personal

Answers to f.riday.com's last friday's questions.

1. What was the most recent physical book you purchased and/or read?

I haven't bought a physical book in years! The physical book I'm currently reading is Lumihauta by Tuire Malmstedt. It's a library book - I have library books literally always at home.

2. What was the last compact disc you listened to?

I've no idea! It's been like 10 years or more since the last time! I download music now, and also ripped all the CDs I own to my hard drive more than a decade ago so I never load the CDs themselves anymore.

3. What did you last watch on DVD?

Again, it's been such a long time that I'm not entirely sure, but I think it's disc 1 of season 5 of Xena: Warrior Princess a few years ago. I remember that one because my cd-rom had trouble loading the disc. If we're counting Blurays too, then Westworld season 1 earlier this year.

4. Whom did you last speak to on a landline?

Whom did I last call on landline? No freaking idea, it's been too long! I haven't owned a landline in 21 years now, only cellphones. Who last called me from a landline? My Mom. She was the last one to own a landline in my circles but even she hasn't had one now for about a decade. Or I don't know if offices such as the unemployment agency, KELA or the Health Center/Hospital still uses landlines. If they do, then one of them.

5. What did you last purchase with cash?

Groceries, today.

Really late with these but my answers to last Friday's questions at thefridayfive@LJ

1. If you could pick any tee shirt in the world to wear, what would it say?

Nothing! I don't like texts on my shirts. Instead it would have a cool pattern with pretty colors.

2. What is the one thing (apart from your family and pets) you’d save from your burning house?

My medications, my laptop, my phone, my important papers - how am I to choose one?!? I also think that because I live alone I might have time to grab more than one thing and those I listed are the ones I'd try to get, if the situation allowed, in that order. Of course it would depend on where each item is and where the fire is.

3. What is your favorite way to wear your hair?

I LOVE having my hair very short - sort of similar cut to what Morena Baccarin had when she was in V in 2009-2011 except the top is a little longer. Didn't think I would and always had hair down to my shoulders or mid-back, but about 7 years ago I started wanting a really short hair, kept having it cut shorter and shorter but didn't dare that short until about 5 years ago when I decided that it's just hair - if I hate it, it'll grow back! Well I LOVED it instead and felt like it was me from the first moment. I did grow it back to mid-back after about 1,5 years of shor but then went short again about after having a long hair again for a year or so, and have had this short hair ever since! I just love it. It's so tidy and doesn't get in my eyes and mouth when it's windy (which is a lot of the time) because it's so short. I have a blond, straight, very fine hair and there's a lot of it, so windy always makes me feel messy and untidy and if I use enough product to keep it tidy when it's long, the hair feels unpleasant and often looks oily because it's so fine that most products aren't really designed for that fine hair. So I'm happy with my short hair :-D 

4. What are you thankful for this year?

My Mom.

5. If you could do or go anywhere, what would you do or go?

On a space cruise on the first TNG Enterprise!

Answers to Jo’s daily questions for November 16-31, 2022.

16. "Live hard, die young and leave a beautiful corpse" ~OR~ "Live long and prosper"?

Live long and prosper obviously - because Star Trek!

17. What are you most likely very wrong about?

I'm not sure. Probably something to do with Kokoomus on more than a few fronts. I keep getting surprised when they support things like womens' abortion rights because their views on economics, the unemployed and poverty are evil and cruel and I expect the same from them on everything else too.

18. If you were put into solitary confinement for six months, what would you do to stay sane?

Can you get a tv there? Paper and pen? Books to read? Music to listen? If so, I'd watch tv, write a journal, read books and listen to music. I don't know if solitary confinement for that long is even possible here in Finland.

19. Can you list three good things that happened this week?

No, no I can't. My weeks are usually just "okay" and this past week has been resoundingly "okay".

20. Are child-proof containers becoming increasingly adult-proof?

Donno about child-proof, but milk containers that were easy to open before, then were redesigned to be even easier to open by the elderly with bad fingers have certainly became harder to open in reality!

21. Does your morning "getting ready" routine vary much between work days and weekends (or other days off if you work weekends)?

I don't work so my morning routine doesn't change usually. It changes if I have a very short hair and need to go outside for things like grocery shopping, a library visit or to pick up a parcel or something like that. When I have a very short hair, on those mornings I wash it because otherwise it just sticks up greasily in a hundred directions and refuses to settle down and looks dirty even if I just washed it the night before. Otherwise my routine is the same every day.

22. Does stress cause to you eat more or does it kill your appetite?

Neither. It causes migraines, and when I was a child my atopic skin rashes would also get worse. That occasionally still happens too. But usually migraines. It doesn't have any effect on my appetite.

23. If, in a multi-story building, you only have to go up or down one or two flights, would you prefer to use the stairs rather than an elevator?

Elevator to go up, and stairs to go down.

24. Is there some old family belief, practice, routine or tradition that you know is nonsensical, but you still catch yourself doing it anyway?

Using things until they fall apart. Like towels etc.

25. What makes you feel terrible while you’re doing it but great when you’re done?

Baking, these days. Cleaning, always.

26. How's your sleep been this week?

I've slept okay, but wake up a lot like once an hour or every 1,5 hours.

27. What is the purpose of art in society? You can define "art" as broadly as you like.

To give you pleasure and lift up your spirits. Both creating it, and seeing/listening/reading it. To help you grow as a human being, to open you up to new experiences and points-of-views.

28. November 28 is "Red Planet Day". Do you think humans will ever get to Mars? Is this an endeavour that we should be devoting resources toward or would the money be better spent here on earth?

Space nut in me says "Yes, let's all go to Mars ASAP!!!" but the poor in me says to first we need to make things better for poor people, and to fix the planet.

29. If everything else about your life stayed the same, how well could you get by living homeless for a year?

I don't know. They say that all/most people who live on the streets here in Finland is because they choose it over the homeless homes. So maybe I would be a place in one of those homeless homes or I'd be helped to get an apartment by the social services. I don't think I could manage well otherwise - the fall and winter is cold so I'd need somewhere warm to stay. And I need meds every day to keep my Crohn's in check and the meds need to be store in a stable environment, not subjected to humidity or cold and warm randomly. They also say that in the homeless homes your things often get stolen etc. so it'd be hard. I hope I never become homeless but it's not very many steps away - if a certain set of bad circumstances all happen at the same time and don't get solved speedily, I can see it happening to me.

30. What in your residence is approaching its last days?

Bathroom. The apartment complex did a humidity measurement for all the bathrooms in our appartments a few weeks ago, and while my bathroom is good as far as that goes, they also said that my bathroom (which is original, 24 years old) is coming up on end of life. So looks like a bathroom renovation is coming up in not too distant future. Not sure if I'm to do it, or if it'll be done collectively for all apartments needing it.

Also, probably my fridge and couch.

Answers to Jo's daily questions for November 1-15, 2022.

1. What immature behavior have you displayed recently?

Nothing irl, but so much just in general in online fandom, always to do with shipping.

2. What are some very salty foods you enjoy?

Potato chips. Mettwurst.

3. What are some major global events that have occurred during your lifetime?

Well, the COVID-19 pandemic, obviously.
Internet.
Mobile and then smart phones.
Russia's attack in Ukraine.
The fall of Berlin Wall.
Chernobyl.
9/11
Several recessions

4. The restaurant is out of your favorite salad dressing. What do you order instead?

Salad dressing isn't a factor in my choice on what to order - I don't even think about it. I don't have a favorite salad dressing because I almost never use it (we didn't use them when I was a kid and I've never learned). I decide the hot dish, and then side dish is whatever.

5. What do you imagine people see when they look at you?

A fat woman.

6. Are there any bridges you don't regret burning?

Not sure how to answer this... I don't think I've ever burned a single bridge. I've just picked other paths.

7. Have you been stung by a stinging critter?

Insects? Sure! Other stinging things? Don't think so!

8. Of all the famous artifacts/exhibits you've seen in museums or art galleries, which was the most disappointing when you saw it in real life?

I don't think I've seen any famous ones. If it's not Mona Lisa level famous, I'm not sure I'd know it's famous? There was this time in 1998 when my then best friend and I were in London, and went to see this comics exhibition in British Museum (I think it was British Museum?) and first we had trouble finding it because it was so unnotable that we went right past it, and then when we realized that that is the comics exhibition our reaction was "is that it? it is! it's so... insignificant" we were both so disappointed because frankly our own collections were more impressive. Or maybe we never really did find it! Or maybe we just never recognized the importance of the items on display! The British Museum was otherwise fabulous, and the comics exhibit wasn't the reason we went there so we were otherwise very impressed!

9. What’s a snack item you have difficulty eating in moderation?

My snacks are things like candy, chocolate, cookies, potato chips, cheese... And oh, all of them! Literally. It's what I struggle with, eating fewer snacks and more proper (hot) meals! I don't feel hunger and got no real appetite, have never really liked hot food and eating proper meals feels like a work (literally, while I'm chewing it it feels like work) and often tastes like cardboard. So to make myself eat something I have a bad habit of eating too many snacks because when I don't I tend not to eat anything and then get nauseous. Crohn's Disease apparently also causes lack of hunger and appetite. I'm working on this but there's setbacks whenever I get this certain level exhausted because then I don't want to eat anything, even snacks, and real food is totally unppealing even more so than normally so I eat something quick and usually unhealthy just to get something in my belly.

10. You're an extraterrestrial scout sent to assess if it's worth making contact with Earthlings. What are your main observations and recommendations?

Earthlings are violent and self-destructive. Stay far away and check back in in 1000 years, by which time Earthlings have either learned to live with themselves and their environment, or killed themselves off.

11. Today is Remembrance Day/Veterans Day. Do you know anyone, or have a distant relative, who died in a war?

Our Veteran's Day is actually in April. And I actually don't know, my family never talked about the war. I know my grand-parents didn't die on either side, and that some of my father's siblings were send to Sweden to be safe during the Winter and Continuation War and stayed there in those families after and never came back except for short visits as adults. But other than that, I don't know. Finland hasn't been a party in a war since the Continuation War except for some UN peacekeeping.

12. What’s a good song about freedom or being free? It can be a single line or the entire song.

Nina Simone's Feeling Good.

13. Do you have a charity you regularly give to?

No, I don't have enough money to do that. If I did that I'd have to go to a breadline to get free, donated food myself.

14. Is there one particular decision/choice you made in your life that is largely responsible for where you are now?

No. Health problems are my main thing now, and I could not have stopped/avoided/prevented Crohn's Disease no matter what I did. Anemia, iron defiency, chronic migraine - I might have been able to avoid or lessen them if I had had the money *and* the knowledge to go see a good doctor in time to get them treated them well and properly before they became dire.

I sort of regret that I moved back to my home town after the library studies - I probably could have gotten jobs easier if I stayed in the Helsinki Metropolitan Area. But I also think that I'd have had to move away from there anyway even if I had gotten a full time job because the cost of living and the rents and everything is so high there that I couldn't have afforded to live there on a librarian's salary as a single.

But as a whole - no single decision/choice I made could have made it so that I'm not chronically ill the rest of my life with Crohn's Disease and probably with chronic migraine. Those are genetic things.

15. Pick up the nearest book (magazine or any available printed material will do). Turn to page 24 (or the closest to it). Go to the 7th line. What is it?

"Äitiä ja isää painoi jo ennestään syyllisyys. Henryn vuoksi." It's from a Rebecca Martinsson novel called "Isien pahat teot" (original title: Fädernas missgärningar) by Åsa Larsson.

Image from Pixabay. Because pretty.

I totally forgot to answer to Jo’s weekly September questions So here's the whole month in one go!

1. How important is it to you that people remember, spell, and pronounce your name correctly? Why?

Very important! Because one is my name, the other is not to quote Data from TNG.

My real first name (Piia) is spelled with two "i" letters, and all through my school years I had to specify that, because it can also be spelled with one "i" and all the teachers tended to assume that the one "i" was the correct form for me too, not the two "i"s one. To confuse the matter further, another girl in my class had very nearly the same name and that name (Mia) could also be spelled with either one or two "i"s... but her name was spelled with one "i". So we both had that problem, just in reverse! Teachers were always confused about our names! My parents apologized so many times for giving me such a troublesome name - it hadn't even occurred to them that the one "i" spelling would be also an option and often assumed. Probably because the one "i" version is a foreign/Swedish version, and the two "i"s version is the Finnish one. But both spellings are probably both used as much so one isn't more common than the other.

Even now, when I have to give out my name for a new doctor or a nurse, if they don't have my information on their systems yet, I have to make sure they catch it's with two "i"s, not one!

Pronouncing is always correct because no matter if it was one or two "i"s, it is the same.

2. Are you a hugger or a non-hugger? Why?

When I was growing up hugging wasn't really a thing in except in the immediate family (so children and parents, sometimes grandma), at least in my family, and I've lived alone since I was 17 so I've never got used to hugging most people. My friends, cousins and I don't ever hug, it's just not something we do except in exceptional circumstances like when somebody died or something like that. I don't see them hugging their friends when we meet as a group, only their kids and SOs and parents. I do sometimes miss hugging/physical closeness with someone while living alone like I do.

That said, I have liked the "stranger" hugs I've received when my Dad died so I'm not categorically opposed to it or anything. It's just not something my circles normally do. I normally only hug my Mom. And my Mom's best friend and I sort of half-hug each other these days. It's nice.

3. Are you more likely to avoid conflict or engage in it head-on? Why?

I don't experience conflict much as an adult, because I live alone and my family and friends usually get along when we meet. I usually avoid it because I don't care what some random person who comes into my life for five minutes thinks, I just keep doing my thing and depending on the issue, give it a thought quietly or ignore it. Back when I was in school, I avoided conflict because I didn't care about my class mates enough to care what they thought about any given thing. They were just people I was forced to spend the day with. When I argue with friends, which happens rarely, I don't avoid it but I only care up to a certain point which varies by the thing which we're arquing about. Once I reach that point, I disengage from the topic. I don't enjoy debate.

4. What was the most recent compliment you received and savored?

I don't remember. Compliments aren't much of a thing in my circles and never have been. Say like in school, you rarely got complimented about anything - mostly you got "nicely done" in an more-or-less-it's-my- duty-to-say-this voice. I hope teachers are taught better now! And parents too! I'm sure my parents complimented me, but I don't really remember any from my childhood - I do remember them being pleased but more like knowing it from their tone of voice and general manner that they were pleased, rather than outright words.

I remember when a co-worker, who was originally from Estonia, one complimented my hair - it was in a bun, and she said it suited me well. I didn't know what to say because I'd never been complimented except by my Mom. This was 20 years ago, but it still stands out as unsual but nice!

I do remember a few years ago some official/clerk saying that despite my illnesses, pain and exhaustion I've done well jumping through bureaucratic hoops in a timely manner - I know it was a compliment from their tone of voice that I had taken care of things I needed to and that I'd done it without help or delay because a lot of people can't or do with a lot of delays even with help, but it doesn't really feel like a compliment because what else was I going to do? I didn't have a choice! So getting it done in as effectively as I could was the best of bad options simply to manage my stress!

There's a lot of talk of how work well done is just business-as-usual and you don't get complimented for it in Finland. If you get feedback, it's about thing not done well. My experience matches this - as long as you don't hear anything from teachers/managers/the boss, things are good. I don't know if the younger generations are changing this culture, but this is my experience both in personal and work life.

5. In what situations are you most likely to procrastinate?

When I need to do something I don't like to do or want to do, or I know will be a lot of effort (mental) or work (physical) even if I like doing it.

6. How often do you interrupt others while they are talking?

Never or at least try not to unless it's truly necessary. I hate when people do that. It's rude!

7. What’s your most and least preferred forms of exercise? Explain.

Most: swimming. Because I like water and I won't get sweaty and you get to go to a sauna while at it and it's plain fun! Least: everything else. Because it's sports.

8. What’s your favorite quote? Why is it special to you?

I don't have a favorite or a special quote... but I've had this one up on my DW for years now: I will walk the earth forever, and my hunger shall know no bounds. It's from Torchwood and I like the mood it ewokes.

9. As you fall asleep, do you prefer to be flat on your back, curled on your side, or on your stomach? What position are you in when you wake up?

Anything but flat on my back. I feel unnatural when laying flat on my back, and if I accidentally fall asleep so because I was so tired I fell asleep before I could decide which side to turn on, when I wake my whole back is stiff and moving is uncomfortable for pretty much the whole day. I can fall asleep curled on my side or flat on my stomach, either is good. I also wake up in either of those two positions. I've been like this as far back as I can remember.

10. What’s your preference: cruise ship, powerboat, sailboat, rowboat, canoe, kayak, or inner tube?

I don't know what inner tube is, but of these I've only been on a cruise ship and rowboat. Of those two, I prefer the cruise ship.

11. Who was your best friend in high school, and where is he or she now?

I quit high school after three months, after skipping most of that three months. So I'm going to answer for the library school: my house mate. She went to a different school, then went back to her home town when her studies ended as I did too. We lost touch for about 16 years, but the last few years we've been e-mailing each other every few months :D She went back to school for a bit, and works various temp jobs. Like many of my age, she's never had a stable job, only temp ones but has been working steadily just not in what she studied for.

12. What’s your most memorable (good or bad) airplane flight?

I've flown only twice (well, four times them being return trips) so that I remember (meaning I was an adult, not a tiny kid) and there's nothing memorable about the flights other than "Wow! I'm on an airplane!" general experience.

13. September 13 is "Positive Thinking Day". What negative thought could you turn around today?

Donno... Maybe remembering that I'm still able to learn new things despite having been chronically sick and unemployed for so long and also now being firmly in middle age and feeling like I mental sharpness is gone. And that I got proof of that when I was in the rehabilitation's on-the-job training back in 2017. And that despite that my body wasn't up to finishing the second or third on-the-job training, my mind was to it.

14. Growing up, for which holidays did your family decorate the house?

Christmas was the only one we'd fully decorate. We'd also grow rairuoho (ryegrass, apparently) for Easter and melt down tin and drop it in cold water on the New Year to seek omens for the coming year and eat seasonal foods on each holiday, but we didn't decorate for other than Christmas.

15. Have you ever served on jury duty? If so, what was the case about? If not, would you like to be on a jury in the future?

There's no jury or jury duty in Finland so this question doesn't apply to me.

16. What's worse: laundry or dishes?

Back when I didn't have a dishwasher (25 years ago), dishes. But now that I have both a dishwasher and washing machine and both are new ones at that, both are good! I actually like doing both! Who would have thought?! I sure never did! But I sort of hated it when I had to do dishes by hand, and would still hate it if I had to do them again by hand.

17. Do you have a favourite movie soundtrack?

TV but so many! I can't decide which is the favorite: Star Trek Amok Time, The Last Of The Mohicans, The Leftovers are the top three but lots of other tv and movie soundtracks too!

18. If you were offered free cosmetic surgery by the best plastic surgeons in the world, would you take it?

Yes! Lop off at least 2/3 of my boobs!

19. If you could rid the world of one evil, which one would it be?

Poverty.

20. What is the difference between knowing a lot of facts about a person and knowing someone personally?

Facts don't tell you how how a person "feels" to you and whether you'll like them or not. And knowing someone personally doesn't mean you know all the facts about them!

21. What’s more important, a healthy mind or a healthy body? Why?

As a chronically ill person I can't say I think either one is more important than the other. Not when it goes beyond a certain point. If you have trouble with either one, it can be miserable and getting help or finding working help for either can be very, very hard or impossible.

22. What’s one thing you know for sure?

That I'm going to treat myself with a bit of fresh smoked salmon tonight! It was on sale in the grocery today, and being horribly expensive normally, I haven't had it for since February. Fresh smoked salmon is my favorite fish so it's a REAL treat!!

23. When was the last time you listened to the sound of your own breathing?

Last night while waiting to see if sleep would happen.

24. Do you ask enough questions or do you settle for what you know?

Both, depending on the issue.

25. An app mysteriously appears on your phone that does something amazing. What does it do?

Removes my poverty.

26. How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you are?

I don't understand this question... I'd still be as old as I am. Or is the thought that I could choose how old I would be? If so, I'd keep my mentality the same because I'm so much more comfortable in my own skin now than when I was younger, but physically I'd switch to being 25. Youth really is wasted on the young! Or is the thought how old I feel? Then I'd be somewhere in very early 20s I guess - I don't feel like a kid/teenager but not entirely a fully mature adult either so about 20 seems right.

27. How have you recently kept yourself in check?

By being rational about the whole bloody weak adoption thing and being one of my bio father's heirs. There's only so much I can do right now, and I'm doing that; the rest will happen/be revealed in time, before the end of the year as far as the inheritance goes.

28. What’s the closest thing to a castle you’ve been in?

I've actually been to many castles! Turku Castle the most often over my lifetime as it's located in my hometown. But also Häme Castle and Hampton Court just to name a few. Castles are a favorite thing of mine!

29. What were the circumstances the last time you were hoarse?

It was so long ago that I don't remember, but presumably a flu. At least I don't remember ever being hoarse for any other reason.

30. For what will you likely pay a king’s ransom in the near future?

Nothing like a house or anything like that but... Buying a bra certainly always feels like it! No matter whether it's a normal bra (at least 60 euros) or a sports bra (80 euros). It's a curse brought on by having abnormally large boobs and having little choice in bras/shops. And a bra only lasts for a year or two in okayish condition so mostly it's just feels like wasting good money.

This week has been a trying week!

On Sunday my period started two days early which - okay, good at least it's not late which is used to be a common occurrence so I rather they start early than come late. But means that I have steady stomach pain for however many days I bleed and that's felt like an extra cruel punishment on top of everything else ever since I got sick in 2008. Then on Tuesday Crohn's Disease decided to join in on the fun and cramp really well! I was SO much pain for two hours before the pain meds kicked in - cold sweat, white face, weakness and feeling like I'll faint, I got it all :( Then after the pain meds kicked in, pain gone but felt still weak and weird and because it happened in the evening, a little of the weird feeling continued the next day too. This happens sometimes during my period since I got the Crohn's diagnosis, so luckily I knew that the meds would help and I just had to wait for them to kick in so I didn't really worry about whether I should go to the hospital or anything like that like the first time it happened.

Then on yesterday (Thursday) a migraine and lower back pain, and last night again a mild migraine and today Friday also the same lower back pain. I don't get why the back pain all of a sudden - I used to have bad lower back pain in my 20s when I had too heavy periods and even in between, but when we got me bleeding less the back pain got better too and I've only gotten a little bit of a back pain during my bleeding days for almost two decades now. But yesterday and today it was bad again like it was before, although it has eased up the more I have moved. I don't think I've pulled anything, but maybe I've slept in a bad position or something? I don't feel it when I lie down but when I get up in the morning, I feel shooting and nasty twinges at first and then it starts to ease up but doesn't go completely away as I move about. I hope this back pain doesn't become a feature outside my period - I don't want to have to deal with anything more - at least, not any more pain! Fingers crossed.

Other health related things... after I had the iron infusion in March, I noticed that my eyes focus better and don't get what the optician and my doctor told me was "age sight": that eyes get tired faster and it's hard to focus them when you get older. I used have many times a week trouble focusing my eyes even first thing in the morning even though I had slept through the night. This went on a couple of years and nothing helped, not even getting new glasses. But after the iron infusion, it stopped happening until it started happening again now in September. My hand joints also stopped hurting after the infusion, and haven't restarted yet. I don't know what my ferritin is currently - in May it was 80, and in March before the infusion it was 20. At least ferritin of 100 is recommended for IBD patients in literature here, but that directive isn't followed at all. I'd been trying to raise ferritin by taking oral iron supplement for years but it didn't help. I didn't think the infusion helped with the exhaustion, but maybe it did a little bit - because the last couple of weeks I've been terribly exhausted again, like I hadn't been for a little while but I can't swear the last time was before the infusion. It also could just be the legal stuff I've been dealing with (re: the adoption which I've written in another post) the last two months, and my Mom's health stuff as well. It's been mentally hard since the start of August so that could a major reason for my exhaustion too. Because I'm a spoonie and don't have enough energy even for normal days, anything extra, whether it's physical or mental, can hit me hard and mostly it seems to show as exhaustion and tiredness.

Sometimes I feel bad about always posting bad things when I do these health updates, but the truth is that I don't have good weeks. My weeks are "okay" usually, and "bad" more often than I'd like. When days and weeks are "okay", there's nothing to write about. They're just full of just routine and usual typical things which in my case, are either neutral (like going to grocery shopping, paying bills etc. etc.) or some kind of negative (the adoption thing, or when I have to deal with bureaucracy of being sick and/or unemployed etc.) or major or minor pain (I have pain every day, just the intensity and location varies)... things that don't stand out of the rest. I'm so limited in what I can do due to pain and exhaustion that I don't do things like go to concerts or movies or see my friends weekly that'd be positive to make updates about. I'm mostly limited to just being home on my own.

Good days happens sometimes but often I realize it actually was a good day only the next day (because if a day has been good but then I get a migraine in the late evening, well that doesn't feel much like a good day anymore then because you mostly just remember the throbbing head pain) when I see that I had no notable headache the day before. And good day doesn't mean I did something out of the ordinary - it just means I had notably less pain than most days. A truly good day is when I have no notable pain *and* I see my best friend or Mom, and these days are so rare - maybe only once or twice a year now. So "okay" is my reality the vast majority of time but it does make for boring updates. But actually I'm grateful for "okay" because back when I didn't have Crohn's Disease diagnosis yet and my headache/migraine was much worse than it is now, "bad" was 100% of the time for many, many years. So I'm okay with "okay". Although I hope for more good days!

One bad news and one good news today:

Bad news - Mom's hip displaced again today again 😞 Mom's SO just called me, she's in the hospital right now.  She had a hip replacement surgery about 1,5 years ago, and in last May it happened the first time. And now a second time 🤕 This isn't a surprise just a disappointment; they warned her that it could happen again, and that it happens easier when it's once happened already. They also said in May that if it happens again Mom will have a new surgery to try and fix it. So that looks likely now. And her other hip is also getting bad enough that that too needs replacement surgery sooner rather than later. Fuck frail human bodies!

Good news - the judge approved my weak-adoption-to-strong-adoption application! 💖 So now my legal status is what we've always thought it to be! 💖😊 I'm so happy (and stunned) it took less than a month 💖💖💖 from the date when I delivered all the necessary papers to the court to get it processed! I thought it would take months because so much is made of the courts being backlogged badly. This doesn't help with the "heir of the biological father" thing, but now I can't inherit my bio mother and she (or my bio family in general) can't inherit me automatically 😊