Sooo Sunday I got to have a very mini Xanga meetup with @onestepcloserto_perfection!!! Molly is the only Xangan so far I have met in real life and Sunday was actually the second time I got to see her!
Molly had asked me a couple of weeks ago what I was doing June 8th and I told her that I wasn’t up to much but that she should come down on Sunday the 9th because Richmond was having it’s first ever bacon festival (well bacon and beer festival but mostly bacon). Molly came by and we hung out for a bit at the house and introduced her to all the critters. Scully was by far the most excited
After hanging out for a bit we decided to head downtown and check out the festivities and OH MY GOD Richmond was totally not ready for the people’s love of bacon. HOW COULD YOU BE SO FRAKING STUPID, RICHMOND? IT’S GODDAMN BACON!
Apparently, after checking around, the venders were only expecting 5-6K people to show up, max… 17,000 people were there that day. There were 20 different venders and a few bands and a lot of beer packed into the tiny 17th St Farmer’s Market. There were crazy lines EVERYWHERE. One vender had a line that was at least 50yds long and everyone was lining up for blocks and blocks. It was a free entry festival but you had to either buy passes for the food or just buy the food and beer once you reached the vender tent. We didn’t end up actually getting anything because it would have taken all day (although I will say that the coffee coated bacon s’mores sounded like an orgasm of epic proportions… I should have just swiped one when I was close enough to nab it).
Since the Bacon Festival was a clusterfuck (basically, literally) we decided to take Molly to our favourite burger joint, Burger Bach (pronounced like “batch” not like the composer whose name is spelled the same). They have the best burgers and fries I’ve ever had (and I can actually eat them, which is amazing since I can’t eat any fries anywhere else because of the fat content and my lacking of gallbladder).
After we were done inducing a food coma we went back to my place and took Scully to a park right up the street from us that we had never been to but was dog friendly (I was actually under the impression they had an off-leash site for dogs but apparently that is another park). It was really fun getting to walk and explore and try to wear the puppy out (didn’t happen lol). After a while Molly had to head back up north. BUT YOU BETTER STAY IN CONTACT WITH MEH! Even if this place goes under, which I hope it doesn’t!!!

So yeah, it was a pretty epically great Sunday, even if Richmond embarrassed itself in front of new people

I guess I don’t have much to say these days.

I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I don’t understand this growing numbness. I can laugh but soon the laughter fades, and the smiles wither and die.
I know it will probably pass. I’ve gone through this before, the numbness. If I could feel, I would feel guilty for not really meaning the “I love you”s, at least not in the same way. I don’t feel it when I say it.
Last night he held both of my hands tight, as if trying to keep me from sinking back into the sea of ambivalence I’ve been drowning in. “It will pass,” he said, and gripped a bit tighter.
I’ve already gotten used to sleeping in an empty bed.
I’ve already been thinking about life away from here, and everyone. I’ve been mulling the idea of moving to Georgia, but to be honest, I mull this over every few years, and nothing ever comes of it. But the urge is stronger this time. This restlessness will end me if I cannot shake and move soon.

I just feel like I’m potentially going to miss out on something big.

Reid and I spent the day out and about. I woke up quite a while before he did and poked around Tumblr and uploaded my new photos there and on fet. I finished reading the 2nd Walking Dead Compendium. I’ve now read to issue #96, it is AWESOME! Gonna start watching the show again now that I’ve read up to almost the current issue. I watched season 1 and liked it but wanted to read the comics first before watching anymore. Glad I did.
We took Scully to the park and let her run around after Reid woke up. She behaved incredibly well around all the other dogs! We were hesitant about letting her off the leash at first, there were 4-5 other dogs around, bigger than Scully, but a couple around her size. The other people there with their dogs convinced us to let her off the leash because “they’d sort it out” and it would be fine. Finally, we let her off and she ran around and played with the other dogs (while being INCREDIBLY submissive, such a funny sight to see). Afterwards, she was all dirty and slobbery so we took her to Reid’s parents’ and gave her a bath with the hose (soooo much easier than giving her a bath in the tub!)
We walked around their neighborhood for a while before coming home and getting Scully to take a nap. Then Reid and I went to a comic book shop that isn’t but a couple miles from our house. It’s HUGE. I was really hoping that I would be able to get some new issues of The Walking Dead but they didn’t have issue #97 and it’s a two-parter with #98 so I’m going to wait and go back or check out the other shop near my work tomorrow. 

Here’s to a new start:

This will be updated whenever I get around to migrating over to WordPress or something.

For now you can reach me by email:

thegunslingergirl7@gmail.com

And thanks for all the fish.

I am incredibly hard on myself, and that is putting it lightly.

I’m very hard on myself because growing up people were very hard on me.

I’ve been battling depression since I was about 10 years old. I was told that depression was a sin, it was my fault, and that I could control it. I grew up believing these things, which only added to my depression when I realized no, I can’t control this. It’s taken me almost 14 years to realize that that belief is just plain wacko, and a bunch of crock. I still feel guilty every morning when I take my medicine. “You’re a failure. You brought it on yourself, and now you’re helpless to get out of it.”

When I was 18 I started having severe stomach/digestion problems. I was throwing up after every single meal, but I wasn’t forcing myself to, I just couldn’t help it. I kept going to the doctor for 3 years to figure out what was going on. The entire time I had people telling me it was all in my head, that I was really just bulimic and that I was using it as an excuse to get attention. The only person who believed me that I didn’t actually have body issues, and that it was something I couldn’t control was my primary care physician, and for that I am eternally grateful. After many painful and inconclusive tests, they finally did a stomach emptying scan.
Turned out, my stomach is paralyzed. I was throwing up after every meal because my stomach does not “relax” to allow food in, and then “squeeze” it out. My stomach is stuck in a restricted state, and I can only eat very small portions of food at a time or else it can’t all fit in there and it comes back up. I’m an extremely rare case for gastroparesis, which is why it took so long to get the approval for that scan. Almost everyone else who has gastroparesis is morbidly obese and/or diabetic. At the time of my diagnosis diabetes had been ruled out and I weighed a whopping 88lbs.

Then the sleeping problems. They became really bad the first few years of college. I remember spending my first semester constantly studying because I couldn’t sleep. The only time I could sleep was either in class, in the back of a moving vehicle (I paid more than a few friends to just drive me around town because it was the only way I could sleep). I slept on the floor of my parent’s computer room. I was averaging only 2-3 hours of sleep a night, and not all at one time. Then I started having trouble staying awake at all. I would sleep, and sleep, and sleep. Even after I slept the night through, I would still wake up exhausted and needing a nap not long after waking up.
I was told I was lazy. I was told that I was just trying to get out of housework, school, or errands.
Turns out I’m narcoleptic. It’s something I can’t control, and something that there isn’t a lot of medication out there for it yet. The only prescription they gave me was for a GHB to help me feel more awake during the day. I don’t need a stimulant to make me more hyperaware than I already am. I need something to help me feel rested. I feel that medication would be doing nothing but masking the symptoms, and considering it’s huge side effects (one of them being rendering hormonal birth control ineffective) it just doesn’t seem worth it.

I haven’t been able to accept any of these things as stuff that I am not able to control. I haven’t been able to accept that some of these things, OTHER PEOPLE are going to need to work with me around them (especially the narcolepsy).
Just yesterday Reid and I were talking about the things we needed to get done before we leave for the Shore. He left a list of things we need to do, and a list of the things we need to buy before we left. I came home last night and told him I would do what I could off his lists. When I got home, I was overwhelmingly tired, and absolutely had to lay down for a bit because I could not keep my eyes open for the life of me. When Reid texted me to tell me he was getting off work a few hours earlier than planned, I fully expected him to be angry at me for napping instead of doing anything to prepare for the trip. He was of course not the slightest bit angry or even annoyed. “This is something you can’t control, and that we have to work around, it’s totally fine. Nap whenever you feel like you have to. It’s not like it’s your choice.”

I couldn’t love him more for that. But it did make me realize just how hard I am on myself. I go into everything with the mindset of, “How can *I* take care of myself/my partner all by myself.” I never go into anything thinking that someone else is going to be generous and help me out. If they do, that’s great, and I’ll love them all the more for it and be incredibly grateful, but I never enter into any situation expecting that kind of help. I approach everything as if I have to take care of it alone. Worst case scenario type of deal. Stressful, yes. Unneeded pressure, probably. But this is how I’ve survived for as long as I have.

But maybe it’s time for me to adjust that way of thinking. I think that, at least when it comes to some areas, mainly just the health related ones, I should start expecting people to work with me more. Not all the time, but some of the time.
At the very least, I want people to stop telling me every medical related thing that goes wrong is *my fault* and I should control it. So far, they have not been right a single time, and I have the medical records and enough missing organs to prove that.

So here’s a polite, “Go screw yourself” to all those who told me that all of these ailments were things I just made up to get out of something/ get attention.