the kindness of strangers, as well as that of friends
After so much grimness, I'm just randomly updating with nice (or at least non-emotionally crippling) news. I called the pharmacy at Howard Brown Health Center today to find out how to get the three month supply of Lexapro that Forest Pharmaceuticals sent for me shipped to my new address. (It's FP's policy to always send any patient-assistant meds to the doctor's office rather than to the patient.)
It's a reflection on me rather than on HB that I'd forgotten how kind and accommodating they are. As it happens not only are they shipping the Lexapro, but they refilled the 'scrips for all my non-controlled meds and my total cost came to three dollars. Considering it just cost me fifty to get a month's supply of my blood pressure medication, this is beyond wonderful of them. The real bonus for me is that they could fill a 'scrip for a lesser dose of my bp meds. (I went from 25mg to 50mg to 100mg and, er, as soon as I get to a community health center out here, I'm pretty sure I'm either going on 200mg or I'm getting a new medication added.) I'd just had the 100mg refilled so they couldn't do that one again, but they were able to refill the 50mg, which gives me another two weeks.
This little buffer should be all I need to get me through until I'm working again. It's been more of a worry than I let myself acknowledge. It's always so humbling to find such grace in an unexpected hour. Likewise, I appreciate the chance to let go of Chicago on a good note.
I've had a lovely welcome out here, too. The recording studio guy is confirmed as legit. My landlady recognized the name of the studio and I found its website: it's a non-skeevy real deal. I'll be meeting with the gentleman who approached me next week. He's invited me to bring anything I've written, too -- given our discussion on writing (he'd like to write a novel but has not yet committed himself to doing it), he's willing to publish an audiobook or audioanthology or whatever of my work should it hold up to what he's expecting. That's very cool.
And at least a small step above being courted to model for a little old lady's tasteful ("No pink!") T&A site in terms of having non-T&A career goals. Seriously, with my luck, I'd let pics get posted on that site and, lo, come an interview at a university, I'll wind up talking to a patron of that site. I KNOW HOW MY LIFE WORKS OMG.
Back to the recording stuff. If I can pick up some work as a voice artist, hey, I'll take it. Likewise, if I manage to sell a collection of essays or fiction I can record as an audiobook, I'll go for that, too. I'll definitely let y'all know how that goes. Hell, for that matter, I may very well grovel for opinions on what to bring.
This reminds me, too, that I've come back 'round to writing fanfic. I've watched the season ending eps of DW repeatedly thanks to rike_tikki_tavi and I feel a meta coming on. This meta, I should note, will largely be supported by an eerily accurate (and absolutely hilarious) series of letters I exchanged with out_there some months back. I don't want to spoil so I'll leave it at that for now.
Anyway. I'm moving between outstanding SPN and House/Xena WIPs, as well as a gleefully evil bit of nonsense featuring Jack, Owen, and the Doctor. Owen's really not impressed with the Doctor and he's even less impressed by Jack's enthusiasm about this particular escape. (Per Jack, the good news is they can use the vent and the better news is he'll have to take off his shirt and have his upper body lubricated in order to fit in such a tight hole. Owen volunteers to stay behind to be tortured to death in response to this news, the Doctor is briefly nonplussed to realize just how many kinds of lube Jack has handy, and Jack is too busy brainstorming reasons to take off his pants too for what must surely be the best escape ever to pay much attention to Owen or the Doctor. I picked up today at the point where Owen asks the Doctor if the Doctor's specialty is proctology because he's certainly up his own arse. I love Ten, but he's not having the best time of it at the moment. Jack's unholy glee over being stripped to the waist and oiled down more than makes up for it, though. *g* Oh, it feels good to clear some of the cobwebs with this bit of fluff. Jack is a disconcertingly awesome POV character for me.)
My breaks from writing today have been filled with hunting up local community health centers. I was even kindly invited to join a support group for advanced diseases, which is technically what I have. ("Malignant" does not translate to "terminal" and I'm another step closer to going through with the experimental surgery via the Rheos study, so I'll be fine.) I accepted the invitation in part for myself and in part because I hope to relay positive information and useful facts to Mom. I want to offer her a little hope and comfort, but I particularly want to set a fire under her ass to seek something -- anything -- to help her find the balance she needs. Using the convenient short hand of Western astrology, she's a scarily destabilized Libra and she's never more miserable than when her Scales are unbalanced.
I could have gone back to Texas at any point until the end of March, I think. Up 'til then, I still had enough of me left to be of some sort of help and not just a liability. When what I thought would be that long-term job turned out to be a cesspit of harassment and I came home to find my poor Kiki had died, that's the day I broke for real. When my sweet Sam died, I shifted gears from being broken to quietly preparing to commit suicide. At that point, for all that I was talking about moving, suicide seemed the only option that could actually be real. I tried not to yammer on about it over here because I know it's a sensitive subject, even a trigger, for some of my friends and I didn't want to fuck with anyone's heads and hearts. It seemed so much more possible as my means of escape than moving did. I wasn't aware I could slip yet another cog until I wound up in the ICU. As with Sam's death, though, someone introduced elements into the situation which could have been entirely avoided and thus kept additional misery to a minimum.
I made it, though. I left feeling dead, dazed, and ashamed, but I still managed to leave. I couldn't abandon Mason and Colin. I wish so much that Mason had had longer here but at least he died safely and comfortably. He's on my mind and heart at present because I'm about to collect his ashes -- he's ready to come home to me. At least I can cry without the grief being more than I can bear. Should I need someone to go with me, my lovely neighbors have already volunteered.
I learned hard but necessary lessons over the past two years. I wouldn't have been able to handle Mom's ill-chosen words had I not been in her position and recognized why she was lashing out. I would still take too much for granted. Still have some vague, subconscious sense of entitlement based on my education and experience, and would fail to recognize myself in the homeless, the mentally ill, the disenfranchised. A friend once told me that if I were any sort of divinity, my element would be concrete and my totem would be the hydrogen bomb. (She had a whole hilariously accurate list, in fact, but those two particularly stuck.) I am appallingly dense when it comes to recognizing changes I need to make. It will always be a sorrow to me that others were affected as my Tower shook apart; that they had to deal with me when I was increasingly unable to deal with everything that kept happening.
I've never admitted this before, but I initially masked my hypertension by taking Vicodin shortly before any of my appointments at Howard Brown. In retrospect, I honestly can't say why it was so important to me to try to hide that particular symptom of my stress. The masking only lasted a few months and by then, there was the whole clonazepam debacle in the mix. What's happening now, IMO, is less karmic retribution and more just the bashing-over-the-head-with-a-fencepost I seem to need in order for a point to take.
I have no idea where I was going with this. Rike called about an hour ago and conversations about pumpkins, Plinys the Elder and the Younger, the mid-call visit from Sidney, and various bits of fangirling have since wiped my brain. I need to get Mason. I'll catch y'all later.
Thanks again for hanging in there with me through everything.
It's a reflection on me rather than on HB that I'd forgotten how kind and accommodating they are. As it happens not only are they shipping the Lexapro, but they refilled the 'scrips for all my non-controlled meds and my total cost came to three dollars. Considering it just cost me fifty to get a month's supply of my blood pressure medication, this is beyond wonderful of them. The real bonus for me is that they could fill a 'scrip for a lesser dose of my bp meds. (I went from 25mg to 50mg to 100mg and, er, as soon as I get to a community health center out here, I'm pretty sure I'm either going on 200mg or I'm getting a new medication added.) I'd just had the 100mg refilled so they couldn't do that one again, but they were able to refill the 50mg, which gives me another two weeks.
This little buffer should be all I need to get me through until I'm working again. It's been more of a worry than I let myself acknowledge. It's always so humbling to find such grace in an unexpected hour. Likewise, I appreciate the chance to let go of Chicago on a good note.
I've had a lovely welcome out here, too. The recording studio guy is confirmed as legit. My landlady recognized the name of the studio and I found its website: it's a non-skeevy real deal. I'll be meeting with the gentleman who approached me next week. He's invited me to bring anything I've written, too -- given our discussion on writing (he'd like to write a novel but has not yet committed himself to doing it), he's willing to publish an audiobook or audioanthology or whatever of my work should it hold up to what he's expecting. That's very cool.
And at least a small step above being courted to model for a little old lady's tasteful ("No pink!") T&A site in terms of having non-T&A career goals. Seriously, with my luck, I'd let pics get posted on that site and, lo, come an interview at a university, I'll wind up talking to a patron of that site. I KNOW HOW MY LIFE WORKS OMG.
Back to the recording stuff. If I can pick up some work as a voice artist, hey, I'll take it. Likewise, if I manage to sell a collection of essays or fiction I can record as an audiobook, I'll go for that, too. I'll definitely let y'all know how that goes. Hell, for that matter, I may very well grovel for opinions on what to bring.
This reminds me, too, that I've come back 'round to writing fanfic. I've watched the season ending eps of DW repeatedly thanks to rike_tikki_tavi and I feel a meta coming on. This meta, I should note, will largely be supported by an eerily accurate (and absolutely hilarious) series of letters I exchanged with out_there some months back. I don't want to spoil so I'll leave it at that for now.
Anyway. I'm moving between outstanding SPN and House/Xena WIPs, as well as a gleefully evil bit of nonsense featuring Jack, Owen, and the Doctor. Owen's really not impressed with the Doctor and he's even less impressed by Jack's enthusiasm about this particular escape. (Per Jack, the good news is they can use the vent and the better news is he'll have to take off his shirt and have his upper body lubricated in order to fit in such a tight hole. Owen volunteers to stay behind to be tortured to death in response to this news, the Doctor is briefly nonplussed to realize just how many kinds of lube Jack has handy, and Jack is too busy brainstorming reasons to take off his pants too for what must surely be the best escape ever to pay much attention to Owen or the Doctor. I picked up today at the point where Owen asks the Doctor if the Doctor's specialty is proctology because he's certainly up his own arse. I love Ten, but he's not having the best time of it at the moment. Jack's unholy glee over being stripped to the waist and oiled down more than makes up for it, though. *g* Oh, it feels good to clear some of the cobwebs with this bit of fluff. Jack is a disconcertingly awesome POV character for me.)
My breaks from writing today have been filled with hunting up local community health centers. I was even kindly invited to join a support group for advanced diseases, which is technically what I have. ("Malignant" does not translate to "terminal" and I'm another step closer to going through with the experimental surgery via the Rheos study, so I'll be fine.) I accepted the invitation in part for myself and in part because I hope to relay positive information and useful facts to Mom. I want to offer her a little hope and comfort, but I particularly want to set a fire under her ass to seek something -- anything -- to help her find the balance she needs. Using the convenient short hand of Western astrology, she's a scarily destabilized Libra and she's never more miserable than when her Scales are unbalanced.
I could have gone back to Texas at any point until the end of March, I think. Up 'til then, I still had enough of me left to be of some sort of help and not just a liability. When what I thought would be that long-term job turned out to be a cesspit of harassment and I came home to find my poor Kiki had died, that's the day I broke for real. When my sweet Sam died, I shifted gears from being broken to quietly preparing to commit suicide. At that point, for all that I was talking about moving, suicide seemed the only option that could actually be real. I tried not to yammer on about it over here because I know it's a sensitive subject, even a trigger, for some of my friends and I didn't want to fuck with anyone's heads and hearts. It seemed so much more possible as my means of escape than moving did. I wasn't aware I could slip yet another cog until I wound up in the ICU. As with Sam's death, though, someone introduced elements into the situation which could have been entirely avoided and thus kept additional misery to a minimum.
I made it, though. I left feeling dead, dazed, and ashamed, but I still managed to leave. I couldn't abandon Mason and Colin. I wish so much that Mason had had longer here but at least he died safely and comfortably. He's on my mind and heart at present because I'm about to collect his ashes -- he's ready to come home to me. At least I can cry without the grief being more than I can bear. Should I need someone to go with me, my lovely neighbors have already volunteered.
I learned hard but necessary lessons over the past two years. I wouldn't have been able to handle Mom's ill-chosen words had I not been in her position and recognized why she was lashing out. I would still take too much for granted. Still have some vague, subconscious sense of entitlement based on my education and experience, and would fail to recognize myself in the homeless, the mentally ill, the disenfranchised. A friend once told me that if I were any sort of divinity, my element would be concrete and my totem would be the hydrogen bomb. (She had a whole hilariously accurate list, in fact, but those two particularly stuck.) I am appallingly dense when it comes to recognizing changes I need to make. It will always be a sorrow to me that others were affected as my Tower shook apart; that they had to deal with me when I was increasingly unable to deal with everything that kept happening.
I've never admitted this before, but I initially masked my hypertension by taking Vicodin shortly before any of my appointments at Howard Brown. In retrospect, I honestly can't say why it was so important to me to try to hide that particular symptom of my stress. The masking only lasted a few months and by then, there was the whole clonazepam debacle in the mix. What's happening now, IMO, is less karmic retribution and more just the bashing-over-the-head-with-a-fencepost I seem to need in order for a point to take.
I have no idea where I was going with this. Rike called about an hour ago and conversations about pumpkins, Plinys the Elder and the Younger, the mid-call visit from Sidney, and various bits of fangirling have since wiped my brain. I need to get Mason. I'll catch y'all later.
Thanks again for hanging in there with me through everything.