Category: Summer Writing

Slept oddly after falling asleep before 2300.
But up now, water, pill case filled, etc..
It’s pretty sad when a highlight involves pouring pills from the bottle, and getting exactly the number you need to fill the pill case for the week.
Yes, I fill my pill case on Saturday mornings. I guess I could do it on Sunday, but habits are tough to break.
for whatever reason, because I’m sorta running out of things to write about again, I decided to look back into my OD archive to see what I wrote when I got laid off in 2013. Maybe that’s in response to the recent entry where I was laying out what I wanted in a place to live.
Maybe I’ll remedy that this afternoon.
This waiting game bothers the hell out of me, though. I can remember my dad dealing with this when he was stationed at the Pentagon in the late-90s/early-90s.
~o/Take your protein pills and put your helmet on…/o~
This is the sort of thing that runs through my scarred brain as I drink a breakfast shake.
Major aside time…. The folks at the med school, plus my mother suggested I drink these things as I was losing so much weight after I got diagnosed. I never really liked them. When I ended up in the hospital last September, the first thing I craved after admission was vanilla Ensure. What in the actual fuck?
Since that hospital stay, I’ve gone to vanilla breakfast shakes from time to time. Today is one of those times. I was a bit hungry.
Being hungry is something that I’ve had to sort of become accustomed to again.
From when I first started college until I started on the Tysabri, I can count on one finger the number of times I remember being really hungry. Now I feel hungry kind of at appropriate times.
Today’s feast? Some delicious French food my wife cooked recently; leftovers have been in the freezer. French bread. Bottle of wine.
I think ti’ll probably be a good evening.
Have you ever had someone tell you not to do something, and then have them turn around to tell someone else to do it
Kind of related to what I was talking about yesterday. I’m not particularly good at taking orders. I’m worse about caring about orders given to others. If someone with authority told me not to do something, I’d not do that thing, and go on minding my own business. If it was something I thought it was important to do, I’d try to negotiate with the overseer, convince him/her (I know, that’s gender-normative….) to make sure it got done. If it wasn’t actually me doing it whatever. If it was a prohibition on me just for the sake of officiousness, I’d remove myself from that situation as soon as I could. I have better things to do.

Writing, wondering what’s going to happen next.
Things can seem to move at a snail’s pace during the summer if your livelihood is dependent upon government action.
This is a tough few weeks, anyway. I’m very much at the end of my charge, and I don’t get a Tysabri infusion until Wednesday afternoon.
I had a good interview Monday, but told them I wouldn’t be available to start until Thursday next week. I have a dental cleaning Monday, then the infusion Wednesday.

**CUT**

So I emailed her back. The position was filled, but they are going to keep my CV on file for other opportunities.
I’m disappointed, but not overly so.
As I said while filling out my my morning Patients Like Me survey, I am getting a little bored at this point.
Unfortunately, as I’ve been listening to news, with Congress on vacation, I don’t expect a budget to be passed soon. Since so many of my outstanding applications are with government agencies, I’m wondering if there’s going to be another week or two of twiddling my thumbs.
I also worry that some of these things won’t start until the next fiscal year (1 October).
Things would be really tight if I don’t get a paycheck until 15 October. *sigh*
Do you ever feel as though you are the only one with a logical mind?
How flatly can I answer in the negative? NO.
To every situation, there’s multiple ways to address. How someone else chooses to do something really isn’t any of my business.
That does speak to something that’s been going through my head a lot lately.
Perhaps it’s related to my political consumption lately, but I really don’t care I tell people the right way to do things. I don’t have any desire to tell people how they should live their lives.
Maybe that makes me weird.
Maybe it makes me a bad person.
But I don’t care.

Yesterday morning’s hopefulness has been replaced with worry after not hearing anything from the promising opportunity yesterday.
I’m still pretty confident, though, even if that one doesn’t come through.
Interestingly, I applied for something that appeared to be the government counterpart for that job. That would be a little weird. I also did end up archiving a bunch of my outstanding USAJOBS applications. If they haven’t made a decision after this long, they’re probably just aren’t going to make one.
Do you ever feel the need to play the devil’s advocate?
I’m not sure? I don’t ever recall seriously making a fallacious argument about something publicly. Whenever I write or speak, I do try to figure out the arguments that might be made against my drivel. Is that playing devil’s advocate? I don’t know.
I wish I could remember what the folks in the legal field called that exercise.
I did use the technique when I was going through something I planned to submit a Shmoocon a few years ago. I’d written the paper, started putting together the slide deck, and started rehearsing the oral presentation.
As I got into the meat of my argument, I thought of a counter-argument I couldn’t neatly refute.
So, into the trash with the presentation, and plans to figure out how to get to the conference as an attendee, not a presenter.
Deleting something where I was going to punt, and take it to sports.
The crux of the argument? Tom Landry is the greatest coach in football history. No, I’m not a Cowboys’ fan.
The writing juices seem to be coming after only a few days of writing. I’m happy about that. we’ll see how I feel here in a couple of weeks.

So, new month, same issues.
Very disappointed my Tysabri infusion isn’t until next week. I’m exhausted, and need a recharge.
Very positive conversation yesterday about work pursuit. We’ll see what comes of it, but I think that the manager asked when I’d be able to start is probably a positive thing.
I need a haircut before I do. And Tysabri.
So prompt before I tail off….
What’s your take on religion?
Some are better than others. God didn’t write what a Sixteenth Century English monarch translated into English. Similarly, there is no Xenu.
I’m just as certain of those as I am that Jesus lived. I’m also pretty sure there were Caesars in Rome.
When I was younger, I was a pretty committed atheist. As I’ve aged, however, I’ve been more open to the idea of an uncaused first cause.
I think that change started by encountering people who were committed scientists, as well as adherent Catholics. To twenty year-old me, that didn’t make much sense, but I understand it better now.
Is there an afterlife? I have faith that there is. If the things that I’ve done to help ensure I get to a good place in the afterlife.
Why would I brush my teeth if the world might end this afternoon? If the world ends, my breath isn’t bad. If it doesn’t end, maybe I don’t get a cavity. It takes a few minutes, so what have I lost?
i’m having trouble focusing on this, unfortunately. the podcast in my ear probably isn’t helping. Discussion of the influence of refugee voters from the Progressive Paradise that is Venezuela.

Phone interview this afternoon. We’ll see how it goes. The position looks eerily-similar to the one I took in the summer of 2007. If I could get back to that money with those benefits, I’d be very happy.
One of the podcasts I listen to talks a lot about how people haven’t had a raise since 2005. Yeah? I resemble that in light of my descent since January 2013.
There’s very little I have to show for the past ten years of work, certainly for the last five.
On top of it, I’ve lost so much due to my condition.
Others would be angrier about it, but I really don’t have the energy to dwell on things.
Today’s prompt seems oddly appropriate.
What was the most precious thing you ever gave up willingly?
In the exit from The Botetourt, I gave away a bunch of my dated IT stuff. Two Macs. A Cisco switch, which was one of the few things I gook from the dissolution of a small business where I was once a partner. A NeXTstation with a barely-working monitor, and 40GB SCSI drive that made weird noises.
At first, I wasn’t planning on giving that away to an acquaintance who took the Macs and switch. As I thought about it, however, I realized that I hadn’t done anything with it in probably three years, and he’d get some use out of it.
Before the mass clean-out of my near decade-long residence, I let my Mustang go for a song. (I think the KBB value on it was something like $10K; I sold for $6600.) It wasn’t like I could drive it, anymore, anyway. The money from it helped sustain us through the second layoff in a year.
In the summer of 2012, atop the Berkley Bridge in Norfolk, a pickup truck dropped its spare tire in the lane ahead of me. Traffic was heavy at rush hour, so there was no way I could avoid hitting it. I popped the radiator, which left me without transpiration. The company I was working for at the time had started letting me work from home part-time. Without a car, they let me work remotely a lot more.
After I got it out of the repair shop, it sat parked until between Christmas and New Year’s. I tried to drive it during that week, and was scared to death. I couldn’t read the speedometer, and was trying to stay near the speed limit by selecting the right gear.
I know the speed limit here is 30, so third gear. Even if I couldn’t read the speedometer, I could tell how fast I was going.
But the other issue with my vision raised its ugly head. I couldn’t make out red stop lights against green trees.
The sailor who bought it had recently wrapped his around a guardrail, and was looking for something similar. I hope it’s served him well.
With that, that’s the end of the July bit. 21 entries forthcoming for August.

Yesterday was spent dealing with progress on the job search, and dealing with my rebelling body. The next Tysabri does is only eleven days away, but it feels like an eternity.
It doesn’t make a lot of sense, either. It’s not like I’ve been roaming around, or trying to fix complicated problems at work…..
So, today, up early, refill pill container, watch the news, get a bit to eat, write, then back to bed.
I’d forgotten that I’d picked out something for today. I expect that’ll happen more often as I whittle down these prompts.
Book that left a lasting impression. Why?
One of the recycled things from a few days ago was something I’d been trying from How I Found Freedom In An Unfree World by Harry Browne.
It’s probably been fifteen years since I last read it. Maybe I ought to do that.
That said, I’m limited. If memory serves, a lot of the sort of things he mentions are things that only a healthy person can really do.
What would I do if I was healthy, single?
Well, I would already be somewhere else, and my apartment would be up on AirBnB.
*shrug*
One of the local TV reports, with whom I am acquainted, along with someone on Nextdoor.com, were complaining about a persistent beep coming from the corner where I used to live. I’d imagine the place is getting pretty empty, even one of the building’s biggest advocates is supposed to be gone I tweeted back at him that it’s probably my old place. The new owners seem to want people to GTFO so they can thoroughly renovate it for the first time since the Truman Administration.
When we moved in where we are now, I expressed interest in seeing what they did to it. At this point, however, I really can’t bring myself to care. I fully anticipate the few good features of the building to be replaced with things that allow tenants to be hermetically-sealed inside their units. But, hey, granite counter tops!!1!
Other stuff….
Between three and four yesterday afternoon, I got five queries from three different recruiters about two jobs.
One job was local, but paid about half of what I’d be looking for, and wasn’t really the sort of work I’m qualified to perform.
the other was shorter, and out-of-state. It was work I could do, but nothing at all interesting.
As I’ve been wading through the mess of jobs, I’d suspected that this wave of contract employment was in reaction to the Affordable Care Act. This guy puts about as positive a spin on it as possible. Do I agree with him? No. He tiptoes around the reason the US has such a messed-up system by trying to point out other bits in history where “employer-sponsored” insurance hit.
I do think that this wave of fixed=term contracts is something that’s a direct result of health care.
For those of us with expensive conditions, and conditions that make us miss work frequently, it behooves employers to just not hire us..
Is there more to say? Sure. I could warble on all day about it. Do I want to do that? No.

I started two days late, so I’ll write more.
My wife is off doing something or the other, and I’m waiting on calls about my many job applications, so I’ll do a second entry for today.
I don’t have anything else to do, aside from what the Japanese prepare to wipe out the Norks.
That, along with the crying about the failure of the repeal of the Affordable Care Act.
It’s fascinating listening to both sides’ nonsense.
Twenty million will lose insurance!
(Estimates are that something like three-quarters of those are healthy people who’ll just refuse to buy insurance because they’re young and healthy. Also, Medicaid is not insurance.)
Obamacare is in a death spiral!
(Let’s not talk about the fact that those of us forced into the private market are paying after-tax money for everything, and corporations aren’t hiring full-time employees so they can avoid paying for overpriced insurance plans…..)
So, on to the prompt.
Do you think it is ok to keep secrets in a relationship?
Wouldn’t you like to know?
(Writing that assuming I’ve got an audience, but I’m pretty sure nobody’s reading this, so….)
Snark aside, yes, I think it’s okay for minor things. I bought my wife a gift for her birthday. She can see how much the charge is on the credit card bill. She can see where I bought it. Okay, whatever.
Major stuff, on the other hand, I just don’t understand how you could keep it under wraps for a long time.
Obviously, I have a chronic health condition that at this time is incurable. (Of course, fingers crossed, etc., for an effective treatment, and nerve repair….) I told my then fiancee the doctor’s suspicion as soon as I found out. When I got the final diagnosis, I called her before I called my parents. We hadn’t married yet, so I felt like I had to give her the opportunity to choose not to go forward with it. (And she’ll be angry with me about that until she dies thinking that she might change her mind….)
An individual has to have secrets to himself. It’s a part of being human.

My wife provided me many prompts. I’ll be using some of them this summer. The remainder will wait until NoJoMo in November.
Maybe by then, I’ll have figured out how to get my old content back. I think I am going to move all this off onto something hosted here at my place; I’ve still got unused IPv4 addresses. (And a ton of v6 space, of course…..)
So, on to her prompt….
Do you think it is necessary to filter yourself around others (professional life not included)?
Of course I do. I’ll admit that I do have issues holding my tongue sometimes. Some of that might be related to my condition. At the same time, when I was younger, I found that remaining silent about wrong assertions didn’t get me anywhere.
If the sky really is fascia, as you’ve contended, can you tell me what you’ve taken? It just looks gray to me. (It is supposed to rain today, probably heavily….)
The lack of personal interaction today probably makes it easier to just let things slide.
As I’m trying to work through more to say about this, one of my staunchly Democrat friends posted something from a Boy Scout about President Trump’s address to the Jamboree a few days ago. None of the scouts showed any of the scorn Democrats would have liked, so the whole thing was terrible. I get thinking back to the outrage shown when Justice Alito shook his head, and mouthed “not true” about one of President Obama’s unhinged statements about a recent decision during the State of the Union address. Maybe a Joe Wilson, “YOU LIE!” would have been more appropriate?
For too many these days, though, politics has replaced religion. It’s refreshing to know that one of Virginia’s senators routinely rolls out treason accusations. Hey, Timmy, I assume you’re aware that the punishment for treason is death. As someone who portrays himself as a Catholic, I’d think you’d know that the Church is vehemently against the government executing people. No?

Other stuff that’s going on? Job search is odd. Would you like to do this six-month contract in Richmond with no benefits? If there’s anything that could interest me less, I’m trying to think of what it might could be. One of the unintended consequences of the Patient protection and Affordable Care Act is that in order to avoid having to pay for health insurance, companies simply aren’t hiring full-time employees. People like me end up buying plans on the Federal exchange. People as sick as me aren’t exactly cheap to treat, either.
I’m meandering, so I’m going to stop. It’s time.