General Update...
My sister Tessa was here this past weekend. It was sort of spur of the moment, to check on Mom...who, I might have mentioned, turned 93 on March 11! Mom's memory, etc. is going pretty fast. Not dementia, just oldness. My brother has to keep going over there to fix whatever she's managed to fuck up (computer, phone, etc). When I went by there the other day, I set up her DVR to record the entire series of "Call the Midwife". "How did you do that?" she kept asking in wonder. On her new phone, there's a button that turns off the answering machine...guess which button she always hits. Add that to her never taking her cell phone with her AND not wearing her alarm button for when she falls...grrrr. "I don't need it," she says, even though it was last November that she fell in her closet and was there for 90 minutes until I called the nursing home. And that was only because she didn't show up to a restaurant! Mom still goes to an exercise guy once a week and plays the cello at two places and does various things. My brother and his wife do yeoman work with her, taking her out and having her over. Anyway, Tessa and I got to spend a little time together, which is always a treat.
I honestly can't tell you what I've been doing for the past two weeks. I had a breast MRI which came out fine--it's part of the follow-up I have to do every six months. And I've been in physical therapy, which is both unnecessary and unpleasant. Why they think this go-round is going to change anything about my ataxia (severe balance problems) I don't know. It only helps microscopically each time. So I go there, walk around a cone while I'm being timed, and do various standing poses with my feet in different places while my hips buck wildly. I tend to fall backwards so they assigned one of the men to work with me. Afterwards, I cannot control my body AT ALL. So I bring my cane. It's not physical fatigue, it's brain fatigue.
On Friday I again hosted my writing group. Zack, who runs it, figures it's okay to have 30 people (!) to come here because of our large apartment. I always have Fletcher on a leash so he doesn't go batshit every times someone comes in. Later in the evening he doesn't bark, but he is glued to my side. Or my ankles, as the case may be. I read another section of "The Princess And The Peeved", skipping over a large part to get to something more interesting than all of the palace intrigue. Also, I gave the first 30 pages to Mom. She really enjoyed it, and wants to read me. I told her when I gave her the pages, "it gets really dirty after this". She's very puritanical in ways that make NO sense to me.
In my non-fiction class, I've been reading various bits and pieces, interspersed with the piece I'm writing about my father's death. It was incredibly ugly in so many ways. My pieces tend to leave my classmates in stunned silence. One section I wrote about my father caused one of my classmates to leave the room. A piece about nightmares caused one classmate to say he couldn't comment because he couldn't breathe and his heart was pounding. I'm both proud of this and upset because that's not the effect I want my writing to have on people. But if life is ugly and I can write from the center of mental illness it will probably be good for something.
I'm feeling a bit lost because I am truly not in any fandom now, after nine years (!). I'm barely watching "Supernatural". I just don't care anymore, and the pretty can't make up for the sheer ridiculousness of it any more. I usually keep a whole season on my DVR. Right now all I have is "Red Meat", "Baby", and one from this season which I can't remember. I watched the last 10 minutes of last week and deleted it without watching. It was just stupid. I haven't wanted to write fanfic for at least a year or more.
"Swiss Army Man" doesn't have a fandom, and nothing else interests me. It feels really weird to acknowledge that I'm not in any fandoms any more. But that means I have more time for real life. I know I've written things like this before, but it only really hit me when I was talking to my therapist about fanfic and fandoms yesterday. I'm enjoying what I'm watching, but I don't feel any need to be in any communities. I hope that makes sense. I know a lot of people have moved on, and I miss the people from the "House" fandom who used to be such a large part of my life.
I've babbled long enough. Later.
I honestly can't tell you what I've been doing for the past two weeks. I had a breast MRI which came out fine--it's part of the follow-up I have to do every six months. And I've been in physical therapy, which is both unnecessary and unpleasant. Why they think this go-round is going to change anything about my ataxia (severe balance problems) I don't know. It only helps microscopically each time. So I go there, walk around a cone while I'm being timed, and do various standing poses with my feet in different places while my hips buck wildly. I tend to fall backwards so they assigned one of the men to work with me. Afterwards, I cannot control my body AT ALL. So I bring my cane. It's not physical fatigue, it's brain fatigue.
On Friday I again hosted my writing group. Zack, who runs it, figures it's okay to have 30 people (!) to come here because of our large apartment. I always have Fletcher on a leash so he doesn't go batshit every times someone comes in. Later in the evening he doesn't bark, but he is glued to my side. Or my ankles, as the case may be. I read another section of "The Princess And The Peeved", skipping over a large part to get to something more interesting than all of the palace intrigue. Also, I gave the first 30 pages to Mom. She really enjoyed it, and wants to read me. I told her when I gave her the pages, "it gets really dirty after this". She's very puritanical in ways that make NO sense to me.
In my non-fiction class, I've been reading various bits and pieces, interspersed with the piece I'm writing about my father's death. It was incredibly ugly in so many ways. My pieces tend to leave my classmates in stunned silence. One section I wrote about my father caused one of my classmates to leave the room. A piece about nightmares caused one classmate to say he couldn't comment because he couldn't breathe and his heart was pounding. I'm both proud of this and upset because that's not the effect I want my writing to have on people. But if life is ugly and I can write from the center of mental illness it will probably be good for something.
I'm feeling a bit lost because I am truly not in any fandom now, after nine years (!). I'm barely watching "Supernatural". I just don't care anymore, and the pretty can't make up for the sheer ridiculousness of it any more. I usually keep a whole season on my DVR. Right now all I have is "Red Meat", "Baby", and one from this season which I can't remember. I watched the last 10 minutes of last week and deleted it without watching. It was just stupid. I haven't wanted to write fanfic for at least a year or more.
"Swiss Army Man" doesn't have a fandom, and nothing else interests me. It feels really weird to acknowledge that I'm not in any fandoms any more. But that means I have more time for real life. I know I've written things like this before, but it only really hit me when I was talking to my therapist about fanfic and fandoms yesterday. I'm enjoying what I'm watching, but I don't feel any need to be in any communities. I hope that makes sense. I know a lot of people have moved on, and I miss the people from the "House" fandom who used to be such a large part of my life.
I've babbled long enough. Later.