The bad news is that I’ve been living in a never ending panic attack. (Hollander, you are having panic attack.)
My shrinky dink can’t prescribe me the good drugs because she’s not licensed in Maine. She did prescribe me something that would - supposedly - calm me down.
My brain looked at it and said, “What’s the maximum dose? Three? Oh, honey, you’re going to need to at least triple that shit if you want them to work.”
My brain? It’s an asshole.
I’m mentally ill - of course my brain is an asshole. It’s just a bigger one than usual.
Fuck.
At any rate, let’s discuss why I’m actually here.
We’re trying something new today! Trauma dumping!
Wait. That’s not new. You must be new here.
Warning: this entire blog is nothing but a trauma dumping ground.
Well, that’s not totally true…
I’ve been gushing (ha!) over gay hockey players. I bitch about writing. I try to be humorous.
I write.
It’s what I do.
(We’ll get to the puppy later; that’s a whole fucking thing that I don’t have the energy for.)
On April 30, 2001, I went to my father’s apartment at lunch. He wasn’t answering my calls and that was unlike him. He was supposed to be home, waiting for a furniture delivery. I had to have the complex manager let me in… Once she clocked what had happened, she fucking vanished. *poof*
I was not so lucky.
In my nightmares, I relive that moment. The door opening. Him napping on the couch. Walking over there to wake him up. Realising he wasn’t going to.
Everything after that is a blur.
I had just turned 26.
I was an orphan and, very literally, all alone in the world.
No family left.
A boyfriend, a few friends scattered here and there, a coworker who welcomed me as a full member in good standing of the Dead Parents Club, Toledo Chapter. (God, do I love the people in my life who understand my sense of humor.)
May 3, 2001 would have been my mother’s 55th birthday, if she hadn’t died nine years earlier.
May 10, 2001 would have been their 32nd wedding anniversary, had they not gotten divorced in March of 1992.
May 13, 2001 was Mother’s Day.
If my brain is an asshole, the calendar certainly gave it a run for the money.
I honestly don’t remember much about the aftermath, either. I do remember an epic melt-down at work, four therapists, a shrinky dink, a diagnosis, clarity, and walking out of a pharmacy with a little orange bottle that would, also quite literally, change my life.
The contents of that bottle has changed over the years, as has the number of the bottles, but without them? I might not have survived the darkest chapter of my life. I’ll never identify as suicidal, because I can’t do it. The unaliving, I mean. I don’t want to do that to my friends. Not the ones that hung around and supported me when I didn’t even know I needed it.
But.
I came really fucking close.
Depression lies and my brain is an asshole.
And both of them were whispering in my ear about how everything would just… go away.
How I would see my father again. Make peace with my mother. How my friends would go on with their lives and I’d just be a faded memory. How it wouldn’t hurt them and how it would fix everything.
I looked at the pill bottle.
I looked at the side effects.
I calculated the risks.
I looked at the clock to see how much time I had before the boyfriend would come home.
And I put the bottle back where it belonged.
Thursday is the 25th anniversary of the day I found his lifeless body on a couch in some shitty Toledo apartment.
I am not doing well.
Not even close.
Someone asked me if this year was especially bad because April 30th is also the day we went in front of a judge and finalised our divorce.
Also? May 3rd? The day he told me he wanted a divorce. Granted, I’d been thinking about it for a while, but to finally pull the band-aid off? That was a weird night on so many different levels.
The calendar?
An absolute motherfucker.
- - - - - - - - - -
[Verse 1]
How long till it feels
Like the wound’s finally starting to heal?
How long till it feels
Like I’m more than a spoke in a wheel?
[Pre-Chorus]
Most nights, I fear
That I’m not enough
I’ve had my share of Monday mornings when I can’t get up
But, when hope is lost
And I come undone
[Chorus]
I swear to God, I’ll survive
If it kills me to
I’m gonna get up and try
If it’s the last thing I do
I’ve still got something to give
Though it hurts sometimes
I’m gonna get up and live
Until the day that I die
I swear to God, I’ll survive
[Verse 2]
How long till you know
That, in truth, you know nothing at all?
How far will you go
To get back to the place you belong?
[Pre-Chorus]
Most nights, I fear
That I’m not enough
But I refuse to spend my best years rotting in the sun
So, when hope is lost
And I come undone
[Chorus]
I swear to God, I’ll survive
If it kills me to
I’m gonna get up and try
If it’s the last thing I do
I’ve still got something to give
Though it hurts sometimes
I’m gonna get up and live
Until the day that I die
I swear to God, I’ll survive
I swear to God, I’ll survive
[Chorus]
I swear to God, I’ll survive
If it kills me to
I’m gonna get up and try
If it’s the last thing I do
I’ve still got something to give
Though it hurts sometimes
I’m gonna get up and live
Until the day that I die
I swear to God, I’ll survive
- Survive, Lewis Capaldi
That only took three tries and a panicked email to an EE developer I know… but I finally managed to upgrade the backend of my little blog. Finally.
So…
Detroit.
That was a trip and a half. So glad I went!
For as much fun as I had, there were a lot of bad things, but let’s start with the good:
Shannon picking me up and giving me Faygo pop (It’s a Detroit thing.) and promising to leave both my kidneys. It is fun to get picked up at the airport by internet strangers!!!
Going to the Red Wings game with Heather. The Wings lost and it was a shit game, but I was pleased to see a lot of familiar names on the Rangers’ roster. It was nice to be at a pro hockey game again. I am finally healing. Not healed, it will still be a long time for that, but healing…
THE SPIRITED FISTING WALKING TOUR!!! There’s a very famous statue called the Spirit of Detroit and a random statue of a fist. So… yeah. A bunch of us got bored and went on a trek so that we could get fisted. (God, even my pocket friends are weird!)
I ended up walking the 1 mile and 5K with Heather. It was nice to have the company, but the walk itself was odd. Instead of combining both races, like they’ve done at every one 1/5 I’ve gone to, you had to do each race SEPARATELY. Two bibs and about two minutes to change them out, if you were as slow as we were. It was nice, though. I can’t remember the last time I did a race with a friend.
The half marathon was the best experience of my entire racing career. It was cold as fuck that morning and walking up the Ambassador Bridge will forever live on in my nightmares. I’m kind of disappointed I didn’t get pulled over by the Border Patrols, because that would have made it even better. The sunrise over Detroit, the views from the bridge, doing the world’s only underwater mile… it was definitely a once in a lifetime experience.
Then, like idiots, we went on a ghost tour. Because after doing a half (or in one case, a full) marathon, the one thing we should do is go on a walking ghost tour. It was horrible. Absolutely fucking horrible. I’ve been thinking about sending a review myself. The girl didn’t know any of the good stories and it was… you know it’s bad when the highlight of the entire tour is a ghost cow. (Don’t ask.)
As for the bad (?): I cried as we approached Detroit. Like I didn’t even know how badly I missed the fall foliage until I saw it.
I was so energized by the cold that it was sort of terrifying. I know I miss the cold, but I didn’t realize I missed it that much.
I didn’t wake up with a barometric pressure induced headache the entire time I was there. Not a single headache all weekend, which is really rare for me during Hurricane Season.
I had the uber driver from hell. He asked how much the trip cost me (a 5AM trip to the airport) and I stupidly told him $80. HE BITCHED THE ENTIRE TRIP THAT HE WASN’T GETTING PAID ENOUGH. Like, dude, that is not my fucking problem. I tipped him too well - and got charged twice for the damn thing - and decided, yeah, never taking an uber again. Once was enough.
And… not only was I miserable to get off the plane in Fort Lauderdale, MY CAR BATTERY DIED. I waited three hours for AAA to get there and replace it. The guy was great, though. We had a really inappropriate conversation (Titties and a stick shift? I LOVE YOU!), but the test he did on the battery answered a lot of questions I’d been having. I’m due for an oil change, and was going to wait until then. But, my luck is shit.
I didn’t have much company during the half, so I spent probably ten miles of it deep in my head.
I decided that I was moving sooner rather than later, but now that I’m back in my shitty Florida life, I’m not sure I can speed run the move home. There’s absolutely no reason to stay, but I’m also very loyal to my boss. The man is a saint and I don’t want to hurt him. I can probably manage my job remotely, but I don’t even want to say that to him yet. There’s stuff and things going on at the day job and I’m not sure the timing is right for my exit. My lease is up on 6/25 so I have some time to think about it.
Oh well, like I told my shrinky dink, I need to break the cycle of staying in Florida for men who treat me well. But it’s not that easy and it’s causing me a lot of mental turmoil. She thinks I should leave now, but… She also thinks I should move back to New Hampshire or Connecticut, but Maine is calling my name. And, yeah, I am looking at Presque Isle which is about as far north as I can get. Which would mean I’m “isolated” again and working remotely won’t make the “loneliness” better. But she doesn’t understand. I like being “isolated” and I’m not lonely. The big thing she’s missing is that Presque Isle is only like 6 hours from Boston. Will it suck to still be a decent distance from my friends? Yes. But I’d rather be a car ride away than have to deal with airports and that stupidity.
I don’t know. I still have a lot to think about and a ticket to Epic Universe on Labor Day. So, maybe I wait until the fall to move home - it depends on my lease. If I have to renew it for a year, I will, but I won’t be happy about it. I don’t like renting and I definitely don’t like this place. I’d rather see if I can do a six month lease.
I don’t know. There’s too much going on right now and I just need to take a step back and breathe.
Trump won the election. Four more years of hell on earth and that’s all I’m going to say on that.
if people are scouring my search history, they should be very concerned
Two weekends, two races, two very different results.
Last weekend was a 10K and I was Dead Fucking Last. So far in the back that they left the timing mat down and one girl stood there with one solitary medal for me.
This weekend, I attempted a half marathon and Did Not Finish. In my defense, I really had to pee.
This race was two loops, so I passed the starting / finish line twice before looping back for the final crossing. This is important.
Well.
There was not a single port-a-pottie on the race course. NOT. A. SINGLE. ONE.
It wasn’t bad enough that I was so far in the back, they had pulled down the timing mat at the halfway point. I was so far back that the cops forced me onto the sidewalk (Which, thanks, Doral. You’ll be getting my bill from the ER for the broken ankle.) I was so far back that near the halfway point, all the water stations within three miles were poofed. I was so far back that the cops were gone after I turned back for the final five miles.
I was so far back that I decided to pee instead of crossing the finish line.
Hear me out.
When I got to the finish line with three miles still to go, the clock read 3 hours and they were starting to tear it down. I finish in 4 right now.
Near the finish line is the one and only public restroom on the entire course.
My choices were absolutely ridiculous:
1) pee my pants, finish in four hours, but not cross the timing mat (DNF)
2) step off the course, take my pee, finish in 4:15, but not cross the timing mat (DNF)
3) walk down the finisher’s chute, pull my bib off, head to the bathroom before crossing the timing mat, pee, and go home. (DNF)
Option 3 was my best one, I’m sad to say.
Did I say I really had to pee?
I went over to the official timer - after I went to the loo, of course - and told them if they were waiting for me, I wasn’t finishing.
Do you know what he said?
He said that they could leave the timing mat down if I wanted to finish, but they had to clear the road. That’s why they were tearing everything down.
Well, fuck me.
Honestly, I don’t regret my decision. I made it based on the knowledge available to me 10 miles in and with a full bladder.
I am writing to the race director, though.
1) I know I’m slow, but tearing down the finish line at the three hour mark of a half marathon AND NOT POSTING THAT THERE IS A TIME LIMIT is just rude. I would have never signed up if I knew I had to run a 3/3:30. That’s not possible right now. (Maybe they don’t actually have a time limit, because I was allowed to continue. I just lost all race support.)
2) You honestly can’t expect people to go 13 miles without a bathroom break. The 5 and 10Ks at Disney always have lines at the port-a-potties and public restrooms and those are less than half of a half marathon.
The funny / sad thing about this is that I never have to pee during a race. NEVER.
Well, never say never.
But on the flip side, my PHRC shirt made me a new friend. She was an Eagle, but she didn’t make the transition to the FRC. I can’t say I blame her, but it was nice to put the name to the face. We run a lot of the same races, so it will be nice to know someone at the races, even though she smoked me right off the start line.
Aaaaaand, speaking of the FRC, I’M GOING TO DETROIT!
(Who the fuck is ever excited about going to Detroit?)
I’m meeting up with my pocket friends and we’re going to run the Freep Marathon Weekend.
I posted a picture of my renewed passport with the caption: I’M GOING TO DETROIT! and um, yeah. There was one comment on the status questioning my sanity, but I actually received several DMs asking me if I was OK.
Oh, I am so far from OK… but that’s not related to this.
Also related to FRC - I just did a Battle. Finished with 89 miles over 10 days. I capped three times. We won the race (wooo!!!!), but the best part of all of it was my team. I haven’t been on a team that gave me the warm and fuzzies in a long time.
Oh, did I mention? The course for Battle took us from Erie, PA through Canada, Detroit, Northern Ohio (Toledo, Sandusky, etc.), and back to Erie. Toledo was… fun. Nothing like reliving some of the worst years of my life.
I have stories about stuff and things and I’m not in the right headspace to talk about them right now.
Seems to be the story of my life.
I can part with this, though:
March 18th was the 32nd anniversary of my mother’s death.
She died when I was 16.
She has been dead for double the amount of time she was in my life.
When it’s smoking it’s cooking. When it’s burnt it’s done.
December 09, 2023 ::
9:40 AM
#selfcaresaturday looks a lot like death by food poisoning
I may have inherited a lot from my mother’s side of the family… except a woman’s innate ability to cook.
Nope.
My failures in the kitchen are all my father’s DNA.
Let’s put it this way, my favourite breakfast growing up was Super Duper Eggs.
How does one make Super Duper Eggs, you might ask.
Two eggs, half and half, salt, and a LOT of whisking. You want the eggs beaten within an inch of their life. Really fluffy and ready to be put to death in a frying pan drowning in butter. Preferably a cast iron skillet, but I don’t have one of those. (I can barely season food and you want me to season a fucking pan?)
Dump the eggs in and let them set like you’re making an omelette.
Walk away to make toast / coffee / whatever. As long as you forget about the eggs, you’re golden.
Remember the eggs. Try to flip the omelette.
When it falls to pieces, flip every bit over and behold the amazing, burnt, mess.
Let the other side burn.
Dump in a bowl and cover with ketchup.
Feed it to your daughter like it’s gourmet food and not eggs you fucked up.
I decided to do him one better and trust the auto setting on the microwave for the bacon.
Yeah. I probably should have checked on it at least once, but I, uh, forgot about it.
Burned eggs, burned bacon… at least the coffee was good.
- - - - - - - - -
Chrome continues to be the bane of my existence.
First it broke the public view of my blog.
Then it broke the back end.
Apparently, you need to use https:// in the file path to the CSS file. And it can’t be a relative path. It has to be https:// myblog dot com/I hate the internet/style.css
The back end is still broken. For whatever reason, it is absolutely fucked in Firefox right now. Chrome and Firefox on a PC are equally fucked. It’s working on Chrome on the Mac at the moment, but I can’t upload files. Nothing I like more than messing with an FTP app while eating Super Duper Eggs and, um, extra crispy bacon.
I did get the file upload to work. Finally.
But, whatever Chrome is doing lately is also fucking up the work shit. Because, of course, everything is fucking web based now.
We can’t download files without Office 365 continually opening in safe mode.
We can’t access files that are stored on our local server via Dynamics365 - the link to the file needs to be the one to OneDrive in order to open them within the app. (DO YOU KNOW HOW MANY FILES WE CANNOT ACCESS?!?!?!)
IT’s answer is to use Firefox.
Um, OK. Not a fix that anyone even wants to try, so yeah. Good luck with THAT.
Any way, I refuse to spend the day troubleshooting the back end of the blog, so I decided to upgrade Expression Engine.
(While I may adore the person who named it - yes, I know her - I hate WordPress with an intensity I reserve for spiders.)
FYI, Expression Engine is on version seven. SEVEN.
I am running v2.6.1, build date 20130506. Yes. 2013. The software is a decade old and has finally shit the bed. I’m pleased and amazed at the longevity of what Rick built. He should be proud of himself. (I’ve been using Ellis Lab products to run my blog forever; we’re talking pMachine and being invited (!!!!) to beta test Expression Engine. Ellis Labs doesn’t exist any more, sadly, but again, this will always be Rick’s software. (I say that like we were besties…))
This is not going to be fun and it is definitely not a project I’m in the mood to take on today.
Eventually.
- - - - - - - - - -
Speaking of things I’m not in the mood to deal with today, EA just released a new Sims pack.
The Sims 4 For Rent. (If that’s not the stupidest name, I don’t know what is.)
Guess what?
It changes the entire back end of the game again.
It broke build mode and it broke normal game play.
It was to be expected - the pack now allows you to build multiple lots on one. You can build rental units now - and manage them as a landlord or live in them as a tenant.
That’s a major change.
Just like when Growing Together was introduced.
The majority of my important mods are completely borked. I’ve already spent several hours trying to update them and I’m half way done.
Two of the mods I love are broken and no ETA on when they’ll be fixed. One has been broken for a while - the modder has health issues and can’t continue coding right now. The other mod’s main programmer died a few weeks ago. Cancer. He was young. Too young. They’re working on finding a replacement, but how do you replace the reason that mod even exists? They have a death mod where you can have a funeral instead of just the grim reaper… obviously that’s not going to be updated for a long time. I was thinking about trying it before the news and now I don’t know if I can.
I’m bummed I have to put my legacy on ice again while I wait for all the bugs to be fixed. I was thrilled that I got to pick up with Nathan and Bryce and their kids / grandkids. So weird to think that if my legacy founder were alive, she’d be hanging out with her great great granddaughter!
I play alphabet legacies and we’re on generation E.
Bryce and Nathan had kids via the same surrogate, so the kids are half siblings.
Cora married a vampire and had a vampire baby. I moved her out and let story progression do its thing. SP is absolutely crazy bananas. She had moved out to live with Caleb and when I went back into the household, she was no longer a vampire, no longer married to Caleb, and had a shitty relationship with her daughter. And she was shacking up with a townie. What the fuck?!?
Chase was a bit of a manwhore and had three kids with three different women.
I unalived one of them testing out the Sims’ version of the Bloody Mary urban legend. Whoops.
Then, because that wasn’t enough drama, there was the woman he married, divorced, and remarried. Then he cheated on her with baby momma number three. What can I say? I love chaos.
Dayna became Dylan and moved out, Daniel and his girlfriend just had baby Emily (teen parents because why not?), and Derek’s just aged up to a teen.
All this because Johnny Zest brought fruitcake to Aubrey.
Thank FUCK you can only have eight Sims on a lot.
- - - - - - - - - -
In other news, I still can’t make the words go easily, but they’re coming.
After I crashed and burned in November, December is going to be the month I hit 50K words.
Quick entry… because guys! (Gals! Non-Binary Pals!)
I. AM. WATCHING. MY. SECOND. HOCKEY. GAME. OF. THE. NIGHT.
OF!! THE!! NIGHT!!
I watched the BU / Maine game - and got to listen to the BU announcers. (*sniff*) BU won, barely. I might have jinxed them… they were doing really well before I logged into ESPN+.
Now, I’m watching the Boston feed of the Bruins / Habs game. I’m hoping it inspires me to pick up what I’m lovingly calling the Drarry Hockey AU Disaster.
I haven’t been writing very much and I’m pretty sure finishing 50K words this month just became impossible, but you never know.
Instead, I’ve been bouncing between The Sims and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. I’ve invested in a gaming PC because the Sims and the (disturbing) amount of CC I have is killing my little MacBook. The Sims is playing great on it, I have a smexy new keyboard, and I can revisit my favourite legacy. Their save file used to crash non-stop on the Mac, but it lives again!!!!
Stuff’s been on my mind, partly because of reliving happy days that turned sour, and partly for other reasons.
I got swept during the half marathon again. Asthma / panic attack at mile 8 did me in. I managed to keep going and got pulled at roughly 11.5 miles. The sad thing is that the new asthma meds were working. I PR’d the 5K and 10K. Which is almost nearly impossible at Disney if you’re a back of the packer. I was doing really well on the half until I wasn’t.
I have the Turkey Trot 10K on Thursday and the Space Coast Half on Sunday. We’ll see how those go.
But, in happier news, KALUSH fucking kicked ass. I needed their chaotic live show in a way I didn’t think was possible. Of course, it being Florida, it fucking poured that night. In the five minute walk to the parking lot, I was as drenched as if I was pushed into a swimming pool. Also, the drainage in the parking lot sucked and I was walking through almost knee deep water at points.
But. I got my live music fix and now… it’s all quiet until February.
(Although there are a lot of new Ukrainian bands I want to see coming through Miami. Guess it’s a good thing I’m done with runDisney!)
Psst! Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes? AMAZING. The book was still better than the movie, but the movie was definitely excellent.
