It just goes to show you that it's always something!

My battery is indeed, toast. Replacement for my car is around $200! I don't have $200. I don't have an extra $200 in my budget next month either. Feh.

Also, had to call the cops on a guy harassing me at the auto parts store. I didn't stick around. Hope the cops catch the SOB and put a scare into him at least. That moment of relief that it was a white guy and I could call the cops without worrying about his being shot.

And now the moment of truth. Am I stuck outside Starbucks or can I roll home?
​
*mumbles appropriate prayers and incantations*

I managed to get up at 2PM today with help.

Last night, my roommate offered to pound on my door to try and wake me up today. I became extremely anxious just thinking about that. No. Do not frighten a person with PTSD awake. OMG! So, he opted for irritating me with multiple texts instead. I think it helped. Ironically, when I did wake, a few minutes after his final text, I was dreaming about going to bed and TRYING to go to sleep, but not being able to because I kept remembering that I had to get up soon anyway.

Oh, and now, when I needed to transfer some money, PayPal has frozen my account saying I need to prove my identity. I've sent them everything they asked for but they are taking their sweet time. This is the second time they have done this. Facebook still has me frozen on their payment app. How the heck do I prove I'm me?

The world is still a fecked up place. Another white shooter taken into custody ALIVE but if you're not white, sit in a parking lot black or hop a few fences and be in your back yard amd you are dead. Kill people and you are white, you get arrested. Be black and suspected of just trying to break into a car, you die.
​
And everyone fawning over George amd Barbara Bush, conveniently forgetting all the gross stuff they said and did. These are rich, clueless, casually racist people who raised some horrible children. They lived extremely long lives full of priviledge. Long lives that you and I don't have the same chance at because we don't have their fabulous health care. And they didn't approve of us having access to the same health care either. No, I don't hate them but I'm not going to remember them fondly, see their traditionally relationship (which Babs used to shame feminists) as romantic or feel bad if George follows right after. (That's fairly normal btw) Unless health care changes in this country or I get very lucky, with my current health care, I'll be surprised if I live to be 60. So pardon my lack of sympathy. The Bush family doesn't need it.

Not doing well.

Dear Brain.

You do not need to go through bouts of severe insomnia followed by 10-20 hours of sleep. Really, trust me.


Right now, I really, really miss Kaiser insurance. At the time Temescal Cafe was sold and I was not able to pay the insane fees to keep my insurance through COBRA, I had only recently been diagnosed with MS. My neurologist was also trying to diagnose my sleep disorder. For a while he thought I had KLS, also known as Sleeping Beauty Syndrome (read about it - it's just horrible) but while I did have the pattern of sudden onset of periods of excessive sleep which just as suddenly turns to a more normal pattern for a while, I didn't have the particular cognitive issues when I woke up. So, he was on a mission to find out exactly what I did have going on.

If the ACA had been in place then, I'd still have Kaiser and would have gotten a lid on this years ago.

I love many things about the clinic I go to now, but I have received negligible help for my MS. I haven't had a single MRI of my brain, which is recommended annually, since I left Kaiser. My doctors have mentioned sending me for a sleep study multiple times and not followed through. It took months to get an X-Ray after falling and possibly injuring my spine. I am in excruciating pain, got the X-Ray but they scheduled an appointment several months away to go over results. I was able to change that appointment to the end of May, which is also the soonest I will be able to discuss antidepressants or push about sleep studies again.

If you have good health care, count your blessings. I just want to live the best life I can within my limits. I really don't believe I should be limited this much though. Too bad Republicans seem to think I should just die. Because that's what it really boils down to doesn't it? If they do what they really want and take away "entitlements" like Social Security and Medicare, I would die and quite quickly too. As it is, at least I am alive even if I am not living.

​Not sure yet, if The Insomniac's Kitchen is going to stir up a late night meal for me and J. Last I checked he wasn't hungry and he did let me make a sammich from his leftover egg salad. I think there was enough mayo in that egg salad to please a whole bus full of hungry southern picnickers!

One of the few accomplishments I've made during my waking hours the past couple of days was dinner. Friday's dinner disappeared before I got a photo, but I had the leftovers as part of last night's feast.

The rice dish was a marvelous slow cooked combo of shredded chicken, coconut, garlic, bell pepper, eggplant, yellow squash, mushroom, corn, green beans and ginger cooked in coconut cream and chicken broth.
​
The last bit of it is here with scrambled eggs, english muffin, potatoes, and kale, mushrooms, carmalized onions and veggie sausage.
Soooo good.

This is what I need and I could probably fund raise $4,000 but finding someone who would let me put it on their land or finding land I could afford without prohibitive permits and regulations would be difficult. I've run into the same problem with tiny house or RV living ideas.

​If not me, huzzah for El Salvador!

Well, I guess I did one thing today. I unfortunately slept through a birthday gathering that I had finally psyched myself up to go to. I always feel awkward because I don't have money to spend and everyone else will be eating and drinking, but I had planned to eat before I left and borrow money for a couple of beverages. Nope. 

I woke up at 1PM, started to get up and somehow went back to sleep again, I woke up just before 5PM. 

 Artist In Residence offered to bang on my door tomorrow. Just thinking about that gave me anxiety. I told him, no. The last thing you should do to a person with PTSD is scare or startle them awake. I made him promise not to knock, but to try texting me instead. If I don't wake up, I don't wake up.

So today, what I accomplished was

• A small snack
• A teeny bit of writing
• Got my car moved for street sweeping (Thank you Gladys)
• Did a small walk, sat by the lake
• Listened to 75% of a podcast episode
• ​Made a fabulous dinner
• Tried to do a PayPal payment for AIR but my PayPal has gone totally FUBAR again wanting me to prove my identity. My DL doesn't match my mailing address. Dammit! 

​By special request: Cheesy Pasta with meatballs a la Trader Joe's
​with onion, yellow squash, eggplant and mushrooms.

Heh. That's how we roll.
​Also, how we make sure my roommate is not actually a starving artist.

I have no idea what time I fell asleep, but it had to be full on morning. I wanted to get up and join a friend painting and installing a memorial bench in a park but nope, I slept through or hit snooze on every alarm and kept dreaming, dreaming, dreaming. I feel like such a complete failure. My back was painful and stiff when I woke at nearly 5 PM

Determined to accomplish something I:

• Took a shower
• Put actual clothes on instead of just pajamas
• Put on makeup and snapped a few selfies. I even  played with a couple of wigs. Sometimes I do this just to sort of see myself as alive
• Did a wee bit of FB scrolling and commenting
• Posted a very depressed ranty apology . See Below.
• Did succeed in fixing breakfast for dinner and it was quite good
• Listened to a podcast
• Talked to Artist In Residence for a bit, even joked around a little
• worked on my blog
• read a few paragraphs

Ok. In a list that sounds like a lot. Now I am tired. Why can't I sleep?

 Well, my doc said bed rest. I just slept for 13 hours. Does that count? 
Also, Thrilled so many friends got out and about for SCIENCE today!
Wanted to march for science but also want to stay out of the hospital.

Netflix while sick. Shetland is so very good! Ingobernable is addictive! Ooh and Bill Nye is just taking on EVERYTHING! Hunter Pence guest spot for the win!

Sick dreams always come with extra weirdness. Sleeping more than half a day gives you time for a lot of them! I had several dreams about moving or looking for housing which is a typical anxiety dream for me, as you might guess.

In one, I was going to move to Walnut Creek (only in a dream) because I found a place with miraculously low rent. Also, in dream, Walnut Creek had snow and bears!

The lady actually had two apartments, a studio and a one bedroom. The studio wasn't for rent except the landlady mentioned the person moving out of the other apartment might come back to use the studio as an art studio. She had been really close to the guy who used to rent it but he passed away. The one bedroom was really cute so I agreed on a move in date.

When I came to move in though, the woman had decided not to move out of the one bedroom but no one had told me. I could rent the studio but it didn't have a stove and it wasn't ready. The old tenant's stuff was still there and on top of everything else, turns out he had committed suicide in there. The room was tiny, dark, felt awful. There was a mottled green shag carpet that needed to be pulled because it had been "soiled" when he died.

He has this amazing, Bosch like collage that took up one entire wall with a huge Illuminati eye in the center and he had Tiki stuff all over. It was an odd conglomeration. Needless to say, I decided to go back and renegotiate with my current landlord (in the dream) to keep my place.

It was Christmas, so my friends and I decided to go shopping. There was this huge escalator tram thing that went up to all the stores because this was dream Walnut Creek. So we got on and at our stop the Tram lady let everyone out then told me I had to squeeze out some tiny kids door and when I couldn't, she laughed and fat shamed me.

I remember one other dream where me and my friend Steven were hunting for something. I think it was a big crystal. We went into a cave and just as we found it, this little Gollum type person with long raggedy hair came and snatched it then went through this trick door at the back of the cave. We figured out how to work the door and went after! 

As we got deeper in the cave it was like someone had created all these fake sets. There was an icy cavern made of foam core, cardboard rocks, etc. We still hadn't found our crystal or the crazy creature that took it. We finally got down into a more open area and there were rows of stone huts along the back wall, except they were made of cardboard. We each took a side. Steven got excited over a big ceramic chalice he found that looked fabulously demonic. But that wasn't what we came for.

Suddenly, the little creature came running out at us at full speed. I knocked his legs out from under him and after some wrestling we got him tied up with some handy duct tape. We found our crystal and then started the discussion of whether we should leave him and worse, what if there were more like him down there.

So we ended up taking him up top with us, then we knocked him out and cut his hands loose. That's all I remember. Don't know what we did with the crystal.
​
Yeah. Sick dreams.

I've got to take a break from Ingobernable for a bit. My eyes are too bleary for subtitles and I can only take so many Latino tv style long, dramatic, memory replay trope, scene breaks.

​*gasp* Split second decision: should she shoot or should she run? Five minute montage of all the times he's saved her followed by two seconds of she shoots gun, blows shit up, saves him they run.

So, I'm probably gonna watch about twenty minutes of Bill Nye Saves the World before I fall asleep and have more weird sick dreams.

Boy oh boy. I know a lot of peeps who would be really peeved by Bill Nye's show on alternative medicine. And don't even get me started on your irrational fear of all GMOs, another episode worth watching!

I've been thinking a lot about this.

Either you come down on the side of science or you come down on the side of self indulgent foolishness. It's really hard to thoroughly believe in alternative medicine AND support science.

Now I believe some alternative therapies may have benefit either because of placebo effect or because they haven't been thoroughly scientifically tested. When I use something like small amounts of tumeric, I know it might help but that it also won't hurt me. When I hold a crystal I know that the benefit is probably psychological. I'm willing to admit it might be worthless.

But, I know many people who swear by something they "know" works merely by anecdote and who firmly believe all sorts of unscientific woo while proclaiming their support of science and wailing that our government is becoming anti-science.

Maybe it's time for some self examination. Can have it both ways? Are you part of the problem? Are you closer to the climate change deniers than you want to be?

Just thinkin'