busybee fluffy rambles

Dental crap

For the last few weeks I’ve had a bunch of dental visits and a bunch of work done. Just when I thought my teeth were doing okay for once, I ended up having a bunch more cavities, and needed a crown on the lower right bicuspid. And since that side of my mouth is sore while that one is settling into place, I’ve been favoring chewing on my left side again. Which then caused a marginal filling on the upper left to chip, moving forward the timeline for that tooth getting a crown as well.

(This is the same tooth that’s had a lot of annoying problems before. It’s more filling than tooth at this point and simply replacing the chipped filling isn’t an option.)

Anyway, my dental insurance is maxed out for the year so I’m going to see if I can wait until January to get the crown put in, which would also give me more time for the right side to settle into place which would make it so I can, y'know, eat.

Oh, and during the followup today, the dentist also noticed some potentially major gum problems near the cracked filling that can’t be put off, so she referred me to a periodontist. That’s gonna be expensive.

Health crap

I"m having blood sugar concerns again, so I’m trying to do the cold-turkey-on-sugar thing again, or at least massively cutting down on it. I’m also trying to get more fiber. So, a thing I’ve been eating as a meal replacement more often is a smoothie with frozen fruit, milk, yogurt, psyllium husk, and a bit of cacao powder (without adding any sweetener). It tastes good, at least, and is cheap and easy to make. Which also helps with the whole low-spoons thing.

Also I’ve been trying to get better about regular exercise, and have started Beat Saber again. Unfortunately my knees are still too messed up for Stepmania to be feasible, and taking walks has also gotten frustrating too. Joint issues are so frustrating. I’m also developing arthritis in my hands, on top of all the other issues I have there.

So on a related note, I’ve been struggling to keep up with housework and chores, and also am still waiting for the next phase of disability application to happen. At the last phase they had me fill out a self-assessment and in that form I downplayed the amount I’ve been struggling, because at the time it wasn’t quite so bad. But now, it’s bad. I’m certain I’m gonna get rejected and need to reapply.

In the meantime I’m also caught in a local gravity well of medical bureaucracy. My doctor left the clinic I went to, and they were supposed to set me up with a new practitioner, but something fell through the cracks and now I’ve got a Mychart account that’s unable to send a message to a doctor, and there’s no category for contacting the clinic as a whole for anything relevant. But everyone else at that clinic kind of sucks anyway, so I’m trying to get set up with a new PCP elsewhere, and I’m probably just going to go with CHI Franciscan (née Virginia Mason) since they have a clinic within walking distance of my house.

That clinic has four practitioners, of which one also specializes in transgender healthcare, although that one is not currently accepting new patients. But my trans-related stuff is all just in maintenance mode right now anyway and I don’t need any specialization, and as long as I’m treated with respect by a GP and can retain access to my hormones I’m fine.

I’ve never been a fan of Virginia Mason even before they got taken over by a fucking Catholic Health thing but the specialist care I’ve gotten there has always been okay, and like… it’s not that they’ve gotten better, just that everyone else has gotten way worse.

Music

I’ve not been working on music directly, but I had some pretty good sales during Bandcamp Friday this month.

I’m also finally working on building that GUI for Bandcrash, which has also been getting more attention. Hopefully this becomes something people want to help fund me for. On that note, there’s a sponsorship button on the project that people could, y'know, click. Maybe.

Also, man, GUI programming is annoying. I’m using wxPython for it and it’s hard to find information on what patterns exist for things like state management and data binding and so on. I also have a tendency to overthink things, a lot. That isn’t news though.

Coffee

I’ve been doing my own roasting lately, using green decaf beans from Sweet Maria’s. It’s some of the best coffee I’ve ever had. I really need to write up an article for the coffee blog.