Craig Talbert’s Neighborhood

sorry I've been reading a history of European Paganism and spirits of place take a front seat in much of it so I had to think of a place for the gods to inhabit who saw to it that my new vial of testosterone was delivered while I was sleeping today. I was really really really hoping it would be out there, just outside the front door because the box they put everything in does not fit through the slot (needles and syringes and vial) so I opened the door and my heart sank because it did not see it immediately because they had placed it leaning up against some flower pots that are hanging out in the corner of our doorway but then I saw it and I said "oh thank gods!"

I think the sleepy routine of the weekend had a lot to do with not having quite enough borrowed topical stuff to get me through with full daily doses so I am hoping that this means I will wake up a bit in, oh, about five hours or so. I can usually feel it fairly quickly when I am this low.

I did not make it to see the new psychiatrist this morning as I was just not ready to go out there and deal again yet. I think that a few extra days will not hurt in the grand scheme of things but I still feel bad but one thing I am trying to learn is how not to feel bad when I just cannot do those things that one might think should not be so hard to do. they are hard for me, after all. that's why I'm in this mess to begin with.

I see Nan tomorrow and will have to tell her of my failure of nerve but that is nothing new. it's only my projection of my own self-shaming that even causes me to believe that she will have any judgment at all but simply knowing that doesn't make it stop, you know? sometimes I think it would be nice if there were some microsurgical or other electrical engineering techniques for rewiring neural firing patterns.

but so anyway. I'm up. it's monday. I actually have work to do. coffee first. maybe that will make this damned headache go away.

so for my birthday weekend I slept: here is a graphic representation of my sleep patterns over the last two days. 16 of the last 24 hours: asleep.

am I really getting that old or was last week that exhausting? maybe a bit of both. I'm to try to see the new psychiatrist in the morning. I Do Not Want To Go, but she's only there mondays and fridays so if I put it off I'm putting it off by four more days and there are at least a couple of reasons why I don't really want to do that. guess at 8:30am I'll gulp some klonopin and go, although I suppose it is good to look and act as exhausted and dodgy as I actually am if I'm trying to get an accurate assessment of functionality level.

blarg. I was awake earlier today and it was being sunday so bad that I just went back to bed. slept from 1pm to almost 7. now it is night. I should eat and go get more groceries for the long haul overnight. sunday night is so much better than sunday day. hard to explain that one but it's true. if sunday annoys you, try sleeping through it and then staying up all night. even if you have to work the next day, I bet you'll feel better. and you'll sleep very soundly monday night! :)

yup. that's my prescription for the sunday blues.

a long walk at midnight might help too, but be careful which neighborhoods you choose to walk through.

my birthday weekend starts now. you may set your clocks for 8:43am PST tomorrow to raise a toast. : )

I'm posting from vox again. because I can. the tricky thing is to change your default userpic every time you post so that you have can keep things mixed up. the man in the picture is not me. or it shouldn't be. if it is, I screwed up.

navigating the convoluted, uncoordinated mess that is "public social services" in San Francisco is enormously frustrating. this agency only takes referrals from these other agencies but these other agencies won't give you referrals because your medical care is at this other agency from whom the first agency does not accept referrals. why not? gods only know. funding, probably, because instead of some sort of uniform national healthcare and disability coverage everything is a patchwork of grants and federal monies with bizarre stipulations that prevent anyone from doing the obvious thing and endeavor to work together seamlessly. people think that it is better to be disabled or otherwise disadvantaged in the US than anyplace else. they'd be Wrong.

just a few hoops to jump through. the usual I suppose. the hard part is picking out a path from hoop to hoop that will get you to your destination the fastest. when there are multiple paths to choose from it is not always clear where to start. this isn't "choice." this is chaos and confusion where your choices become limited the moment you make your first move. the cards are stacked against you at the start so it is crucial to find the best assistance available so the system doesn't crush you and deposit you on the sidewalk.

there my be a real blog post in here somewhere. or maybe poetry. ode to a social net comprised of shoestrings and gum wrapper chains. and this place is one of the best social service oriented cities in the nation. imagine.

but so I learned to navigate one agency today. will try to stick with them for a few days to see if they can be persuaded to help. if not, there are others, but like psych med trials, each one of these engagements elicits a unique constellation of side effects and consequences that are almost always exhausting for me.

grumble.

I'm going to bed now. in the morning/evening I am going to read.  to myself. in the house.

I think that is all.

Testing moblog. Test test test. Erik blog.eriktrips.com

ok this post originates from within vox itself and should replicate in livejournal. let's see what happens!

ok this one really should make it to all three places. go little blog post! go!

argh a new interface. I just know all those automatic "audio" and "photos" buttons are going to annoy me somehow.

for now, here I sit, waiting to see what happens at LiveJournal. all are welcome to join me.

"Latin America" was coined to describe all romance language-speaking America, including Quebec, Haiti, Martinique and Guadeloupe in the Caribbean, and French Guiana in South America. Most people who use the phrase today should actually be using the more accurate "Ibero-America" instead.

I'm sure I have no idea why my wife won't let me choose a Portuguese name for our child. And Agostinho, Caetano, Cezar, Claudio, Diamantina, Fausto, Filomena, Gaspar, Gonçalo, Lourenço, Mafalda, Olívia, Saturnino, Sebastião, Teodoro, Vasco, are all such fine names.

Compare C# versus VB syntax: "if (obj != null && obj.IsConnected)" vs. "If obj IsNot Nothing AndAlso obj.IsConnected Then". In its quest to be simpler to understand VB has become only more confusing.

I was interested by the result of this statement: MessageBox.Show((1 / 0).ToString()). A number divided by zero evaluates to "Infinity"

Also: I think we've officially run out of news when these have all been Google's top stories.

I find it intriguing that Symbol barcode scanners, which are used by nearly all US retail outlets from small thrift stores to large chains like Wal-Mart, can be programmed to do anything (including to reject UPCs) by scanning special barcodes. I'm certainly not advising it, but I wonder what would happen if one were to print out the above barcode (which I've found works on all Symbol scanners whether they be handheld or mounted or flatbed like at the grocery store) on sticker paper and slap it on an item. When I worked in the pharmacy it took 2 days to get a technician from Symbol to come down for a repair, and a simple reset to factory defaults wouldn't work because the scanners need to be set up a certain way for the particular way they interface with the Point-of-Sale system for that company.

I'm just saying, it's interesting. You shouldn't do it though, even if you could cause a complete shutdown of a retail outlet and probably not be legally responsible for the damages if they figure out what you did. Wouldn't be proper.

Addendum: I completely forgot about NCR scanners. They've got market dominance in the flatbed scanners at the grocery store (they're usually metal whereas Symbol's are hard plastic). One would need to check the brandname printed on the barcode scanner. For flatbeds it's usually printed to the right of the glass pane, and for handhelds/fixed scanners it's usually on the back of the head. NCR is much smarter, in that you have to scan a whole series of barcodes in order to do anything meaningful. There are a few standard barcodes like "Reset Tallies" and "Firmware Flashing" that sound nice but one can't be sure what effect they'd have. Consult the manual if interested.