Dec 14

 Last evening was nice. A bit of dinner. A bit of gaming. A lot of talk. We talked a fair bit about the passing of Matt. One of the guys at the table knew him very well - was the person who was in shock because they'd talked to him a few hours before he had died. It was good. In the sense of humans sharing information, emotions, outlooks. You know. The human thing. I sound like a machine. I think part of me is at this point in my life ( blame the machines who I have had to think like for multi decades ). But. You get what I mean.

I crashed twice during the evening. One after eating. Probably the most predictable. A real heavy dimming of the lights. As Dr GPT points out this isn't a carb crash. This is an autonomic crash. Not enough resources to go round. A brown out. If you like. It's devastating when it hits. It's also fascinating when you started understanding the underlying mechanism and then correlating it to the huge dip in cognitive capaility, apparent exhaustion level and how well you're feeling. In some sense it's a false exhaustion. I use that word carefully. It isn't false. It's false in the sense of expressing exhaustion as - gosh I've walked 20 miles today and my legs are sore and I am exhausted. Which is typically what people mean by exhausted. It isn't false in the sense of exhaustion meaning - your body has run out of something. In this case. The capability to make all the plates spin at once. I guess. To the brain. It signals the same way. There isn't categorisation of exhaustion. You don't get a, ah this is walking long way muscle fatigue exhaustion. And this is autonomic exhaustion. You just get - you're exhausted. They feel the same. They have the same effect. Practically, they're very different. This also underlines the recent science they performed where they were testing muscles for exhaustion in CFS patients and concluded the muscles themselves were not exhausted, but the rest of the system was. So not actual muscle fatigue ( duh ). 

My second crash was towards the end of the evening. Too much burn for too long. Once I got home and rested a bit by lying down, I picked up again. Absolutely dips in the system. These are not the normal oh I'm tired things. These are the lights flickering. Flickering underplays it. But you get what I mean. I am beginning to much more understand the patterns and what's going on with it. 

I got a lot of love in the evening, people are very happy to see me. Still. Slightly baffling. But I appreciate the love nevertheless. And I appreciated their company very much. And make it very clear. Perhaps it's a little non surprising then that I get love in return. Show love. Get love.

For the record we played this : https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/385610/kutna-hora-the-city-of-silver 

By the time the rules were done, I had crashed. And was then given first turn. So. Challenging. Limited brain power. Limited everything. Make your first move. I declared I would be operating on animal instinct alone as I was crashing.

As it turns out my animal instincts are either lucky or decent. I ended up smashing a win to the dejected but good natured onlooking players. At one point someone said - if we combine our points, we will be close to what John has.

I was not trying to be an ass. I was just doing my usual noodle. I dislike hard crunching games. I tend to play by vibes. And a little sprinkling of look ahead. Albeit. That being said. My entire last round, five moves ahead, was already setdown waiting on the previous round. Easy. I was a teensy bit satisfied about that. It was. Elegant. Efficient. The machine was humming. And to be an insufferable prick, I gently nudged my opponents into better moves they had missed in the last round. I very much dislike being a smart ass. And I wasn't. But. Sometimes. The data sings.

Sometimes. Rarely. These days. I get glimpses of when my uptime is high. And it feels like this is the most capable I've been. Despite beginning to age out into old fart. There are somethings now, when it's all clicking, that are the easiest they've ever been for me, mentally. Perhaps I am delusional. Maybe I just have a bit of old age dementia kicking in making me think I'm sharper when in fact, I'm drooling into my ice cream. Tricky. Subjectively probably a kindness, even if objectively, horrible. In any case. The beautiful irony here is that most of the time I'm genuinely drooling into my ice cream under a fog of exhaustion and ill health.

As one of my friends says. "you've been nerfed". Uh huh. Great. Pleased about that.

Anyway. Whatever.

In other shit news.

The car has conked out. Again.

Engine Malfunction the display mysteriously flashed. And put all the warning lights on. All of them. Every single one. The engine however seemed not to care, and ticked over anyway.

Reduced acceleration it then informed me. I think this is "limp mode". The primitive brain has put the car into low performance mode as a precaution.

Once again fab timing. a week or so before Christmas. No fucking chance of getting that sorted in this calendar year.

Wonderful.

I do have an ODB tool kicking around. I should stick it in, just out of curiosity sakes than anything else. No matter what the issue is, I'm not going to be able to resolve it myself, even if it is something as benign as, your cpu needs a flash update. 

Contacted the dealership today. Which says they were open. They are kinda not. Told to call back tomorrow. But. No chance of getting in before christmas as expected.

Massive pain in the arse.

Also.

Laptop keyboard has decided to tits up too.

Things like this, really challenge my exhausted self. They become existential problems for me. Lack of capability will do that. A nice hill hike to someone with legs is a bit of excercise. To someone stuck in bed it's an impossible mountain.

Ho hum.

I berate myself for not being able to adult very well anymore. If I ever did adult very well anyway. Not well I think. These days. I adult very poorly indeed.

I suppose that's the nature of decline in function and vulnerability though. And why old people end up in homes rather than independent.

It sucks.

Today. I am trying not to obsess about the car not working. It feels like a giant anxiety mosquito hovering in the background.

I also need to do work today if i can.