It’s been a hot minute, hasn’t it?

A lot’s been going on. Let’s see if I can summarize.

Health Stuff:

It took a bunch of insurance ping-pong to get the Mirena ordered; my insurance uses CVS Specialty for those things, but for some reason they bounced it to AllianceRx, which is Walgreens’s specialty pharmacy. Then two days before the Mirena was due to go in, the Liletta apparently yeeted itself out of my body and let us just say that there was more blood than I ever want to see ever again.

I had to get an ultrasound to confirm that the Liletta was gone, which it was, and in went the Mirena a week ago. Words you never want your gynecologist to utter: “blood bath.” Gynecologist gave me a week of progesterone to take while the Mirena settled in, and things are a lot better. Not 100% better, but getting there.

Psychiatrist increased my medication dosage again, as we slowly work towards actual therapeutic doses of my antidepressant and anxiolytic. 🙄

Had my annual MRI and everything is all fucked up, but in a stable sort of way. So yay?

Fandom Stuff

I went to a small local convention this weekend and it was a lot of fun. I was worried, since I’ve been gafiating most of the year and therefore, out of the loop. However, this is a convention where I know a lot of the concom and knew that if anyone decided to get in my face, they’d have my back. Luckily, no one did!

I saw a lot of friends, which was fantastic. I ate a lot of delicious food–including ramen, which I haven’t had in a year–which was fantastic but not great for the low salt part of my diet. I was on three panels: religion in SFF, one about the virtues of standalone novels, and one about reading critically. That last one had Michael Dirda on it which was just a little bit intimidating since the man has a Pulitzer Prize and all.

Overall, though, it was a good experience. I’m glad I went and I’ll be going back next year. But I still have no plans for other conventions–I just can’t. So many of the people I spoke with who I hadn’t seen since last year had no idea that I’d been brigaded off Twitter, and when I mentioned the names of the ringleaders, not a single person had a nice thing to say about them. Whatever small reputation they may have acquired as writers has been eclipsed by their terrible behavior.

There was also a quick-quick-quick excursion to Bertram’s Inkwell in which pens and notebooks and ink were purchased. I went in intending to only buy ink, but then they had the A5 Leuchtturm 1917s (dotted grid, tyvm) that I like to use for notes at work–in two colors of purple! They also had the TWSBI 580 in Iris with a fine nib, so I had to get that, and then a blue TWSBI Eco with a medium nib.

The ink I got was Colorverse’s Butterfly Nebula/NGC 6302. Butterfly Nebula is very similar to Sailor Manyo Haha but with glitter, and NGC 6302 is a very nice desaturated forest green. Weirdly, Butterfly Nebula is the larger bottle, which is a bit unusual: the normal way of things with Colorverse is that the smaller bottle is the one with glitter in. I have Butterfly Nebula mixed in with a little bit of Colorverse Cat in a TWSBI Eco broad nib that works well for glittery ink. When that runs dry (or I get tired of it!) I’ll clean the pen thoroughly and see if I can get the ink to show up as nicely as it does in that first link.

Food Stuff

Content warning: discussion of dieting and intentional weight loss

In addition to my salt intake, I’ve started monitoring my food intake with a goal of losing some weight. This is for medical, not aesthetic reasons: I’m about 40 pounds heavier than I should be, thanks to the Liletta (which does cause weight gain in some people).

And it fucking sucks. I hate it. I have what I think is a ridiculously low calorie goal from weight management and also a completely ridiculous macronutrient distribution (which I am going to fix).

I’m tracking my food intake using Cronometer, which, unlike every other food tracking tool out there, is not explicitly for weight loss. And there are no forums full of fat hatred–there are no forums at all.

One main thing I’ve done is to re-subscribe to a weekly meal box, Dinnerly this time instead of Hello Fresh. Dinnerly is more affordable in that we can get 4 meals at the same price point as Hello Fresh.

I’ve also been looking at paleo recipes to see what we can manage there–no intention of going full paleo, but leaning in that direction wouldn’t be too bad. For one, we can’t afford all the meat required to go full paleo. 💸

And I’m trying to use the treadmill at least 4 times per week with a minimum of 15 minutes per session.

So that’s a thing I’m doing and I’m not thrilled about it, but it’s gotta be done.

Work Stuff

Work’s been going really well!

Today marks one year since I started and when I look back at where I was and compare to where I am now, I’m a much better and more knowledgeable coder. And I feel like I can actually start calling myself one.

…and that’s about all I have for now. Whew.