Have arrived at my in-laws' house. Taking a bit of time to snack and recover brains, because doing that 'bed' thing in a new place requires setup. Mostly flailing at CPAP devices, because there's never a power outlet or a shelf quite where you need them.

About a month and a half since I last posted, longer since I've read with anything approaching regularity.

The semester has come and gone; my last final was yesterday. I liked all of my classes, but have taken an incomplete in two of them because I've been considerably less than okay, in ways that have prevented me from getting the necessary work done. Those problems aren't fixed (and my brain certainly isn't fixed, by any stretch of the imagination) but I have a bit more time with a bit less pressure to work around them.

In other news, my sister has been staying with us since September. She had expected to be in a better job and moved out on her own by now, but hasn't been able to make either one happen. Her current plan seems to be returning to AZ after the airplane ticket prices go down from their holiday highs (about a month from now). I'm just as glad - I like her, but an extrovert trying to share an apartment with two introverts is stressful all around.

Chanukah is behind us, and longest-night still ahead. Here goes.

Today (Wednesday, 12/29) was rather productive. I dealt with the furnace repairman (missing an appointment for it, but heat is important), stopped in at the grocery co-op, went and got a quote from a dressmaker*, cooked dinner (boil parsnips, mash with chopped parsley, drizzle with a nice olive oil; serve with hard-boiled eggs on the side), and looked up dressmakers to get competing quotes from tomorrow (Thursday, 12/30).

And then I talked on the phone with my mom, and she insisted that I check the websites of regular stores for nice non-wedding dresses, because the first price quoted to me was too high. (It's not cheap, but is well within the "reasonable for custom clothing" zone.) I did so, because due diligence with null result generally is enough to make her stop pushing a bad idea. After 30min or so of subjecting myself to the usual "people who wear your size aren't allowed to look nice; here's our selection of ugly" that clothing stores seem to specialize in, I called back and was (perhaps unnecessarily) nasty about it. I do think that I've nipped that idea in the bud. But now I need to put it away enough to fall asleep, because I'm supposed to get up in 7h.


* Standard off-the-rack wedding dresses have so far proven unusable - not due to size issues, but due to their inability to cover the long underwear necessary for an outdoor wedding. The designers don't even seem to think that people walk between their car in the parking lot and the warm indoors.

Waking up in my folks' house is always at half-spoons. Sometimes less, never more. Currently leading the possible causes is the noise of having an arterial street right out front. Runner-up is pet allergies.

It's far too hot in this house, and in the region as a whole. I've been spending the day sitting in front of a floor fan, with a rotating set of icepacks to keep cool. It's hard to persuade myself to do anything else once the day starts to warm up.

Being the last person to sleep is enforced here - I can hear the living room TV through the wall.

No longer being in my campus apartment cut the number and severity of dizzy spells, substantially. They came back when I gained a desk-like area to sit at, so the 'pinched nerve in neck' theory gains some credence. (Something I forgot to post about when it was new: the neurologist told me that there's not enough wrong with me to figure out what's wrong with me. Normal MRI, EEG abnormal in the least specific possible way.) Saw a chiropractor last week, and felt better for a day or two.

I think my folks are done with their movie, so I'm going to try to catch some sleep.

Tomorrow Later today, zeightyfiv will meet my blood-relatives for the first time. My younger sister (who will turn 19 in a month and a half) has brought home two or three boyfriends over the years, and then it was always a matter of whether our parents would hate them on sight, or try to forbid her visiting them, or whatever. But as the oldest child, who's already established that familial (dis)approval isn't a factor in my relationships, I end up with the challenge of not rubbing their collective noses in that fact.

Ahh, family.

My paternal grandmother called just now. She finished her second round of radiation therapy last week, and we talked for a while about how that had gone. My father has been taking care of her, so he was around. And then she tried to get me to talk to him, and things went downhill from there.

At one point she commented that if something happened to her, "all your father would have left is [his sisters]." I wouldn't say it to her, but when that eventually happens, I think it will be good for him. He's in his 40s, yet has only rarely had to deal with the results of his own poor decisions. Because my grandmother has been willing to shield him from them, for his entire life.

But to my father directly? No, I have nothing to say. And I wish she would leave it alone.

This morning, my folks informed me that they would be showing up at 09:30 tomorrow to help me move. Whether or not I liked the idea of going a full day without anything I couldn't fit in my carryon luggage. (Even microwave meals require a microwave.) Whether or not I thought I'd be done packing. Whether or not I thought I'd even be awake at the time. All of the above on less than 24h notice.

Earlier this week I'd told them when my plane left, and requested that after checking their schedule they call me back so we could talk about timing. This is not what I meant.

Sad thing is, they've been doing this sort of thing so long that it took half a day to figure out what I was angry about.

+ Job interview! Wednesday, 6/24, 13:00. Position is basic technical support at the Flexible Display Center.

- Sprained ankle. While getting up to (try to) answer the phonecall that turned out to be about the interview.

+ RICE: Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation. Also, tylenol.

- I know this drill all too well.

+ My folks are going camping this weekend. The injury prevented me from recieving an akward invitation. (I enjoy the outdoors, but only in company that doesn't bicker.)

- Didn't get to finish the labwork that I wanted to have done by this evening, 'cause I can't walk very far or stand very long.

+ Just re-wrapped the ace bandage and bruising appears to be minimal, especially considering how I landed on that ankle. Aside from being swolen, the internal structure isn't obviously assymetrical when compared to the other side (so far as I can feel).

- So why do my toes tingle on that side?