Ok, so here's the deal. The Powers That Be at Illustration Friday have decided to post the new IF topic on Fridays instead of Monday. They have it set up so that as soon as a new topic is posted, the prior submissions are archived. Therefore when they post a new IF topic tomorrow/today, the Fragile topic will disappear on their site and the new topic will take over. So from now on, my Illustration Friday submission will be posted here on Thursdays. Makes sense, right? I know. They wanted to give people a chance to work on their projects over the weekend. Would have made more sense if they posted the new topic on Saturday morning instead, with Friday remaining the deadline. But I'm not the organizer of the thing. So from now on I'll post it on Thursdays. Or whatever day I feel like I guess. It doesn't seem to matter.
I'm a little tense tonight. I go to the doctor for the last time for my wrist later today. This is the session where he tells me the permanent level of disability, and what my disability rating is for the purposes of workman's comp settlement. A lot of where I go from here vocationally depends on the outcome of this meeting, and my nerves are ratcheted up a little as a result. I just keep pushing it out of my mind and focusing on good things instead. Such as Ladder 49. I watched this with Randy tonight. It wasn't what I expected. It was better. Randy is a volunteer for the local fire and ambulance squads, and in many ways we can relate to movies such as this one. Fortunately Randy had already seen it and was able to warn me of a scene with rats so that I could look away. I have a phobic fear of them. One nice thing I can say about them though is that their cries are very melodic. When you have spent your life listening to them rather than looking at them whenever they appear on screen, you notice these things. They sound like birds singing. Fascinating. Still, the little buggers give me the creeps. One too many dreams of being eaten alive by them when I was younger. No need to shrink wrap me on this one folks, it's already been done. Dreams of them are a stress indicator for me. The problem is that my dreams are so very vivid, so graphic, that it has translated into a phobic fear in waking life. But it's one I can live with.
Anyway, they only appear very briefly towards the beginning of the movie so I was able to relax and enjoy it. It was sad, but good.
Oh, and I have used my treadmill every day so far. I feel better both physically and emotionally, exercise being one of my favorite ways to burn off stress as well. It really was a wise investment in my overall health.
I think that's all I've got tonight. I'm not feeling particularly humorous, snarky, clever or wise. I am, at the moment, Just Me.