sanj

*waves* HIIIII!!! I will write back to people soon! Hopefully I can continue to post from an actual computer while I'm at work, because my goodness I type faster when I'm on a keyboard. Another way in which I am an Old, I suppose.

Speaking of which, if you haven't been following me on Twitter -- I got my (first, left) knee replaced about four weeks ago! It'll be a month on Friday. The surgery went very well, the healing is going very well, and PT is so far going very well! I have had so many friends help out in so many ways, I literally cannot list them all here. I returned to work yesterday, and my workplace seems genuinely happy to have me back. I am so blessed with all of this! {millions of little heart emoji]

And I. am. so. exhausted. I'm not used to being physically tired from exertion. I think it's actually pretty good for me -- like I'm sleeping better and so on? -- but goddamn, I am tired. And everything takes twice as long to do, which as someone who already struggles with time? I did not need.

The funkiest part is that my knee actually feels better, even this early on, than it did before the surgery. The surgeon said there wasn't much knee left, so the sensation over the past year that I had been walking on knives was actually accurate and not me just being a hypochondriac -- who knew? Certainly not me!

The left knee kind of went kablooie last summer -- after 30 years of being the "good" knee, it was suddenly worse than the "bad" knee. It took a LONG time to get my program at work* to the place where I could take time off, so I've been walking on two bad knees since last summer. The right knee, which has actually been my "bad" knee for much longer, will have to wait its turn -- but I can already tell I am very glad I had this done, and we'll get to the right knee as soon as we can.

(Look, I inherited a lot of fine qualities from my father. I'm not that angry about the shit-tacular joints. But 5/5 of his children have at least one bionic knee and we're all planning on two. Thanks, Dad.)

*Work, right! I notice that the last time I posted anything significant to DW was right as I was applying for a new job at the hospital. Now I've been here for four years. We did a suicide prevention study for youth ages 10-24 and then out of that we are building an intensive outpatient program for teens. I'm one of the clinicians. I like the kids a LOT. I LOVE "my" kids. And the paperwork is -- hmmm. Theoretically should be doable, but it will not surprise longtime viewers of this show that I am struggling mightily with it. Just gotta figure it out. That's the short version.

Meanwhile I've got to go learn a few lines of Torah for my nephew's bar mitzvah. I am very excited to be asked to read. I'm not letting him down for anything, but my Hebrew is back at "The fish is swimming in the juice" on Duolingo, so I'm going to need to memorize my little aliyah phonetically. Thus the rest of my lunchtime is spoken for. :)

(Yes, that is a real sentence on Duolingo. I'll put up a screencap later.)

Haven't updated for a while... sorry, again.

I have a lovely new house! I'm so pleased and excited about it and someday when I figure out how to do it I will put a picture on this post of my pretty front room. (I usually either post from my secure work computer or my phone, so this is confusing and I'll ask somebody about it. But the main room has pretty lemony-yellow walls and mostly silver-grey accoutrements (with some inherited beige ones, but they do go) and brightly colored pillows/rugs to tie it together. It looks like a grown-up lives here. My sister and kass are largely responsible for the decorating, but everything in here is my taste and my decision and I really like it.

So that's the nicest thing. So many of you helped me get this place and I am so, so grateful. ( Other stuff, some less nice. )

Who's had a self-motivational system that works for you? I'm especially talking to you ADHDers out there, but I'll take anything that works. I do do pretty well with lists and have brought back the Giant White Board that got me through college.

Also, if anyone local wants to meet me during the daytime for a walk around campus or a trip to the Y to go swimming, let me know!

Just catching up a little on some RL health stuff:
( TW for talk about bariatric surgery )

YOU GUYS. This is SOOOOOOO GOOOOOOD.

No Less Unthinkable (79437 words) by rageprufrock
Chapters: 3/3
Fandom: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Summary:

In which Katsuki Yuuri fights a losing battle with chronic anxiety, the quadruple Salchow, and his own judgment four drinks in — but wins the war.

Very, sincerely, NSFW. Really long. Warm and funny and real and absolutely worth your while.

So I've been percolating for a while about putting together a little video or podcast series aimed primarily at tweens/teens on mental health -- what going to therapy is like, what's happening in your brain when you have depression/anxiety/whatever, how to learn to balance caring for yourself and caring for others, healthy relationship boundaries, weed, cutting, sexuality, that kind of thing.

This is my passion, honestly -- I love giving people the tools they need to help themselves, and the earlier the better. (And I actually know some young persons who would probably help me make certain the content is helpful and not boring.) And I feel like this is a thing I can do to actually help, if not the current situation, then at least to help the next generation survive the current nonsense and maybe can get to do better.

So I'm just spitballing, literally writing this down for the first time. I think I want to do videos because my audience (hey, kids!) is more likely to find them than a book or a blog. I know how to create a podcast, and I do know video editors (hi, vidders!) but I am thinking about how to present the content. Definitely not my circular nun-in-her-forties-looking face talking into a camera. I love the style of things like CGP Grey or Crash Course, but have no notion of how much work that would actually be... certainly Crash Course has a mountain of people working on it, so that style is likely too ambitious. But you get it: edutainment.

Here I am once again putting the cart before the horse, anyway, since no matter what I need to create the content. SO. What are peoples' thoughts on what the topics should be?

What's the thing you wish someone had told you about your brain, your self-care, your boundaries, your attitude, whatever, way before you figured it out in therapy at 25/35/45 years old??

I'm definitely going to start with "so you're gonna go see a therapist." :)

Haven't been much of myself lately, what with the Nonsense growing and spreading across the wasteland of the US government. I'm crankily tweeting and signing petitions, and then I try to just focus on doing what good I can in the community where I live. So it's mostly been work, sleep, blearily check Twitter, work, hug a local friend or two, and generally stumble around much like a person in deep mourning. Which I am, I guess. But I don't think I have anything new to say on this that hasn't been said. It's a shitty situation and we as a nation are running out of time and opportunities to stop it from becoming exponentially shittier. (Message/email me if you can't figure out my Twitter handle and you want it.)

So there's that.

It turns out that when I am in deep distress, I tend to return to very old, foundational fandoms for comfort. After 9/11, for example, I suddenly read all the Star Wars fic I could find. (And that was back during the height of Master/Apprentice, so there was plenty!)

Apparently right now I am reliving eighth grade and marinating in the Pern universe. The good (okay, better) parts, not the later novels where Anne McCaffrey was clearly being imprisoned alive or something so that they could continue to print out fanfiction of her work for cash money. (Seriously, after Nerilka's Story the prose style isn't even close to the same - the contrast is stark as fuck and in another universe I wrote a thesis or something about it, but whatever.) (They did this to a queen (?) in a classic Doctor Who episode -- ellen_fremedon will know the one I mean. ANYWAY.)

ANYWAY. I seem to be kind of telling myself Harper stories in my head? Robinton/Menolly/Sebell, because *of course* they are my original OT3? Would anybody read that shit if I even wrote it? Does anybody still have passionate feelings about Harpers? Does anybody care if I utterly ignore everything published after The White Dragon, and probably go AU from after Dragonsinger? Does anybody even know what I'm talking about?

Yeah, my brain is in full-on escapist mode. I'm doing the work of being a mindful citizen, but I'm also taking this time before we have to actually literally pick up pitchforks to have some fun and play with a thing that is giving my inner fourteen-year-old a bit of joy.

Put in a placeholder for my Yuletide letter, and then just pasted in my main URL for my Yuletide signup.

So here's the URL and I will dig up and put it on the admin page where they keep that sort of thing.

http://sanj.dreamwidth.org/501812.html

YAY Yuletide! I am excited by my prompt. :)

FOUR HOURS OF SLEEP. TWELVE HOUR SHIFT.

Brain, why you gotta be like that?

Hoping pushing through today will reset my brain to normal-sleepytime levels.

So last weekend somebody saw where I had foolishly left my wallet on my car seat after a late-shift snack run. And then they threw a rock through my passenger side window and took said wallet. This now makes two stolen hubcaps, two busted taillights, and a busted window since I moved here in December 2013. So I'm moving!

I'd been ogling possible house-buying up in the northern part of the county anyway. Most of my local friends and my preferred mechanic/vet/grocery store/library/everything is up that way. But I need a bit more clean-up on my credit before I can qualify for one of those spiffy first-time-homebuyer mortgages. I was going to wait it out where I was, but (a) money is consistently super-tight and (b) damn, did I mention the vandalism??

So I am moving May 30th to a cute 1970s-era vacation cabin which has been converted into a largish efficiency. (With a full bath, booya.) I got a great deal which will include rent and all the utilities, even cable -- which gives me a chance to actually pay some old bills and jack up my credit rating. It's not the Taj Mahal, but I have definitely lived in worse. The neighborhood can't be beat, and the landlord occupies the house next door.

However, this means I have to roughly halve my possessions into "keep," "store someplace fuck where," and "sell on Craigslist/donate in a panic" right freaking quick. Ack. I could just set all this shit on fire, but I let my renter's insurance lapse, so probably not.

Also, does anybody know -- what are the right kind of curtains to put on those hotel-room-style track things?

I have here a truly lovely Yuletide story written just for me!!

beatitude
http://archiveofourown.org/collections/yuletide2014/works/2832671

Dorothy Sayers-Lord Peter Wimsey Mysteries, Peter/Harriet, post-Busman's Honeymoon, with bonus awesome Bunter being extra awesome.

It really IS the most wonderful time of the year!!