My neurologist suspects I had a syncope related altered mental status. He also set up an EEG to see wassup. We're starting with my question of whether I might have had a seizure last week and ruling out a few basics. ER already ruled out tumor, stroke, and drunkenness, lol. Guess we'll see where this goes, probably nowhere. I've only ever fainted once before and it was really different than this.
I've written more here and deleted it three times. I'm really scattered from an earlier pain spike that caught me off guard, can barely think. Just really glad I got my wallet back intact from a Walgreens nearly two hours after I left it on a checkout counter. Spazzing out on Lexx videos. If I get nothing else done today but a nice supper cooked and a load of jeans in the wash, I'm calling it a success.
Taking a brain break, but that doesn't mean I'm slacking.
A couple of sentences that got written yesterday during a 2100 word sprint-
What none of us knew back then was that I was flailing through a cognitive chaotic fog, and, sadly, common ignorance of the time branded kids like me as purposefully defiant and difficult.
and
Back then it wasn't about trying to identify the problems a child might be having, but enforcing behaviors.
Sounds so formal, doesn't it? I'm still LOLing at the rabbit story. You guys are not going to believe the rabbit story. Here's a hint.
I really admire Jenny Lawson, especially on days I can barely move my hands. I've been watching her since before she published, watched her go through some hairy flare ups and surgery stuff, and I watched the world change when she came out about depression and the closets full of secrets we all keep. I watched her deal with severe social anxiety and opening up to the public about her family and work history, and every time I opened her page I was thanking God I wasn't alone.
I was talking to Scott yesterday in the car on the way to pick up burrito about some of the stuff I've been able to get written out, and what a drag it is for me to have to labor through all my angst, but going back and reading it in compact little stories after I've taken a break is very *wow*. I wrote that. (This pic clicks to a funny book review that also got me through a really bad day.)
I fell through every crack. I've been legally judged in a hearing as having a cognitive disability, complicated with severe depression and equally severe physical challenges. I reached a point where I nearly gave up and prepared to disappear forever.
Three people saved me from giving up- Jenny Lawson, Chris Hardwick, and Wil Wheaton. Those click to the books that changed my perspective and helped me figure out how to kick my butt back into gear, in case you need some road maps yourself. I have this shirt, click the pic if you want one, too.
I also thank my favorite chicken for getting me through my darkest hour. She's very old in this picture.
And I thank Tony's Snarkalecs twitter gang for keeping me 'out there' instead of curling back up in my dark cave all alone. (Another click to a funny book review. You're welcome.)
I have never felt better about my whole life than I feel right now, and that's making my coffee more awesome. Plus I have gotten so much encouragement on twitter that I truly never expected, certainly didn't plan on, you guys gotta know you make me float. Oh yeah, no, there's no Harry Potter stuff in here, I was making an allusion because it seemed like it made a good title. Love you guys.
I'm going thru one of my weird euphorias again, now that I know what those are. To me it mostly just feels like an energetic high where I don't feel like sleeping or eating and I'm in love with everything and it doesn't take much to whirl my brain, like colors and sounds. When I get like this I can run youtubes over and over and over and over and go into a weird hypno-trance while I do other work.
Once in awhile someone asks me why I don't fix up my blogs to look more professional, and quite recently someone *cough* politely *cough* let me know there were places where I could pick up website tools real cheap, yadayada.
I have already spent $3000 on my web empire getting exactly what I want, even if it looks like it's still in bits and pieces, because it is. I KNOW this doesn't look professional, but bloggers nowadays don't understand that I think they look like they are being channeled more and more into preset parameters, like cattle through a chute. When I first started playing on the internet, I built my very first set of pages from scratch. When I made my very first blog on Xanga I tore it apart rebuilding the codework till I literally wrecked the preset frames. I have accidentally sent entire blogs and forums whirling through space and time because I'd forget to close my code after a motion command on a gif or word. (Many blogs have built in fail-safes for stuff like that, the fun is gone now...) I originally built my Lexx blog on dialup that was so slow I couldn't pull up my own page to see it until I opened it up on a college network, and. it. looked. awesome. It was like a glossy fan magazine come to vibrant life, with scrolling actor links and the Lexx flying right across the page, and pages and pages of interactive STUFF.
What people are seeing now is stripped out blogs that have been rewritten by my hosts onto new servers. Yeah, I could have moved everything to wordpress, but if you've never really designed your own stuff, you have no clue how truly restrictive wordpress is. Blogger allows me to keep using scripts, but wordpress completely obliterates scripts and all java, and even auto-strips out certain regular code now. Sadly, Xanga has migrated to wordpress servers, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed we get the awesome internal tracking and mobile support that we used to have.
How many of you remember the geocities days? I miss geocities so bad. Yeah, it could look pretty crappy, but it was exciting and FUN. WordPress isn't *fun*. Blogger is sorta fun because I can still run my cute little sparkly mouse code, but google ripped that old profile out and replaced it, and then they took over youtube, and while I'm adapting and even thriving again, it's just not like the old days where I got to make all the decisions about everything you saw on my pages. Tumblr might be where I wind up going next, but only because I can actually see ALL the code that builds the page.
My dotcom is a reflection right now of my frustration at 'progress' in blogging. It is my sloppiest blog, and difficult to read unless you subscribe to a reader or email updates. It's basically a placeholder so no one else can get the dotcom. You know what? What it looks like right now isn't going to stop the traffic once it becomes a thing. I may be putting announcements and links on that blog you can't find anywhere else in my plethora of web presence, and it just may be the first place people go once I'm published if they don't have a clue I do all this other stuff.
It doesn't matter if my blogs don't look real slick, and it certainly doesn't bother me that people passing by in general probably think I'm a few cookies shy of a dozen. Professional me is an aspie who remembers where she came from. Professional me still likes the fun stuff. Blogs are like cars or motorcycles or Bluebird buses, you can pimp them any way you want, and what I want is what it looks like inside my head. Sometimes flipping through monotone blogs with straight lines reminds me of seeing a jillion white Chevy Luminas on the road. They might look like slick little stormtroopers zipping down the highway, but they're all the same. I know some of my blogs presently look like used cars that have seen better days, or like a college kid's dorm room, but this is just a small part of what's coming, if I get my way. I'm crossing my fingers I get a little money in so I can do what I really wanna do online.
I wanna caress your brains and let you know you're not alone in the long, dark nights and sad, lonely days. I'm out here, too.
