28 year old
Pagan female who lives in Florida with her guy and two cats,
loves Disney, reads fanatically, tinkers in photography and
believes growing up is overrated.
There are people on the net that have nothing better to do
with their time
then be nasty to other people online. They post rude comments, spend hours
a day talking about sites they hate so much, that they well, spend hours a
day talking about them. (lame) They mock the owners and posters for their
opinions and their right to free speech. They expect everyone to fit into
their narrow-minded little world view or else they throw a temper tantrum.
To these people I say grow up.
Here's a bit of info people...the web is
a HUGE place. If you don't like what I say here, or who I am, or what I
do, or talk about, or what I look like, or the color of my hair, or
whatever asinine thing you dwell on, go somewhere else. It's
really, really easy. Honest. You just click the little "x" in
the corner of your browser and *poof* the offending, big, mean and nasty
site has disappeared.
I pay for this site. It's mine. That
means I can use it for whatever the hell I want to. Don't like it if I'm
bitching about something in my life? Oh fucking well. Go somewhere else.
Think I'm stupid for expressing my thoughts? Too fucking bad, don't read
them. Somewhere along the line, someone forgot this simple fact: Live
and let live Don't like me, cool, fine, whatever, I don't care.
This journal is NOT for you. It's for me. I'm not in it for popularity or
fame or anything stupid like that. I write it because I need to write and
express myself and get things out of my head sometimes. So read or don't,
it doesn't matter, but don't waste my time (or yours) bitching about it.
*gets off soapbox*
Tooth
Drive:
I need to
raise over $850 for critically needed dental
work. I'll be listing my hand made
jewelry, bracelets,
earrings, necklaces and horns
for sale to try to raise the desperately needed funds.
Every order helps. I can accept paypal payments at
webmaster@giveneyestosee.com
or check/money orders at:
M. Turner
PO Box 1484, Elfers, FL 34684
Thank you for your help and support.
I've also set
up a
tooth fund for anyone
wanted to donate without purchase.
Need a
good webhost?
Try
DreamHost. Use
my linkI'll get a
referal credit which goes straight into the Tooth Fund
as well.
Love Hate the Skin You're In So another day, another $35. Heh.
I have the most annoyingly sensitive skin on the planet. It's reactive to all kinds of things like perfumes, dyes and such and if I'm not careful, I'll break out in rashes (especially after being in the sun.) Another thing I'm skin allergic to is adhesive tape. Like surgical tape or even bandages. Surgical (medical) tape will actually melt my skin. Regular bandages will welt and swell and burn my skin. So needless to say, I have to be very careful. The only thing I can use are paper tape bandages. Which have never been easy to come by. I used to get them from this one company all the time. They were designed for kids so I'd always have Mickey or Pooh or something on my bandages but I didn't care, it was the only thing I could use.
Couple weeks ago, I ran out of bandages. And I went to look for more. Two weekends I scoured over a dozen different stores but couldn't find any. Finally, I wrote the company. Turns out they've discontinued making them and don't have any comperable products! Nice, hu? So I panic. Without them, I literally don't have an option for bandages. I start looking around online. And I find a few places that carry remaining stock. (Like amazon of all places.) I ordered a few boxes because I need some but I'm really worried what I'm supposed to do in another year or so when they're gone. Surely I can't be the only person in the world who's allergic to adhesive?
The other problem is another thing I didn't know was possible, and I think I'm alone in having it as an issue as well. I'm almost positive I'm allergic - or at least stupidly sensitive - to gylercin. Yeah I know. I didn't think it was possible either.
Here's the thing though. I've always had weirdness with glycerin soaps. I love it in theory and concept, but the moment I'd put it in my hand, it would feel like it'd sap every single ounce of moisture instantly from my skin. And if I'd use it on my body, it'd get immediately tight and dry and feel like my skin shrunk.
Well, the last month or so I'm having extreme problems with face washes. I've always had problems but it's getting way worse. Now it's getting to a point where no mater what I use - and I've bought maybe eight or ten different face washes in the last month or two! - not only does it dry out my skin, but it makes it white and makes it crack. It burns too. And the key ingredient in all of them is, of course, glycerin. Which makes me think that I've got a sensitivity that's getting worse.
Doing a google search for this kind of thing literally doesn't result in any info. In fact, everything is the exact opposite. Every page recommends USING glycerin for your face if you have sensitive skin. So what gives? What am I supposed to do? (Besides of course, see a dermatologist which isn't even remotely an option.) It's like no matter how much I moisturize the parts (especially around my mouth), they're still so dry that they hurt. They simply won't re-hydrate. Meanwhile, the T-zone is so oily (because my skin is normally oily on it's own) that it's getting worse because I either can't wash it or I have to slather on lotion and either way, it's not working put. PLUS, if all that weren't enough I have problems with break outs and stuff so currently my face has acne, oil and patches so dry that they're cracking. I'm at my wit's end. No one seems to have a clue what to do if you can't use glycerin. Because it pretty much seems like there aren't any products that use anythign else.
Bah.
Any ideas are more then welcome. I don't know what to even try at this point.
Alright, well I've managed to write this for...oh...over half an hour now. (Go me.) But I think it's time to close out. They've asked me to come back in part time again next week. Which is great except damn I'm tired and I've been looking forward to sleeping in all week for two and a half weeks now. Heh. Oh well. It's money and I certainly need it.
The Line Between the Real and Unreal I missed work today. A combination of factors made me call in this morning with the good-intention of going in for the afternoon instead. But it didn't work out that way. Head, fatigue, stomach issues - they all just conspired against me en mass.
Thing is, I spent a lot of the day sleeping. That kind of uncontrolled loss of consciousness you get when your body just says, "enough!" But I don't know if it's from the lack of sleep the last few weeks, or how much I had today, a combination of the two or something else entirely, but I don't know what's real from today and what's not.
I am still dazed and disoriented. I feel like I was hallucinating rather then dreaming. Things happened that I assume must have been a dream but I didn't know I was asleep at the time so I'm slowly trying to piece together where the borders of waking and sleeping are still.
For example. I could have sworn that Love came home this morning. I clearly remember he came in and laid down, waking me up. I asked him what was wrong and why was he home? He told me that he wasn't feeling good so he came home for the day. I told him that made two of us and we'd rest together. I remember curling up next to him and us both going to sleep.
But of course, that didn't happen. I didn't even speak to him on the phone until around 2pm. But though I know logically it didn't happen, I'd still swear it did. In my mind, it was real.
Other little things like I remember getting a surprise of a few books off my amazon wishlist from an online friend. I remember seeing the books and being really happy because books cheer me up so much. I remember opening the package and I remember being mad that the UPS guy left them on the door without having me sign for them - especially since I was home. But I guess that didn't happen either.
I also had problems all day with hearing things. Mainly people talking. But I've been alone all day and there weren't even any electronics on. At one point, I was sleeping and I woke up because I thought someone was leaving me a message on the answering machine. I clearly heard a man say the words, "hey there!" I fumbled for the phone thinking the ringer was off and that's why I hadn't heard it ring, but it was on. And I looked at the caller ID and no one had called. I know I wasn't dreaming yet because I'd just laid down 15 minutes before and yet...I heard someone. And that was only the most distinct of the times. I remember hearing other pieces of things like a very faint radio where you hear it's sound but you can't quite make it out or give any information on it. On-and-off all day.
So my entire day is lost in this odd haze. I really feel like I'm still not sure what was real and what wasn't today. I really feel like it just all blended together until I can't find the seams. I wonder if this is what it feels like to be crazy? To be schizophrenic? Because it's horrible. I'm sure I'll feel more normal again tomorrow, but in the meantime, this day has been uncomfortable. Everything feels wrong, and I feel like I'm not even fitting in my skin properly. I've got this lagging sense of confusion and I have wonder if I'll wake up tomorrow and find I never really wrote this entry. *brr* It's a terrible sensation...
March of the Penguins *Minor spoilers within (basically explanation of penguin life and some of the sadder moments of the movie)*
Went and saw March of the Penguins on Saturday. I'd been bugging Love about it for a couple weeks now and he finally agreed. He dozed through some of it. My friend Rand and I of course, didn't.
It was a very interesting movie. With a much broader range of emotion then I would have thought. I also didn't realize how damned hard of a life penguins have. Of course, the movie is about emperor penguins who live in Anartica; the harshest climate on the planet. It is wonderfully narrated by Morgan Freeman and as it opens, he explains this is a love story. And it has to be for what they endure.
Yes, they really walk, single-file for 70 miles.
First, the penguins hike 70 miles inland, away from the sea to their nesting grounds where they all show up somehow in the same place, at the same time and often on the same day. The males and females pair up and court and mate. If they are successful, the female lays a single egg. The long process truly begins here. The mother transfers the egg to the father - not always successfully which is the first bit of sadness in the film, but not the last - who holds it on his feet, covering it with his stomach. The female walks back the 70 miles to the sea to get food. The fathers? They stay, in the frigid cold, huddled together, holding their precious egg for the next four months. The fathers don't eat the entire time.
The chicks hatch and the exhausted fathers only have about a day's worth of food specifically stored for them. If the mother doesn't make it back (yet again that 70-mile hike) in time, he'll be forced to leave the chick to return to the sea or starve himself. So the mom's come back just in time and it's the father's turn to walk all the way back to the sea to get their first meal in months.
The chicks now huddle under their mother's stomachs, perched on her feet to avoid the cold. The horrible part is that the storms sometimes are still too much; even when they huddle together for shared warmth; even hiding with their mothers some simply do not survive. At one point, after a horrible wind storm the mothers look for chicks that were seperated or lost. A terrible scene of a frozen chick on the ice, with the mother in absolute mourning, desperately nudging the chick actually made me cry.
But it's not all sadness. There is a share of adorableness. And amazing tenderness. These penguins are facinating with how much love, attention and devotion they have. And how swwet and touching their couplings are. They really seem so much like us in so many ways.
Anyway, it was quite an interesting movie. Full of amazing sweetness and profound sadness. But facinating. The theater was full of the under seven/over 70 set but it was sold out. I'm glad I saw it and I'd recommend it but I'd of course warn you there are a few points which are very sad. Though overall, it really is not only a story about survival, but a story about love.
So Much For That Last night, on the advice of a friend, I went out and bought some melatonin. Anything to help me try to sleep. It's now been literally weeks since I've slept the night through - including weekends. To say I'm exhausted is like saying the Grand Canyon is a dip in the ground.
It didn't work. I woke up at least a dozen times last night between midnight and 7:30am when I finally got up with the alarm. (Though in honesty, I had been pretty much constantly awake since Love's alarm went off at 6am.)
I've never been able to sleep a "normal" schedule in my entire life. I've never been able to "get used to it" as I've always been told (often rudely or dismissively) that I would. And the fact that I've failed to sleep an entire night through pretty much shows what I've said all along. It doesn't matter if I'm tired (I am); it doesn't matter if I relax avoid eating or caffine or change the temp or the lighting or whatever. It's just that my body doesn't get into the right patterns or something. It doesn't get into the right flow of sleep, so I wake up and I can't fall back asleep and I can't maintain sleep and hell, I can't even stay in a dream. (Last night I woke up suddenly and without any reason from one of the only dreams I remember having in over a week.) It's like my body's all screwed up and confused or something.
I'm not a very healthy person. I never have been. And no one ever believes me. Even as a kid I'd have problems with everyone in my life dismissing the fact I generally never felt well. For example, my body temperature is lower then normal. It tends to be around 97.1 or so. So as a child, when I'd have a fever of 99F, my mom would tell me I was ok and to go to school. Yeah if you're temp is normally 98.7 then of course 99F isn't that bad. But when that's a 2-degree fever, it's a little more serious. But she refused to believe me. Or I'd tell her I was getting sick to my stomach from onions. She'd hide them in food and flat-out lie to me that they weren't in the food. She wouldn't believe that they really were making me sick. She just assumed that I didn't like it. So I'd get sick and yet, that wasn't enough to convince her I was right.
It's still this way. Love can't understand or doesn't accept or thinks I'm exaggerating when I say my head can hurt for days at a time, or my stomach is in agony non-stop for days. Or that my neck hurts me every single day of my life but there are times it hurts beyond it's normal pain and beyond the point I know how to tolerate it.
I'm pushing myself so hard. Not for me. I know my limits and I know I'm going to just fall over some day in the not too distant future. I know my body and even though no one else will believe me, I know I'm pushing it more then it can take. But despite the fact that people have seen this happen over and over for years with my health and how little I can handle with it, how many jobs I've lost because of my health (though again, everyone just thinks I'm lazy or I just don't want to do it and they get mad at me for it), it takes me pretty much ending up in the hospital before they believe me. Even then, when I come out, I'm supposed to be alright.
Here's a clue: I'm never alright. I'm always in pain. And it gets worse each year. But no one sees it and no one beleives it and no one says, I'm sorry, I won't push you. My health is chronically poor. I am chronically tired. I am chronically dealing with digestive issues. I get migraines. I am chronically in pain with my neck and shoulder. But, oh, just ignore her. Just don't listen. Just get frustated that she's making it up or exaggerating or get mad that you have to deal with me complaining. (Which I almost never do. I hold it all in because no one wants to hear it.) It's like invisible damage. Like things broken on the inside so no one thinks they're real. It's like the person who tells you off-handedly that "Oh I've had a migraine before!" and thinks it's just a bad headache. Or the person who gets an upset stomach for a day and thinks that's what dealing with the worst digestive system in the world, spending sometimes hours a day in the restroom in pain is the same thing.
My entire body is one massive bruise. Things hurt on my body that don't normally hurt. I'm tired. No, I'm beyond tired. I'm soul-crushing, bone-aching weary. I've been taking so many things to try to get through the day - pepto to make it four hours without needing the bathroom but then I can't use the bathroom so then I'm trying to overcome that in addition to making sure I can make it again the next day; asprin and caffine and things to take the edge off my neck, shoulder, joints, keep me awake long enough for my shift until I can come home and try to collapse for a little while out of desperation but then face another sleepless night all over - that it's all overlapping at this point and I think just making things worse.
I don't know what to do. I don't know how to deal with it. I don't know how to convince someone else that I'm not just making this up. I don't know. I'm just so tired and I feel like I'm fracturing because of it. My whole body and mind feel broken - even more then normal.
No Rest For the Weary I swear, I think I've forgotten how to sleep. It's been weeks since I've slept well. Even weekends fail to bring needed rest. I woke up seven time last night/this morning. Which, needless to say, fails to allow me proper attainment of real, deep and REM sleep.
My night went something like this: Sleep around 12:30am Woke up some time around 1:45am (10-odd minutes) Woke up around 4am (long time awake; 20+ minutes; made a pit stop, got some water) Woke up again at 7:09am (long time awake; 30+ minutes; fed the cats. Same exact time as yesterday) Woke up again around 8:06am (to the sound of some alarm going off; which continued to go off for about two hours; took me over 30 minutes to get back to sleep) Woke up again around 9:10am (10-odd minutes) Woke up to the phone at 10am (couldn't really get back to sleep. the alarm thingy was going off again.) Finally gave up trying to sleep around 10:45am
This sucks. So freakin' tired. Headache. Foggy. Miserable neck pain. And since I have to get up again tomorrow morning, things aren't going to be better sleep-in wise tonight either.
I swear, I don't know what to do anymore. If I took something to help me sleep, I literally wouldn't be able to get up for the alarm. Things that "may cause droziness" tend to cause coma for me. They knock me out sometimes upwards of 10+ hours. I haven't slept through the night in weeks now. And it takes me so long to get back to sleep when I wake up. I'm barely getting any REM sleep in and it's really getting to the point where my body is just shutting down. I'm so cranky and on edge because my whole body hurts and I'm so worn out.
