Catching up (and other random musings): Part 1

Apparently it's been over two months since I last posted on here. Time flies, and so forth...

I'm sure that everyone else feels the same too, but there just aren't enough hours in the day for me to do everything that I'd like to do. And lately, blogging, and just internetting in general, have really taken a back seat to a bunch of other things; some of which I'm planning on discussing here today.

There's much that I'd like to talk about, and zero chance of me getting to all of it in one sitting, so I think I'll try to piecemeal the post over the next few days. Hopefully no more than three. 

I expect today's offering to be stupid-long; apologies in advance.

• As I sit here to start this post on Sunday morning, I find myself coming off of the best night's sleep I've had in at least six months. I don't know what I did to deserve it, but I'm awfully grateful. I got about 7 1/2 hours, and didn't wake up once. I usually have to wake up, for whatever reason, at least 5-8 times every night, which ends up yielding maybe 5 to 6 - if I'm lucky - hours of sleep. I guess it's because it's been so long, but I'm just amazed at the clarity of mind that I feel. As opposed to the fog that I'm usually operating under. My energy level seems to be quite a bit higher as well. I almost feel like I've got the strength of 10 Grinches, plus 2. Needless to say, I will not be wasting much of this inevitably brief vigor on this post, or any other computer related thing today. A few more bullet points, and then I'm gonna bounce...

• I haven't done much posting (on any of my blogs) in recent weeks, and I haven't very active in my commenting either. This is mostly because I've been dealing with a bit of an issue as of late, which, going by all of the symptoms, I've self-diagnosed as occipital neuralgia. Trying to figure out what's ailing one via the internet is often iffy at best, but in this instance, I've got every single symptom of this thing, and am fairly confident that that's what it is. And let me tell you, if I'm right, and this is what I've got, you don't ever want it. It is the shits! If it continues to persist too much longer, I think I might actually have to break down and go see a doctor, as nothing I've tried to do to relieve it as worked thus far. I've never had this before, but one of the things that supposedly brings it on for some people is colder weather. And thinking back, I suspect that that might've been what did it.

A few days of Christmas, which is right around the time that the cold weather showed up, I spent a couple of hours working outside one afternoon, and it's been all downhill ever since. Now, me doing shit outside in the cold ain't nothing new, but on this particular day I was woefully under dressed. It didn't seem like it was gonna be so cold before I got out there, and I'm sure that some of you know how it is, you go out, find that's colder than you though, but don't want to go through the trouble of going back inside to put more layers on. Well, that was me. I ended up being outside much longer than planned, and despite the physical activity, never did warm up. I guess that's how you know it's cold. Anyway, later that night a specific spot on both sides of my neck (apparently where the occipital nerves are located) started to hurt. I didn't think much of it and went to bed. I then woke up about 3am with the king of all migraines, and the back of my neck going up into my head was incredibly achy (I don't get migraines in the back of my head, so that neck ache wasn't because of that). It took a while for the migraine to start to subside that day, but the side and back of the neck aches never did. It's a few weeks later now, and I've had even more headaches and migraines than normal, many brief instances of vertigo, nausea galore, two days of pulsatile tinnitus, and whole host of lesser, but not less fun, symptoms. Like I said, it's the shits. I just hope that this isn't another byproduct of my getting older, because while I hate the cold, I hate being stuck inside the house even more. I have started thinking about moving again (more on that later), but I don't think that I can get anywhere warmer for a few more years.

• It's Monday morning now. As expected, my great night of sleep was just an anomaly. I'm making do with five hours... and a headache to start the day. I'm also starting off a bit bummed too. There was an item ending on eBay last night that I really wanted, and didn't get. I was even went above my comfort zone when it came time to bid, but as usual, there's always someone who can, and will, go higher. It wasn't a one of a kind item, so it's not the end of the world -- but still, I'm a bit down over not getting it. Probably will be for another day or two as well.

• Like a lot of other folks, we got our first real bit of winter last week. 

We ended up with around 6-7" of snow, and a bit more in the driftier spots. I don't know if that was the official number, but considering it snowed almost all day Saturday, when the local weather was saying that it wasn't (and wasn't supposed to), I'm not sure that the official numbers would be very accurate. Along with the couple of days of snow, we also had some butt-cold thrown in for good measure:

I know that a lot of people had it worse, but I think I've officially had my fill of winter now. I think the thing that made this stretch so bad here, is that the (back) roads were not being cleared as much as they have been in years past. A couple of days were just brutal out there. I suspect that this is yet another example of the "new normal", in that plow drivers probably just weren't even showing up to work; knowing of course that no one gets fired for such things anymore, because employers are so afraid of not being able to find someone else to replace them. It's a fun new world that we live in, isn't it? Anyway, as of this typing, there's a blue car still sitting across the street from the driveway where it slid off the road sometime during the night a few days ago. I can't remember what night it was, but one of the days the road started to melt and then refroze something fierce that night. From the sounds I heard, it sounded like a couple of trucks went off the road and got stuck too, but none were still there in the morning. Hopefully someone comes and gets their car out at some point. I'm tired of looking at it.

It's funny too because in the days leading up to snowmageadon we had torrential rain that led to minor flooding, along with big winds to keep it company, and even local tornado warnings. And now this week, it's gonna warm up a bit and start dumping rain again, which will undoubtedly lead to more potential flooding.

Oh, and I think I mentioned it last year, but this whole naming of winter storms thing needs to go away. It's dumbfuckery of the highest degree. Whichever behind-the-scenes network psychologist came up with this idea needs to be hunted down and publically shot. And any civilian who goes around referring to a winter storm by name needs to be swatted with a rolled up newspaper. We've gotta stop this before it goes too much further.

• Despite whatever's been wrong with me, I've been outside for at least an hour each of these recent cold days, mostly to put food out for all of the various forest folk that get fed each day. Birds and squirrels are the primary recipient of these offerings, but deer get a bit during the winter too. Probably not nearly as much as they would want, but I figure it's better than nothing. I watched one fellow come out of the woods the other day who had a magnificent antler, that's singular; he only had one. I know the odds will be slim, because he could've lost the other one anywhere, but I decided upon seeing him that once all of this snow melts off in a few days, I'm gonna go spend an hour or two seeing if I can find that other antler. Despite all of my years of wandering around in the woods, I've yet to come upon any antlers. Fingers crossed that this'll be the time that I do. I've been interested in trying my hand at flintknapping, and really need a bit of antler to use for that.

Another recipient has been a lovely little raccoon, though she isn't all that little anymore. This little raccoon started showing up last summer, during the day no less, scrounging around where the doves get fed. After a bunch of days of this, the decision was made to get a bag of dog food and start putting a bowl out for it, as that would be more hardy than birdseed. Not surprisingly, the dog food was a hit. So much so, that it started coming around more than once a day. Cute as it may've been, only one bowl was still being put out. Fast forward about a month, and one day this little raccoon, the same raccoon, showed up with two very small babies in tow. Turns out she was a little mama. Nature's version of babies having babies. Anyway, the babies were adorable beyond belief, as raccoon babies always are. Fast forward even further, and she's been here pretty much every day since, though not so much during the anymore.

I've also developed a bit of a relationship with young squirrel in recent months. The younger ones are always more pleasant to interact with, as they're too young to realize that there supposed to be skittish. I've been on good terms with a few over the last year or so, but they inevitably reach the point where they realize that they're supposed to run away when a larger creature approaches. This most recent gal is different though, as she doesn't seem to be hitting the run-away stage. Of course, I knew that she was a bit different from the start, as she was already missing part of her tail by the first time I saw her. It seemed like a lot of the other squirrels were picking on her too, and actively trying to prevent her from getting any food. This didn't work out very well for them though, as every time I saw this, I went out, knowing that my doing so would scare the rest away, and made sure that she got her own pile of food. Things weren't looking so good a few weeks ago though, as she showed up one day with an eye issue of some sort. I couldn't tell if it was an infection, or an injury. Either way, she was obviously ailing. She didn't come back again for two days after that, and not only did it look worse, but she was moving very slowly too. After that it would be three more days before she came back, and sure seemed like her end was coming sooner than it ought to. I really thought that that was gonna be the last time I saw her, but she came back after another three-day stretch, and wonder of all wonders, not only was her eye looking better, but she seemed to have more pep to her step again. It's since healed completely, and I can now see that she had gotten scratched right above her eye, as there's a small scar that's now visible. She definitely isn't little anymore either; she's more like a baby Buddha. I know that I shouldn't get so attached to wild animals, but it's awfully hard not to when they run up to you every time you walk towards them. As I recently said to my mom, it's been a long time since anyone has been that excited to see me.

• An unplanned day off sees me back here working on this post during the afternoon on Tuesday. One of my other ailments, not related to the one mentioned earlier, got the better of me this morning. Some days it really feels like my body is breaking down earlier than it should be. Ironically, I've received at least a dozen life insurance offers in the mail in recent months, after having never received a single one previously. Is that normal? Is 41 1/2 years old the time when people usually start being flooded by these? Or, as I'm starting to think, do they know something that I don't?

• The snow is melting off pretty quickly now, it's funny how after just a few days of it coating everything, it can start to feel like it's never gonna go away. And someone, or someone's, came and got the blue card during the wee hours of the morning. It was a fairly nice car; I'm surprised that they left there for so long. Makes me wish too that I had less scruples, and could've gone over and seen if there was anything that I could salvage.

• I don't spend a lot of time on the YouTube (thankfully), but a few weeks ago I watched a video on Henri Metisse, the artist, and became quite interested in the collage work that he was doing while mostly confined to bed during his later years. Collage is not something that I've ever been that enamoured with, but I did some looking around after watching the video, and happened upon a form of collage that I had never seen before (very different from what Metisse was doing), and found quite appealing. I've just started playing around with it myself, and while I'm sucking big time at it so far, it's been fun. I have some thoughts on trying to change it a bit more to my liking, but I think I need to get the basics down first before I can start trying to reinvent the wheel. In a similar vein, I've also been spending some of my nights trying out a new (to me) style of drawing, which has been very different from what I usually do.

I can't say that I'll ever show any of this stuff on here, but who knows. I don't why it is, I don't consider myself to be an artist or a writer, but I write stuff for public consumption all the time; without any fear of public criticism, but can't seem to bring myself to do the same with art stuffs. I mean, if someone were to tell me that my writings are the worst thing since unsliced bread, I'd just say "yes, I know", and then move on. But, if someone were to say that one of my drawings looked like the after effects of eating a bad burrito, well, I'd probably up and leave the internet for good. It's nonsensical; this I know, too. I guess art things feel more personal. I really admire, and envy, those that are brave enough to publically share their artwork. And you know, I never envied anyone, for any reason, during the first half of my life. This latter half though, I find my self envying people all the time, and for many different reasons. I think I liked the first half better.

• I had planned for this to be just one long post, but I've still got five more topics written down to get to, and I think I'm already stretching the limits of people's possible interest in me-centric happenings; so I think I'll just retroactively add a "Part 1" to the title, and try to get everything else into a Part 2 sometime in the next week or two. If you made it through this whole post, thank you. If not, I understand.