Rough Week

It's been quite a week ... But on the up side, I have gotten some organization in my online doings.

1. Twitter: I added a Twitter feed widget to the right sidebar here. You can follow me^ (caliedo) on Twitter.


2. Digsby: I added a Digsby chat client widget to the left sidebar. You can use it to chat with me right from this blog.


3. I redirected wildaspie.net^ to my Netvibes "universe." I have a Digsby widget and Twitter feed there too.


4. I redirected wildaspie.com^ to Netvibes as well: check out my Zazzle and Cafe Press shops.


5. I added a Digsby widget to my LJ^ - and although I hadn't been posting there much lately, I will be again, so interested parties are encouraged to comment there to be added to my "friends" list, as most of the entries are filtered (not public).


6. I made some new mood icons.

Mood:

Reeling

(insert catchy subject line here)

A kaleidoscope, once shaken, cannot recreate the pattern that was lost.

Being shaken does not, however, change the fundamental nature of the kaleidoscope. It remains overall as it was, and part of its fundamental nature is its purpose: change.

More at my LJ^.

Mood:

Shock

Emergency Fundraiser

The Wild Aspie needs your help!

I need to raise $300 to cover my deductible for oral surgery to have a wisdom tooth extracted. I’m not very good as asking for help and I hate asking for money, but I have set up a PayPal donation button ... Better still, check out my Zazzle shop and consider buying yourself a spiffy, Wild Aspie original T-shirt, and I’ll be able to apply my little commission from the sale toward my surgery.

Thanks!

Banned Books Week!

Celebrating the Freedom to Read:
September 27–October 4, 2008^
(link goes to ALA's Banned Books Week homepage)

Check out the Banned Books Meme here^.

Mood:

Thoughtful

Wild Aspie Awards

Wild Aspie Awards are coming, October 2008!

Awards will be given to blogs and websites exhibiting excellence in the following categories:

• Artistic Expressions
• Cryptozoology/Paranormal/Weird Stuff
• Dare to be Different
• Design/Layout
• Education
• Humor
• Neurodiverse Author/Focus
• Personal Diary/Survivor/Self-Improvement
• Overall Excellence

For more info, visit the Wild Aspie Today blog^.

Mood:

Busy

Friends

I don't have a lot of friends. I don't want a lot either. Social interaction, even with people I like, exhausts me, and sometimes I even get something like a hang-over following intense connections.

But there is no doubt that friendship is good for the soul, even for those less socially-dependent like myself. I recently made the acquaintance of a fellow I'll call "Silent D" who is bright and funny and a pleasure to chat with.

Neither of us is good at small talk, which is fine, because we don't waste time with frivolity when there are so many interesting things to discuss.

Mood:

Befriended

Back again

I could sum it all up as my life sucks, but that sounds overly dramatic and whiny. I'm not particularly dramatic nor complaintic in general. Which is probably part of the current host of problems.

Drama

In May I broke a tooth, the molar in front of the lower left wisdom tooth. When the wisdom tooth emerged, there was of course no room in my jaw (no need to replace a lost molar) so it remained at the far back on the angle of my jaw, the top of it facing forward, that is, against the back of the molar in front of it.

Which of course in turn led to the dreaded cavities. I couldn't get that little area clean enough. But for years it didn't much bother me; if I was otherwise run down (tired or sick) those teeth would be sensitive to sweet, cold or heat, but that was all. But then one of the migraine medications, coupled with high stress, was making me clench my jaw. And finally, after a lot of punishment, the molar in front of the wisdom tooth cracked, exposing part of the nerve.

I have been in low agony since. I don't generally notice mild-to-moderate physical pain, and a lot of the time I am not really *aware* of the pain in my mouth, I don't really *feel* it so much as I notice it affects my cognition and mood. But with everything else I am dealing with now, I can't take another day of this annoyance, and today I go to the dentist and let her do whatever she has to so that the pain will stop.

And on the subject of medication, the shrink that put me on the Lexapro and then upped the dosage into mania-producing range has bailed on me. I have been waiting for his office to get me in with another doctor, and they haven't called me. My primary care physician doesn't want to manage my headaches, saying I have "too many kinds of migraines" for him to feel comfortable, since he is only a family practice doctor and not a neurologist.

AND in the last three weeks I seem to have developed Crohn's Disease-type symptoms, which coincides with a friend's cessation of same - she's been dealing with CD a long time, and I have always had the gut of a billy goat. So not only do I have my usual lack of appetite and apathy toward feeding myself, I know that most solid foods are going to pitch me into horrible cramps and other gastric distresses.

My 12 year old now is a few inches shorter than me and outweighs me by five pounds. :( We both need to get more active but I haven't been up to it. Some days I can barely drag to work.

The one bright spot lately has been making the online acquaintance of a young man recently diagnosed with AS. The nice thing about chatting with aspies is that there's no worries about not being good at small talk. It's also nice to be free to range a discussion from silly to serious and back again without concern that the other party will get lost.

Mood:

Sour