December, and all that comes with it

November is over, and all the excitement of Christmas is coming.

I didn't blog once during November as I focused all my writing energies on NaNoWriMo, and seeing if I was up to the amount of daily writing that it would take for me to become a writer full time. Well, quantity I can do. Quality, not so much, but its all about practice. I enjoyed doing it, and hopefully I can keep motivating myself. 

An odd side effect is that now I no longer know what to do with my free time if I am not writing!

Anyway, December in all its glory is now here, and I am both looking forward to and dreading Christmas in pretty much equal measure.  Its only a week until I have my hand surgery, and while I know that its not a big deal - its only hand-surgery after all, not heart surgery - I am pretty anxious about it, and can't keep my mind off it.  6 weeks in a cast also does not sound like fun over the holiday period.

Still, I get 2 weeks paid off work over Christmas, so that's good.

But things I am most concerned about are thusly:

• ASD Daughters getting more and more hyped up, with no space or time to calm down. Meltdown City, if last year is anything to go by
• parents coming to visit for Christmas for first time. this will add to point above, and put wife in same category. She likes my parents, but this is pressure!
• Operation going badly, leaving me less able over the period.

now I love Christmas, and everything that goes with it (other than drunk drivers and office parties) and normally I don't stress about anything like this. I just relax and enjoy it, letting the good old Christmas spirit take over, but in recent weeks, wife has declare her theory that ASD people love Christmas because they are programmed to from childhood, with everything reinforcing how wonderful Christmas should be, and we are effectively forced to love it, meaning that a bad Christmas to NTs is an absolute disaster to NNTs, and that maybe if we thought for ourselves, we would see that Christmas wasn't that great.

And I was gutted! She didn't use those exact words, but I followed through on her train of thought, and it made me sad and a little angry that she was telling me that I only like Christmas because people have told me to, and because my brain is abnormal.  It really hurt, but I couldn't tell or show her that because I felt it would only reinforce my abnormality.

It hurt, and it made me sad, and it only reinforces the feeling I have that wife and I are drifting apart, but that's a blog for another day.

Right now I have presents to wrap, cards to write and a family Christmas to prepare for.

Writing time

So, to take my mind off of my impending surgery I have decided to try my hand at novel writing. And because I lack focus, tend to become obsessive and work in short bursts I am joining in with thousands of other people attempting to write a 50000 word novel in 30 days as part of NaNoWriMo

So, that's thinking of and typing over 1000 words of story and dialogue per day. I am not convinced this is a good idea but I imagine its going to be a hell of an experience, and I'm even looking forward to the local launch party 2 days before where I will get to meet some people who are doing the same thing.

But the thing is I've signed up as anonymousaspie, and so it will be odd going to the launch event and either
A- introducing myself as anonymousaspie or
B- using my real name and thereby destroying my illusion on anonymity.

I am puzzled.

Anyway, I've got a idea or 2 percolating away, things I have gathered together over the years or stuff that has stuck in my brain.  I have a couple of character ideas, a story name but not yet a concept for the full story, but I'm doing some research and thinking, noting down anything new that occurs to me.  Anything to not think about the hand surgery!

I am wondering if my new awareness of self and aspie state will influence any of my writing. Writing isn't new to me. i used to write settings for role-playing games, and when i wrote a setting it was intricate, well-planned, evolved and detailed. There were characters you would never meet that i had hopes and dreams sketched for.  I loved creating a living setting, so that if players decided to go off-piste, as it were, i always had a vast expanse for them to explore; sort of the RPG equivalent of the computer sandbox-game experience.

but this is completely different. I had time to shape and mold and perfect my characters and settings. this is the exact opposite. in a lot of ways its a nightmarish proposition, but if i ever really want to be a writer, then i need to start somewhere, and taking the plunge here might be just the thing to get me into a literary frame of mind.

And away from hand surgery!

Suddenly, surgery. WTF???

It was hard enough going to hospital yesterday. My thumb has been getting sorer and less mobile for months, and I've been seeing a physiotherapist recently.

On Friday I managed to badly injure myself while attempting to take the till receipt from the checkout attendant at Tesco (Really!). It was so bad I immediately went to minor injuries unit to look at my hand.

They put my hand in an old-lady-style dressing and referred me to the hand clinic on Wednesday. Cue a weekend full of me clumsily knocking stuff over and insisting I can still lift & carry with ease (LIE!), followed by a hand cramp incident on Tuesday which meant I had to come home from work.

By Wednesday I was really ready to see a doctor, but I don't really enjoy hospitals that much.  So wasn't it nice of them to forget I was there for 2 hours!!!  At least when they realised their error they booted me to the front of the queue and gave me preferential treatment from there on it.

One pragmatic doctor assesment later (he just grabbed my thumb and bent it back quickly and i screamed) and i'm on my way to X-ray. 20 minutes later I'm sitting in from of the doctor again (protecting my thumb this time!) and he's telling me that what I need is reconstructive surgery as my volar ligament (?) on my thumb is basically not there any more, and they'll have to open my thumb and my wrist up to reconnect one to the other using tissue they will stretch from my forearm.

Seriously???


I just have a sore thumb!  please be kidding!

but they are not. I am on my way to having what the doctor described as the most complex surgery they do on that part of the body.

Followed by 6 weeks in a cast and then months of physio.

I can't believe it. I'm just shocked, and more than a little scared. Its my right hand and I am right handed, and I can't help thinking about what would happen if it goes wrong.

I am also worried for wife. she already has 3 people with ASD in the house to worry about, without then having to pick up the slack for the things I can't do during my rehab.

Fuckity bawbags!