Week Ending 12/28

Hey, it's me.

Hope you had happy holidays and are looking forward to a Happy New Year. I think we all need one. 

Well, I've had a big week. My anniversary, Yule and J's birthday all in one week. It's been good. 

Every day this month, I've gotten up in the night and looked at the Christmas tree, lite and beautiful, and felt good. I'm going to miss that when we take it down. 

But listen to me, being melancholy, when really I have had a pretty good week. Got some good gifts, spent some good time with family, even got to see a couple of old friends who came down for J's birthday. 

Yeah, all in all, a pretty good week.

Happy holidays

Onward

Week Ending 12/21

Happy Solstice and Joyous Yuletide

So, let's talk about this week. 

For one thing, TMJ pain sucks! Tuesday I was in so much pain I couldn't think clearly. I couldn't really function. By the middle of the day, I was ready to go find any dentist who was open and have him pull out as many teeth as it took to make the pain stop (and if you know how much I hate dentists, you know how extreme that is). 

Fortunately, I didn't do that. Fortunate because the pain really isn't coming from my teeth. It is the muscles in my jaw. I know this because when I relaxed, and those muscles relaxed, the pain went away. (BTW, for those who don't know... cats can do reiki and they're really good at it. Don't believe me? I don't care.)

So, it appears the key to managing this pain is A) not chewing too much and B) relaxing the muscles in my face. Fortunately (I'm using that word a lot), I'm actually pretty good at consciously relaxing muscle groups. It just takes focus to keep it up. 

The bad news is, spending Tuesday in agony pretty much cost me the rest of the week. Pain eats a lot of energy. So, I've spent most of this week resting, recovering and focusing on keeping the pain in my jaw at bay. 

This also involved watching movies. A couple of quick notes about that... 

Legend (1985), the directors cut... while it isn't a Christmas movie, it is actually an amazing Winter Solstice movie (Darkness and Ice trying to cover the world forever, opposed by the Green Man and the Fairy Folk who bring Sunlight to the heart of Darkness and restore the Spring). Seriously, the Director's Cut is a much better movie than the US theatrical release ever was.

Atomic Blonde (2017)... I watched this movie years ago. I remember not liking it or even really understanding it. Watching it again this week... it's actually a great spy thriller.

So, yeah, kind of a lot this week. I'm going back to resting because next week is a big one for me.

So, Happy Holidays folks

Onward

Week Ending 12/14

Hey, it's me...

Well, this has been a week. Spent Monday recovering from last weeks whole hair cut/broken TV entertainment. Then Tuesday... I don't know what happened Tuesday.

I woke up at 4:30 in the morning, gave up trying to fall back to sleep around 5:00 and started doing stuff. I built a mini. I worked on stuff for my next Wyrd Tales story. Lunch came and went and I just kept going. I kept going until after 2:00 in the afternoon! I frankly can't believe it. That's the longest active I've been in a day for over a year. 

Of course, I've spent every other day of this week paying for it. I could hardly get out of bed for most of it. Had a nasty flare of depression night before yesterday... tired and frustrated and unhappy from the whole "too tired to do anything" of it all. Feeling a lot better today. Starting to crawl my way back into basic functionality. Brain still pretty fogged.

Like I said, this has been a week.

All in all, I think I'd prefer a the up and down swings were a little less extreme, but I'm managing.

Onward

Week Ending 12/7

Hey, it's me...

So, it's December. It feels like this year has lasted forever and no time at all. 

What else is going on?

I got a haircut yesterday. It had finally gotten long enough to start annoying me. When I can't roll over at night, because my hair is so long that I'm accidentally pinning it, and thus myself, to the bed, it's too long. I always tell the lady at the haircut place to cut it "shorter but still long enough that I can tie it back." She always tries. She always fails, because as soon as it's cut my hair starts to curl and gets a couple of inches shorted than she thought it would be. Oh well, it's easier to deal with now.

In other news, my TV died. The image just started jumping around like mad and wouldn't stop. Far to long on the phone with customer service to get the answer "well, you're warranty expired long ago and so I can't help you, but it sounds like you should just buy a new TV." I said "great... it won't be one of yours."

All in all, too much excitement for one day. I'm worn out. :)

Oh well

Onward 

Week Ending 11/30

Happy Holidays!

So, last week I said I was choosing to throw myself into the holiday spirit. This week, I actually managed to keep that going. 

I've worked on stuff for setting up my next Wyrd Tales story. I've painted minis. J and I played a nice long game of Age of Sigmar over several of mornings. (I think she let me win, but I'm ok with that.) 

Finally, J made us a lovely Thanksgiving dinner and we watched our favorite Thanksgiving movie (The Martian. It's a Thanksgiving movie. Really) and our traditional first holiday movie (Trading Places. Come on, that's totally a holiday movie.) Then on Friday we watched a couple Christmas movies (Die Hard and Die Hard 2. Die Hard is a Christmas movie. Die Hard 2 is... well, I think John McClain says it best - "How can the same thing happen to the same guy twice!?" Got to love a movie that knows it's a cheap, pointless sequel and embraces it.)

I remembered one of the last things Gretchen the Grief Counselor said to me. She said I should look into the concept of neuroplasticity... the ability of the brain to alter neural pathways in response to stimuli. A friend of mine once said that every time we access a memory, we change it through the act of accessing it. ("A physicist's view of biology" J said later). In the present context, it means I can change my thinking patterns... so that when I think about mom and the holidays, I think about good memories and being happy, not about her final days and being sad.

"We choose every day who we want to be. With big decisions and little ones, and every one of them matters."

Fate is a riddle, and we choose our own answer.

I choose love... and movies. :)

Onward

Week Ending 11/23

Hey, it's me...

So, it is the week before Thanksgiving and I've made a decision. I'm going to watch holiday stuff. I'm going watch holiday baking and cooking shows. I'm going to watch holiday movies. I'm going to watch every silly, goofy and fun movie and show about the holidays that I know and love, and a few I haven't seen yet.

Why? 

Because I've decided that I can either be miserable or I can throw myself headfirst into the holiday spirit. I choose the second.

In the spirit of which, I just finished watching Red One with Dwayne The Rock Johnson and Chris Evans. Let me tell you, that was a silly, goofy and fun movie. I loved it. J said "it's funny because it's so serious" to which I replied "it's serious because it's so funny." :) 

It is, in no uncertain terms, an awesome movie... and one which includes this line: "We choose every day who we want to be. With big decisions and little ones, and every one of them matters."

So, yeah... I'm making my choice for today.

Oh, and I've finished my Yule shopping already. :)

Ho, ho, ho. 

Onward! 

Week Ending 11/16

Hey, it's me...

Yeah, I'm still feeling down but in a bit better spirits than last week. 

My jaw is improving. It only hurts some of the time now.

Hulu/Disney+ got Law and Order, so I've been binge watching that. After all, if you think about it, Law and Order invented binge watching, long before streaming came long. Honestly, I'm not sure if sitting here watching back to back to back episodes of a fairly dark murder show is the best way to spend my day, but it's not the worst either.

So, one thing... A while ago, mom got me this white, fluffy towel. It's a wonderful towel. This week, it ripped. It's old. I'm pretty sure it was second hand when she got it. Now it's starting to fall apart. Something my mom got me, that I cherish, and it's starting to fall apart. That hit me pretty hard. I sat on the end of my bed, almost in tears... and then Juno came along. She suggested turning the towel into a pillow or something, so I could still have it.

I love my wife.

Onward