Underneath my yellow skin

Tag Archives: climate change

Taking a risk–and my daily weather report

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I’m back with the daily weather report. It’s 50F right now, but got up to the sixties earlier. Here is my post from yesterday in which I talked about whatever was on my mind. We’re supposed to get up to 78F tomorrow. I have a private lesson, which we might actually be able to do outside if it doesn’t rain (afternoon showers are predicted). I don’t mind going outside in a drizzle as long as there are no flies/mosquitos/wasps/other bugs. If there are any bugs, I will not go outside.

Bugs love me so much. The last time I went out when there were bugs, I got bit by a wasp–and I couldn’t help but scratch it. Therefore, it got infected, and I had to go to the doctor for antibiotics. Fortunately, a ten-day regiment (started with seven and added three) worked–even though the first seven days didn’t completely do the job. My finger was swollen to approximately four times the regular size (only a slight exaggeration), and I feared that it was going to be worse than it actually was. Fortunately, the last three days of the treatment took care of it, otherwise, who knows what the fuck I would do?

My long-standing joke that isn’t really a joke is that I’m allergic to everything including air. Another is that I like the outdoors as long as there’s a door between it and me. The third is that I like the outdoors, but the outdoors hates me.None of these are really jokes, though. Everything outside affects me negatively, which means I stay inside as much as possible.

When I used to play tennis as a kid with my family and my parents’ friends, the mosquitoes would eat me alive while they left my father strictly alone. As a result, he did not believe that they bit me (anything that did not happen to him did not happen at all), which was doubly frustrating.

Honestly, it’s such a pain. Whenever I’m outside, I feel like I have to be on my guard. The problem is that I can’t really protect myself against things like wasps because they’re too fast for me. If I didn’t have to care about infection, then I wouldn’t worry so much. I don’t mind getting bit (I do) as long as the bites don’t blow up.

To wildly switch subjects, my mom told me about being audited by the regulatory board that governs the field she’s in. She needs to get 40 credits (which is common in many careers) a year, which she easily did because she taught/trained a lot. The problem was that she did not keep any records, so she has no proof that she did any of it.

She complained that the board had gotten so strict with the little laugh she did when she was annoyed/flustered/upset. She also has an issue doing anything online because she has an almost phobic response to it. She knows that it’s irrational, but she can’t do anything about it. Or rather, she won’t get the help she needs to get past it.


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Back with more bullshit

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I am back with another weather report. It’s going to fascinate me until the threat of a frost has passed. At the rate we’re going, it won’t be until winter comes–and then it won’t be at all. it’s currently 44F, and this is the lowest it’s supposed to get in the next week or ten days. I’m wearing a hoodie, which I had thought I would not need again this season.

I have said several times that I love the cold. If it could be under forty year round, I would be down with that. The problem is when it switches from seventies to forties over the course of a single day. My body is so not happy. Even though I’m mostly inside where the temp is a calming 62 degrees.

I managed to get to bed around three-thirty, which is istll within the range of when I want to get to bed. I’m shooting for three, but I’ll take this as a huge win considering that I’ve gone from eight in the morning to three-thirty within a matter of days.

It’s got me thinking about other problems in my life and how I deal with them in a similar fashion.  What I mean is that I ignore them, try the obvious solutions, ignore them some  more, then try something radical that may or may not work.

Like with my sleep issues, the bad decision I made (staying up for 72 hours) led to the better decision I made (reverting to my previous habit of doing what I neded to do before doing the fun stuff). Today, I backslid a bit, but as long as I get my shit down by three-thirty/four, it’s fine. Or at least keeping me on track. As I said in yesterday’s post (or the one before, maybe), I would ideally like to make three in the morning my consistent go to bed time. I’m close to it and I’m doing a good job, but I’m worried that I’ll let myself slip little by little until I’m back to my old schedule.

I got a good seven hours last night, but it could have been more if  Ihadn’t fucked up my alarm. What I mean is that I didn’t reset my alarm from 11 a.m. (for my Zoom Taiji class yesterday)  to something later than that. That means that I got up at eleven, even though I was aiming for twelve.

I do wonder what is fucking up my memory even more so than it’s normally fucked. It’s been markedly worse in the last few weeks, and I’m sure it’s a vicious cycle with my lack of sleep. or rather, broken sleep. I have accepted I now have a shitty memory since my medical crisis, but it’s gotten even worse in the past few weeks.


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Groove is in my head

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I’m back with the weather report once again. Right now it’s 55F, which is nice for me. It’s supposed to get down to near-freezing tonight, which…look, we all know I love the cold. I think I have been pretty clear on that. However, I am having the roughest time with the wildly fluctuating temps. My body is, I mean. Here is my post from yesterday, and I’ll just keep going with my musings in this post.

At the same time, I’m just exhausted from the lack of sleep. I mean, I don’t sleep well in general, but I’ve been managing to have decent sleep until the last month or so. Maybe a few months? It’s been especially terrible in the last few weeks. Going to bed at eight or nine and still forcing myself up by two-thirty because I was determined to have a regular time to get up. I was hoping that it would force me to go to bed earlier. Did this work? No. Did I really think it would work? No.

I know myself. I know the way my brain (doesn’t) work. I know what I can make myself do and what I can’t. And yet, I still foolishly do things I know won’t work. It’s not even as if I’m fooling myself–it’s me trying to convince me that I can fool myself.

I think this is one of the things that frustrates me the most about my weird-ass brain. I know what I can and can’t do, but I still try to do the thintg that I know won’t work with the futile hope that it’ll end differently this time.

What I’ve learn is that I just have to do something big and completely different. NOT stay up for 72 hours straight, but moving from one computer to another by a certain time after actually doing the first thing I need to do. This is how I used to do it back in the day before I had my medical crisis.

Side note: I’m exhausted. I’m so tired. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. After having so much trouble sleeping and being so sleep-deprived, now that I’ve actually gotten a few nights of decent sleep, I’m more tired than ever. I’m not alarmed because that’s how it’s been in the past. My body can get used to not sleeping much (at least when I was younger), but once I start making up the deficit, my body wants more.

I don’t know if there is ever a point when I’ll be truly caught. I’m guessing that if I do this for, say, like six months, I’ll make up a good portion of that. Even if I don’t, I’ll still get more sleep and more consistent sleep than I have already so it’ll be a net plus. That’s the thing I have to remind myself about any progress I make–it’s progress. Even if it’s not as big or as much as I want, I’m still better than I used to be.


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Whatever the hell I want

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I’m back with the daily weather report (only because it’s been so wild lately). Last night,  we hit freezing for a hot minute. Now, it’s a toasty 57 degrees, and it seems like we’re finally having spring. We’re actually supposed to hit 81 a week from Saturday. While I personally would be happy if we never went over eighty (seventy!), I know most people would not agree with me. Also, it’s really bad for the climate. At least I’m assuming the fact that we are perpetually in winter isn’t good for the climate in general.

So, last night, I managed to go to bed at three. Which, for me, is four to five hours earlier than usual. These days, anyway. And I managed to get eight-ish hours of sleep. Which, again, these days is a fucking miracle. See, I’ve been going to bed later and later, but I’ve been firm about getting up at the same time. This is the way I’ve been trying to fix my broken sleep schedule. I’ve said for some time that I’m trying to make it three to eleven because that’s about as normal as it gets for me. Also, that’s what actually works best fro me.

Side note: K and I have talked about this several times. When she was here, she was a night person like I was. Although she could not indulge in it the way I do because she’s a teacher. Which, as you probably know, has crazy early hours. That sometimes runs into very late hours. And once she had a kid, well, she had to sleep pretty much whenever she got an hour here and there. But back in those days, she was happiest with three to eleven like me.

I know all the experts say you should get to bed before midnight, blah, blah,blah. I have not gotten to bed before midnight since I was seven–except for the time right after my medical crisis. It only took a year for me to get back to going to bed around three in the morning, though.

I don’t know what kicked me into going to bed at five or six, but I feel like it’s a fairly recent event. Maybe the occupation of Minneapolis by ICE? Actually, that’s possible, but I feel it was a bit further back than that. At any rate, going to bed at seven in the morning (and I’ve gotten as late/early as nine) is too late even for me.

If I could make my sleep schedule three to eleven on the regular, I would be satisfied with that. There is no way I can make it much earlier than that. I have tried to target one in the morning, but that’s when I feel the most awake. Midnight to three or four, to be precise.


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I can’t believe it’s May

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Right now, it’s 40 degrees, but it ‘feels like’ 39. On May 5th. We are nearly halfway through the year, and we’re still having frost warnings. As anyone who knows anything about me knows, I love cold weather–the colder the better. The problem is that I do not love cold mixed with hot. Going from one to the other day to day is really fucking with my inner something or the other. Not sure what, but it’s really hard on my body. Even if it’s a steady 62 degrees in the house, my body is rebelling against the wild temperature swings. I mean, it was over seventy a few days ago, and now we’re almost below forty.

I switched the thermometer to AC once or twice in the past few weeks, but then I had to put it back to the heater for the rest of the time. It’s currently on heater and I’m just leaving it there because I don’t actually turn on the AC until it’s at least 75. It used to be even higher, but I’m living a little in my old age. Actually, I only keep it that low during my Taiji and Bagua routine and then bump it back up to 76.

I would not be unhappy if we did not go over eighty for the whole summer. not only do I hate hot weather, but I hate the bugs that the hot weather brings. Ants, flies, mosquitoes, wasps, and all the other jerks that I do not want to encounter. I rarely go outside for long stretches of time because all I see are enemies. One of the few times I had an outside private lesson with my teacher two years ago in the summer, I got bitten by a wasp. It got infected, and I had to go to the doctor.

Mosquitoes love me, too. I remember playing tennis with my father when I was younger. The mosquitoes would devour me while they left him strictly alone. It didn’t matter how much I drenched myself in mosquito repellant–I would be covered with bites by the time I got home.

When I was in my early twenties, I spent two months in Taiwan–in their summer. One time, the nurse at the house (long story) gave me a ride on her motorbike. Not a motorcycle–more like a scooter. When we got home, my legs were covered with mosquito bites–and I mean covered. There were upwards of forty of them on each leg. I didn’t know for sure because I lost count. Then, an hour later, they swelled up really badly. Each was about the size of a tangerine. I probably should have gone to the doctor, but I didn’t. I was lucky that nothing bad happened (other than massive itching), but it really underscored  how much the outdoors hated me. It didn’t matter whether I like the outdoors or not because it fucking wants to kill me.


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