You are forewarned. If you really feel the need for shiny and/or happy, please go ogle the band or scroll down to the weekly list.

I am currently in what I am guessing is my first true Sjogren’s flare. It could be something else entirely (yes, I have a doctor’s appointment to sort that out and boy, do I hope it isn’t) but it seems about right. Usually whenever my body throws something new at me I tend to cry a lot. And then laugh. Because what else can you do? I think I’m feeling a little better because both today and yesterday I’ve been able to sit up and accomplish things, which is good. There’s baking in my future if I can get enough oomph going. There’s a Palladian bridge there too, dependent on even more oomph. Needing lotsa oomph.

But yes, thinking. My life has been something like a ride I once took on a bottom glass boat out at Catalina. Life and activity and brightness along the shallows and then whoosh! Deep trench down into blackness. See, I was a sickly child, but I wasn’t sick. I had allergies and asthma and I am a klutz in the extreme so I had a lot of breaks and strains. But I was mainly functional. I had really good grades, something akin to a social life, I was in orchestra, marching band, on the yearbook staff, I did Girl Scouts, went to catechism classes, took GATE summer school, went to summer camp and science camp… in short, I could function alright. True I had an asshat doctor who pulled me out of tennis lessons (his diagnosis: chronic bronchitis and I shouldn’t be out in the night air) and a visitation schedule from the sixth ring of hell that cut into being a normal kid. But mostly, functional.

In high school things just went batshit on more than one level. But I was still functional. First two years of university and I started out of the shallows. By the fourth year I was well on my way down that trench into illness. There’s a trend, a clear cut arc of where my body went no and I didn’t listen. And now I’m here. Mostly housebound and all around frustrated. It’s dark down here, damnit. And I remember not being here. And that is probably the hardest thing.

And now the weekly thing a day early:

Something Good: No Purl Monkeys knit up very fast. I have yarn on its way to me. I have kind friends who I appreciate, even if they do live halfway around the world.

Knitting: Same as last week. Knitting’s been slow going of late.

Reading: A Haunted House and Other Short Stories by Virginia Woolf and Life Disrupted: Getting Real About Chronic Illness in Your Twenties and Thirties by Laurie Edwards (which thus far I highly recommend)

Writing/Crafting: Not a bloomin’ thing. This creativity block is not helping things. Anyone have any tips on creative block issues?

This Week’s Plan: If there is oomph: baking, a trip to Wilton House. If there is no oomph, lots of reading.

And now a question for the Mac users: what word processor do you like best for Mac? I tried Pages and couldn’t get into it and TextEdit just doesn’t cut it. I have heard nothing good about the newest Office and I hate XML with a passion. At the moment I’m trying Open Office which is like early Word by the looks of it. Anything fantastic that I am missing because I’m a newbie? Ta.

Hope your weekend is full of oomph.