Underneath my yellow skin

Tag Archives: exhausted

Going back to my comfort gaming–Dark Souls III

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back into the groove.
Fire to the face, Iudex!

I did it. I reinstalled Dark Souls III on my laptop. When I’m sick and exhausted, I can’t play a new game. I don’t have the bandwidth to figure things out, especially as I tend to like so-called difficult games. I know it’s a funny thing to say, but Dark Souls games are comfort food for me, and, yes, I mean specifically Dark Souls and not Bloodborne or Sekiro. Although, I will say the latter was pretty easygoing until the end game, but it’s not the same as Dark Souls.

I’m going to say something rather controversial in the Souls community, but I don’t give a fuck, obviously. Dark Souls III is my favorite of the Souls games to play*, and I’ve beaten it probably twenty times. Because I’m tired, depressed, and weary, I’m taking the road most traveled–being a Pyro. Then, adding strength later on so I can wield my beloved Lorian’s Greatsword.

How’s it going? Kinda rough, I gotta say. The buttons are similar, but just different enough to mess me up. Iudex Gundyr, the tutorial boss, has never given me a problem as a Pyro. He’s weak to fire, especially in his second phase, and I can finish him off without even getting close. However. A (Xbox One) is jump in Sekiro, and it’s really fucking important to use it in combat. B is dodge step, and it’s ostensibly usable in combat, but not really. I used it minimally, and I used A every fight. On the other hand, A in Souls is pick up an item, talk to someone, etc, which, obviously, has no use in a fight. B is roll, which is god in Souls. So, Iudex was coming for me in his abyss-y, snaky form, and I pressed A and did–nothing. I frantically pressed it several times until I died.

That’s been my biggest problem so far. I’m up to the Road of Sacrifices, and I’ve died…six times I think. Once to Iudex (embarrassing) and once because I forgot jump is to click in the left thumbstick, which is just bad mapping and once because my cheese for the Darkwraith at the bottom of the elevator (make him fall into the elevator maw) didn’t work the first time. One of my problems with not dying as much in this game is that there is a mechanic that is built upon dying. There is a PC, Yoel of Londor, who offers to ‘Draw Out True Strength’–which is free levels. Of course, nothing is free in a Dark Souls game, and you get the hollowing curse from Yoel.

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Dropping the mike

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I’m tired. I’m so fucking exhausted. Still sick. Still got the chills alternating with still got the heat. Still grumpy as fuck. Still not playing MHW. I’m riding at about 40%, and I’m just done.

Funny note. I’ve been going down that Hot Ones rabbit hole. It’s a web series in which Sean Evans interviews a guest while eating ten wings with increasing heat. The first three or four ain’t nothing. They eat and Sean asks questions, and the guest answers. The middle four are increasingly hot, and most guests are at least breaking a sweat by this point. Then, comes bottle number 8 (used to be 9, I think). It’s called Da Bomb, and it makes me smile every time I see it because I know this sauce.

Backstory. My brother and I both love spicy foods. We have since the beginning of time, which is rather strange given our background. I don’t know how it started, but we began a tradition of giving each other hot sauce for Christmas with one giving it to the other one year, then using the same box, the other reciprocates the next year. It caused much merriment, especially for the other members of the family. The point, of course, was to try to find something hotter than the year before. This happened for several years in a row, and then came the year I found Da Bomb, considered to be the hottest hot sauce at the time.

“Consume one drop at a time with extreme caution” is on the bottle, and it ain’t no joke. I ordered two bottles so I could keep one for myself. I made a huge batch of chili and put four or five drops of Da Bomb in it. I’m talking HUGE batch. I tasted it and yeah, no. I had to throw it away. When I gave the other bottle to my brother, I warned him about it. I said to take the label seriously.  A few days later, he called me and said he thought we could end the contest right there. (WITH ME WINNING, LET’S NOTE.)

Side note: Several years later, the Carolina Reaper was created, and my brother sent me an email with a link. He only wrote, “We back on?” We didn’t restart the contest, though, and my tolerance for spice has decreased over the years. As I get older, I find that I don’t enjoy not feeling my face after eating any longer. In addition, I like flavorful rather than just pure spice.


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Fuck it all to hell

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so. damn. tired.
Cannot move an inch.

I’m so fucking tired. Not of anything in particular (though I have plenty of that, too), but literally so. fucking. tired. For the past three days, I’ve been dozing on and off throughout the evenings, then crashing hard during the night. Yet, I couldn’t sleep for more than five hours or so. I’m currently watching a Try Guys video on driving while sleep-deprived (early access for being a Patreon member of a certain tier. They’re doing a series driving while ______, and this one is where they had a twenty-four hour stay awake party, then drive on a contained course. It’s well known that driving while sleep-deprived is as bad if not worse than driving while drunk. The doctor in the video said that it was ideal for people to get 7 – 8 hours of sleep a night, and I had to laugh, albeit bitterly. I’ve gotten up to 6 hours, but 7 hours seems like an impossible dreams. I used to get 4 hours a night on a good night, but I’m up to 6. Also, when the doctor advised not to drive when you’re sleep-deprived, I actually snorted out loud. That meant I would never drive, which isn’t possible where I live.

I remember once when I was deep in the middle of my chronic depression, my therapist suggested trying to stay awake for 72-hours as there was some evidence that it can jump-start the brain out of depression. I decided to give it a whirl, and made sure to plan it around a time where I wouldn’t have to leave the house for those three days. Well, life happens. My BFF had her baby six-weeks early, right around the sixty-hours-awake mark. In addition to me doing this experiment, I had an incipient cold. I had to go see my BFF’s baby, of course, or at least visit them in the hospital. I managed to make it there, talked to my BFF, didn’t see the baby because she was in the ICU and I did NOT want to give her germs, then started driving home.

I was going down a road I’d traveled hundreds of times. I could make that drive in my sleep. but, with a lack of sleep (going on sixty-two hours), I suddenly had no idea where I was. I looked at the road ahead of me and did not recognize it. It was as if I’d never had seen it before. I somehow managed to make my way home (still don’t know how), held out for another hour or so, then crashed hard.

When I was in my second year of college, I started having weird fugue states in which I would phase out of reality then ‘wake up’ a few minutes later with no idea of what just happened. I wasn’t sleeping as made clear by the fact that if I were talking to someone, they still were talking to me as if we were having a normal conversation. I had to pretend I knew what they were talking about, which was disconcerting. Worse yet, though, was that I would ‘fall asleep’ while driving, only to ‘wake up’ a few minutes later having no idea where I was. Fortunately, the routes I was taking were familiar, so my best guess is that my brain went on auto-pilot. Still, I was very lucky I didn’t have a horrible crash.

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I’m Sick; Get Off My Lawn!

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I’m still sick. I learned from my taiji teacher that her husband has a mold allergy that has symptoms which mimics flu symptoms. Fever, chills, body aches, exhaustion. It also produces itchy eyes, which I’ve been having in the past few days. I had no idea a mold allergy could be something that happens outside versus inside and that it can be like the flu. She suggested Flonase or the generic equivalent, so I’ll give that a shot the next time I go to Cubs. I’m really not in the mood to blog as I’m feverish, cranky, and tired. So, here’s a video of Max White (don’t know who he is, but there’s no commentary in the video) doing a Waste of Skin Bloodborne run, all bosses. That means no leveling up at all during the game. It’s pretty hardcore, so major props.

It’s All in My Head (and Bloodborne)

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I’m sick. Again. I’m also depressed about it because it seems to be a yearly thing. I got sick around this time last year, and it lasted on and off for the next four or so months. Rightly or wrongly, I blamed going to the doctor on my further illnesses as I went twice and got sick again immediately after. This time, however, I have not been to the doctor, and I feel like shit. I’m alternating hot and cold, and I’m exhausted no matter how much or how little I sleep. I had to skip Master Choi’s seminar this weekend because I didn’t want to get anyone else sick, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to make it through the two hours (plus half an hour driving either way). Shadow has been my little nurse, lying on my legs to keep them warm. The trade-off is that he gets in my face (literally) as I’m waking up because I’ve been a bit remiss in getting him his breakfast on time.

It’s stressful to get tired over every little thing. I have pared down my morning taiji routine because I’m sick, and I’m still spent by the time I’m done with it. Driving to the grocery store and picking up a few items exhausts me beyond my resources, and it’s hard not to feel resentful by the time I get home because I feel as if my body is betraying me. Going to the grocery store shouldn’t be any big deal, and yet, in my current state, it’s such a production. I’m lying on the couch with Shadow on my legs, thinking I need to go to the store, but having no energy or motivation. It takes me about a half hour just to drag myself off the couch, then fifteen minutes to actually make it out the door. By the time I get home, I’m ready to drop. Things that normally take such little thought now take every last bit of reserve I have.

Right now, I’m sitting on my couch with a cup of coffee and Shadow on my legs. I’m so freaking hot, it’s uncomfortable. But, if I take off my sweatshirt, I’ll be chilled in a minute. I’m someone who rarely gets cold, so getting the chills is really uncomfortable for me. I will say the older I get, the less I’m able to tolerate intense cold. I used to drive with my windows down well into the sub-zero degrees range. Now, I shut the windows around zero degrees and feel sheepish about it. It’s hard to adjust to aging, and I’m not doing it very gracefully. I have freckles and moles that suddenly appeared after I turned forty, and whoever said acne is only a teenager thing was lying through their teeth.

Shadow has now hopped up on the top of the couch in his usual spot because he’s decided he’s done enough administering to me. He might also not want to be too close to the germs, for which I don’t blame him. This is me right now:


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Blah Blah Blah

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One of the weird things about recovering from being sick is that my sleep gets really weird*. One of the only things I like about being sick is that I can get a solid chunk of sleep without much effort. Granted, I’m still fucking tired when I wake up, but at least I get some rest. Ironically, I know I’m getting better when my sleep starts to get worse. As I’ve said before, it’s as if my mind/body will only allow me to get good sleep when it has an excuse–me being sick. The second I start getting better, my sleep takes a nose dive. As a result, I may feel physically better, but I’m just as exhausted. That’s where I am right now. Exhausted and crankier than hell.

My favorite video for the week: BBC interview interrupted by the interviewee’s daughter who walks into the place like she owns it.

Predictably, several memes around this family have emerged. My favorite tweets:

is pretty great, only to be equaled by:

I love this little girl so hard and tweeted that I wish I had a tenth of her confidence and sense of style. I also said of the latter tweet that this pairing should be True Detectives, Season 3: Who stole all the rainbows in DC?

BBC interview girl is the best, and I hope to be just like her when I grow up.

 

*Weirder than usual, which is pretty damn weird.