Lighter than Air

I've missed this. Being awake in the early hours of the morning, playing video games. And not because of insomnia and a desperate attempt to wear myself down so that I can actually sleep, either. No, I'm still supposed to be awake at night, so that much is good. And the horrendous bout of insomnia that came along with a heat wave and resulted in me spending about 3 weeks rarely getting more than 4 hours of sleep a night has passed, thankfully. Touch wood.

But I've always found I'm more creative at night than during the day. And what I do at night makes me feel more productive, like I'm actually living and working for myself instead of just getting by.

Either way, at the moment I'm on a big video game kick. I happily pre-ordered the PC rerelease of FFV, so before that comes out, I'm doing a playthrough of FFVII, because it's been such a long time since I last played it. I doubt I'll reach the end by the time FFV comes out, since I'm a completionist and there are Steam Achievements to unlock and I won't rest until I've unlocked them, but I'm still having fun. I'm currently wandering around Costa del Sol, level-grinding and getting enough money to get everyone the best armour and Materia. Which I would normally be able to afford without grinding, but eh, I can't pass by Fort Condor without giving them just about everything I have, even if I won't be doing anything with that quest until much later. So I'm always broke pretty much as soon as I get to Junon.

I don't know why I do it. I'll always have much more money when that area is actually relevant to the plot, after all. I just feel bad passing by and not giving them money. I'm a soft touch, I guess.

Not sure if I want to keep playing now, or take a break and do something else. Still not entirely over the long-term effects on the insomnia, like lasting fatigue and having a cold that won't go away, so I'm actually pretty tired right now, and I may need to go do something a little more physically active to help me stay awake until I normally go to sleep. I'm trying to get away from napping at night at then having something like a very long nap during the day, because I really ought to have a normal-length sleep during the day and make better use of my alone time at night.

SLEEP IS FOR THE WEAK!

...That's actually not the best phrase to convince me that I don't need to go take a nap right now...

Tomorrow I will get up at 7 AM, drag my ass out of bed, grumbling and cursing the whole time, and get ready to go. I catch the bus at 8, which will get me to the mall 35 minutes before my connecting bus to take me to the airport. Technically I could catch a bus from here at 8:30 and get there with 5 minutes to spare, but knowing my luck, the bus will run late and I'll miss the connection and the next bus to go to the airport won't get there until just after my flight has departed. I'd rather arrive early and sit around eating a bagel than risk getting there too late.

Then I'll be sitting at the airport for about 2 hours before my flight leaves. All I can say is thank god I have books.

52 minute connection in Toronto, and then I'll arrive in Winnipeg a bit after 4 PM. At which point I'll be meeting my dad and his wife, they'll take me to the hotel we're staying in, and we may have time for supper before they have to go to a concert they're attending that evening that I don't have tickets for. This will probably be the only chance I get to read while I'm there that doesn't take place while I'm in transit or waiting to be in transit.

Saturday we're getting together and trying to figure out how to entertain ourselves for the day before the Adam Lambert/Queen concert that evening. My dad keeps fretting over what we'll do. I honestly don't care that much. I could just wander around and take photos and visit a museum or something, and I'd be perfectly content because it'll all be new to me. But he insists that Winnipeg has so little to do and is so small and I'll probably get bored so he wants to find good things to do instead.

Never mind that Winnipeg is 5 times larger in both area and population than the city I currently live in, and somehow I can manage to entertain myself here well enough.

But that evening's the concert, and I can't wait, and plan to buy far too much stuff there that's overpriced but when else am I going to be able to say I just bought a t-shirt at an Adam Lambert concert? (Answer: probably never, or at least not for some years because the only reason I'm going to this one is because someone else is covering all the trip expenses and bought the tickets for me.)

Then I try to sleep so that I can catch my flight at around 10 the next morning. There's more than a 2 hour layover in Toronto on the way back (again, I do love me some books!), and I won't get back here until after 8 on Sunday evening. It'll be a long weekend, but I'm excited, and it'll be worth it! Expect me to ramble like a maniac when I get back and talk about just how awesome it all was!

I'll probably also have a bunch of photos to show off. I should probably just get myself a Flickr account instead of only sharing them on Facebook...

Still jobless. This isn't a surprise; it's only been a week, and even if I'd been lucky enough to get an interview anywhere last week, the turnaround time for jobs, in my experience, is 2-3 weeks from the time of application, if you get anywhere at all.

So I still have plenty of time on my hands at the moment.

I've been cooking more, which is good for me, since it gives me something to do that makes me feel accomplished, and lets me try out potentially tasty new recipes at the same time. I found a recipe for udon made from scratch, actually making the noodles by hand instead of using pre-made ones, and as soon as I can figure out what kind of soup I want to put them in, I'm going to make some for supper, probably later this week. Considering the noodles themselves consist of flour (I have plenty), water (definitely have plenty) and salt (not as much as the others, but still a lot), I can make a lot of tasty meals really cheaply that way. A definite bonus when money is an issue.

And now the window in the kitchen opens, so I can make soup and bread without dying of the heat that having the stove and oven on generates! This makes me very happy, and comes at a good time, since turkeys are currently $1.99 a pound at a nearby grocery store. If I get a $15 turkey, that's a meal or two with roast turkey and vegetables, plenty of leftover meat if I want to make sausage or stuffed turkey buns or any number of things that don't take too much meat, plus the bones and leftover meat also makes a delcious soup. If I buy carrots and potatoes, I can easily stretch $20 of food into a week's worth of meals, using a few others things that I have in to supplement (mostly spices, flour, and water, so I don't tend to count those things in the overall cost of the food I make).

Turkey omelettes are also delicious, and I need to use up the eggs that are in the fridge before they're good for nothing but hard-boiling.

Making slow but good progress in Persona 3 Portable. I abandonned Hard Mode because it was frustrating me too much and the repeated dying I was doing prevented me from doing any decent level-grinding or plot advancement. They're not kidding when they call it Hard Mode! I'll give it another try eventually, but I want to play through more of the game without tearing my hair out. Right now I'm just past the part where Fuuka joins SEES, so now I've got Mitsuru to train in Tartarus, while I try to get enough money together to get everyone's equipment up to snuff. There's not much left that I need to buy, but I like having everyone in top condition as soon as I can.

More specifically, I like being in better-than-top condition; I always overlevel in games if I have the chance, because I'm one of those people who enjoys level-grinding. Always been a little bit weird that way.

Celebrated my birthday on Saturday, which didn't go over as planned but it was still fun. The ice cream cupcakes I was going to buy didn't work out since the store's freezer was broken so they just didn't have any. Then the debit machine was wonky at the second store I went to when I decided, "Fuck it, I still want ice cream, so I'm getting some pumpkin cheesecake frozen yogurt from Yeh!" But I still had a great day, ate a delicious meal at Boaz (and got hooked on edamame), spent time with friends, had delicious strawberry-custard layer cake, bought some tea bags that are specifically designed to make ice tea (the tropical sangria one is delicious, and I haven't yet tried the strawberry basil) and overall had a good time turning 30. There are worse ways to spend a birthday, that's for sure!

Today, though, I'll be spending most of the day off line, since there's a high possibility of thundershowers this afternoon and I don't like using my computer then. A holdover from the desktop days, I suspect, since I can just unplug my laptop from the wall and still have it function perfectly and not worry about the power going out or power surges or anything of the sort. It's just habit.

And since the next 2 weeks are largely free of responsibility (at least work-related responsibility), I've challenged myself to a readathon! I'm planning to read 6 books, finish a 7th that's been half finished for over a month now, and catch up on last month's and this month's Apex magazine. I'm about a third of the way through Julia Mary Gibson's Copper Magic right now, and enjoying it a hell of a lot! It's a quick read, not because it's so short (though it's under 400 pages, so 'short' is relative anyway), but because it's just so engaging. I can't help but keep pushing onward because I'm loving the story and the tone so much. Another one of those cases where I'm surprised that this is the author's debut novel; Gibson is definitely an author to keep an eye on, I'm thinking.

But now I shall vanish into the depths of my To Read pile and enjoy what's left of the merely semi-clouded sky before the rain really starts to roll in.

Somewhere between going to work and coming home from work I lost something. My job. Yesterday, I was let go. "Not a good fit for the company" is the official reason, which personally I think is BS since I've worked there for almost 3 years, my stats and attendance have improved recently, and now is the time they decide that I'm not worth keeping around anymore.

Honestly, I think they needed to lay some people off and I got picked in spite of my seniority because I had 2 main things against me: 1) attendance issues, which were largely due to chronic health issues and had medical documentation to support, and 2) I vocally stand up for employee rights and encouraged others to take their issues to supervisors and management. I just made too much of a nuisance of myself. There's a lot about this that's suspicious, and I plan to file a complaint to the Labour Board to open an investigation. "Not a good fit" is a valid reason to let an employee go, but 9 times out of 10 it's code for "there's another reason but we can't actually say it because if you knew then you could get us in serious shit for it." The official reason doesn't tally with recent events, and any unofficial reasons are suspect and possibly invalid. And I want to get to the bottom of it.

Not taking it lying down.

I have enough money to get by until the end of June, and hopefully by the EI will have kicked in if I don't find another job in the meantime. Which I hope I will. I hope this is the universe kicking me in the butt and telling me that there's an opportunity coming that I might have missed had I continued my employment elsewhere. It wouldn't be the first time a bad situation like this has led me to something better.

In the meantime, I'll be hunting for new jobs, and having a lot of spare time on my hands. I plan to use a lot of it to catch up on reading; I've left a lot of books on the backlog and having extra time like this is a good time to catch up. Even if I land an interview today and get hired tomorrow, chances are I wouldn't start any new job until next week, so I'll at least have the rest of this week to relax a little, clean up the apartment, and read.

Trying to look on the bright side.

I also found enough matched material today to put together 13 azuma bukuro bags that I've been planning on making. I won't be able to make them all very quickly, since a lack of sewing machine means I have to do them all by hand, but even if I just make 1 a week, I can list them in the Riality Studios Etsy store and have another chance for a bit of trickle income. $20 here and there helps a lot when that money can be the difference between a week of meals consisting of only rice, or a week of meals consisting of rice, potatoes, and beef (in a multitude of forms). So it's worth working on. Them, plus my bookmarks. I still do enjoy making bookmarks in my spare time, which I haven't had as much of over the past couple of months due to work and being on my own and thus having to do all the chores myself with nobody to help out. It's surprising what a difference that can make.

Plus sewing and embroidering will help keep me busy, and make me feel productive, and not so much like an idiot who couldn't even hang on to a stupid call centre job. :/

I'd love to be snuggled under a blanket right now, hiding from the chilly rainy weather that doesn't seem to want to go away this month, and the only thing stopping me is that my Kindle still needs to charge a bit more. I have 2 books to read by the end of the week, 1 of which I'm halfway through already (Betsy Dornbusch's Exile, also a reread) and 1 which I haven't started yet (Craig Cormick's The Shadow Master) but that I've promised a review by... Oh, for some reason I thought it was June 1, but it's actually June 4, so I have longer to read it than I thought. I'll be able to get it done by the 1st, though, really, since Exile won't take me too much longer (I'll probably be able to finish it by the end of tomorrow), and I don't have much planned for my days off work on Thursday and Friday except for some cleaning and cooking, and I highly doubt I'll be doing enough of either to take up 2 days of time. So I'll get to enjoy some relaxing time with new books then.

I expect I'll get a lot of reading done next week, too. I switched shifts around with a coworker, so instead of having a 4-day weekend, I work Saturday to Tuesday, have Wednesday off (for reading), work Thursday, then have Friday to Sunday off. Roommate's coming back for my birthday (which is June 7) and will arrive in the evening on Friday, so I'll have most of that day to read, and leaving early on Sunday, so I'll have most of that day too. And on Saturday we can go out for a delicious meal and possibly some book shopping and maybe taking a nice walk if the weather's good! Then I'll only work 3 more days before I'll have my usual Thursday and Friday 'weekend' off work again and can catch up on more reading.

I say 'catch up' because I have fallen behind somewhat, and review copies are piling up faster than I can read them. They already have, really, and always will, but it's getting particularly bad, so I want to has a massive reading fest or something so that I can whittle down the pile a little and get more reviews written.

It's an addiction, reading and reviewing all these books. It's hard to believe I've been doing it for almost 4 and a half years now. There have been times where I've thought that maybe I should stop, that I don't really want to keep up the responsibility of having to review when what I'd rather be doing is just more reading, but I keep going back to it, and I do enjoy talking about what I think about the things I read. And I like knowing that I'm doing a little bit to help publicity for good books, too.

I shaved my head last weekend. Not for the first time, but I liked it a lot before and it was getting long enough to be annoying, but too short to just tie back out of the way. So out came the clippers and away went the hair. I like it best this way, I think. It makes me look more boyish. Not manly, but boyish, and that's closer to what I actually want for myself, so I'll take it! Even if everyone else who looks at me sees only the outward signs of being female (boobs, me wearing a long skirt because it's comfortable and nobody can see my legs), I know I can look in the mirror and see a face that's a little more like how I think I ought to be. And that makes me happy.

I've been making more use of my camera, too, and getting more pictures while I'm out. I'm not bad, really, but I'm not that great either, and I think it wouldn't hurt me to read a couple of photography books so that I can get some tips on improving. For every picture I get that I like, there are about a dozen that are mediocre, and about 3 dozen that I just reject out of hand because they're not focused properly, a bad angle, looked great on the digital camera screen but aren't so great on the computer screen... I know that much of it is trial and error, and a bit of editing too, but I think my skill has hit a plateau and I need something new to get me improving again.

Aaand I just discovered that a cheque finally cleared my bank account, so I have enough money to get cat food and stamps without having to use credit! Possibly some cat litter, too, but I think I can make what I currently have stretch until I get my next paycheque if I'm careful, so I may not need to. But the other things are definitely needed; cats need to eat, and I have an important letter to send! So now I can depart the online world happy. My Kindle isn't fully charged yet, but I don't want to wait any longer, since time's running out and I don't have long before it'll be time to go to sleep so I can get some good rest for work tomorrow.

1 year ago today, I was in surgery, having that godforsaken tumour cut out of me. It's been a whole year since then. Happy birthday to the scar on my abdoment, happy deathday to the twisted overgrowth of cells that was the size of a grapefruit, clinging to an organ the size of my fist.

I'm trying to be positive about it all. But in actuality, this is a harder day that I expected it to be. The whole situation just won't leave my mind. The days at work where walking was too much a chore, where I nearly fell asleep in the middle of conversations because I had no energy. The months I spent at home, not working, resting as much as I could, napping every day just to make it to bedtime, hoping each day that maybe when I go back to work, I'll be better, I'll have improved, I can start to recover.

The first time I was hospitalized, and it scared the hell out of me. I didn't go because I thought something might be wrong. I went a few days after the IUD was put in, another in my doctor's long list of "maybe this will work" treatments that all revolved around hormones and things that weren't permanent in case I wanted children, with her stubborn refusal to admit that the tumour was the problem because hey, they're so common and mostly don't cause problems so it must be something else. I knew at the time that the IUD might cause bleeding for at least another month before I'd even know if it was doing anything to stop the bleeding I was already experiencing. I went to the hospital because I wanted just a few more days off work, a few more days of rest and hopefully by then the bleeding might calm down a bit and I could handle it again.

That was the day that I had a doctor feel my abdomen, say, "Yes, I can feel the tumour there," and I just burst out with, "Is that what that hard area is?!" He backed down a bit, embarassed, but he wasn't wrong. The thing was so big it could be felt easily through my flesh, through a very thick layer of fat. That was the day my roommate told me that, when I had to go to the bathroom twice in 15 minutes to change my tampon, that nurses were looking at me with pity and saying that nobody should be going through what I was going through. That was the day I was told that I would be admitted to the hospital for the first time in my life.

A few days later, I finally got my doctor to agree that maybe the tumour was the problem. After all, it had only grown 3 cm in 6 months, which is 6-12 times faster than that kind of tumour grows on average. I was told I'd bled out the IUD, which explained the painful blood clot I'd passed the day after I'd had it inserted in the first place. That was the day I made my doctor unhappy by choosing surgery to remove the tumour, because although she offered it as an option, it was clear that she'd rather have me try another IUD (and another $500 out-of-pocket expense to buy one) or else have radiation treatment to shrink the tumour but not remove it entirely.

Today, 1 year ago, I was being cut into.

Tomorrow, it will be 1 year since I discovered that the tumour was more advanced than my doctor thought, so "her" decision to remove it was a smart one.

3 days from now, it will be 1 year since I found out that my doctor discharged me with hemoglobin as low as it had ever been, and this was after 2 units of blood post-op, after lying to me and telling me it was 10 points higher than it actually was. I saw the test results. I know she lied.

That started the time in which I had trouble getting out of bed as my wound healed. I could walk a little further every day, and was thrilled with myself when I could walk about 200 feet down the street to a little bench where I could sit down and rest before walking home again. It marked more days of lying around, not doing much, because I still didn't have much energy.

Though that period also marked the first time in a long time that I didn't have to nap in the middle of the day. Not unless I wanted to.

Today, I stand in the bedroom and look at where that bed was (roommate took it to PEI and left me the bigger bed), and I remember lying there, head propped up on pillows, alternately reading and looking out the window at the street and the green leaves in the trees, and I can feel everything about that time as clearly as if it happened last week. Today, if I lie on the couch and watch something on TV, I'm reminded very sharply of the times where I couldn't do anything but that.

It's a stupidly emotional day for me today. I wanted it to be positive, a celebration of how far I've come and all the BS I don't have to put up with anymore. And it is. But I can't celebrate how far I've come without looking back on where I was, and where I was is scary.

Statistically, there's a 15-30% chance I will regrow that tumour large enough to require another surgery within 5 years. I'm 1 year down. 20% done. Last scans I had done a few months ago show no sign of regrowth... or so the idiot doctor says. I do have a nice new ovarian cyst that isn't fading, and I can tell that because it's a ender point, but it's a functional cyst and show go away over time. I hope. And I'm not showing any symptoms like I used to. I'm still terrified every time I start bleeding, and I'm always amazed when it stops after 3-4 days and I haven't spent those days in agony and running to the bathroom every half hour or more. I don't have to sleep on towels and get up in the middle of the night to wash the blood from my legs.

If I make it to that 5 year point, my odds of it coming back drop dramatically, at least according to statistics. Until I'm middle-aged and start to go through menopause, anyway. But even then it's not likely anything will grow as large even if something grows at all.

But it's something I'm constantly aware of now. I had an uncommon presentation of a common issue, and something that dozens of help sites and material and doctors pass off as unimportant and more of a nuisance than a real threat.

When I say I was dying by inches, I'm not exaggerating. The way my hemoglobin was dropping because I couldn't stop bleeding, it was a threat. If I'd been stupid and stubborn the way I often get with health problems (a lifetime of having the poor luck to find abysmal doctors who don't take my complaints seriously or who are openly derisive of said complaints)... Well, the hemoglobin dropped by 30 points over a year and a half. I don't want to place bets on how long that could continue. I had already developped a heart problem because of it. A heart problem that healed once the blood loss stopped, but knowing that even temporary damage was done to my heart because of how long my doctor refused to admit that constant bleeding and anemia was a problem... Doesn't make me happy. Also scary as hell.

I hope to all deities that this is over, once and for all. That the tumour never regrows, that I never have to face those conditions again, and that I can let time fade these memories from my mind. That next year on this date, I'll be more concerned with happier things, things that don't involve me looking back on my life and going, "Fuck, I was in a really bad way not that long ago!"

I need to stop updating this journal so sporadically. It's not like my life stops when I don't write about it. Plenty of stuff keeps happening. It's just that between work, writing book reviews, trying to keep my head above water in multiple ways, and the sheer lack of interaction here between me and, well, anybody who's not me, it gets tiring to think about updating this for the benefit of nobody but myself. And that person already knows what's happening.

But still, on the offchance that someone's still reading this...

I got my wisdom teeth removed. Just the bottom 2, since they were the ones causing problems and they'd both broken through the gums. The whole procedure was relatively easy, honestly, or so I imagine because I was unconscious for it. I was sobbing when I woke up, though, when the anesthesia was wearing off, because I was aware of pain before I was even really aware that I had a body. An aide helped me stagger to a little recovery room until the rest of the anesthesia wore off and I could walk in a straight line and get my emotions under control. A cab driver took me home, and in spite of me coming out of the dentist with a swollen face, he insisted on trying to engage me in conversation.

He gave up after I just grunted a few times at him.

I spent the next half a day shoving gauze into my face at regular intervals, waiting for the bleeding to stop. I talked with a serious speech impediment for about a week. And I didn't bruise, not even the slightest bit. I hear some people get bruising down to their chest. I just had swelling and numbness.

Numbness in one side of my jaw that has not yet and may not ever go away, I may add. Nerve damage was a possibility the dental surgeon discussed with me. I am officially the genius who managed to have 2 parts of their body go numb from nerve damage within the first 3 months of the year. -_-

In brighter news, the pain problem I was suffering has largely gone away. Turns out the problem was a myofascial trigger point, and after a competent doctor actually examined me and talked to me about the pain instead of just telling me I shouldn't be hurting or prescribing me narcotics so I'd go away, he came to that conclusion and treated it with, of all things, a little injection of saline to break up the knot of muscle.

It's not perfect, and I still get pain flare-ups every now and again, but they're few and far between. Where I used to be in constant pain, never below a 3 on the pain scale, and when it flared up it would sometimes reach an 8 and leave me incapable of bending my torso, now flare-ups are a 5-6 at worst and most days I experience no pain at all. I can walk to work without fear of overtaxing my body and being in agony the next day. I can exercise! Hell, I evendid sit-ups earlier this week! This feels freaking amazing!

Funny what can happen when one's doctor isn't a negligent idiot.

In brighter news still, my father surprised me with plane tickets and concert tickets to go see Adam Lambert in Winnipeg next month, and holy crap, I'm going to see Adam fucking Lambert! O_O Part of me still can't believe that. The musician whose music helped keep me sane when I was dying by inches from that damn tumour, the guy who inspired me to take chances and actually fight to be myself, and I'm actually going to get to see him. From lousy seats, granted, but still. I may just fight crowds after the show to get autographs! Bonus points if I can thank him for what his work has done for me, but I doubt I'll have the time or opportunity. It'll be enough just to be at one of his concerts.

In the middle of reading an advance review copy of Kat Ross's Some Fine Day, which is thus far pretty decent for a YA post-apoc novel, and I'm still slogging my way through Jo Walton's What Makes This Book so Great. I say slogging because it's a thick book, and while her essays are interesting, sometimes it can be hard to keep reading multiple essays on a long series I haven't read any of yet, and where the articles are deconstructing things and commenting on things of which I have no context. I love her writing, and my To Read list has definitely increased, but I suspect I'd be getting more out of this book if I'd already read much of what she's commenting on.

And now it's way too late to be awake, I still have to work tomorrow, and my bed is calling me.

So I find out last night that Adam Lambert's doing a concert tour with Queen this summer. And that there are a few cities in Canada that they'll be hitting.

Suddenly my world focus narrows to OH MY FUCK I MUST GET TICKETS!

I won't be able to get tickets. I can barely afford rent, let alone splurge on what will undoubtedly be expensive concert tickets, plus a place to stay, and a way to travel there, and since it's likely that R won't be back this summer, someone to drop by and feed the cats while I'm gone. This is a trip that would likely cost me as much as a month's rent, and there's no way I could get that kind of money by the time tickets are on sale.

Damn shame. But hey, it won't stop me from having little daydreams about it, because seriously, that man's music has done a lot for me since I discovered it, it's gotten me through some bad times without breaking down completely, and one of the things that's I very much want to do is to see him in concert even just once.

Daydreams it is. Maybe people will be kind and upload videos to YouTube so that I can at least see bits of the concerts even though I won't be there in person.

Not a great pain day today. It's not too bad, not so bad that I need to take the heavy painkillers, but enough that I'm far from comfortable.

So, it's a makeup day.

I view makeup in a bit of a weird way. Most people would look at my female body and just write off makeup as this ting that females do. And I hate that. Honestly, part of this is why I want to work toward a more androgynous body, because then the makeup will give me the kind of effect I really want it to have. The colours will be worth paying attention to, because hey, it's someone other than a female wearing makeup.

I'm not very good at expressing that desire.

Anyway, the reason that today is a makeup day is because when I feel crappy, when the pain is getting to me and my health feels like it's nowhere near where it ought to be, sometimes the biggest thing that keeps me pushing through the day is being able to look in the mirror and see a bit of glitter, some colour I like, something shiny that catches my eye, and in catching my eye reminds me that the reason I'm wearing it is for strength, and so I feel stronger.

It's the mask I choose to wear, instead of a mask I'm forced to wear. It's exhausting, trying to pretend that you don't feel as bad as you do, putting on the mask of happiness and normality. So when I put on a mask of my choosing, I feel like I'm able to still be myself behind the mask, and it takes some of the pressure off. I don't have to act like it's a normal day, because it isn't. I did something different. See the colours around my eyes, see the glitter? This is different. So I can act a little different, and rest a little easier knowing that the mask comes off when I want it to.

I don't know what it is, either, but either the pain or the makeup wakes up creativity in me. Especially when it comes to music. On bad pain days, I want to sing, and I do sing when I can, because it gets out a lot of frustration. Out it goes, breathed out and riding on powerful music to go as far from me as I can push it. And then I write music, because lyrics and tunes just don't stop making stops in my head. And I swear this is all before I've taken the fun painkillers that make me think I'm thinking especially profound thoughts (I'm usually not). I want to just stay home and scribble out lyrics and work on the music behind them. It's why I'm collecting a small notebook filled with snatches of songs, and those pages are getting filled pretty quickly.

I also want to spend that time sewing, specifically sewing modifications to clothes I already have and making new clothes that I want. I guess pain has a funny way of making you want to be a dfferent person, even if that difference is just on the outside.

Really do need to get sewing on those bandages to wrap around my chest...

I keep telling myself that the pain in my leg is good, that it means the nerves are healing, but fuuuuuck, it hurts so much that I have trouble sleeping some nights.

Long story short, 2 weeks ago I slipped and spectacularly injured my leg. No fractures, a whopping great bruise... and damaged nerves. I'm a little bit impressed that I fell that hard. My lower leg has a huge numb patch on it, and when it's not numb, it's burning. This is apparently what happens when nerves get damaged and then work to repair themselves. It hurts. A lot.

But at least it is recovering. No compartment syndrome, no crazy drainage issues, and even if the nerves never fully recover and I never gain full sensation back in that part of my leg, I'll just be happy if it stops hurting so much. This could take 4-6 weeks, optimistically.

It's my day off work, so I've alternated between doing a bit of laundry, reading, and preparing supper. Supper's nothing special. Pork chops baked in a sauce made from Pepsi, ketchup, and brown sugar, on top of rice. Not the healthiest, sugar-wise, but tasty, filling, cheap, and still better than McDonald's.

Finished M G Buehrlen's The Fifty-Seven Lives of Alex Wayfare today, and finally made a start on Scott Lynch's Republic of Thieves. I've had the ARC sitting around for *mumblemumble* months. It's not that I didn't want to read it. I just felt the crush at the end of last year to finish as many books as I'd challenged myself to read, and that book being something of a behemoth, it had to wait until a few shorter books were finished. But now I'm ahead of my reading goals for this year so far, and I have plenty of reviews for upcoming books scheduled for March, so I thought it was about time I got around to reading it.

After that, it'll be Mark Smylie's The Barrow, and then M L Brennan's Iron Knight, since she was awesome enough to send me a signed copy after hearing how much I liked Generation V.

So many perks to being a book reviewer!

Mega storm this Sunday that dumped about 45 cm of snow on us overnight. Needless to say, I didn't go in to work that day. I don't think I'd have been able to make it down the front path. Apparently only 8 people showed up for their shift that day, and to be honest, I'm surprised it was that many. The downfall of living paycheque-to-paycheque, though; the hit to that paycheque often overrides a person's sense of self-preservation and makes them do dangerous things so they don't starve or lose their homes.