: That's life.

I usually try to avoid writing more than one blog post (on the same blog) in a single day, as I don't want to "overexpose" my blog. Usually this is not a problem, as I usually write three to five posts spread over a month, but right now my brain is working overtime, causing me to lose sleep again, and I just have to write it down. I'll probably wait until tomorrow morning to actually submit it, though.

Diabetes

Days like today (technically yesterday), while very nice for my overall life, is not very good for my diabetes. I spent a lot of time out of the house today, walking around, talking with relatives and stuff like that. Basically being my somewhat crippled form of social. But as a result, my rather strict eating-routines have been severely disturbed today. Last time I went to the "diet-adviser", that I go to about once a month due to my diabetes followup program, she told me that I had developed a nice rhythm in my eating habits, but also that I still ate a bit too much every time I ate. So she gave me some new advice, which was basically; Eat even less every time I eat, but also eat more often for a while. The goal, she said, was to make my stomach used to smaller amounts of food at a time, and eventually get back to the old rhythm with the smaller portions. I guess it sounds more complicated than it is.

The problem with this is that it makes my life very... Strict. While it's usually advised that people eat every three-four hours, I now have to eat every two-three hours. And when going out or visiting someone, that's quite a hassle. Today, when I was down in Dokka with my grandmother and some other relatives, I started getting hypoglycemic (low blood sugar, resulting in shaking, feeling ill) because I hadn't eaten in such a long time (which really wasn't more than about four hours, but considering the small amount I ate...), and I ended up buying an ice cream to at least get some sugar in me. And then I was invited to dinner at my grandparents', which is nice, but they were so vague about when that I again went almost four hours between meals, and again almost got hypoglycemic.

I need to make some sort of system for when I get in situations like that.

Exercise

So, April haven't been a good month for walks. Either the weather's been awful or I've been sick. Or it's been easter. So yeah, I haven't really been able to follow up on all those long walks I had in the end of March. But I'm starting to get into a nice habit of other types of exercise, that aren't weather- or health-dependent; I've started using the ancient exercise bike that I got from my grandparents, and I've started doing push-ups. The exercise bike isn't the best thing around. The speedometer/timer-panel has broken off, so I had to tape it back on, and the gear-thing is really weird, so it's really difficult getting it to a resistance that feels ok. But it's good exercise, I'm completely exhausted after 5+10+10 minutes on it. The push-ups aren't something I thought I'd be able to do, but after trying it only from the knees up, instead of full ones, I figured it's better than nothing. I can do about 3x8 of those right now, up from 3x5 when I first started.

Weird things.

I've also gotten these weird things, which I don't know if actually helps in any way. I do feel it in both my hands and arms if I use them for a while, so I guess there it at least some benefit to it. Or something.

Love-life

I don't want to talk too much about this yet, but I have met someone that I really like. Or, I haven't actually met her yet, but I'm hoping that it won't be too long until I can meet her. But I've been talking to her on and off for quite a while, and even more the last few days, and... Yeah. She seems great. I'm looking forward to finding out where this goes. Hopefully it actually goes somewhere. =)

I am a bit concerned about the age-difference, though. She's almost ten years younger than me; She turns 18 in a couple of weeks, I turn 28 in September. But... Yeah. I don't know. Hopefully, I'm worrying about nothing.

Apartment

It's getting there!

I'm still working on getting my apartment ready for LAN's again. Now you might think that it couldn't really be that much work, that it couldn't possibly actually take this much time... And you're right, it really shouldn't. I've been working on it for about two and a half months in total now (or maybe closer to just two), so I really should be done with it by now, several times over even. But it's not as simple as that. First of all; My apartment was in a very, very, very poor state when I started working on it. I had tons of junk that I had to throw away, as it was useful for nothing except wasting space. And I still have stuff that I need to throw away, only I can't without paying for it. And I don't have the money to pay for getting rid of trash. 

Second; I'm not a fast worker when it comes to stuff like cleaning. It's not that I'm bad at it (although I'm not exactly good at it either), it just takes me a long time. And due to my general physical condition (which has been getting better due to exercising), I can't do it for very long at a time. I have to take frequent breaks, which often gets me derailed, and I end up only half-finishing something. 

Combining the poor starting state of my apartment and the fact that it takes me a long time to get things done means that, while there is overall progress, the things that I've finished must be redone several times, which means that the closer I get to finishing, the longer it takes to progress further. It's frustrating. But fortunately, there's a light in the end of the tunnel. I've gotten support from Nav to get my apartment professionally cleaned, once. To get me back to a starting point, meaning I can focus on maintenance rather than restoration. This is a one time deal, and I only get this help now because I never got anything like it back when my sleep disorder was an actual problem. Back then I was so out of it I didn't even notice how bad it was.

I do now, though, and this is the one big thing that's keeping me down at the moment, to the point that it's, indirectly, one of the main reasons why the relationship between Wenche and I broke. And... Yeah. I just want to get things to a point where I can feel good about having visitors. I mean, I don't really feel too bad about it anymore, but there's still a lot of improvements that need to be done. And until they're done I really don't want to have any LAN's.

Almost ready for LAN, but not quite.

The only problem now is that I have no idea when I'll get this professional help...

Well, that was a little bit about everything that's been going on in my life recently. I've probably forgotten something, but I think this is more than enough for one update. =P

: Artist or no?

The past few years I've spent very, very little time on deviantArt. Only a few hours a year, actually. I don't really know why that is. At least as a spectator, I'm still very much interested in the art that takes place there. And I still hold that place in high regards. But I guess it's hard to keep up an interest in a place like that when your own creative spark is missing. 

I used to be very passionate about creating stuff. I wasn't very good at it, but I created. I liked to experiment and try out weird stuff, although 99% of that was never seen by anyone but me. Most of the stuff I submitted there was, when you start to break it down, mostly the same stuff, the same techniques and filters, over and over, done in a slightly different way. And I guess that's what killed my spark. Through all my experimenting with different things, I never really was able to learn how to properly use any of the tools I experimented with, I was never able to use any of it in something that I deemed worthy of being submitted for anyone and everyone to see, and therefore never grew as an artist. 

I still feel the need to create something from time to time. I still have that itch to make something that I can show off, that I can be proud of. But it's just an itch. It never evolves. Or very rarely, at least. I did try to create a new Winamp-skin while back, a year or two ago. I really like that skin-design. It's still in progress, and in safe storage for once, but I just don't know if I'll ever be able to finish it, simply because I don't feel I have the skill needed to create what I actually want. It's frustrating as hell. And the fact that Winamp-skins in general are outdated, doesn't help.

I'm not a writer either. I was gonna say "I'm not a writer anymore either", but then I re-read my written stuff and realized I never actually was a writer. What I have in my gallery there is just awful, it really is. Granted, most of it was written from my then state of mind, which is in no way compatible with my current state of mind, and without adhering to any sort of rules of writing as a sort of rule of my own. But reading it now, as a spectator to my former self, it just... It's not very good. It made sense back then, I guess. And some of the themes still apply to my current life. But I just don't feel any connection to my old self, and I really just find it embarrassing. I'm gonna leave it up, though, because... Well, why not?

But yeah, I'm not a writer. I mean, sure, I write stuff like this. I do it all the time here on my blog. And I guess that makes me a writer of some sort. But I'm not an artsy writer. I can't, and never could, write proper artsy stuff. It's just not my thing, unless I'm in that state of mind. And... Well. I'm still proud of most of my visual stuff, or at least my Winamp-skins. But as I said, all of my written stuff is just embarrasing. That says a lot.

So, yeah. I still very much want to be an artist. But I just don't think I have what it takes. 

Oh well.

: Nights like these...

Nights like these are the reason why I'll never be able to have a real job.

For about a year and a half now, I've had an official diagnose on my sleep disorder, and medication for it that actually works. Well, it works most of the time. And that's the problem. While the medication works most of the time, the few times that it doesn't work will make it very hard for me to keep a job. On average I'd say that about once every two weeks I wont be able to come in to work, or at least not be able to do my job properly. I had a lot of experience with that when I worked at Delta Data, when I used weaker medication.

While once in two weeks might not seem like much, I never know when it'll "strike". I might sleep normally for a month, then suddenly have two or three sleepless nights in one week. It doesn't matter what I do during the day either. It doesn't matter if I get up at 7am or 3pm. It doesn't matter if I sleep at any point during the day or not. It doesn't matter if I've been physically active or not. I can't imagine any employer wanting someone as unreliable as that as a full-time employee.

Nav, or at least my case-worker there, has recognized this as a real problem, and the last time I had an appointment we talked about me possibly getting some sort of flexi-time employment somewhere. Basically a job I can do when I'm able to, and where it doesn't matter too much that I can't come in on any given day without warning. The problem is; Where the hell can I find something like that? As already mentioned, I can't imagine an employer wanting an employee like that. 

I don't really know what to do about this. I mean, there's nothing more I can do about my sleep. I've tried everything, with no luck. The medication just doesn't work 100% of the time. And I have no idea where to start trying to find a job like that. I like the idea of it, I'd very much like to be able to use my time for something useful when I can, but I just don't see it happening. Unless it's through Nav again somehow, like when I worked at Delta Data. But I doubt they'd want a permanent solution like that. And I don't think I'd want that either, as it probably wouldn't pay very well.

I hate nights like these.... 

: Easter.

This has been a very lazy easter.

First of all, the weather hasn't been too great, it's been cold and unpleasant, so I haven't felt like going for any walks. The last couple of days have been even worse. The day starts of with snow, then it melts during the day, and it's just cold and wet. The last walk I did was last Saturday, the 31st. It was cold then too, but I decided to go for a walk anyway. The problem is that the lower the temperature is, the more my right leg acts up. It's very uncomfortable to walk on it. I still walked 8km that day, which is a new record, but the first three were so bad I don't want to do it again. I want the weather we had when I first started walking outside of Dokka to come back.

I've also been LANing the entire easter. Rune came to my place on the 30th, and we had a mini-LAN here at my place, playing quite a lot of Titan Quest. It felt almost like back in the day when he basically lived at my place for months at a time. Then on Thursday we went to Marius and Veronica's place for a bigger LAN. Not a lot of games being played that I want to play, but it was still nice. 

On Friday Rune and I went to Gjøvik, to eat at Peppe's, and to meet some friends that at least I don't see very often. Rune, Hallgeir and I usually try to go to Peppe's whenever he's in the area, and try to drag with us as many other people as we can, that want to go to Peppe's. Hallgeir brought his girlfriend, Shauna, so we got to meet her for the first time, and she seems very nice. They both came to the LAN the next day. The others we managed to drag with us this time were Terje and Ane, and Yrjan and Tonje.

My appartment still isn't quite ready for arranging real LAN's of my own again. It's getting there, but there's still a few things that need to be done. One of them being finding someone to drive the couches I've gotten from Veronica from her place to mine, so I'll have places for people to actually sit. So if anyone can help, either you have a big van or a car with "tilhengerfeste", it would be very nice.