- My Chemical Romance released a remastered version of Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge. I managed to resist the lure of the various editions of the vinyl, and only bought the CD and digital download. DAMN. The difference in the songs! Predictably I've listened to nothing but this since Saturday. 

- I booked a haircut! With this stylist! I'm excited and a little nervous, because I haven't had any sort of haircut since early 2020, and even then it was just trimming the split ends. This time I'm going to have my hair cut to bottom bra band length, and ask what they can do to enhance the waviness/curl my hair has developed. 

- The Wegovy is slowly working. I'm losing a pound a week without really changing anything other than eating smaller meals. The "Ooooh, snack! Let's have just a bit more of this because it's so tasty" noise in my head has stopped, which means I'm not constantly thinking about food. Another really odd side-effect (that lots of folks have discussed over on Reddit) is that the urge to impulse shop has stopped. I still windowshop a lot, but I don't buy anything. Weird, but I'm not complaining.
Steroids are fucking magic, yo. They have returned my cat to his normal bitchy emotionally needy self. They have also taken most of the stabbing out of my foot so I can walk without limping, at least while I'm moving around the house. I cheated a bit and put some of the foot cream on my arm because I officially overdid it with the shovelling, and as a result I can now lift a water glass without wincing.

What a country.

Upper third of my yard is now graded and seeded. My daughter came over and helped. She's not getting a lot of hours at work so she has an open invitation to come over and help me move dirt from one place to another whenever she wants to make a few bucks and be given beer and dinner. It works out well for both of us.

Basement guys came back today - they said they figured they had about three hours of work to finish. More swearing in Polish ensued. In the end they were in my basement for eight hours, but they got it all done. They had to build entirely new frames to hang the doors from and there was at least one hardware store trip to replace borked parts in the storm door and BOY HOWDY did they have something to say about that, but everything is now perfect and the basement apartment has functional doors that work and close and lock and everything.

Next step: I got somebody to come over and have a look at finishing the wood work. This consists of:
1. The stairs from the kitchen door to the backyard. Currently about a three foot drop, which I have been climbing up and down but that's not a perfect long term solution. (Especially in winter.)
2. The stairs from the basement apartment into the yard, are flimsy, wobbly, and don't have any hand rails so they are definitely not code. They are also resting on a base of wooden slats that just randomly shift if you put your weight in the wrong spot. I have no fucking idea what Original Contractor was even thinking. They need to be replaced with something that will pass a city inspection and that also will not kill you when you try to use them.
3. I want to put some kind of a sound-proof bench over the sump pump, because that fucker is loud. Also I figure an exposed ginormous battery is possibly a safety hazard of some kind. So the guy who looked at it said they can build something that acts as a solid bench but you can flip the top up if it needs maintenance, which sounds perfect.
4. My original blueprints include a deck on the kitchen roof. That would be really nice if I can swing it, but we'll see how much this all costs. Mainly it would be an additional place for me to grow herbs and stuff so it's in the "nice to have" pile.



CUT FOR GROSS, SERIOUSLY YOU WERE WARNED )

Every time I see my doctor she asks me how the Not Drinking is going and every single time I'm all, FUNNY YOU SHOULD ASK.

- I get to go back on HRT, THANK G-D. This will, of course, be revisited after my next (really soon) MRI, but hallelujah, I'll have some relief from the hot flashes, brain fog, upswing of insomnia, hair loss, and random crying.

- Speaking of insomnia, this week has been rough. Even if I fall asleep at a "decent" time, my sleep is patchy and broken. Add that to the fact that I actually need somewhere around ten hours of sleep, and I've been an incoherent mess all week. Today I feel like I'm mildly drunk, but without the fun part.

[personal profile] minim_calibre and I decided YOLO and paid more money to get MUCH better seats for the My Chemical Romance concert. Did you know you could upgrade tickets purchased from Ticketmaster? I certainly didn't. But hey, a better view of the stage! I'm still sad that I'm going to see my precious cupcakes of bombast only one time on this tour ("only" omg I'm spoiled) but I'll cope. There's feverish speculation in the fanbase that maybe they'll preview songs from an unreleased album, or maybe they'll announce a new album. I love all this speculation, but I also believe none of it.

- Random perfume comment: If you love Goth Club 89 from the now-closed Whisper Sisters, Midnight Toker from Heretic Perfumes is a toned-down version of it. I hate the name, but the scent is lovely.
 (Threat level: MCR lyrics as post titles)

Work is still :: hands :: 

I've talked to some other folks, cone of silence engaged, about how to get better at communication with boss lady. I feel pretty confident now, but who  knows how long that will last. 

One funny thing about all of those conversations: apparently very few people realize how many people I manage. In the writing/design/research ... community at work, the only person who manages more people than me is my boss. Ahahahahaha.

---

The Seattle MCR concert is next month! I had an outfit idea which involves being sleeveless. Cue the Body Image Demons. In an attempt to shut them up, I turned to Tumblr for a pep talk and my G-D did they deliver.  I think my favorite tag responses from reblogs were "I'm not sure if I want to fuck you or be you" and "Not to be a lesbian but omg omg omg omg"

So YES, I will wear my planned outfit and not give a fuck about my flabby arms. My therapist will be very proud of me.

---

There's apparently a goth book club starting up near me! I'm going to do my damndest to attend, because it sounds like a great idea. There's dancing at the venue after the book club is over. Part of me wants to stay for that, but it's all on a Sunday night, so I should probably be a responsible adult and head home after book club. Dammit, I hate being a responsible adult.

the_siobhan: (BOOM)
([personal profile] the_siobhan Jun. 2nd, 2025 09:35 pm)
Workmen arrived at 9:00 this morning to install three (3) doors and finish off the framing of one (1) window. Ostensibly less than a day of work for two people.

Lords, ladies, and gentlethems, it is now 9:30 PM and they just left and only one door and the window are finished. Original Contractor did something funky with the framing of the doorways and nothing is squared properly and so they have to buy some more materials and come back later in the week to finish fixing it.

There was shouting. In Polish I think. They are very clearly not impressed with Original Contractor.

Any vindication I might have felt that Original Contractor was in fact just making it up as he went along is somewhat overshadowed that I have to pay tradie's rates for a second day of work.

the_siobhan: (Brighter Blessed Than Thee)
([personal profile] the_siobhan Jun. 1st, 2025 10:38 pm)
CAT!

Lord Brock is now on prednisone. (I remember the name because it's the same steroid my sister was treated with when doctors first diagnosed her auto-immune disorder.) Two days later he was eating his weight in chicken and four days later he is following me around the house and yelling at me like nothing happened. Complete turn-around. Fingers crossed this is the magic bullet.

HOUSE!

Inching along. Work on getting the walls and doors fixed was delayed by days of rain, but dude promised he'd be here first thing tomorrow morning. Haven't heard from roof guy, probably for the same reasons. I have started calling around for quotes to get the stairs built from the kitchen.

ME!

I have shit feet. They hurt pretty much all the time, but lately they've been extra special painful. So off I hobbled to a podiatrist, who immediately told me I have plantar fasciitis. This is a Latin phrase that roughly translates to "shit feet".

I can't even blame age for this one.

He gave me stretches, a prescription that has to be compounded, and an order to stay off my feet. So far I have managed one of those three things. Eventually I will manage to find a compounding pharmacy in this city that is open more than two hours a week, but not walking is going to be harder.

Hopefully my insurance will pay for orthotics. But I draw a hard line at Birkenstocks.

lil_m_moses: (books)
([personal profile] lil_m_moses May. 31st, 2025 09:55 pm)
Lots more escapism this month. Holy shit, I've already racked up 70 books so far this year, with 16.5 of them being eyes books (as opposed to ears books).

Books Finished
- Valhalla by Tom Holt [Hoopla e-book]
- Blackout by Connie Willis [Kindle]
- Robin by Dave Itzkoff [e-audio]
- The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins [e-audio] (reread)
- Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins [e-audio]
- The Greatest Love Story Ever Told by Megan Mulally and Nick Offerman [e-audio]
- All Clear by Connie Willis [Kindle]
- Believe Me by Eddie Izzard [e-audio]
- The Restaurant at the End of the Universe by Douglas Adams [e-audio] (multiple reread)
- Expecting Someone Taller by Tom Holt [Hoopla e-book]
- Life, the Universe and Everything by Douglas Adams [e-audio] (multiple reread)
-The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents [e-audio] (multiple reread)
- My Man Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse [e-audio]
- You Sexy Thing by Cat Rambo [e-audio]
- Paint Your Dragon by Tom Holt [Hoopla e-book]
- Potatoes Not Prozac by Kathleen DesMaisons [e-audio]

Library DVDs/Streaming Programs Watched
- Resident Alien: S2D3 [1 equiv] (rewatch, now w/ Josh)
- Star Trek: The Next Generation: S7D1 [1]
- Survival of the Thickest: S2 [2 equiv]
- Doctor Who 60th Anniversary Specials [3]
- Moon Knight: D1
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