Four plucked from roost; two waved in

I'd forgotten to leave the chicks' hutch open and it was dusk. Four were roosted on the hutch roof and two were in the narrow space between the hutch and shed.

The roof-based ones were sleepy enough for me to pluck them off then put them in. With a long green rod I waved the other two to head in the direction of the open door. It took two minutes with one doing a full 360 of the outside before it finally went in.

It was nice to pick them up and not have them be scared. They were grumpy at being handled but sleepy enough to accept it—except for one. I don't usually get to do that and it felt special.

Herding in the other two, and then the final one, was annoying. 

Chickens; they're an experience.

Cycle of DEATH!

In Oz we have a bunch of dangerous fauna best represented by our spiders, snakes and stingrays. 

As I was riding the exercise bike a small spider crawled across the bike's LCD. It didn't look like a huntsman, big spiders that don't hurt people but a potential white tail spider which does.

I noted its presence but continued riding after it ran around the back before I could fist it.

About five minutes towards the end of the ride it came back out and I fisted it good and hard against the LCD of the bike readout, nearly pushing the screen in from its mounting.

I washed the remnants from my side fist—though I'm sure it's only in the bloodstream that the venom gets you—and finished the ride.

It's funny in Oz how blasé you can get about animals that can kill you. I generally stay the fuck out of their way or, if they're in my way, patiently await a time and place of my choosing to do battle or removal.

Today was a squish job; doing it with my bare fist was pretty dumb though. 

Our tourist tagline should be "Australia; watch the fuck out."

Backface

It's one of my favourite bits from The Island by Lano and Woodley. I use "Take that into your backface" all the time. 

(hat doffed)

UPDATE: It's the next day and I felt I had to pay tribute again to just how awesome this bit is. Seeing them live after a 12 year break was utter magic. You fucking beautiful pair of fucking fucks (imagines three-way hug with MLW). I also love "Take that all onto ya!" (waves non-firing extinguisher at Lano's body).

OCPD and reality

I have OCPD. It means I view the world through a prism others do not and that means their perception of reality is different to mine.

Except, that it's not. People who are depressed and or have OCPD are all too aware of reality; it's what drives them. It's normal people that are deluded and think things are rosier than they should be.

I also have PTSD from hyper vigilance caused by OCPD. Having OCPD and PTSD at the same time is irksome. It threatens to distort your perception of reality; my PTSD reacts, for example, to potential threats that normal people screen out like a car horn or the air brakes on a bus.

But it doesn't change facts and it doesn't change ideal outcomes. It doesn't change the fact that someone mentally ill tries to fix things that sane people avoid. 

I'm good at what I do; I avoided mistakes or fixed and learned from them because of mental illness. My mental illness was and is a greater good.

I don't have a distorted view of reality; I have an all-too-aware view of reality. But I'm also insane enough to try to fix it.

WFTW.

HEL BEL and MOUSE

I'm certain of the first and I think the second is accurate but in the space of two days those were personalised licence plates I saw in Canberra.

If they were ever in a collision then on the accident report where licence plates are recorded would be HEL BEL and MOUSE. 

I wonder who hit who? Was it MOUSE into HEL BEL or HEL BEL into MOUSE?

Either way, it's hell's bells for the mouse.

Remains of the tube

I'd come into the shed fresh from showering elsewhere and I'd not put cream on my face and a dressing since getting home.

I saw the remains of the last tube, put in here for moments like this, went to it and doused the fuck out of the area. Then I put a band-aid on.

That was thewife's idea—to have the remains of the old tube here for just in case and it saved me from a possible lapse into facial mutilation where I pick at the scar ridge on my cheek.

Not this time. So it's still zero minutes because I didn't have time to do it; once I saw the tube and realised I was free to have a go at myself I went to the cream and stopped future me from doing so.

Looking out for future me is important because future me is important. 

WFTW.

Social engineering through engineering

Like any city Canberra has to maintain its urban shared spaces such as pavements, paths, parks and signage. Every couple of years they'd replace the sign to our suburb because someone had tagged it. 

Only last time they replaced it they jacked the height of the sign to about that of a basketball backboard.

So unless a tagger could be bothered to organise a step ladder, do the tag, then remove the ladder and lug it home then chances are the sign will not get tagged.

I like it; I like that someone in the Canberra admin system said "let's just put the signs up higher."

Our city is akin to clockwork inter-meshing through bush. Jacking up the sign is like one of the city animations from the GoT opening credits. 

That's great government; effective social engineering through simple engineering.

Reductions of me

I am middle-aged man and was born with a body not quite right. That last bit meant a hip replacement at 39 and a life of difficulty moving without pain.

I am losing bits of me. I am down an adult tooth—yanked instead of saved via root canal because I was too busy—down a hip socket (replaced) and I just felt the leg where my pea-sized scar lump from childhood had been and it's smooth to the touch save for the slight scab of the now stitch-free wound site.

My mother lost two toes, her ability to walk and then her mind to dementia.  Her road to ruin of MS started in her late-40s and she was scooter-bound about ten years after that. Then her genetic-disposition for dementia arrived and her last three years were lost in a fog of madness.

So my losing bits of me and or acquiring new and delicious methods to hurt my existence pale compared to her journey. 

But then I am about to hit my late-forties with a host of horror slithering in my wake. I just hope MS is not hereditary and that I missed the beat on dementia. 

I wouldn't be me if I wasn't warped pre-birth and ended up with a body deformed enough to be short, fat and with reduced agility but not enough for people to go "oh, he's got a fucked body" just "I would never fuck that."

And they'd be right not to.

In the days before science a key ask for parents was if madness was in that family; if there was they'd strongly suggest staying clear of the bloodline.

I am mentally ill, have suffered periods of acute cognitive dissonance and have genetic-and-experience fired depression along with a risk of dementia late in life. 

If I was in the days before science I'd be chased into a windmill that was then set alight.

So hooray for science and reason and for me keepin' on livin'. My body and mind might be unsound but they bound together to create something bigger than me.

You can't ask for a bigger win than that; to have a fucked body and a sad mind yet still limp into the world and try as hard as fuck to make it a better place for everyone.

WFTW.

Half the audience walked out

I was shimmying to KLF's "Doctorin' the Tardis" and on a whim opened the shed door and danced for the chicks. They were all seated, touching feathers, in a v-line in the dust of the pen.

By the end three of them had walked off.

Harsh, man, very harsh.

Trump for life

The PRC has scrapped the two-term limit for president; Trump thinks that's cool.

Of course he would. 

The trouble is when that person needs to go but doesn't want to. What then? In Oz we roll them no sweat. In the US they still face a general election process.

But in states where president for life happens then nothing ever good happens from that.

Divine right of kings does not exist; who was the lion and who was the lamb? 

But Trump sees it as a good because he was president for life of his own shit and that worked for him; it did not work well for anyone he or his companies financially touched.

Now it's the entire world.

Unholy fuck.

Zero minutes

I was able to transit from bed to shower, dress and re-apply cream and band-aid to my face wound without tearing at it.

And that was with the sticking a bag on my lower left leg to protect a healing incision. 

That's a first for a couple of days; waking without playing. It's my one job and so far I'm holding.

Now that's a life contraction: stay home and don't hurt yourself. 

Full-blown anxiety attack on garden swing

I had to be talked out of it with calm and patience as the dream-sparked ripcord pulled on waking caused the engine to roar into life three hours later. I twisted the index fingers around in the folds of my sleeves to cram my arms to my body as if to contain the swelling hurt. 

It's a nice day and it was a great setting. A garden swing is a good place to do it because you can rock back and forth with your hands wound tight to your body as screaming pain whips around your skull.

So that was a plus. I had a V and am now in a room with sun, the steady thrum of a drier and the sounds of garden tat being assembled outside. Logic Mikey is back but telling the story of what happened to the mad version just before. 

Because it's important when you have a workplace injury to show the impact of what a broken system does to the people who do the actual work.

Lano and Woodley

We saw their second ever show of their reunion tour, "Fly".

As I was carefully climbing the steps into the theatre I had the opening credits song from their TV series in my head and I started to softly sing it. Then I noticed another person doing it only louder with more confidence. I laughed and said I was doing the same.

It's a good opening theme; but it will earworm you.

Five minutes

I faltered again on waking, tore off the band-aid and had at the face scar. But it was just five minutes instead of ten and I fixed it by having a shower. That's harder than it sounds as I have to put a plastic bag on my left leg to protect a wound site. Because I have a womb-wobbled body I can't bend like a normal and braced myself in a doorway as I attempted to stretch a rubber band with my fingers as wide as it could go to get it over the toes then up the leg. I had more than one go at it and my right leg was wobbling from the strain of holding up the rest of me.

I succeeded. I failed because I picked it then un-failed by stopping and taking steps to stop me.

It's still happening but logic Mikey is taking control quicker. 

So it's unwellness but getting less unwell for the win.

UPDATE: I had vile dreams before final waking; screaming, shouting, wounding distress. That spawned the falter. I now also have my happy faced slinky in case my awake mind tries the pick again.

Happy face plastic slinky

It's purple with a happy face on it. If I play with that, entwine the slinky around my fingers, I am less likely to gouge a hole in my face.

It does seem an unusual ability for a happy faced slinky to have but so far it's me with the slinky instead of me with the face peeling.

Toys; dual use technology for OCPD.

PTSD and normal noises

We live in a world of noise. In a house the loudest noise is a door slam.

No one was doing intentionally, but each time a door closed of its own accord through kinetic energy instead of being shut quietly my upside-down brain went "RAAAAAGH!"

So I've taken Valium and have ear protection on. I will not go into the city as normal for a Saturday; I will stay home.

The genesis is the horror I had to go through then suffer deflation at the result. So my animal brain knows something is wrong and tells logic brain those loud sounds are threats coming to get me.

We're not designed to live in baked-in stress---that's why PTSD happens for some people who lived in a state of hyper-vigilance and cannot turn it off. I am confined to this room until the Valium kicks in.

Workplace injury blows goats; I have proof.