A series of unfortunate events

Hopefully there wont be a fire alarm as I’m using my backup headphones which blocks out all sound except the music. My normal headphones have sadly died. Momentum 2 headphones. Amazing for blocking noise but also has that thing where it picks up voices and amplifies them so I can talk and listen. Anyways, bestie said I should check the warranty to see if they are still covered. Think they are 3 years old now. I cant justify buying a new set because I’m trying to save everything for the flat because I dont know how much it will cost to get everything moved.

The flat

Some good news though, a friend of D’s mum is moving away to poland and has loads of things he can give as he cant take them. So as if by magic I’ve now got a bed, sofa, washing machine, fridge/freezer, kitchen table and chairs and pots & pans. Which is awesome because I can then use the money saved to get other essential things. Today I was supposed to get a call to arrange to get the keys. Unfortunately , the housing officer is on annual leave till tomorrow so will have to wait a little bit longer. It would be fantastic if they are ready but not holding my breath. The council called today to say they have extended me for another week so I have some wiggle room with getting keys and moving a bed there at least. Or I’ll buy a self inflating mat with a sleeping bag. But yeah, I was disappointed as always.

Rage against the motel

Its freezing here again. Not sure if i talked about my mini heater and that it got banned after I led a revolt against the management here? well we are using them again. Well I am, only for a burst of ten minutes in an hour. I was sat in my coat last week it was that bad. I also have my carpal tunnel gloves on to head my hands up. Its sad that they can’t just leave the heating on all the time and people can just control the temp by changing the settings on the radiator. I guess its a trust thing. Either way I’ll stay warm with my heater. If I use it after 2pm I’m generally okay because house keeping will of been already. They stand close to the door to feel the temp of the room to make sure we aren’t using additional heating.

Sheffield!

I’ve set a date with bestie to meet up in February in Sheffield. I’ll be booking the hotel soon hopefully near the train station. Get there on a Sunday and back on the train on Monday. Just need to make sure there are no strikes going on during that time. Head to a pub, sit in the comfy corner, talk, talk and talk in equal measures with drink. Then stumble to the hotel at kicking out time, sleep and then breakfast somewhere. Looking forward to it. Maybe we can plan the fishing holiday later this year as well.

Friends and loneliness … again.

I miss having friends I think. I lost a huge chunk of them by moving away with no notice back in 2007. Then one who I thought was a friend but only realised they were using me (this was discovered two weeks ago) so lost him. I still have O, the bestie, and thats it. One. Probably my fault for not being social or making more of an effort to talk to people. I miss the days where I had lots of people to talk to on messenger but everyone has moved on with their lives. Maybe 40 is too old to make new friends. Its bothering me though. Its something that I’ve had all my life. Social one minute, recluse the next.

The family

The kids are doing well. B is obsessed with Flight Simulator now that he has the airbus controller with throttles, switches and designed to be a replica of the one in an A320. Scary that he knows the checklists, clicks on all the switches, knows what they do. There is a place in Barton that D found where you can use the flight simulator that pilots use. Really expensive but spoke to B about it yesterday and we agreed we will save up for him to go at some point this year. I imagine he will love it. Then tell the instructor how to do everything.S is progressing nicely with her musical journey. We scored an 82% match on spotify so I know she is listening to some good stuff. Some questionable such as sped up versions of Eminem songs. To eaches own.

Brother is doing better than this time last month when I thought he died and his ghost was trying to tell me to call the cops. I might of been delirious out of sickness at the start of December. I remember being at the house looking after the kids for a few nights in a row and he was suicidal. Hes ok now. Its a drug pattern which will happen at pay day as well after he indulges his nose and then has a come down a few days later. But apart from that, he’s been let off by the police after leaving the scene of a crash, hes working and his drinking is reduced at the moment.

And thats it I think. To the guys in my comments, we need a way for a three way chat (messenger? whats app?) and get a clan together to play online. Sure we can find a game that we can all enjoy.

Oh lets do some photos.

It worked

The method of trying to banish the sleep demon was unorthodox but it served its purpose. I couldn’t see the words on the screen anymore as I was that tired. It was around 5am, and I managed to secure a spot on the sofa with a few bribes for the dogs. I fell asleep instantly. It was AMAZING. No thoughts, no rolling around listening to people condemning you. It was bliss. I was up at 7am to walk the dogs and here I am now. Tired but not defeated. Hopefully, it’s enough to break the cycle. Although I’m still worried it won’t be enough.

R my daughter is coming to visit today, D has taken her and B to the circus since, for reasons unknown to me, I cannot drive them without supervision and we can’t leave Dobby the newbie on her own for very long. So D will bring R here and I can see her and annoy her. Still a far cry from the contact center I used to see her.

I should do a ‘Bizarre things that only happen to me’ list at some point.

I’m now messing with the Google Bard bot. So far he has been so useful in looking up and getting it summarised. Also interesting to see what the limitations are. For example, trying to get Bard to access my emails and search it for me was a failure due to privacy but if I told Bard my name he would remember it the next time we spoke. Thought that was pretty cool. It can also write blog posts but they come across as too clean if you get me. I’ll keep experimenting with it. Although as a programmer, I’m worried that it can auto-complete code. If that develops a lot of us will be out of work pretty fast. Or the market will become saturated as less skill is required to do it. Blah.

I’ll leave you with this awesome, flattering photo of Dobby the dog.

Have a good day!

Memes and madness

I went through the google downloaded photos again and found a few I would love to share with everyone. Well. Apart from the memes, they just made me smile when I saw them years ago.

I got in touch with the doctor today, well, submitted an online form since they no longer take appointments over the phone. Suppose thats good really considering I would rather die than make a phone call. I don’t know why I just can’t phone or answer the phone to people I dont know. It sets the anxiety overboard and I start over thinking the situation. That does’nt mean I can’t, I’ll answer it if I think I know who it is. Otherwise its a voicemail and I’ll call them back. That was my hack to get through it.

I explained the problems on the forms lovely white, empty box. I wrote a frikkin’ novel but hopefully it will make sense to them. On Friday I felt so bad I took half a bottle of promazine, my usual dose is 5ml. Not 150ml. So I woke up in a dazed state on Saturday. Anxiety pain and negative thoughts were still there. So solution? Yes. You guessed it. More meds. So rather than the 7mg diazepam I take at night for terrors I decided in my ultimate wisdom to pop 25mg. It worked. The thoughts stopped for an hour or so as I sat on the sofa drooling. Then I found some codiene. This is the point where you say “FFS”. So had 150mg of that. And that got rid of the thoughts and paranoia. Not content with the about of pills I had consumed, I raided my stash and had another 25mg of diazepam.

F*cks sake.

I haven’t had any yet. Whilst walking the dog yesterday I noticed an ambundance of magic mushrooms growing on the playing fields. I can safely say I was strong and didn’t pick them. Adding that to the mix wouldn’t really of helped matters. I dont know why always go back to pill taking to escape from my problems. The voices are pretty loud and the other guy is on auto-repeat with added images! So getting off my face on drugs quitens it but weakens the control. I won’t go into that again.

Anyways, explained all this on the form so hopefully I’ll get a phone call today and reopen my referral to CMHT since I’ve been on the waiting list for a new thearapist for the past year.

The dog is moaning. Walkies.