Sing me a story, laugh me a lullaby

Hello there! Oof, it's been awhile since I posted last here. It's been kind of a series of unfortunate events the last couple of months and I've been just trying get through. Migraine season was very long, plus I had a string of small but annoying kidney stones, and Mum and I had colds, and I've broken another tooth which I'm waiting to have pulled, and Dad also had broken, infected teeth, and it turns out when Mum fell at Christmas she broke another vertebra in her back to go along with the three that were already broken which we only found out a couple of weeks ago and she's got a slightly frozen shoulder as well, and my SIL is on stress leave from her job and...there's a lot. It's just a lot.

Thankfully, the election we had up here went the way I personally was hoping for, and, even amongst all the woes, we've been working decluttering and organizing and cleaning the house. We've been watching 'Sort Your Life Out' on CBC Gem, and it's been quite inspiring.

In the midst of my decluttering, I also decided to a journal declutter of sorts. This journal has turned into a personal one since I lost my ability to write, and I decided to make a writing journal to split the two off. awanderingbardtales is a mirror of this journal, but I went through and deleted all the personal entries so there's only writing and writing related posts. To be clear, everything that was posted on this journal is still here, but going forward, should I manage to write again, I'll post the stories there and keep this one for personal stuff. I have been working on original stuff and maybe one day I'll have something I want to share. I got a new writing app for my iPad that functions like Notepad on Windows used to, which is where I did all my writing before the Great Flash Drive Crash of '15, and I feel like I'm better able to organize my thoughts on a simpler interface than Google Docs, where I get distracted all the time by the grammar and spell checks and get into my head about it. Feel free to follow the writing journal if you wish. I'll also post links from here to there if there's anything new. I'm going to probably try to make some master posts of my stories, too. And it's been fun to go through and read stuff over the last almost 20(!) years of my life that this journal as existed (at least on LJ, the DW version is newer).

I'm also continuing my art journey. I'm trying to learn to draw bodies now and practicing gesture drawing, and it's progressing. Not fast, but it's going. I've done some crocheting, and managed to keep up my reading. Still very light-hearted stuff to keep my brain happy. I feel like learning about my neurodivergence has been helpful and I'm finding better ways to cope and get things accomplished. The Loop earplugs have really been a life saver in so many aspects. I feel like I'm even more confident and decisive because I'm less overwhelmed all the time.

I hope everyone else is coping with life and finding some joy in it.

Yesterday was Family Day here in Ontario, and my brother and his wife took my parents and I out for dinner, during which we had a discussion about reading, and now I need to know something:

When you read, do you hear a voice in your head reading the words to you?

My SIL and I do, my mum, dad, and brother don't.

Now, my brother and mum both have varying degrees of aphantasia as well (inability to picture things in their mind). Not sure about my dad, but my SIL can picture things in her mind, so I don't know if that's related.

I did Google this, and found out it's something called 'subvocalization', and for people who do hear the voice, their larynxes actually make micro movements like they're speaking, though not producing any actual sound. If you can turn off the voice, you can also apparently read faster, which I believe, since my mum sails through books. I couldn't find out if it's 'normal' to hear the voice or not, though, or if it's just typical human variation, so I'm curious about other people's experiences.

I'm also curious to know if you don't hear a voice, how does the information get into your head? Like, how are the words getting to your brain if you aren't...putting them here with your head voice? My brother just shrugged when I asked, and my mum's description was essentially she sort of absorbs vibes of emotion from the character situations or something.

Anyway, if you feel like sharing with the class, let me know, because I am very intrigued.

Well, it's almost New Year's Eve, which means it's almost 2025 and time for my December update. I did manage to keep my resolution of posting at least once a month this year, so huzzah!

I hope everyone enjoyed/is enjoying their winter holiday celebrations or chilling if they do not have such celebrations. Ours were slightly delayed by circumstances, but we did get around to it on Boxing Day. We usually celebrate on Christmas Eve, but on the 23rd, my mum fell on the ceramic tile at the front door because her wet shoes made her feet go out from under her. She was fine, nothing broken or anything, but literally a few minutes after that happened, I got a text from my brother that Jack, his elder cat, had gone into diabetic shock on the 22nd and had been having seizures on and off. So we decided to postpone until everything calmed down and I am happy to report Jack is doing okay and Mum is extremely sore, but not severely damaged. We went to my brother's on the 26th and had a lovely time despite our woes, and met my brother and his wife's new cat, Jake, who is a 13-year-old rescue they adopted after they very unexpectedly lost their younger cat over the summer. He's a sweet boy and slept on my mum's lap the whole night, and Jack slept in a box in the living room with his face hidden, which was very social for him. He usually hides upstairs when there's company. He seems to be doing much better now.

I am exhausted, which is not unusual post Christmas. I also recently discovered I am slightly anaemic and have low B12, which may explain why I've been feeling yucky lately. I'm looking forward to resting now that the Christmas bustle is done. We had so many appointments through the autumn, and this year in general has just been a lot of stuff happening. I feel like I've learned a lot about myself as a person, but the existential crisis of it all is kind of tiring. I'm going into 2025 with a mindset of focussing on self-care and avoiding doomscrolling and finding joy in the things and people I love and letting what I can't change go.

I wish you all the best of New Year's and I will talk to you in January!

Hello there, lovely people. I hope if you are the sort who enjoys spooky season, you are enjoying it, and if, like me, you do not enjoy spooky season, you are finding joy in less spooky things.

I've been learning to draw. Not just during spooky season, it's been about four-ish years I've been working on it, I think. When I got a pad that supported the Apple Pencil, I traded in my old Mac computer and used the rebate to buy a Pencil and Procreate, and I've been working on teaching myself. At first, I only coloured other people's (freely donated) art and learned about shading and such, but I've branched out to try to work on actually drawing my own stuff. It was hard to push through that 'former gifted kid' perfectionism. I have a tendency to give up if I'm not good at something right away, and unfortunately, drawing is something you just have to do until it gets better. But I am getting better! I made it a goal in September to draw one face everyday until I could draw faces I didn't hate, and the improvement was actually really startling and encouraging. So I decided to try my hand at a full portrait and it was like, you know how in fictional stories of various kinds there's things the hero learns along the way and all of a sudden at the climax all those things come into use? It was like that. Everything I've learned has come together to make a picture I actually like.

Hello all! It's the last day of the month and therefore time for me to post! Happy Olympics!

I think I've mentioned before that my family are big Olympics people. Do any of us play sports? No. Do my mum and I ever watch sports in between times? Only figure skating if it's on at a convenient time which it usually isn't. Does my day spend multiple hours watching CBC sports some weekends? Yes, actually, but I think he naps through a lot of it. But when the Olympics come around, it is 24/7 dual-wielding TVs here at the Bard household. It's been that way since I was a kid. I have memories of even Barcelona 1992 when I was about six and we watched the opening ceremonies on the black and white TV at the cottage in PEI. I remember being terrified of the giant puppet things in the opening ceremony in Lillehammer 1994. I remember watching Donovan Bailey winning the gold in Atlanta 1996 when I was at my uncle's house in Vermont. And Nagano 1998 was the sort of definitive Olympics for me, the first one I really remember engaging whole-heartedly with. Ross Rebagliati won the gold in snowboarding! But he was disqualified for testing positive for marijuana use! But marijuana isn't a banned substance and so they appealed! And then he got his medal back two days later! Surya Bonaly did a backflip in the figure skating which is illegal! Drama!

So, anyway, we've all been glued to our TVs since Friday night's opening ceremony. Which I thought was really fun, but it seems like a lot of people didn't like it.

Hope everyone is doing well as we continue to live through major historical events. At least we have the Olympics to distract us.

Hey look, I did a thing! Yay me!

Some Due South daemons, because whenever I get into a fandom I like to give daemons to characters. I had previously done Fraser and Ray K, and I kept Ray's basically the same but redid Fraser's now that I've rewatched the show and decided my previous choice wasn't quite right. Some of the minor characters don't get much development and my choices for them are kind of 'vibes + one thing I know about them' and are thus less detailed.


( Major Characters )

( Supporting Characters )

Squeezing in under the line here in my resolution to post at least once a month. Happy Easter to those who celebrate, and for those who don’t, enjoy your time off!

I write from Oliver IV, my new iPad. Mum’s old iPad finally reached the point where her games weren’t running on it anymore and she reluctantly decided to get a new one. Hers was ten years old, which is like a thousand in electronic years, so kudos to her for her loyalty. My old iPad got knocked on the floor a few months back and the screen cracked, just a hairline crack that was hardly noticeable and not worth replacing it over, but my Apple Pencil kept getting stuck in the crack when I was trying to do art. I got a screen protector, but then the Pencil didn’t glide properly, so Mum and I agreed mine was in good working order and she’d take mine and I’d get a new one for myself. I splurged and got the Magic Keyboard Folio, which turns it into a laptop, essentially, and it was totally worth it. I love being able to write wherever I am and it’s much easier to plug my microphone in for singing, instead of having to take the whole thing out of the case for my dongle to work.

I was hoping it would inspire some creativity in me, but I’m still really struggling in all aspects of it. I’ve long suspected I have some form of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and I am just toast at the moment. My body aches and I’m exhausted no matter how much I sleep and my brain is foggy. Mum thinks it’s a sort of good thing, that I was too sick before to realize how sick I was. I was in just ‘one foot in front of the other’ mode, and now I’m well enough to want to do things, but not well enough to actually do them. It’s very frustrating. On the bright side, the stones have been pretty good lately, which is probably the reason I’m so tired. All my adrenaline is gone and now I’m beat.

I have been managing to do a sign language course online, though. The Oklahoma School for the Deaf is offering ASL I and II online for free until June, video lessons you can do at your own pace. I did ASL I many years ago, so I signed up for ASL II and I seem to remember most of what I already knew. The lessons are fun, but my only complaint is how much vocabulary they introduce per unit. I swear they teach you thirty new signs each lesson, all in a row, and then you’ve forgotten it by the time you’re onto the next part. I’ve managed to pick up the grammar with relative ease, but when I’m trying to do the sentence exercises, I stumble over remembering which one of the thirty signs they just shoved at me I need to use. I know I can go back and review the older lessons to cram, but I don’t think that’s the way my brain works. I prefer to learn the vocab in context rather than just a list. In any case, I’m enjoying it and it makes me feel like I’m succeeding at something, even if my creative brain is lacking at the moment.

I’m also rewatching due South. I’m about halfway through Season 2 now. It’s probably been over a decade since I last watched it and I’d forgotten just how incredibly good a show it is. So far, it’s holding up really well for a show that’s nearly thirty years old. There are a few jokes that are a little iffy now, but Fraser is usually correcting whoever says them to point out they aren’t appropriate anyway. So much time has passed now and TV has changed so much, it’s making me appreciate even more how great a protagonist he is. I feel like every hero you get now has to be a snarky, dark asshole struggling his way through the world fighting his own demons, where Fraser is positive example of non-toxic masculinity. He’s respectful of those around them, he’s kind, he’s gentle, he only uses violence as a last resort. He has trauma and flaws and vulnerabilities, but most of the struggles come from his interactions with world. I also just like that the show itself isn’t dark and gritty, it’s fun and silly with undertones of drama that develop the characters. It’s lacking in diversity and the female characters aren’t always the best, but for its time, I feel like it holds up pretty well. I’d also forgotten how many car chases are in it. I swear half their budget must have gone into car chases. It’s delightful to rewatch it and remember all the good things about it. And spot baby actors, like, hello impossibly young Mark Ruffalo and Ryan Phillippe, what the hell are you doing here?

That’s all for now. Hope everyone is doing well!

Happy New Year! 2024 is a good colour year according to my synesthesia, so let's hope it bodes well.

Pax decided to cap off 2023 by eating a bunch of plastic, which was not cool. We didn't discover this had been done for several hours, however, and as he was showing no signs of distress, we elected to monitor him and, without going into graphic detail, everything passed safely through before the New Year. He has been given a stern talking to and I'm sure will reflect on his behaviour and modify it accordingly.

He also had an ear infection a few weeks ago, and I had to put medicine in his ears twice a day for a week, which was an ordeal. I have never felt like as much of a monster as when I was chasing him around and he would just sit down in defeat and go 'fine, do it', and put his little ears back and snort. No betrayal in history has been greater in Pax's mind than his very own Favourite Person torturing him in this way. I did it a breakfast and supper to establish a routine, so I wasn't springing it on him all the time, and even now, nearly a month later, if I do something around that time that he interprets as 'suspicious', he'll flee from the kitchen in anticipation. We've made up otherwise, however, and I actually think he's a lot more comfortable with being touched and handled than he has been. Which is good, because the vet told me I also need to be brushing his teeth, so that's a project we shall be embarking upon shortly. Yay.

Christmas was pleasant, too. It's sometimes hard to track your health day to day when you're chronically ill, but I can certainly see a marked improvement from last year in how much more energy I had and how much easier it was to get Christmas together. I didn't have the slump afterwards I usually have, that kind of depressed 'that was so much effort for one night' kind of feeling. I was tired, but not exhausted, so I definitely think that's a sign I've made progress. We got to my sister-in-law's family's thing and that was nice, and we had the kids for Christmas Eve and went to their place on Boxing Day, and it was a lot of fun.

I hope any festivities you celebrated brought you joy and your 2024 is prosperous!

Eeek! I get worse and worse in updating my journal. Here I am, though, alive.

It's been a rough time since we last spoke. Mum's chronic back thing is acting up mightily and I've been passing stones like a mad thing, and both of us had the worst migraines of our lives at different points, and even poor Pax had a couple of days of being unwell. We're not sure what happened, but he started vomiting at around 3AM one night and proceeded to vomit every half hour until 6:30, then stopped. Then he did the exact same thing the next night. Then he was fine and has been fine since. I can only assume he ate something outside and then ate it again the next night. It was very unpleasant and very concerning, but he's totally fine now.

Otherwise, things have been just...happening. Like normal. I've read a lot of books now that my brain is able to focus on that again. I've been writing a lot, just original stuff I don't know will ever see the light of day, but it's fun and I get to do lots of research for it. I do more research than writing, honestly. My brain is still a bit foggy for coherent narrative. We've also been very slowly working on getting my room redone, a project I've been trying to do for literally close to sixteen years now that just kept getting pushed aside with all the health stuff that's gone on. But I have a bed now! It's not assembled, but I have it! And a new mattress. And I'm working away at cleaning the room up and out to make space to get the old bed out and the new one in. Our whole house is kind of a mess, which happens when you're all chronically ill. I feel like we're starting to make progress, though, despite the health flares.

Dad has hyper-fixated on Mad Men, which is on Amazon Prime here. He started about a week ago, if that, and I think he's on season six now. He literally lies down in the afternoon and puts it on and watches it until the news at 11. Every hour, you can hear the tango opening theme play once again as the next episode rolls out. We got him a Roku for his room at Christmas time, and he's made very good use of it. It's cute, because he's not a guy who does fiction normally. Everything he reads is non-fiction except for John Grisham novels and everything he watches is a documentary or reality, with a few exceptions that are usually 'this is based on a real person'. He had a The Tudors phase earlier this year, and a Versailles phase. But this is the most I've seen him hyperfixate yet, and it's funny to hear him talk about it, because it's like he's never encountered fiction before. He likes it because 'they all have different personalities' and 'there are lots of situations and scenarios'. So, he likes that there are characters and a plot, I guess. It's very cute. Even if I have the tango stuck in head.

Anyway, I hope all y'all are hanging in there. Stay safe and cool!

Hello there good people! I hope anyone who observes Easter, Passover, and/or Ramadan has had/is having a good/joyous/generous one. We had my brother and SIL over on Sunday for a chill brunch that was very pleasant.

Overall, things have been pretty good here. Mum and I are both suffering from the Spring flare-ups that happen every year. I don't know how kidney stones can have a flare up, but I swear they do. Before that, though, things were going super well and we were getting a lot accomplished and working on projects, and we're still doing that, but less so because we're a little under the weather.

But I've managed to knit two purses for myself. My beloved old one finally could no longer function, so I decided to see if I could just make one for myself. I'm the worst about patterns; I can never follow one to the letter. I start one and if it's not beautiful in, like, five rows, I go 'nope!' and start on something else. About halfway through I decide it's terrible and I hate it and my mum very patiently encourages me to go onwards and then finally I end up with something I like. Here are the products of this hectic, artistic process:



The one on the left is one I kind of winged the pattern for, taking the stitch count and flap decreases from one pattern and making up everything else myself. It's a bit wonky, but overall I like the look of it, and I'm not as proficient in knitting as I am in crochet. You have to be wonky while you're mastering a skill. The other purse is somewhat closer to what the actual pattern I chose for it called for, but I scaled it down and changed the handle and added the top i-cord trim, which took forever and essentially called for knitting with two crochet hooks, but I enjoyed the process. I like the second guy better--I think he's more uniform--but I feel like the first guy is more my style. Well, they both are, I guess. Sometimes I'm boho, sometimes I'm sparkly.

The other thing we've been working on is trying to grow some milkweed for the monarch butterflies. We want to make a butterfly/bee garden in the backyard. A friend of my mum's from her exercise class gathered milkweed pods from around where she lived and my mum gave me them for Christmas, along with a little indoor greenhouse. It's a process to get them going, and our first batch produced only two seedlings, one of which spontaneously died for unknown reasons, but our second batch looks a little healthier.



My much put upon kalanchoe has also decided to perk up. Mum got me one as a Valentine's Day present a few years ago and despite my loving care, she grew mould on her and I genuinely thought she was dead, but in completely ignoring her, she somehow fought off the infestation and recovered and has been slowly getting bigger and bigger by me sneaking up behind her and putting a little water in her and then ignoring her so she doesn't get too overwhelmed. Now she's growing a flower again! She's very nervous about it, and hasn't opened it yet even though she's had it for quite awhile now, but I hope she'll work up the courage to bloom soon. If she does, I'll take a picture. I think she's very pretty even without any flowers, and I'm very proud of her working through her illness to shine again, so whatever happens, I will support her life choices.

We've been having good TV around here lately, though, as always, the only three shows we watch in a week are on on the same night, so we DVR them all and spread them out through the week. We've been watching Sullivan's Crossing on CTV, which is new this year and based on books Mum and I have read. It's very enjoyable, very Canadian, a little bit cheesy, but in a good kind of way. I prefer cheese to angst. We're also watching Sanditon and Call the Midwife, but the DVR had a meltdown one night and refused to tape them, and we couldn't find Call the Midwife anywhere to catch up on it, so we'll have to wait until it comes to Britbox. PBS wants you to think you can use Passport, but if you're in Canada, you can watch, like, two shows on it and the rest are region locked. Sanditon we were able to buy from Apple TV, at least.

I have some new glasses on the way. I had my yearly check-up and mentioned I was still having trouble reading, especially when I'm tired, so my doctor suggested reading glasses with a higher prism than my multi-focals to try to get my eyes to align together since my lazy eye is such a bitch about teamwork. You can't put more than one prism strength in a single lens, unfortunately, and I need a different one for distance, so I'll have my multi-focals for most things, then the reading glasses specifically for...you know, reading.

I think that's all! Happy Spring, I hope you will get some good weather soon if you have not already. The sun has abandoned us here. It's been the darkest winter in 78 years, apparently, but we made it through.