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darlingdeathbird
darlingdeathbird
05 September 2021 @ 10:49 am
A whole lotta nothing  
Yeesh. You know what I hate worse than an unproductive weekend? A weekend where I tried repeatedly to be productive, and lots of energy definitely went in to creating an outcome, and still it was unproductive. 
 
There's a general problem I have with making leeway on personal projects, which is that I find it very hard if there is some pressing matter that I feel ought to be resolved first. In this case, it's finding a car. I know it needs to be done, ASAP, and that I need to make sacrifices with my time and energy, stick my neck out consistently... but it ain't gettin' me nowhere yet. I looked at three cars this weekend, test drove two. Went to see a Hyundai Accent which is one of the cars since the beginning of my search that I wondered might be the right fit, but it had unforgivably wide blind spots in both back corners, and no keyless entry. A 2015 car with no keyless entry, I mean come on. 
 
Then yesterday I drove a 2013 Scion xD. I thought hey, it's a Toyota technically. It should be a smooth, quiet ride at the very least. No, no it wasn't. Beautiful, stylish car, yes, and without glaring blind spots. But suuchhh a stiff, awkward, noisy ride. I was so disappointed. I rolled back into the dealership very dejectedly and didn't know what to do, and I've come to be candid with salespeople: "ya'll don't have to work too hard at this. There's nothing else here for me, I check the apps multiple times a day, and I've got a string of other dealerships checking up on me."
 
They were charming young men who saw it as a challenge, but one of them was trying to make me think that I was unlikely to find a reliable car under $11k, and since I was paying up front, that I should just finance whatever else a better car would cost that was more than 11k, and I was like "nope. 11k is my budget, and I think I can find what I need." Of course I know that a newer, more expensive car than what I'm looking for would be "better", but it's not within my means. Don't ya'll think I'd buy a new car if I could, finance something if I had money to spare? It's a luxury to be able to do that. Just like it's a luxury to rent or own a house, to be able to get my hair done, etc. etc. etc. A luxury is luxurious, it is special, it is extra, it is fortunate, ideal. Not what my or many people's lives entail. An $11k car is a HUGE STEP UP from what I have, and it will seem luxurious to me. And well, I didn't explain this to them, but the reason I was paying up front was because mum is loaning me the money, and I will have to make monthly payments to her. I guess some people really can't imagine that others have such shallow pockets, though. Mine are shallow, with holes. 
 
* * *
 
Anyway, more depressing news: I think my migraines, my fatigue, and my hair loss might be all my fault. I had a doctor's appointment that was nearly as meaningless as I thought it would be: doc wants me to try a different medication to stop the migraines, but he had no insight on why I was having so many to begin with. I said "doc, do you think it's my sugar addiction?" His answer was unclear. "Doc," I says, "I'm addicted to sugar. It's my emotional support, it's a joy within reach, that I'm in control of, so I consume a lot of it." I'm depressed and lonely and have no hope, but there's chocolate. All these feel-good chemicals that others get from reliable friends, romantic partners, and fulfilling careers, I get from cereal, cookies, and reese's peanut butter cups. Sometimes the only reason I'm motivated to get out of bed in the morning is to have another cup of sweet, creamy coffee. Nothing makes me gain weight, so there have been no immediate repercussions, and with all my stomach problems combined with being dangerously underweight, I've always just thought if I'm eating, I'm eating, and that's good, even if it's ice cream for dinner. "But doc," I says, "is this ruining me now?" Again, he wasn't even on board with it, didn't educate me about why it could or couldn't be... sending me straight back to Google and my common sense. 
 
So, no thanks to doc, I will try to cut down my sugar. 
 
A migraine has been standing at the curb, looking into the upstairs window, so to speak, for five nights now. I went to bed almost delirious because I took a hot bath and it made me head feel very strange. 
 
Doc is ordering another round of blood work, since it's been a while, because he found it concerning that I take three hour naps, most days that I have off, but this has been going on for a long time. Years. I said sure, let's get blood work, and then we can all shrug again. 
 
Are you sure it's not the sugar, doc?
 
I tried my damnedest not to fall asleep, and to write intermittently for who knows how many hours, and it was mostly me slumped back in the papasan, brain darting from thought to thought, trying to frankenstein two scenes together that were supposed to become one of the most important scenes in C R Y S T A L  P A L A C E... but then I looked at it, and I was like... this is not getting the story where it needs to go. I feel like I'm reaching for it through a fog, but I can't see it. I grope around and feel different parts of it, vaguely imagining what the shape must be, but-- damnit, it's brain fog, which I almost always have. And there's more here than I can get my hands around. 
 
I'm tired of living this way. Would I give up sugar for my stories? Maybe. 
 
I'm trying to think of my health and financial well-being as direct contributors to my creative life, as this may be the only way to finally figure them out. I already devised a list of ways to cut back on my sugar intake, and have some things I need to buy so that I can make some substitutes. What I haven't figured out yet is how I will nurse myself emotionally without so much sugar. Oy. Oy oy oy. 
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Current Mood: disappointed
 
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Igenlode Wordsmith[personal profile] igenlode on September 9th, 2021 11:28 pm (UTC)
I'm normally very uneasy with the idea of self-diagnosing food intolerance against the doctor's advice based on Internet reading, but I should think that cutting down on sugar intake is probably pretty harmless in any case :-)

"Would I give up sugar for my stories?" sounds like plausible motivation...

I inadvertently ended up losing almost half a stone as a result of Covid-related supply issues (which basically meant that ALL carbohydrates, from flour to dried beans to white sugar, became a rationable luxury that had to be eked out with fresh vegetables as far as possible -- my potato consumption shot up to record heights). I'm now putting it on again after gaining access to nuts, biscuits etc :p
So if you cook for yourself and you have a strictly limited stock of sugar that you can't replenish and very little access to anything other than highly expensive honey -- then you can end up eating a lot less of it. (I cooked my way through quite a few WW2 desserts that were eked out with carrot and beetroot for sweetness!) What I did was start eating figs and apricots as snacks, because those were the only dried fruit I could get from the greengrocer; they're not cheap, but they are sweet, and they take a certain amount of effort to consume, so I could ration them out to say three a day and buy a packet every couple of weeks.
darlingdeathbird: Drinks and Sweets - Hot Chocolate[personal profile] darlingdeathbird on September 10th, 2021 04:18 pm (UTC)
That sounds like a horrible challenge to have endured! Brava, figuring it out and learning from it, too. I don't know if I've ever tried figs, but I know that dates are full of sugar, and bananas help sweeten things too. Do you feel like your sensitivity to sweetness has grown? I read that if you start to forgo sugar, your taste buds will recalibrate and require less for you to be satisfied.
Igenlode Wordsmith[personal profile] igenlode on September 11th, 2021 03:37 pm (UTC)
Do you feel like your sensitivity to sweetness has grown? I read that if you start to forgo sugar, your taste buds will recalibrate and require less for you to be satisfied.

No, it didn't have that effect at all (just as not washing my hair for eighteen months didn't cause it to grow naturally clean and bouncy as female bloggers claim, but just left it lank and plastered to my head all the time).
It caused me to crave sweetness like anything.

But all those WW2 recipes require sugar -- they weren't trying to do 'clean living', they were trying to eke out scarce imported supplies with home-grown produce, so you would put a couple of tablespoons of sugar in your pudding and then pad it out with grated carrot for bulk and sweetness, or add grated potato to your pastry in order to save on fat and flour. (This is actually so successful that it has become my default pastry recipe; provided you don't object to the speckled look, it tastes more interesting than standard pastry as well as saving on butter, and because of the starchy potato juice it's much more flexible and easier to handle than ordinary shortcrust, making it a win/win situation.)

I just happen to like the flavour of dried figs in their own right, so I can eat them as a treat -- they taste different from the fresh ones, just as dried raisins taste quite different from fresh grapes. I wouldn't much want to nibble on dates on their own, and I strongly dislike bananas, so I never make banana bread!