To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive

I'm not dead!

2023-03-05T02:14:16Z

I'm not dead! Not that this was in question, although it could have been.

...Let me back up.

Round about January 2022, I got a sinus infection that would not go away despite multiple antibiotics. I eventually got kicked to an ENT in November, who did a CT scan and found my entire left sphenoid sinus (the one behind your eyeball) and most of the adjoining ethmoid sinus were completely blocked. The bone around those sinuses had grown and thickened quite a bit, which means I probably had the infection for at least a year, if not longer. The bone separating the sinus from the brain and optic nerve is only a few millimeters thick, so the infection could eventually have gotten to my brain or eyes and done very bad things.

Needless to say, I agreed to have it surgically evicted as soon as possible, which turned out to be February 15. My body had tried to wall off the infection with more bone, so the ENT had to basically break open the sinus like a really gross pinata, then flush it out with several cups of saline. While he was in there, he fixed my deviated septum--he actually had to do that to even reach the sphenoid sinus, it was so far to the left--and removed some other excess tissue on both sides.

Upon culture, the infection turned out to be MRSA, because of course it did. Luckily, the lab confirmed it was susceptible to Bactrim, so I took that for a while after the surgery.

I'm 2.5 weeks postop and hoping that eventually it all stops hurting. The first night (it was a day surgery) was agonizing even with Norco, and the next four or five days were still pretty bad even with good painkillers. This was in part because you have to sleep sitting up for several days, and even though I splurged on a fancy pillow system to do so with, I didn't exactly sleep well.

I got the plastic splints they stitch in place to hold the healing septum in place removed after one week, which helped with the pain, but ever since I've been stuck on the same plateau. I'd characterize it as "Distracting and quite unpleasant without drugs; still noticeable but ignorable with tramadol and/or Advil." I will say the area of pain is slowly getting smaller; now it's mostly my front teeth and the very front of my septum. I guess nerves that got severed are waking up or something.

The swelling is supposed to take a couple of months to fully subside, so the jury's still out on whether it will help me breathe better. Right now I don't feel a ton of difference from before. Maybe it's a bit easier.

Anyway, that's been my last few weeks.

On top of all that, my employer is offering a free medical weight loss package that involves some kind of nutrition class and (free!) semaglutide, aka Ozempic or Wegovy or so on. I decided to take advantage of it and got my first dose this week...only for the auto-injector pen to malfunction last night, spraying the drug all over me rather than into my thigh. Hopefully the doctor's office or the drug company will replace it, as happened when one of my biologic meds did the same thing.

I've heard that these drugs basically shut up that voice in your head that tells you to eat every moment of every day, which is my problem. I can make the decision to stay away from the food that tastes good and eat the food that tastes less good but is better for me 3-4 times a day. Once we get to snacking or eating 8-9 times a day, my willpower fails.

I'm a little concerned about what happens when one comes off of this drug, but the NP who prescribed it to me said there's been success with putting people on Metformin after so they keep the weight off. I'm already on a very low dose of Metformin because I had a borderline fasting glucose reading last year and figured what the hell, apparently it's a miracle drug and with an autoimmune disorder I'm already predisposed to diseases of inflammation like diabetes, so I might as well take it.

I also got told to start eating 20-30 grams of protein at each meal, which seems absolutely absurd to me, but I'm trying. You can't really do that without eating ridiculous amounts of meat or via things like protein shakes. I'm not that into meat (and it's expensive anyway), so I tried a protein shake tonight. It wasn't as terrible as I remember them being years ago, actually, so this might be viable long-term.

comments

Some thoughts on Ghosts (UK)

2022-09-20T23:53:02Z

I speedran the three existing seasons of Ghosts (the BBC version) this weekend. Helps that each season is only 6-7 episodes long. Anyway, I did it on the strength of the Horrible Histories cast who created/star in it (apparently they're called "The Six Idiots" by their fandom--wonder what the story is behind that name). And I was not disappointed! It is very fun.

...But can I just say that a sitcom has no right to make me tear up this damn much? Ooof. The second season Christmas episode was especially tearjerky in a number of very sweet ways.

I like all the ghosts, but, yes, Thomas is probably my favorite, closely followed by Robin and Julian. Not that I am predictable in any way.

I have a bone to pick with Mary's characterization, though. I mean, crying that the devil is at work over everything, and all the other stuck-in-the-17th-century dialogue she gets, is funny, but, like...all the other characters have at least acknowledged that time has progressed and things that didn't exist or weren't understood in their time do/are now, even if they don't like the current time (FANNIE). Mary's obviously supposed to be none too bright, but it's an odd discordant note.

But that's my only criticism. A+ for the rest of it.

I do appreciate that they went the route of having Thomas be his hapless self at Alison while she's married and is completely uninterested in him, because that's definitely hilarious, but I know in the alternate universe where she's single, the AU me is shipping the ABSOLUTE HELL out of them. (I hope we get a dream sequence from Thomas at some point...but then again, given the sliiiightly evil streak that seems to run under his hopeless romanticism, maybe I don't.)

I hope at some point we get an explanation of why only half the ghosts have some ability to interact with the living world. And of course backstories for the ones who haven't gotten them yet. The other backstories have been excellent, and honestly really moving, for some of them.

comments

Horrible Histories

2022-09-16T01:52:15Z

I have stumbled upon one of the most delightful things I never knew about: CBBC's Horrible Histories. I have one of the books (bought it in England, right after they started coming out *cough* 20 years ago *cough*) but did not know until last weekend that there was a TV SHOW!*

It's a sketch comedy show with music. Think Saturday Night Live meets Monty Python, but less absurd-for-the-sake-of-absurdity than Monty Python. It is, theoretically, for children, but you generally can't tell until they make a fart or poop joke. The sketches are often hilarious, but the music videos parodying specific songs or musical styles are my favorite bits.

My personal favorite is highwayman Dick Turpin lecturing that he shouldn't be romanticized (while being played by a be-eyelinered Mathew Baynton, who could easily pass as an 80s New Waver) to a version of Adam and the Ants' "Stand and Deliver."
It's no fun hanging with highwaymen when you're hanging from a rope!

A close runner up is The Borgia Family," set to the dulcet tones of "The Addams Family."
With suddenly no status/It seem the whole world hate us/They excommunicate us/The Borgia Family!

And you can't forget Charles II, the king who brought back partying! (And will rap about it to you.)

You can listen to William the Conqueror, "practically a Viking," tell you about Gangnam, I mean Norman, style.

Grab your surfboard, because Drs. Jenner, Pasteur, and Fleming have "Good Vaccinations"!

Richard III was a NICE GUY, DAMMIT. Anything to the contrary is Tudor propaganda.

The four King Georges make a rather good boy band.

And don't miss the Cavaliers and the Roundheads having a dance battle a la the Sharks and the Jets.**

Finally, if you want an earworm that WILL NOT LEAVE, you could do worse than novelty dance song "The Pachacuti."
I drink from their skulls/Pull out their teeth whole/Turn teeth into charms/Make flutes out of their arms!

("I'm a Knight," while less clever, is also very good at getting stuck in one's head.)

* Apparently it's a TV show (2009-2013) and a remake (2015-present). The internet seems to hold the remake in much lower esteem, but I think it's okay. It's not lightning in a bottle like the first one, which had a cast that loved each other so much that they went on to make a movie and two more TV shows together, but it has its moments.

** As an aside, this series makes clear how much more focus the British educational system puts on the English Civil War and the Stuarts and such. I guess we were busy with Jamestown and Pilgrims and Salem and so on. I don't think I even knew there was an English Civil War until my last year of high school.

comments

Fic: "Closing the Circuit" [ENT]

2022-06-29T02:07:27Z

Okay, I've only seen a few scattershot episodes of Enterprise at this point, but I love "suddenly parents!" stories, so this little sketch just happened.

Closing the Circuit (1067 words) by icepixie
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Star Trek: Enterprise
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: T'Pol/Charles "Trip" Tucker III
Characters: Charles "Trip" Tucker III, T'Pol (Star Trek)
Additional Tags: Babies, Baby Elizabeth Lives
Summary:

Trip and T'Pol spend their first awkward but joyful evening with their extremely unexpected child.

comments

Skating stuff

2022-06-20T02:41:15Z

First, a question: Does anyone have ideas for 60s/hippie things I could use to add character to my skating program to "59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin' Groovy)"? So far I have a tie-dyed shirt and an ending pose with a peace sign. I can't think of much else that wouldn't involve props (which are allowed, but I don't like them) or danger (bead necklace hitting my face in a spin, flower falling out of my hair and creating a trip hazard on the ice).

I didn't skate for all of May due to a combination of work, hockey, pain, and more work, but I'm trying to make up for it this month. It helped that this weekend there was finally some ice that wasn't at the crack of dawn.

Since I missed a month, I axed Freeskate for the August competition and am just doing Light Entertainment. As of today, I finally have all the steps memorized and can do them in time with the music. P has more faith than I do in my ability to make simple edges look jazzy/swingy/interesting, so I replaced some of those with slightly more intricate footwork, and I think we're both happy with it. The biggest challenge now is the spin at the end, which involves first raising the left arm, then switching to raising the right arm while the left goes down and back and touches the blade of my free right foot. I've managed it several times, but it's not consistent yet.

Non-skating things: I wandered back to Tumblr for a while. Same username. Fannish stuff is now mostly there.

comments

Stranger Things 4

2022-06-04T04:35:19Z

Some scattered thoughts on the fourth season (er, first half of the fourth season, I guess?) of Stranger Things ( behind the cut )

If you, like me, needed the instrumental version of "Running Up That Hill" that plays over the credits at the end of one of the fourth episode, someone slapped it up on YouTube. (Visuals include spoilers through that episode.)

comments

Fic: the deepest secret nobody knows

2022-05-14T02:28:13Z

It only took 10 years, but here's a sequel to a little J/J flash fic I wrote for Fandom Stocking in 2011. I realized I had given myself the perfect opportunity to combine my ballroom dancing and Astaire/Rogers movie loves into a fic and I took it.

the deepest secret nobody knows (2130 words) by icepixie
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Julian Bashir/Jadzia Dax
Characters: Jadzia Dax, Julian Bashir
Additional Tags: Dancing, First Date
Series: Part 2 of the wonder that's keeping the stars apart
Summary:

A first date, some dancing, some admissions.

"Why now? What made you decide today to accept?"

comments

Fic: What We Pretend to Be

2022-04-25T01:51:04Z

I love this trope. It is my bulletproof narrative kink. I will shoehorn this trope into everything I can. Here I present it in DS9 rarepair flavor for your reading pleasure!

What We Pretend to Be (11473 words) by icepixie
Chapters: 5/5
Fandom: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Julian Bashir/Jadzia Dax
Characters: Julian Bashir, Jadzia Dax
Additional Tags: Fake Marriage, Sharing a Bed, Huddling For Warmth, Romance, a minor amount of plot
Summary:

"Julian Bashir was not fine. He was so far from fine that fine was but a distant blip on the horizon. They were stuck on this planet, and he was going to have to pretend to be married to Jadzia Dax for however long it took someone from Deep Space 9 to come find them."

Gratuitous use of every possible scenario connected to the Fake Marriage trope, with FEELINGS at the end.

comments

Fic: Scientific Collaborations

2022-04-09T00:44:51Z

I wrote a thing! Once I came up with the thought of Bashir and Dax doing science together, it almost wrote itself. There are some bits for shippers and some for friendshippers.

I take no responsibility for any statistical concepts I murdered. My experience providing data for (and thus sitting in on certain meetings of) a Biostatistics methods course this semester has consisted mostly of smiling and nodding.

Scientific Collaborations (3838 words) by icepixie
Chapters: 9/9
Fandom: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Julian Bashir & Jadzia Dax, Julian Bashir/Jadzia Dax
Additional Tags: Science, Friendship, Nerdiness
Summary:

A collection of unrelated ficlets about Jadzia and Julian doing the unglamorous parts of science. An excuse to write them as the adorable nerds they are.

comments

Ah, memories

2022-04-03T17:36:57Z

As has become tradition, every time I take vacation I (re)read fic for an old fandom/pairing. This time, it's Julian Bashir/Jadzia Dax (DS9). Aside from Riker/Troi, they were baby's first ship. I loved them so.*

One of the fun things about going back to old fandoms is how my own interest in it changes. I've now been working with scientists for 10 years, and this time around, I love the idea of Jadzia and Julian as science bros. They can be adorably nerdy together!

I generally hate modern/everyday AUs, but I admit I also kind of love the idea I've had of one where Jadzia is a postdoc and Julian is in some kind of post-residency research fellowship and they're in the same lab. And there they tease and play with each other, all "You can't figure out how to design the study because your hypothesis sucks," and "What kind of bullshit stats are these?" and "Your grammar is atrocious, I'm drafting this paper"; squabbling over authorship position and time on equipment, coming in at 3 AM to monitor an experiment and getting slightly drunk together... (AND THEN KISS, because I still ship them.) Hmmm, I guess that could all still be done on DS9, come to think of it.

* I just did the math, and I've been shipping them for 27 years. I. Um. Uh. Weren't the 90s just, like, a decade ago? No?

comments

Program work

2021-11-29T06:08:17Z

Wednesday, my coach and I worked on a footwork section for my freeskate. I think I might be able to do it by the time the first local competition of the year rolls around in five months. ;D The two most difficult moments are a left back outside rocker and a right forward outside counter, both of which are my best versions of these turns, but that doesn't mean I can do them without putting my free foot down. So I can either get better at them, change them out for easier turns closer to the competition, or make the two-footedness look deliberate rather than panicked. I'm hoping for option 1.

I'm using the same music I used for my first program (from the Amelie soundtrack), and this footwork pass will definitely be more complex than the one I did in 2016. I think the other skating skills-type things will also be better, like the choctaw into a back spiral. The jumps and spins will definitely not be better, but after years of not really skating due to boot problems + pandemic, I'll take what I can get.

On that note, I'm putting out a BOLO for my toe loop. Sigh.

comments

Spinning progress

2021-10-18T00:23:35Z

Good: I spent most of my lesson on Friday on spins and made improvements in all of them. I'm getting lower in sit spins (with the happy consequence of getting more centered/more rotations).

Bad: I took video today of said sit spin, and...it still looks like I'm perching on a barstool at best. I'm probably past the age/joint health stage of life where I could get a 90-degree or less angle at the knee, but, like, 140 would be cool. I'm at ~160 degrees right now, which might pass the the "recognizable sit position" guidelines for adult competition, but honestly, maybe not.

Argh.

Good: On the other hand, my leg position in layback spins is better, and I can hold it long enough to get a full revolution with my arms over my head, when before I was collapsing as soon as I tried to raise them, so that's nice.

I tried a few combination spins again, and while they're not up to what they were pre-pandemic, at least I'm doing them. I also tried sit-change-sit spins, and can manage maybe half a revolution on the back sit before I lose my balance, whereas before I was completely grinding to a stop by the time I shifted my weight, so...progress? I'm throwing a party the day I get any sort of back spin, I swear.

comments

All aboard the plague ship

2021-08-28T04:02:53Z

So hey, my state is currently skyrocketing in the rankings for COVID cases per capita, hospitals are full, and people are dying, while our governor is trying to be a poor man's DeSantis or Abbot, insisting nothing is wrong, denying schools the ability to go virtual, and fighting mask mandates. Our vaccination rate is something like 41%, because of course it is. Useful infographic. Check out the "active cases" graph at the bottom right. I mean, I guess "vertical line" is a kind of curve...

I'm back to masking, of course--I think there was, like, two weeks in June where I took it off?--and going nowhere except the grocery, the rink, and my parents' house. Not giving up skating again to protect stupid people. Driving and skating extra carefully, though, seeing as our ICUs are overflowing. I'm starting to have critical care/pulmonary/infectious diseases MD faculty cancel on me for meetings/seminars, or be really delayed getting me information, and citing COVID workload for it.

The CDC added biologics as a reason for getting a third shot now, and my rheumatologist recommended it this week, so guess what I have to do next Friday. (Timing it for the off week of my Cosentyx and that Labor Day three-day weekend, because if the third shot is anything like the second, I'll need every moment of those three days to recover.) Hooray? I was hoping I could wait until there's a Delta-specific booster, assuming one is in the works, but oh well.

Work, at least, has given up the pretense that we are ever going back. The department head said that as long as no one over him requires it, he's fine if we work from home forever. As he said, "the most valuable resource in academia is space," so they're just going to add employees but not add offices. I guess eventually those of us who don't want to come in, or only want to come in when we have in-person meetings, will just get a hoteling space somewhere.

Speaking of work, our big behemoth grant will be funded! Yay, we all have jobs for another five years!

comments

Skating report

2021-08-04T02:14:25Z

I did waltz jumps and salchows that actually got off the ice today! Several of them! In a row! *\o/*

Toe loop is still shaky. I managed it last Friday in my lesson, but lost it again. The old reptile brain seems to need several weeks of only doing jumps when P is watching ~~and can call for medical attention if it goes wrong~~ before it's willing to let me do them on my own.

Spins travel sometimes, and sometimes center. Hard to tell why. I would also, one of these days, like to get more than four revolutions in a single position. I think that would require me not to slow myself to a crawl right before I go into said spins. /o\

I almost, sort of, have a two-footed loop? (The figure, not the jump.) At least the mechanics make more sense than they did in 2019.

Thanks to Delta, I'm back to wearing a mask to skate. Uuuuugh.

comments

Skating Update

2021-07-09T01:56:44Z

Good
My forward three turns are back! Okay, the inside ones are still kind of shaky, but I can officially do all four without touching my free foot down at least some of the time.

P reminded me that fun spins like pancakes and tucks exist, so I've been rediscovering them.

Still managing about one revolution in the right spot on my back upright spin from a standstill. With luck I might get to a point where I can do it from an entrance sometime in the next decade.

While I was struggling with forward threes--and continue to struggle with back ones--P invented some Curry exercises that go up and down the ice so that I could get away from just doing threes on a line, which is BORING. (So in layman's terms, it went from stand on one of the hockey lines, skate forward, do the turn, skate back to line, stop, repeat, to doing the turns with a few connecting steps mixed in so you never stop, just keep doing it down the length of the ice.) They are much more interesting.

I briefly forgot how to do a forward outside rocker the other day. On the plus side, I ended up doing a forward outside counter, which is harder.

I poked very gently at the choreography for my 59th Street Bridge Song program that P and I started working on right before the pandemic. What we had so far had a lot of pivots, which I'm not great at, so hopefully this is the year I get good at pivots.

Bad
I haven't been able to center a spin for two weeks now. So frustrating. Grr.

Jumps are getting less consistent about getting off the ground. Could be technique, could be fear, could be my back usually hurts by the time of a lesson or practice when I start jumping.

Cross rolls and spirals cause searing agony in my back. This is bad, since the Silver Moves in the Field Test I was hoping to maybe take in the next 12 months requires both. Hoping I can exercise it away. I wish physical therapists had some kind of consult service, where I didn't have to go to an orthopedist, get prescribed weeks' worth of therapy, and pay a bunch of money, when I just need an hour with someone who can tweak what I'm already doing.

comments

A skating post

2021-05-19T03:15:21Z

But first, the album of garden photos on Facebook I finally made public. I update it 2-4 times a month, or whenever I have something new to share.

*

After seven years (more or less, with long interruptions), I may finally be making progress on my back spins. For the first time, I managed to spin, very briefly, on the outside edge of my right blade, which is where you're supposed to be spinning. In the past, I was spinning on the inside edge, which inevitably sent me tumbling toward my center of gravity in short order. I can still only manage one revolution at best, but--progress.

The other day I did the most centered forward layback spin I've ever spun. I was so pleased I took a picture of the tracing.

Jumps are still terrifying. I can sometimes, but not always, get off the ground on waltz jumps and salchows, but have not yet worked up the courage to try toe loops.

My three turns are lost lambs and I wish they would come home already. I only have the easiest, the left forward outside. The rest of the forwards I can mostly do when P is watching, and they completely fall apart when she's not. The backwards ones are best not spoken of. I understand what I'm doing wrong, but can't make my body behave.

I worked on power pulls with P today and she had me try some going backwards holding my hands behind my back. Hoo boy, I did not realize how much I was using my shoulders and arms for balance. Nothing like not being able to adjust your shoulders to make you realize you are, in fact, balancing on four millimeters of steel and if you don't put your other foot down right now things are going to end very badly indeed. On the other hand, for the Moves test you're not supposed to use your shoulders to stay balanced and move between edges, only your knee, so it's a good exercise. Just horrifying.

*

Although everyone who's going to be vaccinated has been by now, we're all still working at home. I have the impression my department...isn't going back, or at least isn't going back more than like, one day a week. (Let's just say that last summer, we got a survey asking if we eventually wanted to go back full time or only three days a week. Then this winter, we got a survey asking if we wanted to go back two or no days per week.) Or perhaps everyone's waiting for the new semester. I've heard rumblings of a town hall to address this question soon. I'd very much like to keep working from home, so I hope we get to continue it.

comments

WandaVision and other updates

2021-02-25T05:29:56Z

I got my second COVID shot on January 15. It was...an experience. The lymph node in my armpit swelled to the size of a tennis ball, I felt like crap for two days, and then I developed a rash all down my arm. If "waking up from abdominal surgery to find demerol doesn't work for me and promptly passing out" was a 10 on the pain scale, the post-shot arm/shoulder pain was a 6 for several days. But presumably all of that means it worked really well, my immune system is even more amped up than usual, and I'm free from COVID risk for at least a year!

I went back to the rink for the first time in just under a year two weeks after that, and quickly discovered that those hip/butt exercises I'd left by the wayside as we worked very overtime on writing the renewal of the grant that employs me and 300 of my closest friends were vital to skating. As in, I couldn't do much, and what I could do caused searing back pain.

I took myself off the ice for three weeks for intensive rehab. Then we had a massive ice/snow storm and I was off another week. (Thankfully, Nashville gets electricity from the Tennessee Valley Authority rather than a bunch of profit-mongers who refuse to winterize their equipment like Texas, so I had heat all the way through said storm.) I'm hoping to try again early next week. I don't expect miracles, but hopefully the exercises fixed up my gluteus mediae enough that getting on an outside edge isn't such a struggle, and I just have to deal with the reactivation of my lizard brain's response to standing on one foot and leaning away from my center of mass. (To wit: "ARE YOU CRAZY? STOP THIS RIGHT NOW!")

*

I forgot to cancel my Disney+ subscription after getting it for a month to watch Hamilton, so I watched WandaVision this weekend. ( Possible spoilers through the most recent episode )

comments

Hark, a wild update appears

2020-07-20T04:29:48Z

Rumors of my demise, etc.

I haven't skated since March 13th, and I miss the hell out of it. The rinks have been open since Memorial Day with limited skaters per session, cleaning between sessions, and whatnot, but it's just not worth getting the damn virus, particularly as TN is one of the states where infections are soaring. I'm of the age where I'm not really worried about dying from it--in fact, the same gene that causes ankylosing spondylitis has actually been proven to confer greater resistance to RNA viruses like this one, including HIV and hepatitis, so I have that in my favor--but the after effects scare the shit out me.

Because of the AS, my 100% is already like a normal person's 80%. I sure don't need to develop chronic fatigue or organ damage on top of that. Not to mention I have a history of developing post-viral chronic conditions. The whole post-hysterectomy sepsis adventure triggered the AS, and I developed what appears to be cough-variant asthma a couple years ago after a cold that turned into bronchitis. Oh, and of course there was the acute kidney injury I really don't need a repeat of. So, I'm going to continue to stay put in my house and scream at the deficiency and malignancy of our federal leadership.

*

You are all fired for not telling Riker and Troi show up in an episode of Picard! I haven't watched the show; Picard's fine, but does not inspire me to pay for CBS's streaming service, and I kind of forgot to check in on it and see if it was worth watching. But I did watch the Riker/Troi scenes folks have uploaded to YouTube, and while I never would have figured they would end up living in a cabin in the woods on a random planet, Riker having gone full Mountain Man pizza chef and Troi growing acres of vegetables, with a daughter who runs wild with a bow and arrow, I like it. Death of their son aside, they seemed happy.

*

I started writing fic again, for the first time in...uh. A while. It's a little China Beach fic, a fluffy extension to the magical-realism-and-ballroom-dancing episode "Skylark." It's making me smile.

I'm also reading fic again, starting with TNG fic due to their Picard appearance, and wandering into Voyager and some other old fandoms I haven't thought about in years. I still feel kind of cut off from fandom in general, given the move to Tumblr and not having been into a current fandom since...uh...Castle, maybe? but it's nice to wander down memory lane.

comments

Journal of the Plague...Week?

2020-03-17T02:40:49Z

I am alive, huddled in the bunker formerly known as my house with plenty of toilet paper and canned goods. My department started optional work from home for everyone on Friday, and most are taking the option, including me. Outside of work, I'm spending a lot of time reading covid-19 news articles, because despite the horror, it is rather fascinating.

It's been forever since I posted, so I won't even try to update everything. To be honest, there isn't all that much to update. I'm still skating, although I've bailed on the local April competition that the club is still, bafflingly, planning to hold. They have at least acknowledged that if they have to cancel, they'll give refunds. My epidemiologist boss expects large gatherings to be verboten until at least July, so at this point I'm actually more worried about the August competition.

I fell in love with Grace and Frankie over Christmas, and actually started nudging at a fic, in fits and starts. If events calm down, I may even get back to working on it.

That's really kind of it. I'm more active on Facebook these days, cesspool though it can be, so if anyone wants to be friends there, let me know!

comments

Stranger Things 3

2019-07-10T02:15:28Z

( Spoilers for the whole season )

comments

Skating update

2019-04-07T04:19:33Z

My reintroduction to skating continues apace. I moved my left blade inward, and it helped so much I've just done my right blade and hope it works out too. I'm actually using the screwdriver and moving them this time around instead of BF. I've been through so many attempts at new/correct skates, with attendant blade placement tinkering, that I have leveled up to doing it myself.

This week I got my forward inside three turns mostly back (the left was never great, so I'm unsurprised it's only successful about half the time) and did rudimentary sit and layback spins. I also did some so-rudimentary-they-really-shouldn't-be-classed-as-camel spins, which I probably haven't done in over a year. Good direction forward outside twizzles seem...almost better than inside twizzles? This shouldn't really be a thing, but okay.

I still have basically NO PAIN from my skates! *insert Kermit YAY gif* There is one spot at the top of the back that digs into my calves a little, but it seems like regular punching with my ball and ring pliers will fix that. My feet could totally handle multiple hour-long sessions if the rest of my body could (it can't).

I haven't attempted jumping yet, mostly because for structural integrity reasons you're not supposed to when your blades are still on a temporary mount, partly because I'm still pretty tentative out there. I am strongly considering just not jumping anymore. I beat my head against the wall with loops and flips for almost four years. Possibly the new skates will help, in which case I'll continue, but if after a couple months I still don't make real progress, I think that's it for jumping. Means I can never proceed past the first level of adult freeskate, but...eh. I can skate up to the next level at most competitions, and there are Light Entertainment and Dramatic Entertainment options in addition to regular freeskate.

Solo free dance could also be an option if/when I pass gold Moves in the Field. It's basically a freeskate program consisting entirely of footwork, with one spin and no jumps. Hey, spinning and footwork are my two favorite things! I could also get there by taking and passing a few pattern dances, but I am morally opposed to the dance test industrial complex. It's $25 per dance to test, each level has at least three dances, and there are something like 35 dances in all. The hell with that. It also makes my former ballroom dancer self cry a bit to have to follow a specific pattern for each dance rather than having a set of steps you can mix and match as the spirit moves you.

I'm hoping to be with-it enough by the end of the month to start working on a program for one of the local competitions in early August. We'll see how fast it comes back.

Right now, though, I am with nothing because I'm recovering from a deep tissue massage on my abdomen to break up scar tissue and adhesions. I haven't needed one for over a year, but I guess being much more sedentary for three months while I waited for my new skates did not do good things for me. I am definitely sore, but it sure does feel like I can sit up straighter, extend my legs more, etc.

comments

SKATES THAT FIT!

2019-03-21T23:59:32Z

My second attempt at custom boots, this time with Avanta, arrived, and they fit. They fit so, so incredibly well. I skated for more than an hour this morning with ZERO pain or numbness. I mean, nothing. It was like wearing stiff sneakers. The first time! Without breaking them in! Hell, with my old Jacksons it took two years to be able to skate for an hour without taking them off halfway through, and I never got to a point where they didn't hurt at all.

As you might imagine, I am over the moon. I truly thought I was going to have to stop skating. (I would have, if these didn't work.) I've spent the last 20 months either off the ice or on it in painful 5-10-minute spurts (or in broken-down boots I couldn't do much in), so going to the rink had frankly become kind of a dismal experience that I dreaded. Because of boot issues, I pretty much stopped learning new things back in summer 2017. Now I can look forward to skating, and have lessons again, and learn new stuff!

...Once I remember the old stuff. I haven't skated for the last three months, so today was pretty wobbly, but you know, at this point I'm simply grateful to be able to go around in circles. The rest will come back.

*

I started planting things in my garden this weekend. Snapdragons did well last year, so I got more, and some phlox for phun. I planted a bunch of gladiolus-type bulbs. And I'm trying spinach this year. We probably have 4-5 weeks till it gets hot enough to bolt, so to be honest I expect maybe two salads out of my crop (assuming the local critters don't eat it), but that would be cool. I picked a few leaves the other day to put on a sandwich, and they definitely taste better and fresher than store-bought.

*

Finally, since the last time I posted here, I got a new diagnosis added to my list: Asthma. Yes, apparently sometime over the last year I became a closet asthmatic. I had a cough that started back in July and just never really went away, so I asked my doctor about it at my physical a couple of weeks ago. I was thinking persistent low-level sinus infection with drip that was irritating my cough reflex, but the sinus x-ray came back clear, so we started a trial of Advair (daily inhaled steroid). It was miraculous. My cough silenced within an hour of taking the first dose. I also noticed about a 25% improvement in my chest capacity upon inhaling the first dose, too.

Ah, well. At least it's fixable. I like diseases that are fixable.

comments

A misanthropic robot that only wants to watch TV

2019-02-24T04:59:52Z

I just finished All Systems Red. Murderbot is my new spirit animal. That is all.

comments

icepixie @ 2019-01-15T18:40:00

2019-01-16T00:40:40Z

I'd say I knew Tumblr would fail and that's why I never moved there, but really it was that I didn't want to learn a new platform (especially one you couldn't easily have conversations on). Also I was pretty much in fandoms of one at the time everyone moved over there (and from that moved on into no fandoms at all), so there wasn't much incentive to follow.

Anyway, welcome back, everyone. Please stick around; it's nice having more of a flist to read again.

*

I'm on month five of Cosentyx. It's been...interesting. I think ultimately it helps the pain about as much as Enbrel, but it's distributed differently (likely because it's a once a month shot instead of once a week). Enbrel was pretty much the same level all the time. This one, it's like week one: I feel AWESOME (to the point where last month it convinced me I could do a huge Christmas shopping trip and then clean house later that day, leaving me with a week of costochondritis, blarg); week 2: I feel good to excellent; week three: I feel okay; and week four: UGH LET ME DIE.

But on the unequivocally good side, I ended the month with several doses of Tramadol left over, which hasn't happened in a long time. (And I will promptly use them up with this week's dental implant implantation, but oh well.)

*

I gave up on the revised SP-Teri boots, as my toes and feet never stopped going numb. My last attempt is Avanta, which is run by someone with a history of making orthopedic shoes and skates. If they don't work, I've been offered a full refund. I had casts made of my feet this weekend for them to work from, as Avanta is out in California and I am not, and I should have boots in about six weeks. (Normally it's four weeks, but after seeing photos, the bootmaker pronounced my feet "very, very unique" and said it would take some time to make the boots the way I need.) There was some talk of not having laces but rather straps, or having minimal lacing plus straps, so I can avoid having something press down on the parts of my instep that appear to house the nerve that feeds my toes. Not sure what's going to happen there.

Hopefully one day I'll skate again. I admit it's been nice not getting up early to skate before work, but that's been the only upside.

comments

Fannish and other

2018-11-17T04:31:41Z

I watched The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina over the last couple of weekends. ( Some spoilery thoughts )

*

I got the fourth iteration of my custom skates back a couple of weeks ago, and they are indeed much closer approximations of my feet than the previous three tries. They actually have enough width in the ball and toes, and enough depth in the toebox, and a wide enough tongue to encompass my massive instep and beefy ankles. I've been able to go progressively 3-5 minutes longer at each session before my feet go numb, so I'm up to 20 minutes as of today. I can't repeat that after taking them off and putting them back on (at that point I only get 5-10 minutes), which is unfortunate, but perhaps I can one day get to an hour.

They were ever so slightly too long, but I fixed that myself by wearing an Achilles tendon gel sock thing, which pushes my foot forward just enough to be in the right spot over the blade. Nicely, it also prevents the back of the boot from cutting into the back of my ankle, as it was doing before I started wearing these.

The blade still feels very weird, but that could be because on my old one, I had BF shave down the drag pick to keep the relationship between pick and rocker accurate as the rocker flattened out, and now I have both pick and rocker back. Nevertheless, I finally managed a spin on Tuesday where I didn't feel like I was inches from death, so. Yay. I have sit and scratch spins kind of back, and I've attempted some laybacks, but no camels. Part of my spin trouble may also be that I'm going at turtle speed for everything due to THINGS FEELING DIFFERENT, so as I adjust to the new skates they may get better. One thing that may get better faster is back spin, because we've mounted the right blade farther in than it was on my old skates, and I could tell I'm actually hitting the right spot and getting my weight over it on my attempts today.

I accomplished weeny versions of waltz jump, salchow, and toe loop today(!) as well. It's been a long time since I jumped, so that was exciting. I don't think I want to go back to beating my head against a wall with the other jumps, at least not until I master back spin, but I'd like to retain these.

*

My right shoulder hasn't really been right since I took a fall about two months ago and wrenched it trying to protect my head. It's now gotten harder to ignore. It might be the AS deciding to attack a new joint, or it might be 34 years of bad posture and sitting in front of a computer catching up with me. I should probably see someone about it, but I know they'll prescribe physical therapy, and as a five-time PT veteran, I have enough exercises I'm supposed to do four times a week for the rest of my life. I don't want more. :(

(On the other hand, I need to continue using a computer mouse to retain gainful employment, so I may have to anyway. Ugh.)

comments