Elise Matthesen

 Bodies Are Weird, Part Eleventy-One: How on earth can a body just awakened from sleeping have a high blood pressure reading, and when re-checked six minutes later have a reasonably acceptable one?

So Many Things At Once, Part N: There are so many pieces I need to finish right now, what with a couple of special works by request (including one wall sculpture and one piece of jewelry capable of holding award pins) and the remainder of the Kickstarter rewards. I'm making progress, but it is complicated by the way that workbench time is an essential part of my pain management program, the ever-more-important stress management, and other stuff that falls under the heading of self-care. Counting and sorting beads is very soothing, and has helped me before when I was managing blood pressure issues on the high side of the charts, but counting and sorting beads gives so many inspirations that it's difficult not to follow at least a few of them right then. Hence I am still not done with the things that need doing and are officially in the queue, but there are more than a hundred new pieces still to put into the Etsy shop.

ADHD for (Some) Fun and (Some) Earning of a Living: ADHD means there's always something coming along to attract my attention and delight me with artistic (or other) problem-solving, but it's difficult to solve specific and known problems that are in the queue when all the new ones keep flowering in the sky like fireworks. My executive function has been insufficient for pretty much always, and I make up the difference these days -- or try to -- by various means including a wrangler, which is what I call my art and life management person who helps me identify what needs to be done and in what order to do it, and troubleshoots problems of stuckness and so on. Having a wrangler has been worth considerably more than I pay for it. While I used to have at least some executive function with the help of medication, after one has a stroke they do not let one have those kinds of medications again, so I've been washed onto the shore that is barren of executive function since 2011 when they took the adderall away for good. It is fortunate for me that workbench time is and has remained interesting these many years, and that I gravitate to it for pain management as well as for the delights it holds in general, but there does need to be some cat-herding of my energies and attentions if I'm going to keep things going. Ergo, wrangler and also habits and practices, plus a certain amount of finding the dopamine hits where ye may in where I'm supposed to be for best outcome. Maybe I should do an Ask Me Anything about that.

The Current Goal: As some of you know, some new and unfortunately exciting health issues need attending to here. I'll have to reshape the ways I live. Again. For far from the first time. 

OK, if that's what needs doing, then that's what I am going to do. After all, I'm going to have to. As Becky's mom used to say, when any of her offspring said "But I don't wanna!" about something that needed doing, "Well, you're gonna hafta, so you might as well wanna." It's been worth a try at other times, and has worked out well more often than not.

Do any of these things strike a chord in your life at the moment, or in your memories? Do you know good ways to learn to wanna when you're gonna hafta?

This is a message I just sent to my doctor (GP, though I think they get called PCPs now?), who says my labs are due, and who has been trying to figure out with me a way to do that with the lowest risk of COVID for me.


Somebody told me her health care sends someone out to do blood draws at her home. Do we have that?