Sometimes Up To Something

I've been so irritable and moody lately. It makes me feel bad. Maybe it's because I've been so busy and I just want a rest and for some things to be done for me, but it makes me feel selfish. Another reason could be that it's supposed to be a certain time, but it's not yet. You can probably guess what I mean. It's often been irregular for me and shows up when it's the most inconvenient. And I can't help but wonder if those tests I had a few years back just didn't meet the standards the NHS has for PCOS. I'm pretty sure I have it. I have many of the symptoms, such as acne all over my body, and excessive body hair that's only gotten worse over the years. And while I may not want to get pregnant, I am worried that if it's left untreated, I'll get other health problems like type 2 diabetes and cancer. I don't want that! But it's so hard to get a GP appointment these days. And what if I go through those tests again only to be told ...

So today we finally got round to getting the rest of downstairs sorted out. It involved a lot of lifting, pushing, moving things around, dusting, and deciding where to put a large number of bottles of alcohols at various levels. Anyway, I've been wanting to change the sofa covers for a while. And my Dad was obviously tired and didn't want to do it today. But I wanted to, and I knew he wouldn't want to, so I said I'd do it myself. He didn't believe I'd be able to do it, but he let me try anyway. So I did it. And it was easier than he made it sound. Sure, it did take some effort to get the old covers off and put the other ones on, and I made a few mistakes with which cushions needed which cushion covers, but I managed it in the end. So this time I was actually right about being able to do something I hadn't done before. 

One day I will get there with this story. But I thought I'd share the ideas I have for it at the moment.  Asterism is a story that takes place a very long time from now, where reality is not as we currently know it. Beings called Flares, beings called Bridges, and beings called Voices exist along with Humans, but there are still personal conflicts between them. The Flares knew the Humans for a long time due to being in charge of reincarnating them and the animals, and overall have a low opinion on them, believing that all they ever do is hurt and kill each other. It was only when both their homes were under threat that the Flares offered to help the Humans find a new place to live, in exchange for letting some of their kind share it. They started to get on better after that, but now the problem has become inverted, with Flares being the ones looked down on more often than not... The Bridges were created by the Humans and Flares working together, and were found to have unusual, real...

Maybe that storm was what we needed for there to be clear skies again. I finally got to see some stars again, as well as the moon. Not for long, though, because it was cold. Cold enough for there to be frost this morning.

I've kept forgetting my umbrella most of the time, or not being bothered enough to go and get it before I leave. But this time, after I heard about the weather today, I took it with me to help to protect against the wind. But the wind won. My umbrella got turned inside out a few times, and then broken. The top of it came off the pole, and it didn't look like there was a way to re-attach it. So for the rest of my little walk down to where I go for work training, I was cold and wet, my hands were freezing, and I was holing a broken umbrella that I couldn't use to protect me from the wind anymore. And even worse, I got splashed by a bus because I didn't see there was a puddle where it was driving until it was too late. Then when I got there, I found out this weather was because of another one of those named storms. Apparently called Storm Chandra. I was like "Now you tell me, I didn't hear anything about it being a storm!" I thought it was just bad weather. I...

Is it just me, or did they change the dealine times that mail is collected from the post boxes here in the UK? I could have sworn it used to be 5:30, but now most of them are 4:30. I needed to send something in the post on my way home and I had to walk all the way to find a post box that had a later deadline of 5:00 just so I wouldn't have to wait until tomorrow and delay it any longer. And it meant I missed 2 buses while I did that.

There's this nice park with 2 lakes that I haven't been to in ages. Mainly because it's better to go to with someone else rather than by yourself. So I thought it would be nice to ask my Dad if he wanted to go there with me. But the weather got too bad, and he lacks motivation. I wish I knew how else to help him. A nice walk could have done him some good, if not for the weather. So I went to one of my usual walking places instead. But at least I saw some interesting fungi. And it's still been too cloudy to look at the stars recently, even after a mostly clear day.  

I'm short. I'm only 5'2. Both of my parents aren't much taller, and my Gran is shorter than I am by just a bit. But so many famous people are known to be very tall. And So many fictional characters are as well. It seems like taller is more favourable, especially in terms attractiveness and physical skills. But is it always? Can people who are below 5'5 still be considered attractive? And can they still have good physical skills? Can they still be good athletes? Maybe we need to normalise being short more. Then we wouldn't feel so insecure compared to those who are taller than us. (Note: I only wish to be aesthetically attractive, I'm Asexual and Aromantic and would rather not have people actually be sexually or romantically attracted to me).     

I decided to go swimming today and it was much better than it was on Sunday. Less people there, easier to move through the water... It was a better workout for me, and I was surprised at how I found myself moving my hands in a certain way when swimming on my back in order to try and propel myself more, I felt like some kind of sea creature. Not sure which one, though. Whichever ones swim backwards? 

It's just been too cloudly lately. I want to stargaze some more but I can't, and what's worse, the Aurora Borealis has been visible from the UK, except for where it's cloudy. The other day when I had to get up early, I was still feeling tired until I looked out of the window and saw some stars, that woke me up and I went outside to look at them, but not that long later when I left the house, it was cloudy again. By the time it's clear again, the constellations will have moved. We're already getting to the point where Taurus can be seen outside my bedroom window at about 10 or 11. But hopefully that means I'll be able to see Virgo and Libra in the evening rather than early morning soon. And maybe Scorpius as well, I don't know if you can actually see it fully above the horizon where I live, though.     

I've had trouble walking uphill to the bus stop after work training. For some reason, it's not just my feet that hurt, but also my legs. And today I got to leave early because the staff there were having a meeting, so I decided to try going a different way along a parth surrounded by trees and bushes and lots of grass and stuff. And while it wasn't that much easier on my feet, it was easier on my legs! It was raining quite a bit, though, and I didn't have much room to bring an umbrella with me, and it turns out my coat's hood doesn't stay up well when I've got my hair held back with a clip. So my hair at the front got quite wet. It was a nice walk, though, and when I finally got back to the road, I was right by a bus stop, with a bus about to arrive! I don't know if I'll be so lucky if I try it on a day when I don't leave that early, though, especially since those buses are unreliable (my bus this morning was delayed by about 20 minutes which is ...

  I don't know if you can look at a bigger version of this picture or not. It'll be on my Bluesky and Tumblr if not. CONTENT WARNING: Blood.  So this morning I had a pain in one of my toes. I thought maybe it was just an ingrown nail, and I could sort it out later by cutting them. But then when I got home after a long day of walking around, doing garden-related work, and possibly or possibly not getting dirt in my shoes, I got ready for a shower, took my socks off, and there was blood. Turns out I'd somehow (no idea how) cut the side of one of my toes and it had bled all day. I wiped away the blood, had the shower, then put antiseptic cream on the toe, and then a plaster. I hope it's alright. Now I can't help but worry that it's gotten badly infected and has infected my blood and I'll get seriously ill.

I'm now properly starting my work training. Going up to 3 days a week, staying a bit longer... Although we got to leave a bit earlier today. Not that it mattered, because the bus was really late. Those buses I have to take are so unreliable, especially since there's apparently road works at the moment. Anyway, I do feel more like I belong now, but I don't have all my uniform clothes yet. I only have 2 T-shirts and a pair of trousers which I'm reserving for days when I help with gardening. I'm still waiting for stuff that's better to wear in this weather. By the time I get it, it'll probably be too late. I don't know how long it usually takes for clothes to arrive. 

I finally got round to going for a swim today. And maybe Sunday isn't the best day for it, but I don't have much other choice. I could do Fridays, but I'd have to either change to another day whenever I have lunch with my Gran, or go later in the day. I guess that could work. The reason is because it was busier than the other times I've been, there were more parents and children there, and it's hard to go without getting into people's ways, especially when I swim on my back. It also feels to me like the more people there are in the water, the harder it is to move through.

We're over halfway through the month already? It feels like it's been slower than that. Today is actually my Mum's birthday. I kept forgetting to write her card and send it, so I ended up not doing so until Thursday, and yet it arrived the next day accoding to the text she sent me. I guess that's first class stamps for you. Hopefully if nothing comes up, we'll be going to the Strictly Come Dancing Live Tour. I almost didn't want to go because I thought my favourite professional dancer wouldn't be partnered for it (he wasn't meant to be last year but one of the other dancers had an injury so he got to stand in), but it turns out one of his previous partners is going to be there because they were having so much trouble getting celebrities from the most recent series to take part that they not only had to bring in someone from 2 yeasr ago but also have 2 of the others not be able to do all the tour dates. Anyway, I'm glad I have a chance to see my favou...

With my work training going up next week, so will the amount of money I spend on transport. I have to get a different bus to the ones in my city's central bus network, and since I'll be making 6 trips a week, that means it will cost £18, and that's on top of the money I pay for transport within my city. I've always complained about the bus prices going up and up and up each year, but the prices for other buses makes my city's main network look like it costs nothing but pennies. You see, my city has several different options of payment for travel that are cheaper in the long run, including day tickets that are cheaper than paying for two single tickets. Other bus networks though? Not so generous. There, you have to have at least 3 bus rides for a day ticket to be cheaper than two singles. But I only need to get that specific bus twice a day and no more. So what do I do? My Gran says I could see if there's a cheaper way for me to use my main city's transport n...

I've had story ideas for ages. I have this big story idea that I've even made some music for. The problem is, how do I tell this story? Most of the characters are aliens with unusual looks, but I'm not very good at describing things, nor am I good at using alternative words for "said" without going overboard. But I'm not the best artist either, I can draw decent pictures but it's too much effort to do them all the time. Where do I find the middle ground? I've had the idea to make a "Visual Novel" but it would really be more of a kinetic novel where the story is linear, and it wouldn't really use sprites because again, too much effort to draw them all. Have people made visual novels where it's all just cutscene images or minimal sprites? Really I just need to find a way that works for me. 

This morning seemed like it was starting to get warmer. But it was only warmer where I live. On my way to work training, it was cold enough to be frosty, and it stayed cold all day. But at least I got some nice pictures out of it.  

Not that kind of wet!!! Can't I use certain words without them being interpreted in an inappropriate way?  Anyway, today I went out to a park because I wanted to go somewhere with some uphill areas that wasn't the local woods, and it was raining a lot. I thought I'd be fine because my coat has a hood, but it clearly wasn't enough and the coat that was supposed to be waterproof got soaked. So I wanted to go along a different path, one of those shortcut paths, so that I'd be slightly more sheltered from the rain. I say slightly because at this time of year the trees have no leaves on them so they don't shelter you as much from the rain as they do in summer. So I spent ages walking around the trees while trying not to slip, and ended up finding myself at some dead ends. I didn't want to go all the way back the way I came, though, so I kept looking for other paths that could help me get back onto the main path, while I wasn't getting any dryer. At least I go...

Did I already mention I got some new binoculars to look at the night sky with? Well, they work. I'm having trouble adjusting them so that I can see more clearly and so that I don't see double, but I am able to see smaller, more faint stars that aren't so visible to the naked eye. Lots of tiny stars. Well, they're not really tiny, they're bigger than this planet anyway. But they look tiny when they're so far away. I want to see all the Zodiac constellations before the year ends. So far I've seen Taurus, Gemini, Leo, Aries, Aquarius, Virgo, and sort of Pisces and Cancer but they're quite faint. I might need to get up in the middle of the night during sumer to see the more southern ones. I should be able to see Libra and Capricornus, and maybe Sagittarius, but I don't know if Scorpius is visible in the northern hemisphere or not.

 At first it didn't take me so long to re-arrange my room, I had the bed horizontally along the back wall, I had te shelf next to it... But there was a gap at the end of the bed and I couldn't fill it with anything, and moving anything else there just made the area seem too crowded. So I ended up spending a few more hours moving the bed so it was along the wall on the right, then having the shelf next to that, and then having to move a load of other things as well. But it's done now. I've even decorated it a bit. It does feel more spacious even though it still has so much stuff that i don't know what to do with, or will need to hold in here for a while during other things being done to the house.

I think I really did need a change of scenery. I feel better now. Hopefully tomorrow afternoon I'll have my room back, and I can re-arrange things. At some point I'll sort through my stuff to get rid of things I know I won't use again. It's hard, but sometimes you have to do it, even with gifts.

So, following on from my last post, I finally started watching this year's series of the Traitors. I'm hooked now. I think I can be caught up by tomorrow, unless there's another episode tomorrow night. Anyway, I needed some more space so I'm at my Gran's house, though I think I will have my room mostly back by Sunday. I say mostly because I'll need to have some other stuff in there because the other doors upstairs are going to be replaced. But hopefully I should be able to move the bed in order to make some more space.

I thought this year I should finally start watching that Traitors show. But the thing is, I've just been so busy lately, and the episodes are an hour long, and if I want to get through them all I'd rather do it on the same day or over 2 days, but the longer I keep putting it off, the more episodes there are to get through... I will do it eventually, maybe tomorrow. I guess I've got all weekend to catch up. (I only mean the current series, by the way, not every single episode of the UK version). 

I think I've got a bit of an acid problem today, but for some reason it's making me feel the need to eat more. Doesn't it usually do the opposite? At least tomorrow I'll get to see some people from the youth club again, the people that run it also do a social group during the week and I go on Thursdays, some of the people there are volunteers at the youth club but others aren't so I don't see them on Saturdays. It's been so cold lately, you'd think with the days gradually getting longer that it would start to get warmer again. 

First day of things being done to the house, I went out to my grandparen'ts house because I haven't seen them in a while and I didn't want to have to hear loud noises of saws and drills all day, and then came back to find most of the living room floor was missing, there's just pieces of wood and bricks under there.  But anyway, I also drew this:  

Back to work training today and there was just the right amount of snow to not make me unhappy because of bad memories from when I was 12 and my Mum was at work early and I had to get the bus to school on my own but the radio didn't warn me in time that school was closed so I got there and had a meltdown and Mum had to come out of work to get me and then she decided I wouldn't be at school the next day but it turned out school was open again (which made no sense because it was a Friday and what was the point of closing on Thursday and opening on Friday when you just had the weekend coming up anyway?) and I missed out on my favourite classes and missed out on the one time a teacher promised to give us chocolates and she didn't even save one for me (and this was a big deal for me at the time because I was freaking 12 and didn't get to eat chocolate that often!) and I missed out on an attendance award many weeks later because of that ONE DAY and I don't think I'll ...

My Dad wants to get some people over to fix some things in the house, including finally getting the door to my room back in the doorway (it was broken off many years ago during an argument that I don't even remember what it was about), and getting rid of that wooden frame that used to hold a water tank, along with fixing the part of the floor and wall around that area. This means I've had to move a load of things out of the way and will have to temporarily sleep in another room while it happens. But I've been thinking about once it's done, maybe I'll re-arrange the room a bit. If there's space, I could have the bed along the wall horizonatally instead of vertically, and that would allow more space for things (there's so many boxes and stuff). But if not, I can just have the bed against the part of the wall that no longer has wood in the way. 

My most "Guilty pleasure" TV show would be the Masked Singer (UK). Most of the time, when the celebrities are revealed, I'm like "Who?" but I keep watching for the of-chance that it is someone I actually know of (usually after completely failing to pick up on the clues. Now, I was away in London over Christmas and I was too busy to have time to watch the Christmas special right away. Which wouldn't be too much of a problem, except one account I follow on Twitter was posting spoilers. And I'm an impatient person, I still wanted to look at my Twitter feed, I have a custom feed because there were certain accounts that clog up my main feed but I don't want to unfollow them. But the problem is, Twitter's filter system ONLY works for the main feed. Which I learned the hard way when I saw a post from that account and I looked away too late and already saw a celebrity's name and their costume name. So that put me off watching for the next several day...

Saturday is usually when I volunteer at a youth club for people with disabilities like mine, but it's not open again until the 10th. Normally I'd be glad to have a whole Saturday to myself (I mean, I could at any time, but I'd rather not miss any), but I want to go back and see people again already. Well, at least I've got work training on Monday, but I have to get up really early and leave the house really early for it. I have to get 2 buses there, and the morning rush hour makes the second bus a bit unreliable. I'm usually fine with waking up really early, but I recently had a bad cold, and it's been taking me longer to wake up recently because of it. Needing the extra rest to fully recover, I guess. So I'm going to see if an early night can help my wake up time go back to what it was before. 

The first day of the year sounds like an exciting time, but business doesn't really allow it to be, does it? So many places are closed, and if you don't drive, then you're limited to where you can go. But you still want it to be an exciting, time, so you have to make the best of it. So I went out for a quick walk, re-dyed the ends of my hair, and went outside to look at the night sky when it was dark. Thankfully there were no clouds. It's so annoying when clouds prevent me from stargazing. The camera my Dad gave me is over 10 years old, but allows me to take actually decent pictures of the moon with most of the details. I can't find a way to get it to take pictures of the stars, though, but if I zoom in enough at the big bright star that is actually Jupiter, I can get something that I'm not sure is actually a blurred image of how it looks or if that's just how the light is. Maybe I need to get some new binoculars specifially for looking at stars. Then I can ...