Things, and Stuff

[sathor]

Not a whole lot to report. I've been rather neglectful of my journal as of late - maybe, in some ways, that's a good thing. While I am still quite angst-ridden and angry at my country, and angry at a lot of the people in it, and angry at myself (or sad, however you want to look at it), things have been rather quiet. Sort of.

I'm not sure if I mentioned this, but Ms. Jess decided to shoot me a few texts not too long ago. It was, some kind of weird apology? (I'm still not really sure.) She said some things along the lines of needing to leave people with something good, and having not left me with anything good (just a lot of self-esteem destroying comments, and a lot of shit I could easily read between the lines on - like considering the possibility she didn't give me a chance because she didn't like how I looked in photographs) I guess she felt she ought to try and at least apologize. Well, it didn't really help of course. And she never did respond to the two things I replied to her with. So, it was a farewell, timed well after we had last spoken (and enough to open a wound again, how nice.) I would have preferred if she had just let it all go, but I suppose in her mind it seemed reasonable. Okay. Haven't spoken since, don't care to, and even if I did, it'd be pointless - because she's in control and, 99% likely she wouldn't respond anyway, as she hardly ever did. I made my apologies and asked to see if we could still chat. No response - that's the end of that thread.

I've been sick off and on most of the winter. Yeah, I did update about the tooth issue I believe - the dentist finally saw me, and I'm not sure he did much of anything besides grind out the tooth he filled previously, leave it open, and drain out an abscess. I'm waiting until mid-February for another appointment, and hoping it doesn't get infected again. My job caused some issues over the whole deal, telling me I should have to use 5 hours of my only other personal holiday (we only get two, and they are considered "sick days" for union employees - while salary get about a week, or more) for the time off UNLESS it was an emergency - well, my statement was, "You can't ask me whether it's an emergency or not - it's a medical related issue." If they want to force EVERYONE to use personal holiday time for such things, that's fine, but you can't make it contingent on things that are regulated by law. Employers aren't allowed to ask - period. And, I was more than willing to /in friendship/ tell my coworkers and boss what went on. None of THEM had a problem with it. LOL. The politics, the ignorance, the stupidity of the place never ceases to astound me. I am paid well, seems about the only real benefit. I'm certainly not making connections, learning much, or doing any skill building here.

Over the weekend, I had a sudden onset of severe neck and upper back pain - completely inexplicable. I hadn't done any upper body work for a week. It's only now starting to feel better - I was a little concerned about this, but thankfully, doesn't seem to be lasting.

Those are the negatives out of the way I s'pose, besides the same old. This weekend I went to see my sister, her boyfriend and my niece. The weather turned terrible so I didn't stay more than a few hours - ate dinner with them, and talked a little - but I couldn't help but feel a little sad over the fact they had a gigantic television (At least a 50" wide screen) as the centerpiece of their house, and of course, it was on the whole time. This is so utterly American, I feel - when I go to someone's house on a social occasion, I want to be social...and typically, nobody else does. Luella (my niece) seems highly interested in her little books she can't read yet. She's not paying much attention to the TV, which is awesome - I hope she stays that way, because I feel like people who have that mindset are fast becoming extinct.

No news outside of that, really. Winter is winter in rural Pennsylvania. Haven't spoken to any new ladies, haven't made any new friends. Just hanging on and trying to stay breathing.

I did have one weird experience last week - some random individual on a social networking site (whom I had been corresponding with and found relatively interesting) suddenly went sour when I turned her love interest in me down (she was much older than myself, and very far away.) A week or so after that, out of the blue, she decided to accuse me of hacking her account and internet stalking a friend of hers (Lol?) and then proceeded to post this (along with my profile embedded) for every one of her followers to see. I immediately blocked her. We had no mutual followers, so it's irrelevant - I just found the experience rather strange. I actually thought she was a pretty neat person and worth talking to.

It would seem my experience of the world isn't without the bizarre, to say the least. I think I'm more likely to come in contact with people clinically, or borderline clinically insane, than sane, at times.

Comments

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

Yay, good to see you back, and especially good to hear that you got your dentist appointment - I've been worrying about you a bit. I hope you're using the Listerine (Original Formula) every day, since your formerly-filled cavity is open right now - that stuff kills germs like a boss, and will prevent a lot of dental problems from either getting started, or getting worse. But what's the word on your wisdom teeth; did you get new X-rays?

Grrr, your job. Good on you for telling them they don't get to ask if it was an emergency! Damn straight they don't!!! The law reads the way it does, specifically to prevent employers from practicing medicine without a license by judging whose medical issues require urgent care and whose don't.

Sudden onset of head and neck pain: I say what I said before a bunch of times: go to your Real Doctor^TM, have a serious talk about chronic inflammation, and ask for a referral to a specialist. In ALL seriousness, do not delay on this! I couldn't diagnose you if I was there in person, and certainly can't do so by text, but I have been reading your accounts of your symptoms for quite a while now, and they definitely merit a professional's attention. Don't do the stereotypical 'Stupid Guy Thing' of not going to the doctor till it's too late to fix anything; you've already waited longer than was prudent. You're paying for insurance for a reason; time to get some good out of it.

You've already determined that Ms. Jess is not someone you want to associate with, so whatever she wants is irrelevant as far as you're concerned. I feel kind of sad for her, because she doesn't sound to me like an evil person - she sounds like a fucked-up person who is trying desperately to put her chaotic life and emotions in order, but has no actual clue how to go about it, so is blindly thrashing around, and - unfortunately - blindly inflicting damage on vulnerable people who get too close.

Here's a point to ponder, young Jedi: compassion does not mean putting yourself in harm's way. This is a big hard lesson for all of us unprofessionals who try to help those who 'fall through the cracks', especially those with socio-cognitive glitches. Sometimes it's necessary to say "Okay, you're a vampire; I support your right to be that, but I can't help you, and I'm not inviting you in."

You have a little niece?!? Dude, you've never even mentioned her before! How old is she; what's she like? Does she speak in sentences yet? Is she fond of you? ROFL, the Elven-blood cries out "steal this bairn!!" Whether or not you have children of your own, here is this child of your kin, trying to read her little books over the constant blare of a 60' television before she even can read - sheesh, man, go rescue her! go read to her! Go bond with her, so when she comes to the Age of Questions, she'll feel comfortable bringing them to you, and not seek all her answers from the Giant Babbling Box.

(Long comment is long...)

[sathor.livejournal.com]

I really figured I had mentioned my niece before, but maybe not. She just turned a year old not long ago (and if I didn't mention her, it probably had a lot to do with me really trying to focus on myself - I'm not good to anyone if I'm not running right.) She's not speaking yet (mumbling and saying jarbled stuff.) But she's quite cute and seems to remember me, which is a good thing. I have a bit of an aversion to holding babies so I didn't hold her very often. I did try to talk to her as much as I could and answer questions she seemed to have (when she points at things.)

As for chronic inflammation, seems like every time I go to a doctor I have a very acute reason to be there and and I don't feel like it's a good time to bring up something secondary. I know, I need to. I had to go again today - my tooth is infected again (pain is just as bad as it was, maybe a little less.) Starting to wonder now if the dentist really gave a shit or not. Will have to call Monday and see if I can get another emergency appointment before my cleaning and check up with him two weeks from now. The PA put me on 10 days of amoxicilin/clavulanic acid. If I'm lucky, this will clear up all my other infections going on (probably from the damn tooth - sinus, beginnings of bronchitis) and the tooth infection. My lymph nodes are NOT swollen according to her, so that's not the reason for the neck pain - which saddens me a bit. I still have some at the edge of my ROM, particularly when trying to get my chin to meet my chest. The rest of it is mostly normalized. My workouts have been stopped again, which infuriates me even more. Every time I start feeling better and start getting into a groove, something else comes up. I'm really just sick and tired of being sick - and starting to get more sick and tired of the medical system in the US. I mean, I guess I don't know if it's any better anywhere else - but I really feel at times that...well, nobody really cares, and it's more about seeing as many patients as possible in as short a time as possible.

I DID get new x-rays. He didn't have anything to say about them. He told me he "really wanted to keep that tooth." I have to assume therefore that the wisdom tooth is straight and coming in normal. But that doesn't mean that it's not taking forever (half erupted currently) and creating a breeding ground for infection - which I think is exactly what's going on. It never stopped being swollen next to it. It just stopped being painful after the penicillin and him draining the abscess out (which was next to the tooth, next to the wisdom tooth - the one that was broken in three places and had an infection well into the root.)

Yeah, I grr my job almost every day. I know it's a blessing while simultaneously being toxic, a health hazard, bad for a resume, and a gigantic waste of my potential - but on the same token, people like me go off trying to achieve great things every day and end up in a gutter (and some end up in similar positions as I am now, with a decent job.) Seems like the whole "college may not be paying off" thing is becoming a more mainstream belief too, and the inflation of pricing hasn't gotten any better over the past ten years. Sigh. There's a lot of risk in life, I guess. Still don't know what I'm doing, really - just on a path, no idea where it's going. Which means any path will do, really.

As a final thought, I read some of your links recently and it only infuriated me more. I started digging deeper into the conservative side of the web, and it's just horrifying. I can't understand how Americans who ARE honestly better educated than much of the world fall for simple fallacies of logic, or follow cognitively dissonant ideas. When I have conversations in real life with conservatives it's often much more mellow and I can get them to agree with many points I have - but of course, behind closed doors, their opinions are probably far more radical and scary. I do wonder what will happen to this nation in the rest of my lifetime and beyond.

[sathor.livejournal.com]

As a nice thought, the Tesla electric motor cars seem to be getting a lot of publicity. I'm really pulling for that technology to make leaps and bounds - it can provide very powerful engines comparable to combustion with tons of green alternatives for producing it. I would love to see the oil industry go out of business in my lifetime - I don't care about my livelihood one bit in that regard. I've seen from the inside what it does and what it's capable of. It's really high time it ended.

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

Long comment, continued)

"Winter is winter in rural Pennsylvania."

LOL, yeah that's right; go ahead and make me homesick for real snow, and the deciduous forests back East. I've lived out here almost 30 years, and I love it, but I've never stopped missing that.

Weird experience: alas, sad but true; many of the most fascinating people on the Internet are batshit crazy, and one does well to avoid getting entangled in their bizarre and drama-filled lives. On the other hand, many batshit-crazy people are among the most fascinating on the Internet, and well worth talking to. Unusual people have the same affinity for each other that conventional people do, but are often even more dissimilar to each other than they are to conventional people, and have fewer (or no) conventions to help them get past that, so communication is even trickier.

There's actually no such thing as 'clinically insane'. Insanity is a legal term, not a medical one. "Clinically depressed" just means "diagnosed by a doctor", as distinct from colloquially 'depressed'. But you're right; there are a lot of people with severe enough mental/emotional problems that interacting with them may be more trouble than it's worth, and they're not always easy to spot in advance.

*hugs hugs* Hang in there, my friend; Winter's almost half over!