Posts Tagged ‘life’

11
Jul
2020

I’m an adult now, everyone! I actually have credit!

categories: personal; word count: 340 words

Again, I am not being paid any money to make this post. These are just my opinions.

Remember how I mentioned using Kikoff to build credit since I’m… well, an adult, as old as I am, and have absolutely no credit? Well, as of this month I actually have credit? It’s only 614, but that’s better than the credit scores of a lot of people right now, and that’s definitely better than nothing. So I am very happy with this. That is actual proof that Kikoff reports to all three major credit bureaus in the United States. In a weird way, this makes me excited. On down the line, I might actually need to use this credit for whatever reason, even though I strongly prefer to pay up front for whatever we may need. I don’t like being “on the hook” for things and owing for them, especially if it’s a lot of money. And given that Millenials and Gen Z kids are less likely than ever to own their own home, let alone have their heads “above water” in the financial sense (thanks for that, Boomers… no, literally, thanks for that), having that mindset isn’t exactly a bad thing, heh.

Meanwhile, with bits and pieces of my economic stimulus check I’ve been adding to Baby’s First Altar, although if I have to be anywhere else in the house where Bub could in theory get to it I put everything where he can’t reach it. And given that he likes to hide certain things from me out of some peculiar sense of enjoyment, I’m keeping more smaller important items in my actual purse or carry-on bag. I’ve also gotten myself some nail polish “to spoil myself”, and I even bought myself some cyberlox because these are just me.

For some reason, Bub saw fit to take his emotion flash cards and hide them behind his brother’s bed. He also hid the key guard to his AAC device behind there. I found both. Why, Bub, why? Why must you do the thing?

09
Jul
2020

I’d like to see Facebook replaced, please…

categories: personal; word count: 263 words

I’ve already said it a few times, but Facebook needs to stop being the popular monolith that it is. Popular and well-known activists and advocates have found themselves getting reported and punished with “post blocks” with increasing frequency, escalating to account deactivations, while the people who need to have comments and posts taken down and their accounts deactivated are allowed to say nearly whatever they want (Facebook literally takes action once in a blue moon) without consequence. You can’t even contact them about this, and if you try to contact them about it on other social media sites that they use — like Mentioning them on Twitter — they completely ignore it because it makes them look bad, and acknowledging that they do it makes them look bad. They literally pretend that it doesn’t even happen.

And you conveniently can’t actually talk to a person to try and appeal these post blocks, and sometimes Facebook arbitrarily decides that you can’t “appeal” them. When I was most recently post and comment blocked for thirty days, I wasn’t even shown the comment that “violated” their terms and services… until a week after I was allowed to post and comment again. Miraculously, it then showed up, and it claimed that “Facebook could not prioritize an appeal”, even though I had not even been allowed to appeal the post and comment block to begin with. So on top of this, they lie about everything that happens to justify the block.

When Bub and I played Animal Crossing more, this made it a lot harder to use the Stalk Exchange.

08
Jul
2020

I need better subject lines here, I really do.

categories: personal; word count: 514 words

One of the things that I did with my economic stimulus payment is go ahead and get myself a pair of prescription sunglasses made that I intend on keeping the frames of for as long as these frames are willing to last me… so basically, for as long as possible. These should help with my migraines, because at the very least they will give me the option of being able to put them on and still see whenever things get too bright for me (and let’s face it, having that option is always comfortable whenever I’m having a migraine). Before, it was either “put on my sunglasses and not be able to see because my vision really is that bad without my glasses” or “keep my glasses on and suffer because of the brightness of everything else”. I also got the kids some more books, another Lokai cause bracelet that had come out that Monster didn’t already have, and after reading Shiva Honey’s The Devil’s Tome, decided to make what I have affectionately begun to call “Baby’s First Altar” in my room since I got a The Satanic Temple flag, hung it up, and Bub has been intrigued in a good way by it ever since. You can’t make this kid like what he doesn’t like, which he inherited from me.

I think all I have to do is quote this part of the summary of The Devil’s Tome:

The Devil’s Tome: A Book of Modern Satanic Ritual explores non-theistic Satanic ritual as a means for healing, empowerment, and community building.

I always take small steps, especially when it comes to the kids. Why not start with just an altar?

Nice candles (that we will not be burning for now, because reasons… Bub), to include tealight, a small grimoire (“Baby’s First Grimoire”, even if baby now comes up to my chin), chakra stones, because they look nice, a chakra grid kit, crystal grid kit, and Metatron’s grid kit (since if Bub is having a meltdown, laying them out and naming them might help calm him down, and they are geometrically pleasing), some stones (this can be educational, and the same principle applies), and incense (that we will quite likely not actually light even though I have a few N95 respirator masks due to this pandemic, but it will still set the overall mood)…

And like I’ve said, Bub doesn’t do anything that Bub himself doesn’t want to do. There have been plenty of occasions where Bub hasn’t wanted to do something that I’ve wanted to do. Any interest that Bub conveys in something is organic. He has never been the kind of kid to convey interest in something because someone else has or is, which is actually something that I have fostered in him (and his brother) over the years. He just happens to be the considerably more stubborn child, which has made for “if I am interested in something, it is because I personally want to do this, not because anyone else wants me to do it or is making me do this”.

06
Jul
2020

And before I completely forget to mention this here.

categories: personal; word count: 289 words

By the way, I (“we”) eventually did get our economic stimulus payment… or as some people have taken to calling it, “coronavirus check”. I had begun to give up on it after awhile, after so many of my friends had already gotten their checks, checking on the Get My Payment tool daily just to see day after day that there was absolutely no information on it for me even though I had filled out the Non-Filer form with our information the day that the IRS uploaded it and gotten automated confirmation four hours after that stating that our Non-Filer form was approved. So finding out that I (“we”) were actually approved for it in the middle of June actually surprised me, because by that point I had actually begun to blow off the payment as something that had just been shoved under the rug, something that I was just not going to receive because so many of the non-filers had been forgotten about and there was no actual way to call IRS to ask about this… funny how they weren’t actually staffing their call centers, not even from home, to answer questions about this. Almost like they were running from how badly they botched sending these checks out, let alone in the right amounts, which is what I’m about to get to in this post, just for the sake of chronicling this in here.

I (“we”) got our base payment, but none of the dependent money, even though I have two dependents.

Typical.

Apparently this has happened to no shortage of people, especially those who filled out the Non-Filer form.

I mean, I guess I should be happy that we (eventually) got anything at all, but… really? Seriously, IRS?

01
Jul
2020

Well, this may not have gone as it was intended.

categories: personal; word count: 301 words

My neurologist wanted me to try lisinopril to see if it changed the frequency and severity of my migraines in any positive way (lessening either). After working my way up from 2.5mg to the intended 5mg dose, maintaining that for a little while, and finding the side effects that I could feel tolerable, I then began to notice something that was not only possibly intolerable from a clinical standpoint but concerning. I was beginning to get a bit “puffy” in a manner not quite like prednisone (I know what prednisone “puffiness” feels like and when it occurs), having to urinate more, and I was beginning to gain weight in spite of that when my diet and exercise had not changed at all. After doing some research on the side effect profile of this medication, these are side effects that this medication can have, and the individual that generally has these side effects most likely discontinues taking the medication as a result of these for… well, whatever reason.

At first, I thought that things weren’t going too bad with this medication, and then… well, this. Heh.

“Well, this,” seems to be a staple of me describing this medication to varying individuals in my care team.

Well, this.

I don’t mind gaining some weight from taking certain medications if there is a net positive from me taking that medication — prednisone is perhaps the primary one here, and the primary reason for this — and I can put up with a lot of side effects from treatment if the end goal is me comparatively being healthier, feeling better, and being in less pain. But for lisinopril, gaining weight and “feeling puffy” are not desirable side effects from treatment. These are warier side effects that you have to alert your care team to, it seems like.

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