Estranged

Yesterday I spent nary an hour at home due to a series of appointments. First was my regular Wednesday torture hour, taking up most of the morning including an hour of cycling to and from the beauty salon. After returning home I just had enough time for lunch and a quick shower before I had to leave for the next thing, assembling a PC for a friend who I had helped previously to pick the right components.

Assembling the PC itself took little over an hour, and aside from the usual small glitches it worked right away. He had picked Windows 7 as the operating system, which was my first time seeing it install. The most annoying thing in my opinion about this installation was the absolute lack of progress indicators during the process. With previous Windows versions the installer shows you what it is doing, a time indication (which is more for show, but still) and general more information about which files it's copying to the HDD and everything.

The Windows 7 installer seemed to enjoy showing mostly pretty full-screen images with further a lack of information, making this friend and me wonder whether it hadn't just crashed. Maybe other versions of Windows 7 aren't like this (we installed Home Premium), but I thought it was pretty annoying. Bright side was that Windows 7 managed to detect and install drivers for all hardware devices, which was a nice surprise compared to Windows 2000 and XP installations.

I left behind a rather happy friend with shiny new toys. He went from a Pentium-M-based Dell laptop with 17" screen to an AMD Athlon II X3-based desktop system with an nVidia GTS250 videocard and 22" LCD screen. His laptop also needs some fixing, as its two fans have issues, with one making noises and the other not moving at all. Will probably look at that later. I hope it doesn't need spare parts, as that'd probably be either a pain or expensive. Or both.

Pieter is kind of happy today as well, as he gets to pick up his car later today. Last Monday his car had to be dragged off to the workshop because it couldn't be started any more, with apparently a device regulating the amount of gasoline mixed with the air which had previously already been replaced on the fritz. Supposedly this replacement unit (used version) came from another model Volvo and didn't regulate things properly, leading to a far too rich mixture which drowned the engine with fuel. When the engine did run (with higher outside temperatures), fuel usage increased from 1 liter per 10 kilometer to just 1 on 7. Let's hope it works again now with a new unit. I also hope Pieter survives seeing the repair bill. It's going to be a tough one :)

As I wrote on my Twitter stream already, I have been doing a fair amount of work lately. It seems that concentrating on my work is much easier now. Conversely my ability and patience to concentrate on other matters has decreased noticeably. All of my PTSD triggers have become a lot more sensitive, I absolutely abhor the mere thought of relationships and sexuality and will react very sharply if exposed to it.

Yesterday I talked to the assistant of the urologist, Mr Meijer, who was going to contact the UMCG and discuss the matters I had discussed with him on December 21st. I had also sent an email on January 11th to the UMCG, specifically to professor Weijmar Schultz discussing the same matters to which I received the enthusiastic response "I'll look into it!".

As it turned out, from what I understand Meijer did send a mail to the UMCG but received the response that they couldn't send him any information because some tests on me were still in progress. I'm not aware of any tests they're still performing there, so it seems to be a major glitch on the side of the UMCG. I sent Weijmar Schultz an email earlier informing him of this.

I also pointed out my displeasure with how long everything else is taking. Weijmar Schultz was supposed to arrange a letter explaining my situation last year, the radiologist was supposed to send me comparable pictures, the urological matters should have been discussed by now and something decided, and the issue of my castration was also something Weijmar Schultz indicated would be discussed at the first meeting, many weeks ago now.

Add to this the apparent lack of interest from the side of the Avro and SBS TV stations from whom I haven't heard anything for weeks now, and I'm feeling seriously estranged from pretty much everything and everyone. It's as though my existence matters less and less, like it's perfectly normal for me to suffer like this and I am merely whining.

If nobody cares about me, why should I care about them? If this world doesn't want me, then I don't want it. Back when I was withdrawn into myself I ignored the world and the world ignored me. After I got out of that and was ready to embrace the world, I found that it still ignored or merely laughed at me.

It's a cold, insensitive place. Beyond intellectual pursuits I can think of absolutely no reason why I'd want to stay here a millisecond longer. Take my rational mind out of the equation and I'll commit suicide before anyone can say 'Live with it'.


Maya