delight | Recent Entries

— Tuesday, so a week ago today, I was driving to make a big important presentation out on the island; I had to drive down the awful blind curve between my house and the highway, as I do every day to go basically anywhere. There are accidents there about 1-2 times a year and they can basically be blamed on the road.

— You can probably see where this is going.

— Did I mention I got a new car in March, and it is the only car I've ever 100% enjoyed driving? (My first car, while well-loved, was not legally owned by me - this was my first! - and also was a little too big for my small stature, as most cars are. Finding one where it didn't hurt my shoulders/neck to drive was a miracle.)

— A pickup truck carrying a lawnmower and 3 passengers was heading up the curve at 30ish mph at exactly the same time that I was heading down the curve at 30ish mph. Speed limit: 30. The front of the truck and the front of my car made impact at what amounts to 60ish mph.

— Injured parties: 4 humans (all people involved). Deaths: Both vehicles (totaled). Completely and miraculously unharmed: The lawnmower, the only thing that wasn't either a. a car, or b. somehow restrained and protected by air bags. A tree branch fell on it when the truck spun out and hit the tree and the lawn mower was still fine.

— I'm going to the dealer I got this one from Thursday to see if they can find me another that's essentially identical. I'm very sad. There has been a lot of crying. There have also been some broken ribs and a concussion because air bags are very bad for someone my size, but I'm way more upset about the car and the lost income from not having a car.

— ... since I've been waiting to have my jaw abscess resected now for 2 months. I see my regular dentist tomorrow, he is going to be Displeased.

— A couple funny things that could have been career killers but then I last minute saved myself also happened at my internship but I don't even have the energy, I have to post things as they happen or it's too much, and this one was ... this week has been too much.

I keep not keeping up with this because I don't let myself pots it when I remember, I make myself wait for Monday. And then forget again. Yesterday I knew exactly what I was going to post, then forgot once I got to the office. So I'm calling it close enough. This time.

2. A song with a number in the title
The Perfect Crime #2
Artist: The Decemberists
Album: The Crane Wife

There is a #1, but it wasn't actually on the album and was later released as a bonus track.

Link on Youtube | Link on Spotify

I'm trying to learn, with my highly limited free time, to do nice things for myself and not panic that it involves spending money. I can't hoard every cent, even if I do have medical bills coming out my ears.

(I'm about to have some extremely expensive surgical procedures, and people like to think they're "elective" because they involve teeth. No. Not so much.)

So I don't have the energy to take pictures, because this headache is terrible, but this is just kind of a recognition that I got a gel manicure at a really wonderful place on 58th st. I still loathe my ugly, stubby fingers, and because I always break extensions I didn't bother getting them ... but I actually have a strong, long-lasting and luxuriously applied manicure on my ugly stubby fingers.

Which is making me tolerate them a little bit more, even if I'm also feeling as if the gorgeous polish highlights their ugly stubbiness.

Because I still have too much work to do, and posting about my actual life is too overwhelming.

1. How did you name your pets?
We never changed our rescues' names, because ... we actually liked their names, though I've since learned it might be psychologically better to change the names of shelter dogs who were never fostered and just spent all their time in the shelter due to cognitive associations. I didn't know that then! I currently don't have any pets :( but would be naming them after book characters, most likely.

2. Poirot or Miss Marple?
I prefer Poirot. Mom prefers Miss Marple.

3. Do you have a FB account too?
I do, but I wish I didn't. The boundaries of what you can or can't say on Facebook are really strange to me and its hugeness and a whole bunch of other things

4. Books - hardcover or paperback?
Neither. Digital. The answer for the past four or five years has been 'large print,' and I've learned that my Kindle just does that for me. Any standard print books require magnifying glasses so I'd rather stick to eInk for everything. (Backlit reading like on a computer, phone or any non-eInk ereader doesn't really work either.)

5. Mobile phone: Windows/Android or Apple?
This question is wrooooong, so let's rewrite. Who thought Android was Windows? :)

5. Mobile phone: Windows, Android or Apple?
Android. I've had a Samsung Galaxy for the last like ... 5? years? First a S5 and now I have the S7; husband might be getting a J3. My mother has an iPhone 6 though and I like it just fine — I stick to Android in part because of the fact that I've already sunk a ton of money into Android apps. I have Apple computers and an iPad, so you'd think I would have the iPhone for more interoperability but that didn't end up happening.

I keep seeing people doing this meme, and I keep really wanting to do it, and then not doing it. I am now making myself do it. Hat tip to

hitokage for format and the questions.

1. A song with a color in the title
Blue Condition
Artist: Cream
Album: Disraeli Gears, 1967

Everything on Disraeli Gears is attached to Dad in my head, but in ways where listening to it makes me feel good about him and his existence rather than just sad and lonely.

Here is a youtube link, because embeds and I don't get along.

( The rest of the questions. )

I'll be putting my name into all the new circling memes eventually, right now I just want to say this project is due in its final form on April 13th and currently ...

14040 / 60000 (23.40%)

Yeah, that's where I've been. But I do have the cover, and it is lovely.

I'm also, you know, still working 60 hour weeks plus grad school. There's that, too. I am always reading. Tomorrow I have to get this manuscript up to a lot more written, and lovingly tug on my editors (who are getting installments) to do a lot more edit in order to do the perfect cover justice.

~~I also keep meaning to reset my DW layout to another one I've had saved, and have been meaning to do that every day for, like, 2 months.~~

Technically, it's "seeing 50+ people a week with flu may have given me the flu" post, too, as well as "I'm mostly done with all of the work that is due in the next 24 hours, even if I'm massively behind on my book still."

Also, first public post in a while. Hello, tiny herd of lurkers!

misbegotten posted a survey, and I still like mindlessly answering questions, so here it is.

( Kinda long. )

Hi! Sorry for those of you getting spammed with this if it happens; I'm trying to stop it from showing up on my reading page but am not sure if this trick will work.

ANYWAY, I also apologize for this being a placeholder but I'm not super awake yet and wanted to fill out the signup before I forgot. Content will be here ASAP.

Dear colleagues,

I believe the reason that the printer is saying 'output tray is full' and refusing to print after the one X-ray order that went through and then jammed is because someone put a tissue box in the output tray.

Just saying. We might want to consider that.

Thanks,
Me

Unrelated addendum: Thanks,

tajasel, for the premium paid account you got me months ago that I only just now applied. Everyone, Katie is a small goddess.

If you came here from

st_aurafina's meme and would like access to my locked stuff, please just comment here for it. I will give freely, I just need to know. :)

There will be a filter post about the sci-fi book in progress later today when I get a chance to actually do that. Hopefully from work and not at midnight. This is reminding me I desperately need a new intro post.

I'm not deleting anything off LJ, because it's just too tiring, but I have been importing old creative content I care about to DW just in case it gets removed, so I have it somewhere. I'd never bothered to, just because it was already online and it was all old ...

I haven't actually used LJ since 2009; shortly before I moved to DW was when I mostly stopped being able to read the site, as the layout gave me migraines. So really, not a change, just some additional import hoops and hoping I don't forget anything.

Maybe the 5 people I know who still post only at LJ will finally be somewhere I can read them. :) Maybe my feed will get bigger, since there's a circling meme afoot:

As I said last year, and this is a quote: This is a hodgepodge of different people's variations on this meme, now, so I'm not even sure where 100% of the questions are sourced at this point.

I said last year that 2015 was the worst year of my life, and the thing is, despite how awful 2016 was, I'm pretty sure that's still true? 2016 had a lot of shitty culmination of awful things that were essentially sourced from 2015 and the end of 2016. There was a lot of bad in 2015 that didn't continue.

My to-do list is a mile long but I don't feel good so I'm just going to do this instead.

( And, anyway, here's 2016. )

It's probably because of my pessimism and not expecting anyone to participate, but I decided I want to try to do December Days for the ... second half of the month anyway. It's a little habit, but a good one.

So I'm going to hybrid the traditional version and

nanila's twist of using photographs instead of words, and see how that goes.

Pick any day after today and leave a prompt: either something in my life to take a picture of (no people, please, they won't agree to be included), or something in my life to write a post about.

♥

This assignment is driving me up the wall. It's taking forever to finish, I have abbreviations in my notes I can't remember what they mean, and I want to be done writing medical journal critiques so I can move on with my life to end-of-semester projects I care about more.

Like the 20 page one that i now have a day and a half to write because of this one.

I work great under pressure, don't get me wrong, but this is incredibly frustrating. Especially when I have inadequate brain meds because of my inability to get a psychiatrist appointment. Which is not the same thing as getting a psychiatrist -- technically, I belong to a clinic, but their hours and my hours don't correspond so whenever they have the appointment line open I can't call.

In this case, a very very short thing to post because I have nothing to expand upon, it's just a thing to post.

What are you reading?
Just textbooks, at the moment, I'm in between Actual Enjoyable Books because of not having a lot of time to read; I keep having to study or sleep on the train. If anyone cares about the title/authors of my textbooks, I'm happy to share ... ?

What did you just finish reading?
Lindsay Buroker's seventh Fallen Empire book, which has now been titled Perilous Hunt. I read an early edition and provided scientist beta reading, so the published version isn't going to have been the one I read.

What do you think you'll read next?
I'm hoping to get to ~~Annie Bellet's~~ Anne Baines' Hunting Delilah, a thriller written by a fantasy writer whose works I enjoy despite them being in the Not My Genre of traditional fantasy. The official blurb: Desperate for money after a heist goes south, Delilah breaks into a rich man's home. But instead of cash and jewels, she discovers a severed head and a serial killer. When the killer threatens her chronically-ill daughter and her childhood sweetheart, Delilah must turn the hunter into the hunted in a dangerous game only one of them will survive.

I'm utterly exhausted by the full time work/full time school/then writing shit for fun dance, so I never have anything to actually say.

( So here's the view from where I'm sitting, literally. )

Vague hodgepodge collection. I am nothing if not terrible at updating, but I also enjoy talking into a void so to speak. I did make a new Tumblr account because I have a lot of friends who are only there, but Tumblr is a very scary void. I have an Imzy acount, which I'm loving, but it doesn't seem like the best place for this kind of stuff? I would love recommendations to good Imzy comms, though, if anyone has one! I made /publichealth with my more-comfortable-shared-with-RL pseud (because that's going to get shared with offline people, I'm sure) but so far it is just me spewing news links whenever I see 'em. Totally open to non-PH professionals, though!

Anyway, the rest of my generally-unrelated things:
– School officially started on the 25th, but my first on-campus class is the 29th. I work from 8-4, which requires leaving my house at 6:30, and then have to be on campus by 5. Which means walking over and taking the 3 train, which usually takes about half an hour, and hoping I have time to change out of my scrubs and am not late for my first class of the program ever.

– Hanging out in the hospice, where there's one specific tension-y thing going on but is otherwise okay. My mom just suddenly got the flu (?! though we've seen a couple of cases at work, I guess it's just early this year) so I'm here instead of working. Dad has been unresponsive for about a week, I think. I can't remember the last conversation we had, and I'm actually glad of that because I don't want to focus on it. His blood pressure right now is 79/47. His birthday is tomorrow, so we're hoping he dies tomorrow, because we're horrid people who like symmetry (also he's turning 66) and we also want him to stop hurting.

– I didn't have the flu, but I did have pleurisy and a sinus infection. Now I have this really horrid, disgusting remnant cough but am not actually sick anymore. No symptoms and I feel completely fine ... except that I'm always coughing in front of patients and having to apologize to them and explain I'm not sick.

– Sideline of speaking-of-dad, this happened. We're completely floored. So many people are coming together, and now that is definitely happening.

– Painted my nails for my co-worker's birthday party tonight (also, I have co-workers who invite me to birthday parties? it's a chef's table, very fancy sort of deal, and I'm missing my best eyeshadow brush) and one of my fingernails just broke right off. Like, the entire thing. It's broken past the quick. Poor ugly pinky.

– ... and this post was abruptly interrupted because someone came in the room and brought in a box! And inside the box was a gift from my dad's two closest co-workers, containing a flower arrangement that looks just like the banana creme birthday cake with raspberry frosting they gave him a few years ago. Complete with real rose to mimic the icing rose!

("Here" being the hospice, not work. I am not DW posting at work! I couldn't if I wanted to.)

I got myself a year from

nanila, who even gave me a year I can mostly recall. I added a question back in that I've seen other people do, though.

Age then: mostly fifteen, turned sixteen toward the end of the year

Age now: twenty-seven, turning twenty-eight relatively soon

Relationship then: fifteen? I was surrounded by high schoolers with crushes they would not shut up about. To this day I've still never experienced a crush; I don't so much understand them, but man was everyone who had one annoying about it. Therefore, I steered super clear of relationships in high school, though I did actually meet the person I'm now with in 2004, I think. It may have been '05. We weren't together for a while after meeting, and if we knew each other in 2004, it wasn't well.

Relationship now: With long-term partner of I think it's going to be ten years this year wow.

Where I lived then: Where I live now, actually, in a Bronx-area house. There have just been a lot of years in between ... I lived there then with both of my parents, two birds who had free reign of the house, a tortoise who never left the living room except to go in the backyard, and a dog who was the master of all couches (there were about five to be master of).

Where I live now: Where I lived then, in a Bronx-area house! I returned in December of 2015. I now live there with my partner and my mother, and the house is always too quiet.

What my job was then: High school student, dog-walker.

What my job is now: Urgent care jack-of-all-trades (patient interviews, basic tests and procedures, clinical documentation maven, also sends prescriptions and fights with pharmacies over the phone, plus being the brunt of angry people's days), graduate student.

Was I happy then: Mostly, no. High school was terrible in every way except that it wasn't quite as bad as middle school (aka the years that I legitimately won't remember if you ask: there's a reason). As always, all of my abuse came from outside the home and there was far too much of it. This wasn't "bullying," this was systematic emotional harassment, physical assault, and also coming from teachers as well as students. My OCD and depression had been diagnosed and were being treated, but the environment was too dangerous.

Am I happy now: Parts of me are. I have a job that I really care about even if it is at times exhausting, thankless and doesn't pay anywhere near enough (whose jobs are not those things). I'm in my dream graduate school. I have a safe living situation and it turns out that my mom is actually a pretty baller housemate as an adult. But of course the center of my universe is dying, just as I've finally broken into his career field, and we were supposed to do things together. That death is at any-minute-now stage. His birthday is tomorrow. He is in a coma, I am watching him breathe. I am not happy for this.

I'm stealing the phrasing also from the person I got the meme from: Ask for a year in comments if you'd like one. If I happen to pick one you're not comfortable writing about, please let me know and I'll choose a different one. Also, if you'd like to give me another year, please do, I find this fun! Though there are a few years I may not remember enough, and I obviously wouldn't fill in the 'now's again.

1. Why did you sign up for Dreamwidth?
Okay, so ... to be completely honest I don't remember. I know I was having a lot of accessibility issues with LJ, whose layout changes were starting to cause problems. Somehow I ended up on #dw, and then a few "omg do it"s and a purple sitescheme later, I had an account during closed beta.

2. Why did you choose your journal name?
I've been pseudelight in internet circles for approximately forever, and I wanted to be even more, IDK, iconic or just short. Nowadays I use a different username for many things, anything I'm going to give access to people I may meet from work or school just because there's a lot of things attached to pseudelight that people just won't get. Mostly it's silly original fiction or memberships to odd websites, but I'm just a little paranoid about that kind of thing.

3. Do you crosspost? Why or why not?
I don't, because (as the unpleasant followup to the situation with #1) I can't actually look at LJ anymore; their layout actually gives me some kind of seizure reaction. I think my last crosspost was sometime in 2010. I believe I have maybe one or two friends who still use LJ, but I keep up with them on Twitter.

4. What do you do online when you're not on DW?
I'm very active on Twitter! I have a personal and a professional account; if you want them please poke me somehow, happy to put up links. I log into an AJAX chat for Emperor's Edge fandom sometimes, but since being in a job that gets me home at 11pm I tend to miss my chat peeps a lot. And yes, I still roleplay quite a lot. I'm not actually in any DW-based games, though, which feels weird, but I think none of them have the sort of activity policy and style I can keep up with. Used to do tumblr, but it got too overwhelming; I've been working on setting up a second account but never get around to finishing it.

( Continued. )

Switching from home hospice to inpatient hospice today to manage pain better, which is a yay! A little bit of a sad yay but still an overall good thing.

The house is going to make getting in and out with a stretcher extremely exciting.

I need to post more.

And I have a meeting at 7 I actually WANT to make, and selfishly hope I can VPN it from the hospital.

August 2017

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bulletproof dress and sunken armor

what do you hold hostage?

Recent Entries

This is seriously just the tl;dr version because I cannot with this week.

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A brief post because I keep forgetting to post!

another "I'm tired" survey post

chocolate box letter placeholder

During a "slower" moment at urgent care in flu season

Floating Postscript

The importing/deleting dance

2016 year in review.

Late December Days!

(no subject)

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I keep wanting to post.

Other, non-meme things.

Year meme, while I hang out here and listen to a nebulizer.

Dreamwidth survey going around.

Terse because phone browser and phone typing and where's my app

August 2017

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