@Kanye-Qwest said in Health and Wealth and GrownUp Stuff:
Austin is an amazing, wonderful city. Four thumbs up! Expensive, but definitely not more so than SF, NY, or any of the others. I hope you own a car. Like all cities in Texas, public transport is kind of a joke.
I do not. But that's part of the hope in it being a more affordable place to live; being able to actually -buy- a car. Right now I don't have the money to spare.
@Ganymede said in Health and Wealth and GrownUp Stuff:
@Auspice said in Health and Wealth and GrownUp Stuff:
It just sucks to think that trying to get out of living paycheck to paycheck... may be stymied by being in said state to begin with.
I know you work remotely, so you could really work anywhere, right? Austin, I hear, is really nifty, but it's also, I've heard, hipster central.
Egads.
It's true. But it also has opportunity for better jobs in the industry my degree is in. The other cities with said jobs are where I am now (Seattle), San Francisco, New York, Chicago, etc.... Austin is the best of the lot.
I actually get along well with hipsters. 
I get itchy feet. As in... I like to move every couple of years. It's been that way since I was a teenager. I try to settle down and stick in a place, but it's hard. Nowhere has ever really 'stuck' with me.
The time has come to move again. I want to try somewhere new. I also am struggling, constantly, to make ends meet where I am. It's just too expensive and I've utterly failed at finding a better job and I'm closing in on two years. So, as I have a job that goes where I go (telecommute), why not move?
I've already picked out an apartment complex in Austin (thanks to @Admiral's recc). Now I just have to get the funds together to actually move. Which... is turning out to be tricky. I thought I'd have student loans, but... apparently I don't have any 'overage' this semester. I had just enough to cover everything (well, not even; apparently I was a couple hundred shy and got a slice of a scholarship and they forgot to inform me).
I'm gonna start shopping around banks for private loans. I've already done projections on rent, utilities, etc.... I know my overall costs will drop by a decent (not a huge, but enough) bit after the move. Enough that I could comfortably pay back said loan. I just hope my shit credit doesn't make this impossible. It just sucks to think that trying to get out of living paycheck to paycheck... may be stymied by being in said state to begin with.
So going up to 150mg on the Trokendi seemed to finally cut my migraines back to 2, sometimes 3 episodes a week. Which made things pretty manageable. I felt human again. Or moreso than I had since February.
Except the paresthesia was bad. Real bad. It was constant throughout my face, sometimes up into my scalp. My arms, up to my elbows. And at night, in my feet, sometimes so bad it'd keep me awake.
So the neuro told me to take a week cutting back to 100mg.
It hasn't even been a week yet and the migraines are already back so bad that I'm back to barely functional and not eating. So I guess I have to just take that plunge to live with paresthesia in my face, arms, and feet... but less migraines or nausea. ![😕](http://musoapbox.net/assets/plugins/nodebb-plugin-emoji/emoji/android/1f615.png?v=4vfms5ns7sl ":\")
Since she started doing my laundry, I do feel guilty for enjoying Coin's mom.
@Catsmeow said in RL things I love:
Have you used any of the Infinity Stone colors?
I have not! Tho I have been happy with everything I've gotten from her.
Went to urgent care a week ago due to the flu having still been extant after a week.
...I am still using my inhaler every 20 minutes. Still coughing.
Guess I'm going to the doctor again tomorrow. 
I clean my cat's box once a week. Mostly because I can't handle kneeling down to do so more often. I need one of them fancy self-cleaning boxes.
I get a higher-end store-bought food. I actually tried an even-fancier food once and... she got sick. Really sick. I have an un-opened bag of it still. $20 for a 7lb bag and I have nfc what to do with it. 
This, for a cat who was born a stray that I hand-raised. Who gets her yearly vet visits and shots and is absolutely loved and adored by the vet and has a clean bill of health. Who I don't brush her teeth at home because she flips out on me (I'm not gonna have my hands torn to shreds alright) and yet, at 8 years old, the vet said she has amazing teeth for her age at her last checkup.
So, y'know, people who concern-fuss at you over your pet? Can fuck right off. It's your pet. You're the one taking care of them day in and out. You know what's best for them.
An indie nail polish company I 
is making some hand lotions. Everything she does has geeky (usually punny) names. For a cinnamon bun-scented lotion, she's doing a naming contest.
I submitted 'The Chosen Bun.'
It is currently leading the vote with 17 votes.
The next name has 3.
I am very pleased with this.
@Thenomain said in RL things I love:
@Catsmeow said in RL things I love:
Tattoo!!
I got my first one tonight and my sister got one too. This is super huge as we haven't been close for so many years. It was her first one and we got the same thing (but altered colors) and the same location.
Also, the pain wasn't as bad as I thought.
The most important question: Are. They. Cats.
I was just thinking last night about my planned cat tattoo and how I want to get it soon.
I may actually put my origami crane tattoo on hold to get the cat instead, tbh.
@Meg and now one of my coworkers is being a condescending asshole on top of everything. my friend who is supposed to be on my side. i didn't sign up for this shit.
poaches Meg, drags to Seattle
I approve.
@Coin said in Date Thenomain:
@Catsmeow said in Date Thenomain:
Princess Bride is just from my childhood, though I do try to get everyone to watch it.
I've seen all the Indiana Jones movies (we won't talk about the crystal skull one)
I saw Avatar on a date. I wasn't overly impressed. I mean it was pretty, but that's about it. Oh and it had 'kitties' but yeah.
Gonna be honest, I can't remember my thoughts on Inception -- which probably speaks for itself.Inception overestimates how interesting its premise is by assuming everyone is going to view it and react to it the way someone who is not versed in science fiction or fantasy of speculative fiction will.
While some people who are versed still really liked it, a very large portion of geek culture viewed it as a SFX-heavy movie about mind-control through dream manipulation, which is hardly a novel concept in science fiction.
That's where the dissonance between "WOW HOW AWESOME" and "it was aiight" and "meh" comes from. The more informed you are about these specific tropes in the genre, the less likely you are to be wowed by it, because the movie isn't particularly original about how it does it, it just has better access to visual effects.
Right. Inception just sort of felt like this movie made for people who have never engaged in speculative fiction in their lives to sit around and go 'I am so amazingly intelligent because I 'got' it.'
@HelloProject said in Date Thenomain:
I haven't seen most Mel Brooks movies, though I plan to.
I don't care about Jaws because it's a movie about a shark and it doesn't even have lasers or is a ghost.
I've never seen any Indiana Jones movie.
I don't care about Avatar (the blue people), because the concept sounds boring, so I never watched it.
I hate Inception.
I've seen snippets of Avatar and tried to start watching it. It's not for me.
I watched Inception. I did not like it. Yes, good use of SFX. Meh story.
I do think you should give at least Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark (the first) a chance. It's a classic for me. If it's not your bag, it's not, but it's just one of my childhood gems. 
@KDraygo said in Health and Wealth and GrownUp Stuff:
One thing that I don't believe anyone has mentioned though I was skimming the thread is that lack of sleep can attribute to weight gain. The less you sleep, the hungrier you usually get. When you get more sleep, your body tends to not get as hungry. Also, unless you have zero muscle mass, 170 at over six feet isn't bad. Having an elliptical at home works wonders for those who dislike going to the gym or doing strenuous exercises outdoors. You can even binge watch Netflix/Hulu/Whatever while you stay on the elliptical.
REM is also when the body does a lot of its healing. I actually believe my sinus surgery and ability to begin hitting REM at long last (once I finally healed up last summer) is a large part of why I began losing weight. I began sleeping better and suddenly, I noticed a huge uptick in my ability to see progress. So it's not just the hunger factor.
And if an elliptical isn't up your alley... There's the 'FitDesk.' It's a stationary bike with an attached laptop desk. I have one (also much cheaper than the average elliptical)! https://www.amazon.com/FitDesk-Desk-Exercise-Bike-Massage/dp/B00CM9CBZY/
Right now? I'd just take this flu to be over. It's been ravaging my system for over a week.. to the point I'm starting to wonder if it's something !flu. But the urgent care doc felt it was still 'just the flu.'
I hate sacrificing artistic integrity, I really do. And I probably would've just stuck to writing my story, esp since classmates liked it. But I think I got through to her in the workshop, thankfully.
I think, for whatever reason, she just wasn't actually paying full attention to what I was writing. Like maybe she was just sort of glossing over all my other treatments/outlines so far.
Which sadly meant I had to argue my story while suffering a massive migraine and in the midst of an anxiety attack, so I almost snapped at the woman. But we finally ended up on the same page and all is well, but jfc.
At least I saw that I was not the only one she was arguing some insane stuff with. She is definitely one of those people whose life went the "those who can't, teach" route (I am not saying everyone who teaches is this way, but there are some who exemplify it).
