Category / Random Stuff

by Aleisha Hendry

Bright spots in a shitty year

There is so much bad shit that’s gone down this year it’s almost satire.

Rampaging virus. Wildfires. Murder hornets. Elections. Zombie minks. That last one, what the actual fuck?

So amidst all that, I decided to think about some of the good things that I’ve managed to do in this dumpster fire of a year. Believe it or not, there were a few. Here they are, in no particular order.

  1. Dungeons & Dragons
Moragg, my half-orc barbarian.

This was the year I finally started playing D&D. I had no fucking idea how, but after suggestions from folks in the know, I joined a campaign at the library back in January. We only got a few sessions into the campaign when the lockdown hit, but we decided to continue it online through Roll20.net

This little group has continued to meet up online almost every week since then, and it has helped keep me sane. Essentially playing make believe with like-minded folks has been so good for my mental health, it’s rather astounding.

We’ve completed two campaigns, and I’ve created two characters that I kind of adore. I’m actually planning to crochet dolls of my characters at some point, because I kinda want to keep them around.

We’re now trying the original campaign we did, but this time we’re all playing monster races with evil alignments. It’s been ridiculous and I love every minute of it.

2. Writer’s group

Back at the start of the lockdown, I saw an email from the regional arts council saying an online writer’s group was looking to start up as a way for writers to get together (virtually) and encourage each other in their work.

Since then, I’ve discovered that I can sorta write poetry, and that I’m not completely terrible at prose. I’ve even submitted to a couple of writing contests, which I doubt I would have even considered if I hadn’t joined this group. I’m not expecting accolades or anything, but it’s helped boost my confidence a lot.

We were even featured at a writing festival that was normally in person , but like everything had to go virtual this year.

I think that’s pretty cool.

4. Cross stitch

After humming and hawing for like two years, I finally decided I wanted to learn to cross stitch. Over the Easter weekend, I got some supplies, watched some tutorials, and got started.

You’re goddamn right.

I. Am. OBSESSED.

Taking something that feels dainty and frilly and using it to make statements about female empowerment just does it for me.

I’ve also found a whole community dedicated to witchy cross stitch, which includes horror movies, ghosts, and other delights.

If I’m not crocheting, I’m cross-stitching. There’s always something on the go now.

I have plans to do some pretty massive pieces, but I also wanna do the tiny little quick ones. So many patterns, so little time.

3. Audiobooks

My favourite thing in school was always silent reading time. Second to that was when the teacher read to us out loud.

So it’s not a wonder that I finally got into audiobooks this year.

It was great for when I was driving to Dawson Creek and back every day for work. Listening to a story made the drive go by so much faster.

But then I found going for a walk and listening to a book was just as nice. And then I realized I could multitask by crafting not with the TV on like I usually do, but while listening to a book.

I have whiled away many a Sunday this year with selections from my sci-fi/fantasy book club. And I just adore it.

5. Animal Crossing

This one’s a late addition, but still worth noting.

When it became apparent that the Province wasn’t going to drop any and all restrictions for the holiday season and that I’d be spending my Christmas alone, I decided to splurge and get myself something I’d been humming and hawing about for the last year and a half.

Christmas Eve selfie.

I bought a Nintendo Switch.

Literally one of the best purchases I’ve ever made for myself. Mine came with MarioKart 8 Deluxe and I proceeded to win every grand prix cup in the game. I loved original MarioKart, and this version is spectacular.

Back in March when it originally came out, I saw everyone and their dog posting about Animal Crossing on Twitter. I had no idea what it was, but people seemed to really enjoy it. Once I got my Switch, I debated spending the money to buy this game that others had been playing for like 10 months.

I finally caved, and oh my fucking god, I’m so glad I did.

I love Animal Crossing. It’s so chill and laid back and exactly what I needed to wind down this dumpster fire of a year.

So there you have it. 2020 sucked all kinds of ass, but there were a few bright spots, at least for me.

I’m making no predictions about 2021, just that I’m assuming the universe isn’t obliterated at midnight tonight.

Happy Fucking New Year.

-A.

by Aleisha Hendry

Days Go By…

Holy balls, you’d think with everything going on in the world I would been writing up a storm on here.

Obviously, I haven’t. I don’t know why. I write for work, and I’m trying to write some fiction, and it just took too much goddamn effort to post here.

I aim to change that.

I want to get back to something resembling a weekly post about something… anything… as long as words are written and posted. I’m gonna call it a win if I can do that much.

2020 has sucked so much ass, and it’s probably gonna continue all that ass sucking for the foreseeable future. Might as well make the best of it.

Wear a fucking mask.

-A.

by Aleisha Hendry

Overheard in the Work Truck: Control Room Edition

So I’ve been hanging out in plant control rooms rather than work trucks lately and while there’s not as much racism and sexism, there’s still some real winners here. It’s mazing what dudes will say when they think there are only other guys in the room.

Find part one here and part two here.

Dude 1: “Why don’t you get the fuck out my way?”

Dude 2: “Why don’t you suck my giant…(remembers I’m in the room)…popsicle?” – He was very impressed with himself on the recovery.

“You look like you got dick-slapped in the-oh my god I’m so sorry, I’m really sorry I said that.” – Guys forget I’m in the room and suddenly remember they shouldn’t talk about dicks…they talk about dicks a lot.

“Yeah, buddy said ‘oh I miss [this plant],’ and I said ‘[this plant] doesn’t miss you.'” – These guys can be such catty bitches.

“He’s like HIV… really positive.” – Wow, really guys?

“Only two things come from [other dude’s hometown]: queers and steers, and he don’t got no horns.” – Surprised it took this long for someone to say something like this.

So yeah, not nearly as awful as the truck, but still not great.

-A.

by Aleisha Hendry

Overheard In The Work Truck, Part II

So I wasn’t working with a crew for a while there, I was on my own in my medic truck and didn’t have much for a full post.

But I’m back in that work truck for a few days, so we definitely have enough bullshit for a new Overheard post!

Please enjoy the raging ignorance of my coworkers!

Find the original post here.

“Apparently Fidel Castro’s brother is claiming Justin Trudeau is Fidel’s son … (Margaret Trudeau) was a rabid slut.” – this guy just hates women, I don’t understand it.

“What’s wrong with cilantro? Cilantro is ISIS. And I say fuck ISIS.” – we were talking about cilantro being gross (it is, fight me) and this was his response. I actually don’t get the point he was making.

“If you were getting married and your husband-to-be was away for work and getting back a couple weeks before the wedding, would you wait for coitus?” – I can’t fucking believe he actually used the word ‘coitus.’ Barf.

“It’s called being cuckolded you fucking loser.” In response to reading a dude’s Twitter profile saying he was a bisexual in a polyamorous relationship with his wife and her boyfriend. I told him cuckolding is an actual kink that some people are into and he shouldn’t judge. He shut up for a while.

“My husband was pissing me off, so when he rolled over I bit him in the ass.” – I just thought this one was funny.

Won’t be back with a crew for a few weeks, but when I am I’ll be sure to document!

-A.

by Aleisha Hendry

Overheard In The Work Truck

I work with some… let’s say, differently minded individuals. Hese are people whose views and values don’t match up with mine, but I’m only aware of that because I spend 10+ hours a day in a truck with them. Like they say things that make me want to never associate with then ever again, but I have to because I work with them.

That said, here’s some of the things I’ve heard this week. Let it be known that I don’t agree with any of the things said here. In no particular order, and paraphrased where the exchange was too long to remember word-for-word.

“Forest fires are economic terrorism. People are hired to start fires so the government can spend millions and millions of dollars fighting them.” – I told him he was so completely wrong that he actually shut up for a few minutes.

“I used to watch (that show), but then it went all SJW and now it’s unwatchable.” – I heard this and now I’m waiting for the perfect time to let him know I’d be considered an SJW.

“I’ll never read or watch Harry Potter because it’s witchcraft and I’m a Christian, so it goes against everything I believe.”

This was followed a few hours later by:

“Muslims can just fuck off and die.”

And

“Someone should murder Justin Trudeau.”

I’m pretty sure neither of those statements makes you a Christian. Love thy neighbor and thou shall not kill and all that jazz…

This is just a taste of some of the bullshit I have to listen to.

-A.

by Aleisha Hendry

The heart of the matter

I have old lady knees. Also old lady eyes. I do old lady-type crafts and have old lady habits.

So it shouldn’t have come as much of a surprise that my heart isn’t all that spry.

I’ve been dragging my old lady ass to the doctor on and off for the last few years to refill prescriptions and get the occasional testing of the lady parts. They started monitoring my blood pressure as one time it read as a bit high, so they put a note in my file to check it whenever I came it.

With my doctor on mat leave, it fell to a nurse practioner and the walk-in doc to finally send me for an ECG and order me to start walking and cut out salt and drop some weight otherwise I’d be going on meds.

OK, fine. I started walking for 30 minutes five times a week, I reduced my salt intake, and since I was already working on losing weight to take the pressure off the aforementioned old lady knees, I just kept going with it.

I figured, I’ve done all the things a medical professional said I should do, it should go down right? Of course it will. I’m 36, this shouldn’t even be an issue.

Oh, except it is.

The ECG came back with a regular heart rhythm (yay) but a dialted left chamber (uh, what?).

See, only the bottom (diastolic) number was high, the top (systolic) number was usually within a normal range.

Again, uh, what?

How does that even work?

Apparently it’s not super common, and it has a big name (dialted cardiomyopathy), is more common in men, and can be caused by obesity, alcoholism, thyroid disease, diabetes, and doing an excessive amount of cocaine.

I really need to cut back on the *cocaine.

So since the doctor doesn’t know what is causing this condition for me, we’re playing the elimination game to try and find out.

I’m switching my birth control from the pill that has two hormones to an IUD that only has one. I’m taking off weight for both my knees and my heart now (down 15 pounds, yay me), I’m still going for walks and cutting back on the salt. I’ve also been put on water pills to try and lower my blood pressure in the meantime. Day one on those had me peeing every 45 minutes… I lost two pounds just from peeing.

I went for another ECG and blood work yesterday, have my IUD appointment next month, and will likely have a follow-up regarding the testing at some point.

Can I just say that this is kinda bullshit?

I’m 36, I’m not even at the mid-life crisis point of my existence…like what the actual fuck nonsense is this?!?

Anyway…

I’m gonna go back to my old lady crocheting because I’m pretty sure that’s one of the only things keeping me chill at this point.

To end this post on a high note, look at this super cute bunny stuffie I got myself for Easter instead of a chocolate bunny:

-A.

*This is totally a joke, I don’t do cocaine. Please don’t think I’m on cocaine.

by Aleisha Hendry

Back at it

It’s been far too long since I wrote anything, and I’m clearly overdue for something resembling an update.

The last several months have been trying. I was diagnosed with osteoarthritis in both of my knees, which goes a long way in explaining why they have hurt so fucking much over the last couple years. It was going to happen eventually, what with both my mother and grandmother having it, but a lifetime of random knee injuries (thank you softball, cross country skiing, and roller derby) and my weight gain over the years meant it just happend a lot earlier than expected.

Since knee replacements only last about 10 years, and you can only do so many of them before you run out of leg bone, and I’m only 36, surgery is an absolute last resort. I’m going to physio when I’m actually in town (with exercises to do at home and out in the field) and I’m working on taking some weight off to take the pressure off the knee joints. I’d like to not hear that gross bone-on-bone grinding sound if at all possible.

I also have to start moving more. I stopped going to the gym because of the pain, but apparently I need to keep moving even though it hurts to do so… total catch-22 over here.

So that’s me health-wise. Not great, but working at doing better.

I’m marking my one-year anniversary with my new career as an oilfield medic, and it’s been a pretty great year if I’m being honest. Working with people that actually respect you and care about your wellbeing is weird, but also kinda nice? I actually got a mini-lecture from a coworker about not letting people know I was OK when I got back from the field on Monday, because they were worried when no one had heard from me.

I had a whopping TWO incidents on site, and both times the guy just needed a band-aid. So the rest of my time was spent devouring books, watching Netflix, and crocheting the shit out of everything.

I set a New Year’s goal for myself last year to master the Magic Ring for crochet. It took forever, but looking at the things I’ve made this year, I think I definitely succeeded. Take a look here to see my first attempt at amigurumi and here to see how far I’ve come over the year. I’m pretty impressed with myself.

I’ve even managed to sell a few things, so maybe that should be the goal for 2019? Get myself set up with a Facebook page, get a good supply of stock together and try to make some bank on this little hobby. Couldn’t hurt, right?

I’ve already started to turn the spare room into the offical Craft Room so I have a specific place to crochet and write, as I’m doing now. When I’m actualy at home, I intend to spend at least an hour in here doing something creative, whatever that may be.

So yeah, that’s it for now. I’m planning to get back into my weekly rants again, but we’ll see how that goes. Keep an eye out if you’re of a mind.

-A.

by Aleisha Hendry

Showing some skin

It looks like it’s officially the warm season, which means I will be miserable for the next four months from a lack of sleep in my sauna of an apartment.

Warm weather and I don’t mix—never have, probably never will—but I have learned a wonderful way to cope.

Wanna know the secret? It’s called not giving a fuck.

lookatall

I’m a plus sized woman, and as such society has wanted us to remain covered up so as not to offend the delicate sensibilities of those who fit the appropriate mold.

Thankfully, the body positive movement has made it a little better for those of us deemed plus sized. However, getting past the whole, ‘I can’t show off my legs because they aren’t perfect’ mentality is hard to break.

I didn’t wear anything shorter than capris for YEARS, which could be sweltering and awful. Then I hit my 30s and said ‘to hell with this shit!’ and wore whatever the fuck I felt like. Including above the knee shorts.

I wear shorts and show off my big thighs; I wear tank tops and show off my big arms. Don’t like it? Offended by my body fat? Too fucking bad.

This feels like a good time to trot out this little track—consider it my body positive jam for the summer.

Miss Eaves is utterly amazing, do check out her other videos.

So here’s to the next few months of sweat, sunburns, and heat exhaustion. Ugh.

-A.

by Aleisha Hendry

A swift kick to the (Infinity) stones

THIS POST IS FULL OF SPOILERS! GET OUTTA HERE IF YOU DON’T WANT TO KNOW THINGS ABOUT AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR!

I have so many feels about Avengers: Infinity War that I wasn’t able to form coherent sentences about it immediately after seeing it.

This is of course the initial reaction:

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But now that I’ve had time to process, I can sort of pull together thoughts and make them into words. Sort of.

So here’s a rambling collection of thoughts in no particular order.

*I had no idea what was happening when Bucky started turning to dust… I thought something was just wrong with his spanky new arm.

*Thor is the mightiest Avenger. Period.

*WHERE THE FUCK IS VALKYRIE?!?!

* Doctor Strange works so much better as part of an ensemble team. Liked him a lot more here than in his solo movie.

*Wakanda should absolutely host the Olympics, Okoye is a goddamn genius!

*Watching Peter cling to Tony as he faded from existence saying “I don’t want to go” tore my heart out almost as much as another epic character that didn’t want to go.

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Which has more emotional impact will depend on your fandom.

*I wonder about Marvel’s decision of which characters to disintegrate—you wouldn’t have thought Black Panther would be one of them, considering his movie just came out and blew the box office away, but then, this was likely all decided long before that. Panther, Spider-Man, Scarlet Witch, Star-lord, Drax, Matis, Groot, Bucky, Falcon, Doctor Strange, Agent Hill, Nick Fury…why these characters in particular?

*When Thanos killed Loki I was all GASP but also OK? Not really sure why.

*However, when Thanos stabbed Tony I was all hands-over-the-mouth-GASP since I heard there would be deaths and figured OMG this is totally the death they were hinting at… Oh poor naive little me.

*Killing Vision twice was harsh, man. Way harsh.

*I’m assuming Shuri survived and expect to see her and Bruce and Tony (when he gets back to Earth) science-ing it up all over the place to try and fix this mess.

*Folks that think Thanos is sympathetic because he cried a whole tear at the thought of killing Gamora to get the Soul Stone were not paying attention because HE FUCKING DID IT ANYWAY BECAUSE THAT’S WHAT GENOCIDAL MANIACS DO!!!

*Also random Red Skull appearance, WTF!?

*After Thanos uses the gauntlet to wipe out half the universe and he’s in that weird red place with a gate and little Gamora, a little girl in the audience asked “Is he in heaven?”

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No. He’s not.

*CLEARLY this is what has to happen for Thanos to be defeated, it’s the ONE scenario that Strange saw the Avengers winning and this is how it has to happen. Something or someone—some deus ex machina perhaps—will revert everything back to the way it was before Thanos got all the Infinity Stones. Something! Some weird combo of the Time Stone and the Soul Stone—the latter brings everyone that got dusted back to life and the the former turns back the clock so the world/universe doesn’t remember anything that happened, save the Avengers.

*We need Captain Marvel RIGHT FUCKING NOW!

As much as this movie was a gut punch to the emotions, I need to see it again. Not immediately, but at some point before it leaves the theatre.

Thankfully we have Deadpool 2 coming out in a few weeks to bring laughter back to our lives.

-A.

by Aleisha Hendry

In defence of adults with teddy bears

A friend on Facebook shared a little image that got me thinking.

The image is a cartoon by Peter Chiykowski of RockPaperCynic.com. It’s called In Defense of Teddy Bears.

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This spoke to me for a number of reasons, mostly for the fact that I’ve always had a teddy bear or some sort of stuffed animal with me.

I have Generalized Anxiety Disorder. I was diagnosed about 4 years ago, but hindsight being 20/20, I can safely say I’ve had it my whole life. Even before I had a name for my condition, I’d always found that soft cuddly things, like stuffed animals, helped calm me down. This might be why I have such a massive collection of stuffies.

I’ve always preferred stuffed animals to most other toys, partially because they can be hugged and squished without worry they’ll be damaged or broken.

I remember reading in a Cosmo article (back when I actually gave weight to the garbage in that mag) that after a certain age, a woman needs to send those stuffies to Goodwill because a REAL LIVE ADULT WOMAN wouldn’t have such things around their home. So, being young and stupid and trying to figure out how to adult in this world, I shoved most of the stuffies I had out of sight so I could be a REAL LIVE ADULT WOMAN.

Now that I’m well into my 30s, I realize just how ridiculous that advice was. It’s amazing how much clarity you gain once you pass the age of 29. There’s stuffies on the bookshelves in my living room, out in the open when people can see them. Do I care that some might think that childish? No, fuck those people! You don’t need that shit like that in your life!

The fact is, I need a stuffed animal with me. It doesn’t make me weak and less of a REAL LIVE ADULT WOMAN to have one. It’s part of how I’m able to survive in this world.

When I’m on little road trips or on a plane and there’s the potential for an increase in anxiety, I bring this little guy with me:

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I call him Coo.

He’s a Highland cow that I got in Scotland 10 years ago. He’s small and easily concealed—there are definitely situations when a stuffie doesn’t need to be out in the open, so he’s a good one to have.

And then there’s the situation I find myself these days: I live on site in a remote location where I’m the only woman for miles, surrounded by men with no proper locks on the doors to my living space.

Guess what? Sometimes I wonder if I’m truly safe, and that makes me anxious. So I have two stuffies with me out here.

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The panda bear I picked up at an Alice Cooper concert of all places a few years back, and the bunny has a Scentsy pack that smells like watermelon.

Like the comic says, a teddy bear, or a bunny, or a little cow will “make you remember how to be a person.” I feel more like a person with these stuffies nearby, knowing that I can put all that fear and anxiety in them and they’ll still be there the next time. We all need coping mechanisms, so who cares if that’s in the form of an animal that you keep on your bed or your couch?

We can still be REAL LIVE ADULTS and have a teddy bear.

-A.