No, Actually, I'm Not Dead Yet.

Getting back into the blog writing thing is tricky. I set up a little scheduling reminder thing on my phone a little while back to remind me to blog on certain days and stuff and I've steadfastly ignored each and every one up until today. To be honest, I even ignored today's until I got bored and restless enough.
I've been in a pretty dark place over the last few months and I know that I find blogging cathartic, it's just getting the willpower to actually do it that's the hard part.

A lot of the time, I just can't be bothered to blog; I'm so consumed will loathing for pretty much everything that the idea of doing something constructive disgusts and repels me. Although, occasionally, I can use this as fuel for creativity - photo-editing and things like it have been done very successfully in these darker days. NaNoWriMo in particular pulled me through a pretty rough time last year - it was just about a month after my Gran passed away and having Wrimo related obligations pulled me through it and forced me out of the house on a bi-weekly basis. It gave me a good, solid, creative outlet something to do other than just the monotony of work and college and crying. It helped. Sure, my grades for that period still suffered, my manner with the customers took a beating, but I didn't do too many self-destructive things. As pointless and futile as living seemed, I stuck with it, I got my 50k words in the 30 days, against all odds and successfully 'won' NaNoWriMo.

Anyway, I'm going to stop rambling on about that now, this post was just to get me back into the swing of writing (again) and I think it has. I'll do another post tonight, probably a medication based one. Maybe a music based one. It doesn't really matter to be honest, I'm just trying to theme my posts or at least my days a little bit more than having my brain vomit guff all over the internet. Maybe I'll do a weekly round-up of 'Shit That I Find Interesting' rather than spamming my Facebook feed with links from anywhere and everywhere... ANYWAY! I'm just trying to get my head in a little bit of order or something so that I don't feel like I'm going around the bend all the time.

Peace, people, TTYL!

NaNoWriMo and NaBloPoMo

Now apparently, according to 20SB (twenty-something bloggers) NaBloPoMo is a thing. It stands for (I believe) National Blog Posting Month. Now I've heard that it's a thing that runs all year round, rather than just for one month a year, like NaNoWriMo.

When I was on WordPress, I posted every day for a year the first six months (ish) of 2011. I'm aiming to do that again but for just a month. Then maybe two months. Then maybe a year. We'll just see how it goes.
I left the WordPress blog for a few reasons. I wanted a fresh start. I wanted a bit of privacy (ironic, I know). I wanted to get rid of a follower troll. I hated the new layout. The list goes on...

I spent a few minutes going back over my WordPress blog when I wrote this post. While it was only two years ago, it feels like a lifetime. I am nothing like who I was in so many ways. I mean, I haven't changed a lot but, especially since starting the meds and getting therapy, I'm just different somehow. Sometimes it's fairly obvious but at others it's sort of intangible.
I guess it's a good thing. Sometimes I feel like I haven't got much of an identity, much of a personality, but I know that that's not really true.

What's a shame though, is everything that I've lost. The friends I've moved on from or the friends who've moved on from me. It's sad but I suppose it's just the way life is. People grow apart. Especially when they're living in different cities, doing different things, hanging out with different people. There's always more that can be done to stop it happening. I could call more, text more, message more. But so could they. I imagine they've been busy. But so have I. It's no one's fault, not really. But it's still sad.
I imagine, with a few of these cases, that everything could be fine if we could just hangout a few times. Unfortunately, that's unlikely to be a thing in the near future. That old lack of money and time to go down the country thing is rearing its head again.
It's time to stop living in the past. It's no good for anyone.

"It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live." - J. K. Rowling.

Well that escalated quickly!
What I meant to post about was my progress with NaNoWriMo but I'm finding that my blogging topics are getting a little hard to control. Much as my novel is getting a little hard to control too...
Thus far, I've managed to keep up with most of the word count. I've fallen behind a little in the last couple of days however. My mind just hasn't been in it. I don't know why really. It's just difficult to focus. I guess it's the only thing I've really had to focus on since my gran died and I'm just struggling with it.
To be honest I'm just struggling generally. Life is fucking hard. It should come with a manual...
In lieu of a manual, I'm going to stick with this blog. And writing. A bit of escapism always helps.

Holy Crap!

Evening folks!

I've just had a wonderful revelation as I loaded up my blogger homepage this evening. As of 7.30pm today, I've had 1,005 views on this blog! Now granted that I've had this site nearly a year now, that doesn't really seem like all that many.
However, nearly a quarter of those views have been in the last 30 days.
30 days!

Now that seems like a canny spike to me. It may well be because I've had a link to my site in a obvious place (not Facebook, which I am contemplating, however).
But anyway, I just wanted to say thank you.
Thank you for making this blog a pleasure to write. For showing that people are at least vaguely interested in what I have to say. I'd love some comments that were more substantial than my 'posted to Google+' ones that happen automatically to every blog I post when I post it but not to worry! These things will come in time, I don't doubt.

I'm going to get back to NaNoWriMo now, I've still got a couple of hundred words to write before midnight to keep up with my word total. This is the first time I've managed to pretty much keep up the entire way through the month - I know it's only the 12th but still. That's a big achievement for me!

Thanks again, for being awesome! I'll do a proper post once I've hit 20k in NaNo which should be in a couple of hours.

Until then, au revoir!

I Keep Saying I'll Do This Bumf More Regularly...

I do really mean it, each and every time. I will do this more. I can blog more regularly. I do have things worth writing about sort of. Also, I can never remember, but is 'bumf' one f or two?
I realise that four days isn't exactly a long break for me but I still feel like this blogging should be a daily thing - it's not as if I think less about things now than I did a few years ago when I did #postaday on Wordpress! If anything I think more and thus, I shall post more often than I currently do.
Realistically, I think I should aim for two or three posts a week maybe even five posts then I can have two responsibility free days where I can just veg out and play lots of Pokemon X or something... That sounds fairly reasonable but I know I'm going to have to set some sort of phone reminder for this kind of thing - much like I need one for taking my meds, eating, working et cetera. That said, I should probably take my meds now - it's far later than I realised and if I don't take them now, I won't wake up in time for work in the morning.

The other day, Matt got a cold. He was really ill and pretty much couldn't function. He remained steadfast in his opinion that, if I wasn't careful, I'd get his cold/flu/virus or whatever it was. It's been going around so I pretty much expected I would get it sooner or later. I just wish that it hadn't been the day after my gym induction.
Yesterday was my much anticipated induction at Goldstar Gym across the road. Writing it like that makes it cooler because then it's like a Pokemon gym. Because of my meds, I had to go to the doctor's to get a note saying that I was fit to join the gym. When I got my appointment (the first time) it wasn't with my GP or the Dr who sorts my meds, but just with one of the others. He was nice enough but then wanted to charge me £20 for a line and a quarter saying that, yes, I could indeed go to the gym. As it happened, I didn't have my card on me at the time so couldn't pay so couldn't get a note. However, all wasn't lost as I had an appointment with my therapist the next day anyway and she's a certified doctor so I reasoned that she might be able to do it herself. When I mentioned it, she agreed that it'd likely be amazing for me but as she wasn't a medical doctor, she couldn't advise on my ability to go to the gym in regards to my medication. She did however, advise that I either go to one of the doctors at the surgery that I was familiar with and one who was familiar with me and my situation or, at least, get a second opinion as someone else might only charge me £10 or indeed do it for free. I arranged an appointment with the Dr who sorts my medication but missed it (due to my medication, ironically) and ended up having to wait nearly two more weeks to get another appointment. This one, I got through luck and good timing rather than being able to pre-book appointments. It's ridiculous how hard it is to get a doctor's appointment these days! If I want to pre-book, I have to wait over a month sometimes - it's horrendous! Anyway, I'm sure most of you have the same problem so I'm going to stop whining and get on with it. I decided, since it's so hard to get appointments, that with this one, I was going to kill three birds with one stone.
The long and short of it is, I got my note for the gym.
It took about 3 minutes for the 'assessment' from start to finish and the note (a photo of which can be found on my Instagram for which there is a link on the top right of this post). He took my pulse and blood pressure and was like: 'Well, all that seems in order, I think the gym would do you good. Here you go.'
So that was Tuesday morning. I dropped the note off at the gym straightaway, thinking that I'd likely lose it if I took it home, and arranged an induction for the following Friday (which was yesterday).

The induction itself was longer than I expected - nearly 90 minutes from start to finish - but included a set of reps of every exercise (apart from leg raises) and a diet/nutrition plan. I was pretty nervous when I got there but managed the whole thing without making a twat out of myself so I was pretty proud by the end of it. The guy doing it didn't seem overly impressed that I was vegetarian and told me repeatedly (jokingly) that I should get some chicken fillets in me or, at the very least, some cans of tuna. I said that I would try and if I couldn't digest it, I'd stick to tofu, egg whites and cottage cheese. I think I'll stick to the veggie stuff anyway unless I absolutely have to (and I can't see that ever being a thing...)
I'll write more about the gym and fitness et cetera in another post, I'm going to have to draw this one to a close soon - the Mirtazapine's hit me slightly harder and somewhat faster than I anticipated! (Notice: I took my meds, like I have to and said I would but forget to occasionally from time to time yay!) Where was I going with this..? I've completely forgotten... Oh, yes!
So this morning, I woke up with a head full of cold. It was horrendous. And the weather was really grim too - sort of not too cold but rainy and weird.
By the time I got to work, my legs were so stiff from yesterday that I could barely walk and my head was so sore it was difficult to speak. Over the course of the day I haven't really gotten much better. I've taken some cold medication and some paracetamol but it doesn't seem to have helped. My nose is all bunged up and runny as hell and now it's also really sore from wiping it all the time. I've sneezed a few times which clears my head for a few minutes at a time but never longer. Even sinus massages aren't helping - now my eye sockets just feel slightly bruised...

Anyway, it's off to sleep for me now. Hopefully I'll write tomorrow. Maybe it'll be a lament for poor old Trillians...
Nighty night folks!