Sedum Madness, Psycho-Physical Therapy, and Chemical Mind Control...

I've been attempting to finish a key blog article for months, and my own brain/body are working against me once more. It's no biggie, I'm getting back on track for the nth time. So, what else have I been doing all this time besides not feeling well?
` There are now seventeen stepping stones out on the front retaining wall flower bed. Before my last post, there were zero. Here's one of them, just to the right of the first ice plant to start blooming this year. It's metallic red, and some of the others will bloom metallic purple, orange, and/or yellow.

All the other plants here are different types of sedum.

So, this isn't my 'Big Article', but it is An Article Greatly Swollen With Photos That I Just Took Yesterday!

What's going on with my health, and what's with all the succulents? I will answer those questions here in an amusing fashion, and with several more colorful photos:

If I'd been making videos at the rate I'd planned, I'd have already completed the one demonstrating my physical handicaps that I did most of back in October. I won't go into it, but let's suffice it to say, at some times more than others, muscle soreness and fatigue can overwhelm me.

Much like the amount of yellow sedum in this particular corner:

I'm remedying both situations forthwith!

Physical pain and fatigue make it difficult to have the strength to prop myself up and shift around in front of a laptop in order to do what I'm doing right now. Even my eyes have trouble focusing because they are affected by my head having been tilted for decades.
` Lack of sleep compounds this, especially after strenuous exercise. My muscles get sore for weeks, even if I try to take it easy during that time. But 'taking it easy' still means physical therapy and briskly walking for at least 45 minutes each day. And then, when the weather is nice...

Their thickening plot against me is working!

Every day I work on re-forming my body, and as I do so, certain movements such as hunching, wobbling, twisting, and cringing, are easier to prevent from happening. Those motions trigger unpleasant and traumatic memories for me, but when I can prevent them, those memories don't occur.

It's really friggin' handy.

Because it is so much more structurally sound, my body no longer constantly triggers almost any of the annoying narratives, ways of thinking, and memories that it used to. Physical control begets mental control! I almost don't know what to do with it!

I'll tell you what to do... WEED ME!!

It's nice feeling physically stable because it makes me feel emotionally stable as well. I no longer feel like I'm going to fall constantly, and just stretching out and loosening muscles prevents them from causing any kind of trigger. Particularly in my abdominal area, which once supported the weight of my entire upper body (a feat which my back can do fairly well now).

I enjoy being able to feel my torso as being torso-shaped instead of dented like an aluminum can and squeezing my internal organs. It feels great just to be able to breathe and eat normally without all the pain and struggle. I'm also getting better at sitting down, in some convoluted way or other, without pain or falling over.

For some reason, this photo appears upside-down! Cool! Zero-grav alien sedum!

Sitting and bending over are becoming easier, and plant growth has been quite rapid lately. On sunny and/or warm days, I feel compelled to do the plants' bidding, propagating them and killing the other plants we call 'weeds'.

I'm a hopeless slave to huge masses of purple iceplant, about ten varieties of sedum, some lamb's ear (white fuzzy), one hens and chicks, and a handful of other small things that planted themselves.

The stepping stones are for my own body's well-being as much as the plants', and I added three just today. This one I added a few days ago. To the right of it is a new pink and green sedum, no doubt disoriented by its new environment. Just behind it is the hen and chicks hiding in a purple ice plant.

My question is, what happens when the stepping stones are the only thing exposed?

Physio-kinetically, I've been generally getting better, have ups and downs, but there is something that compounds all of this, and I must plan my life around it: My brain cells have a tendency to build new connections for a few weeks, then a lot of those connections die off for several days.

Giant-leaved sedum and purple iceplant.

These waves of brain destruction coincide with worse sleep and thus worse muscle pain, and even some amount of triggering of torso-squeezing.
` Yes, that's right; the endocrinal puppetmasters of all this center around my ovarylords.
` They affect my thoughts and state of consciousness, although not so much my mood or emotions, it seems. They also give me many practical mating instincts, and then reprimand me for not reproducing.
` Long ago, things were medically serious, for which my parents punished me mercilessly. Increasingly now my gonads, like any functioning generators of sex cells, are more into hormonal mind control.

They are far more devious than I had previously given them credit for, as I found recently.

You see, I thought that getting a flat tire would be the biggest Unplanned Obstacle this time around, but something I could not have predicted happened:

Last time, when I said I'd take a day off, then finish Part 1 of this important article of mine, my brain cells were in that state of just recovering from this destruction and making new connections. So far, so good!
` I took the entire day off to do a lot of work 'disconnecting' my mind from the connections in my body that triggered those anxious narratives. It was more successful than I had expected. I'd go on about what I did and why, but that's for a more important article/how-to video.

This broad-leafed sedum is the only type I haven't seen change color.

I was feeling phenomenal the next morning, and enthusiastic about everything. Including gardening, so I put the first seven stepping stones in the flower bed retaining wall.
` Perhaps it was a combination of the way I was bending over and some entrained air from a smoothie I was drinking, but a cramp appeared somewhere behind my solar plexus. Argggghhh don't you just hate that? And it stayed for several days until I was able to deal with it.
` To review, I had just successfully gotten my abs to stop all that muscular rumination-triggering stuff, then for a time I couldn't get them to stop squeezing again because of these abdominal cramps. Again, I was more out of control, and it didn't feel too pleasant, either.

I figured, eh, this is my first big challenge! Much like this young bluish-green sedum breaking through a carpet of red.

Later on, the buish sedum will blaze a fiery yellow and orange, like jets of lava.

Not only did I take it on as a challenge, in the middle of it I did barbell squats with 105 lbs. My muscles were sore as ever, and fatigued. Meanwhile, another cramp appeared, and I wasn't sure what it was. Between both of those, I managed not to feel despair about how this was impacting my new development in consciousness. After all, that would be counterproductive.

This is the same type of red sedum, apparently in its larval form.

Then, my quality of sleep was affected, my mind seemed to be going right back downhill to some extent, my muscles were hurting more and more for a few days. What the hell was going on?

It was... a glitch in the follicular matrix! No sooner had I recovered from the first time, and barreled right into making a big neurological development (as I generally am enthusiastic to do), when I began backsliding somewhat.
` I'm starting to get better again, I'm just drowsy, and hoping that my gamete-producing factories don't ever get ahead of schedule again.

I'm sick of feeling sick, I like feeling better, and I think this will probably be a new and important chapter in my life. Upward and onward!

I guess part of my message is, because of the many challenges in life, some things don't go at the rate I'd expected or hoped. The podcast for which this blog is named, for example. It's still on some unaccessible drives, but once I access them it should be cake to get them online.

The blog post that I've been teasing/telling people about all this time is another one of those things. And why am I not revealing the subject? Part of the reason is that the reader is supposed to guess. How many sentences/paragraphs will you get before you realize what it's about?

That makes the mind-blowing impact just that more powerful.

Believe me, I will finish it soon, because it's an important reference point for future videos, and for a graphic novel and other projects. I have put a lot of things on hold in my life, just to make a little more time for this.

I would probably be reading it over/finishing it right now if I hadn't had such an exhausting day, in which also I had a nap to relieve the exhaustion. It also involved the neighbor's cat, Chester, who is featured in my Gaslighting Extravaganza (and some upcoming videos).
` I got out the fishing rod with the feathers, and Chester did pounce on it, but that did not take up a significant amount of my time. Then, someone came over to do metalwork in the basement with Matt, and since that's too noisy for me to be reading/writing with (believe me, I wear earplugs a lot), I went outside. And for what what do you suppose I reserved that time slot?

Another red sedum, one of the first to flower this year.

Tomorrow, I am planning on reading through that blog article and perhaps finishing and posting it the same day. I'm also going to Costco to buy a set of $30 carbon fiber walking sticks. I don't know why I never seriously considered using them when it was so much more difficult to walk. Perhaps because I was too off-balance even for that?
` At the moment, I'm only weak and off-balance in just one particular way such that I think using one walking stick would take the pain/pressure off immensely. I'm not sure whether using two would be better or not... I'll have to tell you how that goes!
` I never thought I'd be so enthusiastic about walking sticks and gardening just after my 35th birthday. Then again, my blog and YouTube channel are going to be about all sorts of things I never thought I'd be so enthusiastic about. And I never predicted the existence of YouTube until it appeared, either.

What else will I not predict? Great success, I hope!

Addendum: It's the next day, and I got the walking sticks a.k.a. 'trekking poles', only eight ounces! I can't balance with two, but the one for the right side is just perfect. Takes the pain and pressure off immensely!
` I felt so good that I went right up to the retaining wall and started pulling weeds with my left hand. It's so much easier. And then I added five more stepping stones.

I'm up to twenty-two stepping stones, now! It really is a sickness.

Now to test the trekking pole out on a walk...

Post-walk addendum: This is the first time I've been on a walk without the right side of me burning and fatigued like mad. I don't feel completely worn out and in pain from that, and should have more stamina for, say, blogging. Something tells me that this is the beginning of a new era.

Already, I'm glued to these trekking poles. I use one for the house, and keep one in the car. I'm feeling like a cyborg already!