#nonsenseandstuff

Post office bounty! I’m finally cognitively together enough to actually manage this :D 

Top image, clockwise from upper left:

A pyramid of owls from @bookfanatic which DID arrive by Christmas but which I did not photograph in time for it :D Thank you! 

An awesome vintage car from @kimmiesue13 -- love the stamps you sent too! I saved them inside the card :D

The “Catmas tree” is from @howshouldibegin; the kittens and I both thank you!

The green tree card and the lovely tiny cross-stitch are from @wynjara -- what a wonderful ornament to add to my tree, thank you! 

The pretty red berries card is from Daniel, I’m so glad you enjoy the fic and thanks for being such a long-term loyal reader! (And yes, I am enjoying the deck -- especially showing it off to my envious goth friends :D) 

The Magritte-esque cardinal adn bowler hat is from @3pennyjane, thank you! The Hogfather was kind to me this year :) (LOL SEASON’S MAGRITTE-INGS)

The Llama card and awesome Dummy sticker are from @nonsenseandstuff -- Dummy is going straight onto my laptop!

The Flying Spaghetti Monster is from L and kitty Ripley -- I love the format of card you chose, so imaginative! 

And finally, the stirring mouse is from @mooseman13579 -- thanks Ishmael! I love it. Might hang it in my kitchen. 

Second image (inadvertently themed on “Blues”), clockwise from upper left: 

The tower of green cats is from Lisa -- what a great picture, thank you!

The galactic kitty sticker and glittery snow flakes are from @delphie200, and that’s another sticker going directly onto the laptop! 

Feline Navidad cracked my shit up, thank you Kris & Josh! 

The snowy owl with the narrow look is from Wendy -- it’s a wonderful Chanukkah card :D 

The “Merry Christmas and Happy New Year” card is partially obscured just to make sure nobody’s face got shown who shouldn’t, but thank you Hutts for a lovely photo card! (You have SO MANY FISH.)

And finally, the pipe-smoker in the winter wonderland is from @crimson-creature, who also wrote an amazing poem on the inside of the card. I don’t know if you have it posted anywhere but if you don’t you should share it! 

The third image is a package from @winds-wanderer; I LOVE the Lunch Money pouch and the postcards, and I’m pretty sure you sent the origami (but if not do let me know -- it got separated from its family in my bag :D). I’m planning to hang up the postcards at work! 

And lastly, thank you for your patience, the wonderful tartan bird card and “Fuctifano” coaster (OH MY GOD) are from Rua M; I plan to feature the coasters at my next get-together. Meanwhile, the awesome chocolates and postcard and neat brochure from Hawaii, the blessed candy and the new Ofuda, are from @janedrewfinally. I have to say I’m especially grateful for the Ofuda, since the cats managed to PULL DOWN AND EAT my previous one. I’m hanging this one higher on the wall. :D 

Also, yeah, whoever sold it to you as a new revolutionary original book did you a disservice. It borrows heavily from both old school fantasy and old school sci fi (particularly elements from Eddings and Heinlein (particularly Tie Enough for Love), who seem to be the go to's at the moment, Jim Butcher also borrowed heavily from both in Dresden and Codex Alera and I'm pretty sure Eragon's magic system was borrowed from Eddings too).

Unfortunately sometimes you just have to stay angry and fight for yourself until you are able to get the care you need. My response to my GI doctor who basically ridiculed me to the tune of $500 per hour was to eventually just disregard his diagnosis and stop going back until I was able to find a new doctor who listened to me—and surprise! I made immediate progress with that new doctor. Imagine that. Listening to your patient helps. Shocker.

I won’t lie, it’s emotionally draining to have to constantly be your own advocate this way, it is both physically and mentally exhausting. But when the alternative is possible death through misdiagnosis or a lifetime of continued/worsening suffering, you don’t have much choice.

The way I get through it is with the love and support of ETD who is absolutely on board with all the things I do to try and regain my health. He’s been with me to doctor’s appointments and witnessed the bullshit that gets said to me—primarily as a female patient—and been absolutely incandescent with rage. That alone helps me to feel less alone, knowing that someone else cares and is willing to punch a mother fucker. I also have a good support group of friends who are also chronically ill, and know what it’s like to go through the absolute shit show that is trying to get competent medical care when you are a chronic patient. I didn’t always have that, and the feeling of isolation was overwhelming—which is why I now talk openly about my health situation and whatever progress I make, in the hopes that it might help others feel less alone and like there’s a chance of light at the end of the tunnel.

Basically?  Illegitimi non carborundum—don’t let the bastards grind you down. And if it takes spite to keep you going, then that’s as healthy as sunshine and rainbows tbh. Oh people will tell you otherwise, but those people have never looked into the void and saw the medical system staring back. I tried that route, I tried endless positivity and smiling, and honestly I’m still positive and smiling. It’s just perhaps the kind of smile that belongs on something with fins and has its own theme tune.

As well as leaving him out of things, they could also pressure him into things he isn’t comfortable with ? Like going to medical. He keeps saying, “No,I’ll take care of myself, I’ll tell you if it gets to the point that I need a doctor, I can’t go to medical” and they pick him up and force him there. He thinks they just care about him being functional rather than about him as a person. Or maybe they’re uncomfortable living in the tower so they either move out/pay rent,

While Garum can be made with ketchup and Worcestershire sauce, Worcestershire sauce contains fish, so it is not vegetarian, and would not solve the problem!

But the spreadsheets, Sam! That's why I assumed you knew

THAT’S JUST BEING ORGANIZED! :D 

nonsenseandstuff replied to your post “Not to say Mum has abandoned her true love, the Hallmark Channel...”

2007? We must have had a different version, as I grew up on a colourised VHS of It’s a Wonderful Life. For me, Jimmy Stewart running down the street in his red jumper always stuck in my head. When I first saw the black and white version at about nine or ten, I was completely baffled!

Yeah, there was a 1986 version (that was remastered for 1989) and a 2007 version. 

wandererriha replied to your post “cosmonauthill replied to your post: Not to say Mum...”

I think that's actually the 80s one you're watching.

It’s possible, we couldn’t figure out but I assumed the 2007 version because the color work seemed better done than other colorization I’ve seen from the 80s. How would one know the difference? 

wandererriha replied to your post “Not to say Mum has abandoned her true love, the Hallmark Channel...”

Sounds more like a 1940s twist on "A Christmas Carol". I legit doubt three ghosts and a Clarence could get him to un-grump.

You need to go on a rollercoaster, ASAP. If I remember the study right, the front is best for dissolving kidney stones, but I am not 100% on that.

catlinyemaker replied to your post “Hey guess who has two kidneys and a stone in one of them? THIS GUY! ...”

So... do you like rollercoasters? Specifically the mid-level ones that are more twisty-turny than straight drops: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/04/science/roller-coaster-kidney-stones.html

rsfcommonplace replied to your post “Hey guess who has two kidneys and a stone in one of them? THIS GUY! ...”

Roller coaster time! (Well, theoretically...)

I LOVE rollercoasters and I LOVE sitting in the front but unfortunately there aren’t any easily accessible ones either where I live or where I’m visiting, at least as far as I’m aware. 

Sadly I do not think my insurance will pay for a trip to Disney to ride Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, though honestly it’s probably cheaper to pay my own way than pay the deductible on a surgery for it. 

imgoingtogobacktheresomeday replied to your post “Hey guess who has two kidneys and a stone in one of them? THIS GUY! ...”

I’ve heard people say drinking lemon juice helps dissolve them, because it has citrate or something

Unfortunately while I ALSO love lemon juice and lemon flavoring in soda water, it causes an inflammatory reaction in me that gives me sinus headaches :(

seekanewerworld replied to your photo “The babies are in the Sulk Pumpkin and comforting each other, and I’m...”

Polk has a very Adult Cat face this close up!

haphazard-ly replied to your photo “The babies are in the Sulk Pumpkin and comforting each other, and I’m...”

I think it's probably the lighting flattening her face a little, but Polk looks like she's aged a year since the last photo you posted.

Her face is so changeable, it’s really amazing. Dearborn is more floofy so it doesn’t seem like she changes as much, but the light and her posture really changes everything about how she looks. 

brilliant-starlight replied to your photo “I think she knows I’m leaving, poor sad baby.”

Polk: I will lay here in my perfectly-color-coordinated corner and MAKE YOU FEEL GUILTY, YOU MONSTER.

Sunshine is literally my favourite book. You're right, it is so comforting and warm. I think it's something about Charlie's Coffeehouse and Sunshine's baking. Also, it's a masterclass in worldbuilding. (My favourite line is 'it is only a little pressure on the understood boundaries of yourself, because it is so useful to explain feelings of anxiety, being an introvert, times when you are pushing yourself beyond your limits, running out of spoons, etc)

THIS BOOK HAS SO MANY GOOD LINES, and I love the way it approaches vampires and magic as just...part of the deal?  It’s such a nice refreshing change from most supernatural media where the masquerade is a big part of the narrative conflict, because Sunshine isn’t about the vampires or the magic in anything but the most cursory sense.  Sunshine is fundamentally an introspective coming-of-age origin story of a character.  And...listen, I hate coming-of-age narratives on principle.  Once you’ve been dragged kicking and screaming through all 750 plotless pages of You Can’t Go Home Again by Thomas Wolfe during AP Lit, you’re gonna be pretty much burned out on coming-of-age narratives.

But Sunshine’s coming of age is so...self-contained, almost gentle.  Which I realize sounds really ridiculous given the fact that, again, this book contains a lot of murder.  But Sunshine’s origin story isn’t about finding her place in the world or learning about how ultimately everything is terrible, it’s about coming to terms with what she has inside herself--the dark self, she calls it, the part of her that drives her to fight for her life even against impossible odds, even when she’s terrified of the things she’s capable of.  And that’s...so much more engaging than 750 pages of self-righteous masturbatory prose about realizing that everyone around you is ultimately a shell and you are Very Special And Unique because you have emotions or a conscience or whatever (I...really dislike coming-of-age narratives).

Instead, Sunshine presents a world full of magic and shadows and darkness, and a main character who gets her power from sunlight, and places her in a family coffee shop and somehow the primary statement that comes out of this situation is hey, the world is a scary place and sometimes being alive is really hard, but you’re doing the best you can and so are a lot of other people and maybe all of us doing really hard things together can make the world a little less scary.