i hear the voices when I'm dreaming

Back on prednisone (at the advice of the FOP doctors). It's helping enough to be worth it buy i still hate the side effects

Also this has been a rough couple days. Outside temps >100, three hour power outage on the day that was 115, one of my penguin pillows disappeared from the apartment laundry facility, chewing and talking are both still fatiguing, and had a hellish night last night (I'd wake up because my feet were hurting because the replacement I was using for the missing pillow was too hard, so I'd use the sling that I sleep on to raise my hips to take pressure off my feet, but then that makes my thigh hurt, so I go back down, which makes my feet hurt ... getting snatches of sleep in between wasn't very effective)

and my brain is being a jerk, in that I keep craving food that I can't eat (either too large, like cherry tomatoes and grapes, or too much biting/chewing, or both, like popcorn). Plus there's the naggy "eat the Proper Foods! no sugar!" voice yelling at me for wanting things like Jamba Juice and puddings and other limited-chewing items

I hate shark week and feeling like a roto-rooter has been at my uterus. I hate my commode chair not working and hate NuMotion for how long it's taking to get fixed (and also for calling me at fucking 8 fucking 30 yesterday to say the tech we had an appointment with that day wouldn't be there) and if the appointment gets postponed again I am going to just call up and goatscream at them (okay probably not). I hate that whoever's fault the delay has been won't actually be affected I hate being tech support for my mom. I hate that the choral manager has decided that tracking attendance during zoom rehearsals will be done by putting our name in chat to everyone. I hate that I can't get a leaf that fucking looks like I want it to. I hate that I can't really knit easily any more. I hate that nothing comes out like I wand it to. I hate that I can't decide what to do with my AC island. I hate that Nintendo fucked up my pocket camp game --

...see, you can link a pocket camp game to a Nintendo account for things like cloud save and restoring to new device. I had two games, one on my phone and one on my tablet. In setting up the tablet I accidentally linked the wrong Nintendo account, and fixing it ... well, I assumed that "unlink account / delete save data" meant unlink the account from the device and clear the restored game off the device. Turns out it means unlink the account from pocket camp entirely and delete the cloud-saved data, to the point that I couldn't access the game on my phone because it just gave a "account has been deleted" error message. So ... now I have one game and a lot of crankiness.

-- and yes I blame them because the wording was stupid. I hate that I have to fucking sleep on my back and I hate how hard it is to get to sleep and I hate that one of my morning aides has a schedule that means I have to get up an hour early two days a week. I hate that I can't remember anything any more and I can't do anything any more. I hate that all I have is complaints. I hate that getting all the out didn't actually fix anything. I hate myself and my body and my brainweasels and the fact that I haven't made anything of my life. I hate fucking gratitude shit even though I know it's probably healthier mentally.

:glares at the universe:

Okay, so there are things I don't hate. Yahtzee and Monkey and Loki. My roommate, who is awesome. james for a super awesome Halloween card. All the Halloween stuff in acnh. Y'all, even though it still sometimes baffles me that y'all bother putting up with me (but I'm glad you do). Nutella. The fact that it's October so I can break out my collection of Halloweeny earrings.

...but right now that's like 10% and the rageflail is 90%...

The last few nights I have been ... super exhausted. More than usual.

I tend to go to bed on the early side (usually around 6 or 6:30 when I can) but that's comfort as muchas anything else -- my tailbone and back and hip are all quite cranky by dinner time. Bed is comfy. I usually spend a few hours doing stuff, either Netflix or games or reading or coloring or browsing Ravelry, before going to sleep.

(This is of course crappy sleep hygiene but I don't fucking care. Especially since I listen to music going to sleep, to keep anxiety nrainweasels at bay, so can't just ditch the tablet.)

Normally I will go to sleep -- or, at any rate, stop faffing about and lie with my eyes closed listening to music -- starting around 11 or so. On bad anxiety nights it can be more like 1 or 2. Sometimes it feels like I'm trying to get a toddler into bed, except the toddler is in my head; no matter how tired I am, my brain just does not want to go to sleep. I think a little bit of it is finally being comfortable (I can do more in my chair but it's constant discomfort at best even when it's not bad enough to be pain), and some of it is not wanting to dream (I can have some high-anxiety dreams), and some of it is not wanting tomorrow to come quite as soon.

Night before last, I couldn't keep my eyes open, so I decided to listen to audiobooks. I was listening to a new one for maybe half an hour before I started losing track -- when I'm drifting off to sleep I will have gaps where I'm not aware of a loss of focus but the audiobook skips ahead without warning -- so I switched over to watership down, which has become my default going-to-sleep book. (The narrator has a soothing British voice, I know the story, it's very compartmentalized (in the sense that A happens and then B happens and then they tell a story and then C happens and then they tell another story, and it sometimes refers back or makes connections but mostly things are very separate, which means if I miss a portion I don't feel too lost.) My idea was to put it on a one hour sleep timer, which would get me to around 9, and then I'd switch over to music and go to sleep properly.

I didn't make it through the hour. I made it maybe 15 minutes.

Mind you, Saturdays I usually sleep in, with my aide coming around 11. And I did *not* wake up before she got there. So that means I was sleeping for about 15 hours? I mean, I woke up here and there during the night, but mostly asleep.

And then Saturday night I was super tired. Again/still. And my eyes hurt. Again/still. So I rewound WD to the last bit I remembered (before hazel and fiver went in to see the chief rabbit) and listened a bit, then switched to music. Probably asleep by 9 or 10.

Sundays are a day when no one wants to work mornings, and the one willing aide has a client she works with until noon or so, so unless I can wheedle someone into working, I get up around noon-thirty. Most days I wake up earlier and do iPad stuff until she gets here. Today, I was still solidly asleep. So again, somewhwre around 15 or 16 hours. It was a bit happier -- there were at least two times when I was awake enough to put on music to go back to sleep -- but still.

Usually, Sunday nights I'm pretty perky, as far as these things go, because usually I've gotten enough sleep. So I usually spend several hours doing stuff on the tablet before sleeping. ...tonight? It's 9 (well, was when I started writing the entry), my eyes hurt and don't want to stay open, and I just want to go to sleep.

...

I don't know how much of this is from the shitty air we've been having (fingers crossed that we actually do get rain this week!), how much is fighting off some virusy thing that I don't otherwise have symptoms of, how much is depression (except sleeping lots isn't among my usual symptoms), and how much is whatever. (I have a mosquito bite on my finger, clearly I therefore have Ebola or something, right?). But it's just ... weird.

This was ... a rather busy weekend.

Yesterday, one of the choirs I'm in had a retreat 9-3. I didn't go the full time (I don't do well getting up earlier than 9) but the first hour is social stuff anyway, so I got there around 10:30 and had only missed some of the singing. And a) one of the pieces is one I've done before, and b) I'm a damn good sightreader, so I caught up pretty easily. But I came home and zoned out -- didn't even have enough brain to watch Netflix.

Today, my church hosted a Contemplative Practices retreat in the afternoon. There were five different types of c.p. -- everything from centering meditation to soul collage to spiritual direction -- and when you signed up you picked two as things you'd like to explore or learn about. It was good, but intense. And I did soul collage (where there are a bunch of cut out images and you pick ones that call to you -- she had us pick only two, a background and s foreground -- and make a collage and then there are some journaling questions where you can explore what the card means and what it is offering you and stuff like that) and the card I made is insisting that it is one of a triptych, because it's fire based and it needs a water card and a life card. (I can't tell whether it also wants a fourth one, but I guess I will find out.) The person running it is hosting a longer session on oct 9, and I may have to sign up for that.

I am completely exhausted, and tomorrow won't help (mondays are rehearsal nights, therefore late), but it's the good kind of happy. Like when Yahtzee comes home after a walk, and he splats on the tile floor, panting, with his tongue flopping out and a big grin on his face.