Joystory: giggles

Showing posts with label giggles. Show all posts

Sunday, August 16, 2020

Sunday Serenity - Sads & Hugs - LOLcat Therapy - ROW80 Check-in

Yooz doing it alls wrong
visit and vote it up :)

So, I used to illustrate my posts with LOLcats. Some made by others but mostly made by me. I would spend hours on the cheezeburger.com site choosing pics and captioning them. The antics of kittens and babies were my secret joys. I treated them like mood medicine. Then our Merlin crossed the rainbow bridge in 2014 and it just made me too sad to hang out there. I just recently started dabbling on the site again and made this LOLcat for a post I had in mind but before I got that post ready, I got an email from cheezeburger.com informing me that my creation had been voted up to the front page.

I was almost embarrassed at what a silly delight I took in that news. But I so needed a dose of delight as for the first time in many months my mood had been tanking. I was in the middle of trying to figure out if this was just something I needed to ride out or did I need to consult with my Rx nurse about going back on the meds. I was pretty sure it was the former. I was pretty sure it was partly related to all the #metoo dreck I was digging up while journaling and partly related to passing the second month-a-versary of the day I broke up with my husband and having never yet cried about it.

Then there was the fact I had been fudging on my sleep requirements big time every since Mom got home from the hospital. So until I'd tried putting that right again and finding it didn't set things back on an even keel I would not resort to putting my feelings back in a chemical straitjacket.

The real problem was that in one way or another since infancy my feelings and I were divorced from one another. Some of it due to the way autism made it difficult to identify emotions. If you can't name them you can't claim them. If you don't own them they will own you. But a great deal of it was due to the rules about emotions created by my parents' parenting style and that was all mixed up with the strictures on expressive behaviors created by the ~~church~~cult I was raised in.

I'd reached these insights in the process of journaling and was hanging on in anticipation of my weekly phone appointment with my counselor. But then the Internet and some of the phone systems in our area went down for twelve hours Thursday and I not only lost the emotional anchor of my fifty minute phone chat with my counselor but I lost access to the ROW80 support community, missing my midweek checkin rounds because I'd been sick on Wednesday and was in the middle of prepping my checkin post Thursday morning when we lost the Inernet.

Then Thursday night during my part of Mom's bedtime routine as I was about to shut out the light and take her water bottle back to the bathroom, she started trying to say something. 'You need.....You need...You need...... Awwwwrgh!' She said. And repeated a version of it three more times before I asked if there was something I forgot to do as I went over in my mind : set the bed position, start the bed vibrator, supervise drink of water, speak the goodnight ritual. Everything accounted for.

In order to ask my question I'd taken several steps back towards her as we'd already taken her hearing aides so I couldn't just stand in the door to converse with her. Suddenly I found my right wrist gripped by her strong left hand and my arm being pulled inexorably toward her face.

What the...

And then she said 'Hug....Hug...Hug...' funny how her speech efforts tend to come in threes when she is struggling to get a stubborn word past the aphasia bulwark.

'Oh!' I exclaimed. 'You need a hug!'

'No.' she said emphatically. 'You need...You need. You need...'

'Oh. You think I need a hug?'

'Yes! Yes!. You need....hug.'

I let her pull me in and found my face pressed between her face and shoulder as she reached her left arm over my back and pulled me all the way down. That's when my eyes first started stinging. But I got through the rest of the lights out ritual before they did any more than shine a bit. I got all the way back to my desk before tears started falling.and my face started feeling like melted wax.

Now the hug has become part of the lights out ritual and so has the tearing up. And melted wax face.

Until today though the associated emotions were relegated to Mom's bedtime routine and for fifteen to thirty minutes after. But today they started up over my morning coffee and had nothing to do with thoughts about Mom or bedtime. I think the mood came from whatever I was dreaming about when my alarm went off but I can't remember anything about it. I also think it has happened fairly frequently of late that I wake up in a mood rooted in a dream I can't remember but usually I"m able to deflect my attention on to one of the many distracting activities--crochet, reading, research, sorting projects both virtual and physical, social media, writing, videos, video games, podcasts, audio books, music.

The thing about that list is there are few things on it that don't depend on vision to at least get it started and with my eyes tearing up uncontrollably I can't see well enough to unlock my screens to access the aps where even the audio only activities reside. I do have video and audio books on non-computer devices but if I don't already have a DVD, CD or talking book cassette locked and loaded and the device plugged in or otherwise set up so that I don't need my eyes to prepare it for use... Well I'm afloat on a mood sea with nothing to deflect the crashing waves.

The moodiness this morning was accompanied by restlessness and I had no safe way to discharge that. Besides I'd woken with a deep ache in my right hip that had me limping and I was hoping that there was nothing more to it than having slept wrong on it. If so it would dissipate if I could 'walk' it off. But as I said there was no safe place for that.

Except my mini-tramp. But altho I'd finally cleared it off during the big sort while Mom was away for three weeks in July, I'd begun setting things 'out of the way' on it again within a week of her homecoming.

I realized that having been 'sheltering in place' since mid March I'd not been out of the house but twice since (once to retrieve my stuff from my husband's apartment and once to fetch a Joann.com order) I knew I was at as much risk as my Mom post-stroke of loosing muscle mass and joint lubrication if I didn't establish a better exercise routine. I decided that clearing my mini-tramp off again, decluttering my desk and craft table and setting up my LOC talking book machine and my DVD/CD player within easy reach of one or more of those locations would be my project this morning.

I finished in time to spend five or so minutes swaying and gently bouncing with one hand on the wall for balance before time to fix Mom's lunch. I discovered that there is something about that activity that is going to encourage not deflect the tears. I had a difficult time getting Mom's tray ready. I had to keep leaving the kitchen to go in the hallway or bathroom to wipe my eyes or face and neck and get control back.

The whole time I'm wondering. Is this simply too long repressed sadness? Or am I just feeling sorry for myself. The answer is important because apparently sad is an legit human emotion and naming and claiming it is necessary for emotional health. But 'feeling sorry for myself' well that is loaded with shaming messages.

How is one to tell the difference?

Well it's about time to start dinner so I better post this as I won't get another chance until Mom's in bed between nine and ten.

A Round of Words in 80 Days
Round 3 2020

The writing challenge that
knows you have a life

2020 Round 3 ROW80 goals check-in:

* Sleep 7.5 hours Daily Minimum -- Unsatisfactory effort

* Move/Breathe/Meditate 15 min Daily minimum -- Satisfactory effort

* Storydreaming with note-taking tools at hand. 15 min Daily Minimum -- This is a technique I learned from Robert Olen Butler in the book From Where You Dream. -- Unsatisfactory

* Read Fiction 30 min Daily Average -- Above and beyond

* Read/Study Craft 15 min Daily Average -- Above and beyond

* Social network activities 30 min Daily Minimum (writing Joystory posts doesn't count only social reaching out like reading/commenting on other blogs, guest posts and posting to fb, twitter, pinterest etc) -- something I've a strong resistance to. -- Above and beyond

* 30 min Daily minimum engagement with a scavenger hunt though all my creative writing files including Joystory looking for better than shitty first draft scenes, sections, stories, poems and essays and edit, organize and make hard copies. -- Unsatisfactory

* To prep for self-pub: Gather all my poems into a single Scrivener file. Minimum one poem per day until all accounted for. Adding new ones encouraged. -- Unsatisfactory

* Personal Journaling 45 min or 1000 words whichever come first Daily Minimum -- This is the heart of the writing challenge. The preceding provides the structure and the nutrients that nurtures and honors the work which I've learned over time must exist to ensure that this becomes more than just dabbling. -- Unsatisfactory

For an explanation and links to backstory see the ROW80/Camp NaNo Goals post.

Saturday, September 08, 2007

Sunday Serenity #22

Did You Hear The One?
Fine Art Print for sale at art.com

Laughter works better than laudanum to induce serenity so today I am sharing the jokes from two emails I received recently:

25 WAYS TO MAINTAIN A HEALTHY LEVEL OF INSANITY

1. At lunch time, sit in your parked car with sunglasses on and point a hair dryer at passing cars See if they slow down.
2. Page yourself over the intercom. Don't disguise your voice.
3. Every time someone asks you to do something,Ask if they want fries with that.
4. Put your garbage can on your desk and label it "IN".
5. Put decaf in the coffee maker for 3 weeks. Once everyone has Gotten over their caffeine addictions, switch to espresso.
6. In the memo field of all your checks, Write "for smuggling diamonds".
7. Finish all your sentences with "in accordance with the prophecy".
8. Speak and Don't use any punctuation.
9. As Often as possible, skip rather than walk.
10. Order a Diet Water whenever you go out to eat -
With a serious face.
11. Specify that your drive-through order is "to go".
12. Sing along at the opera.
13. Put mosquito netting around your work area. Play tropical sounds all day.
14. Go to a poetry recital and ask why the poems don't rhyme.
15. Five days in advance, tell your friends you can't attend their party because you're not in the mood.
16. Have your coworkers address you by your wrestling name, Rock Bottom.
17. When the money comes out the ATM, scream "I won! I won!"
18. When leaving the zoo, start running towards the parking lot yelling, "run for your lives,they're loose!!"
19. Tell your children over dinner "due to the economy, we are going to have to let one of you go."
20. Whenever someone tells you about a great deal on free range eggs, you begin doing the chicken dance and singing at the top of your lungs (in the middle of the store).
21. You walk up to someone and tell them happy birthday (even when you know it isn't. In fact it's a rule that you can't tell anyone happy birthday on their actual birthday). In fact, in case I forgot to tell you all HAPPY BIRTHDAY!
22. Sing in the shower
23. Make faces at yourself in the mirror
24. Listen to "crayons can melt on us for all I care" (the 10 second song) by relient k (if you haven't heard it here's a link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFEYCTqY86g)
25. And the final way to keep a healthy level of insanity:
Share this with someone to make them smile and laugh.
Its called therapy.

"Of All the things I've lost, I miss my mind the most"

This one's for the girls:

Now I lay me down to sleep
I pray the Lord my shape to keep.
Please no wrinkles, Please no bags
And please lift my butt before it sags.
Please no age spots, Please no gray
And as for my belly, Please take it away.
Please keep me healthy, Please keep me young,
And thank you Dear Lord, For all that you've done.

Five tips for a woman....
1. It is important that a man helps you around the house and has a job.
2. It is important that a man makes you laugh.
3. It is important to find a man you can count on and doesn't lie to You.
4. It is important that a man loves you and spoils you.
5. It is important that these four men don't know each other.

Foot Note: One saggy boob said to the other saggy boob: 'If we don't get some support soon, people will think we're nuts.'

Thursday, May 17, 2007

Thursday Thirteen #33

My mood has been in the toilet for the last twenty-four hours and I didn't want to lay it on TTers by doing my TT on what's on my mind. (See Monday and Tuesday's posts below if you're curious.) But then I remembered that as I was salvaging two years worth of email off the PC this week, I came across several old forwards. You know the ones I mean. They have some kind of story or joke or list of interesting facts, or quizzes etc. I remembered that I had seen several that I thought would lend themselves to a fun TT and thus had copy/pasted them into the Misc document along with interesting links and quotes that had been sent to me.

The files from the PC were still on the PC though and I wanted to do my TT on the laptop this week. Because I am organized to do it on there and because this week I am sure I can count on the laptop to cooperate as it's been several days since I've seen any hints of malware activity.

The PC files I wanted to back up and also to move onto the laptop were all collected into a single folder and that folder had been moved into the Shared Documents on the PC. Via the WIFI, I can access the folder from the laptop.

The folder had been ready to go since Tuesday morning just before I left to walk my ballot over to City Hall. The laptop was busy with a scan so I couldn't move it then. it was still busy when I got home and since it was already four hours past my usual bedtime, I needed to lay down. My afternoon and evening were consumed with other tasks and topics.

The laptop needed a restart when I woke up Wednesday afternoon and after I was logged onto my desktop again I started to head to the PC folder to retrieve that file but I got sidetracked exploring the laptop file tree as I looked for the place I wanted to park the PC files. I started peeking inside folders to remind myself what was there, to get an idea of what I still needed to get done to prepare them for backup. That kept me busy right up until I was called to dinner.

So the first thing I did after finishing the dishes was to head for that PC file again. This time I was ready to move it. I had never done this before so I wasn't sure what would happen. When the transfer started it was accompanied by a dialog box with a progress bar and the estimated time was three minutes. I lay down so Merlin would cuddle with me. He's not much of a lap kitty. I watched the progress bar for a time and glanced at the clock. At the three minute mark the bar was only two-thirds full. In that last couple minutes, I must have dozed off. I didn't get to start work on TT until after ten.

I had to do a major rewrite of the joke I chose to feature today as it was only a nine item list. I added and divided and shuffled a bit from the original.

Warning! Beverage spew alert!

Speaking of toilets........

Thirteen Steps To A Clean Toilet--The Fun Way:

1. Put both lids of the toilet up.

2. Add 1/8 cup of pet shampoo to the water in the bowl.

3. Walk through the house and yard, calling "Here, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty."

4. Pick up the cat and soothe him while you carry him towards the bathroom.

5. In one smooth movement, put the cat in the toilet and close both lids.

6. Stand on the lid.

7. Wait as the cat self agitates making ample suds.

8. Never mind the noises coming from the toilet, the cat is actually enjoying this.

9. Flush the toilet three or four times to provide a "power-wash" and rinse.

10. Have someone open the front door of your house.

11. Be sure that there are no people between the bathroom and the front door.

12. Stand behind the toilet as far as you can, and quickly lift both lids.

13. Watch the cat rocket out of the toilet, streak through the house, and run outside to dry himself off.

Both the commode and the cat will be sparkling clean.

Sincerely,

The Dog

Links to other Thursday Thirteens!

1. whenn 2. Gattina 3. Susan Helene Gottfried 4. Miss Frou Frou 5. Mz Jackson 6. samulli 7. Fence 8. L^2 9. Mercy's Maid 10. Dana 11. Toni 12. Tink 13. Nicole 14. Rhian / Crowwoman

(leave your link in comments, I'll add you here!)

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!

The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It's easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!
View More Thursday Thirteen Participants