Category Archives: Snake

bad weekend

I’ve had a bad weekend following a shaky week, and I pretty much fell off the internet in broad terms. I had to force myself to go shopping on Sunday, and I was shaking afterwards. There’s a few things going into this, and Jeremy still being missing is one of them. The depression spiral that leads into is a little terrifying and I actually don’t even want to voice the steps out loud out of some kind of prophetic superstition.

Today is better. I’ve cycled into work (and back home again) these last two days, and the physical activity helps, I think. Felt terrible yesterday (probably due to malnutrition over the weekend) but my energy levels are much better today.

Frustrations at non-functioning code are at a high point and that adds stress to near-breaking point. If it actually gets to the point where I know I’m going to yell at someone if they interrupt me again, that’s probably the point where I’ll need to walk out of the office. So far, so good on that point.

Bad times

I’m not having an easy time at the moment. I lack energy, I lack motivation. It’s harder to get going in the mornings, harder to get to doing things.

Everything builds up in a heavy spiral, spreading its weight across me. Little things get to me more, and I find it harder to relax.

Jeremy being missing really doesn’t help – it weighs more than everything else, and the lack of luck in finding him removes more of my motivation in general.

Between the building pressures and the business of the season, it’s tricky to keep my focus even on things I enjoy.

Tattoos and snakes

Tattoo is healing well. It’s faded, but the skin’s still healing, so it’s entirely understandable there. Really happy with it.

Jeremy still missing. Have acquired a USB inspection light[1] to have a look in some tight spaces for him in case he has got stuck behind the bookcase or something. Don’t really know where he’s gone – there are so many options, and he’s not left any trail or sign of his presence that I can see.

My worst fear is that he’s left the flat – squeezed out through the gap between the floor and the door, or found a hole somewhere that takes him out. If he’s not in the flat any more, I might never find him again. On the other hand, if he doesn’t come out in the next couple of weeks, he might starve. On the other other hand, this was something of the worst time for him to disappear as I have so many commitments stealing my time I can’t find the time for a concerted search of the entire flat even if the task wasn’t depressing in itself. I just don’t have the time I need to get things sorted.

Footnotes   [ + ]

1. bendy camera thing

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Something magical

There’s something magical about watching a snake eat something several times larger than his own head. It seems to defy all logic, and while you’re watching there are several moments when you wonder if he’ll manage it, or if he’s going to have to give up. And then, slowly and magically, with no seeming transition, even more of the food has gotten in and you’re still not sure how that happened because you were watching the entire time. It’s hypnotic.

To explain, I gave Jeremy his first adult mouse yesterday. It is quite a bit larger than the rat pups he’s been on, and he gobbled those up no trouble at all, but they weren’t much bigger in diameter than he was. This mouse was a good third, maybe half again his base diameter and at least double the diameter of his head. I wasn’t sure he was going to be able to eat it. It took him several goes as well. He started chewing on the ear because he was trying to find the best place to start and hadn’t quite grasped where to go – especially given he couldn’t fit much in his mouth at once. He ended up unhinging his jaw and stretching to such an extent I was half-worried it was hurting him. I was completely unconvinced that he was going to get the mouse’s hips in – they just seemed so much wider than even him at his most stretched, but he managed to squeeze them back together and drag them in.

Absolutely fascinating to watch. And of course, upon posting the pictures to Google+, I’ve had two people go “can you not share that with me?” My answer is no. My answer will always be no. I do not make posts based on what my audience (such as it is) wants to see, I make them based on what I want to post. What that means is that the privacy level I use (be that circles on Google+, or friends groups on Facebook, or something else) is based on what I perceive the sensitivity of the post to be. If I don’t want to share something with everyone who might want to see it, I won’t. If I’m raising a potentially controversial issue, I’ll usually reduce the numbers. If I’m posting about my mental health, I’m usually quite careful about my audience. But that’s the thing, I choose my audience based on the limits I want to impose on the content, not what other people think those limits should be.

Many people I know create circles on Google+ purely to share content of a particular flavour. I can understand that viewpoint from one perspective, but I utterly don’t from another. Having a “roleplaying” circle that you make roleplaying posts to is great, as long as you know that everyone who might want to see them is on there. But what if you make a new friend who might want to see it but you haven’t asked yet? What if a friend of a friend might have a good point to make, but will never get to see it because they’re not in your group.

I use circles primarily to sort content into categories that make sense of how I know the person, and that I can use to break down who I want to read. My phone shows me the latests posts from my “Friends” circle on my homescreen rather than showing me all posts. This means that I don’t see the communities and the other people I’ve got circled – just the people who I want to read more often. The secondary use is to share sensitive content as I said above, and that’s a much rarer thing for me.

But then, I see things differently. I’m a glutton for information – I want to see it all, to have access to it all, and to freely be able to access it. I don’t like the closed off worlds that my friends create, even as I understand that they don’t share my views on the matter. C’est la vie.

Snake

Something I did do over the winter period was acquire a snake. Jeremy, as he’s known, is a gorgeous corn snake. I picked him up on the 27th of December, so I’ve had him 4 weeks now. He shed this week, growing a bit larger and  the plan is to put him on larger feed in a few weeks.

We’re still getting used to each other (he’s currently hiding on my windowsill) but I like having him here – his scales on my skin is akin to having someone else here touching me – even if his touch is a bit cooler than most people’s.