Open Bar: Curbside Pickup Only

[altered]

I have been largely inaccessible for two days for two reasons. First, some background.

Instead of:

A giant theoretically super-powered laptop that weighs 20 lbs and has a power brick fit to flatten an engine block that doesn’t consistently boot due to a bum GPU
And
A sleek thin laptop that barely was able to run Google Docs and now cannot connect to the internet for unknown reasons and has no battery

I have:

A sleek thin super-powered laptop that works 100% of the time after I got all the drivers up to speed
And
A second-hand Microsoft Surface Pro 4 that is just about perfect for everything necessary for professional work and not powerful enough to offer compelling distractions. (Also, has a battery and connects to the internet.)

So there’s two things going on now due to this change in accessible technology.

First: I’m working on some stuff a friend had suggested to me, but it’s one of those “tons of one-time prep work and then you can do things that make a small amount of money for a small amount of effort” deals. Well worthwhile since I can’t look for work until near the end of the month.

This involves separating the two machines into work and life machines. Clearly the convertible tablet with the nifty knock-off Pelican case and rifle sling is my work machine, because the other laptop can play Resident Evil 7. So I’m doing the download/install/configure dance right now on them both, which doesn’t leave much time for chatting.

EDIT: Posted early, whoops.

To continue: the second thing is that I’m preparing for my travel to Chicago by arranging things into “carry-on-able”, “shippable”, and “oh fuck me what do I do with this”.

This may seem premature, but consider that I realized early on that it would be impossible to ship OR carry-on a significant portion of non-clothes/electronics, and had to get my current host to make an Amazon purchase for me (repaid, he has PayPal) for a different, larger second backpack.

(Yes, I have two backpacks. I need to carry one or the other often but rarely both. It makes sense in action and incidentally helps me carry more of my stupid garbage on an airplane.)

So between those and all the bottom-tier ungraded nonsense that pops up at random, my schedule is packed. Apologies folks.

[altered]

Regarding the process of configuration and what not, I have irreparably turned the Surface Pro into a no fun allowed zone by changing the system font to Fixedsys Exclesior.

More tomorrow. It’s horrifying.

[Cain]

Pretty understandable, IMO. Well, except Fixedsys Excelsior, because seriously wtf

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Pretty understandable, IMO. Well, except Fixedsys Excelsior, because seriously wtf

  I don't know why I did it but now I can't change it back

[Cain]

[altered]

like I said, strictly no fun allowed

  i cant stop cackling at it, LOOK AT THE CLOCK

[altered]

I think it works even better in the full context of its environment, to be fair

Again, this was a gift, I’m not (ok, not ENTIRELY) to blame for this shit, but I’ll tell you now I have no regrets abt it either

[Ari]

"this is all normal"

so my endo lost their license to treat "normies" that can't pay out of their own pockets. no new prescription for me till possibly september.
one fourty eight hour panic attack later i am able to convince my therapist that he is gonna fix me up on monday so i don't cash out. i had this problem before; and the results are not something i am willing to put up with again.

same time a root canal goes full tits up. good ol' friday affternoon one sided hamster face; going to the emergency dentist the next day to get my gum lanced cause the goddess knows i needed more pain in my life so i finally understand something i still dont understand; i never knew one can have a panic attack while already having a panic attack? i am really sorry for spitting blood and puss at these people who were just "on call" that weekend. maybe they learnt what i didn't? it's been all kinds of fucked.

relationships are crumbling left and right cause apparently i am only worth-while company when i can provide useful mad science stuff and help others sort out their shit: it's always too difficult to deal with "my erratic nonsense" --- yeah thanks.

it's the middle of the month. my landlord is soon gonna show up and ask why i didn't pay rent yet; i will hand in the cancellation papers for the contract when he does. it's the paper i have and can legally print myself. it's not gonna be much of a home soon anyways, when they turn off the power, and then the internet. it's time to leave this place.
anywhere but here, will be an improvement.


this is gonna be an amazing summer. maybe i'll even see autumn to celebrate my two year mark.
for the time being; i gotta focus on possible survival options - and maybe turn some of this shit into words.


this is all normal, eh?


i am tired.

[minuspace]

I think it works even better in the full context of its environment, to be fair

Again, this was a gift, I’m not (ok, not ENTIRELY) to blame for this shit, but I’ll tell you now I have no regrets abt it either

I mean, I did hear people /were/ dedicated to fruityloops... that’s some serious legacy shit.

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I think it works even better in the full context of its environment, to be fair

Again, this was a gift, I’m not (ok, not ENTIRELY) to blame for this shit, but I’ll tell you now I have no regrets abt it either

I mean, I did hear people /were/ dedicated to fruityloops... that’s some serious legacy shit.

Shut the fuck up, you small-dicked lozenge-brained little man. I didn’t ask, and no one fucking else did either. You’re as welcome as syphilis and come with less pleasant neurological symptoms in your victims. Your every post serves only to remind me that I despise you and want to take a juicy dump on everything you do until you go the fuck away.

Go lick a church doorknob and wash it down with some of whatever strange elixir makes your brain this shriveled.

[Doktor Howl]

I think it works even better in the full context of its environment, to be fair

Again, this was a gift, I’m not (ok, not ENTIRELY) to blame for this shit, but I’ll tell you now I have no regrets abt it either

I mean, I did hear people /were/ dedicated to fruityloops... that’s some serious legacy shit.

Shut the fuck up, you small-dicked lozenge-brained little man. I didn’t ask, and no one fucking else did either. You’re as welcome as syphilis and come with less pleasant neurological symptoms in your victims. Your every post serves only to remind me that I despise you and want to take a juicy dump on everything you do until you go the fuck away.

Go lick a church doorknob and wash it down with some of whatever strange elixir makes your brain this shriveled.

I approve of this sort of losing of shit.

[altered]

 

You might be surprised to learn that I’m in a damned fine mood. I have a fucking future and the mental capacity to plan things over a month out in the future!

All the more reason to push a token amount of that energy into shitting on LuciferX when he decides he can pretend like he didn’t threaten me with fake gangsters and Clarence.

[Doktor Howl]

You might be surprised to learn that I’m in a damned fine mood. I have a fucking future and the mental capacity to plan things over a month out in the future!

All the more reason to push a token amount of that energy into shitting on LuciferX when he decides he can pretend like he didn’t threaten me with fake gangsters and Clarence.

Fucking Clarence.

[Doktor Howl]

"this is all normal"

so my endo lost their license to treat "normies" that can't pay out of their own pockets. no new prescription for me till possibly september.
one fourty eight hour panic attack later i am able to convince my therapist that he is gonna fix me up on monday so i don't cash out. i had this problem before; and the results are not something i am willing to put up with again.

same time a root canal goes full tits up. good ol' friday affternoon one sided hamster face; going to the emergency dentist the next day to get my gum lanced cause the goddess knows i needed more pain in my life so i finally understand something i still dont understand; i never knew one can have a panic attack while already having a panic attack? i am really sorry for spitting blood and puss at these people who were just "on call" that weekend. maybe they learnt what i didn't? it's been all kinds of fucked.

relationships are crumbling left and right cause apparently i am only worth-while company when i can provide useful mad science stuff and help others sort out their shit: it's always too difficult to deal with "my erratic nonsense" --- yeah thanks.

it's the middle of the month. my landlord is soon gonna show up and ask why i didn't pay rent yet; i will hand in the cancellation papers for the contract when he does. it's the paper i have and can legally print myself. it's not gonna be much of a home soon anyways, when they turn off the power, and then the internet. it's time to leave this place.
anywhere but here, will be an improvement.


this is gonna be an amazing summer. maybe i'll even see autumn to celebrate my two year mark.
for the time being; i gotta focus on possible survival options - and maybe turn some of this shit into words.


this is all normal, eh?


i am tired.

This is in fact all normal.  It's the post-American century

[altered]

For Ari,

All I can say for all of that is that not only is Howl right, but that there is no bottom to the awful, and it’s all normal down there too.

Fight to keep your footing. A slight slip can mean free fall, and it sounds like you’ve alienated your support network the way I have in the past. It IS recoverable, but move fast and give up on having pride. Pride is for people, you and I have to be worms for now: vulnerable and disgusting.

(Also, Pride as in last month has become a ridiculous, cartoonish display of respectability politics and corporate sponsorship, so fuck that kind too.)

Don’t end up like me. Let go of your pride fast, learn to kiss ass, and use the time you just bought for yourself by doing so to do some SERIOUS soul searching on the relative importance of your various physical health issues and REALLY HARD work on your personal brain shit. It sucks, but you need to be palatable to others to keep your feet under you in this world and there are trade offs you will need to make on your healthcare. I wish it wasn’t that way. But it is.

I’m speaking from a decade of homelessness, largely spent on this very forum. Please listen to me when I say all of this is recoverable, but that it can quickly become beyond recovery if you don’t salvage connections or forge new ones, and fast.

I spent time trying to think of how best to balance writing this in terms of urgency versus sympathy, but the cold facts are that every minute is a risk for you now, and you will not get out without making that network and working on your brain. Cannot get out. It is impossible for you to do it on your own, and it’s impossible for others to give you stability if your brain is shaped for a different, kinder world rather than our current hellscape. This work is mandatory.

Do the work, do it fast, do not spend time mulling over mistakes, just move point to point and build a support network. Nothing else can ensure your safety, and you need it, you need it, I can’t stress it enough.

I can’t give you any other advice until and unless it is too late and you’re in the same fucking pit I’ve been in. Don’t let me give you any other advice.