i hear the voices when I'm dreaming

I'm having a struggle between wanting to draw more -- easiest at night because I don't have to literally hold the tablet -- and the fact that I have too many games on my tablet.

Several are idle/tycoon style games, which mostly is just checking in once and upgrading things, but sometimes they have time-limited events that call for more frequent attention. Several are "do a few things daily" where there's a streak tracker so I don't want to miss a day. Many, including games in the previously listed categories, have occasional events that grab my attention.

Compounding this: sometimes games/apps get to a stage where if I'm not in their I don't really care, but once I open I get sucked in, either "well it's not much more effort to [do a quest | collect a thing | start production] so I might as well" and/or "oh this limited-availability thing is so cute I have to do the extra stuff to get it"... which means if I try to just do the minimum required effort to keep streaks going, I almost never keep to that.

I go to bed around 6:30 or 7, and 7-8 tends to be "check in briefly on most apps, do NYT crossword, start puzzle page or solitaire", 8-9 is mostly stuff around getting settled into bed for the night, 9-10 is "solitaire run [10 varieties] and puzzle page stuff", 10-11 is "Duolingo and one or two of the idle games", 11-12 is "remaining idle games, finch [mh app] checkin, more solitaire because I seem to be addicted", 12+ is "last check/collection for idle games, convince toddler brain it's time to go to sleep".

...there is no space in there for watching things on my tablet, for doing art, or for reading. Especially since it is easier (and more tempting) to just pop out a few more solitaire games than it is to struggle with my perfectionism and inner critic.

I know I could survive dropping several apps, especially the idle games. They're cute but not really ... I don't know if 'productive' is the right word because fuck productivity culture anyway, but ... having an extra virtual room with cute themed cats (or whatever) doesn't really add much to my life? Even if seeing them gives me a strong 'zomg need' feeling. But I have ridiculous FOMO (what if they do an event with the Best Prize Ever, and I miss it) plus a pathetic feeling that daily streaks are the only 'achievement' I'm really capable of any more.

An obvious answer is to do art during the day, but I really can't use the tablet easily sitting up. Obvious answer B is to spend daytime time in bed drawing, but as it is I'm only "up" for 8 hours as it is, and I find myself really not wanting to reduce that further.

And some of this is probably perfectionism self-sabotage -- "I don't have time to try" means I haven't failed yet, don't have anything for my inner critic to hate.

But. Meh. Don't know how to change ... *waves hand vaguely upwards* ... this

the older I get, the more I dislike the Night Of Loud Irregular Noises. Grumpy face.

Also my brain decided it would be awesome to literally cry about not being able to hug. (I can receive hugs, awkward sideways ones anyway, but haven't had the arm mobility in years.) This isn't a new thing ... I forget exactly when I lost which joint, but it's probably a least ten years since I could do a one-armed wraparound in response to awkward sideways hugs, longer since I've been able to do frontal hugs. So I don't know why it hit last night. Maybe partly because in my rewatch of Bones (up to season 7 by today; I just hit the ep with the mention of FOP) there was a bit where Brennan ends up lying curled up against Booth with his arms around him, and I started thinking about what it would be like to be held like that, especially by someone who a) is extremely attractive and probably good-smelling, b) has strong arms and a strong protective instinct, and c) cares deeply for you. But the later crying was less about being held and more about doing the holding, with a side of "I'm a horrible pet parent because I can't snuggle or scritch" ... so idk.

I got notified earlier this week of a Covid exposure Saturday (someone I was around who was symptomless but later tested positive) so my brain then started flailing about whether emotional crash -- and/or repetitive yawning, which I kept doing yesterday -- was a potential symptom. Tested today and it was negative.

The weather here has been hot ... triple digits for the first 10+ days of July, including some 110s. I objected to the universe but that made no difference.

In other news I am planning on going to visit Yahtzee this weekend. (He "retired" to live with his puppy raisers, who live an hour or so away.) He is a Very Good Boy and I miss him, though my aides probably don't miss the poop cleanup, lol. I will probably miss him more after this visit because it'll just remind both of us of What Used To Be. I'm just hoping he isn't too mad at me.

Fuckit

So I had half a moment of feeling okay about stuff -- having enough aides for a change --

Only the really cool person developed major medical issues, and one of the other new people is having back problems, and do shifts are falling back on my roommate again, and some of them she literally can't do, and also the -- I was feeling overwhelmed and couldn't do recruiting, and my dad is able to put out advertisements and get names but the follow-up -- explaining shifts, arranging interviews, arranging training) fell for a while onto the person who does my scheduling (another thing I originally did but couldn't) but she can't do they long term and my roommate doesn't want to and I'm not sure what to do

and there's the issue of who stays here overnight if my roommate takes a trip; a bunch of roommates ago, my roommate found replacement and paid them, and then for a long while K would stay but she's not really talking to me any more (the January issues and subsequent taking her off the schedule pretty much burned that bridge), and I can't stay alone but I don't know--

Anyway so I'm back to crying pathetically yaaay (fml)

I'm frustrated by ... so many things.

By my lack of spoons -- I rarely get anything done during the day and yet I'm utterly exhausted at the end of the day, which sounds normal except that by the time I'm up and dressed and everything it's like 11:30, and I go back to bed a whole 7 hours late. First bedtime is for comfort not sleep, but I utterly *crash*. Seven hours! I used to be on a 9am-9pm day!

By my sleep schedule -- if I actually go to sleep at 7 I'll be impossibly awake later on, so I don't, but by the time I'm ready to sleep through the night, my brain has gone into "too tired to sleep" cranky toddler mode. And it takes hours to get to sleep, and I never feel rested. I don't even remember what that feels like.

By my brain -- lack of executive function plus time blindness means I have so many things hopelessly backlogged, including just simple fucking emails. And I have so many ideas for things I'd like to train Phoebe on, but always I either don't have energy, or don't think of it when I have someone around to help, or I just can't fucking ask because it's not urgent (not in the same way as needing the bathroom) and I don't want to ~bother~ them.

By my hands -- I've lost so much dexterity and grip strength, I can barely do anything, plus they hurt all the time but especially at night.

By my perfectionism -- I haven't done art stuff in ages, because it always looks wrong and I give up on it way too fast. I can follow tutorials okay but even that is of course imperfect; things I do from scratch rarely work, or the different elements don't match up, or the proportions are wrong, or a small part is lovely and the rest is trash, or...

By my lack of aides -- I'm down to three, one who does the scheduling plus two shifts, the other two who split the remainder. I need more, but no one is applying, and the campus job-posting site has been changed to only corporation recruitment, and I don't know how else to get people. And this is a constant fucking thing. I was good for a while, with like six or more people, but a lot of them either graduated or got other jobs; I'm never permanently set on aides, and always have to be recruiting and searching (and if I find oeople, training them)


I wish I could just... not have issues

my head feels like dull cotton

my finger hurts and is kind of puffy, my thumb hurts

I have too much shit and not enough energy

bodies are ridiculous

...also wow; I had a halfway decent hydration habit (including a liter of water between dinner and bed) and I didn't keep it up at camp and now my stomach is going "no that's way too much water ahhh". So I'm not just recovering from the camp and from Friday, but I'm not back to "normal".

* Last three days have woken up with a migraine -- I'm assuming it's one multi-day migraine rather than three successive ones. Imitrex is magic, but I've still been feeling like crap

* also the last three days, my tongue has been weirdly sluggish, especially in the mornings. I'm slurring words a bit (anything with s comes out more like sh) and one of the days I couldn't turn my tongue sideways, like the left side wasn't responding. It's worse when I lie down, either because of gravity pulling things back or because the pillows might push my head slightly forward. I don't know if this is a migraine thing (it would be a new symptom if so) or related to the FOP flareup or something unrelated

[Edit: not a migraine symptom. Saturday had no migraine on waking but still had the tongue issues.]

* can also feel something in my mouth, below my bottom teeth; there's a ridge/flap that I can prod with my tongue, and it feels puffy on one side (maybe a salivary gland?) and I don't know if it's new/changed or just I never noticed it before.

* the last week or so I have been getting ravenously hungry at night. My meal schedules haven't changed (11, 2:30, 6) but I used to be fine through the night and now I'm very not. I don't have an aide on duty (my roommate is available in case of emergency but I hate bothering her) so I can't check blood sugar to see if that's tanking or whatever, nor eat something snackish. Not sure what to do. (And this is WITHOUT the "count calories and reduce" the endo suggested.)

* speaking of blood sugar, I am completely crap at remembering to have my aides poke my fingers -- I only ever remember when I don't have someone here or right after eating -- so I looked into getting a continuous glucose monitor. Problem A: insurance won't cover it because I'm not on insulin injections. Problem B: I can get one (paying out of pocket) but the only approved site for the sensor is back of the arm, and you can use a smartphone rather than a separate device but either way it looks like it has to be held right in front of the sensor, which I can't do by myself. (Also from what the person I was talking to about it was saying, I gather it has an 8-hour "memory", so scanning it when I go to bed at 9 and then scanning it when I get up at 10:30 means I can't find out what happens overnight...)

grump.

for reasons I can't figure out, I am extremely low energy (to the point where I spend much of my out-of-bed time counting hours to bedtime and idly browsing twitter because I don't have brain for anything else, but even twitter takes all my spoons) and also very bland-food-y (which of course mostly involves carbs, so do I do what sounds good or what I "should" be doing to improve blood sugar?)

had migraine day before yesterday so I don't know whether this is just post-migraine bleh, or if there's something else.

also. Trying to figure out where to store/display digital art. Instagram has become FaceTok and thus pushing videos; twitter is decently easy to post but hard to browse; dw would be great except the interface is awkward (you can't upload as part of the entry process, and the "upload separately and copy html over" is clunky especially for multiple images). I guess tumblr exists, but dunno if anyone uses it any more. Getting my own website space is a pain, plus I'd have to actually code up some sort of gallery view. argh.

(suggestions welcome)

anyway hi I'm still alive sorta /wave/ hugs to all who want them

Can metformin fuck with mood? I asked someone on my med team and she said no, but I'm coping even less well than I had been. So either a) metformin is doing something ungood, b) I'm in less pain (because of upping pain meds) and therefore my brain can devote more awareness to emotional shit, or c) I'm more of a failure (just in general) than I used to be.

I hate being broken.

So fucking exhausted and frustrated-- kinda at "bang head against wall" mood, though I didn't actually.

My sister and niblings are in town for a few days. She's moving here in a few months (yaaaaay) so had stuff to do with finalizingt house purchase etc. It's the first time seeing any of them since January 2020.

...it's been a chaotic few days.

Theory: they'd drive in Tuesday and stay through Sunday.
Reality: hotel reservation shenanigans mean leaving Friday; packing took longer than expected so by 11pm Tuesday the new plan was for them to get up hella early Wednesday.

Theory: my sister had arranged babysitters so that e.g. in the afternoon babysitter 1 could be with youngest kid for nap time, babysitter 2 could be at park with older kiddos and Aunt Me, and my sister could go tour a daycare. Or a babysitter could do dinner with kids while my mom and sister and I went somewhere for Adult Time
Reality: both babysitters canceled last minute (one sick and one exposed) and the kids were melting down and hyper, so my sister was stuck at the hotel getting nothing done except for keeping any of them from killing each other. Needless to say, AT dinner didn't happen.

Adapted theory: I'd go over to the hotel for a bit and say hi, maybe if I'm lucky get a hug from Youngest (who has never met me)
Reality: Eldest was absorbed in Minecraft when not fighting with Middle, who was running around turning the lights on and then off and then on and then off, and while Youngest decided my aide was her new BFF (complete with tears when we left), I didn't merit anything.

Theory: today we'd get together for dinner, probably pizza in the hotel.
Revised theory: pizza in the park, because a friend of my sisters (B) has a kid (O) who was umpiring a softball game (players mostly 7) and invited her to come with Eldest to watch the game and see if Eldest would be interested in softball. And B was okay with it turning into all the kids plus mom and sister and pizza.
Reality: ...oof where to start.

It was cold and hella windy, and I wasn't dressed right.

The pizza places had like 90+ minute wait and also didn't deliver to parks, just street addresses, so plan changed to doing pizza after, but my mom and I didn't find out until we were there

My mom drove me so I couldn't bail without dragging her away

Eldest was more invested in ladybugs than the game

Also. I usually eat dinner around 6, go to bed right after (for comfort), toilet again at 8:30, and then am in bed for good, though sleep time varies. We didn't leave for the park until 5:45. We didn't leave *from* the park until 7. I didn't get into bed at all until 9:20.

Also my mom wanted to stop ON THE WAY at CVS to pick up meds. I said sure but probably not in a very cheerful tone, and really wanted to bang my head against a wall and/or make unhappy shrieking noises. She didn't stop after all.

(do normal people get bang-head-on-wall urges, or is that another mark in the "maybe autistic but well masked" column?)

It is better now that I've eaten pizza, am in bed, and have had an edible. But aaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

I really wish I could just ... install languages into my brain.

I was talking to an aide today about stuff relating to when I was in undergrad, and mentioned the thing where I used to be near-fluent in German but then didn't practice it enough and basically have nothing left but residual pronunciation and a few random words and phrases. Also my last German class was in the 90s anyway so I have no internet terms.

I've tried resurrecting it with casual Duolingo use, but these days I can't remember new stuff easily, especially gender and cases. I'm managing Spanish ok, with two genders and four words for "the" (gender x plurality), but German has three genders (plus plural, though IIRC plural isn't gendered, so it's sort of a fourth gender) and at least four cases (nom gen dat acc) and therefore a fuckton of words for "the" (five unique ones, der die das den dem, but der is masc nom and also fem dat/gen, and den is masc acc and also plural dat) and while I can chant "der die das die, den die das die, dem der dem den, des der des der" all I want, I can't make it stick, and even more I can't make it stuck in practice because I can't remember the gender of nouns to save my life. And Duo treats all errors the same -- ich lese eine Buch [should be ein] is counted as wrong as ich lese ein Apfel -- which isn't fair because I'm pretty sure people would understand what I'm saying with the first one even if it sounds wrong!

But I miss German. And my Spanish is ... okay at understanding written, but weak at generating. Especially if I'm put on the spot; my mind goes blank. And I can't understand fast spoken. And I'm crap at tenses.

Plus I'm goofing off with both Yiddish and Ukrainian on duo, but at some point it will get too hard and I'll stop. And I used to do Japanese, at least able to read hirigana and was working on learning the kanji, but that's gone poof, and I didn't even get to the grammar. And I'd love to be able to learn Korean, but ... at least I had some familiarity with Yiddish alphabet (because Jewish stuff) and Cyrillic (because of the Russian I took in college). I don't need yet another completely different alphabet system.

I haven't done any serious language study in a while, either. One lesson per day on Duolingo, sure. But learning languages takes repetition, all the more so because I can't learn by (hand) writing any more. So I could maybe get my German back if a) I didn't let myself get distracted with other languages, b) I typed stuff up and made neat charts and whatnot, c) I wrote down Every Fucking Vocab Word with its greenery and referred back until it stuck, and ... basically treated it as A Job.

But I'm too lazy and too tired and too braindead for all that.

Sigh.