Praise then darkness, and creation unfinished

I had a telemedicine appointment with my psychiatrist today, the periodic check-in. I told her that my moods seem to be stable and basically OK, despite there being reasons [redacted] why I might be feeling down. Maybe the time of year is helping, or maybe this is the flip side of there having been no particular reason I was feeling down last month.

I told her that I've applied for SSDI -- she was unsurprised and thinks it's a good idea--and about the monoclonal antibodies.

Near the end of our appointment, she told me she's going to be leaving Mt. Auburn Hospital at the end of June. She's been working there and at the VA, which worked pre-pandemic but the burden of doing all her own administrative work in the last couple of years was wearing her out. So she's leaving Mt. Auburn, where she's been working for a few years, and staying with the VA, where she's been working for her entire career.

Since I'm not a veteran, this means I will need to find a new psychiatrist, or get my primary care doctor to start writing those prescriptions.

My left shoulder hurt when I woke up yesterday. My best guess is that I somehow slept on it wrong; naproxen helped some.

I was hoping it would be better this morning, but while it may be a little better, it's not back to normal, or even the normal that means I will need to do PT-derived stretches and exercises for, probably, the rest of my life. (I have been prioritizing the knee and hip exercises and stretches, because those joints will start hurting more quickly.)

So, naproxen again once I remembered -- I try not to take NSAIDs on an empty stomach, even if I had thought of it before breakfast -- and trying to hold my arm in ways that don't hurt.

Meanwhile, I have planters (purchased on Amazon), and a cucumber trellis and fertilizer on order: and I think all three of the cucumber plants I'd put outside are dying. I was blaming the leftover soil in two planters, but the one in a new flowerpot potting soil that someone bought at the garden center last month isn't doing much better. The three plants that are still in little pots on the porch, on the other hand, seem to be healthy, even flourishing. The question is whether to carry potting soil downstairs and transplant them now, or wait until the trellis and/or plant food get here. This is likely to be decided based on my shoulder and the weather.

Part of why I am feeling glum about the whole thing is that growing vegetables was supposed to be some combination of a hobby/distraction during the pandemic and lockdown, and a way to get actual good vegetables when we can't do our own shopping. So now I need a distraction from my diversion.

I just unpacked two boxes of books (and old sf magazines), and one box of assorted stuff that I opened thinking it contained books. I have some energy left, but I am saving it to go visit adrian_turtle.

This feels as though cattitude did the hard part, namely reassembling bookcases a week or two ago. It's a little odd to have the energy to do this, suddenly, while simultaneously being depressed: a few hours ago I was having trouble finding the activation energy to make toast. But now there are three fewer moving boxes in our dining room.

Many of those old magazines were given to me, decades ago, by my parents' friend Al--who is also the source of my very useful rice pilaf recipe. Once upon a time, he taught me to use a mimeograph, and my parents got our dog from his family, after their dog had puppies. That's a pretty good set of things about a person.

I was supposed to have lunch with wild_irises. She never showed, and I was a little annoyed and a little worried, but calmer than I would have expected; I eventually came home to an email asking where I was, and saying she was worried but not annoyed. It seems as though the location she sent me in email and the location she put in her calendar were different, so we each spent a while waiting in a different place.

After I'd waited for about half an hour I ordered and ate some lunch, at that point still hoping wild_irises was just running late. (It was edible, but not good enough that I'll be going back, though the staff were nice.) After lunch I went to the University Bookstore to look at their stationery section, which someone had recommended. (Books later.) I got a few pens and a bright green eraser; they have the kind of pens I like, in individual bins so I can get my choice of colors, and in multiple thicknesses. (The selection is actually better than at the store I used to buy them at in New York.)

I got some tea, and then a bus downtown to Pike Place Market. The woman sitting across from me on the bus hesitantly asked me if I knew how to get to… and then showed me her phone, with "Pike Place Market" in the roman alphabet above an entire page of what I think was Chinese. I told her "that's where I'm going, I'll show you." So, we got out at Westlake Center tunnel station, which I think looked vaguely familiar to her: she asked where to get the "subway" to the airport. I explained that she would get it on the platform we were standing on right then, and then showed her where to get a ticket for the light rail. We went upstairs and walked down Pine Street together, and when we got to where we could see Puget Sound, she asked me to take her picture. I tried, but the images came out shaky, so she asked someone else to take a picture of both of us standing with the "Pike Place Market" sign visible behind us, and then one of just her.

I then wished her a good day and walked happily downhill to the market. I'm not sure quite why a friendly tourist in need of directions was so good for my mood, but she was. (The sunlight and caffeine also helped, of course.)

I came home with the chocolate covered cherries that I went to Pike Place Market for, and an unexpected pound and a half of fresh peas, the first I've seen this season.

( I also worked out this morning )

As I just remarked in a comment to mrissa, I am optimistic about my exercise program, because I have been to the gym, and had a good workout despite having had sore quads this morning which were complaining on the exercise bicycle. (I don't know why my quads were sore; did we spend that much time standing at the Medieval Festival yesterday?)

( the numbers )

I had my follow-up appointment with the surgeon today. He examined me briefly, stated that I am not at all jaundiced (a question that hadn't even occurred to me), removed the remaining bandages, and cleared me to return to work, exercise, baths, and all other normal activities. I do have a prescription (currently at the drugstore) for Percoset, because I am still having some pain, especially in the evenings.

Having walked about 3/4 of a mile total from home to A train, and then train along Central Park South to the doctor's office, and been only slightly tired from that, I decided to get on the subway and have lunch in Chinatown, a bowl of Pho at my usual place. That was tasty. Thence along Walker Street to the A train, and back uptown. I dropped off my prescription, stopped at the supermarket for a few things (now that heavy lifting is officially okay), and walked home through Inwood Hill Park. I'll probably go back to the gym on Thursday, and do a relatively light workout (meaning mostly lower weights, not fewer exercises).

I'd say I walked about two miles today, and am in quite a good mood, I think from a combination of the walking, the nice weather, and the good news from my doctor. I thought briefly about buying lunch from a cart and eating it in Central Park, and then realized that what I needed, after being sick at home for two weeks, was city, not park, because most of my walking had been in Inwood Hill Park.

All that said, my upper back (between my shoulders) hurts a bit right now, and my side was aching this morning. So I will still be careful, and I will probably not sleep on my side for a while (sleeping on the left side has been making the right side, where the incisions were, hurt).

[Addendum: I have just taken off my shirt and bra and looked at the incisions. There's one fairly high up (a little below where the band of a bra would be) that's about an inch long and still visibly red, two smaller and paler ones on the right side of my abdomen, and I can't yet tell what the one in the navel looks like. Maybe after a thorough wash.]

At the end of the day, I wasn't sure about going to the gym; when cattitude called just before six to ask my plans, he pulled me out of wrestling with questions about sustainability, renewable resources, and fish farms. He said he thought it would do me good to exercise, I said "you always think that," and he admitted this, arguing that it usually is true, and when it's not I don't say "maybe" or "I'm not sure," I say something like "I'm coming home" or "my shoulder is bothering me." (Sometimes I go to the gym despite the last, and do lower-body exercises.) So I went.

( numbers )

Cattitude was right, as he often is.

adrian_turtle has gotten pretty good at taking care of me, and knowing what that might involve. Yesterday evening, she suggested I go to the gym. I was dubious. This morning, I was feeling a bit down, and after cheering me up in other ways, she repeated the suggestion.

So I went to the new Davis Square branch of Boston Sports Club and lifted weights, and she sat at Diesel with this laptop, drank tea, and did useful things. I pushed myself a bit, and ran out of gym energy halfway through the mat work, but I think I'm better for it.

( numbers )

I do not like the way that having trouble getting back to sleep can darken the entire day. One of these years, I'll be able to figure out when it's time to get up and have tea before I bark my shin on the bed frame, knock the tea ball out of my mug, and then brush against the tea kettle in retrieving it. Fortunately, I had only just turned the gas on, so no harm done with the tea part of that.

Nonetheless, in a little while I am going to chance dropping heavy pieces of metal, because weight-lifting is good for my mood, and it's my birthday and a Saturday, and I can do what I want.

It's still all green, but the heat is on, for the first time this season. With a predicted low of 40 F (5 C), I'm glad of it.

roadnotes came up here for the afternoon, and she, cattitude, and I had a pleasant afternoon of conversation and tea-drinking. News, people, and me trying to get a handle on why I've been feeling tense. The time with her helped ease it, though, which may be more useful than tracking down the cause(s). We talked about pasts and the fallibility of memory (I'm particularly bad at tracking duration), work in its various aspects, and people, past, present, and we hope future.