GUY DAY!

And yes, it’s a lovely Guy Day here. Temps are starting to drop, high on Monday will be in the looooooooooow 60’s. I love it.

Financially, things are tight, but I have faith and God is answering prayers.

According to my doctor’s scale, I have lost 14 pounds since March. Now remember, I gained weight during quarantine, gained more weight on the steroids when I got sick and I now weight 14 pounds LESS than I did in March.

Thar ya go.

Sir Guy anyone???

That’s it folks! Have a great weekend!

I have a diagnosis

I have hyper active inflammatory state of the lungs.

In short, my asthma is on overdrive, causing all sorts of stuff.

The meds I’m on are simply treating the symptom temporarily. They’re NOT treating me or treating the root of the symptom. So I have all new meds and they see me again in 2 weeks. The fatigue is caused by the excessive coughing.

And I’ve lost 2 more pounds since last Wednesday!

At least I have the diagnosis.

• 

HAPPY CRAPTASTIC TUESDAY!!!!

Yes, I forgot ManCandy Monday. I’ll try to make up a little after this rant!

For those who didn’t know, the first chapter of The Ghost Of Nottingham is up at the usual suspect places – Dreamer, AO3, FFnet, Effn, my tumblr. Just in time for Halloween! 4 chapters, an epilogue and a VERY angry ghost.

SO!

This is just a crappy day already!

1st I NEED to make a phone call. Basically, I’ve been working this month to withdraw enough money from my 403B to meet bills for November all this month. It’s been quite tedious and time consuming! I faxed the paper work all filled out on Friday. They told me they got it, and I should have the funds in my bank account no later than Wednesday. YAY! Go me! Right?

Wrong!

LATE last night I get an email – we’re having problems processing your funds. Please call. It also included – we can fix this! I’m hoping it’s something stupid like a forgotten signature or a notarization.

But, I can’t make the phone call right now because the electric company decided today was the day to trim trees from the power lines. They’ve been in front of my house for 2 hours! Cats are under the bed, house is shaking.

Joy.

EDIT: Valic/AIG screwed me. According to the very snide young man I spoke, the previous 2 customer service reps told me wrong. I have to completely refile, get PERMISSION from the group administrator at the school system, that I can’t claim hardship for Covid, meaning I get to pay 20% of the total amount I withdraw to the feds.

In addition, rather than it taking 2 or 3 business days to complete the transaction, it will take 3 to 5 business day to process and then 1 to 5 business day to get it to my bank. I think AIG as much as I hate the Democratic Party.

I also got a phone call from the pulmonologist. Not MY pulmonologist!

My general practitioner referred me to a pulmonologist in mid September. They didn’t contact me until the 2nd week of October. They’re 100 miles away and the soonest they could get me in was 2nd week of November. Lucky for me, they have a satellite office 10 minutes from me, said their calendar is clear, I’ll fax everything to them. Long story here short, they never contacted me, the office 100 miles away faxed the referral three times, called them twice in 4 days. I went out on Friday, 4:15, not a soul in the parking lot, front door open, but the lights off. I left a terse note. They call me on Monday, insist I go to the doctor 100 miles away, I let them know I’m 10 miles from them and they faxed stuff 3 times last week. Woman at the desk called them liars, said they didn’t get the referral until LATE Friday and they were there until 5! Also, soonest we can see you is Thanksgiving week.

After i hacked all over them and let them know they were liars, they found me an appointment for tomorrow at the satellite 20 minutes away for the following week. I’m good with that. That office calls, schedules a breathing test for last week, xrays for last week. I do them, we’re good. I’m sent a confirmation for the appointment TOMORROW where I will get a diagnosis. Yay!

ONE hour ago, the office close by calls me and says – the doctor 20 minutes away is sick, so tomorrow, you’ll come HERE and have a video conference with the doctor at 11:30. I’m like… really? Video Conferences for medical illness is just half a step up from calling your doctor and the nurse just saying – you know, we’re seeing a lot of patients. Give me your symptoms and we’ll call you in an Rx…. Just… my life, welcome to it!

I’m not even numb!!! Furious! just furious!

Here. Have some sexy men!

Hope your day is better than mine!

Guy Day!!!

G’day and how are we all???

I’ve been a busy camper today!!! Very busy! I have a LOT to accomplish between now and Tuesday!

I got my chest xray! Yay! My pulmonologist will have it Monday. We’ve been to the grocery store! Yay. I’m exhausted! Between now and Monday I need to get the stuff in for withdrawing my 403B – I finally got permission to withdraw it without a federal (20%) penalty. A friend sent me a link for the FLMA – which has a Covid extension. (It’s a federal program) If I can finish the paperwork tonight, I can fax all of it tomorrow at the library.

I’m holding out for my tax return as well as the diagnosis from the pulmonologist on Tuesday. If his diagnosis does NOT say ‘Covid’ I will reapply for the sick bank and try again. I can take up to 60 days from it if approved.

God, I need it.

OH! And I need to vote. Must do my civic duty!

i have sneezed all day today, been tired and just run down. I still have gotten the next installation of Aside from Heaven started – I mean it’s written, and I just need to do the beta!

OH! And I finally found a mask i can wear. It gets a little heated after a while, but it works for me. Expensive (23.00 each plus shipping and handling) but it can be washed easily. I got one for me and one for Spawn. His manager loved it so she’s ordering one.

Get this – it’s called a ‘Zshield’ They even named it after me!

As you can see, it sits at the neck and you can move it to different positions, including completely down so you can eat without taking it off.

Now some maskholes can shut up! Sit on that and spin!!

But we’re not here for all of that! We’re here for this!

yash a big comfy chair!

And thar ya go!

• 

blink blink

The last time I was weighed was early July when I last saw my parents.

I was weighted today.

Despite quarantine, not eating right, hit and miss on the meds, Covid, steroids…

I’ve lost 12 pounds. Still trying to figure that out.

Here. Have some Richard.

• 

• 

ManCandy Monday

and how are we?

I’ve had quite the day. As some of you know, I’ve been fighting to get the pulmonologist appointment my general physician order over 5 weeks ago. The initial recipient of the referral was an office over 100 miles from me. The soonest they could get me in was mid November. They faxed it 3 times last week and called twice to the office within 10 miles from me – who refused to accept it. I went last Friday, to find everyone gone before office hours were over, the front lights on, the door OPEN and all the lights behind the receptionist desk off.

I left them a tersely written note.

I got a call from them this morning insisting that I needed to go to the office 100 miles away. It took me several times of talking over them to get that I lived within 10 minutes of them. I was then told to wait 30 minutes and they would call me with an appointment.

5 hours later, I went to the office where I was told – we told you to wait. We have to get this and this and this and this – which I told them they didn’t tell me that.

They then tried to tell me the referral came in LATE Friday – to which I called them on the carpet. 3 times, called twice and how late, because I was here Friday at 4:15. The one receptionist tried to tell me she was there until 5 and I reminded there wasn’t a single car in the parking lot, all the lights but the 2 lamps in the waiting room were on, but ALL of the lights behind the receptionist desk were off and I was there for 10 minutes, calling out and writing the note.

They then offered me an appointment Thanksgiving week (4th week of November.) I was told first time patients take a while. I then wondered aloud that the other office offered me the week before and if I could still get in, I wonder what would happen when I 1starred them at Yelp and made comments on their facebook…

And then I had a bad hack attack. It was apparent when I brought my faceshield down, I was in distress and my mouth was blue, which is NOT a good sign.

Within 5 minutes, I had paperwork for a chest xray tomorrow, a breathing test scheduled at their office 30 minutes away AND a doctors appointment the week after (end of October) and a rather insincere comment that by after that, they could probably get me worked in…

I don’t think so.

So right now, I’m fairly miserable, tired all day, cranky. We clipped kitty claws yesterday and Lord Thunderbutt was SOO awful, we clipped too close to the quick and now he’s limping around and acting all pathetic. I’m going to watch to see how long he limps.

I have a Group IO and a proboard to trick out this week. I need to start getting the next segment of Guy thru the ages out.

I want to watch The Witcher, The Stranger and finish S2 of The Witchblade. Rewatch Harry Potter from the beginning. Read another segment or two of Anja, the next segment of Gwen and Gareth, do some more writing…. lots of stuff I didn’t accomplish while on that long break, seeing how it looks as if I’m going to be out another month or two.

But now, ManCandy Monday.

And thar ya are!

Have a good one!

GUY DAY!

I have not bought anything in 12 days. I haven’t even ‘window shopped’ or looked! Go me. The very last thing I’ve bought as arrived. I’m done until I finally go back to work!

• 

That would be the jeans (fits fine in the legs, slightly baggy in the thighs and gut and butt. Seeing how their sizing has been stupid the last 6-9 months, I’m not sending them back. I’ll just deal! Put ’em in the dryer! the bra you can’t see is new, we’ll see how long it lasts, it actually fits! and the top is also a recent purchase, came in a few weeks ago. Seeing how I’m probably not returning to work until the New Year, I might as well wear these and get some use out of them. The top is actually a tad big, I could take a size down, but I’m not going to do that anytime soon!

Yesterday, was NOT a good day resperitory wise. Today’s a bit better, but my runny nose is bloody. When my hair tries, I’m making a personal trip to that doctor’s office 5 minutes from me that won’t call.

I didn’t sleep well last night.

• 

This fat thing went to sleep like that in my doorway and refused to budge.

He snores.

Loudly.

How about some Sir Guy???

Yeah, I know the first guy isn’t him. I have no clue why that’s there. I clicked on this!

• 

And thar ya go!

Now, I need to visit a doctor’s office and get something scheduled! Life sucks when your sick.

Oh. I’ll start posting the next reincarnation of Guy this weekend. Look for it at dreamerfiction first.

• 

Soundtrack of my Life

This seems to be a rather popular topic in recent days so what the hey, I might as well join in.

Richard did an interview a few months back about how music affected his life. Personally, I think it’s a wonderful series of questions, seeing how I’m a musician and we live in a society that really doesn’t place a lot of emphasis on the arts. Some of my fellows here found his answers to be ‘giveaways’ or ‘trite’ or ‘cliched’ but everyone is different and sometimes trite or cliched or easy is perfect for that person. That saying… I should warn you that none of my answers can be contained in ONE song. I’m a musician, what did ya expect?

#1 – The song I wish I had written. His answer was ‘Yesterday’ by the Beatles. Cliched, probably, but considering the pandemic, the hysteria surround the pandemic, the fact he is looking at half century at his next birthday, and life in general, this is an understandable answer. As for me, I chose something a little… different…

Somehow musically, I’ve become quite pagan…

#2 – The first song Richard seems to remember hearing was “Summer Nights’ from Grease. I have to remind myself I’m ALMOST 10 years old than he is so in some way I understand this, however, my first song I remember hearing was from a toy I had that I loved. It was a wind up clock and it played the song and my dad sang it to me until I learned it. I was about 2 and half or 3, so it’s a power memory and I miss that clock.

#3 – The first album I owned. Richard’s first was The blue Roundabout. Mine was a gift to me from a baby sitter. I was 7 and in the 2nd grade. I guess she saw the young rock n roller in me.

#4 – the First concert Richard went to was Tina Turner. Lucky Ass. MY first concert was Queen at the Omni in Atlanta in the way early 80’s. We had shitty seats, someone was passing a hash cig and we asked the very straight lady next to us if she was a narc before anyone of us would take a toke. She said no and took a hefty for herself. Freddie had just cut pretty much ALL of his 70’s hair off, was sporting a moustache, and wearing leather pants, biker boots and cap and NOTHING ELSE!

I’d like to delete the second one, but you know, Word Press no longer allows you to delete media. Ever.

#5 – A song that reminds you of home. Richard’s was Happy New Year by ABBA. I had difficulties with this one. I went digging. I came up with a lot of hymns. With my parents being ministers, we sang a LOT of hymns. Dad also had the most beautiful and he sang all the time. My mom asked him many times to just hush. Didn’t work.

For many years of my younger, we lived in Oklahoma and of course, our favorite song to sing along with Dad was this –

I found this after the fact. We moved a lot but there was one house… in a culdesac in Florida…

#6 – A song you can no longer listen to. Richard’s was Nobody’s Child. There’s a story to it. My song I can’t listen to has a story as well.

I had been dating someone where I worked. I liked him a lot more than he liked me and I knew we were reaching the end of our relationship. I was trying to figure out how I was going to work with him especially as he was in a lower management position and was in a place to make my life difficult.

We were having a staff party and there was a dance floor. We were sitting together and I asked him if he wanted to dance, to which he was ‘too tired’. About 10 minutes later, I went to the bathroom and when I returned, he was on the dance floor with another waitress he had become very chummy with in the previous weeks. She smug when she saw me and I simply picked up my things and left.

The next time we worked together (several days) he approached me and wanted to know why I left. I reminded him that he didn’t want to dance with me, the person he came with, but he was fine to dance with someone else. About that time SHE came up and put her arms around him – Hey there! We were concerned you left the party without telling anyone. At that point, he knew he was in the hotseat. He told her to set up her dinner tables for the evening and then after she moved away, he apologized. He meant to break it to me later that night. Well, he certain did break it to me. I told him it would be nice if he actually BROKE up with someone before he started playing with someone else. As I walked off, I asked him if the sex had been good that night and he said yes, before clapping his mouth, realizing what he said.

The song I can no longer listen to was the song they were dancing to.

#7 Song that changd my Life – Well the Eurythmics’ Sweet Dreams is a pretty good song for that.

When I was 16, I was taking piano lessons from a Concert Pianist from Cuba. His family moved to Miami when he was 7 and he began to take piano lessons from professor from I think the Miami Conservatory (this would be back in the 50’s) He had a concert of his students and his wife’s – who was also a brilliant pianist. I played one of the more advanced Haydn Sonatas. I remember I played all the movements and somehow, I forgot the last 3 lines of the second movement. I faked it. Only 2 people realized I was adlibbing and that was my mom, because she listened to me practice it for months, and a fellow student. MY teacher was oblivious!!!

Either way, his wife played this and I was mesmerized. It was HARD and I knew it would take me a long long time. But I was determined. I did learn it. I learned the original version and not a watered down one. I went through 2 original copies of the music and I still have them, written in, notes, cursing. I did play it in public when I was 17 and I wonder what happened to my fingers. And it changed everything! I then knew I wanted a life in music!

For the record, when I played it, wasn’t this… show offy and DRAMAQUEENDMATIC! and the first 2 BIG runs this dude plays with 2 hands, I played with one! (around 1:30 and around 2:55 Go me!

Yes, it’s as hard as it sound and here’s the music…

#8 – Song I want played at my funeral. Celebration is a good choice for pretty much everyone. I want – Skyline Pigeon.

For some reason this is only piano only version I can find today. Oh skip the secone one, I found a better one. He sounds so much different than he does now. lighter.

#9 –

The song I listen to before performing

Imogen Heap – ‘Hide and Seek’

I’ll be honest, I don’t listen to music before I perform. If I’m doing a concert, I’ll go somewhere quiet and play through my set backwards. Get it in my fingers, my ears, and my hands. The first piece sets the tone. The first 3 or 4 measures are my most important; get it going, get it started, listen to it, become it. No distractions, nothing else. Just me and music. Don’t mind us. We’re having a conversation. If you’re quiet and listen, you’ll hear us talking.

#10 the Song I sing at Karoke. Like Richard, you have to drag me kicking and screaming But if I must. There are 2…

and you should recognize the white haired man at the end…

here’s a freebie…

okay I lied. 3. lol!

Song you discovered during lockdown. Richard discovered Daoi Freyr from Eurovision 2020. I found a guy who likes to string up inanimate objects and plug ’em up and play Swamp Blues! I found him on Facebook and followed him, He is very personable, interacts and talks to people who talk to him. He sent cd’s to hospitals to play in ICU so patients won’t feel so alone. His stuff sings to me!

yeah, he really plays!!!

Of course, I have ‘more’ important songs…

I think I’ve drug this out long enough.

• 

meh!

My employer has decided I cannot return to work until I have a ‘clean bill of health’ from my doctor.

My doctor won’t see me until I see the pulmonologist. the pulmonologist can’t get me in until mid November. I am out of sick days. I called the pulmonologist and they are trying to get me in sooner at a satellite office.

I have my bills covered through November 1st bills (Next rent, insurance, utilities, etc.) So I’m trying to find something to cover me on December 1st. THe sooner I can get a true diagnosis, the better. If I can get a NON-Covid diagnosis, there is a GOOD possibility, I can get a new clearance for the Sick Bank and I will be covered for 60 days.

My biggest fear is I have permanent damage to my lungs. IF that is the case, I am looking a maximum of years into my retirement, so 28% of my salary and I can’t touch that for 2 years, leaving me with social security disability.

That’s not… acceptable.

So…. prayers and a clear head. Please.

Have some Richard.

• 

• 

• 

Guy Day!

Hello and welcome to the weekend!

I worked today. Teacher workday and I felt pretty decent. 70%. I got curtains hung, things put away, and the background of my Recorder karate scope up in the hall.

I have not bought anything in 5 days. Considering they had great sales for Curvy Woman Day on Wednesday (or was it Tuesday) and they’ve launched a huge sale today, I’m quite proud of myself. As I have some self-indulgent whining behind the cut, let’s get on with the reason why we’re here.

Thar ya go!

Whining behind the cut.