Whoever Dances is One with the Universe

Last night Forge died -- not as traumatic as it might have been, since he was my unfriendly hermit crab who refused to come out. But after I got off work this morning I did deep-clean the tank as a result, and got new substrate, and brought home a new friend for Mark. This one does lots of climbing and hanging upside down, so his name is McCoy, and when I have half a minute to myself again I'm going to try to settle down on the couch and socialise him to me a little. So far they seem to be getting along okay, though. Fingers crossed!

Fun new discovery of the day: for the last few months I've been getting kind of ill after I drink milk or eat dairy, with the last week being absolutely the worst, so I have come to the conclusion that I have developed a lactose intolerance. Which... pretty much sucks, since I pour more milk into myself than any sane person should. I guess in the interests of not killing myself this means switching over to water. SIGH.

And now, grocery shopping, after I take care of my chicks and poults. ♥ Keets are coming end of June! At least to-day is busy.

So, Thanksgiving break. I got into a yelling match with my uncle because he said that children don't absorb racist messages in films and that if you're not mentally deficient you should be able to turn off your sociological cultural context when you go to watch a movie, ha ha. I am not overly fond of my uncle.

On the plus side, I also got my hair cut and it is super cute. My hermit crabs enjoyed living in Mama and Daddy's room where the main heater is, and they are mad at me for bringing them back to school and putting them in my cold dorm room. :( I really need to buy them a heat lamp like I promised.

I am so not ready to start back to classes, so my plan for to-night is to hide in my room and pretend nothing exists.

Also, here is an incredibly depressing Arthurian space!AU fic that I wrote for mhari:

Title: These Happy Endings
Fandom: Arthuriana IN SPACE!
Characters/Pairings: Gadriet/Eluned [Gaheris/Lynette], sundry extras.
Rating: PG-16
Notes: Gadriet suffers from schizophrenia and as a result he self-medicates with animal tranquilisers. Eluned is aware of this fact and has been for a long time.

Also, if you aren't aware of what a botfly is, don't google it. And especially don't google image search it. Really, I'm doing you a favour.

( These Happy Endings )

So! Two different ladies at the pet store told me that probably the reason Perci died was because of his sponge--that they no longer recommend using sponges in hermit crab tanks because sponges make it too moist and as a result bad bacteria grows. So after deep-cleaning the tank with chlorox, running all the stones and shells through the dishwasher, and baking the sand and wood in the oven for fifteen minutes at 400 degrees, I have put everything back together and installed Mark II, or Twoy, the new crab.

He is adorable--he's about a fifth Perci's size and has a spiky shell, and absolutely tears all over the place. He's a different type, too; whereas Perci was an Ecuadorian, he's a Purple Pincher. I'm hoping he proves a little hardier. I also think he's younger, because he's so much smaller.

Also bought food for the fishies, which means they've gotten extremely affectionate. Any time I sit by the pond they come over in droves to suck on my feet. I love my fish. ♥

Otherwise, I found the kittens (there are only six now), but the mother moved them again this morning so I have to go on the prowl again. I am going to borrow a Have-a-Heart trap from my crazy cat lady aunt to try and catch the mama. Larry moved into the main turkey shed this morning, and he loathes it.

Also, tulipmonster, I made you a giant paper collage squid but he may be too big to fit into a mailing envelope. Or at least too big to go without costing the rest of my college education. It depends! I am going to ask at the post office to-morrow.

This evening I decided, for reasons unclear, that the way to be a stellar houseguest would be to have a major OCD meltdown all over mhari's room. The only reason we are still friends is because she has a remarkable lot of patience and because her mother threw me out when the room was only about fifty percent cleaned.

On the other hand, we went to the beach on Monday, where I found this lovely specimen of crabhood and sat around in tidepools.

I'm feeling kind of weird--I'm not really sure where I am, mentally. I feel very lonely, in a way, like I'm terrified of everyone forgetting about me over the summer while I'm not around (for example Liz, and the_chloroplast), and also people online, especially people who I want to be good friends with but am for-ever having anxiety over (like tulipmonster, who I want to like me but who I am convinced sits around wondering when I will die already). I feel like I could be in a better state of mind, but on the other hand I'm not depressed, so--idk, be grateful for what I have? In the general scheme of things, anxiety is easier to deal with than depression (for me).

I'm also having a lot of anxiety nightmares and a lot of just random like--lying awake at night thinking of all the things that could potentially go disastrously wrong. Like I sit in my bed and think about all the ways my father could die (I think this is being triggered by Nana and Granddad just dying, and by mhari's father dying, because he was pretty much my second dad, and it's made my anxious self hypersensitive to the possibility, I think?), or how I don't want to drive any more because I'm afraid I'll hit one of the cats, or how if I pick up Perci I could drop him and he's so delicate he'd just shatter. I will run through a good twenty or so of these scenarios just while I'm trying to fall asleep, and then I'll have even more anxiety because I'm worrying about whether worrying about stuff will make it come true. And not all of it is stuff that's grounded in reality, either--I think about how the house could collapse or I start to wonder whether I left the stove on and the house is going to burn down in the night or-- And so on, ad finitum, pretty much constantly. And any little noise or anything of that sort jerks me wide awake because I immediately connect it with one of the scenarios I've been worrying about and then I have to calm myself down until I can relax enough to sleep, and it's driving me crazy.

I've also started getting the daily headaches again, and that whole mess has been going off and on for over a year now, of terrible headaches in this icky swimmy place between a normal headache and a migraine (I've only had like two true migraines, and these are definitely not that bad), which last all day and cannot be chased off by painkillers. The problem with them is that I end up taking a lot more aspirin than is good for my system in an attempt to dull them at least. I'm starting to think that I should talk to a doctor possibly. <--and this of course is triggering my anxiety even further (what if I have a brain tumour? what if I have encephalitis? &c &c &c).

tl;dr my anxiety is worse than usual and my head hurts. Also, I like to whine.

But I do like it here, and I'm sorry I have to go home on Thursday. mhari is pretty much my favourite person ever.

Someone is sitting on my lap being a doofus. A pinchy doofus who is full of sand.

Talked to the therapist, and she agreed that the meds probably are a problem; she's going to try to get hold of the psychiatrist, which hopefully will actually work. My downcycles aren't usually longer than a week at most, and this one has been a whole month. That's too long.

I really need to do my homework, since I have to finish this paper (400 wds left!) and then read two chapters for religion, not to mention the French homework and studying for the oral exam which is to-morrow arghhhhh, but this pinchy doofus is making it a little hard.

On the v. good side, he seems to have perked up a lot now that he has salt water, and I think he's eaten, too. He's just bored, and I don't know what to do about that.