Nov 20

 Today I have done zero work. None. Nada. Zip.

Despite yesterday feeling extra shitty and tired I still failed to sleep, no matter how hard I tried. It was gone 7am before I properly slept.

Rather than try to slog through poor quality work today I decided to just take it off. Ostensibly sick. I kept my ear peeled for any emergencies. But otherwise. I rested. Slept. Just. Let it go. Concentrate on feeling better first. Work later.

And I feel better for it.

That being said. Towards the very late afternoon, feeling a bit better, let me have a 5 minute sit down planning my CnC box, I immediately felt ill again. Nauseous. Weak. Sleepy.

Ok.

I stopped what I was doing and retreated back to bed. I had been up for all of 20 minutes.

Hmm.

It crosses my mind whether some of what I go through is just all down to a dodgy stomach. A very surly and bad tempered ulcer that reaches out and makes me feel truly shit, not just in a nausea kind of way, but makes me sleep and feel weak and shaky and etc. Almost like a high pain response. Or bleeding. Or something.

I dunno. Fuck knows.

I crept back to bed feeling sorry for myself.

30 minutes in bed, I felt a bit better again.

Sigh.

Tomorrow is GP day. I absolutely. 100%. Cannot be arsed. I feel awful. Mostly in bed. I cannot be arsed to try and tell the doc what's wrong. I cannot stand facing a blank stare. A scratching of head. Some pathetic response. I can't do it. I would literally. Demonstrably. Rather slowly die in bed than be faced with that farce.

On the face of it. Stupid decision. But. It's not really a conscious decision. It's just. How it is.

My friend has once again strongly urged me to set up a 3 way conversation with her included. She's right. I don't have the strength, energy or mental capacity to do it however. Nor deal with the fallout my end of a non plussed GP.

Anyway. I don't know. I will see how I feel on the day. Part of me does badly want to explain it all. Look. This is years on. You guys do shit. Can we *please* exhaust all our tests. If you throw up your hands and say, we've done all we can. Fine. But I know we haven't. Can we fix my fucking stomach and gastro issues. TAKE A FUCKING LOOK AT IT.

Eh meh.

The carnage this does to my internal landscape cannot be underestimated. The back and forth in your own head. The mental exhaustion. Frustration. Depression. The waves of wanting to fight followed by the exhaustion and hopelessness. All because of a shit health service response. They should be ashamed really.

Oh well.

After the GP tomorrow, assuming all is equal, I might try to make that lunch date I flaked on last week. It does rely on my ME compatriot also not flaking too however. Hilariously shit. Watching two people with chronic fatigue try to sync up schedules and fatigue to meet each other. There is a bit of comedy in there for sure, despite it being shit.

And I really must super duper try and get some useful work done. Work day or not. I need to get shit done. My ill health has decimated my work capability.

And then.

And I get that I am being hilariously over optimistic.

Once I've done all that. I might get back to my CnC boxes.

Realistically, tomorrow probably looks like this -

barely manage to get to the GP. Prop myself up in the chair for the bare minimum response.

Come home. Pass out. And like that it will be the next day.

Sigh.

We shall see. Big effort tomorrow. Come on Johnny. Scrounge up some health and energy.

I don't know why I do this to myself. Perpetually living in some state of delusion that, tomorrow, it will be better and I will be back to my old self.

Today I have reached out to a few people. Clearly I am in more of a mood to talk. Just to see how people are doing. Spoke to one of my exes. She is doing good. I didn't doubt it. Content with life. Wants to do better, but, very comfortable, much money, much stability. A rare breed these days. I am glad she's doing ok. I find myself wistful at times. At all the relationships in my history. I think I have wished they were all still a thing at some point or another. I miss them all in their own ways. Ha. Another layer of my tragic fucking comedy life. Sigh.

Spoke with my brother yesterday. He came looking for me for a change. It was nice to talk to him. Today he revealed he has got his own christmas package delivered. Chocolate advent calendar and a tin of biscuits from Fortnum and Masons. Good stuff. I hope he likes them. Silly. But. Also not. I was starting to worry my delivery had been missed or made off with by highwaymen. But no. All good. In all fairness I think I've only ever had one package go missing in my entire life with the UK postal and delivery services.

Anywho.

I have also pinged a few other people. Just to see how they are doing.

I feel a little better. I want to know all the lovely people are doing ok. Listen to them.

But my health turns on a dime. Within 10 minutes I can feel like shit again. The wind blows, the weather changes. All within a moment. Strange stuff.

This evening, whilst nursing my twitchy health, resting in bed ( as ever ), I have gone through some designs for the insides of my boxes. I have slowly gone through ideas about what to do about it. What material. What size. What design. I was strongly considering wooden partitions. But. After thinking about, realised that thin basswood wouldn't provide enough bulk - I would end up having to build mini padding boxes in there. Which is a pain. And a lot of work. Does it have to be wood ? No ! In fact. Most packing in boxes is flimsy material. Typically vacuum formed thin plastic. Sometimes card. Hmmm.

After mulling it over and thinking about smooth packing foam, insulation foam, solid wood ( too heavy, too much work ), I alighted on foam core. Cardboard with foam. I Would have to build boxes of it. Or... I could just layer many layers of material. Save myself faffing around with it.

So. That's what I'm doing. I have a plan of the layout, the sizes I need, I think it will work aces. Not too much faff to make. Fills the space nicely. Light. Easy to work with. And. It will all be covered with felt anyway, so, the finish doesn't matter.

Not sure why I didn't think of that earlier. Rather than try to build an over elaborate wooden interior ( Which then just gets covered up by felt anyway ). Duh. Go with your scratch building senses padawan. Scratch build what you need inside your box.

I am now enthused by the idea of doing the internal for my boxes. At least. Structurally. I am still slightly dreading the felting stage. It's always such a finnicky faff. Glue. Felt. Boxes. It's messy. And easy to fuck up. At least I find it so.

It snowed today. Whilst I was asleep. I got up at some point in the afternoon to pee, and outside was a blanket of white, snow floating down.

By the time I got up again, late afternoon it had all gone, turned to slush.

My acer tree out front has not got the memo. It is barely in its Autumnal colours. Mostly it's still green. And yet here we are with snow. My dude. You should have turned orange and red by now. A sure sign that for the most part it's warmer - a lot warmer and the season switches and everything is getting messed up. With a random snow day thrown in just for the laughs and to give something for the demented idiots (ie Americans) of the world to proclaim that global warming is a hoax. 

When I used to walk my beautful mutts every single day. The passing of the seasons was always something I was acutely aware of. Over the years you recognise all the signs. The timing of the flowers. The trees. Even things like ground quality ( mud season ! ). And over the course of more than a decade it was notable how things were shifting. Slowly. Subtly. But. Flowers out earlier. Colours turning later. And even some years. Leaves not entirely dropping. Yikes. I highly suspect the rate of pace of climate change is a lot faster than they have previously thought. I think it only gets worse from this point in. The irony here is that there's a good chance the UK gets colder, not hotter, in the long run. I'm ok with that. I wouldn't mind a Canadian ( pre global climate nonsense ) climate. Which. Latitude wise. You should expect for the UK. The only reason we don't have that is the Gulf Stream current that ferries relatively warm wet weather out of the carribbean up to the UK to give us wet mild winters. Such things only exist because of a very delicate and precarious balance of micro climates and currents et al. Change the macro climate. And all of it shuffles. In particular. The Gulf Stream is dying, almost dead, and with it, the warming effect on the UK. In a hotter world, I would be more than OK with the UK being colder. It's doubtful however it would prevent the 40C plus summers. Sadly. Winters would just be more brutal.

Ho hum.

Someone elses problem. I am too old and sick to do shit about it. And a whole host of people first need to remove their heads from their asses who have a spectacularly shit record at being able to do so.

I find it much more likely everyone will die from famine and plague before that happens ( both highly likely in an increased climate world ).

Huzzah.

If you can't remove your head from your arse as a species, then, you do, actually, deserve to die a horrible death. You reap what you sow. Very fair. Can't complain at that.