Coincidentally, I just registered Casper for her first Fan Event. She's buying Marissa Meyer's new book Fairest and getting it signed by the author, after a dress-up party at the bookstore. She is planning to dress as "Cress when her hair was short." It's been fanart vs. homework for days and the event's not until the 31st, so it's going to get worse.

Buffistas: The Next Generation - reporting strong.

I remember trying to explain you guys via the Buff Diver.

Which... I'm not entirely sure it worked, but hey.

Plei has started my allergies up again. It really is so good to see so many people posting here again after so long, although I would do anything for it not to be under these circumstances. Even those of you that I see on other social media it's different seeing you here again.

I finally caught up here. I have an emotional hang over and am feeling like the hair of the dog is already at work. More sad than anything. CJ hadn't left for school yet when I told him a buffista had died. He asked who and when I told him, he was all "Nooooooooooooo". He has never met her or read her pixels but knew that this was wronger than a wrong thing that is wrong.

I haven't caught up in the ita thread yet. I need to concentrate on work for a bit and fake my way through a conference call I'm supposed to be leading. I already rescheduled it from yesterday, so I have to power through.

I miss you too, Plei, and I thought of you when you were scarcer around here. I mean, I was scarcer around here too. So it's totally ok to do that, but it's also totally ok to be here, and you're not going to say something stupid. Or, you will, and we'll all laugh or ignore it or whatever, and it'll be fine.

I don't know enough about this, but it sounds like a common problem, that people, women in particular, can't get the pain meds they need.

Forgive me in advance for the all-about-me-ness of this.

I don't remember the chronology of it, but ita and I were both in steadily-deepening migraines for most of the last decade+. We occasionally (very occasionally) touched base about what our doctors were up to. Like ita, I was on daily opiates for awhile, although at much lower doses; not because of virtue, but because that sufficed.

The bullshit they put you through for pain medication is fucking *amazing*. The Federal government is upset (rightly) about abuse of oxycodone, and the solution they've come up with is to harass the doctors and the patients for overprescription, and the definition of "overprescription" is pretty damn broad and would encompass any doctor who treats chronic pain.

The neurologist who prescribed my oxycodone was literally afraid of losing his license. Think about that. Like ita, I had a track record a mile long of failed treatments, with a chart that measured in inches, not pages. And yet using oxycodone as the last-resort "this is the only thing that worked" medication threatened his license.

I'm not even going to bore you with how hard it was picking up prescription refills. Oh, wait, I am. You have to hand in a paper prescription every damn month. Fun fun. My pharmacy actually tried claiming they couldn't get it and wouldn't order it from the warehouse, and I lucked out because the head pharmacist saw me, recognized me, and told the clerk it was okay, he knew me. Pharmacists won't tell you over the phone whether they're willing to fill opiate prescriptions (many aren't) because they assume you're planning a robbery.

Pain medication in this country sucks. It doesn't just suck for ita. It sucks by deliberate government policy, and the people who are getting hurt are the people in pain, not the people who are suffering from addiction.

I'm not on opiates any more; it had gotten to the point where they were part of the problem, intensifying pain. But various of the other meds I *do* take are creeping up the Schedule charts, so it could all happen all over again.

Have I mentioned this sucks?

Best to end with an ita memory. She is the person who slapped my face until I realized that, no, "wog" was not amusing and Edwardian. I'm ashamed of that person, but I'm grateful ita put up with her.

Wow. On every single level, this country has become about punishing the afflicted and downtrodden.

Cereal:

And anybody who even thinks about trying to help.

Cause what I'm trying to say is, I've missed you guys. I've missed us. I wouldn't be where I am today (which, OK, is sitting in my chair in PJs with a cup of coffee, but I don't mean literally) without you. I found this place when I needed a home, when my meatspace friend circle was dissolving into a puddle of growing apart and moving away. I was, well, unemployed and spending all my time in jammies with a cup of coffee, so that's the same, but I've got you guys now.

All of this. (Except I'm drinking hot cider, because the heart clenchy is present enough without adding caffeine.) I had step back for reasons of privacy, but I still read almost every day, and now I miss the time I could have been posting. But you're (we're) still here. I wouldn't be here, on this couch, in my jammies, without all of us.

Wow. On every single level, this country has become about punishing the afflicted and downtrodden.

Yup.

My back pain has been nowhere near what ita went through, and I couldn't even get a doctor to take that seriously for years. What she went through fills me with helpless rage. Our nation's Puritan policies are focused more on punishing and thwarting criminals and addicts than on helping people in need. There are far more of the latter, but the gatekeepers end up treating the needy like criminals or addicts. I'd rather we helped people in pain and risked treating the criminals and addicts like people in need, after all they usually are. How to change this fucking destructive system, I don't even know.

I'd like to legislate "ita's Law": If a doctor doesn't prescribe a person in pain adequate pain meds, they get a solid kick in the nads and tasered while they're down, and then two doctors stand over them, one to ask them to rate their pain on this frowny-face chart, and the other to write them a scrip for one Tylenol.