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Jan. 31st, 2020 08:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
the_rckIt's been a long month. I've written a few posts and then not gotten around to posting them. At this point, I'd have to edit so extensively that it doesn't seem worth my time to make an effort to get those to the point of being postable.
The University decided, in response to my appeal, that I am actually still disabled, but they said I'm only disabled until 29 February 2020. Neither I nor my mother have any idea what that's supposed to indicate. Will we have to appeal again then? Will it be a normal annual review? We don't know.
Social Security had me send them a list of all of my appointments over the course of the last year. Today, I got a letter from them saying that they see no reason to review my status, that I'm clearly still disabled.
I had been worried about what hoops they might expect me to jump through, and a lot of the reason why the University paid attention to my appeal (apart from that I have an attorney) is that Social Security considers me disabled. The odds are pretty good that, if we came in front of a judge, that Social Security status would carry a great deal of weight and might well trump any argument the University might make.
Earlier this month,evalerie came over and provided help and moral support while Scott and I got everything out of the bathroom cupboards and I decided what to keep and what went where. I think we got rid of more than half of what was in there, possibly as much as 75% of it.
I now know where everything is in there, and our cleaning lady is no longer putting things I need in places I can't reach.
I finally got in to see my doctor, and she prescribed triamcinalone for the inflammation around my eyes. I can now sit in the living room with the overhead light on and not end up in pain from it. I can walk outside in full sun (without sunglasses!) without increased pain.
Up to that point, I'd been using plain vaseline as needed and witch hazel twice a day. That had gotten things calm enough that I wouldn't be miserable as long as I stayed inside and mostly in dim light. The whole thing was probably some sort of allergic reaction, but it's not clear what I was reacting to or why things didn't calm down after 4-5 months.
I picked up an across the shoulders reading light that helped quite a bit while I was needing to stay away from bright lights. Indirect light caused me considerably less trouble, so that made it possible for me to read library books.
I also picked up a carpenter's belt with the idea that it would let me carry my four pairs of glasses (five if I add the sunglasses) and such around. That's still not entirely useful because the glasses cases tend to pop out of the pockets. Naked glasses don't so much, but I'm not enthusiastic about carrying the glasses that way. Possibly some glue-on velcro might help?
Scott bought some magnetic shoe closure thingies called Zubits. We're still trying to get them to work on my boots because they don't work quite right with laces going around hooks as opposed to through holes. Once we've conquered that, we'll try to figure out how to get things to be tight enough to give my ankles adequate support. I'm not sure that the support thing will be possible because I'm not convinced that my hands can bring the magnetic pieces together if we make it harder. I have better leverage for tightening laces; it's just that my hands are not happy about tying laces now.
I do think that the Zubits will work for my shoes with laces. I will miss having the option to lace more tightly, but it's far less likely to matter with those shoes.
Scott is still working 2nd shift. There are pluses and minuses to it. The major problems are still that it means he doesn't get to see much of Cordelia during the week and that he can't help her with transportation in the evenings. If he weren't getting up halfway through our sleep period in order to be with Cordelia as she gets breakfast and prepares for school, he wouldn't see her at all M-F.
On the plus side, he and I are both getting more sleep, and he's sometimes available to take me to appointments. His coworkers on 2nd shift also value his expertise and experience with the machines in a way that 1st shift never has (mostly because 1st shift people tend to have the same level of expertise as he has). Things are also a bit lower stress.
I'm a little frustrated because I have a very small window of time when I'm alone in the house and can work on things I find physically difficult or can easily watch DVDs or listen to CDs or audiobooks. (No, headphones, earbuds, etc. are not an option.) The watching and listening thing is not helped by the fact that the CD/DVD drive on my laptop has decided to die. Judging by how it sounds and what happens, I suspect a mechanical failure.
We have a couple of drives that can connect via USB, but neither of them work well for the places where I use my laptop. For library CDs, I've started copying them all to my laptop, listening to them one by one, and then deleting them. I mostly listen to things when I'm in our bedroom, sitting on the bed or in the living room and using a table that's wide enough for my laptop and two remotes. Using the external drives is actually safer on my bed than in the living room because I can't possibly knock the drive onto the floor while I'm in there.
My laptop is a Macbook from mid-2012, so I'm not all that surprised that things are starting to give out. I need to try to nurse this beast along for another few years if it's even remotely possible because a replacement laptop is not in the budget. (Scott and I may need to revisit the question of whether or not it's worth the money to have my laptop compatible with his and Cordelia's and with all our phones. I don't think it is.)
I use my laptop for word processing, web browsing, email, playing music or audiobooks saved on my hard drive (or streamed through OverDrive), playing DVDs, and playing CDs. I use the calculator. I use spreadsheets for one or two things that I could likely do in a word processing document without too much trouble. I generally run two web browsers simultaneously with a lot of active tabs, including Slack and Discord. I have some ergonomic requirements, too, in terms of the keyboard and trackpad portion of things, and I need to be able to enlarge the default display without jumping through hoops repeatedly.
Oh, and I do use iBooks right now, so I'd like a reasonable way to read epub documents on the machine.
I almost never stream video and wouldn't care if it wasn't an option. Streaming video means not doing any of the other things I normally do with my laptop for as long as I'm streaming (because why bother if I'm not actually watching?).
I think the main thing I'd miss with not having a Mac is the ease of the Time Capsule backup.
The bloodwork before my doctor's appointment last week shows that my A1c is up, so I'm going to have to work on that. Being able to go outside would help considerably. At this point, I can handle the bright light, but ice underfoot is still potentially an issue. I usually fall due to ice at least once each winter, and I would really rather avoid it if I can.
I have one exchange assignment still to complete. Chocolate Box 2020 is due on the 7th of February, and I've barely started writing. I have an unrevealed story in the Past Imperfect collection. I've also got a list of a dozen one shot WIP that I think I might be able to finish if I just give them a hard push for a few days. My current plan is to work on those rather than signing up for any other exchanges. I may take pinch hits or write treats, but I'd very much like to get these things done and posted.
I've gotten a couple of 'it's so sad this will never be finished' comments on Rheotaxis this month. It's made me look at it and wonder if I ever will go back to it. I know how it ends (I have a draft of a final chapter so I know where I'm aiming). I know what happens after. It's just been years since I worked on it. My style has changed a good bit, and I still don't know how to make that next chapter work.
I spent yesterday rereading an rp thathopeofdawn and I did years and years ago. It was a post-Rheotaxis thing, and I think it was a good story. We never finished it because the things we were interested in playing out diverged too much (I like writing claustrophobic discussion scenes, and she likes writing action scenes).
I'm a little tempted to see if I could pummel those chapters into something postable on AO3 or if Hope would be interested in working on it with me. I'm not sure it would work well because rp relies on the head hopping being okay. The scenes would lose a lot from being put into a single limited 3rd person POV, and I'm not good at putting that sort of thing into an omniscient 3rd. There are also gaps in the story that we left because they would have involved one person writing solo due to which characters each of us wrote.
I don't know if anyone would want to read that even if I did write it up. I don't know if I could come up with an ending that was even remotely satisfying.
I feel like there are a lot of interesting stories out there that don't end up archived because they're written as an rp narrative.
The University decided, in response to my appeal, that I am actually still disabled, but they said I'm only disabled until 29 February 2020. Neither I nor my mother have any idea what that's supposed to indicate. Will we have to appeal again then? Will it be a normal annual review? We don't know.
Social Security had me send them a list of all of my appointments over the course of the last year. Today, I got a letter from them saying that they see no reason to review my status, that I'm clearly still disabled.
I had been worried about what hoops they might expect me to jump through, and a lot of the reason why the University paid attention to my appeal (apart from that I have an attorney) is that Social Security considers me disabled. The odds are pretty good that, if we came in front of a judge, that Social Security status would carry a great deal of weight and might well trump any argument the University might make.
Earlier this month,
evalerie came over and provided help and moral support while Scott and I got everything out of the bathroom cupboards and I decided what to keep and what went where. I think we got rid of more than half of what was in there, possibly as much as 75% of it.I now know where everything is in there, and our cleaning lady is no longer putting things I need in places I can't reach.
I finally got in to see my doctor, and she prescribed triamcinalone for the inflammation around my eyes. I can now sit in the living room with the overhead light on and not end up in pain from it. I can walk outside in full sun (without sunglasses!) without increased pain.
Up to that point, I'd been using plain vaseline as needed and witch hazel twice a day. That had gotten things calm enough that I wouldn't be miserable as long as I stayed inside and mostly in dim light. The whole thing was probably some sort of allergic reaction, but it's not clear what I was reacting to or why things didn't calm down after 4-5 months.
I picked up an across the shoulders reading light that helped quite a bit while I was needing to stay away from bright lights. Indirect light caused me considerably less trouble, so that made it possible for me to read library books.
I also picked up a carpenter's belt with the idea that it would let me carry my four pairs of glasses (five if I add the sunglasses) and such around. That's still not entirely useful because the glasses cases tend to pop out of the pockets. Naked glasses don't so much, but I'm not enthusiastic about carrying the glasses that way. Possibly some glue-on velcro might help?
Scott bought some magnetic shoe closure thingies called Zubits. We're still trying to get them to work on my boots because they don't work quite right with laces going around hooks as opposed to through holes. Once we've conquered that, we'll try to figure out how to get things to be tight enough to give my ankles adequate support. I'm not sure that the support thing will be possible because I'm not convinced that my hands can bring the magnetic pieces together if we make it harder. I have better leverage for tightening laces; it's just that my hands are not happy about tying laces now.
I do think that the Zubits will work for my shoes with laces. I will miss having the option to lace more tightly, but it's far less likely to matter with those shoes.
Scott is still working 2nd shift. There are pluses and minuses to it. The major problems are still that it means he doesn't get to see much of Cordelia during the week and that he can't help her with transportation in the evenings. If he weren't getting up halfway through our sleep period in order to be with Cordelia as she gets breakfast and prepares for school, he wouldn't see her at all M-F.
On the plus side, he and I are both getting more sleep, and he's sometimes available to take me to appointments. His coworkers on 2nd shift also value his expertise and experience with the machines in a way that 1st shift never has (mostly because 1st shift people tend to have the same level of expertise as he has). Things are also a bit lower stress.
I'm a little frustrated because I have a very small window of time when I'm alone in the house and can work on things I find physically difficult or can easily watch DVDs or listen to CDs or audiobooks. (No, headphones, earbuds, etc. are not an option.) The watching and listening thing is not helped by the fact that the CD/DVD drive on my laptop has decided to die. Judging by how it sounds and what happens, I suspect a mechanical failure.
We have a couple of drives that can connect via USB, but neither of them work well for the places where I use my laptop. For library CDs, I've started copying them all to my laptop, listening to them one by one, and then deleting them. I mostly listen to things when I'm in our bedroom, sitting on the bed or in the living room and using a table that's wide enough for my laptop and two remotes. Using the external drives is actually safer on my bed than in the living room because I can't possibly knock the drive onto the floor while I'm in there.
My laptop is a Macbook from mid-2012, so I'm not all that surprised that things are starting to give out. I need to try to nurse this beast along for another few years if it's even remotely possible because a replacement laptop is not in the budget. (Scott and I may need to revisit the question of whether or not it's worth the money to have my laptop compatible with his and Cordelia's and with all our phones. I don't think it is.)
I use my laptop for word processing, web browsing, email, playing music or audiobooks saved on my hard drive (or streamed through OverDrive), playing DVDs, and playing CDs. I use the calculator. I use spreadsheets for one or two things that I could likely do in a word processing document without too much trouble. I generally run two web browsers simultaneously with a lot of active tabs, including Slack and Discord. I have some ergonomic requirements, too, in terms of the keyboard and trackpad portion of things, and I need to be able to enlarge the default display without jumping through hoops repeatedly.
Oh, and I do use iBooks right now, so I'd like a reasonable way to read epub documents on the machine.
I almost never stream video and wouldn't care if it wasn't an option. Streaming video means not doing any of the other things I normally do with my laptop for as long as I'm streaming (because why bother if I'm not actually watching?).
I think the main thing I'd miss with not having a Mac is the ease of the Time Capsule backup.
The bloodwork before my doctor's appointment last week shows that my A1c is up, so I'm going to have to work on that. Being able to go outside would help considerably. At this point, I can handle the bright light, but ice underfoot is still potentially an issue. I usually fall due to ice at least once each winter, and I would really rather avoid it if I can.
I have one exchange assignment still to complete. Chocolate Box 2020 is due on the 7th of February, and I've barely started writing. I have an unrevealed story in the Past Imperfect collection. I've also got a list of a dozen one shot WIP that I think I might be able to finish if I just give them a hard push for a few days. My current plan is to work on those rather than signing up for any other exchanges. I may take pinch hits or write treats, but I'd very much like to get these things done and posted.
I've gotten a couple of 'it's so sad this will never be finished' comments on Rheotaxis this month. It's made me look at it and wonder if I ever will go back to it. I know how it ends (I have a draft of a final chapter so I know where I'm aiming). I know what happens after. It's just been years since I worked on it. My style has changed a good bit, and I still don't know how to make that next chapter work.
I spent yesterday rereading an rp that
hopeofdawn and I did years and years ago. It was a post-Rheotaxis thing, and I think it was a good story. We never finished it because the things we were interested in playing out diverged too much (I like writing claustrophobic discussion scenes, and she likes writing action scenes). I'm a little tempted to see if I could pummel those chapters into something postable on AO3 or if Hope would be interested in working on it with me. I'm not sure it would work well because rp relies on the head hopping being okay. The scenes would lose a lot from being put into a single limited 3rd person POV, and I'm not good at putting that sort of thing into an omniscient 3rd. There are also gaps in the story that we left because they would have involved one person writing solo due to which characters each of us wrote.
I don't know if anyone would want to read that even if I did write it up. I don't know if I could come up with an ending that was even remotely satisfying.
I feel like there are a lot of interesting stories out there that don't end up archived because they're written as an rp narrative.
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