The Raven's Roost

1. Do you mostly drink tap, filtered, or bottled water?
Filtered. Our water is very hard, even with the softener system, so some things like the coffee maker get filtered water to prolong their useful life.

2. Is it safe/recommended to drink tap water where you live? If not, why?
We're on an artesian well. Our water is safe, though we occasionally hit a sulfur pocket that makes it smell like farts. There's also some sort of iron-eating bacteria in it that's harmless to humans.

3. What does the tap water taste/smell like where you live?
Most of the time, it just tastes and smells like a mineral water you might buy at the store. Like I said, our water is pretty hard, and even with a softener and filter, we still have places where there are crusty mineral build-ups.

4. Do you collect rainwater? If so, what do you use it for?
I'm scheming about setting up a rainwater system to water the garden. But it's also pretty superfluous here.

5. Do you/have you ever had restrictions on water use where you live? What did you have to change about your lifestyle?
When I lived in Louisiana I was under boil orders several times, usually after hurricanes. Around here we did have a dry summer where they were asking people to not water their lawns or stupid shit like that, but we don't water the grass here so it didn't affect us. We figure that the grass can take care of itself, and there's no one around demanding it look like a putting green, so why waste the effort and resources?

New St. Felix fiction is up! Links are to YouTube Music because I don't like Spotify.
Kat Calling - Christmas Eve Eve

I hope I've made the background dark enough, let me know. I'll make it a lot darker if it's too hard to read.

'Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house
the AC was running, 'cause we live in the South.

Yesterday I had to go into Jacksonville for follow-up at Hill Breast Center, but I will go ahead and spoil the ending - everything's fine.

Several years ago I had to go to this place for a biopsy of a particularly dense mass. I was a little anxious about going back, because I remember the first visit taking all day. I don't remember why I was waiting around so long, but yesterday's visit was about 90 minutes. I had a diagnostic mammogram and then an ultrasound, from which they decided no biopsy was needed. I do have some calcifications, but they want me to get some twice-yearly MRIs to check on those, and if after two years they haven't changed, then they're likely to not ever do anything. The main thing they want to make sure of is that a mass doesn't also form in the area. Plus I have unusual amounts of heterogenous density, so I'm even more like trying to find a rock in a bag of jellybeans.

Since I was already so far out, I detoured to go to the new Lotte Market we got in October. It moved into an old Best Buy, so it's enormous. I really want Fox to be able to come along on another visit. They have just about any Asian food you can think of, produce to frozen foods, as well as a big selection of Indian and Hispanic foods. They also have several small food stands inside the store, selling coffee and pastries, Japanese street food, and Korean barbeque. I got a chocolate-filled shokupan roll. They have Ramune-flavored ice cream, live seafood, all manner of fermented foods, fresh mushrooms, fish cake multipacks for donburi, and home goods of all kinds. I was delighted and kept spamming Fox with photos of things.

I had some other stops to make, including REI before I was able to head back home, and it was a long day out for me. I'm somewhat dreading the need to argue with insurance about these MRIs they want, because I know the insurance will say they aren't necessary and won't want to pay for them. And it may get much worse, depending on how policies shake out. But I guess we'll deal with that when the time comes. I'm also not looking forward to needing to get rid of my ear piercings for these scans, but I might be able to find glass or silicone retainers, and just recruit Fox to help me switch everything out.

Anyway, I've always kind of wanted to do this for Christmas - ramen. I can buy bottled broth concentrate (probably miso, which is what Fox and I like best), the noodles, veg, and even a good cut of pork belly for the chashu. I would make my own broth but mine never quite has the richness, and I haven't figured out why.

1. Did you get an allowance as a kid, and if so, how much was it?
I remember at one point getting paid per chore done, at one point five bucks a week.

2. How old were you when you had your first job, and what was it?
16, I was a cataloging library assistant at my college library. One of my tasks was to file new cards in the card catalog and remove the cards for withdrawn books.

3. Which do you do better: save money or spend money?
Spend, honestly. But I am getting much better at saving.

4. Are people more likely to borrow money from you, or are you more likely to borrow from them?
Neither - I don't really have anyone around me who would bum money, and I don't need to.

5. What's the most expensive thing you've ever bought?
Like me, personally, not as part of a couple? That would maybe be the gravel bike I bought. Which I really ought to get out and ride more.

I picked up some kind of sore throat or cold or whatever while we were gone. I feel terrible. Slept most of today and plan to go back to bed once dinner is done not that I feel like eating. Everything hurts - skin, large muscles, head, guts, throat

1. What were some of the smells and tastes of your childhood? This is a difficult one, because I feel like my sense of taste and smell was pretty underdeveloped until I was an adult. I have also always been far more visual than anything, so I remember images and scenes rather than taste or smell.

2. What did you have as a child that you do not think children today have? Unstructured time.

3. What elementary grade was your favorite? UGH none of them. School was an unrelenting hell.

4. What summer do you remember the best as a child? In a lot of ways, time in my childhood is not linear. I feel like I don't remember that much, and what I do is sort of lumped together. I spent a lot of time outside, though. I'd take a book outside and read under a tree, or just hang out in our fairly big backyard.

5. What one piece of advice would you give to your younger self, and at what age? Stop trying to get people to like you. They aren't going to, and you're wasting your energy. Just do your own thing, it'll get better later.

The isoenzymes and liver alkaline phosphatase tests finally came back with the most confusing results possible. ALP is still high (20 points or so over the high end of normal) and everything else is within range. No bone enzymes. No hepatic enzymes. No anything. So my ALP is just high because of ... reasons? I'll be curious what the doctor has to say about this, because the general feeling I get from PubMed, NIH, and the other websites I've been reading this morning is ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The only two potential culprits I can think of: Collagen can sometimes cause weird liver readings, but usually also causes high bone isoenzymes. The other is that people with B or O blood types (I'm a B+) can have high readings after consuming "fatty" meals. I can't currently find much about that because Google results immediately devolve into blood type diets. So I'm not sure if we're talking about all fats, animal fats, what the thresholds are, or anything useful like that.

Now that all the results are in, my body finally was able to "stand down," so I've been dealing with stress release symptoms all morning. That's finally calming down so I can go start cleaning up the camper, doing laundry, and generally getting us ready for our trip. Yesterday was a wash because I got my flu shot earlier in the day and it hit me pretty hard, so I didn't do much besides nap and sit around. I feel better this morning, so yay.

Some good news - I was trapped on the couch this morning while Crowley slept on my lap, and I finally figured out how to start a story I've wanted to write called "The Reeds." Weird fiction set in Muna. I now feel like I have a decent road map through the events of the story, but it will also require me to finish up a comic called "Keiko's Fairy Gourdmother," which to be fair I ought to do.

I'm going to try and hustle a little to get my chores and workout done so I'll have some creative time this afternoon. Yay!

Sorry about the lack of updates lately but shit is not going well for me. It's going pretty well for Fox, though, who has started a new treatment that seems to be helping his pain and numbness, so we're happy about that! But my liver panels came back all fucked up, badly enough that I'm having more follow-up tests today. I read over some of the treatments and lifestyle things you can do, considering I had even stopped taking a multivitamin because of how poorly regulated supplements are and the possibility of liver damage, and the numbers are even higher. I'm deeply frustrated and I don't know what I've done. The only thing on the list of suggested behaviors I have not done (exercise, don't drink or smoke, etc. you know the drill) is lose weight, so I'm aiming to drop about 10% of my current weight. It's going to suck, but I don't know what else I can possibly do to help this. And I was looking forward to "bulking season" and getting some heavier lifts in, but hey.

Anxiety has got me bad enough that I'm having trouble focusing on reading for any length of time, so books are just sitting unread. I have managed to write a little, but my brain is going totally sideways on me, and with liver tests, I don't even dare to have a THC drink, which would help take the edge off. I don't know what's going to make the enzymes go up or down anymore.

And just because I needed an extra "fuck you," my neighbor and her family are moving to Orlando. Her husband got a job offer with a pretty major pay increase, so I'm honestly happy for them, as I know they've been struggling with food prices and everything, but now that house will be on the market again and who knows what kind of dumb fucks will buy it. And I no longer have a reliable cat sitter. Or a friend. And I had another friend who'd recently gotten a colonoscopy, but then had bleeding a few days later, so that was worrisome. That seems to be better now, or at any rate, no ER visits were needed.

OH YEAH I also got a suspicious mass on my most recent mammogram, and I have to go into Jacksonville to get more testing done on that! I forgot that my tits are also trying to kill me.

This is all pretty upsetting for the additional triggering of this childhood terror of being sick, because Carolyn would get pissy with me if I was ill. I'd get medicine, doctor if needed, all that, but she would make it clear through her mannerisms that I was a nuisance and a burden. Later she'd actually get in my face screaming at me about an expensive doctor visit, and how she didn't have the money for both me at veterinary costs, so it was my fault her cat died. All that shit comes back with compound interest whenever I have a major medical issue to deal with, because I'm afraid of being not only non-useful, but requiring help and support myself. I guess it could be called "stoicism," but I rarely admit to being anything but "fine."

So I'm going to go run a few errands, while I can't have any more peppermint mocha iced coffees, and just ... whatever. I'm so annoyed with my body and myself right now.