SRHuston Dot Net

I’m on a ride, and I want to get off
But they won’t slow down the roundabout

–Duran Duran, “The Reflex”

Been a little while, and though I don’t have anything specific to talk about I’ve felt like writing for a couple days now so I might as well do a recap. Mentioned before that I fixed up my turntable and have been enjoying some vinyl; I got a few for Christmas, and Stephanie and I visited one of the shops that she and the kids went to before and I picked up a few more. Looking forward to much more of that as time and money permits, and even making plans for bringing my CD collection in from storage and getting back to having evenings of listening. Yes I can queue up an album and listen streaming as well, but as was mentioned before a good listening session is ritualistic, and streaming doesn’t hit all those right notes all the time.

I’d say I don’t know how I missed mentioning it, but I do know – it was too raw to want to talk about – but by the time of my last post, we’d just said goodbye to Hobbes, my fuzzy orange creamsickle cuddle bug and giver of aggressive affection. I don’t think any of us realized how much he meant to us, and I certainly didn’t realize how much he was helping me keep things together until he no longer was here to do so. He went relatively quickly and I hope without much pain, surrounded by us and getting lots of cuddles and pets, but even thought it was almost two months ago it still hurts a lot. Astrid is doing her best to try to fill the voids but of course she could never, she’s not the same type of kitty. She has been very clingy to me though, I think she can sense that I need it.

One of the biggest problems I feel like I’ve been dealing with lately is my own body, again. In February we had a night with the scouts where we all hung out at the church for fun and fellowship, and due to a series of events (including not being in the right mental state I’m sure) I couldn’t get my hammock stand set up the way I had the previous year and decided I’d sleep on a couch in another room instead. Well, that was a huge mistake. I was OK when I got up Saturday, though I had to run home because I wasn’t feeling well for other reasons (shouldn’t have had the chicken fingers for dinner) and ended up sleeping for a bit at home too since I didn’t sleep well the night before due to aforementioned stomach discomfort. Came back to bring everyone home Saturday afternoon and was still fine, but when I woke up Sunday morning I was stuffed up quite a bit. By Monday it was obvious, my sinuses were completely congested and a bit of post-nasal drip as well. Within a week things were finally subsiding, but as often happens that all triggered a bit of a cough when things had moved down into my chest. A week later we had another trip, and I drove to bring the trailer up to the site and whatnot and was mostly OK – there were some other health issues but the congestion was bearable and controlled with Mucinex and the cough with Halls. Within a week of that, however, the cough got to the point where I’m amost taking a Halls every 30 minutes just to be able to breathe normally. My best guess is a long COVID symptom; see, while I never had a confirmed diagnosis since I didn’t go to a doctor any time it happened before, I’m pretty sure I’ve had COVID twice since 2019 but I’m one of those people who don’t get the extremely serious effects – both times I just had a bit of a cough which was nasty, but went away. But there’s been some things that are lumped into “long COVID” symptoms that I’ve noticed, like the fact that my very mild tinnitus is now ever present and occasionally unbearable. I have a sneaky suspicion that tomorrow, or maybe even today depending on how the rest of the day goes, I’ll be at urgent care to see what kind of treatment(s) I can get to try to end this, because the cough gets bad enough that all the dashboard lights come on at once. And the worst thing is, I don’t think there’s anything in there that needs to come out, so this is just an overactive reflex causing me to eat Halls like candy. [Points to post title & image]… eh? Eh. Worth a shot.

So with all of that going on, I haven’t really done much of anything else with.. well, anything. I have a partially finished project sitting on the workbench that Michael and I still have to talk about. The hot tub hasn’t been looked at in months and is probably completely out of whack again. Another project is leaning against the door as it has been for over a year (which should have been done by now, but we ended up not being able to do a Pinewood Derby this year so the clock reset on that one). Other to-do items just keep getting pushed back, and with my body again failing me in multiple ways and nothing else letting up either I haven’t stopped feeling like I’m drowning in two months. I want to do stuff for my other big project too, but I need help with it and when I can’t even focus on what I’m doing I don’t want to ask for it and then not be able to pull my own weight at the same time (since it’ll be a combined effort, Stephanie has the tools and ability to use them for what I need but I need to be able to influence decisions and discuss things to provide input). About the only “new” thing is that for some reason I decided to download Far Cry 6 and give it a try, and ended up really enjoying the game; I finished the playthrough and started a “New Game Plus” run right after, and I’ve almost finished all the collection items on that with having only done enough story missions to unlock some locations and whatnot. And I’ve learned a new list of curse words from it as well, which I guess is another plus?