when you don’t actually like any of the choices available, just knowing that you could wear it if you wanted to is huge. And it does kind of confirm how I’ve always felt plus-sized women are treated, like we’re unwanted as customers and treated as shameful. That made shopping an incredibly shitty experience for me before, particularly since I never liked many of the looks that got put together for larger women at stores like Lane Bryant. Argh.

Anyway, suddenly discovering I could wear size 16 pants kind of made my day. Then finding size 16 pants with pockets at Brooks Brothers continued to make my day.

But the thing that really made my day/week/month?

imageI’ve suddenly begun to love clothes because I’ve found a way to dress that makes me feel good. I feel confident and playful and happy. And phase two has been ties. I love ties, and I now have shirts that will work well with them. I don’t want to borrow my husband’s ties. I want my own. So also at Brooks Brothers, I talked to one of the sales associates and had him help me figure out colors.

That was fun. Hella fun. The poor guy was a bit stumped. Apparently they don’t get many redheads coming in to that store. He eventually had to pull over one of the other sales associates, and then we spent the next twenty minutes holding up various ties while the guys decided if they looked good with my hair and skin or not. It was magical and hilarious.

I’m excited. About wearing clothes. Write this day on the calendar.