This month has seemed to suck for a lot of people I know.

For one, one of my closest friends and I had a fellow friend die tragically and suddenly, as if the two don't go hand in hand. Then, he's had to move twice due to break-ins. Why would anyone steal Eskalith, which for those of you who don't know what that is, it's a formulation of Lithium Carbonate. Then he got a traffic ticket that's going to cost him pretty steeply and he lives on a very fixed SSDI income which he's trying to come off of. One of the guys he's been working with for some time now relapsed and tried to drag him into his little psychodrama and won't stop bugging him. And today someone - or some people, but at least one person - broke into the place he's just moved to and trashed it, writing racial slurs in costume blood and a large permanent marker all over his efficiency apartment. The cops called it "reverse discrimination" - some politically correct bullshit that is, if you ask me. Discrimination is discrimination, no matter what race it happens to. And this is one of the nicest, most caring, most giving people I know, too. He's the only white guy living in this small complex and the odds are that it wasn't one of his neighbors because they're all either disabled and couldn't have smashed in the smallish bathroom window and climbed in through it.

I've been in rather a lot of pain all month and it's put a damper on work. I was diagnosed with Systemic Lupus about three weeks ago, bu as my doctor didn't do the testing to differentiate between the genetic or drug-induced version . . . or to see if it's simply a really bad case of Rheumatoid Arthritis, all of which show the same basic antibody if you only do the nuclear ANA antibody test - which is ALL my doctor did when she concluded that, yep, I have SLE, the disease that killed my mother. And she did this without any of the confirming tests that are generally run alongside the nuclear ANA antibody test, showing me once again her level of competency. So I fired her. And since then I've been searching for a new doctor - and a pain management clinic. I think I've found a pain management clinic and I'm going there on Tuesday when they have walk-in hours as it's quicker than getting an appointment. The other amazing thing is that my now former primary care physician wouldn't release my records to the other pain management clinics that I'd requested she do so to, which has meant that I've been living in excruciating pain for the last few weeks. It's also meant that I really haven't been able to work, that I've had fun walking up and down stairs - and my bedroom is on the third floor!, and that I've generally been home-bound (more like bed-bound), in agony when I do have to move. I still make myself get up and do things, though my activity has been much restricted because of the pain, but I know that it's worse if I don't move at all. This has put a damper on my photography and fire spinning, though, which makes me sad.

And my aforementioned friend and I aren't the only ones having a crappy August, but if I listed everyone and their woes, this would go on way too long, as far as entries go.

Blargh. May September be better!

Reese