Daily Life - Hax and Health

March was a whirlwind of packing, house repairs, and financial stress as it took most of the month to get the loan approval. In early April we loaded up the moving van and trailer for the first of what would eventually become three, nearly 1400 miles, drives north, where I drove the entire way each time. The first drive in early April was terrible, the short timeline and poor route meant that we spent a lot of the trip chugging 35mph up hill, adding hours to the trip. That first moving van was not great, it was slow, big at 26 feet, shaky, and the windshield started cracking a few hundred miles into the trip. We trailed our VW bus during this trip, after one stretch of mountains we found the wheel straps coming loose. Coming down through the narrow, winding mountain roads at 11pm at night was horrifying, but I went slow and safe. We didn’t arrive until 1:30am the morning of the closing for our new home.

First weekend in our new home was spent fixing windows, getting plumbing working right, and lots of cleaning. We had movers come to unload the moving van, most of which we put in a couple of rooms on the first floor or into the carriage house. This trip was mostly boxed up stuff and the tools and car supplies from our old garage. The next trip would be our furniture and the bulk of our stuff, we had to make sure the house was clean enough before moving it all in. A few days after we moved in we were flying back to Florida to prep for the second big trip.

The second trip was better. A friend flew in from out of town to ride with me in the moving van while my partner took our dog and drove the Rav4. My allergies do not agree with the Florida heat, I couldn’t wait until we could leave, but our departure kept on getting delayed, mostly waiting on someone to haul the bulk of the fleet north. It was not cheap, but I was able to get my Impala, Audi, and the Black Benz hauled up to the new home some 1300 miles away. During this trip we trailed the Tojan, same truck and trailer rental as before, except this time we were provided with a relatively new moving van. That moving van made the trip almost enjoyable. It had lane departure sensors, adaptive cruise control, and could chug 40mph through the mountains, took full advantage of its features. As we were leaving our old county, a storm came up on us, dumping heavy rain, thunder, and hail on us. Luckily we and the Tojan pushed through without major damage. We gave ourselves extra time and planned on possibly stopping a third night. My friend and I arrived on time, my partner arrived with our pup the next day.

The third trip happened almost a month later. We did not plan this trip out like we did the other two. We needed some time before going back to finish cleaning and packing our old house. We couldn’t put it on the market until more of the cleanup was done, so my partner and I came up with a plan where he flew back early and worked on the house. A few days later I flew down to join him and get the last of our stuff loaded into a final moving van, put our VW Beetle on a trailer, and try to clean up what we could. It was miserable due to lack of furniture (we had a broken sleeper sofa) and dwindling funds, but we completely filled up a 16′ moving van and had to leave a lot of unimportant stuff behind. That moving van was easier to drive thanks to its smaller size, but it needed suspension work. It shook, was hard to keep straight, and at one point it started to bounce really bad and I almost got motion sick. We were both exhausted when we arrived, but were happy we survived this final trip.

It’s been a little over a month since that final trip and I’m starting to feel less exhausted. The house is pretty comfortable now, but we still have a lot to unpack and many repairs that need to be done. While I’ve started setting up a new lab, it’ll be months before I’m back to working on projects like usual. The house is my main priority, it needs a lot of deferred maintenance and it’s obvious that people took advantage of the elderly owners with substandard quality work. We have a couple of small roof leak issues where flashing was not properly installed. We have many windows painted shut and all have broken sash cords. Most of these windows are also sealed shut with stick on foam insulation. Electrical is a mixed bag, lots of 60s/70s era electrical work where they ran new wires without grounding anything. It’s better than knob and tube, but still not ideal. Plumbing is mostly okay, although there’s a number of faucets where the hot or cold has low pressure, we have one small leak, and the first floor bathroom needs to be gutted to fix some wood rot issues.

It’s going to be an exciting summer!

Haven’t blogged since September, I’ve been focused on wrapping up projects, working on finances, and evaluating cities and neighborhoods. As of February we have a contract to purchase a historic home up in a city in south west Massachusetts. Currently working my way through the purchase and mortgage process as we’re planning to close in early April and move shortly after. Trying to wrap up work on my Mercedes, should have it running and driving, at least well enough to get on a trailer. Starting to disassemble the lab, already packed away dozens and dozens of extra and parts systems, won’t be long before the bench is clear. March is going to be very busy.

After being severely ill for a few weeks, it feels really good to be getting back on track with tasks and plans. I missed a week and a half of work but more than a few weeks of household chores and responsibilities. I made sure all the bills were paid and tried to keep up with some of my dishes, but I hadn’t been feeling well in weeks. Haven’t felt great since June when my ears started acting up. It looks like the acting up, the odd vertigo, anxiety, and ear pressure issues was labyrinthitis, an inflammation of the inner ear usually caused by allergies or infection. I was most likely recovering from it when I got really sick with that cold or flu or sinus infect, causing it worsen again. It may take weeks or months to fully recover, but grateful the worst of it is in the past.

There was a lot of catch up to do at home, but none of it has been particularly hard or take long. The front gardens looked much worse than they were, same with the yard in general. The house is dusty, but we clean it regularly and deep cleaning periodically throughout the year, so it hasn’t been hard to catch up with. My partner has been doing a lot of the dusting and vacuuming while I’ve been packing away extra stuff and cleaning up my office and lab.

One week of work then I have a couple days off to pack and prep for the road trip to New England. We’re taking that Rav4 and while it sees regular dealing maintenance, there’s some more non-dealer work that it needs. We had planned to work on it Labor Day weekend, but that was while I was still sick. Going to try to accomplish that this week or next before we leave.

I’m also hoping to get a little more work done on my TRS-80 Model 100 before leaving on the trip. Started looking into what it needed for repairs during one of my better sick days, got it apart this past weekend and finally inspected it the other night. Capacitors are starting to leak and damage solder. Need to be patient with this repair, make sure I clean and test thoroughly as I go through the board.

Not sure what happened, but over the last few weeks the tinnitus has faded. It never goes away, but it’s usually quiet. It usually stays quiet until the day after my allergy shot, when it starts to get loud, and tends to stay a little louder than usual, before quieting back down towards the end of the weekend. It also still spikes, but minor, seconds at a time, not severe like it was back in July and the vertigo issues have faded. Sleep is still rough, but I’m feeling better and regaining strength and stamina. Only major road bump in the recovery has been a small cold that my partner brought home from work.

I have seen doctors for the tinnitus and vertigo episodes, so far it’s not hearing loss related. It’s going to be hard to diagnose unless I can find a trigger, but this could’ve been a fluke or possibly brought on by anxiety. It might be weeks, months, or years before I have another episode, possibly never. I am prepared if another bad episode occurs, I know what happens, I know what helps, I just hope it doesn’t happen again. But like with previous intermittent health issues, I’m keeping a symptom journal. Most of my previous health issues were figured out thanks to patience, determination, and good record keeping, so will this.

For well over ten years I’ve dreamed of moving to the mountains, getting away from the heat of Florida. My partner also fell in love with the mountains after we starting vacationing in the Asheville area in 2018. That area became our dream, our goal. Since then we have watched the prices of real estate in that area skyrocket and become unaffordable. I started looking outside of the immediate Asheville area, which is more affordable. We’ve been working towards that goal, little by little, paying off debts, fixing our house, fixing ourselves, but things change, needs, wants, and goals change.

The social-political environment of the south has become unbearable for both of us. We are both tired of the near constant ignorance, hate, and hypocrisy. I genuinely fear for my well being, not immediately, but in the long run. I no longer want to live in the south, I no longer want to live somewhere that is actively trying to exclude groups of people. We’ll miss the winter weather and some of the people, but won’t miss the mediocre health care, fear, and hate.

Where will we go?

That is something that’s still in planning, but New England is most likely, possibly Massachusetts. High cost of living, but not as cold as Vermont, New Hampshire, or Canada, and the summers are wonderfully warm. Massachusetts actively welcomes LGBT, has many higher education institutes, and has excellent accessible health care services. Returning to New England also opens the possibility of re-visiting an old dream.

An old dream

A long, very long, time ago I had a dream to buy my own victorian home, a dream I put on hold when I moved back to Florida in 2004. It was a dream I’ve never fully given up on, but I was willing to leave it a dream so that my partner and I could enjoy our lives together in the Asheville area. There are victorians in the mountains, but finding one that’s affordable, in a safe area, and has good internet, is a challenge in the best market, and it might be years before these areas get anything better than slow satellite or dialup. It would be one of those dreams that maybe I would achieve later in life. Now the mountains of North Carolina are on hold, until a future when the social-political environment is less heated and violent.

My History

I grew up in a historic victorian neighborhood, helping my parents renovate and restore many homes in the area. I have had a passion for architecture since I was little and considered becoming an architect before settling on engineering. I love many different styles of architecture, there isn’t much I dislike, but my favorite is Victorian era, especially Queen Ann and Second Empire styles. After finishing my undergrad, while looking for a full time engineering job, I returned to my home city, moved back in with my parents, and worked managing restoration of another prominent victorian in my home neighborhood.

The work the team and I did on the house earned me an award from the local preservation trust. I would’ve loved to continue doing that work, but the pay was below what I could earn working tech support and living with my parents was starting to become a nightmare. I love my parents, but they’re conservative, narcissistic, and at the time, heavy drinkers. At this point I was willing to get a job doing almost anything computer related, engineering, tech support, web design, anything that would allow me to afford to move out of my parents house.

Putting dreams on the back-burner

Finding a job in the north east was not going well and the stress of living with my parents had become unbearable, so I left, returned to Florida where I had job opportunities. I was able to find a job, fairly low income compared to what my parents expected me to earn, but I could live on my own. I focused on my career, worked on my Master’s degree, focused on projects, but I’ve always longed for a historic home of my own. The part of Florida I’m in has a small number of victorians and older homes, but real estate prices were always out of my income range, it has worsened over the years.

I started looking towards the mountains of NC after a trip up in 2008 or 2009, housing prices were a little high in Asheville, but still affordable, if I could find the right job. Instead my career led me to South Florida and I moved further south, where real estate was even less affordable. I made the best of my time in SoFla, enjoyed some of my years there, but it seemed like my dreams were getting further away. The heat, cost of living, and needing to get squatters out of my house, pushed me back to Eastern Central Florida.

Never wanted to stay in Central Florida, but we are in a good location, able to fix our house slowly while paying off debts, and my partner has a good job in the area. Florida has never been ideal, environmental allergies and sun/heat related migraines are horrific at times, but I never feared living here until the last couple of years.

Why I fear the south

The last straw for me is the mounting attacks against transgender residents. Florida legislature, having already gone after trans children, is trying to institute rules and regulations which limit or eliminate transgender health care, a step in erasing transgender individuals, an act of genocide. They started by going after trans children and are now targeting trans adults. The state is pushing lies about trans healthcare and stoking fires of hate; misinformation like this has a body count.

I’ve received my first death threat a year and one half ago. It was an empty threat, sent out to many in my area, but it’s still unsettling. The social-environment environment of Florida has only worsened in the one and one half years since. I know many people with a variety of interests and beliefs, too many of them are supporting the hate, encouraging violence. These people are becoming more vocal, louder, and at times violent, claiming they are oppressed because they can’t impose their beliefs on others.

These people believe those who are different, who are queer in any way, are broken, sick, and in need of God. They believe there is a conspiracy to turn people gay or trans, to discredit any science that would prove their points, that science proving otherwise is doctored and fake, that there is a ‘new world order’ that democrats are forcing on the country, corrupting people. They are convinced that people choosing to be queer is due to brainwashing and peer pressure, and that allowing people who are trans to transition is a violation of their rights as a God fearing American. These people do not practice ‘live and let live’, they practice ‘my beliefs are your beliefs, even if you don’t want them’.

I used to believe that education could sway a person’s opinion, but that only works when people are willing to listen and learn, but it’s been some years since I’ve been able to have reasonable, rational, discussions. It feels like there’s a large number of people who reject science and research, claiming it’s biased and fake. These people cannot be reasoned with, they don’t want to believe evidence, instead cherry picking facts and at times denying reality. I already have to deal with this with my parents, I no longer have the energy to deal with others who are stubborn and ignorant.

Conclusion

I am ready to leave the ignorance and hate behind, to move back to an area that isn’t trying to genocide an entire minority group, to move back to a place where people are educated enough to be able to have educated discussions with minimal fear of becoming a target. I’m going to miss the warmth, but I’m ready to get the hell out of the south, find myself a nice victorian home to maintain or restore, set myself up a new lab, and focus on my family, job, and projects in peace.

Two or three weeks ago my tinnitus flared up and started spiking, a new complication adding to an already stressful summer. In the past the tinnitus was always intermittent, usually only noticed after rare spikes that would drown out the world for seconds or minutes, those always cleared up, this has not. During the day it is an annoying static, like a radio left on but not tuned to a station. At night it becomes seemingly dizzyingly loud, waking me from sleep, keeping me awake. I’m not sure why it suddenly flared up. Maybe stress and anxiety, allergies, hearing loss, or a mix, but it’s annoying and draining. I see a specialist in a few weeks, finding ways to cope with it until then.

I’ve completely changed my sleep habits, lighting, tried white noise (which drives me crazy), but part of the issue is my bedroom. It is near silent and has no outside windows, I’ll wake in the middle of the night, tinnitus screaming in my ear, my body spinning in a directionless black void, vertigo. We have a dim nightlight in the room that I’ve brightened up, reducing the severity of the vertigo upon waking, but it doesn’t quiet the tinnitus, or help when I close my eyes and experience waves of dizziness and nausea.

I’ve setup my guest room as a place I can go when I can’t manage the tinnitus in my master bedroom. It has an outside window letting in natural moonlight and which is also thin enough for me to hear the crickets and other night critters that live around us. Being able to hear things besides the tinnitus really helps ground a person. I’ve also found that classical music helps, I’ll put on one of the all classical NPR stations and try to focus on that. These are allowing me to get the bare minimum sleep I need to function.

I’m drained, achy, physically and mentally fatigued, thankfully able to keep my fibro from flaring up too badly. I’ve slowed down while working on projects, most of my energy is used up trying to stay functional for my job. Maybe the next few weeks leading up to the specialist appointment won’t be easy and there’s no guarantee that they can help, so I’ll continue to learn management techniques and I’m sure I’ll start feeling better soon.