oh, jeez. Time for the Catch-up Entry of Doom.

one: changing

The light here drains away entirely right before halloween. Suddenly, you're walking home in the dark, you're walking to work in the dark, evereything is dark, and the moon is blanked out by clouds and the only light comes from houses and cars.

That's okay with me. Dark and I are old friends.

The leaves from the tree outside my bedroom window are a brilliant gold, and they're falling off at an alarming rate with the advent of the winter rains.

I can sense everything pulling in on itself. I am, as well. I'm trying to do some things more slowly. Stop, and take a look around myself. Do more window shopping and less buying. Things like that.

two: felidae domesticus

Kallisti has been losing weight like there's no tomorrow. His fighting weight is 11 pounds or thereabouts; he was down to 7.5 pounds when he was last at the vet.

So i took him in to get some bloodwork done. I was afraid he was either diabetic or hyperthyroid.

He turned out to be completely bloody normal and healthy as a horse--except for the weight loss thing. So I took a look at all of the foods he'd been eating (and barfing back up, sometimes spectacularly) over the past few months, and found one common factor: rice.

Cate are rarely, if ever, allergic to rice. The Friskies I'd been feeding him out of desperation contains no rice whatsoever. Guess what most brands of premium food contain, even the wet stuff?

(if you guessed rice in some form, you'd be right.)

So I found a rice-free good canned food that I'm trying him on, and a rice-free dry food that I'll see if he can tolerate.

Poor thing. I thought he was sick, and it turns out that it's what I've been feeding him all along that's made him so ill. He's gained a few ounces in the past month, so i'm hoping to get him back up to 10 pounds of so in a few months.

three: bed! bed! bed!

I bought a bed today.

For those of you who've never been to my house, my bed was bought about five years ago when i was still poor as a church mouse. It was the first new piece of furniture that I ever bought. five years later, the cheap frame is falling apart, and I was sort of wishing i'd saved enough money for a really good mattress when I bought it instead of buying the bottom-of-the-line cheap thing that I did.

So for the past few months, I've been counting my pennies and putting away money for a new bed, with a nicer frame. I'd really wanted one of the metal frames from Ikea, but it turned out that they're out of stock of that frame. So I bought a slightly nicer wood frame that will go with my decor a bit better and called it good.

add to that a *really* nice, soft mattress that is scheduled to arrive at my house sometime in the next hour....and life is good.

[wahoo! Mattress just arrived. It is comfy. And *high*. YAY.]

three: the body, manifest

It's really amazing how the lack of ability to convert one form of a hormone to another form of the same hormone can really fuck up your body.

Case in point: me.

I have, evidently, an impaired ability to convert the thyroid hormone T4 into the metabolically active version, T3. You only need a little bit of T3, but when you don't get it, bad things happen. I am on a drug that *only* supplies T4.

My endocrinologist (who i love, by the way) prescribed me some T3-only pills, and dropped my T4 doseage. The difference is overwhelming. I have more energy, am more resilliant emotionally, and, oddly enough, I've started menstruating regularly. for the first time *ever*. I have never had three periods that were pretty much 28 days apart unless I was on the Pill.

The other interesting bit of news is that I am *not* insulin resistant. In the slightest. The chances of me developing diabetes just went from "pretty damned likely" to "well, maybe in 20 years".

So if we can get my doseage stabilized, i'll be sitting pretty. Finally. It only took them 17 years....

four: happiness

From my Livejournal, 9/21/01:

So, this morning I went to brunch with Deb and Misha and Chris.

and this afternoon and evening I went gaming.

The more i get settled back into my own life, the more comforting my family is. I was realizing, today, just how wonderful it is to always have someplace to go to when I'm sad, when i'm happy, when I need someone to share things with. How....*me* I feel with these people. I don't need to be interesting or charming for them, and they seem to like me anyway.

It's a feeling I never got with my biofamily. Even when I was young, I was always on edge around them. There were always things they couldn't know.

This is what it's supposed to be like. This is what I always wanted. I don't really need a partner; what I need is a family. [a partner is *nice*, but....frosting.]

I don't need people to venture out with. I need people to come back to, to be my touchstones, to tell me when i'm silly and when I'm wrong, to tell me when I'm right, to tell me about themselves and their worlds, to let me in and let me participate in their lives. People for me to love, and who love me.

that's the real reason I game every week. It's more than just enjoying the game, it's spending time with my family, socializing and touching base. It's wonderful to have an excuse to do this on a regular basis.

Mmmm. I love my life. And the wind is coming up and splattering rain against the windows.

five: mundanity

And my life continues. I forgot to get my car emissions tested today, which means i'll be doing it Wednesday. I'm going to a Halloween party tonight, and I'm dressing as an air spirit.

There are other things going on. Next entry. possibly tomorrow. (possibly hung over. heh.)

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