Sunday, May 30, 2021

no beta… we die like men

I’ll take “Things Missing from UCMB Road Trips”, Alex…

*snicker*

Somehow, I knew that damn hashtag would come back to haunt me.

After winning NaNoWriMo a few years ago, I decided to try Scrivener. Hey, anything recommended by John Finnemore has to be worth checking out. (Speaking of checking out, “Cabin Pressure” by John Finnemore is a BBC radio programme he wrote that features Babblingbrook Crazyhorse, Roger Allam, and Anthony Head. It is HYSTERICAL. There are 26 episodes but the best one is Qikiqtarjuaq.)

Shit. Sorry. I squirrelled.

But. OMG! I miss Cabin Pressure SO FUCKING MUCH.

Anywhooooo…

I’d been using Storyist and while I liked it, I wasn’t in love with it. I had to use a third party app if I wanted to write on my iPhone. It was a mess. A huge mess.

I tried Scrivener and DAMN!. It was love at first sight.

So. Much. Love.

I use it on my iPhone. I use it on my MacBook. I use(d) it on my iMac.

It was mobile. It was quick. It was perfect.

And then I bought that damn PC laptop for work.

I decided to check out Scriv 3 for Windows. (Rumor had it I might be sent to our Panhandle location from time to time so I figured it wouldn’t hurt to check it out.)

And - as I’ve become fond of saying lately - shit went sideways.

I couldn’t back up.

I couldn’t sync.

Fuck. I couldn’t even save.

Uninstall. Reinstall. Slaughter a chicken. Dance in a graveyard. Uninstall. Reinstall.

I could save.

I could backup.

I still couldn’t sync.

Isolate issue to Dropbov.

Uninstall. Reinstall. Insult the computer’s mother. Uninstall. Reinstall.

I could save.

I could back up.

I could sync.

And then…

Then the screen layout opened UPSIDE DOWN.

I swear to fuck, I cannot win.

But! I got it to sync and the Windows Scriv support team now has a new issue that should have popped up in Beta testing.

I’m going to stick to my Apple apps, though.

 

- - - - - - - - - -

About a year ago, I went to the eye doctor and got fitted for bifocals - glasses and contacts.

And so began the worst year of my life. Vision-wise.

I struggled to see far.

I struggled to see near.

I couldn’t cross stitch.

I couldn’t knit.

I couldn’t fucking read.

And so began this weird year of not wearing glasses / contacts or wearing contacts and cheaters or wearing glasses and holding the frames so that the lenses matched up to where my eyes were focused. (Does that make sense? It Englishes, right?)

I finally gave up and saw a different doctor this year.

The test pair of contacts? HOLY FUCK.

I am so excited to be able to see again.

 

- - - - - - - - - -

Stupidly enough, I’m so excited that I have to burn a day off to wait for the city permit guy to come to the house.

Oh, Wait… you don’t know the entire saga.

In December, we headed to Lowes to price out a new front door. We had everything we needed and got it to the HOA in time for the December Architectural Committee meeting.

In January, we were at Universal when I got the call that they needed six more pieces of information before they could discuss it in THAT NIGHT’S MEETING.

THEY. HAD. A. FUCKING MONTH.

(And I didn’t even get the door I wanted. I got the same ugly ass door that everyone has, so this shouldn’t have been an issue.)

In February, we finally get clearance from those fuckers that we could install the door.

Well, you can’t order the door without the HOA letter of approval - at least from Lowe’s - so that was a whole new time suck.

In March, we finally ordered the door.

In April, we applied for the permit. Because you can’t even fart in your house without a permit in DFB.

In May, the door was FINALLY installed.

It will be mid-June before we can fix up the paint around the door… because DFB has to come out and inspect it before we can do anything else. (Like we have to keep the stickers on the door! Why?????)

There is absolutely no reason for this to be so fucking hard.

All that to bring up the landfill.

(And if that isn’t a roundabout way to get to a point, then I don’t know what is.)

There is a landfill not too far from here and Waste Management owns it.

WM wants to tear down a building and create a second landfill there.

Which is - essentially - in our backyard.

I don’t know anyone who wants to live downwind of a landfill.

I agree that it will negatively affect the value of my house.

I am a loud and proud NIMBY… in this situation.

Just, Jesus fuck, let a girl put an ugly, community matching, door on her house, yeah?

Because there are way more important battles to fight.

 

Thursday, May 06, 2021

It’s because of these drugs I do

wikipedia: creeping me out since 2001

Watching Netflix’s “Crime Scene: The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel” and checking out Wikipedia.As you do when you’re home alone.

We all know the story of Elisa Lam - and if you don’t, where the fuck were you back in 2013 when the security camera footage went viral? But, there’s always more to the story than the creepy elevator video or the random way she died…

Like she was bipolar.

Buckle up, kids. Shit’s about to get real.

I’ve watched the video more times than I care to admit and I always thought she was fucked up on… something.

It never once occurred to me that she might have been out of her mind due to mania.

Which, well, my history *might* suggest an occasion or two where, um, things that should have been in my head actually weren’t.

At this point, I need to post a disclaimer:

WHEN I WAS FIRST DIAGNOSED, MY MEDS WERE NOT BALANCED CORRECTLY AND THEY FUCKED ME UP MORE THAN I ALREADY WAS. I AM NOT PROUD OF - NOR DO I LIKE TO REMEMBER / DISCUSS - THIS ROUGH PERIOD OF MY LIFE.

You’ve been warned. OK?

So. Yeah.

That.

The list of prescription drugs she was taking caught my eye because I have taken all four of those. I’m currently taking two of them in combination.

But.

The Wellbutrin… holy mother of fucking FUCK.

I swear when I wasn’t tasting fucking COLOURS, I was bouncing back and forth between severe depressions and… well, Guinness record breaking manic phases.

I hit both extremes so quickly and so consistently over a few weeks that I couldn’t function.

I didn’t know which way was up half the time.

And have I mentioned?

I COULD TASTE COLOURS!

It took forever to figure out what was going on and it turned out that the Wellbutrin was making me manic. Except, when you’re already manic, shit goes sideways real fucking quick.

(As it turned out, I can’t take anything marketed as an “anti-depressant” because they trigger the mania. I can thank the Wellbutrin for pointing out that particular quirk in my biology.)

So… enough about me.

Watching the video and realising that she was bipolar was like reliving the Wellbutrin days.

I would never go as far as to call it a psychotic break, because I (thankfully) don’t know what something that severe is like, but I can tell you that there were points where I might have been hallucinating and I might have acted kind of, sort of, similar to the way she did.

Thankfully, my Wellbutrin days are far, far, far behind me and I’ve not had that particular experience again… but watching her… yeah. I can totally see the mania in her actions.

Although… the odd thing is that she seems to have stopped taking her meds, or at least was weaning herself off of them.

Which, yeah, if you’re fucked up enough and you stop taking the things that make you less fucked up then, that’s a totally valid reason for her behaviour as well.

Will we ever know what really happened? Probably not.

In all honesty, I’m not sure I want to know… because if it was mania induced, well… I don’t know how I could process that.