i hear the voices when I'm dreaming

To be posted to reddit if I can figure out which sub:


My roommate and I -- both pretty much middle aged -- have very different sleep schedules. I don't do mornings well, whereas that's his prime time of day. He loves the sun especially, and likes opening the blinds; not all the way, just a bit, but it's enough for it to wake me up. No matter how much I tell him it bothers me, he just ignores my request and keeps doing it.

Generally he's a good roommate, and he gives fantastic cuddles -- platonic, I promise there's nothing going on between us -- but sometimes it's like he thinks he owns the place and can just expect to do things his way, with no consideration of my needs. He practically walks all over me!

And honestly, sometimes I feel more like his mom than a roommate. For example: He has allergies that make him sniffly and sneezy, and his doctor suggested OTC allergy meds, but did he bother getting them? No. I'm the one that got some for him and I'm the one making sure he takes them. And although he hasn't directly asked me to clean up after him, but he just leaves his shit for me to clean up.

He's not a horrible guy; he's a great listener, he's pretty quiet (except for crying during a 3am existential crisis), he doesn't take up much space, and I like his company. I just don't know what to do about the morning sun thing. If I bring it up, he stares at me like I've grown a third head, and nothing changes.

I don't know if it's relevant, but I know he's adopted. He doesn't talk about the past so I don't know if he has any lingering issues.

(Oh, and he's a cat.)

Health: is kind of on the crappy side of good. Still have fatigue. Still have hand pain, plus fingers are going wonky. Wonkier. (Fun note: one finger is doing a weird click-shift thing when I flex it back, i.e. hyperextension. The hand therapist gave my hand a weird look because apparently that's unusual. Half my finger problems are reduced mobility and half the problems are too much mobility. Only me, lol.: Had headache Sunday and Monday, Also, yesterday my chair decided to Not Tilt for like twenty minutes, while I was at maximum sideways tilt, which meant my back was in screaming agony by the time it decided to behave again.

I did finally break down and get a mask because of air quality issues from fires -- vogmask.com has masks that are good at filtering and also look cool. (I got the rainbow parrot one. If I remember, I'll upload a pic of me wearing it. (I wish DW had Ravelry's photo-upload interface and backend and stuff; it's so *easy* to add pictures there,)) Air quality here hasn't been as bad as Seattle-etc, but visible ash and haze seems to be the new normal for fire season.

Reiki: is still awesome. I'm doing a lot of it, with someone that ... okay, so, some Reiki practitioners just kind of wave their hands above the body (to manipulate energy stuff or whatnot), but others include physical touch, like a very gentle massage, and my reiki person is one of the second sort. Which means even if reiki were just new age mumbo jumbo, the sessions are a way for me to a) relax and n) GET TOUCH. Which is huge. I do not get enough touch (my aides dressing/washing me don't count) and I crave it SO MUCH, especially not being in a romantic relationship. And I still don't know how or why reiki *isnt* just new age mumbo jumbo, but somehow it works. It's not magic, it doesn't cure stuff, but it pain levels and stress levels always go way down after a session.

Oh, and for IHSS purposes it counts as a medical appointment XD

IHSS: had my yearly re-evaluation thing. I was worried they would take away hours. I actually got *more* -- it's up by an hour a day (!!!). Granted, that still leaves gaps where I don't have sides available (it works out to s bit under 7.5 hours a day), but it's a really really good result.

And I am mostly not in an aide crisis any more. At one point I was down to two caregivers -- V doing weekday afternoons and K doing everything else -- but I've hired two more people. S is super awesome and I want to keep her as an aide forever. J is ... 90% awesome and 10% frustrating (she picked some stuff up really quickly but there are other things she just can't get at all, like how carabiners work) but at least she's reliable. I still don't have someone for Sunday mornings -- K gets me up after her other client, which ends up being like 12:30 at the earliest -- but I'm not quite in as much fear about someone getting sick.

However, I am going to have to start searching for a new roommate soon, and wahhh I donwanna. It's annoying and hard and I don't like change wahhh. But current roommate is leaving in December so ... meh.

Pet news: Everyone is still adorable. Yahtzee does not look his age (he still looks and acts four-ish -- he'll he 9 next month wtf). And in huge news, Loki, who has been in a cone since December, is FINALLY back to being a cat rather than a lamp. I have no idea what if anything changed, but he stopped trying to attack his tail through the cone, so last time I was at the vet she let him out to see what he would do and he gave one halfhearted air-chomp in the direction of his tail and spent the rest of the time grooming and then exploring the sink. So we tried taking the cone off and leaving it off, and it's been almost a week now with no blood \o/ I'm not quite declaring complete victory, because I'm kind of waiting for the other show (paw?) to drop, but for now, both of us are a lot happier.

That's enough for now, partly because I should be getting to sleep' but I have part two to write up, including such things as Not-a-job news, crafting updates, design updates, language updates, and other things I'm forgetting.

I am not entirely sure whether this actually happened or whether I dreamt it. If it happened, I was only half awake; if I dreamt it, it was the most realistic dream I had in a while, with no clues that it was a dream (like sometimes I dream of being half asleep but with my arms up over my head, or I'm back in my childhood bedroom)

but

Early this morning, I semi woke when a cat climbed onto me. At first I thought it was Loki because Monkey isn't a climb-on-me cat, but after a bit of responding to headbutts against my hand with sleepy scritching, I opened my eyes enough to see orange, so it was Monkey. She was purring and bumping me - and then *settled down* on my stomach for a while.

I fell back asleep (not hard since I wasn't really awake during this) and later there was no cat, but it was just ... special and magical and happymaking.

Like I said I don't know whether or not it was a dream, but it was an experience regardless, so maybe it doesn't matter?

my brain will not shut up

It's not being productive, just sort of scrabbling around like a trapped animal that has no way to escape but can't stop trying

( content warning - death and pets )

(comments set to not email because right now I cannot cope. you are welcome to leave comments anyway, or not, as you choose, but I don't know when I will see them)

(not that I have a great track record of responding to comments even when I do see them)

So after a very long day involving my normal vet and then the teaching hospital and a bunch of tests and stuff, here's what's going on with Suri.

( details )

So she's back home, but I have no idea for how long. The prognosis is pretty damn poor. And all I can really do is love at her.

(all the love, pretty girl. All the goddamn love in the whole goddamn world.)