JOURNAL

I got fired from my job today due to my attendance. My attendance being fucked up as a result of calling out so often. Mostly for migraines, but also for shit like Covid and a downed tree on my house and my youngest kid moving out in an absolutely fucked up fashion. It definitely didn't catch me off guard or by surprise, had a few meetings with my boss about my attendance. And truthfully, I would've been fired a long time ago from a lot of other employers. That said, it's still unfortunate and not the greatest of timing.

Taking this opportunity as an earnest kick in the ass to get into the doctor and find out what is the cause and what can be done about my chronic and severe migraines. Hopefully something, because it has been a nightmare the last three years or so and now I've lost a job as a result, more or less. Last eight or nine months, especially, have been the worst. I hear lots of people talk about migraines and still drive and go to work and stare at screens with them (supposedly). My migraines are severe. Light and sound sensitivity and nausea - usually including vomiting - are so bad that I shed any clothing I might have on, cover up entirely with a light blanket or sheet, turn off every electronic and light I can see or hear, and try to sleep through it. If I manage to sleep through it, it's typically about ten hours and I've only awoken from sleep to throw up or dry heave. If I can't sleep through it, I'm tossing and turning the entire time, which only worsens the nausea, and I have to sleep naked with minimal covering because just the sound of a blanket on skin and other bedding is even piercing on the ears.

I'm also looking at it as one of those when a door closes, a window opens kinda things. I've been single parenting and carrying the weight of the world squarely on my shoulders on my own, more or less, for twenty years. Both of my kids hae moved out. A number of other previous stressors are no longer a part of the equation. My job I held for over the last year has ended. It is presented and feels like a weird serendipitous series of events. Let's hope I'm not wrong. That said, if you want to help me keep my head above water you can hit my support page. Not required, obviously.

My youngest who moved out two weeks ago in a fit and shitshow has left their sister's place and now moved in with their boyfriend. I only hope the relationship stands the test of living together and remains healthy. They still haven't really communicated with me since they left, other than taking care of business type shit. It's hard. But it's also given me a different sense of self, stress, space, and so on. Energy is different, stress is lessened, space is truly my own for the first time in almost thirty years. But, there is definnitely a sense of something missing and an unnerving quiet. I don't know, it's such a weird dynamic.

I got my PC to not hate me and shut down whenever there were too many gifs or audio/video processes running and have gotten into the process of setting up my stream to broadcast me mixing tunes. Got the audio side of things locked down and am now working on visuals and graphics. Fuck what you heard, setting up a quality stream is a lot of work, hard work. Respect to everyone who has managed to get one going. In the process, though, I've done a few test streams and response has been pretty good as far as interest. Those that have tuned in, typically stay for the length of the stream - which has averaged about two hours so far. They've been supportive and responsive to the tunes I've played and my mixing. I just grabbed a few random graphic overlays and even the response to those has been positive. I'm not going on camera yet, so I have a bit of work to do to sort out enough interesting and engaging visuals and chat content/interactivity to make tuning in truly enjoyable. So that's what I've been doing and plan to do with the free time I've recently been given in a series of unfortunate circumstances. I reached affiliate with Twitch pretty quickly compared to those I know who've been doing it a while. I think I succeeded there buy being a fan and viewer and supoorter for nearly three years and managed to build up a reasonable following despite not streaming. So as soon as I went live, people kind of were shocked and tuned in. I gave no notice and really told no one I was even thinking about. Official debut stream is on my birthday February 12th. Maybe I'll share it here. Probably not. That's a different side of me.