Candor Creek

Tiny details. About a week ago I was a white, 30-something female with no Halloween decorations, which I'm pretty sure is illegal. I did used to have a really cute stuffed pumpkin in grad school, but I think I lost that to the mold house. Anyway, I seem to be somewhere between Harvestcore and Semi Spoopy Lite - both of which are hilarious because my nerves can't handle anything of a Spoopy nature well and I am so horrifically allergic and reactive to all the natural prettiness of the season. I'm not wholly bereft of the season, however; I seem to naturally manufacture lovely autumnal scenes now in my kitchen with all the squash and baking that happens behind my still-closed windows. A few years ago it was brought to my attention that not many people say "autumn" in my area, while that is my default name for the season. Having moved a lot as a kid I do have a cobbled together dialect and I still get remarks as I move as an adult. I don't mind, but once in a wh...

Oooooh. This is a home water distiller. I got it about a month and a half ago and, after slowly introducing the resulting water into my diet, found my first safe alternative to the only brand of distilled water I could regularly drink. I'm quite proud of it. For over a decade I've only tolerated distilled water for drinking and cooking (and I should be brushing my teeth with it, but I wanted to keep costs down) due to reacting to additives and impurities in tap or normal bottled water. I even struggled with other brands of distilled; my theory on this point was some sort of post-distillation filtration (normal forms of filtration are a known issue for me). Buying all those bottles of water meant that I essentially had a guaranteed monthly bill of around $40/mo for clean, drinkable water. That doesn't sound like a lot unless you have to live on disability and the meager amount of food benefits you do get don't cover the *water* expenses you have due to your dis...

Relaxed (but aware) at my feet. Vaccination day. Did much better than I anticipated given she boarded here a week ago; she didn't tremble once and gave only a single whine. Treats from the doc helped smooth that last bit out. Summer's been on anti-anxiety meds for a week now, long enough for canines to start seeing benefits (in humans is usually closer to two weeks). She never looked outright drugged but a couple times she seemed to be...figuring something out? Somewhat restless? She couldn't find a good spot to rest sometimes on the second and third days. A bit pacey, indicating mild stress, but no panting. On day three or four we ran into friends (including canine) on our walk. We were in the courtyard and mostly standing in her "problem spots" where the sound reverberates differently and sets off her extremely delicate noise sensitivity. This can be very high stress for her. I noticed, however, that while she was still distracted and orienting tow...

Current aesthetic: 2012 Toyota RAV4 (KBB stock photo) Normally on the days that I sleep 15 hours and wake at something like 5PM I spend the day berating myself But since I was out of the apartment for close to six hours (!!!) yesterday with constant social contact, doing something extremely stressful for anyone and with various levels of success and failure, ending with a large purchase - only to come home, completely detox everything that left with me, make a full meal, and then eventually take a planned increased dose of Seroquel (which makes me drugged and stupid, especially in the AM, for a few days as I adjust) to kill the growing mania right before heading to bed - Yeah, I counted waking to and remembering that alarm as a victory and went right the hell back to sleep and feel fully justified in doing so. I do know that I can trigger anaphylaxis if the alarm is too early and, while it should have been ok, I was absolutely a fan of complete physical recovery today. I...

These numbers change so quickly - here's the best I can do to show you where the forest line is. Graphic by Fox 6 Milwaukee. I needed to write into the void today. I live in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Among the people that can remember to name this state we're generally known for either cows, cheese, football, or maybe the occasional serial killer. By longitude we're about as middle America as one can get, so we've had the blessing of the continental cushion where the wiser among us watched COVID-19 land and, predictably, explode on our country's coasts. Some of us took action before even infected coastal states took precautions. Right now we know that we're expecting the same wave of confirmed cases that everyone else is as we hunker down. We have opportunities our coastal brethren- namely, foresight - did not necessarily have. I've been tracking daily case numbers since WI case #1, and I think we were the tenth state infected. Our worst spots are...