i hear the voices when I'm dreaming

ysobel @ 2026-04-25T20:51:00

2026-04-26T03:51:42Z

Another bug dream last night - cw for insecty badness

( Read more... )

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I aten't ded yet

2026-04-10T22:04:16Z

just haven't had much to say :)

I've been loving everything about Artemis II. The photos are gorgeous, the crew seems awesome, and the whole thing is so ding-dang wholesome.

Ear continues healing; I have no idea what it will look like in the end. Or whether the ear canal will go back to holding earbuds in, or if I have to figure out an alternative. (Right now earbuds go in fine but slide out within ten minutes.)

Migraines are stupid and I hate them.

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ysobel @ 2026-03-26T13:06:00

2026-03-26T20:23:56Z

One thing I am discovering is that I hate how I look right now.

It's not new -- not liking photos/videos of myself has been the case for a while -- but it hasn't come up much because I don't really do mirrors. But I'm taking progress pictures of my ear, and a) it looks horrible; b) I'm still adjusting to how much of the ear had to go (only like 1/5, but more than the hole-punch taken from my nose ten years ago, which needed no reconstruction); and c) my throat makes me look like a bullfrog (I tend towards double-chin-ness anyway because my head is fixed at a slightly downward angle, but it's super puffy lately because of the submandibular flareups I've been getting)

At least I have cute shirts and cute earrings ...

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ysobel @ 2026-03-19T15:19:00

2026-03-19T22:40:14Z

a) my mom called today -- she's convinced there are People After Me and also that I am being held captive. Nothing I said reassured her. I told her several times that I loved her. Dementia is a bitch and a half.

b) unbandaged my ear today. Felt good to be free, though if I'd been smart I'd've shaved my head Monday in preparation. For now bandaging is optional, because it's sealed in with dermabond. The donor site for the skin looks fine, as far as "was sutured up day before yesterday" goes. The ear ... really doesn't. It's a good reconstruction, they did a good job, but it looks gross and wrong. I will probably keep it bandagd.

a+b=c) I am totally not coping rn. Doesn't help that my sleep has been interrupted because pain. Some of the pain may have been from the adhesive from the bandage (there was gauze over the ear but taped to my head, and it's the head that was hurting most today). idk.

d) spent today without glasses, because blurry astigmatic eyesight is more comfortable than crooked glasses. (Contact lenses are not practical since I can't reach my eyes.) I don't know when the top edge of the ear, where it connects to the head, will be okay with either glasses or hearing aid.

e) I'm tired.

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ysobel @ 2026-03-18T13:05:00

2026-03-18T20:23:39Z

One thing I forgot to mention in my update yesterday is that yesterday's procedure was significantly more involved than I expected.

( details )

I can't wear my hearing aid, which is on that side. My glasses sit a bit askew for now. And my ear hurts.

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ysobel @ 2026-03-17T18:59:00

2026-03-18T02:05:47Z

Mohs procedure (making sure they remove all the skin cancer) done today. Had to get up hours earlier than normal, before sunrise, in order to get there at 7:45am ... and got back at like 1:50pm. Two hours of that was waiting for pathology.

The procedure was done with local anesthesia but that wore off mid afternoon. Things hurt now. They don't even give good drugs, just suggest alternating Tylenol and ibuprofen, both in otc form.

Am very tired right now.

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ysobel @ 2026-02-08T14:50:00

2026-02-08T23:33:55Z

The second, longer run of prednisone seems to have restored most if not all of the jaw mobility (yay for being able to eat bagels again) but it also has given me some fairly impressive insomnia.

( details )

The other thing of note this week is finally getting into the dermatologist for the Suspicious Blob on my ear. I forget when I first noticed it, and I'm pretty sure I brought it up to my main doctor several times, but she thought it was just benign. But it's been growing, and then in December it got randomly bleedy, and my audiologist sent a note to my doctor about "a lesion on the ear".

Dermatologist (who is awesome I love her) agreed it looked sus, and chopped it off. (The blob, not the ear.) Top edge of ear is awkward to bandaid, but if you do it right with the right shape bandage you can get an elf ear effect, woo.

Pathology came back as basal cell carcinoma, which I had a spot of on my nose in 2016. BSC is one of the least scary types of cancer: slow moving, easy to treat if you get it early, and nowhere near as scary as melanoma. (And 'treat' is generally just an outpatient surgical procedure, no radiation or chemo.) I'll be having a Mohs surgery in a bit over a month to make sure all the cancer cells got removed, and I'm not really worried.

...except for the bit where I have to get up at at least 6am, eww.

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Flareup update

2026-01-27T07:21:27Z

The FOP "fun" continues... the prednisone helped a little but there's still lump and swelling and I can still only open my mouth so far.

Meet with a FOP specialist today via telemedicine (yay) and he suggested a second, longer course (though much of the "longer" is taper) because submandibular flares can be stubborn (and risky given the potential to affect breathing and swallowing). So ... more prednisone it is, sigh.

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Prednisone song, updated

2026-01-22T22:29:05Z

Back in 2015 I wrote an anti-ode to prednisone. Last night my brain came up with another verse, so I'm posting the revised version for posterity.

(Youtube version of the original is here)

Oh prednisone, oh prednisone,
How fucked-up are your side-effects!
You make my mood go here and there
And make me sweat, like, everywhere
Oh prednisone, oh prednisone,
How fucked-up are your side-effects!

Oh prednisone, oh prednisone,
You make me so unhappy
Because I'm hungry all the time
I can't think of a proper rhyme
Oh prednisone, oh prednisone,
You make me so unhappy

Oh prednisone, oh prednisone,
I really dislike taking you
The anti-inflammation's great
But all the rest is cause for hate
Oh prednisone, oh prednisone,
I really dislike taking you

Oh prednisone, oh prednisone,
I can't wait til I'm done with this
You taste like shit, and what's more wrong
You made me filk this stupid song
Oh prednisone, oh prednisone,
I can't wait til I'm done with this

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ysobel @ 2026-01-20T15:09:00

2026-01-20T23:36:47Z

Not dead. Just a lot of stuff.

Mom has been moved to the new place (which is also memory care -- she hates being locked in) and when I visited her last week it was not great at all. The place looks nice but mom was insistent that she needed to go back to OldPlace and I could take her. (I declined. Six times.). I need to decide how often I'm visiting her, because I can't do every week.

Wrote a story for Yuletide (pinch hit) and I love the source and I have no energy to write up all the stuff I want to say

Have FOP flareup under my jaw. I can still chew but mouth opening is restricted -- about the size of a slice of bread's thickness -- and chewing is effortful. Have to take smaller bites so there's more chewing needed too. Have started prednisone (ee) so hopefully that will help. No clue if this is permanent or will resolve. At night it feels like I have something heavy resting on my neck; it doesn't interfere with breathing but it's kinda uncomfortable and getting to sleep is harder.

I've been playing a (free with gacha elements) casual life sim game called Heartopia. So cute. I've just adopted a cat (golden spotted, looks like a bengal) and have unlocked the option to adopt a dog but can't decide which one (golden retriever I name Phoebe? Black lab named Yahtzee? Shiba Inu? Corgi? Husky?). Also you can interact with wildlife. So much cuteness! I love.

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My two favorite Christmas song videos

2025-12-25T23:48:34Z

( lyrics )

( lyrics )

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ysobel @ 2025-12-12T21:06:00

2025-12-13T05:24:55Z

Chewy has a "Chewy Claus" thing around this time of year where you can help your pet(s) write a letter to Santa. How good they've been, whether they prefer treats or toys, and a free-answer "what would you ask for if you could have anything".

Last year I did it and at the end of December got a "sorry the sleigh missed you, here's a coupon code if you want to buy anything". And supposedly they donate food to pets in need for every letter submitted, so why not.

This year, I did it ... and today a box came addressed to Phoebe and Loki. (!!)

There was a dog toy that was a "lunch box" with a rope handle, and a green apple plushy and a juice-box plushy with Velcro to attach to the front of the lunchbox. Al three items contain squeakers. (So far, they are still intact, though the white parts of the juice box are rather, erm, dingy. That tends to happen with her toys, but it's impressive for 8 hours.)

There was a cat toy that was sushi themed (including a green wasabi packet) and has catnip in. Loki is mostly nocturnal these days but I put them in a cat bed that sits on my bed and when I came back in later, one was on the floor... so either he loves it or hates it, lol. Also a food purée treat thing similar to churu, though he's iffy about food.

There was an ornament, metal I think, with a sleigh and presents and "Chewy Claus 2025", which is now on my desk tree.

And there was a card with the cutest illustration of Chewy Claus helpers, and a handwritten note wishing them holiday cheer.

I'm a little astonished because I honestly hadn't expected to get anything, but it was a cute surprise!

Edit: Loki definitely likes. I may regret having them on the bed at the same time I am... lol

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ysobel @ 2025-12-07T16:41:00

2025-12-08T01:28:30Z

We're on the final boss fight of the campaign. Said boss is hovering over a deep pit -- bad for melee, unless they have some form of flight.

My character rolls the highest initiative.

She is a L20 owlin monk. She has flight. She also has a) 70 feet of movement per turn, and b) magic items (and a feat) that gives extra damage for distance moved in a straight line just before the attack. Oh, and a potion that does bonus

First roll hit a nat 20.

Rolling 20 means damage dice are doubled; if you would normally do 2d6, on a crit you roll 4d6. Between the damage roll (doubled), the extra monk ability I always like to throw in (also doubled, plus poison for a round), and the bonus damage for straight lines (doubled), I did 119 points of damage.

I also have a feat that says if I get a critical hit, all attacks against that creature have advantage until my next turn.

So... a pretty good start.

I love this character.

(...I got a crit the next turn too.)

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ysobel @ 2025-12-05T22:39:00

2025-12-06T06:50:37Z

So my plan of quitting Duo at 4K days has gone from "vaguely in the future" to, uh, tomorrow.

It feels weird. And me being me, I'm second guessing myself. But then in a matching exercise it gave me patada (kick, as far as I can tell a noun) on the Spanish side and "to give somebody the push" on the English side, and that is a) a British phrase for firing someone, b) that is a verb, c) an unlikely translation, and d) completely novel to me both in general and on Duo and thus unhelpful for learning.

So, tomorrow is my last session and then I'm done.

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my appetite has mysteriously vanished...

2025-11-28T02:22:09Z

...which I'm sure has ~no~ correlation to having gone to the free thanksgiving meal my church did

two types of salad, turkey, ham, sage stuffing, peas and shallots, roasted brussels sprouts / carrots / onions, green bean casserole, sweet potato casserole, mashed potatoes, potato rolls, and like eight types of pie (including: pecan, pumpkin, sweet potato, apple, chocolate cream, key lime, and idk what else) with real whipped cream.

All homemade, all insanely good, and there was even a centerpiece that was a handmade cornucopia made out of bread and containing actual fruots and vegetables.

I ... am going to go into a food coma now, lol

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ysobel @ 2025-11-24T16:45:00

2025-11-25T01:36:15Z

Back in 2018-19, Loki spent about 9 months in a cone, because he wouldn't stop killing his tail. ( cw: mention of medical saga )

And then randomly, he stopped. Since then he does still attack his tail sometimes (occasionally seeming extremely annoyed by it) but without making it bloody. I sort of get the impression he doesn't really understand that his tail is even attached to him, let alone part of him. Sometimes he shoves his tail down, stalks to a different bed, and gets upset that it followed him. Sometimes it feels like, to him, he bites the wiggly thing and then it bites him back.

But regardless, he wasn't doing serious damage.

Until last week.

We noticed a spot on the underside of his tail that he seemed to have licked bare. Then it bled a bit. So Friday was Vet Day. They shaved the area, cleaned it up, and gave him an antibiotic shot because it looked like he had just ... chomped way too hard.

So he's back in a cone. Hopefully it's just for the 10-14 days recommended by the vet. But. It's a different spot, but he does have history with, erm, tail issues.

If he continues with his tail the way he did in 2018... ( cw: mention of potential medical procedures )

Right now the dogs are banished from my bedroom so that Loki can have easier access to food/water and to litterbox. They are confused by this. Loki has been extremely clingy, jumping on my lap pretty much every time I'm in there and sleeping on me probably 80% of the night. I don't actually mind providing extra cuddles! But I think all of us will be happy when things go back to normal...

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Cat dream

2025-11-07T21:13:55Z

The first cat in the dream was a shorthair tortie -- mottled black and orange. Jumped onto my lap and then right shoulder, and demanded scritches. A kid nearby asked if it was a boy cat or a girl cat. My first reaction was "I don't know" but then I realized I did know because torties are 99% female. (The way I explained it in the dream was "orange boy cats can be all orange or orange-and-white, but not orange-and-black", which happens to be largely true IRL too. (Technically a boy cat that's XXY and heterozygous for this trait could be orange/black, but XXY is rare and only about half of them have a mix. But I didn't go into that.)

Then a big fluffy black cat jumped onto my left leg and swatted at the first cat, as if to say "my turn now". He was wearing little black "saddlebags" containing little foil bags, plus a note saying "feed me", so I opened one of the packets for him. It had a moist puck of wet food, and he chowed down quite happily.

There was an orange girl that, even in the dream, looked a lot like my former girl Monkey. She was lounging in an open drawer, and next to her was a skein of yarn the same color as her, which I snagged to bring home.

There was a sleek black cat lounging on the top level of a cat tree, well out of reach for pets but supervising. Not sure if boy or girl; somehow I knew that the fluffy black was a boy and the orange was a girl, but this one had no vibes.

And lastly there was a calico, white with patches of black and reddish orange and also yellowish orange; the oranges were slightly metallic looking. She reminded me of koi fish. Very pretty, but I didn't get a chance to pet her.

(This was an excellent dream and I'm glad I remembered so many details 💜)

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ysobel @ 2025-11-04T23:41:00

2025-11-05T08:46:39Z

Had a birthday, so did an Excursion to several of the local places that give free stuff. Some of them are good for a month, but it's funner to do it on the day. Sushi place has a big wheel you can spin; I got chopsticks (nice ones, not the disposable ones), which was funny because I'd also purchased lunch for takeout (they do an amazing calamari) and they asked if I needed chopsticks, to which I said no because we had some at home, and then they brought me to spin the wheel... I also got ice cream and an Insomnia Cookies deluxe, and the person also gave me a purple pen and a sticker.

Am I ridiculous for getting excited about free stuff? Probably. Do I care? Nah. The benefit of getting older is shedding the fucks you would otherwise give.

I also got myself a tuxedo cake from Costco. I'm not going to eat it all myself, that's more cake than I can eat, but dang is it good.

Other things:

Went to a concert Sunday, Itzhak Perlman and a klezmer group, doing a tour as a 30th anniversary celebration of the PBS special In The Fiddler's House. It's my first time seeing Perlman doing a non-violin-solo classical-music concert, but also he's fricking 80 and probably enjoys not having to be the only person onstage.

I finally got around to signing up for Apple TV, and started watching Murderbot. (I've read the books already.) Is very good. I haven't finished the Doctor Whos yet (mid season 2), and I have to do so much shit for my mom's situation that I can't allow myself to just watch tv all day.

(I've lost access to mom's MyChart because it turns out proxy access expires and has to be renewed, but mom can't log in -- not just at her internet-less home but literally anywhere; they introduced 2FA that sends a code to the email address she can't access because google wants 2FA to the cell phone that doesn't get texts -- and can't seem to call anyone other than me. I don't know if they take verbal permission given over the phone anyway. This whole situation is ughhhhh.

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Duolingo alternatives

2025-10-28T22:22:36Z

Found an article with suggestions and am noting for future checking-out. This isn't my personal recommendation, but if any of y'all have used these, feel free to comment.

* Drops ("Language Learning Games: Drops"). Mostly vocabulary rather than full sentences. Free accounts limited to 5min/day. Paid upgrade available. Company also has apps for specific languages incl Korean, Tagalog, and others

* Busuu. No time limits for free accounts, at least. Paid upgrades available.

* Memrise. Free plan is more vocab than full sentences. Grammar lessons require paid.

* Babbel. Exclusively paid r/th freemium. Mostly just European languages.

* LingoDeer. Has Asian and European languages - there is also a games app for Japanese, Korean, Spanish, French, Chinese and German. Mostly paid.

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Doctor Who nitpick

2025-10-27T01:07:14Z

I'm up to s2 e3 in my rewatch.

...and ok. In e1, the TARDIS, with those inside, accidentally shrinks. The Doctor and companions are the size of an inch. They go outside, where they realize that instead of a planet with anaconda-sized earthworms, they're on normal Earth as tiny creatures. Shenanigans ensue.

At the end of the serial, they -- of course -- get back to the TARDIS and get everything back to normal. And as part of this, the (mini) Doctor grabs a (full size) seed of wheat, which he brings inside as a way of measuring progress: as the TARDIS returns to normal, the grain of wheat shrinks from apparently huge to, well, the appropriate size for a grain of wheat.

Except that /doesn't fucking make sense/.

When the TARDIS first shrank, so did everything inside. People, their clothes, everything. Presumably embiggening works the same. So why is the seed excepted? By the logic of the miniaturization, the seed should have remained the same relative size, becoming a huge-ass seed.

*blinks in confusion*

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DW S1 E28

2025-10-21T00:40:46Z

...Ian just did a Vulcan Death Grip. *squints*

(also my dryer has fantastic timing. Dramatic scene ends with "let him die", dryer promptly tootles a cheerful triumphant tune...)

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ysobel @ 2025-10-15T17:25:00

2025-10-16T00:42:52Z

Watching Old Who, my brain keeps wanting to treat it as a ttrpg. "No don't split the party!" and "oop I guessed he rolled a 1 there" and "tha what you get for not doing a perception check" and such.

Also seeing the early Daleks makes me think of Daleks telling scary campfire stories. "AND THEN" (waves flashlight under "face") "SUD-DEN-LY THE DOC-TOR." (Other Daleks shriek and flail in terror) ...or Daleks telling baby Daleks "BE-HAVE OR THE DOC-TOR WILL COME". Are there even baby Daleks? Hmmm.

Also ... is it ever explained why everyone speaks English?

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ysobel @ 2025-10-12T19:47:00

2025-10-13T03:04:14Z

*wheezes with laughter*

In my DnD group, we just intentionally triggered a trap, dropping nine Intellect Devourers, which are tiny brains on four legs.

My character, an owlin monk with more chipperness than sense, was first in initiative; she exclaimed "brain puppies!", and tried petting one. It was amenable so she scooped it up for a good cuddle.

Character who was second in initiative, whose player is physically in the room with me, did the same. (The game is online via foundry and discord voice chat, but one person is local and my internet is better than hers.)

My DM /absolutely/ did not see this coming...

(Edit: for non-DnDers, this is roughly like seeing a herd of hungry grizzly bears, going "eee cute and fuzzy", and trying to cuddle one. If not friend, why friend shaped, amirite? Oh and you're covered in meat juice. And they all basically just want to eat you.)

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Misc stuff

2025-10-07T05:12:32Z

1) finally got around to subscribing to BritBox -- partly because I've been wanting to binge Poirot, partly because they have the old Doctor Who (which I've seen scattered episodes of but not even a quarter), partly because I'm grumpy at Disney/Hulu for raising prices. Britbox should keep me happy for a while though. And when I finish the 26 seasons of Old Who and 13 seasons of Poirot, it'll probably be somewhere around 2050... lol

2) I'm kind of annoyed that not all of Doctor Who is available right now. D+ has the Ncuti Gatwa ones, but nothing else. I own the first few seasons of New Who, which is rewatch for me, but when it was first airing I stopped having access partway through Matt Smith, and I haven't seen Peter Capaldi or Jodie Whittaker at all. Obviously I can watch out of order, but. Grump.

3) My current headcanon for Phantom of the Opera is that Erik is some flavor of asexual. He wants Christine as a bride, but it's a very child-ish "marrying means you're together forever" attitude, and if he knows newlyweds sleep together, he's oblivious to that being anything other than cuddling. He doesn't take advantage of Christine when she's down in his lair. And the sequence of "Either be with me forever or your boyfriend dies" "What if I kiss you?" "... ... ... ok you can leave" fits in, because in my head he's like "??? is this sex? Gross???" This amuses me way too much somehow...

4) I've pretty much decided to quit Duolingo when I hit 4000, which is in a bit over a month. The content is getting more irritating and while I am a little sad to not see how far I go, fuck Duolingo.

5) Am doing a daily drawing challenge (via Marc Brunet on YouTube -- he has a "learn to draw in 30 days" video with prompts. Posting the oh-so-exciting results to my instagram ... if you're desperate to see a bunch of squares and circles and cylinders and stuff, lol.

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ysobel @ 2025-09-23T20:19:00

2025-09-24T03:25:07Z

Me: Dear brain, I know my mom is increasingly fucked, but obsessing in circles about what to do about that isn't helpful.

Brain: Okay what if I just dwell on the time in high school when you tried to be captain of the academic decathlon team, and the faculty sponsor gave y'all "practice questions" to work on that, when you got to competition, turned out to have been that year's actual questions, meaning you looked not just like cheaters but incompetent cheaters that didn't even have the intelligence to make it look plausible

Me: In actual fact, that doesn't help...

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