Kevin's Watch

I feel a little squishy and lumpy--but one of my cats seems to find my right hip a comfy resting spot as that is where she is napping at the moment.

Hey there, long time no see.

Hi, ChoChiyo. We haven't met but I thought I'd say hello.


Well, I have oral surgery today. Apparently either my previous implant or my stress caused a fracture in my jaw. So they took out the metal thingy and put cadaver bone in the fracture. I won't get a new implant for about 4 months. My dental insurance is only covering 700 of the 7900 bill. blech.

The other thing that is upsetting me is I tried, I really tried not to use pain killers when I woke up. But man this pain is worse than any other surgery I have had. So I took a pain pill. I had just spent long months getting off Percocet from my ruptured back and am really upset with myself for giving in. He was going to give me 30 but I told the doctor only to give me 9 pills for 3 days and not to offer me any more. I feel weak for giving in but I'm no hero.

Dental pain is just about the worst. Hope you feel better soon.

Hello, ChoChiyo, haven't met you in person, but seen a lot of the aftermath in the Mallory's And I see you've found the way back there already

lorin wrote:Apparently either my previous implant or my stress caused a fracture in my jaw. So they took out the metal thingy and put cadaver bone in the fracture. I won't get a new implant for about 4 months. My dental insurance is only covering 700 of the 7900 bill. blech.

The other thing that is upsetting me is I tried, I really tried not to use pain killers when I woke up. But man this pain is worse than any other surgery I have had. So I took a pain pill. I had just spent long months getting off Percocet from my ruptured back and am really upset with myself for giving in. He was going to give me 30 but I told the doctor only to give me 9 pills for 3 days and not to offer me any more. I feel weak for giving in but I'm no hero.

Not sure if this is going to work for you, but there is such a thing - an acupuncture-like way to somewhat dim tooth pain, tried a few times, worked at least to an extent, though not sure about how much individual it is and how it works about jaw bones, and particularly if it's so bad - if I'm not mistaken, it's about jaw nerves in general, tried on teeth only myself, but I don't know for sure, it did help to at least dim some really serious pain.

Anyway, just in case: the point to press is almost right below the nose, far above the upper lip - practically right above the roots of the upper front teeth, can be pressed witha nail or something like that, might feel a bit odd, not like pressing in just any place, 20-30 times should work if it works at all.

lorin wrote:Hi, ChoChiyo. We haven't met but I thought I'd say hello.


The other thing that is upsetting me is I tried, I really tried not to use pain killers when I woke up. But man this pain is worse than any other surgery I have had. So I took a pain pill. I had just spent long months getting off Percocet from my ruptured back and am really upset with myself for giving in. He was going to give me 30 but I told the doctor only to give me 9 pills for 3 days and not to offer me any more. I feel weak for giving in but I'm no hero.

I have pain pills (codeine, nothing too extreme) for my knees, but I can make a 30 pill bottle last for about 6 months. That means I walk around in moderate pain almost every day--but when the pain kicks into high gear, I take a pill. No sense being in pain when there are drugs to prevent it.

I also believe that dental pain is one of the most awful...and no one likes pain--unless they have some serious psychological issues.

Hang in there!

lorin....I know it may only help a very marginal amount, but:

Effaeldm wrote: Anyway, just in case: the point to press is almost right below the nose, far above the upper lip - practically right above the roots of the upper front teeth, can be pressed witha nail or something like that, might feel a bit odd, not like pressing in just any place, 20-30 times should work if it works at all.

I tried this. It made my upper lip numb like novocain. Didn't work for the back molar though (or where it was). Thanks for the suggestion.

And thanks everyone for the sympathy. Sometimes that works nearly as well as the pills. (nearly)

So I found this in my photo albums. Me at 9 or 10 I guess. Thought it was timely.

What an adorable young one you were! Is that a sekkrit dekoder ring I see on your finger????

My latest home improvement binge has ended due to lack of funds, but at least I finally finished spackling, and half of the ghastly painting. It actually looks decent; it's the fumes that are ghastly.

Now I'd just like to have words with the person that painted the floor blue. I don't think they used the proper sort of paint, presuming there is such a thing. Who paints a floor? Who paints a floor electric blue? Leprous electric blue now, since it tends to peel when scrubbed.

ChoChiyo wrote:What an adorable young one you were! Is that a sekkrit dekoder ring I see on your finger????

Funny, I was looking at that too. I can't, for the life of me, remember that ring. Of course, I don't remember much of my childhood to begin with.

Sorus wrote: Now I'd just like to have words with the person that painted the floor blue. I don't think they used the proper sort of paint, presuming there is such a thing. Who paints a floor? Who paints a floor electric blue? Leprous electric blue now, since it tends to peel when scrubbed.

Show us pics!!! When I was 16 my parents made the mistake of letting me paint my room. I painted the the room red and white stripes and the floor blue. AND I painted the ceiling black! What can I say, I was a child of the early 70's.

Perhaps painting floors blue is a Thing. Who knew?



This doesn't do it justice. It's brighter in person. The brownish parts are where the paint has peeled. The white splotches are drips from when my predecessor painted the ceiling.

The only good thing is that my landlord doesn't care what I do, because there really isn't any way I could make it worse.



...which is how I can get away with painting my walls metallic silver.

Well, now. The silver is impressive. Does having silver painted walls keep the CIA and aliens from reading your thoughts? Painting the room silver would be much easier than wallpapering the entire building in tinfoil. (We know tinfoil works.)

That's a very nice looking black cat. I have a strong affinity for black cats--or any cat, really. They keep ghosts and ghouls and possibly zombies at bay as well.

I believe an oil based paint is necessary for floor painting. I painted the floors in my old house a warm brown which looked nice with the oak woodwork that was in there. Sadly, the morons who owned the house before me decided to paint several of the beautiful oak doors off white with some nasty flat paint. It flaked and peeled constantly but was a buggar to sand off to stain and restore.

I loved that house. Sadly, when my life went to shit, I lost it. I miss that house.

Cho, while I am not advocating that you ignore what is in the rear-view mirror, my suggestion is that you take heart from the way that luci and Menolly have each turned their lives around in recent years...and lorin is on the cusp of doing so.

Perhaps this is why you were led back here now?

Courage!

You never know. I was too depressed for two years to do much at all. I slept a lot and contemplated suicide every single day. But I am still here.

If I can survive through this year and next I can tap into my retirement account and perhaps even get my own place again. Right now, I am living in a dingy, almost windowless room in my mother's basement with my three cats. They have to stay in only this area because my mother doesn't want cat hair in the rest of the house. It's heart breaking to see the poor things try to romp and play--they used to have three floors to tear through. Now they have a walkway about a foot wide to run in. Everything I have left is packed in here with me because my mother doesn't want my stuff in her living area either.

I'd say 95 percent of my stuff had to be disposed of because there just wasn't a place for it here. It's been a hard road.

Sorus wrote: ...which is how I can get away with painting my walls metallic silver.

I like the silver. How does it do with light? Does it reflect and make it all glarey? What color is your ceiling?

Savor Dam wrote:and lorin is on the cusp of doing so.

Cusp, one of my favorite words.

ChoChiyo wrote: It's been a hard road.

I hear you. All I can say is it really is about perspective .......and choice. In the last year I lost my house, my job, and a few other things we won't go into. It took a while, but I began to look at all the loss differently. I began to view my life as a big walk-in closet. There was space enough, shelves enough for everything. But over the years I had filled my closet up with so much junk that I had no room left in there to put the essentials. So the loss of a job and a house and other stuff became just cleaning out the closet. Slowly I'm putting things in order, making room for the essentials.

Now, not speaking metaphorically here is the deal. I was in a huge job that defined me. I had a huge house that controlled me. I had three foster kids that ran me. There was no me. So I let it go and it was hard. Really hard. It still is. I had to find the value in self, which is not easy when I lost myself years ago. But every day becomes easier. Every day I learn to forgive myself a little more.

I never liked that quote from SRD "There's only one way to hurt a man who's lost everything. Give him back something broken." I say take that something broken and fix it.

ChoChiyo wrote:Well, now. The silver is impressive. Does having silver painted walls keep the CIA and aliens from reading your thoughts? Painting the room silver would be much easier than wallpapering the entire building in tinfoil. (We know tinfoil works.)

It's too soon to tell for certain, but early results are promising.

ChoChiyo wrote:That's a very nice looking black cat. I have a strong affinity for black cats--or any cat, really. They keep ghosts and ghouls and possibly zombies at bay as well.

That is Director Donner (Min to her friends) - one of my two black cats. Ghosts, ghouls, zombies, and spiders are in short supply in these parts.

I'm pretty much in the same boat. I was laid off when the economy went to hell and my current job pays well under the minimum required to survive in this city. Lost my apartment and almost everything (all my possessions fit neatly into eight small U-Haul boxes). In a microscopic studio now, no windows, no kitchen... but on the plus side, it's no longer painted clashing red and purple. That went REALLY well with the blue floor. Have also fixed the larger holes in the walls, so less spiders. (Sorry, cats.)

Losing everything was both devastating and cathartic. Most of the time I feel lighter, but sometimes I just feel empty. If I didn't have my cats to come home to, I probably wouldn't come home.

lorin wrote:I like the silver. How does it do with light? Does it reflect and make it all glarey? What color is your ceiling?

I have no natural light, so it doesn't get too garish. More that it accentuates shadows and adds depth. The ceiling is white, currently. Am guessing my predecessor ran out of purple and I'm very glad he had no access to orange. Or green. I'm thinking of going with a dark grey, though concerned that a dark color will make the space appear even smaller, which is the opposite of what I'm trying to do.

Sorus wrote: I have no natural light, so it doesn't get too garish. More that it accentuates shadows and adds depth. The ceiling is white, currently. Am guessing my predecessor ran out of purple and I'm very glad he had no access to orange. Or green. I'm thinking of going with a dark grey, though concerned that a dark color will make the space appear even smaller, which is the opposite of what I'm trying to do.

I saw some pretty cool fake windows that are really inspiring
www.ubergizmo.com/2007/11/fake-window-b ... the-blues/
www.foundshit.com/fake-windows-decor/
lisasroombyroom.blogspot.com/2011/03/room-with-fake-view.html

here is a great idea to integrate silver and dark gray.
www.squarestate.net/creative-handmade-a ... -interior/


I hope you have a carbon monoxide detector in your studio since there are no windows. I sleep in a basement near the boiler and it is always a concern for me.

I have a whole wall that's just blank white, and I've wanted to do something with it, but held off because I was going to paint it. Am going to paint it. You know, eventually. And once it's grey or silver or whatever, I like the fake window idea. Though I'm leaning toward more of a space theme to go with the whole sci-fi/steampunk thing I have going. I should probably avoid anything too outré, though I may have already crossed that line.

And, knowing me, I'll have another existential crisis and lose initiative for another six months. All the more reason to get as much as possible done now...

I've had this nagging "You're forgetting to do something" feeling for five days now. I can't imagine what it could be, and it seems like something important would have upgraded to a panic attack by now. That does happen to me with tiresome regularity, but I can usually figure out the cause fairly quickly.