Adrienne Metternich

Pain level - Moderate

Oh yeah, definitely one of my regular pain medications is keeping me from dreaming, or at least from remembering my dreams. Last night I had a wonderfully detailed dream about trying to escape from a cultish summer camp along with several animals I could communicate with (mostly very large black wolves), and a sickle I picked up to use as a weapon. It was a weird dream, but I always appreciate when my mind dumps me into a movie or book like that.

The tomato plant seems to have sprouted about half a dozen new little tomato-balls since yesterday. No idea if any of them will get the chance to ripen (the plant seems stubbornly unwilling to let them change from green to red), but they're small and cute, and I like to see them grow.

Today was injection day, so now my thigh hurts, but since I do enjoy having my spinal nerves function, I can't complain too loudly about some aching muscle. The alternative is a lot worse.

To give myself a treat for taking all my medications today, I ate a delicious supper of chicken soup with cheese bread, and then took a short walk to get ice cream. It wasn't too hot today, so even if it was a bit muggy, the walk wasn't that bad, and ice cream makes most things better anyway.

Except for the spasming muscles in my back. Ice cream isn't going to do anything about that. But again, could be worse.

Pain level - Moderate

Today was a tired but good day. I haven't been sleeping that well lately, so tonight I'm going to switch one of my medications to another type, to see if that helps a bit. If it does, great. If not, well, so long as it doesn't make things worse, then I'm not going to be too bothered about it. Probably it's a combo of heat and prolonged dehydration, since I'm terrible at keeping myself hydrated for a variety of reasons.

But even if I was tired, I still felt happy because I made some significant progress on my current embroidery project. Any day I can tell myself that I made progress on something feels like a good day to me.

...God, my life really is dull sometimes, isn't it? "Today's update: didn't sleep well, stabbed some fabric a bunch. The end!" ...Actually, if I phrased my entries like that more often, I might come across as more interesting, don't you think?

Pain level - Moderate

Tomatoes? Still not green. But the pea plant? That's starting to die. The lower half is yellowing, and while I got 2 full-size pods out of it, the other 2 that had just started to develop seem to have stopped and just shriveled. It was my first attempt at growing peas, and frankly, if I get any success out of a first attempt, I consider it something of a success.

Those tomatoes had better hurry up, though!

Other than griping about plants, I mostly spent today watching movies and embroidering while enjoying the less-sweltering-than-yesterday weather. I slept badly again last night, almost as if I had another fever, though I can't blame it on too much sun this time. But it might have been due to dehydration (which I nearly wrote as dishydration, aka watern't), so it was good to spend some time out of the sunlight and out of the heat! Movies and threads were just a pleasant bonus!

Pain level - Moderate

I wasn't able to write a post yesterday for 2 reasons. 1, there were thunderstorms all day and I didn't want to risk my losing my computer to a power surge, so it stayed off for the entire day. And 2, I stayed in bed all day anyway. The walk in the park a couple of days ago evidently did me in, and I could barely get out of bed to take care of any necessary things. I just tucked up in bed, slept on and off, and let my brain and body rest while I just watched Youtube videos. Post-exertional malaise is a real thing, and it can kick one's butt if one isn't careful.

Or sometimes even if one is.

I didn't sleep that well last night, either, but I'm not feeling so terrible that I need another day in bed. It would probably be good for me to take another day in bed. But I have things I need to do today, so I have to be up and about. Plus sometimes staying in bed all day makes it hard to sleep at night when I need to, so even if all I do during the day is sit up, that still can be enough exertion for my body to be convinced it's allowed to sleep.

Pain level - Moderate
Not much to report today. It rained more, and there was a risk of thunderstorms, so my computer spent most of the day shut down because I cannot afford for this old beast to break. It's my main connection to the world beyond my apartment, quite frankly. But while listening to the rain, I watched a couple of movies, read a little, and worked on some embroidery while the light was still okay.

Hopefully tomorrow will be more interesting to report on. But in a good way! I don't want interesting-bad. Just interesting-good.

Savageland (2015) - An absolutely brilliant mockumentary done in the style of nearly every serial killer documentary you'll find, it tells the story of how an undocumented man supposedly murders an entire small town overnight, but the truth in much more complex and terrifying than one many being out of control. Photo evidence emerges that shows something bizarre happening to the town's residents, as well as someone, or something, that may have invaded and started the horrific chain of events. This is truly one of the most fantastic and believable horror mockumentaries I've ever encountered, and I'm sad that more people don't know about it. I highly recommend watching this one, to the point where I don't even want to mention what's actually happening here because I want people to be able to experience it the way I did. (Youtube: trailer)

Apollo 18 (2011) - A found-footage horror/sci-fi movie about a secret lunar mission, headed by the US Department of Defense, with the intent of delivering a secret payload to the moon. When the astronauts arrive, they have to deal with equipment malfunctions, encountering a Soviet LK module and a dead cosmonaut, and oh yes, strange moon rocks that seem to move around and might just have a creepy form of life within them. While this movie got a lot of negative reviews, I found it well done, believably like someone edited a lot of legitimate old footage together. It does feel like it took a lot of inspiration from Alien and Paranormal Activity, but then again, damn near every found-footage horror movie takes inspiration from Paranormal Activity. I enjoyed it, at any rate, and I'm happy to recommend it to those who are into the sci-fi realm of horror, if you haven't seen it yet. (Youtube: trailer)

The Black String (2018) - A man struggling with his life ends up calling a dating hotline, meeting up with a hot young woman, and then develops a horrible worsening rash. STDs alone aren't the horror, though, because he starts having vivid hallucinations, which force him to be institutionalized and then handed over to his parents (and holy crap, what an emotional scene that was, seeing a grown adult get infantalized by his parents because he's not living up to their expectations). But the source of all this crap is supernatural in origin, and he needs help stopping it all before the infection growing within him ripens and kills him. On their own, the movie's elements could seem derivative or uninspired, but Frankie Muniz does a fantastic job of bringing the horror of everything happening to his character to a deeply personal and uncomfortable level. I'm surprised I hadn't heard of this movie until now, because it's worth watching for Muniz's performance alone, not to mention the compelling horror-drama of what's really happening around him! (Youtube: trailer)

Infrared (2022) - A ghost-hunting show gets access to a supposedly haunted building that no other teams have ever gotten access to before. Shenanigans ensue. I can't really say much about this movie because what you get is largely summed up by those two sentences. Some pieces of media expand their genres, while others exist comfortably within the boundaries, and this is one of the latter type of movie. I'd say it was aggressively mediocre, but there was one fantastically redeeming quality: the acting. The acting was really damn good here, especially at the end. Still, I'm not sure it's worth taking your time to watch because there are a hundred other movie like this, some of whom did the story much better. (Youtube: trailer)

Home (2016) - A religious fundamentalist teen named Carrie moves in with her mother and her mother's new wife, and said new wife's child. The family are atheists, which horrifies the teen girl, until it starts to seriously look like the house is haunted and she's the only one who can save her new step-sister. The conflict between Christian and queer is done so awkwardly here, with the family being almost scandalized that Carrie wants to say grace at the table, and one of the women claiming that she's never been so uncomfortable in her own home. It comes off like something a fundamentalist would write about how straight white Christians are being so oppressed by the queer community. Anyway, the movie itself has some interesting moments, even though the pacing is atrocious, going from nothing happening to suddenly DANGER to nothing happening to LET'S DO AN EXORCISM! The ending technically made sense but wasn't what would have made the most sense and so felt like things were deliberately being set up a certain way only to pull the rug out from under the audience in a "clever" move. Also nearly all of the characters have the same name as the actors, for some odd reason. (Youtube: trailer)

Kampon (2023) - A couple has conflicting wishes about children, which isn't helped by the sheer number of people who feel like it's their right to comment on whether or not someone else has a child! Ahem. Yes, anyway, one night a mysterious little girl shows up at their house, claiming to be the daughter of the husband, Clark. This kid also has mysterious powers of revival and floating, because... look, it's complicated. And I mean complicated. Kampon is a movie that feels very much like someone had really good jigsaw pieces that don't quite fit together. The pieces are quality, but you have to do a lot to get a complete picture, and even when I read between the lines and tried to come up with a theory that explained things, I couldn't reconcile or explain everything. Bits still didn't fit. It could have been an outstanding piece of Philippine horror, but instead it just left me disappointed by the way the story elements weren't properly integrated. Still worth a watch, but adjust your expectations accordingly. Also watch out if you view this on Netflix because the subtitlers didn't bother applying subtitled when the actors spoke any lines in English, because screw the deaf and hard-of-hearing, I guess. (Filipino, subtitled) (Youtube: trailer)

Pain level - Moderate

• Still loving to watch the peas and tomatoes slowly grow. Is it sad that checking on them has become a highlight in my day?
• Started watching My Lady Jane on Prime Video, which is an alternate history retelling of the story of Lady Jane Grey, but with magical realism thrown in. It's very fun, excellent humour, and I highly recommend it!
• I feel like I made a lot of progress on my current embroidery piece, but looking at it, I don't really think I did. Well, at least I still feel accomplished!

A day late, but let's get into some horror movie goodness (and badness)!

Boo! (2018) - A very dysfunctional family encounters the veracity of an urban legend after they ignore the chainmail-esque "boo" letter delivered to their door. Ignoring it means great misfortune, which is exactly what they get. I honestly avoided this movie for so long because the title made me think it was more horror-comedy than just horror, and horror-comedy isn't typically my thing. But nope, definitely just horror. It was a pretty interesting attempt to not only showcase an urban legend, but also just how fucked up families can be and how those dysfunctional ripples can spread outward. My only real criticism is that I wanted to know so much more about how the boo legend started. Why it's all happening. Show me the origins, give me an explanation! But it's also kind of accurate to urban legends in that regard, because a lot of them have very nebulous origins or stem from yet another story that's just morphed over time. Looking at it from a folklore perspective negates a lot of the criticism, really. (Youtube: trailer)

Restoration (2016) - This is a very messed-up movie! It starts out very stereotypically, with a family moving to a fixer-upper house that ends up being haunted. As the house is being repaired, they uncover a creepy teddy bear that hides a girl's diary within it, a diary which hints at a lot of terrifying happenings in the neighbourhood. Mostly kids disappearing. There's clearly a mystery afoot, and the solution to that mystery was... strange. Let's just say that the family's new friends aren't exactly on the up-and-up. It's an okay movie that very much feels of its time, not much to write home about, but still entertaining for a couple of hours. (Youtube: trailer)

A Savannah Haunting (2023) - This movie advertises itself as being based on real events, and while a thousand and one horror movies do the same, this one at least goes the whole way and actually films on location. Once again, a family moves to a new house that ends up being haunted, but oh, is it ever more complicated than just a simple haunting. You get historical racism (as well as some modern racism; this movie uses the n-word a couple of times but it is at least relevant and just just thrown in for shock value), explorations of grief and psychosis, queer themes... It's a far better movie than I would have thought at first, so I recommend it quite a bit. Bonus creepy points because Prime Video, where I watched it, stopped working at the end, when the cast and crew were recounting their own creepy experiences in the house. (Youtube: trailer)

Devilman (2004) - Okay. I mentioned this movie before, and quickly found a version I could watch for free (on RetroCrush, though I don't know if access is region-locked or anything). This movie is known as one of the worst Japanese movies, and I have to say, if this is the low point, then Japan has some high standards because I've seen worse. Not many worse, I'll grant you, but still. The movie attempts to cram the entire Devilman story into a couple of hours, and so it's a hot mess. Akira gets possessed by the demon Amon after demons start taking over, being somewhat immune to full takeover because he has such a pure heart. As such, they merge rather than Akira getting subsumed, and that pure heart makes him fight against both humans and demons when war inevitably breaks out between the two. Honestly, this movie could have been so much better. The story it's based on is brilliant, but this movie isn't. Aside from too much story being shoved into too short a run-time, the acting is... oh god, the acting. It's horrific more often than not. Throw in extra awkwardness over casting a pair of brothers as two dudes who are supposed to have weird romantic tension between them, and then heap some 2004 CGI fight scenes on top, and you have a movie that absolutely has to be seen to be believed. (Youtube: trailer)

Pain level - Higher than yesterday but less than it could be

Another day of rest. Read some, watched a couple of movies, played some Powerwash Simulator. Days where I'm almost completely stuck in bed or on the couch sound so boring when I try to recap them. I can't talk about seeing a cute dog on a walk, or going to the library, or anything that even I consider interesting to read about. And I'm living it! I just hope this pain flare ends soon so I can get back to my regularly unscheduled disabled life, instead of this extra-disabled life I'm currently dealing with.