Pneity

I just had a sad professional farewell. I've gotten word of customers I've worked with for years retiring, dying, or dropping our products. Always brings a tear to my eye. Just had a call from a customer I've worked with since the beginning. They migrated away from our products months ago and she was following up on some last alerting problems from these decommissioned systems. I awkwardly told her I hope they come back some day and that it was always a pleasure.

I made it way more sentimental than she wanted or needed. I'm such a fucking sap.

Something is very wrong and very horrible.

Last weekend was Tekko. A magical weekend of each year where I get to go be an unrepentant weeb. Pittsburgh anime convention time. I always approach it with the same spirit. A sober experience where I play DDR talk about foreign cars and anime with others who are passionate about it. I even had my import van in the show for a few years. This year, there wasn't enough room for me and I sat that out. But I still was there. My cousin and I shared a hotel room and we rolled into the weekend strong. We were both very excited.

Things were going great. I decided to try drinking this year. All of Friday and most of Saturday, I couldn't get past a buzz despite drinking really heavily. Things took a turn into Saturday evening, I don't know where it went wrong but I fell asleep on a bench sitting up for a few hours. Staff would regularly check on me and made sure I was ok. Until closing time, a friend of mine who is staff helped me to my feet and got me on the way back to the hotel.

Got back to the hotel, went to the bathroom, crashed out in bed. I was sad at I wasted the evening and the next morning I was so badly hung over. But it wasn't quite a normal hangover. I lost my appetite and felt rather drained. Not the normal spinniness and headache.

I attributed it to hangover anyway. Took mineral supplements and carried into the work week. That's where I land myself today. I spent the week feeling so drained with a mild, distracting headache. Took some headache medicine to finish the work day, told my parents I loved them and crashed in bed around 7:30 PM.

I slept through the night other than occasionally waking to look at the clock and be surprised it was still so early. I'm not used to long sleep anymore.

Morning arrived and I still feel crappy. Partially because it's a stressful day at work and I am absolutely having an anxiety attack. But there's something here. My appetite is gone. Dead. I feel so drained. Something is very wrong and I'm afraid.

I don't know if I've ever addressed the audience of this blog. I don't think there is an audience for this blog. But please, let me make sure there are none of you left. This story is not the worst I can tell but it's unseeming for most audiences. Skip this one if you prefer.

So yesterday, I posted about how I didn't feel great. I felt lethargic with a mild headache. I'd been pushing mineral supplements and 12 hour nights of sleep into myself all week. It wasn't working. But last night, I felt better than I had in a while. Went to bed still quite early, but not as far from my normal midnight plus bedtime.

I woke up at 1 am with a start. My butthole was itchier than I'd ever felt in my life. I was panicked. Nothing I could do hygienically would do. I ran to my bathroom which is a basement toilet with a sink, no frills. Everything was clean and the itch was way too powerful, nothing was helping. I ran upstairs. My dad was freshly back from the club (rural talk for a membership-only bar) and making himself a midnight snack. I ran past him to the family bathroom with the bidet.

Poseidon himself was now handling my business.

And business was good. Satisfying as hell but we weren't there yet. Finished up and felt like treating myself like a dog with worms, walking across the carpet with my butt planted in seated position. But that isn't really a possibility. But nothing here really is.

I grabbed some anti-itch cream and wiped with it. Writhed in bed for an hour or so and it just went away. The cream did the work.

But at what cost. I lost a night of sleep. I think I'm over being sick but I still feel awful, now from exhaustion.

My parents returned home and after a brief few days of awe and stories, they fell directly back into habits. Things are abruptly and aggressively normal, for the worse. I hope they can pull together and be ok. Dad is a tumultuous man in so many ways. There is a torture under the skin that nobody sees. I feel it, too.

I've felt awful since Tekko. My blood boils, anxiety off the charts. I can sleep long periods again, though. I don't know what this all means. Something about my health has changed and it's not at all good. I'm sitting here with zero energy, deep breathing, trying to keep together.

Mom just told me they are going to the county fair. I'm having dinner with my closest high school friend. I am looking forward to that but can I bring my base levels down before then?