busybee fluffy rambles

Music

I’m super excited for tonight’s concert and also one on Vashon Island on April 24 (oh god that’s in under two weeks and we still have a lot of music to learn for it oh no oh no).

I had applied to a dealer’s den booth at Furality as a musician, but wasn’t selected. I’m not sure what their selection criteria are so I just have to assume that they got so many submissions that they had to go into lottery mode and it’s nothing personal. My hope was to get more client/commission work for soundtrack and background music composition, but in the meantime I hope I can get more word-of-mouth just from people who know my music telling other people about my music. I am super available to work on music for things, especially for things like VRChat worlds and short videos.

I haven’t made much progress on my website rebuild but having an intention to do so feels like enough right now. I think once I get into a nice hyperfixation state it’ll go pretty quickly but right now I have so much other stuff going on.

Pottery

I’ve finally gotten some good slipcasting results and have two bisque-fired cups. Today I’m planning on casting some more and glazing the two newly-fired ones, and hopefully I can get a production pipeline going. Although I only have like three hours for that before I have to get ready for Benaroya, oops.

Vermin

I’ve had issues with rats in my basement and trying to burrow into my house from the outside, so I’ve bought some peppermint extract and some citronella incense which I’m going to spray and burn in the basement, respectively, which will hopefully keep them away.

Chronic pain

It fucking sucks and I’m using cannabis a lot more again to try to keep it at bay.

I’ve been using a vibration plate lately, and that’s at least helped with my lower body problems, just from standing on it for 10 minutes a day. My pain is mostly back to being in my arms and shoulders, which I haven’t figured out good vibration plate exercises for yet. I should probably get better about using my Powerball again, since that’s historically been pretty therapeutic for me.

Car

My Niro has developed the dreaded “Wheel of Fortune” noise, which means I need to get it looked at. This specific issue is why I got the extended warranty from CarMax, since fixing it can cost anywhere from $100 to $6000. Fortunately CarMax’s extended warranty stuff has a whole network of repair people and there’s one who isn’t too far from me (which is good, I don’t want to have to drive all the way to Renton for this), who can also set me up with a loaner vehicle under said warranty.

Vertigo, and medicine in general

I’m suspecting that I have Ménière’s Disease, which isn’t curable but there’s at least mitigation stuff. For now I’ve opted to reduce my sodium intake (to reduce the fluid pressure) and increase my vitamin D (to improve my calcium reuptake), both of which seem to have helped both the vertigo and the related tinnitus and feeling of stuffiness in my right ear.

Unfortunately Virginia Mason continues to fucking suck; I tried getting an otologist appointment through them, they did the usual “You need to see a GP to get this evaluated first,” I explained how I’ve seen my GP about this as well as two other doctors who just completely ignored my vertico issues, and my GP was supposed to set me up with an audiologist as part of this diagnostic stuff but it kept slipping her mind.

Then this morning I got a message from them that my GP has left Virginia Mason entirely and I need to find a new one.

A-fucking-gain.

My most recent GP wasn’t amazing but she was at least compassionate and listened, and was willing to learn about trans stuff. Unlike apparently everyone else at Virginia Mason. So now I have to find another goddamn GP, because for some reason it’s really hard to find and keep a good one, because everyone kind keeps on burning out and quitting, and only the shitty ones remain. And also there’s basically no providers near me except Virginia Mason ones and they all have ridiculously long waiting lists to be seen.

I think access to medical providers is what I miss most about living in the Capitol Hill/First Hill area, as around there I was spoiled for choices. In White Center, Neighborcare was okay for a while but then they lost all their good providers and all they have left are nurse practitioners and one godawful fatphobic doctor who always assumes that I’m eating fast food non-stop. There isn’t a Swedish near me, and everything I’ve heard about Sea Mar is that they, like Neighborcare, used to be really good but have gone severely downhill post-2020. There’s also HealthPoint in Tukwila which is apparently pretty okay (and they actually have multiple doctors who specialize in trans healthcare on staff!), so maybe I’ll give them a shot, assuming they’re in-network with my awful insurance.