black-winged-pippa

[black-winged-pippa]

I got this far on one gallon of paint, and I may need a total of 3 on the walls. Painting has revealed so many problems with the walls, honestly. There are places that the paint just wanted to smear more than anything. There are a couple of spots around the trim where the paint just didn’t take at all, which I discovered after pulling up tape. Mom worked on the upper edge while I went around the baseboards, and we’d go from a nice, smooth transition from wall to ceiling/baseboard to “OMFG, what is this gaping pit, and why can’t I angle the brush into it without hitting the ceiling/baseboard?” There are also patches on the walls that look flat for some ungodly reason (I’m using a satin paint, just fyi). If a second (or even third) coat of paint doesn’t fix all of the issues, my hope is that I can just cover them up, or distract from them, by putting up shelving, pictures, or artwork. The two unfinished walls are somewhat distracting, but at least my room feels a lot more cozy, and it’s finally dark enough for me to sleep more comfortably. I’ve had a few migraines since painting, and it has been so much easier to overcome them now that the light isn’t bouncing off of all of the walls. We got halfway through painting when Mom turns around and is like “Oh my gosh! I can see your pink doors now!” It’s such a soft pink that I’d have to stand at very specific angles to even see it before. The vanilla white walls just washed them out, honestly. I’m contemplating painting my trim in a darker pink in the future, but I haven’t decided yet. This room is finally starting to feel like it’s mine, which is helping to make it sink in that we’ve moved. We’ve been here 4 years, now, and it still doesn’t feel real most of the time.

#pippa's personal ramblings #pippa may #painting my bedroom #behr dark everglade

[black-winged-pippa]

You spend enough time away from social media, you start to forget you even have it. Honestly, real life is already dramatic enough, so I haven’t felt much desire to lurk online anymore.

Not a lot has been going on lately. Time has been a blur this year, honestly. 2022 has felt both too long and too short a year. And the time change this year has been the worst one yet, for me. Instead of it feeling like an hour difference, it’s felt like 3-4 hours.

Every once in a while, I feel a twinge around my liver or diaphragm. It’s crept up on me while walking or eating, mostly, but it even happens when I’m not doing anything. Thankfully, my recent labs have shown that my liver is healthy, so there’s that. It’s just been a little stressful making adjustments to my life since the cholecystectomy.

After Thanksgiving, I was going through the books nearest to my bed, and I had a stack of classics sitting together. After reading Dracula, I figured that I should finally sit down to actually read my small collection of classic works. I’ve put them off for over a decade, and I need to justify owning them, now. I’ve started on Wuthering Heights, and I’m trying to find the motivation to read a little every day (and failing horribly at it). I plan on moving on to Jane Eyre after that, followed by Moll Flanders and Mansfield Park. We’ll see what I can finish before New Year, but I imagine I won’t start the others until 2023. I’d hoped that I’d be more motivated to breeze through Wuthering Heights, as it’s the shortest of the 4, but I’ve been way more distracted since I picked it up at the beginning of the month. I might switch back to more modern books after Mansfield Park before figuring out which group of classics to read next, too.

I can hardly believe that I haven’t touched my Switch since Thanksgiving (except to connect it to our new router). I haven’t felt much motivation to play anything since October, honestly. At most, I’d like to play Monster Hunter Rise. But I enjoy it more when I can team up with my boyfriend and his friends, and everyone’s just busy at this time of year. And I’ve been avoiding Animal Crossing for seasonal reasons. Autumn being very orange on my island just irritates my eyes after a while. And I realized after 2 winters in the game that, as pretty as the island looks, I get depressed halfway through it because I’m desperate for my island to be green again.

#pippa's personal ramblings #just trying to avoid seasonal depression as much as possible

[black-winged-pippa]

Well, I finally finished Dracula. After decades of this story being sold to me as a romance, all I can think is “What. The. Fuck. Is. Wrong. With. You?”

Dracula’s first assault of Mina brought to mind the assault scene in Rosemary’s Baby. Which, that was a bit triggering, honestly. That scene reminded me of my own assault. Like, I did not go into this book expecting romance of any kind, even with certain adaptations running around in my head. I just was not prepared for how intensely predatory Dracula was. I mean, “livid” was used quite frequently to describe him, and I don’t think that it was just because of his pallor. But, frankly, with shit like 50 Shades and 365 Days existing in this universe, why should I be surprised at Dracula being some “romantic” icon in pop culture?

Dr. Seward managed to grow on me, in the end. I wish that there’d been more of Arthur and Quincey in the story, purely because I do not feel as much attachment to them as I would like. Quincey is still my favorite of the party, though; tied with Van Helsing. I did not become as attached to Mina as I had Lucy. I feel like there was just something more relatable in Lucy than Mina, to me.

I’m glad that I finally made myself read the original novel, though. It was a horrifying read, indeed.

#pippa's personal ramblings #sa mention #dracula

[black-winged-pippa]

I did a thing...

#pippa's personal ramblings #i opened up a redbubble shop #redbubble #renaqr

[black-winged-pippa]

My boyfriend expressed an interest in watching Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities with me. But I know that he doesn’t like stuff with a lot of jump scares, so I’ve started watching it without him so I can prepare him for those parts. The first episode feels pretty safe. The second episode, though? My actual, literal nightmares committed to film. Like, I knew that there’d be a rat episode, and I did manage to get through the whole thing without stopping, but I don’t know if I could watch it a second time with my boyfriend (at least, with my eyes open). Again, if half of the events in that episode weren’t something that I’ve quite literally dreamed about happening to me, I think I could get through it a second time. But every single rat encounter was something straight out of my worst nightmares. I had to watch some Alchemy of Souls just so I could sleep after that last night.

#pippa's personal ramblings #yay for musophobia #god i hate how bad i have it #it wasn't so bad when i was a child #i even managed to get comfortable with classmates' pet mice and handling them #but bad experiences in my adulthood has just made it impossible to get over again

[black-winged-pippa]

I haven’t picked up Dracula in...a while. I have every intention of finishing it, but we’ll see if I can actually accomplish this before Thanksgiving.

We made a long overdue Costco run yesterday, and my body is broken. First off, the very first item that I picked up in our haul ended up skinning my finger. I caught my finger on a poorly formed bit of plastic on a water bottle while trying to get a grip on the plastic to pick up the case. I still had 3 more cases to pick up on my end (Dad got the rest), and I caught my finger on every single one of them. (I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve said this, now, but fuck you, Costco, for no longer having cardboard on the bottom of your waters.) We fully loaded 2 regular carts and a flat cart with groceries, medicine, and toiletries. Half of cart #2 was a hefty assortment of meat.

It was nice and cloudy when we entered the store, but the sun was out in full glory when we got back to the truck, which made offloading all of that into bins/the back seat absolute Hell. Dad turned the in-bed trunk into a giant cooler to house all of the meat and produce (and the 2 containers of candy we impulsively bought). The paper goods got chucked into the back seat, and whatever wasn’t water ended up in 4 storage bins, or crammed in the gap between said bins. The water ended up stacked on top of the bins. We did have some food items in the cab with us, but only because Dad wanted to keep them at room temperature.

Getting everything off of the truck was worse, because now we had to team-lift 4 storage bins off of the bed and into the house. And I still continued to catch my finger on water bottles as I moved the cases to the tailgate for Dad. Anyway, I haven’t done lifting like that since 2020, nor have I done any vigorous exercise since last year, so my body has been upset with me for moving today. Every time I have to get up and leave my room, I feel like I resemble that one ghost from Crimson Peak shambling down the hall.

#pippa's personal ramblings

[black-winged-pippa]

Well, I didn’t finish Dracula before today. I’m a little upset about that. I kept getting distracted, and only managed to read anything if I had to give someone a ride to an appointment or if I couldn’t sleep at night. I’ve only read 105 pages out of 380. Of what I’ve read, so far, the only characters that I care about are Lucy and Quincy. And knowing what happens to Lucy really hurts me, now. I also really liked Mr. Swales, and was genuinely shocked by what happened to him. I’m also surprised that I just don’t really like certain characters, now, after their book introductions. Like Dr. Seward? Can’t stand him.

I’m struggling a bit with mental health lately. I’ve just been a fog, and I’m more easily distracted than usual. This post alone has taken far too long to type up than it should have. I don’t know what to do about it right now, though.

#pippa's personal ramblings

[black-winged-pippa]

I had an over-the-phone appointment with Social Security last week, and that phone call has completely wrecked me, mentally. I’ve had some hiccups with my speech language disorder on-and-off throughout my life, but that phone call was the absolute worst experience for me. I felt like I had a stroke by the end of it, because I was struggling so hard with that conversation. It was so bad that just discussing the call sparks an anxiety attack, now. The point of the call is that I’m trying to see if I qualify for benefits, and I won’t know for at least a month, at this point. It may even take longer. They need to review my medical records, which I had been told that I didn’t need for that phone call, but was told on the call that I did.

In lighter news, I have finally started reading Dracula (I wanted to do that at the beginning of October, but I honestly forgot until today). And, yes, I’ve never read the novel before now. I was trying to find something to entertain myself with while taking my sister to an appointment this morning, and my eyes locked onto the book. Because of how fried my brain is at the moment, I’m having to read the book out loud to myself. And the further along I’ve gotten into Jonathan Harker’s journal, the more in character my reading has become. And this man is dumb. A lot of my preconceptions about this novel have changed considerably, in just the first 12 pages alone. Like the fact that Jonathan is riding up to Dracula’s castle at the beginning of May? When most media adaptations make that shit look like it’s fall or winter? There’s just something more creepy and unsettling about spoopy shit taking place in springtime, honestly. I’m just shaking my head and giggling over all of these moments of Jonathan being like “Well, that’s weird/creepy... But I’m sure it’s fine.” I’m going to try to read as much as I can in my spare time, because I would like to be able to finish this before Halloween. We’ll just have to see how that goes, though, with my brain being a total mess.

#pippa's personal ramblings

[black-winged-pippa]

Our only real “casualties” after Hurricane Ian were Dad’s Barbados cherry and the cosmos. Dad’s straightened out his baby already, and we’re not that bummed about the cosmos. One of our planters of succulents had blown over as well during the storm, and it kept setting off our motion alert at the front door because it kept getting rolled around (though my parents didn’t catch on to it until after the storm). Surprisingly, they all held firm to the pot, and they’re still thriving. We didn’t really think to bring those in because they’re just as heavy as our terracotta planters out back. We just didn’t think about the fact that they taper in at the base, so they’re top heavy.

The conservation sign has a little bit more of a lean to it, but nothing as bad as the others in the neighborhood. There’s one along the main drive that is practically lying flat at the edge of the wetland. The only thing holding it up is the thick edge of grass behind it. Some of the foliage at the edge of our wetland is starting to spring back upright on it’s own, but a lot of it is still lying flat.

One of the model homes lost a huge chunk of it’s roof shingles. There was like a 4x6 sheet of them lying on the grass in front of it when we walked the neighborhood after everything. We’re still finding damage around the neighborhood that we’ve missed with every other walk/drive we’ve been on. It’s still mostly tree and fence damage, but a few people are missing roof shingles. There’s at least one house missing a small section of siding. And there are a couple of houses that lost part of their house numbers.

Before the storm, our friend’s neighbor went a little Karen-mode on our friend and insisted that her daughter’s boyfriend move our friend’s planters inside. (There was honestly no need to move them, either. They weigh far too much to be a threat.) She kept making these excuses about “it’s what my landlord wants”, and she really escalated things by talking about lawsuits if our friend’s stuff got blown into her house. Our friend was so stressed out that she couldn’t even stop them from moving everything to her garage, and she threw the lawsuit thing back at them because the kid moved everything next to her car. (There’s normally room on the other side of her garage, but she let Mom park her car inside until Ian passed.) So, after the storm, the neighbor comes home shortly after we finish our little drive around town, and she starts making these non-apologies to our friend, and offering for the kid to move everything back, and our friend wasn’t having any of it. We’d already returned home when she’d pulled up, so we were just kind of watching from down the street. The next thing we know, this woman gets back into her car (with the daughter and her boyfriend), to come tell us that there’d “been some misunderstanding” between them and our friend, and that they “hadn’t meant to be rude or anything”, and “we were just trying to be good neighbors, because she’s all alone”. First of all, other neighbors had heard the original confrontation between them, and they said that she was being an ugly Karen about it. Second, we could hear her tone perfectly well from down the street as she approached our friend just minutes before (sound really carries in this neighborhood). She was still being a Karen with our friend, but she was suddenly pulling the sweet-and-innocent card with us. We weren’t buying it. Also, just because our friend’s nephew hasn’t been living there anymore, they know damn well that we’re always spending time with her. Dad is constantly over there to help her with stuff, we go on daily walks with each other, and we go for a drive together every weekend. We are a constant in our friend’s life. So acting like she’s a lonely spinster that they need to rescue is bullshit. This woman was very adamant that her daughter’s boyfriend move everything back for our friend, but we (our friend and us collectively) were very firm that we would be moving everything for her. For some reason, she didn’t like that. She kept throwing out “he works at Lowe’s, so he does this kind of thing all the time”. That’s nice, lady, but you have been told “no”, so leave it. Her toddler son understands “no” better than she does, and that’s sad.

#pippa's personal ramblings #my photos #hurricane ian #i still can't believe we had to deal with a karen through all of this

[black-winged-pippa]

It’s been a day, but we made it through Hurricane Ian. I’m too tired to go into detail here right now, though. I’ll just say that everyone’s okay, and any storm damage we sustained is extremely minimal.

#pippa's personal ramblings

[black-winged-pippa]

I’ve been fighting to stay awake/alert all day, so far. I did not sleep very well last night, and only got out of bed because I needed to.

Thanks, AccuWeather, for stating the obvious.

No, we have not evacuated. There have been no calls to evacuate our city, specifically. At most, we’ll be looking at potential flooding, severe thunderstorms, and tornadoes. Our house is, thankfully, just above the flood plain in our neighborhood, but our friend’s is not. We’ve been in regular communication with her and our next door neighbor every day this week. Dad’s been helping them with storm prep. Our next door neighbor has helped a lot with obtaining water and food through his job. I’ve made sure to keep certain devices charged in case we lose power. My parents are going to set up an air mattress in their closet in case we need to retreat in there. Since previous hurricanes have missed us entirely, or fizzled out by the time it reached us, Ian will be our first real test since moving to Florida.

I know that the weather is contributing to my fatigue. I always feel like crap when it’s about to storm. It’s a miracle that I haven’t entered migraine territory, yet.

My sense of time is completely distorted by the solid grey sky outside. Time is basically frozen because I cannot track the sun’s position.

I’m finally starting to hear the wind pick up outside. I will definitely give an update as soon as I’m able to. May my fellow Floridians stay safe, comfortable, and healthy. If you’ve been called to evacuate, I wish you safe travels, and that you can return home soon.

#pippa's personal ramblings #hurricane ian #florida #central florida #polk county #hurricane #severe weather

[black-winged-pippa]

Surgery went well. I did end up suffering another attack the night before, though. I also got a call in the morning asking if I wanted to come in earlier due to a cancellation. The moment I got checked in, my anxiety over the surgery disappeared. I’ve never felt more safe and cared for in my life. The entire team caring for me did such a fantastic job, and all of them had a calming presence. And the anesthesiologist and his team did a great job, too. I was out for the entire surgery. I started coming to in the post-op room, but I was still a bit groggy. I was very grateful for the nurse that started spoon-feeding me ice chips, because my mouth and throat were bone dry, and it hurt to speak. Once I was lucid enough to answer some questions, they got me back to a room where I could be with Mom again. I was amazed at how quickly I felt ready to get up and walk to the bathroom. Even now, the walking is easy. The only struggle is sitting myself upright, I have some pressure in my abdomen that’s worked it’s way up to my shoulders (mostly gas), and 3 of the 4 incisions itch/ache. The worst is the top most incision, but mostly because it’s right in the middle of where I’m feeling pressure.

I’m trying to drink plenty of water. I’ve mostly been eating Jell-o since I got home. I tried eating crackers at the hospital, but my mouth was still too dry for that. I did manage to drink a protein drink this afternoon, though. I don’t know when I’ll feel up to solids, at this point, but I haven’t had much of an appetite; which was to be expected.

Mom talked to my doctor while I was in post-op. She said that my gallbladder definitely needed to come out, and it probably should have been done decades ago. The whole thing was inflamed and it had basically glued itself to the surrounding organs. One of the ducts was also uncommonly short. She also said that the walls of the gallbladder are generally thin, but mine had thickened. It’s crazy to think that I had this thing inside of me for so long, and just makes me more angry with my doctors in Tennessee for ignoring me all of those years. I’m forever grateful that my medical team here in Florida caught this and took care of me.

#pippa's personal ramblings #i've mostly been napping since i got out of surgery #i get up and walk around a little whenever i wake up #again the worst thing is just trying to get myself upright when i want to get up #but i'm fine once i pass that hurdle #the pain meds help me to sleep too #especially since they also help dull the itching #we'll so how things go when i can finally get in the shower to clean my incisions

[black-winged-pippa]

I’ve not been posting because of laziness, mostly, but also because I haven’t seen much point in documenting so much mundanity. But things have changed, now.

Back in April, my doctor was concerned about my liver and ordered an ultrasound for me. I had my ultrasound on April 30th, and then never heard from anyone about the results. On May 24th I was struck by sudden, painful pressure in my right side, eventually resulting in hours of vomiting. I was so sick that I had to have Mom call my doctor for me. She stood next to me on speaker phone as I puked my guts out. My doctor finally gives me the results of my ultrasound: gallstones. Because of my results and how sick I was, she’s recommended surgery.

I met with a general surgeon on June 7th, and she went over the ultrasound with me and talked to me about what to expect with surgery and my recovery. She said that my gallbladder is completely packed with stones, and because I’ve had attacks in the past like the one in May, that I’d live a lot more comfortably without it. I was called pretty much the next day to book my surgery dates. I had a Covid test and lab work done on July 7th for pre-admission, and I’m going in tomorrow afternoon (the 11th) for my surgery.

Honestly, I feel like this could have been fixed years ago; long before we moved. I had the same symptoms several times between 2013 and 2019. (Up until my attack in May, though, I’d simply just forgotten about the previous incidents.)   I brought it up multiple times to my doctor then, and it was just dismissed as the flu or a stomach bug. I’ve had anxiety for years about something going wrong with my liver, gallbladder, and pancreas, especially after my grandfather was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. (Based on my ultrasound, though, everything else is perfectly healthy.) My cousin even had her gallbladder removed not that long ago, too.

Before now, the only surgery I’ve ever undergone has been oral surgery, and that was in 2004. I can’t help feeling anxious about this. I don’t have the best track record with anesthesia, which I’m going to be bringing up with the anesthesiologist. I’m also just anxious about what would happen if the surgery doesn’t start off well. I’d rather go home the same day with 4 tiny incisions than 2-3 days later with an incision 6″ long. I’m really trying not to stress myself out over it, though. Mom will be with me tomorrow, thankfully.

#pippa's personal ramblings #idk if it's psychosomatic or not but i've felt twinges in my side on and off all weekend #i've been watching my diet as carefully as i can leading up to this #because i didn't want another attack before this surgery

[black-winged-pippa]

After years of waiting, season 2 of Arthdal Chronicles is finally confirmed. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve watched it since 2019, anxiously waiting for news of the next season. Covid delaying production made me anxious that it’d end up being cancelled, but I’m so grateful that it’s finally happening. People are freaking out about the cast not being determined yet, but I doubt that it means the main cast isn’t returning. I imagine that we’re going to have a lot of new recurring roles, for one. If there was any kind of recasting going on, I’d almost imagine it being for child characters, like Do-ti (which I hope won’t be the case, but kids grow up a lot in just a few years).

Something that I was reminded of that annoys me is that Netflix viewers have been robbed of content/context for this show. Apparently, when this was airing in Korea, there were bonus clips at the end of each episode. These clips were narrated by the cast, and depicted Arthdal lore or bonus scenes that provided extra context and worldbuilding. Only one bonus clip made it onto Netflix, and that was the one showing the Azure Comet and the birth of our main trio. Probably because it was the only one with actual footage from the show. If you weren’t aware of these clips before then click here for English translations.

So, I’ve got unanswered questions that I hope will be resolved in Season 2. 1) Whatever happened to Buksoe? We have not seen him since the attempt to rescue Mungtae and Teodae. 2) Dan-Byeok and Syoreujakin; are they alive or dead? It’s that whole “if I didn’t see it, it didn’t happen” thing. And the show left me feeling like they’d both possibly come back. 3) Where’d Asa Yon disappear to, and will he come back? How will he come back? 4) I know through one of those extra clips that Eunseom’s horse has been wandering around since leaving him, but where is he now? When will he reappear?

#pippa's ramblings #arthdal chronicles #i'm getting so excited #i'm probably going to annoy family and friends with each update between now and release date #i'm also excited about the webtoon and mmorpg that were announced #i'd love to have more lore #and hopefully to see more of asa sin's story especially

[black-winged-pippa]

Well, this week has started out hard. My great uncle Jimmy passed away, as well as a coach from my high school (who’s also a distant cousin) and my neighbor’s dad. As far as I know, the only one that may have been Covid related would be my neighbor’s dad, but he was also suffering from dementia. It’s just a lot to take in at once.

#pippa's personal ramblings

[black-winged-pippa]

Only 11 days into 2022, and I’ve been dealing with insomnia and pain. Most of it is due to Dad sabotaging my schedule and diet over the past few months, and it finally coming to a head. I did not miss this shit, and I would love to get rid of it, again.

My boyfriend and I have been trying to jump back into watching anime together on his days off. We started watching Ranking of Kings, and we ended up binging the first 12 episodes; it was just such a good watch. Today, we finally got around to the Demon Slayer movie. Let’s just say that we were both emotionally wrecked by the end, and we couldn’t watch anything else today. I guess we’ll continue catching up on Demon Slayer this weekend, and maybe some Digimon and Dragon Quest.

My grandfather sent Christmas money for me and Cat, but he wrote the check to Dad, and we’ve been waiting a week to get our money. And, now, Dad’s like “do you want me to write you a check or give you cash? I know you need the transaction for the bank, so maybe I should just write you a check?”

It’s all getting deposited anyway, so it doesn’t fucking matter. The only difference is that I can spend the fucking cash the same day it’s deposited vs. waiting until the next business day. Just stop making excuses and give us our damn money. You’re already going to have to give cash to Cat, so why even cut me a check?

#pippa's personal ramblings #i'm tired of not sleeping at night and of my legs aching 24/7 #and i'm getting really irritated with dad #i feel like i've been nothing but hurt and stressed and pissy for the past 11 days #and i don't care for it

[black-winged-pippa]

At night, I like to play something on Netflix that I’ve already seen, just for white noise while I sleep. This week, that ended up being Ouran High School Host Club. Well, last night, something woke me in the middle of the night, and I looked over at my screen to see the episode “Covering the Famous Host Club!”, and I had to do a double take. First of all, I’d originally only watched the series in English before, so I’d never heard how “the daruma doll fell over” sounds in Japanese until now. Then, when Tamaki kicks the can, there’s a girl depicted on it in bright colors and braided pigtails. Let’s just say that, in this post Squid Game world, the “commoners games” part of that episode felt very weird to watch.

#pippa's ramblings #ouran high school host club #OHSHC #squid game