Rae Roy's Blog, page 74

Thoughtful Thursday – Breast Cancer Awareness

The following has happened more than once this month, so I felt the need to say something about it:

“Sorry Raeanne.. I fell for it also…..but it’s for a very good cause!  Here it goes… you shouldn’t have liked or commented on my last status.  Now you have to pick from one of the below and post it as your status. This is the 2016 Breast Cancer Awareness game. Don’t be a spoil sport. Pick your poison from one of these and post it as your status.

1. Just found a squirrel in my car!

2. Just used my kids to get out of a speeding ticket.

3. How do you get rid of foot fungus?

4. All of my bras are missing!

5. I think I just accepted a marriage proposal online?!

6. I’ve decided to stop wearing underwear.

7. It’s confirmed I’m going to be a mommy/daddy.

8. Just won a chance audition on America’s got talent!

9. I’ve been accepted on master chef.

10. I’m getting a pet monkey!

Post with no explanations. Sorry, I fell for it too.

Merry Monday – Grinding Away

Back to the grind this week. It was a little hard to get into French tonight, but after a while it was OK. Sometimes I feel like my pronunciation is very good, but my comprehension isn’t. I guess that will come in time.

Yesterday was a packed day. After iaido, I had a date at the Ottawa Geek Market. It was just OK. 

After that, I had a visit with my toddler buddy, which was awesome. I was taken aback when he greeted me at the door. Usually, he’s excited to see me but also shy about it and half hiding behind one of his parents. Yesterday, he said hello, asked me how I was, and how my weekend was. So adorable! Then he wanted me to do burpees with him hahaha. Of course, I obliged despite having done a bunch of leg work at iaido. At one point he said, “ciao”! After reading him “Stuck”, it was time for b-movie club, which featured “Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead”. It was pretty funny, though I still prefer “Cannibal the Musical”. 

The itchy skin thing is persisting, though not as bad. I can’t tell if allergy medicine is helping or not. Hopefully this gets figured out soon. I’m losing less sleep at least. The last couple weeks, I’ve felt like I was barely functioning. Really not helpful for writing anything.

I realized partway through editing chapter four that I haven’t been using contractions and should, so it’s back to chapter one to be sure I get all those fixed. This is really what writing is about, nitpicking.

Anyway, I better get to bed.

Ciao,

R~

Review – Inevitable (Blink format)

There’s a book called Inevitable. I’ve only read the “blink” for it. Blinks summarize books for those of us who are busier than the average and I find them helpful to get a taste of what other ideas are out there. 

Anyway, it posits that the future is not one of utopia, but one of protopia where each day we will see a small improvement over the next. It’s saying that no invention will be static as it will constantly be improved upon. They base this on trends like how quick we are to delete apps after installing them.

Let’s face it though, some apps just don’t do what they sound like they are capable of doing. Or they create extra work. Anyone try a diet app where you have to put in everything because your sport or the measurements of your food aren’t in there? And hey, the next day you have to enter it again because it didn’t automatically get added to the list of options, meanwhile there are whacked out measurements for things that are obviously from across the globe? Or the financial apps that can’t understand more than 50% of your transactions? So you spend time on configuring, only to have it still not work the way you hoped?

Anyway, I think this all only applies to some nations like North America, the UK, some Asian countries, maybe Russia because there’s a whole lot of the world where children are starving and people are dying of preventable diseases. 

So maybe this book predicts what life will be like for those of us living in developed nations, but what cost comes along with it? And when will people get sick enough of the state of the rest of the world to do something about it? Will this mean developed nations will no longer have veterans living in the streets?  That there will no longer be a need for breakfast programs?

They also seem to forget that physical books continue to exist despite the advent of e-readers. People like the feel and smell of books. They also like not having to deal with battery issues. 

And having AI be in charge of what information we learn seems scary to me. The book suggests that AI will do the majority of the thinking while humans do the touchy feely stuff. Some humans are incapable of empathy or genuine caring. Could you see someone like Tesla consoling a widow or providing companionship for a cancer patient? 

It also talks about medical care and things like diagnostics. The AI would gather all the data and the human would diagnose. That’s not really different than now. How do they think blood tests are run today? The thing is, many blood tests are not 100%. You can have Celiac’s disease and have it not show in a blood test. And they don’t know how much gluten needs to be in your system for you to react to it. There are countless other examples of this, especially in the autoimmune realm. The doctor has to make an educated guess at what is going on in your body, but if the AI is the only one with the knowledge and no humans are specialists anymore… 

Now, I agree that AI will be useful for parsing through the inordinate amount of data on the internet. It already is. But it might still have issues we see now where what you find depends on what you searched for. Will the AI know everything that relates to a topic and the degree of relevance? It might not understand context. 

I really don’t agree that most things that are bought are intangible. We wouldn’t need trucks, trains, boats, and airplanes to deliver food, oil, furniture, books, clothing, plates, appliances, etc if they were intangible. Hey, maybe we’ll just become robots so we won’t need any of those things? The eBook still hasn’t killed paper books, so their point is really not sold to me.

I do see potential in lending libraries for tools and such, but I don’t think everything will work that way. Photographers aren’t going to be sharing their camera equipment with others. 

Digital art is cool, but doesn’t have the warmth that paint on canvas has. AI can’t write like a human because it doesn’t feel heart broken, scared to die, etc. It doesn’t have a soul. It’s not driven to create because it feels as if its heart will burst if it doesn’t put words to a page.

While Uber is great, it’s still cheaper for me to own a car than it is to use them for everywhere I need to travel in a week, so I don’t see people ceasing the purchase of cars. That would take a huge disruption in the travel industry. We still have more people using cars running on fossil fuels than electric. Hell, our homes that do run on electric have such high bills it makes it hard for people to afford food. 

Currently, our economy is built on money. People care more about this than the environment. The great barrier reef is dead because of this. We probably could’ve stopped it, but that would’ve meant not making money and spending it on the environment instead. They suggest people won’t own anything, even rights to their own creations. Yes, I’m sure I will be fine with spending thousands to put a book out only to have no say in whether people can copy it… That sounds wonderful. It also sounds like a way for me to starve to death.

They talk about virtual reality substituting for real human connection. That might happen if it seems real enough that our bodies can’t tell the difference, but oxytocin is something only produced through touch. I’m not sure VR can overcome that. 

They mention that screens have dynamic content and so are open to question while books are static and thus not. All the best books are open to question because the words on the page can be interpreted in multiple ways. Or they say timeless truths about the human condition.

They bring up privacy as something that won’t exist. It already doesn’t. If you are doing something high profile enough, the NSA can get through all the red tape and find you. Many places have CCTV that can be tapped into if you’re important enough. Check out the documentary, “We Live in Public”. And online tracking? Google already knows what you’re interested in. It’s already happened. There’s already breaches of personal data from social insurance numbers to health insurance. The world would need health care equality for this to end. 

What do I see in the future? Human organs printed from stem cells that don’t get rejected, for one. A cure for cancer. 

What do I wish for? An end to religious and other wars. Humanity uniting to bring everything to an equal footing and then the potential for the human race is limitless.

Ciao,

R~

Thoughtful Thursday – Hurricane Season

It’s hurricane season. Thankfully, where I live I don’t get much more than heavy rains.

I find it interesting that the US elections are held near the end of hurricane season. I suppose if they can make it through the elections, they can handle anything.

I do sometimes feel like my life is one storm followed by another. I’m not saying that in search of some pity. It’s just an observation. Outside of the challenges I face from allergies and such, I get very busy during the year from April through to December. It makes it hard to feel like I have my shit together in the slightest.

Someday, I may have a clean home, but that’s going to take a partner that can work with me on keeping it clean. I’m hesitant to bring someone else into the hot mess that is my life. I know the right one will help rather than compound the hard things, but there has been far more of the wrong.

Largely, I feel like living life is far more important than my dishes and laundry always being clean and put away. There are languages, martial arts, and instruments to learn. There are stories to read and stories to write. There are people to spend quality time with.

Some people I know have it together better than I do, but they are involved in less activities. Mostly, they watch TV.

I’m not sure if it’s just a fairy tale idea I have that things will be better with another person in my life. They could be a hot mess too for all I know. I’ve learned not to get my hopes up too high.

For now, there’s tacos cooking on my stove.

Ciao,

R~

Fortify Merrying Frimonday – Uncertainty

My life is filled with uncertainty lately. 

I’m struggling to get the fiction writing in while learning French and doing my job. I think it’s mainly because I’m losing so much sleep from being chronically itchy. 

No idea what is causing that. And it’s one of those things where you hope the blood tests uncover it but also hope they don’t find anything and it just goes back to normal on its own.

On top of this, something happened to the woman across the hall Thursday night and I don’t even know if she is alive. I didn’t hear anything but the barking dog, but I saw a man while doing my laundry. Now, I’m wondering if I could be a target next as the police spoke to me quite a bit.

What if I had started my laundry a minute sooner or a minute later? I wouldn’t have seen anything at all.

And there’s still nothing in the news about it.

Dating is largely fraught with uncertainty. I seem to be a magnet for the wrong ones or there’s just a lot of the wrong ones out there. Time will tell on this.

It’s the end of Thanksgiving weekend in Canada. It was a short trip to my hometown. 

I practiced iaido, but couldn’t remember most of the koryu kata on my own. I’ll be working on remembering Omori-Ryu after grading.

My family started the talk about power of attorney with the parents because they’ve had some scares and are getting older. That was about as delightful as you can imagine, though it could’ve gone worse. Parents didn’t say much. 

And I met with my finance guy before leaving town. That put my mind at ease on some things.

I’m was off to install a proper shower rod because I’m tired of fighting to keep the tension rod from falling down, but my drill needs charging. 

Plan B is to relax while I tweak my schedule.

Hope everyone enjoyed the weekend!

Ciao,

R~

Thoughtful Thursday – Dating

Dating is what is on my mind tonight. Why? I suppose that’s the newest thing in my life. I’m really hoping it will get better. I really don’t like wasting time with men who obviously don’t care about anything but getting naked. I’m looking for someone who can be a friend too. That means we need more things in common than being close in height and a decent vocabulary. I need someone who has a good heart.

What I’ve experienced most recently was someone who is very judgemental about the sex lives of women. Someone who thinks it’s wrong for women to have “special friends” and to be with one man this week and a different one the following week all while expecting a woman to put out on the first date. Also while declaring what birth control methods will be used going forward.

When I was safe in my own home, I told him there was no forward. Then he sent a barrage of messages and phone calls my way. He said there must be miscommunication somewhere because couldn’t I see he wasn’t just wanting sex? Except that dominated the conversation when he wasn’t declaring how trustworthy he was. Because trustworthy people bring that up in casual conversation all the time…

Oh, but I kissed you so we aren’t strangers anymore.

Right…

I have another date planned for tomorrow. It won’t take much to be better than that one. Maybe I’ll tell the man that, so he can relax. The live band seems promising at least. Also, this one is into martial arts, so that’s got a little more potential than a Taylor Swift lover. Don’t get me wrong, I think she’s OK, but I’m more of an Amy Lee, Tori Amos, Bjork, M0, and well a whole lot of others fan.

One of my former boyfriends asked me how the hell I find these guys. I honestly don’t know. It’s a skill I’d like to unlearn.

Anyway, I have laundry and such to do as it’s Canadian Thanksgiving this weekend and I’m getting ready to visit the family.

Ciao,

R~

Merry Wednesday?

Sorry. I really thought I had posted on Monday.

The seminar went well. It was an informal and intimate group and we learned a lot because there was no need for translation. We also didn’t need to discuss a single movement for 30 minutes. We covered setei (zen ken ren) and went through Omori-Ryu before closing the day with a nice set most of us hadn’t seen called Keshi-Ryu. I have pictures I need to get posting soon, but life has been busy.

Also on Saturday, the Shifting Shards anthology became available, so there is a book with my name on it in the world! You can get your very own copy from any of the links on my Books page: https://raeannegroy.com/the-books/

We went to a pub before dinner. Doubles were on special so I celebrated the completion on the seminar and the publishing of the book. Then dinner brought sake and eventually my dojo friends decided to revamp my dating profile. This may have brought me one man with potential. Time will tell on that.

After dinner, we returned to that pub and I had another double but shouldn’t have. It made the next day rough.

Sunday, I joined the Jodo class an hour late and had a great time. I’m going to start going to it more often as soon as I figure out something health wise.

Monday was spent tweaking some previous work before having it sent to the client for review.

On Tuesday, work changed something with my email, which changed my Google drive access and so I was stumbling around blind for  several hours trying to figure out what I needed to do without the document that has my plan of what to do. It was fun. Then once it was fixed, I started having network issues, so now I’m working in a different folder that had cloud backup with local connection rather than cloud only.

I had a date last night with a different one than the one mentioned above, which ended all to typically with him trying to convince me to let him tuck me in. I could go in depth, but suffice it to say that there probably isn’t a “game” I haven’t seen. 

Anyway, I have work to do.

Ciao

R~

Fortifying Friday – Procrastinating

I have a lot of cleaning to do. Laundry, dishes, the kitchen, the bathroom, etc. I’m itchy. I’m tired. I’m frustrated. But it has to get done.

You see, tomorrow my dojo is hosting an all day seminar. We’ve been planning it for a while. And some people may be at my place.

We’re also meeting at a bar tonight because that’s how it’s done.

The truth is that I’ve been wanting to get my main living areas cleaned up for a while now. Months really. I’m always more motivated to when I might have people coming over for some reason. 

Maybe someday I’ll just want it clean for me. 

I suppose it’s partly because I spend so much time in a world of my own making that the house gets neglected. I could be cleaning OR I could be battling dragons and wizards! I could be cleaning OR I could practice my guitar. I could also be learning French, practicing martial arts, watching TV, reading a book, or literally anything is better than cleaning.

Yes, I’m stalling.

I should shower so I can get the tub clean. Then put my whites on to clean the shower curtain. 

One step at a time.

But first, I better call and book a table for 10 people or so.

My doctors appointment is going to cut into my cleaning time too.

Ciao,

R~

Thoughtful Thursday – Itch from Hell

Sometimes, when I have a bad day, I think I’m the target of some cruel joke. My life hasn’t turned out the way I planned. Some things are going well. I’ve gotten some short stories published and will have books in my hands very soon that I can sell to fund my novel. That’s surreal. I need someone to pinch me so I know I’m not just having a good dream.

My health is an area that makes me really sad at times. It’s where I keep taking the most hits. I started having symptoms at age 14. My parotid salivary glands would swell up. It’s always painful when that happens.

In my twenties, I experienced an episode of sleep paralysis while hallucinating. It wasn’t until about 5 years after that, they said I had narcolepsy. I lived with that for 3 years until no stimulant medication helped and I had the symptoms of stroke so took myself off the meds. My body had decided it wasn’t narcoleptic anymore. This was all proven both times by the tests.

After that it was discovered that I was sensitive to dairy, eggs, and yeast. That has been a fun diet.

Next, I began having joint pain. I remembered during a check for carpal tunnel in my twenties that I had a positive RA factor. So I got some blood tests done and was sent to a rheumatologist. 

Many of my symptoms match an autoimmune disorder. One that features dryness, so stimulants were about the worse thing I could be on. The trouble is that my body is again rejecting medication. Rather violently through a rash. As a baby, I reacted this way to penicillin.

So I’m at a loss right now as I feel rather like I’m in hell. I’ve been reacting since the 8th, despite hydrocortisone cream, allergy medicine, baking soda baths, tea tree oil, antifungal cream, aloe, calamine, apple cider vinegar, and diaper rash cream.

It’s clear my body is pissed off for some reason.

I see my specialist tomorrow. Hopefully she’ll know what to do. 

Until then, I expect to have another night of difficulty sleeping. 

I wish I could trade skin with someone.

I’m exhausted but too itchy to sleep and I just want to cry.

R~

Merry Monday – Nightmare

Well, I’ve come to think my rash is a milk reaction as it’s exacerbated by dairy intake. Even goat dairy. 

And guess what?

One of the moisturizers I’ve been using is oatmeal-based. I react to regular oatmeal when I eat it. Oats are not automatically gluten free. They are often processed in places with wheat and are cross contaminated. But not everyone is skin allergic to the foods they are allergic to. 

Of course, I am. Apparently.

I’ve been trying to treat an allergic reaction with another allergic reaction. Talk about a nightmare! No wonder it wasn’t getting better.

Thanks, Murphy. You always got my back.

 I got new moisturizer today as all I had was one tiny hotel bottle.

I’m keep using the antifungal cream just in case, though.

As you might have guessed, I have been sleeping terribly with all the itchy rash business. I’ve also had some pretty terrible dreams.

Despite the sleeping difficulties, I’ve come up with a plan for getting my novel, The Page & The Magician, finalized and published. There are about 12 things I need to do and then I’m going to self-publish and that’s all I’m saying for now. Hoping for early 2017, but we’ll see how the finances and such come together.

It doesn’t look like I’m going to be able to nap before French class this evening