Stress in the Family

Stress is a common factor in my life.  It just is.  It's so common that I tend to flip out even more when things are going smoothly, because that isn't what I'm used to.

Stress is a family trait.  

However, how we deal with that stress has some different variation to it...  

Though most of our ways of handling stress end with us curled up in a little ball on our beds.  I've noticed that pattern. 

When my mother is stressed, she goes into denial: 

And then goes to sleep until the problem goes away.

When my father is stressed...
 Sometimes he handles it really well:

Other times, he turns into an ogre:

Makes unintelligible noises:  

And eventually goes to sulk in the bedroom.

Then there is my sister. 

When she is stressed:

When I'm stressed: 

...

Well, you probably know about that by now.  


Also, migraines run in the family, partly, I'm sure, because stresssss runs in the family.  

Like the other stress-bed responses, when I have a migraine, I generally go to bed, hydrate, take a pain killer, and cry a lot until it stops.  

But, that was before Rob.  

My Knight in Pinstripes is relentlessly...

Himself. 


See, me having a migraine was a problem.  

And Rob?  He fixes problems.

He fixes problems whether you like it or not.

So, first thing was first.  

My Halloween mug was presented to me filled with filtered water and along with that came a pain killer:

He read to me.  

Can we just process that?  

Rob freaking read to me.  Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, specifically.  Not even a full chapter in, I was happy.  

Even though my head felt like it was trying to both implode and explode, I felt loved, and that was helpful. 


Next, I mentioned, briefly, that I was cold.  

SUDDENLY THERE WAS MY FUZZY ROBE.

Again, I was pleased.  I felt like an asshole though, because I didn't know what to do with someone really actively taking care of me as an adult, let alone who wasn't my mom or something.  

Still, it was nice.

We cuddled on the sectional couch:

Once light didn't make me want to rip out my eyes, we watched the animated Disney Alice (well, half of it)

And I was pleased to be nestled until I was sleepy and pain free between Rob and my sandworm.  

(There are pictures of the real thing in Birthday Bashing)


All things said and done, it was a MUCH better experience than just being comforted by a pillow.  

Duck Season, Rabbit Season, Allergy Season

As you may know by now, I'm allergic to everything.

This season is particularly bad and it is affecting every part of my body.

Even my hair looks particularly shitty for no reason:

And then, of course, I'm just constantly leaking:

In fact, by this point, it's less my nose and eyes and more my ears:
 

I am so very attractive!

Between that and the puffiness and the dry skin, I wind up feeling like I look like a Cro-Magnon made out of clay:

A week ago, I was at my friend's house for gaming.
I like to roll dice and hit imaginary things.

The problem was that allergies had hit me HARD and I wasn't willing to take an antihistamine.  My logic was that we game pretty late anyway and I'm always half unconscious by the end of it.  I didn't want to add to that by being half asleep from the beginning.

So, I decided to tough it out.  This meant bringing a trash bag and a roll of toilet paper for my snot:

I actually went through that whole roll in a couple days.  So much snot.

The other side effect of not being entirely prepared for my seasonal allergies is that I got loopy:

 

And then passed out anyway:

 


In fact, I was so very loopy at this game that my roll of toilet paper became my favorite toy.  This happened because I realized when it was smooched, it was smiling:

Then, I managed to somehow dissect it, taking out it's cardboard to create a stand:

This was also, at one point, a hat.  …Later on, Rob also used it as a hat almost instinctively.  Yes I <3 that man of mine.

Speaking of my Knight in Pinstripes, he considers himself to be immunize to any damage.  He proudly states this often and every time he does, I think an anvil is going to cartoonishly fall on his head and break his whole body just to prove some Karmic point.  It has not done this so far.

However, he is an ex-smoker.  This means his face used to be pretty much clogged with random chemicals and he wasn't breathing so well, but he was used to it.  Now that he can breathe and smell, suddenly places he used to tolerate and parties that were bearable are now just as utterly disgusting to him as they are to the rest of us.  On top of that, now he suffers from seasonal allergies.

He is a little like Captain Hammer in that since he doesn't generally experience physical discomfort, it's a big freaking deal when he does.

So when he started to have a few cold-like symptoms from allergies, he flipped out and kept asking if he had a fever.  He acted like he might be dying. 

Mind you, his symptoms were over in a couple days.  Me?  I've been having migraines, my body and my mind are all affected.  Of course, I'm also allergic to everything.

It seems the big culprits affecting people this year are mostly:

Dust is not such a big deal for me.  My indoor allergies are not NEARLY as bad as my seasonal outdoor allergies, and those in turn are not as bad as a couple of my food allergies.  Still, there is something to be said about the overall allergy load.

If I'm already having a set of reactions from one thing, I don't want to add to that.  My immune system is already in over drive.  It winds up like the straw that broke the camel's back.

...
 

By the end of this season, I typically have just melted into a puddle of semi-recognizable goo:

BUT!  In this crappy allergy season, at least I'm not suffering alone!


*cry*

A-Lot-A-Con and Migraine Madness

I had the opportunity to go to A Lot A Con at Oneonta yesterday.  It was a one day, first time out convention and for a first go at it, it was very well organized.  Next year, I hope to spread the word a bit more and get more people to show.  It also unfortunately fell on Free Comic Book Day. 

I dragged my Knight, Rob with me to spread his comic and sell some prints.  
We looked like this: 

And this generally leaves everyone around us like this:

I learned that trick from my sickeningly cute parents.  Blame them. 

In any case, the con was going pretty well.  We met some nice people, I sold some things:

 

And Rob took commissions on site in the form of drawing people as potatoes or doing custom monsters. 

Here is my take on one of them: 

 

His were better. 

Now, to understand the oddity that I really have become, you have to realize that when I'm stressed, I'll respond the same way in public that I do at home.  This is generally fine, but it makes for some strange habits.  One has been rationalized as a positive thing, which makes it even worse.  

You see, if I'm drawing or sculpting or whatever and I am hungry and I don't want to get my food on everything, sometimes I'll just stick my head into whatever I'm eating, like I'm a horse: 

Of course, this also works in the opposite direction, as it prevents my hands from touching my food when I've been doing artwork and my hands look like this, regardless of washing: 

In any case, this certainly looks bizarre to the people around me, and because of the utter CRAP I've been ingesting lately, as well as how infrequently I eat, I've been getting headaches.

...

Duh.  

Having a migraine in a situation I can't really leave is usually something I can power through, but it makes it so I reeeaaallllly don't care what people think anymore.  I'll make strange faces in an attempt to ease the pain, for example.  After a while at this particular convention, I learned that if I closed my left eye, things were much better.  

If I had an eye-patch, I could have just cosplayed as a pirate:

Rob suggested I get a mask, like the Phantom of the Opera:

Instead, I wound up like this:

Still, we reached out to a few fans (both known and new) and we managed to have a good time, regardless of my turning into a pumpkin.  

Yay!