I need help finding places to get Russian language films, preferably from English sites as I'm on about a Sesame Street level of Russian, and not confident enough to give a Russian site my credit card number. Films from Disney, Pixar, Dreamworks would be great, as they're familiar and relatively simple. THANKS!

So, holiday shopping. Have a pretty good lead on it already, which is unusual for me. Only missing gifts for about five people at this point.

The sister in law, who is very sweet, but I barely know her, so inspiration isn't coming. Librarian and art history major, painter, into Yoga.

The Dad, normally very easy, books, books, and more books, but he's said his TBR pile is too big now, so plans for replacing his Ayn Rand collection have been scrapped. Will get him the new StarTrek DVD, of course, but wanted to do a bit more than that.

The Childhood Best Friend. What do you get the young, gay, republican, petroleum accountant who has everything? I presume he already has the new StarTrek DVD, and that it has taken up residency in his pants.

The CBF's Boyfriend, an elementary special needs educator. Like him a lot, but like the SIL, I barely know him. He made CBF blush scarlet and choke on his own tongue at the first party he attended, so would like to get him something cool. ^_^

The Lifepartner, surley, snarkey, not a goth, programmer who doesn't like anything. In the 14 years I've known him, I have yet to figure out a good gift for him.

Don't you think The Doctor looks tired?

After six weeks of ADHD style knitting, I have finally completed the first stripe of my Doctor Who scarf. ;-p 8 rows of worsted-weight aubergine purple in Knit Picks Swish DK, 80 stitches long on #5 harmony needles. ^_^

Some cats in southern California are needing to be re-homed. If you are in that area and are willing/able to help, please see This Post for details.

I am posting this here because I know that a few of you on my flist are lawyers. I have unfortunately stumbled upon some sources of child pornography today, real photos of real kids, mostly young boys under the age of ten or twelve. Where should I report this? I've already reported the users to the owner of the website in question, but since these are real kids, some of whom look really unhappy, I think I should take it to the authorities. Should I start with my local police or move on to something like fbi.gov?

So, I'm a knitter. Mostly for pleasure and therapy, but occasionally to make gifts as well. Fairly casually, I don't live with a pair of needles in my hand. So, as you can probably guess, I don't like spending a lot on supplies. I DO have a very nice set of needles that I spent good money on, but needles can be used over and over again. For yarn I try to keep the price low and the quality high. I don't want to spend more on yarn than I would spend on a finished item, but I also won't knit with junk that I wouldn't want against my skin, so no acrylic or nylon. Craft stores tend to be a bust since they mostly stock junk and finding the good stuff is like looking for a needle in a haystack. Small local yarn stores are nice, and it's MUCH easier to find good stuff, but then it costs way too much. When yarn costs $14-40 a skein, I'm unlikely to make more than a one-ball project, or buy it at all. Knit-Picks and other online sources are a god-send, and I use them a lot, but sometimes I really want to look at a material in person before I buy. I want to see the color with my own eyes in different lights and feel the weight and quality with my own hands.

The point of this post: I know there are other knitters and crafters out there. What do you guys do to find your materials?

It was actually worse tonight. I am completely and utterly sick. It has ruined Torchwood past, present, and future for me, and possibly Doctor Who as well. I'm not sure yet.

ETA:
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Fuck you, BBC. Fuck you right in the ear, you go to hell, and you die.

What I have taken from the last couple of years of dealing with a dying parent, keeping up with a grieving parent, and maintaining my own life, marriage and mental health is that things get divided into categories pretty sharply and quickly. There is:
What I Can Do
What I Can't Do
What I Must Do
What I Would Like to Do

What I can do, I do. That may seem obvious to some, but it was something of an epiphany to me, and involved a rather steep learning curve. I can go to school full-time, get all the work done, and take care of my family. I am exhausted at the end of the day, but I can do it. I can do it with an A average too. I can do my dying mother's physical therapy, and MAKE her do it, and monitor her glucose levels. I can make huge batches of food on Sunday and pack them into lunches and dinners for the rest of the week. I can keep up with my friends and the movies I want to see and allow myself to have fun.

What I can't do, I don't do, and I don't apologize or explain anymore. I grew one hell of a backbone in the last year and I don't take crap anymore. One of the last lucid things my mother said to me was that she was proud of how assertive I was, and wished she had been so at my age. I will carry that with me always. I could not give my mother injections, though I've given dozens to total strangers. Just couldn't. I also could not help her with toileting, but that was all right, because she really didn't want me to anyway and remembered the horror of having to help her father wipe himself in his last days in the hospital. I'd had enough with having to be the grown-up for my parents and take responsibility for them and advocate for them without having to deal with that. Everyone has a line, those were mine, and my mother thankfully respected that. This is not to say that I did not make certain that other people didn't get my mother's injection and toileting needs managed. I did. Her comfort was paramount in those last weeks. Grocery shopping has become a social anxiety nightmare and is no longer worth my time or effort. I use a delivery service from a local chain, and am very pleased with it and find it to be worth every penny of the ten dollars and then some. The husband griped at the cost at first, and offered a compromise of shopping for me if I made him a detailed list from the store's website. That happened one time and one time only and then he figured out that grocery shopping really does suck and eat up a lot of time, and now he cheerfully pays the delivery fee. This has been really good for us both, and has reduced impulse purchases to almost nothing.

Things I must do are pretty obvious and clear. I must get up, feed myself and the cats, take pills, and go to work. These things aren't choices. They have to happen, so it's on me to make them happen no matter what I need to do to make it so, or what I'd rather be doing at the time. I must shower, must have clean clothes, and must get the dishes clean and the garbage taken out so that I don't live in toxic waste. If that also sounds obvious, remember that I have ADHD, and that it is so very easy to hyper-focus on something, anything I'd rather be working on. I've plowed through hours of writing and RP before with Snape hair and a growling stomach and just kept on going because I'd rather be writing. Part of getting these things done was learning to delegate what I can't do and what I don't have time for. This is a hard one too because ADHD is related to OCD, and it's very hard for me to give up control. Basically, if I haven't done something myself it's very hard for me to really believe that it's been done properly or at all. But, I've done it. My husband and I have split the chores, we order grocery delivery, and all the bills are on automatic debit. And, sometimes, when I'm on a tear, the roommate has to get up and get her own lunch. ^_~

What I'd like to do still ends up on the bottom of the pile more often than I'd like, but I'm getting better at making time for it. I've taken up knitting again because I enjoy it, and it's good for me. I've also taken up gardening again and have hit the local hardware stores and farmer's markets for supplies. Making myself get out and see people and planning to see movies is harder than it used to be because I have a harder time with social anxiety now. I can't stand to have strangers touch me, or even stand too close sometimes. This translates over to friends and family when it gets bad. If you touch my hair or pat my back, and I flinch away from you, it's not because I don't like you or because I'm angry at you, it's because my senses are over-loaded and those little touches are like a red-hot cheese grater to me. Sometimes clinging or hand-holding helps, and helps me to refocus my senses, but not always. Sometimes I just have to leave. Thankfully I've become better at planning outings so I can get things done before I get overloaded.

I'm sure that there are people out there that think that all my quirks and coping skills and planning are crazy, but really, crazy is the alternative.

Very interesting article on mental illness in Newsweek this week.

I have gone un-medicated or on alternative treatment several times in my life. Sometimes it works great, other times not so well. It's definitely not cheap, and it takes a lot of close management. I went back on meds permanently last year just after my mother died. The first thing they gave me, Provigil, worked at the start, but then developed bad side-effects, so I went off it cold-turkey. I detoxed for a few months while I was waiting to get into a new doctor in Portland, and then started taking Vyvanse and then added Strattera to the mix a couple months later. I'm now up to 40mg on the Vyvance and 60mg on the Strattera, and that seems to have achieved a nice balance. I chose this path for several reasons. The first is that, for me, the pharmaceuticals are flat out easier to deal with. I take two little pills in the morning, and that's it. No more choking down horse-pill sized vitamins and supplements, measuring drops, grinding algae, or steeping teas. Yes, the meds are very expensive, but so is all of that stuff, it really adds up. Another reason is that in the US herbal remedies are not yet regulated by the FDA. Their claims have not been thoroughly validated, and they do not have to prove what's in their shiny little bottles. You have no proof of efficacy, or if they're even using the proper variety of the herb they claim to contain. A lot of cold remedy providers make a lot of money putting a cheap but useless variety of echinacia in their goods instead of the variety that actually works, which is expensive, and not abundant. So, there is the high likelihood of purchasing a bottle of very expensive green powder that does absolutely nothing.

Another alternative, of course, is spirituality. I had a lot of success with Yoga and meditation, and even taught Yoga for a few years. I've fallen out of the practice for the last couple of years for reasons I haven't quite figured out yet. Probably because I'm not ready to examine what's going on in my brain yet. I'll get there one day. A lot of people also find help in religion, prayer, and devotion. That doesn't work for me because most of it feels like devotion based on imagination instead of truth, or ritual done for the sake of the ritual itself. I need more purpose than that. As for truth, I don't have a way of knowing what's going on with the universe and feel foolish pinning a name on the powers that be. I prefer to float with it and enjoy. I partly chose to take pharmaceuticals again here because of time. In my job I can't stop and meditate when I'm flustered or overwhelmed, I have to be able to keep working. I can run through some chants in my head to soothe myself with the rhythm and familiarity, but I can't stop working. I can't stop to steep tea either. Bleeding and broken patients can't wait for that.

I do continue to monitor my diet, with which I've had the most success. Unprocessed whole foods are the way to go for me, and I not only improved my mental health with it, but also my physical health because I lost a lot of weight when I stopped eating processed foods and sweets. It's not always easy to avoid the food additives that make my ADHD worse. It takes time to read all those labels, and grocery shopping took a minimum of two hours when I first started. But, it's so very worth it. Food is the one are of my life where better living is NOT to be had through chemistry. Food dye is the worst offender, and it's in almost everything. I even got zapped by some in a bottle of mango juice a few years ago. Popsicles are like being handed a little tube of hyperkenetic spazztasticness. I apparently act like an excited two year old after eating them. So, I make almost everything from scratch now, I've even taken to making my own yogurt, condiments, and seasonings. This does take time and effort, but I actually enjoy cooking, so it's usually not too bad.

Long story short, (too late), is that I tip my hat to those who choose to go drug-free, but that's not where I am right now.

An 18 year old autistic boy named Nathanael Forbister has been missing since Friday. He left on Friday morning to drive himself to school, from Milwaukie to PCC Sylvania, but got into a car accident along the way. He was seen walking away from the wreak and has not been seen since, and no one knows if he is injured or not. If anyone has seen him, please call Milwaukie police at (503) 786-7500.

He has been found!

Hokay, CNN, you can stop with the riches to rags stories now. My eyes are about to roll out of my head from them. I really don't care that former bankers are now unable to buy the latest car models that help them show their community how Important they aren't. Anymore sob stories that include:

"ZOMG! I had to apply for a job on Craig's List! I am so humble and embarrassed now!"

will be firmly filed under He'll Get Over It. This is what recession is, kids. We all have to make adaptations that we don't like and apply for jobs that aren't our first choice just to keep the important things together. I don't care if you have to go work the night shift at McDonald's to make your ridiculously bloated mortgage payment, you're still going to find that preferable to seeing your family evicted and your belongings sold at auction. My father, who had twenty years of experience as a guidance counselor and small business owner and was a decorated veteran, took a crappy call center job for two years just for the insurance policy it would provide to my mother. He didn't enjoy it, and frequently came home grumbling and exasperated, but it's what he needed to do to get by, and he did it without an ounce of hesitation or whining.

I'm working a string of temp jobs and my husband is working a string of contracts because there are no permanent positions available at this time in our area, but it's work, we're happy to have it, and the rent gets paid.

Post a single sentence from each WIP you have (or as many as you want to pick). No context, no explanations. No more than one sentence or quote!

1. Connor shook, the pipes in the walls rattled in a way that embarrassed him and he pushed hard on his magic to make it stop and lowered his eyes.

2. "You wound me, Within, I meant nothing of the sort. How can anything done with Faith be blasphemy?"

3. He'd had to give bad news to The Lady, and his head hung as he scowled over this, which caused the rain to run off the brim of his hat and down the back of his rain-cape.

4. "You must come at once, Germogen. There is Trouble."

5. Josh shimmied into some tight leather pants, a loose silk shirt that he only buttoned three buttons of, and his boots with more complicated buckles than a whole set of luggage.

6. With great trepidation Richard packed up their tent and then saw that the children's tent was packed as well, and then went around cleaning up as best he could to leave as few traces as possible that a camp had ever been there.

7. He was also taught to tell stories, to weave tales out of thin air to capture attention and delight the patrons of the Bathhouse, and encourage them to stay a while longer, and perhaps enjoy a meal or a drink while there.

I need a word, or groups of words, in English that would mean something similar to feng shui.

It's been kinda bad the last two days, and I'm not sure this is anything the meds will ever help, but I just feel like I move about eight steps ahead of the rest of the world sometimes. I feel like I move at a hummingbird's pace when the rest of the world is moving like fish in molasass. It hasn't been all bad. I've gotten a lot of work done in ways that would be impossible without the meds. That's been awesome, as it's stuff that I've been needing to do for about 3 years now, but with all the shit going on couldn't even contemplate sitting down to do. Now it's all coming out in ways that are awesome, and I'm loving it and I shouldn't be frustrated, but I am because things aren't fast enough. I feel like I've run around the world three times and everyone else is still working on getting out of the room and at times it makes me want to scream, "You're still here? Why are you still here?" It's extra frustrating because not only do I feel held back, but then I feel guilty because logically I know that most people don't move at my pace, but I'm still going crazy. I have a completely different perception of time from everyone else. I get extraordinarily antsy when I have to wait and I frequently feel like I've been waiting ages for something to happen, and I look at the clock and it's been seven minutes. This doesn't get any better when I'm tired, either, it gets worse, almost like my brain has to come to full steam before it can crash into a wall and stop. Multi-tasking helps some, but not always, if what I'm waiting on is what my brain is currently obsessing over. Just, GAH, I don't know what to do about this. I'm so much better already, but I don't know if this part will ever get better. The only time the world has stopped was the couple of times I tried pot with my brother. It was absolute bliss. I felt so peaceful and everything was beautiful, and I very much see why my brother used it to medicate himself. Yes, I know pot isn't the answer here, and I never used it regularly because I know that, and because I'm a control freak and I want total control over my body and mind at all times. I don't even get drunk, let alone stoned. But it would be nice to be able to switch off sometimes.

People often ask why I don't listen to music or turn the TV on often, and it's because there is enough noise and activity in my head already. I don't need stimulation, I'm already stimulated 24/7. I don't even go to movie theaters anymore. There's just no way I can sit back in a dark room and wait to be pandered to, I need to be actively doing something. I actually learned to knit in hopes that it would help me sit through movies, and it does to some extent, but really, I'd rather be doing about a million other things than going to the theater. Usually all at once.

I saw this headline:

Sub joins hunt for explorer's plane lost in 1928

And immediately had the mental image of a twink in hiking gear and it actually took me a couple of minutes to realize they meant 'submarine' and not 'submissive'.

So, yeah, there's my brain for you.

This is a recipe request from Joaquin, and I'm her bitch, so a carrot cake recipe I do provide. This is a very kitchen-sink sort of recipe that I've cobbled together from several over the years. It's got so much stuff in it that it nearly qualifies as a fruitcake, so if you're looking for something with more cake-fluff to it reduce the add-ins a little.

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For the last couple of weeks, I've been on 60mg of Strattera, up from 40mg, and 30mg of Vyvance and had been hoping to go up to 40mg, but it's actually taken some time for this dose to settle, and I'm just now feeling like myself again, so I don't think I'll play with it for a while. This latest adjustment was causing me to struggle with my hypoglycemia and with my writing. I would desperately want to write, but feel scattered and not know where to start or even be able to formulate an idea for a scene. I was able to do a little world-building and organization in this time, and I had loads of ideas, but I really wanted to write. Today the words have been pouring out, and I feel great, and I actually feel like I can make some progress in some areas in my life that have really needed it.

My hypoglycemia has been a bit of a devil to control. My doctor had said that the appetite-suppression I had experienced as an adolescent would likely not happen to me now that I'm an adult. His exact words were, "Don't expect this to be a diet pill, because it won't work that way." I told him that wasn't what I was looking for, and that I have my own ways to manage my weight and that right now I'm focused on my metal health. Boy, was he WRONG! My food-intake is at about a third of normal, which wasn't all that huge to begin with. I don't think I've lost any weight. I don't have a scale, but my clothes fit the same, and I still look the same in the mirror, but I'm definitely eating less. This has been something of a double-edge sword because the Vyvance makes me more aware of my hypoglycemia, but I have less desire to eat enough to help it, AND drinking a little juice or eating a piece of fruit doesn't take the edge off like it used to. I'm not really sure what to do about this. Meal-planning to eat six small meals would help, and has worked in the past, but is a pain in the ass to deal with, and with the appetite-suppression, I don't want food that often. Lately I've been eating just enough to feel full, and then passing my plate to Z. Might have to start tracking my food on SparkPeople again, but that sets off my OCD tendencies to ZOMG! make the graphs and numbers balance! rather than just eating as my nutritionist recommends. May have to see if I can disable the graphs and numbers or adjust them or something.

Have just figured out why I have an age-old habit. Weird to know that there's a reason for these things. I drag my fingertips down the wall when I walk down a flight of stairs, and I've done so for as long as I can remember. My mother used to gripe at me about it because it left smudges down the wall, but I was never able to break the habit because most of the time I don't even know I'm doing it. I've just now figured out that I do it because it's a spacial-relation. I have very poor eyesight and limited depth perception, 3-D movies don't work on me at all, and staircases are still a challenge to navigate. Dragging my fingertips down the wall has the duel function of letting me know where I am in space, and the comfort of the familiar feel of the wall.

I've always been obsessed with textures and things that are soft or silky my whole life and was a very tactile child in a way that might now be considered a 'stim' but at the time was just a weird and annoying behavior set that my mother worked hard to train me out of. I'm actually very curious as to how close I was to the Asperger's end of the spectrum as a child, but was never diagnosed because it was largely unknown then. Even ADD/ADHD was almost unheard of at the time in our region and even though my teachers spotted it in me in kindergarten and my brother in 3rd grade* we weren't formally diagnosed until we were teenagers when my brother turned to street drugs because life in general was making him crazy.

*just realized as I was writing this that me being in kindergarten and my brother being in 3rd grade happened the same year, so I wonder if some new teacher education happened in that time period.