Tag: end of year | A Banana Peeled

The end of the year as we know it

Posted on December 30, 2023 by Minna Hong • 0 Comments

We are rolling along to the end of 2023. This was my second bonus year, which means the end of my terrible twos. I’m going to be three, which means it’s time to pull myself up by my bootstraps. No more lolling around for me!

I have an idea floating in my brain about pop culture. See, I don’t really like much of pop culture. It’s trash, let’s be honest. I don’t think that’s controversial to say. It’s been that way for all of time, so we might as well just be truthful. I remember watching Knives Out right after it came out because I love Hercule Poirot. The novels (though they are problematic now) are some of my favorites and David Suchet is sublime.

Side Note: Can we stop with Poirot portrayals now? Please? I have not even watched the Branagh ones because I hated the trailers. I thought they were too slick and missed the whole point of the character. I really hate the overacting Branagh does as Poirot.

The only new Poirot I would countenance would be one who was actually playedh by a Belgian actor and was from his days on the Belgian Police Force. In other words, save for one story, completely new material. I would be all up for that. But, again, only if it’s an actual Belgian and not a Brit pretending to be a Belgian.

Seriously. Suchet is the end-all, be-all for that portrayal, and we can shut that shit down now. Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

Anyway.

I really wanted to like Knives Out. I went into it hoping in my heart of hearts that I would like it. I wanted it to be like Poirot. I knew it wasn’t going to be from the trailer, but I still hoped. I hated it within five minutes, and I knew that I was in for a grim time. I also knew who the killer was from the first time I saw them, and even though the movie tried its best to have twists and turns, I was right. And it was for the most mundane and boring reason in the world.

There was nothing original about the movie, and I hated the hyper-cuts. I hated the characters, and I only loved Jamie Lee Curtis chewing up the scenery. I thought it was a terrible movie, and that was when I gave up on movies. I had tried for so long to like them, but I just did not.

Musings at the end of the year

Posted on December 27, 2023 by Minna Hong • 0 Comments

It’s Christmas Day as I’m writing this. Night, really. It’s 5:45 p.m. I ‘m not doing much of anything, but I got two wonderful prezzies. A minifig of Vyke from Elden Ring from Ian and a worry (crystal) stone from Kathleen.

The latter fits perfectly in my hand and feels really good. It has a few cracks on it, which is just the way it should be. The former is a small, but important character in the game. He is integral to my favorite ending, and there is something you can do with his spear that helps in a very fiddly area.

My nibling sent me a sweet Christmas message from their trip to Taiwan, and it’s been a day filled with holiday cheer. Well, remotely, anyway. I don’t decorate and I’m not a holiday person, but the two forums I follow (one as an active member and the other more casually), are filled with holiday cheer. Especially the RKG Discord. Everyone is posting pictures of the food they are eating, and I’m drooling.

I think that I’m going to change things up for 2024. I have talked about moving to video because blogging is dead. This is for me, basically.

It’s the day after Christmas and I’m back. This is the time of year to think about the year that had passed and the year to come. I don’t do resolutions any longer, but I do like to set goals.

As I was saying, blogging is mostly dead. I accept that people don’t read any longer. To be honest, I don’t read much either. It’s the hazard of being online so much, I think. And giving into the impulse to jump from website to website. It’s too easy to be distracted if you don’t have good discipline–which I don’t more often than not.

For the next few days, I’m going to outline what I want to do in the new year. Again, not resolutions, but goals. The last two years have just been me adjusting to being alive. Again. Still? Still alive. There is the video for the post.

The first month after my medical crisis, my mother started pestering about what I was going to do with my life. I was still battling the drugs in my veins (which were SO NICE) and with the fact that I had died twice. i was not thinking about what I was going to do with my life. I had no idea why she was pushing me on it when she should have just been grateful I was still on this earth. When my brother and I took them to the airport, I was sitting as they walkejd around because I was exhausted. My brother told me later that they pushed him about what I was going to do with my life. Why the hell they asked him, I do not know.

Holly jolly and all that

Posted on December 25, 2021 by Minna Hong • 0 Comments

‘Twas the night before Christmas
When all through the house
Not a creature was stirring
Except for my computer mouse.

For a hot second, I was tempted to rewrite the entire poem, but then I came to my senses. It’s the end of a really rough year in so many ways. We’re still in the middle of a pandemic, though I think we can rightfully call it endemic now (my brain doc agreed with me). I was in the hospital for two weeks with life-threatening issues and I was so fucking lucky to escape mostly unscathed.

I’ve been doing a lot of research into Sudden Cardiac Arrests (SCAs) in the past week or two. My heart doc told me the last time I talked to him that his patients and their families become experts in SCAs in ways that even the medical experts aren’t. He’s right. And since it’s in my nature to research stuff, that’s what I’ve been doing. I signed up for the SCAF (Foundation) website and I’ll keep searching for a support group.

My problem is that I’m in a very small group. Only 10% of people who suffer an out-of-the-hospital SCAs actually survive. The number doubles for in-the-hospital SCAs. Even though mine were technically the former, it functions more like the latter since the EMTs got to me within minutes. At least the cops did.

Of that 10% who survive, most of them are expected to have some brain damage/other damage. I was without oxygen for some amount of time, though we are not sure exactly how long. At first, they thought it was thirty minutes, but it turned out to be more like ten minutes. Still not great, obviously, but better than thirty minutes. Still. The brain should not go without oxygen for more than three minutes. Mine went for over three times that amount.

I don’t have much problem accepting that all this happened to me or that I went through something medically traumatic. What I do have a hard time accepting is that I escaped it seemingly without any lasting physical damage. Survivor’s guilt is real and I’m struggling with it. Why the hell was I spared from the grim realities of what happened to me? I’ve read other stories of miraculous SCA survivals and even in those, there is still SOME damage. Or it took much longer to recover. I was walking normally within three days of waking up. I had a few issues with my vision and a huge issue with my stamina. I had a mild tremor in my middle left finger. That was the extent of it, though, and it all went away within the first month of returning home–except the stamina. I had a walker, but I never needed it to walk. I had someone help me wash my hair for two months, but that was simply a stamina issue. I could have done it myself if not for the part where I got tired so easily. I didn’t need the commode my brother put together and I was able to make it to the bathroom from the start. I didn’t have any accidents and stopped wearing my pull-up briefs after a month or so.

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