I’ll be your zodiac on a different star track

Three people I love have birthdays on this particular day…so many awesome people I know are Sagittarians ♥ Twinfish aren’t supposed to be compatible with the Archers, but they seem to do well with me. Them, and Geminis, for some reason. The relationships are usually intense, and by no means conflict-free, but they’re the most rewarding and impactful ones in my life. Quite odd! (Also, weirdly, almost every Aquarius I’ve ever known has been cruel, selfish, and duplicitous. I’m sure that’s just unhappy coincidence, though.)

My back is killing me. I am far too young for this nonsense, honestly. External obliques, what nonsense. I’ll book myself in to have the things removed posthaste, methinks.

blah blah blah, also words.

Yep, it was a cyst. What fun! (Fibs and lies.) But I’m alive, so all good at the end of the day, supposedly.

It’s NaNoWriMo time, and once more I’m not sure I’m going to do it, for neuro-health reasons. There are a few projects I could work on, but it’s hard to stay motivated when it feels like someone is pulling out each of your nerves one by one and putting them through a meat grinder. I know, shocking. I’ve also got a tonne of web projects in the works, some with deadlines, that kinda might take precedence over a month-long novel written “because can”, you know? But who knows, really. It’s early days so catch-up will be a cinch if I do decide to do it. All good, all good.

いつか素直を見せるかもしれない…でも今日は無理や。 そして、ここでは無理や。しゃーない〜

some facts, what spice!

Fact: unsweetened cranberry juice is revolting.

Fact: nerve pain is awful, please make it stop. My body is exhausted but I can’t sleep.

Fact: I made a thing! And did a words! Elrond having twinless twin feels will never not be relevant to me.

Fact: The neighbour saw an eastern brown slide into my yard and hide beneath the bonfire pile. Cue me avoiding that area of the yard for the next ten thousand years.
(Listen to your friendly local OzScot here: you do not eff around with eastern brown snakes. They are not cute and sweet snek friends. They are incredibly aggressive, extremely venomous, and responsible for 60% of snakebite deaths in the country. If you see one, you stand stock effing still and let it go do whatever it’s doing — probably hiding from you, but still. Do not pass GO, do not collect $200, do not disturb it or interact with it in any way.  Keep an eye on it, and when it’s safe, you get the hell out of there and call the snake-catcher if it’s near your home. Also, if your dog or cat has one bailed up, DO NOT DISTRACT YOUR PET. They are a thousand times more likely to get bitten if you distract them. Their snake instincts are way better than yours; just let them be and keep an eye on where they and the snake go.
…this PSA has been brought to you by my horrific fear of eastern browns.)

Fact: the online treatment of the Rings of Power cast is giving me flashbacks to my teenage years and being cyberbullied to within an inch of my life.
I hope every single person who has thrown abuse at any of these actors magically develops a condition that causes any internet service they use to stop working forever.

sigh, sigh, all the sighs

Where was I when it became a crime to be hopeful?

And in other news…we’re in the “relapse” section of relapsing-remitting right now, I see. What fun!

*sigh*

for the love of the Lady and the annoyance of nerves

The problem with “prickly” nerve pain, I have discovered: the medication you take to relieve it when it gets too prickly (remember that scene from The Sandman where Delirium essentially cursed the cop to feel insects crawling all over his body, all the time? …just imagine that in real life. Yes, it is actually horrendous, the more you know!) is apt to make you either too lethargic to function decently or put you to sleep altogether ^^;  Which is…not helpful when you want to get things done! Though I suppose, on the other hand, you can’t really get a lot done when you’re distracted by prickling and scratching sensations all the time, either…rather the conundrum…🤔

Also, if you have clinical depression in any form — or, possibly, if you’re that way inclined, even if not suffering from it currently — it…makes you sad the next day. Well. Not just sad, that, of course, would be easier to deal with. It depresses you. Which is normal, because these medications are, much like alcohol, depressants by nature. But…what can you do? Itch, scratch, and generally watch your threads of sanity grow thinner and thinner…or take a pill that will make you dopey at best and fall asleep at worst, and unable to get out of  bed the next day?

The constant weighing up of the lesser or two evils can just get so…heavy. I’m tired.

…if I have any energy tomorrow, and it’s not to blazingly hot or sticklily humid,  I think I’ll go out into my “grove” and set up my outside altar, even if it’s just, hm, I don’t know, a shell or shot glass (for water), an incense stick (for air), a tiny tealight (for fire), or the tiny smooth quartz I found the other day (for earth) and nothing else. Everything from my actual altar is packed away in a box somewhere, and I feel…so lost without my witchy things around me. Which is silly; I know you can connect with the Gods in all their myriad forms simply by sitting quietly in nature and just waiting, quietly…so I think that’s what I’ll do. A simple altar, a simple ritual, for no other reason than for the joy that comes with remembering that, even if all else fails, I am a witch, and my heart is with nature, always — so always with my Gods. They are never far away from me — I see it in a thousand natural reminders when I step outside every day, so now, I want to say thank you for that, and spend some time with Them, and with nature, which is an extension of Them and also of all of us.

Heed ye flower, Bush and Tree, by the Lady, blessed be.
Where the rippling waters go, cast a stone and truth you’ll know.
When ye have a true need, hearken not to others’ greed.
With a fool no season spend, lest ye be counted as his friend.
Merry meet and merry part, bright the cheeks and warm the heart.
Mind the Threefold Law you should, three times bad and three times good.
When misfortune is enow, wear the blue star on thy brow.
True in love ever be, lest thy lover’s false to thee.
Eight words the Wiccan Rede fulfill: An ye harm none, do what ye will.

 

an unproductive day…

Pain does not lead to getting things done. I always feel as if I’m stating the obvious when I say this, but…so many people who don’t deal with chronic pain or illness simply forget, and I do think it’s understandable — I used to be that way before my illness myself. Not out of cruelty or intentional flippancy or anything of the like, but because when you’re not in pain, you don’t think about it. That’s just the way brains are wired to work…if they weren’t, the population would surely be much, much smaller than it currently is 😛 Still, it galls me to be awake, but too fuddled with pain and brainfog to be able to do anything of real consequence…as if there were some magic button I could switch on or off, or if I could schedule when pain will or won’t lay me low for a day…if only, if only…

pain, pain, go away…

A very, very bad pain day…using this scale (yes, it’s silly, but…it’s also weirdly helpful!), it’s been hovering between 8 and 9 all day. I’m not sure what’s made it “kick off” so badly, and I currently have no prescription painkillers, so it’s been a fairly unproductive day, interspersed with essential naps. Quite irritating, because there is so much I wanted to add to Evenstar, and my big package of art and calligraphy supplies finally arrived after languishing in Melbourne for ten days…concentrating when you’re in serious pain is just not doable. I’m surprised I managed to get my kitchen tidied, truth be told…chronic illness is the worst, I swear.

Little else to report on the life front, but I suppose, given the recent turmoil I navigated through, that’s a blessing, really. I really should be in bed…my art supplies will be waiting for me tomorrow, as will all my other projects…sigh…