I am missing an entire post. I know I wrote one for today (New Year’s Day), but I cannot find it anywhere. I have done all the tips and tricks to recall it, but it’s not to be found. So, I’ll mentally brush it off and move on. We’re still talking about my goals for the new year. Someone in Ask A Manager asked what people’s NY resolutions were. One person said they didn’t do resolutions, but they wanted to make monthly goals. That perked up my ears. They had done it before and they said that it had to be simple and concrete (basically) because of their ADHD brain.
I liked the idea. When I used to do resolutions, they were your usual ‘lose a million pounds in two weeks’ or ‘walk ten miles a day’ because I’m an all-or-nothing kind of person. That truly is not a humblebrag beacuse I know that it’s not a good way to be. Taiji has helped me chill out a bit, but there’s still the tendency for me to go way too hard.
I think goals will be better for me. The problem is, though, that if I set them too rigidly, I give up hope and quit. If I set them too loosley, however, then the chances are that I will never get it done. There has to be a sweet spot of holding myself accountable without getting too anal about it.
I took 2022 just to marvel at being alive and to come to grips with…well not being dead. I know that sounds glib, but I should be dead. I. Should. Be. Dead. I’m made my peace with it for the most part, but that doesn’t meant it doesn’t pop up in my mind every now and again. I can be just sitting on my couch, not doing anything much, when I’ll think, “I should be dead.” I know that sounds like a negative, but it’s not. It really is a positive thing. It’s wonderment and awe that I did not die that night a year and four months ago. And, that I did not die any day since.
Most people who have a cardiac arrest die immediately. 90%. 80% if it happens in a hospital. 70% if the patient receives CPR as it’s happening. That’s the percentage that dies, not lives. So even in the best-case scenariio, the chance of surviving a cardiac arrest. That’s one, by the way. A singular event. I cannot find anything about people who have had two in quick succession.
That’s not completely true. My home aide who washed my hair every Friday after I went home from the hospital, She told me about this guy she was….ah, dating, I guess you could say. An ex-boyfriend of hers who was a hockey coach. He had been on varsity hockey when he was in high school (which was when she knew him), and they had reconnected in the last year or so? I’m not exactly sure, but it was recently.
He had three heart attacks and was in a coma for months. When he came out of it, he would never work again. I don’t quite remember, but I don’t think he could walk, either. He had necroticizing flesh on his feet, which is pretty grim. She was pretty not-understand as she talked about how he weighed something like 400 pounds and lived with his brother. He was very involved in his niblings’ life, which she also scoffed at. I was amazed. The man had survived three heart attacks. I think he was allowed to do pretty much anything he fucking wanted to.
It reminds me, once again, that I was lucky. Not only to survive (say it with me), non-COVID-relatedwalking pneumonia, two cardiac arrests, and an ischemic stroke, but to have no lasting side effects except for one or two negligible ones. I really can’t stress enough how fucking lucky I am. So, yeah, I took a year to regain my equilibrium and to get strong again. After two months, I was able to get back to my weapons. Not all in one go, but it was the start of my journey back to ‘normal’.
I taught myself the Far Form after my medical crisis. I had to remind myself of the Double Saber Form, which is now my favorite form. I am polishing up on the left side of the Saber Form. I also hundo-chievo’ed Elden Ring. FromSoft, of course. It was everything I wanted it to be and more. I spent so many hours in that game, and I still probably haven’t seen everything. Well, I know I haven’t seen everything. But I’ve probably seen 95% of the content available.
I played it every day for hours, and it engrossed my mind even when I was playnig it. This is what happens whenever I play FromSoft games, and I have heard it from many other people. There’s something about the games that really capture your attention and don’t let go. It’s usually a boss fight that keeps you in that headspace.
I have heard many games journalists talrk about how they were fighting a boss and could not beat them. The journalist would take a break, maybe go to bed, but not be able to selep. When Dan Tack was at Game Informer, he was the one reviewing the game (of course. He was their FromSoft guy. Every outlet has one). He was talking in a video about an optional boss that he stumbled over as he was playing for review. He raved about how you had to go to this entirely different area–after unlocking it through another area, and then you got the privilege of fighting her.
He meant the hardest boss in the fight, and he could not stop raving about her. At another point, one of his colleagues asked what tattoo he would get if he had to get one. He said this boss. She is widely considered the hardest in the game (and perhaps the hardest From boss of all time), and Tack was clearly smitten with her.
I’ve only faced her once, but she wasn’t that difficult for me. It’s funny what is hard for some people isn’t for thores. The thing is the two worst things about her are more easily avoidable for me. One is her seven-move combo. Or something like that. It’s crazy long, and if you get caught in it, you’re dead. There’s no way around it. It’s actually three, then four, I think, but it’s long as hell. I watched so many people get caught in it and perish.
How did I get around it? I simply stayed away from her. I used an Incantation called Swarm of Flies that worked from a distance (yes, they were actual flies, and they traveled towards the enemy) and simply kept away from her. That was my technique for many bosses, both in this game in prior ones. In DS III, the spell is Dorhy’s Gnawing, and it does the same thing.
This was also helpful with the second issue–she heals herself. That’s right. She gets health back, but only when she hurts you. So basically a health steal. Which, as you can guess, is frustrating as fuck. She gets health back from hurting anyone in the arena, including your summons.
When I went in to fight her, I knew her health steal gimmick. I was not looknig forward to her. At all. It’s near the end of the game, and quite frankly, I was run down. I was done with it. D-O-N-E. I knew I was going to fight her, though, because how could I not? I had no intention of truly soloing her because I was not about that any longer. Me and my Mimic were going to take her down, and I was resigned to taking days to do it.
I went in and…she wasn’t too bad? She wasn’t fun, but she wasn’t as hard as everyone had said. I got her down to her second phase (because of course she had a second phase) within five or six tries. I don’t think I had Swarm of Flies at this point, but went and got it.
I was freaking out because I didn’t find her THAT hard. What the hell was wrong with me? Why was this not the backbreaker I had thought it would be? The second phase was magnificent! She does this flower burst that will kill you in one! Except…if you roll towards her, you can escape all of it. Also, I did not know this as I fought her, but she can send clones at you during this phase. I honestly did not know this until after I fought her because either she did not do it against me or I just ignored it. Or I wiped it form my memory. I honestly can’t remember.
We’re running late again. I will say that I wan tto get my sit/stand desk and peripherals in January to start off the year right. We’ll talk more tomorrow.