Yesterday was the gathering for my friend, Patrick. I had a pleasant time and chatted with some lovely people who knew him from different places than I did so we had never met before. It was completely unstructured, no one even said any, like, "final remarks", which would have had me feeling like I was lacking closure. But they had a display they put together to give to his folks, which included 5 or 6 photos that I contributed and a place to write messages. So I decided that getting to say one last goodbye was perfectly nice closure. Turns out it was pancreatic cancer. So, as usual, cancer can fuck right off.

I feel as though I've sincerely gotten mansplained, because somebody has finally hit on some of my expertise. To wit: "You've heard of sarcasm, right?"(Although when it comes to abled people understanding ableism...well, let's just say, at times, it does not hurt to start slowly.) I could have posted "No! Enlighten me." and ended up in a total chatbot-ish loop.

Stay strong, Erika. Probably not worth the agita to engage with that type.

Don't really care enough.

Happy valentine's, Bitches! (Probably the twentieth, if you're scoring at home. Or even if you're alone...)

Thanks for links, meara! I was talking to my doctor last month and brought up possibly getting on one of the new obesity drugs, and she came back with this long Health at Every Size spiel. Which was actually nice—thank you, doctor, for not assuming all my problems are due to being fat. But also, my knees hurt, and carrying literally twice their ideal load might figure into that. Then she said, “Yeah, but insurance won’t pay for those meds, so, maybe try a diet and exercise combo,” since that’s only failed me for the past 40 years. So I’m happy to try a clinical trial and see if I can get either skinny or superpowers.

Captain Crunch: Hah—I sent off an email and immediately got the response that they are full up. Guess everyone wants free drugs.

My sister is doing Ozembic and hers is covered. Though in her case she was nudging into pre-diabetic so that might be why.

If I knew the secret to my metabolic rate, I could possibly save people a lot of time. I would sincerely be a part of research, if they could promise that, like, my tongue wouldn't fall out or something. That is, unless it was that the Powers that be decided the "Out, but don't walk, Bitch," was kind of harsh and gave me a consolation prize I didn't really appreciate till I turned thirty. Although I hesitate to say I can eat whatever I want, because of the reflux, and because some of the things human nature really wants are dumb, but I'm not preoccupied by that one group of things.(At least there's one.)

You can search for other similar studies on clinical trials .gov too, search under either the drug name or the issue being obesity or overweight!