Collection of Things

Feeling SO original. Have used up all my pretty words and grammars and stuff.

Thing One: Literature
H.P Lovecraft reading night last night. The Dreams in the Witch House. Thankfully the awkwardness of the prose and the jarring note of the unusual-for-Lovecraft religious symbolism involved kept it from creeping too deeply into my subconscious, which is very suggestible due to lack of sleep.
Was Keziah so afraid of the crucifix because the geometry was too regular, or did the mate who sneakily published it write it in there? It was the same friend who continued to publish stuff under Lovecraft's name after his death and who added religious symbolism to Lovecraft's scientce-based chaos VS order narrative.
We decided it was probably the severe orderedness of the angles and lines of Walter's crucifix that freaked her fourth-dimension geometry brain out, as there was no way to prove or disprove the edited-by-friend theory.

Thing Two: Womanlies
Doctor's pain tablets aren't enough to calm Irma. I feel like I've swallowed half a dozen live pirhana and they're eating their way out of me. Them or a little furry human-faced rat mutant.
Fuck now THERE'S an image to keep me awake tonight! Who needs crawling black shadows slenderman on your peripheral vision when you could have a multidimensional horror in your uterus?
I couldn't possibly get one of those. I can't even handle quadratics, let alone fourth-dimension equations!
And it's not real, Peri. It's not real.

Thing Three: Awesome Friends
My mates K&S made me a graduation gift! K crocheted me a scarf, and they both made a framed certificate  with sparkly blue stickers that says:
"Achievement Unlocked: Get Degree.
Holder may claim up to and including: infinite internets
Congratulations, you win at life."
The also gave me the failed (and rather verbose) "Doctorum Adamus cum Flabello Dulci" they originally attempted, which was full of typos and mistranslations. (It should have been Doctor Adami Flabelli Dulcis)
Ah well, if I ever do Post-Grad :p)

Thing Four: Nerd Rage
I've been mucking around on the Technic Pack, and after putting in a week or two of on-an-off effort into a particular world and getting a bunch of nice, expensive intermediate-level Buildcraft and Equivalent Exchange stuff made in preparation for the REALLY expensive high-level stuff I discover a FUCKING HUGE area of Taint 300m away spreading like wildfire. It must have a really high level of Taint energy to be spreading at the pace it is. About a block per second? Fucking Thaumcraft!
I've done NO Thaumcraft stuff on that world. Nuking the site won't help either, because that won't change the level of atmospheric taint present in the chunk's data. I am SO close to deleting the world, but I'm hesitating because of the potential for a fun challenge and I'm being stupid by counting the sunk cost of the time I have put into the world.

Thing Five: Doctors
I have a GP appointment in the morning, followed by Mental Health Services. I have no idea what to expect. The parts of me that care are worried, the parts that don't are hiding behind other things and pretending to be indifferent.

Thing Six: Scales (last thing, can skip)
They're not moving. At all. Stalled wobbling in the 64kg-65kg bracket. Down from the 66-67kg range I was in at the start of the month, but I should be seeing the middle of 63kg by now to be on track for my birthday goal. Paracetamol Incident and old Point of Contact trainer taking two weeks to make my new program slowed me up. I've also got Monthlies Bloat so that's skewing the results.
September is going to be a month of working on generally eating healthier, with more focus on foods and nutrition to support my training and upping the intensity at the gym.
If I have to get someone to throw stuff at me while I'm on the wobble board, then dammit I will!

~Peri

Own Your Words of Hate

For some reason, disabling the anonymous comment option forced people to own their words, and I've received very few angry hate comments in my time blogging here. You guys are just too awesome.

When a few special flowers have been brave enough to pop up and lay on some hate, I've taken time to give them a whole post to themselves in answer. It's only polite to reward their bravery with the attention they crave.

Still, the lack of negative feedback has been a little disturbing.

I obviously need to spend less time whining about myself and more time blogging about other things. I do miss arguing with Blondie and the random discussions of ethics, philosophy and world affairs at KAOS Corner. You only really think about and examine ideas and your opinions about those ideas when you are presented with people who hold different views and you are forced to explain your thoughts in a logical and coherent manner.

I find it discouraging to talk to people who are unable to comprehend that calling an opinion foolish does not mean that the person who holds the idea is being called a fool. Seeing what could have been a brilliant debate deteriorate into a hate-filled flamewar because someone took things personally makes me want to cry and mourn the potential for increased thought that was just lost.

Regarding personal attacks, my philosophy in High School was taken from Maria Callas.

"When my enemies stop hissing, I shall know I'm slipping."

 Maria Callas: BAMFSinger

If, somehow, at an All Girls school, I made it through the week without someone trying to hassle me or put me down for being myself and not a member of a herd clique, I was obviously doing SOMETHING wrong!

Of course, now I'm secure in the knowledge that nobody can possibly hate me more than I hate myself. It's was so liberating to realise this. I find the thought quite freeing. If nobody can hate me more than I hate me, why should I worry what they think? I can criticize myself far more harshly and effectively than they ever could. I almost pity normal people for the crippling self-consciousness that comes of the obsession over one's image and reputation.

You see this, Mr McHateypants? It's the flying fuck I do NOT give about your opinion of me.

If you fuck with my mates, though. That's another story.

~Peri

Work-Related Injuries

It seems that my ability to get capchas right in less than two goes has completely disappeared.

Fuck.

I've worked out why my neck has been so bloody sore for the last week or so.

It's the new Salad and Olive cabinet layout.

In order to get products from right down the front of the cabinet you have to:
1) Stand on tiptoe
2) Hinge forward at the hips
3) Crank your head sideways so you're looking over either shoulder, there isn't enough room in the cabinet for you to look straight ahead without hitting your head or leaning into a salad
4) Slowly lean down into the cabinet without hitting your head or falling into any of the products you're passing over
5) Bring your arms over/past your head so you can reach the requested product
6) Using only peripheral vision (Remember step 3) carefully fill the container from new tiny bowls without knocking product lables over or cross-contaminating products by getting stuff everywhere
7) Slowly ease back out of cabinet (head still sideways and arms still over head) without dropping anything, hitting head or leaning into any products
8) Straighten up, drop arms to normal position, attempt to return head to normal position
9) Price product, give to customer
10) Repeat for as many items as the customer needs.

I really have to open up paint and illustrate this shit for you. Words can't do it justice.

After two shifts where I only had to get 6 items from the front of the salad/olive cabinet over two days I couldn't look left, could barely turn my head at all and finding a comfortable sleeping position was. . . interesting.

By the end of my shift tonight I couldn't tilt my head left and if I turn my head a certain way my entire left arm gets pin-tingly and my hand goes numb.

Since I've identified the problem I can take steps to avoid the cause. The really short workers have had to go around the front of the cabinet to reach some products for months with the old layout, so why shouldn't I do it with the new one to avoid injury and MORE FUCKING NECK AND SHOULDER PAIN?? We need to complain en masse, but nothing will get done even if we do.

Fuck.

I haven't made an incident report, because everyone in the department has to deal with the shitty layout and the Duty Manager would tell me to fucking deal with it. During this shift I made damn sure everyone knew what had happened though.

Yes, I grizzled and moaned. Bite me.

I have a tentative plan to call in sick tomorrow and go to the doctor and get a medical certificate. I'm worried that I've pinched a nerve please no herniated discs, I can't think of that. please no and want to get it looked at before I do any more damage. I also need to see the GP about how the Venlafaxine is going, so it's two birds with one stone, yes?

We have Noms'R'Us Deities visiting from Head Office/Mount Olympus on Wednesday so I damn well want to have some record of this shit before they get here. The layout was designed to look good to the customers, with no thought about the possibility of product cross-contamination and staff actually being able to access the products to sell them -.-

I also accidentally burned my forearm on the wrapper today. Not as bad as the first time I burned myself, no blistering or blood, but it still stings like a bitch. I didn't run it under cold water when I first got it because we were really busy but it is getting antiseptic cream before bed tonight.

This was boring, and I apologise. Here, have the song that's been stuck in my head for two weeks straight:


"All my clothes are dirty and filthy and on fire" Fuck I love Yogscast and their rampant hyperbole.

~Peri

Saturday Vlog: Achievement Get! And Work Rage

I talk a whole bunch of random crap here, please excuse the disjointed wafflings. I blame work.



Tl;dw: OMFG I GRADUATED TODAY and worked so I missed the ceremony.

Achievement Get: BA Japanese Language and Culture.

Work Story Time!

Today I filled an entire page in the slicing book before 11am WHILE serving customers and helping with hot food. Completed another page before my shift ended.

Graduation+Special Rigs=Busy. As. All. Fuck.

Polly was in a mood as well. (/sigh)

Mr.T needed to talk with her about how she treated a customer the other day, but couldn't because she was already upset for another reason and he didn't want to set her off.

The reason he neeed to talk with her is as follows.

The other day Polly's break was about 5min late. Everyone else gets their breaks whenever we can, but Polly's have to be EXACTLY ON TIME or she flips out.

So; Polly was stomping and raging and getting shitty at customers, and she saw Daph coming back from lunch (Which meant Polly would be free to go for her break) just as the customer she was serving asked for an Egg Supreme salad.

Polly gave the customer a Potato Salad.

This would have been easily fixed, except that when the customer said: "I asked for Egg Supreme"

Polly said: "Well I gave you Potato Salad" . . .

. . . and stormed off for her break, leaving a severely confused Daph to deal with the understandably irate customer.

Daph was so thrown by this she forgot to put a price sticker on the Egg Supreme, and the customer walked out without paying for it after making a complaint about Polly's behaviour.

I honestly don't care that they didn't pay. They deserve the salad and a pack of bikkies for being unwittingly subjected to Polly's OMFGMYBREAKISFIVEMINUTESLATE temper tantrum.

Anyone else would have been hauled upstairs before Store Boss for this already.

Equal Contract=/=Special Treatment.

~Tired Peri


P.S. I've just failed about 7 times in a row to correctly enter a capcha. I'll have to leave commenting back to tomorrow. Thank you all for your words on yesterday's trip to Mental Health Services. I can't do eloquent right now, so have a long-distance hug in place of mature words and stuff *hugs*

Hi Ho, Hi Ho, off to Mental Health Service I. . . Went.

I put off getting out of bed as long as I could this morning.

Mental Health Services appointment: DID NOT WANT.

The closer I got, the slower I walked. I started panicking. "No, I'm fine. Really. Please leave me alone"

I couldn't figure out what scared me more. The thought of being left to die or the thought of being forced to live. Dying is fine, it's life I can't handle.

Somewhere between the Salvation Army Family Store and Number 599 my feet tried to stick to the ground while my brain endeavoured to leap from my skull and into the middle of the road.

No. Bad feet. Bed brain. No running away. You promised Roku you'd give this a try, remember?

Fingernails into palms, deep breath, open door, register at desk, sit in waiting area.

Brought my knitting bag with a half-finished hexipuff in it but damn if I wasn't one needle short!

I had just enough time to text Kree before the lady I was to talk to showed up.

She is nice, and I was freaking out too much to remember if she labelled herself as a Clinical Psychologist or Registered Psychiatrist.

The term she used had two words, one started with a "P" and meant mindpuzzler but stress hormones fuck with memory formation and recall so I can't bloody remember which it was. (Which is why you should try to go into an exam laughing instead of stressing)

Her bookshelf wasn't overly well-populated, but what there was seemed to be of fairly decent quality. I nearly shat myself when I saw the DSMIV (Which is of debatable quality, depending on how you've been shafted by it) up there, but she had a nice view of the Market Reserve and some pretty potplants to look at for when I couldn't make eye contact.

She seemed a combination of shocked/upset/pissed/concerned about how I got lost in the bureaucracy between Student Health and The SDHB last year.

Told the truth, answered her questions honestly.

Bits of what Mum did to us, trying to protect my brothers from her, how I was oblivious to her drug problem until I was 17, my exchange trip and awesome host families, relationship with DropkickBrother, recent years, Student Health Fiasco, who in the family I get on with/have contact with, living situation, (lack of) social life, study, medications, history of suicide attempts, Intermediate School Counsellor Fiasco, how I've completely given up hope feel I'm unfixable and look at the Venlafaxine as the mental equivalent of the morphine they give terminal emphysema patients to make the last months endurable.

Admitted that it's only Dralion and certain unfinished projects keeping me here. She made me promise to not try to kill myself before our next appointment and to ring EPS if I became desperate.

I haven't rung them since I was forced to go in April. Do you honestly think I'd willingly give them the chance to cage me?

It certainly was interesting to hear some of Mum's actions described as "torture". Dafuq?

She flat-out told me that there is hope even for people who have given up and she wants to see me every week for an unspecified length of time.

Slipping into denial-panic-mode. Nonono I'm fine really I am please don't look at me let me go now please.

This is basically me on the inside right now:

RUNTHEFUCKAWAAAAAAAAY!!!

No, Peri. you can't afford to run away from this. It's your firstlastandonly real chance. Don't forget: You promised to give this experiment a go. Panicking and doing your Sunshine And Fluffy Unicorns (deny. everything.) act is NOT how you conduct an honest experiment.

Besides, you really have nothing to lose.
Except my death.
What are you so afraid of?
Being forced to live like this for years and years and years. Being turfed for not being sick enough.

Oh for fuck's sake, spazzatron. Go make a cup of tea and watch Madoka.

~Peri

Forward Motion and Hair Photos

Yesterday I went up to two Venlafaxine with my morning porridge, as per doctor instructions.

So. Weird. In combination with the full-sugar cola (Fucking kill me now) at Games Night I'm feeling a weird combination of Perky and Mellow. Is this "Happiness" or am I just stoned on a combination of sugar, caffeine and prescription drugs?

Whatever it is, it's bizarre.

Tomorrow morning I have an appointment with the SDHB Mental Health Services. I got a call last week and made an appointment. The introduction package arrived in the mail yesterday.

I don't know why I'm going when I've already given up. Maybe if they had gotten to me last year instead of directing me back to Student Health things would be different. I was willing to engage, I had some desire to live and the hope that I could live normally despite the Depression.

Now I've accepted the fact that they can't reach into my head and make me want to live, and that I'll probably have to be medicated to enjoy any decent quality of life.

I can't live like this. I can't. I can't continue to drag myself through each day despising every second of my existence and wanting to smash any reflective surface I encounter in lieu of being able to smash myself onto sharp rocks from a height.

I'm caught between panic and indifference. Panicking and wanting to cancel the appointment, anger guttering and wanting to tell them they're too late and can go fucking help someone who still wants their help.

Still, I've promised to undertake this experiment. We shall see what happens.

At work they're finally getting around to giving me the RF-Gun Training they've been promising for the last 2 years. I did 4 hours in Produce on Monday and did all their markdowns (Which, according to the honest practise policy we all sign meant I couldn't BUY any of the super-cheap veges. FAIL), and I've helped Mr.T with the Tuesday Detail Routine of the CheeseBar for the last two weeks.

It's about as exciting as it sounds. Detail Routine=Count all the product in the storeroom, count all the product out on display, add the numbers together and adjust the levels of stock on record with the RF-Gun to ensure inventory is accurate and ordering is done correctly.

To liven it up I make "Pew-Pew" noises when scanning barcodes.

Lol, I've turned on the TV to watch Practising Medicine and Dralion is puff-tailed and watching the TV intently. I don't think she's seen me switch it on since the last set of Earthquakes in Christchurch. (I don't really watch TV)

I finally got around to making a Parandi out of some of my leftover Etsy yarn, like Honor was demanding I do :p Man do I miss my blue hair. This thing would look amazing in blue hair.

I followed the instructions she linked, and my ponytail is 19 inches long. NINETEEN. I can't believe it! I made the strands of yarn for the Parandi 50 inches, so I have 25 inches of Parandi to play with.


I'm liking it so far. My hair is so thin and fine it's good to have a bit of bulk to play with. This was my first attempt at braiding it in. Let the learning curve commence!

FYI: I hate looking at myself from behind. This is the better photo of the two my mate took for me, and you can still see chin and back fat *Gags*

This is my hair out. It badly needs a trim to remove the splits and a re-dye. The dark brown (As close as I could find to my natural colour) is washing out really badly and I have random orange and silver strands in the regrowth. Grey hairs at 25!?! Is that normal?

Gonna talk weight now. Skip the rest if you don't want triggers.

 I'm officially just under 65kg.


64.7kg! That makes 6kg lost since April. From a BMI of 25.something to a BMI of 23.2.

My Vanity Size 12 jeans from the Warehouse (Actually 14s) now have about an inch of looseness around the waist, and my Vanity 10s (Actually 12s) now fit the way the "Size 12" jeans did.

In April when I put on the "10s" they were so tight I couldn't even tuck my thermals into them and I would have a total meltdown and be unable to leave the house when I put them on.


Today I could comfortably tuck in my thermals and that white top. Nice.

Bring on September. Silent September: Project Skinny Stealth Sneak.

Time and past to kick this shit up a notch.

~Peri

Weirdness At Work (Brain Cocaine and Cadavers)

One of my coworkers (Sunday Night Seafood Guy, call him Neptune) is studying medicine at Otago.

Specifically Neuroscience.

He was able to put into n00b terms for me exactly what the two major neurotransmitters affected by my current antidepresant do for the brain.

An SNRI affects the rate at which the brain recycles Serotonin and Norepinephrine, both of which make you feel happy.

Serotonin is the brain's marijuana, Norepinephrine is the brain's cocaine.

No wonder I'm feeling happier and a little spazzfuzzy! My brain is getting more of it's happy chemicals! Woooo!

Judging by the success rate I've had with SSRI's compared to the other types of antidepressants I've tried, (At least until the sleep deprivation-induced hallucinations and erratic behaviour begins), I'd hazard a guess that my brain either:
a) Doesn't make enough of the happy juice by itself, or
b) Recycles it too damn fast for it to do much good while it's out there on the grey matter

Since I haven't been able to crack open my skull and take a good look at what's actually going on in there, this is only a hypothesis.

Neptune said that if this was the case, then my brain would make a really good Neuroscience case study and I should donate my body to science so someone can have a good poke at it and learn some cool stuff.

Facilitate research into the physiological causes of Clinical Depression? HELLS YES SIGN ME UP!

I was already considering doing this, after donating as many organs are still usable by the time I kick off. (Can you do both?) The thought of donating my organs has been floating in the back of my brain for years, ever since a lunchtime discussion at High School about whether or not we'd tick "Organ Donor" when we got our drivers licenses.

"Donor" is on my Drivers' Lisence and has been there since I was 15, but my family can override it if they wish. I need to make a legally binding will so they bloody well can't do so. I know that Mum would override it if she could, despite her own husband owing his eyesight to some generous soul's corneas.

The only reason I've looked after my body as well as I have is the fact that someone else might need to use my internal organs after I'm done with them. If nothing can be recycled, I'd really like for it to be put to some productive use before it's cremated and put on a flower garden.

It was the documentary film "Donated To Science" that really decided me on wanting to donate my body. I saw it a few years ago and it made a massive impact on me. (The sequel "Practising Medicine" will be on TV this Thursday. I'm all over it like seagulls on a dumpster)

The School of Medicine at Otago University is one of the few places that still uses human cadavers in training it's anatomy students and future surgeons. Becoming a part of this and being able to help contribute to the knowledge of future generations means so much to me I don't know how to express it without sounding clichéd and silly.

I have enormous respect for the people who donate their bodies so others can learn, and for the people who are willing to learn how to fix living people by minutely examining a dead person's body.

I also wouldn't want to ever go under a knife, even to save my life, if I knew that the person operating on me had never been "under the hood" before in any way, shape or form. Even if they had had "some" surgery experience.

If it was a choice between having my appendix explode and having someone whose only seen the inside of the abdominal cavity in a textbook operate on me; then I'd take the deadly organ rupture, thanks.

I think you should be intimately familiar with what you're doing if you're going to cut someone open and muck about inside them.

You wouldn't take your prize Harley to a "Qualified Mechanic" who'd never physically pulled any kind of engine apart before, would you?

Those are my opinions, that is how I feel.


If I get mangled in a horrible traffic accident I'd be happy with someone being able to use whatever is still in one piece to keep someone alive. If I somehow manage to make it to old age (Which isn't fucking likely, to be honest) then Otago can have my body as a research or teaching tool.


All that being said, if anyone ever has a "Dissection Race" (Timed exam, practising for getting things perfect with minimal time open and bleeding on the operating table for the "patient") with one of my limbs, they'd better bloody well win or else I'll come back from the dead and jam said limb up the arse of the incompetent git!

~Peri

Saturday Vlog: ASDFGHJKL PACKAGE! (And News)

Dese's package got here! I opened it up on camera.

(Does a shitty webcam count as a camera?)

I apologise for how spazztastic this is. Too much caffeine and not enough sleep >.< You'd better hit Stop at 5mins/when I finish opening it to avoid the worst of the insanity.

You were warned!



I'm wearing the neckwarmer as a headscarf right now. Soooo warm! SQUEH!

Ok, so they probably couldn't gut a possum through all that fur, but Kiwis still have pretty scary feet!

RAWR!

News was the SDHB ringing me about a therapy-talk-about appointment. It only took them FOUR MONTHS!

I started writing a post about it, but it turned into emo tween whining with bad grammar. Maybe some editing will fix it?

Probably not. So long story short:
They can't reach into my head and make me want to live, so I don't think they can help. But I'm still giving it a go.
It's kinda sad to realise that maybe I'll have to be medicated to feel consistently happy/normal for the rest of my life.
We don't make diabetics feel inadequate for having munted pancreases and needing insulin, so why the hell do I feel inadequate for having munted brain-chemistry and needing medication?

Just because it's happening in my head doesn't mean it's all in my head.


Stupid fucking societal biases.


~Peri

Photo Dump (Winter Trees and Rugby Fields)

Winter Trees in Jubilee Park and the Zingari Club Rugby Fields.

Cabbage Treeeeee:

I like to go to this wee hidden field and practise poi:

Temporary rainwater pond:

Sarahlynn I'm sorry about how shitty these pics are, I'll go back when it's not a swamp and get better ones >.<
Mt.Cargill through the goalposts of Paddock #1, you can see #2 and #3 in the background

#2 and #3, viewed from #1:

Rugby fields are pretty uninspiring compared to baseball diamonds. Just big churned-up paddocks, really :/

Got some news today, but it can wait until tomorrow. Don't want to spoil the pretties.

~Peri

Dear Deer

Today was Dad's 51st Birthday. The Family had dinner at the Huntsman Steakhouse. I had Venison Shanks, roast spuds, vegetable things and ice cream. A little intimidating after two weeks of nausea, but OMG IT WAS WORTH IT.



To the Deer who died to provide me with dinner.

May I be so bold as to call you Bambi? It seems to me to be rude to have partaken of your flesh and not even know your name. Please forgive me for thus taking the liberty of assigning you a moniker.
Thank you so very, very much for dinner. Your shanks were tasty in the extreme. I nearly wept at the sheer culinary beauty I had the privilege of experiencing. You were amazing.
I have no words to express the depth of my gratitude for your sacrifice (Willing or not) that I might live. I will not indulge in any disordered food-related behaviour to rid myself of the meal. Instead I shall digest your deliciousness and take great pleasure in the knowledge that some part of you will, in time, become a part of me.
Once again, I thank you.

~Vienn Peridot



Guess how much rain we got yesterday?

69.8mm (2.75in)

I had such a lovely walkswim to work.

This was on top of the 20.4mm (0.8in) on Sunday and the 18.2mm (0.7in) on Monday. (Yay Metservice! I laugh at how many clothing layers they recommend we wear)

The Water of the Leith was a hair from flooding the University Campus and North Dunedin, the Taieri River is overtopping it's floodbanks and several roads up the harbour had to be closed. Awesome Boss actually left work EARLY for the first time in my 3 years in the Deli to ensure that she could actually get home.

Today it has finally stopped raining, just as I was contemplating the feasibility of growing gills.

The silence is a little unnerving.

The constant water noises were soothing, even if they made me want to pee a lot.

~Peri

Monday 13th? DO NOT WANT

Drinking ginger tea seems to be helping my guts, or I'm getting used to the current dosage of Venlafaxine a lot faster than I anticipated.

Damn.

Sunday was the first day in a fortnight that I was able to look at food without feeling sick and keep it down with minimal struggle. Today it was a little less easy, but my stomach was told to STFU and take it.

Not feeling constantly sick is quite pleasant, really.

You can get used to anything with time, but it's rather nice when the bad things stop.

There is a buzzy feeling in my head. I'm acting and feeling a little happier, but I'm not sure if that's from the medication or not.

If it is or if it is not, I'm still aware that it is only temporary and I should enjoy the ride while it lasts. Time is limited.

Knitting Dad's Moebius Birthday Scarf.

Knitting a shape I can't hold in my head is weird. I feel like I'm breaking physics, but I'm not.

It's working. It's an object with ONE surface and ONE edge.

The half-twist screws with my brain and tells me there are two of each, but when I trace it out there clearly are not.

The evidence of my eyes and the physical evidence of the scarf are not in accord.

Paradigm Shift: Two sides doesn't necessarily mean an object has two surfaces.

Sleep is still elusive.

I don't have much in the way of vanity, but when customers who are NOT regulars tell me that I look exhausted I want to slam my head in the Chiller (Chiller=Walk-in refrigerated room) door until I knock myself out.

Butchery Friend informed me that home-made chloroform doesn't give you a decent night of sleep, just a few hours and a nasty headache. It does appear to make a damn good loo cleaner, though.

Moment of utter TERROR: The guy who I saw at EPS in April came through my workplace.

The guy who told me they weren't letting me out of there if there was the slightest indication I was a danger to myself or others, triggering my automatic bullshit response.

I hope he didn't recognise me or realise that I work with sharp objects. (My favourite knife at work is the length of my forearm and curves like a machete with a pointed tip. A total bitch to sharpen but it's the ONLY thing to skin a leg of ham with)

Speaking of bullshit: I graduate In Absentia on the 25th.

Achievement Get! Bullshit Artist, Japanese Language and Culture.

I can finally colour in the other eye of the Daruma that Azu gave me. I've spent many hours poking it and thinking.

The only word that can describe my shift today is "Clusterfuck". Three people off sick, torrential rain and Chatterbox riding around on the High Horse called Martyrdom.

Days like this you just have to put your head down and get the fuck on with things.

I'm going to have another cup of tea, a few gingernuts and blow the living daylights out of a few Minecraft worlds.

~Peri


P.S. AAAAHAHAHAHAHAAAA SUCK IT, OSTAPCHUK! YOU'RE THE INFERIOR ATHLETE AND YOU KNOW IT!

I'm a DUMBASS

Video, set to unlisted due to gratuitous swearing:



Tl;dw:
Shit day at work. Lost my cellphone. Freaked out. Cried. Blew half motorbike repair savings on SuperElCheapo replacement phone and phone credit. Found old phone. Facepalmed.

Honestly, how the hell do I manage to tie my own shoes???

~Peri

EHERMAHGHERD GHERMS NHERT!

I just had a grizzle on my Craft Blog about how badly the knitting of birthday gifts is going.

EVERYTHING seems to be going wrong!

I'm usually more organised than this!

Gah.

Kicked ass at Settles of Catan at Games Night last night. They should know by now to to play games like that with an ex-Economics Student XD I maxed out my sheep production and claimed a port. It was a total no-brainer.

I met my nephew's new guinea pigs, Pikachu and Raichu. Raichu immediately snuggled up under my hair and hid there squeaking until bedtime. It reminded me of when Ink was a baby and would sleep in the hood of my hoodie while I studied and played WoW.

Yes that is actually me and Ink, back in 2008. The Boy made this Lol after finding him asleep in there one day. After he outgrew my hood he'd expect me to hold him up so he could sleep with his face under my ponytail.

I miss my Squeaky Bubba. Sleep peacefully, baby.

We spent all night talking with faked retainer lisps (ERHMAHGHERD GHERNEY PERG) and making bad jokes about having wood for sheep and bricking people.

Actual fun times!

Still feeling sick whenever I eat something thanks to the Venlafaxine. I'm so proud of myself for forcing myself to train through the side effects and ingest adequate noms and water to keep my body ticking over. If something doesn't a) taste good or b) have some nutritional value it's not worth the effort of nausea suppression.

It does seem to be helping the mood a little bit, but that could also be the effect of the weekend of my working week combined with a little more sleep than has become normal.

Who knows?

Enough rambling! Back to knitting and podcasts.

(trollface)
Damn my Friday nights are wild! Knitting and podcasts? Living on the EDGE here, people!

If I feel brave enough I might even make a cup of tea.

How on earth will I cope with the excitement?!?

Oh my goodness, I don't think I could handle any Enya right now. My heart might just explode!
(/trollface)

~Peri

Maunderings About Food

This post is probably going to be triggering if you have an ED, or boring as all fuck if you don't live in some corner of SpazzLand.

If you don't want to be triggered or bored to tears, go watch this.

This is all terribly anticlimactic, of course. Just more of me whining like a little bitch.

Well, having a place to whine like a little bitch or rage like a semi-literate She-Hulk was why I started this blog in the first place.

So.

A month or two ago I noticed that I could keep what used to be Binge Foods in the house and not have any desire to eat them. I think I even blogged about this, because I was so surprised. A packet of biscuits lasting a week? Chocolate untouched after a fortnight? INSANITY!!!

About a week after that I realised that anything with lots of sugar or grease made me feel sick to my stomach. (Miles insisted on Chinese Takeaways and soy icecream one night. It sounds bloody weird, but he IS allergic to dairy protein so his icecream has to be derived from plants)

Since I don't normally buy much in the way of junk food (Why waste money on nutritionless stuff if you're not going to enjoy it?) I chalked that up to my stomach being not used to digesting it, and resolved to remember to go easy on the junkfood if/when I desired it.

After that I tapered off the Mirtazapine, and ever since then my desire to eat anything has dropped right off. It got a lot worse after the Paracetamol Incident last week, when ANYTHING I consumed (Even water) made me gag involuntarily for hours.

I still feel hungry, but the idea of eating just repulses me.

I find this really fucking disturbing.

The only other times I've felt like this is during the really bad few weeks after the death of someone close to me or when I realised I'd be leaving the sanity of my last host family for Biological Family Bullshit.

Why I find this development so disturbing because I like food. (GASP! SHE ADMITS IT!) I enjoy food, the flavour and texture, the comfort of the familiar as well as the exploration of new things.

This is why my Main Food Problem is eating too much. When I get really depressed, I get fat from trying to eat away the pain. Then the self-hatred kicks in and I begin to punish myself by alternately fasting/eating MORE and abusing pooping aids -.-

So this not wanting to eat and not wanting things I would otherwise leap on like Dralion with a milk bottle lid is completely unlike me.

Is it a symptom of having given up, or has not being able to work out over the last fortnight switched off my body's fuel gauge?

I'm wondering how long it will last. Will it pass in time or will the Venlafaxine just make it worse? I'm half-hoping that it passes.

Hoping because I live in terror of trashing my metabolism, because permanently screwing up your metabolism means you're fat FOREVER. I've kept myself from serious restriction and fasting in the past by reminding myself that while it makes you thinner in the short-term, in the long run unless you're very, very lucky you end up fatter than when you began.

Hoping by half because I can't deny that  part of me that wants to get so physically wrecked that people can no longer look at me and say "You're not that bad, just suck it up and get over it"

So far my crashing-of-the-metabolism-terror has been mostly successful in keeping me from really fucking myself up. I've done stupid things, but have not allowed them to become habits that control me.

Talking to Seafood Dude at work I laughingly described the better of my eating habits as a "Wantfood" diet as opposed to his "Seefood" one. (You know the old joke, you see food and eat it)

This "Wantfood" thing developed after watching Dolly's yo-yo dieting and enduring last year's comfort eating spree. It grew from roots put down when I was put on a Healthy Eating Plan to drop some weight (Weight that was gained by eating my frustration at a toxic relationship) just prior to starting this blog.

1)If I want it or have never tried it, I eat it.
2)If I don't want it or don't like it or am actually allergic to it, I don't eat it.
3)If I'm empty I fuel, if I'm full I stop.

Or I used to.

Now I just can't be arsed.

The thought of eating is nauseating and absolutely NOTHING appeals to me. I even tried to tempt myself with the thought of going to Grannie Annie's import shop and seeing if they had Jaffa Cakes to go with my coffee. .  . . No reaction.

It's pissing me off.

Well, the hunger headache is, at any rate. That and feeling sick as a dog after I manage to get something in my guts. I don't find a great deal of enjoyment in pain, but after last week I'm reluctant to take any painkillers when I know that forcing down some toast would fix it.

I'm also not so keen on the idea of losing a whole bunch of weight so fast that it all comes back with interest as soon as I'm able to consume "normal" amounts again.

Body, I've been TRYING to look after you and get you back into condition safely in spite of what my head wants me to do. This really isn't cool. What the hell do you think you're playing at?

Knowing my brain as soon as I post this it will decide to switch back to GIMMIEFOODLOTSOFITANDRIGHTNOW mode. Unfortunately, this is the really bad first few days of the Venlafaxine, so with that added to the current problem anything and everything is making me sick.

Even water, peppermint tea and coffee are making me sick.

EVEN COFFEE.

I find that completely unacceptable. If I can't have anything else, at least let me have my coffee!

~Peri

BOOM! THUMP!

Tongariro blew it's top last night.

I think he was ready to take his turn in the limelight, after Ruapehu and Ngarahoe getting all the glory in recent decades. (Ruapehu most often, with it's propensity for spectacular lahars that completely screw the skifields)

Have a watch of the news.

(Yes, we drive on the left. Also, Tongariro is in the North Island. I live in the South Island. Definitely safe enough, but I'm going to be giving the Harbour Cones and Saddle Hill nervous looks for a few weeks)

This is so cool. A textbook-perfect Mars Rover Landing AND so-far-undeadly volcanic history all in the same week?

My inner nerd is leaping about in glee, much like this poor, confused sheep.

(Yup sheep actually have tails. They're docked for health reasons [Usually by rubber-ring method here] while still young lambs. Ever seen a sheep die of flystrike? It's not pretty and it's utterly heartbreaking)

And Valerie, I don't care if you "only" got a silver this time around.

That's a-fucking-MAZING considering the wankers at NZOC forgot to enter you into the shotput! To get that level of mindfuck and pull an Olympic medal while STILL fighting red tape on the day of the event is an achievement very, very few people could manage.

Still my favourite female Olympian *Hearts*

~Peri

Excessive use of Capslock and Cat Story

CASE IN POINT as to why I neither like or trust my scale:

Yesterday: 65.5kg
Today: 67.1kg

KILOGRAMS, PEOPLE. KILOGRAMS. What the fucking fuck?

My numerical relationship with gravity is problematic.

Maybe sad thoughts make you heavy? I didn't do anything out of the ordinary yesterday apart from sleep.

YEP. I SLEEPDED.

A whole FIVE HOURS! (Rough estimate around random wakings-up)

I felt AMAZING this morning, but now I'm just as fried as ever.

Embarrassing moment: My doctor came into work. Waved at me from the big hotcase for the chickens. I was dicking around talking shit with Chatterbox and Lily and Kirk, wearing the happy mask that covers my dead insides.

Lol, it seems that I have Kirk and Lily fooled into thinking I actually mean the shit I say about hot customers and sex. They keep asking if getting laid is the reason behind my sleeping last night. Fuck no! I haven't had sex in about a year. I wish Miles would stop trying to hug me and kiss me, it's hard not to hit him when he does.

Leave me alone. Don't kiss me, don't touch me, don't look at me, don't fucking touch me just leave me alone.

Poor boy. Why doesn't he find a Normal to be with? Isn't' he sick of this by now?

In lighter news; Dralion has a new party trick.

Some may recall the leaking tap in my wash-house/bathroom, the one that the Slumlord never fixed and which blew up Deedee's stove when it leaked down into her kitchen? Dralion has decided that this leaking tap is the best and ONLY source of water that she'll drink from.

When I do a load of washing I have to shut the door into the bathwashhouseroom as the noise of the washing machine is somewhere between "Helicopter Takeoff" and "Collapsing Building". Not exactly what you would listen to for the joy of it. However kitty takes exception to having her drinking fountain access denied for 45mins and sits outside the door whining until I give in and open it.

A few days ago I finally managed to teach Dralion how to open the lounge door when I have it pulled mostly shut to keep the heat in. Today she applied this lesson to the washbathroomhouse door in an attempt to reach her favourite tap.

She was in hyperactive spaz-mode at the time, which lead to the development of her new trick:

Sprint the length of the hallway, leap at the door, run away at full speed to hide when it slams open. Repeat when Mum closes the door.

She did this about six times, until I got sick of it and shut the door properly. (To shut any door here properly you have to yank on it with your whole bodyweight like you're trying to pull it off it's hinges. Not good with this flimsy building. I'm used to just pulling it to and leaving it)

I sat down with coffee to observe Dralion McSpazzypants to see what her next move would be.

She tried her run-leap-slam again.

Door stayed shut.

Again.

The door remained shut.

After the third try she lay down beside the door and sulked. The look she gave me was the full on "You-
ruined-my-rainbow-and-stomped-all-my-butterflies-you-BITCH" look you usually only get from teenagers.

Brat.

~Peri

Midnight Morbidity

Hmmmmmm.

According to The Glass Judge/Trollmeister Extraordinaire (My scales) this morning I made it back into the realms of 65pointsomethingkilograms.

I don't entirely believe it. This needs a week of being in the same range to be corroborated and accepted as truth.

Fucking fluctuations.

I have yet to start taking the Venlafaxine the doctor prescribed, I'm waiting until Wednesday (My Saturday) so I can get over the horrendous initial few days without using up any more sick leave.

Venlafaxine is an SNRI, it seems to have similar side effects to the Citalopram (An SSRI) I was prescribed a few years ago.

Who remembers THAT batshit insanity?

Hoo boy.

This is going to be interesting.

I'm considering just not taking it. I really don't want to go back to one hour of bad sleep per night, visual and auditory hallucinations and suicide attempts every month.

If I start taking it I don't have to keep taking it. Try it for a month or two and then re-evaluate. If I don't give a shit about living or not living why not try to make the living a little more endurable?

I feel like this is such a cop-out. Nothing is being done bar medicine being thrown at the problem, nothing else.

N-O-T-H-I-N-G

No psychiatrist, no therapy, no counsellor, no WRAP, nothing to help me cope or survive in the long run. Just pills to deaden the symptoms and a whole new raft of crazy.

Crutches for a paraplegic.

Maybe they've given up on me like I've given up on myself? Maybe that's why I've heard nothing from the SDHB about the EPS referral. They've written me off as such a completely fucking hopeless lost cause that  they're giving me happypills so that the last bit is a little more endurable. Then they can wash their hands of me and move on to those more worthy of their time.

It's like the hospital keeping Grandad.M on morphine for his last weeks.

More humane than letting him grind on to the end while experiencing the full agony of his lungs rotting in his chest.

Prescribed mental morphine, not the kind you find at the bottle shop or bakery.

~Peri

Saturday Night Unlisted Vlog

WARNING:
Lots of swearing and random insanity. All work and no sleep make Peri something something. I think I've totally lost my marbles.



Unlisted because I swear too fucking much and don't want to get fired for accidentally breaching the Noms'R'Us COCk for doing so >.< Also I think offering to sell my uterus off might possibly be against company policy.

Pffft.

Yes that is a laprug in the background. Standard part of the Crazy Cat lady Apprenticeship Kit. It will grow into full-fledged blanketness as I get the time to make more squares.

Gah, forgot to demo n00bish recorder skills. My bad! Another time.

~Peri





P.S. Lol, Turkey Sluts. Wheeeeee!

August Goals, Shawls and Vampires

Let's do this, shall we?

IN REVIEW:

July Mini-Goals:
1) Finish Xenab's blanket before trying to learn the Amigurumi technique.
2) Investigate cost of getting a new wing mirror. Mandatory joyrides once weekly, weather permitting.
3) Film penalty song. Lean scale OR ANOTHER PENALTY SHALL BE SUNG.
4) Email Uni Judo blokes about Semester Two training schedule.
5) Gym three times a week, at least 10mins of dancing or circus-related practise every day.
6) Get Firefly Nerd tattoo or Snake tattoo priced at Tattrix
7) Stay current with other people's blogs and start posting on the craft blog more often.

1) SUCCESS! I finished the blanket! Now on to the crochet!
2) FAIL! Paid the reggo instead. Sigh.
3) SUCCESS! I also learned about 1/3rd of a scale. Does that count?
4) FAIL! Judo means dealing with people and touching. Um, shit.
5) PARTIAL SUCCESS! Gymmed three times a week except from when I had the massage and the trainer nees to make me a new program. No circus practise. Growl.
6) FAIL! I haven't been out KV in too long. I need to ring them and make a time
7) PARTIAL SUCCESS! Am caught up, craft blog is dying.

TOTAL: 4/7. Not bad.

I also flailed my Project July plan, but met my overall goal. It seems I'm not so good with plans. Guidelines are better.

AUGUST MINI-GOALS
1) Learn the Amigurumi crochet technique, make a set of juggling balls!
2) Investigate wing-mirror fixing. Go on Joyrides and take camera to collect evidence of having done so.
3) Learn the rest of the scale, try to learn Soft Kitty
4) Email Uni Judo guys?
5) Gym three times a week. Take poi to park once a week.
6) Book tattoo-discussing session at Tattrix
7) Stay current, post on Craft Blog twice a week


This months goals are kinda shit, but I'm going to justify it with still feeling like ass. Headache, nausea and woozy. Blargh.

As ordered, today I went to the Doctor and was told flat-out that I couldn't have ODed by taking 6.5 grams of paracetamol in under 10 hours.

Nice to know.

Since Irma doesn't bring her abdominal-destroyers to every monthly party, I was given something a bit stronger than supermarket painkillers for when she does and also given yet another antidepressant to try since "my mood has not improved", I'm not sleeping well and accidentally doing stupid shit.

I'm going to start the new antispaz on my next "weekend" from work so I'll get through the worst of the initial period without using up any more sickdays.

As it can now be prescribed by GPs in New Zealand, the doctor gave me Venlafaxine.

I like those side effects.



At least the last few months have taught me I can lose weight without starving or resorting to medical aids :/

Still haven't heard back from EPS about the waiting list for psychotherapy. I checked their letter today and it was dated May.

Three fucking months for the "Emergency" list? When I walked in and straight up told you I wanted to die? Are you fucking kidding me?

Morons.

Since my GP doesn't do blood tests any more I had to march myself into a place that does so they could check liver function just in case.

If I hear from them, it's a bad thing. If there's nothing wrong they won't ring.

OMG SUBTLE SUBJECT CHANGE!!1!

Here is my hobbitshawl in the process of being blocked, pinned to the Slumlord's ironing board. I went and bought a squirty bottle just for this!

(Honestly though, I just needed some retail therapy after getting jabbed with non-tattooing needles. I almost got a pukeko-patterned teapot instead.)

I have no idea what I'm doing!

See what I mean about the colours? Utterly divine. I may just hang it on the wall. It looks better in daylight. Daylight pic when the weather co-operates.

Ok, concentration is shot to hell and I have work in 8 hours. Maybe sleep?

This is how I feel when trying to get sense out of customers:



I just can't stop laughing.

~Peri

Bugger This

Not feeling any better and attempting to consume anything besides water makes me vomity.

Even water is dodgy a lot of the time.

Since I've trained myself to have a strong stomach I've managed to keep my fluids and nutrition in me :/ Gross little brothers are good for something, right?

I rang the GP from work and talked to a nurse. They were Very Unimpressed with my tale of idiocy and ordered me in there tomorrow morning for a blood test to make sure my liver hasn't completely packed up.

I'd be turning yellow by now if it had, right?

Right?

I hope they believe me when I say this was an accident. I have a few more things to knock off my list before I can die. The list keeps growing, so it's a good thing.

No unfinished business allowed. Nope, no sir, not at all.

Speaking of the project list, I just finished the FIRST thing I've knitted for myself in about a year!

That asfghfsdfjkfhl bloody lace hobbit-shawl.

It's glorious, but I can safely say I don't intend to buy yarn from that person in the future unless the colours are OUT OF THIS WORLD.

The yarn was horribly inconsistent, varying from a DK thickness to sewing cotton fine and back again with many, many horribly overspun sections I was afraid were going to snap if I pulled too hard when doing the decreases. I know it is a handspun, but shit, I'm pretty sure I can do better on my potato stick! $USD20 and FULL PRICE INTERNATIONAL SHIPPING? It's a damn good thing the colours were fantastic!

I'm going to attempt to block it without destroying it. I think I'm going to pin it to the ironing board and stand it in my tiny bathroom while I take a long, hot shower or pin it out and spray it with water. Yay squirty bottles!

Photos after it's blocked, I promise. Right now it's all scrunchy and weird.

It's time to make a cup of tea and try to set goals for August. I'll be reading and commenting tomorrow, I promise. My brain is so completely fried after work and Games Night that I'm not entirely sure I can remember how to untie my shoes.

On the bright side I did sleep about 4 hours last night!

Um, Honor I learned about 1/3rd of a scale. Does that mean I get out of doing another penalty song? I didn't realise that recorder scales started at the top of the instrument and worked down. It's opposite from what I'm used to and it's still tripping me up >.<

Sleep well, all!

~Peri