Had a terrible 3 day headache. Worst one since november, I think. Sometimes it's just the wrong combination of anxiety, intake, bad sleep and hormone levels and BAM. Hello, three days of pain. Some things help, but nothing fixes it. The pain itself doesn't get that severe, it's just that it never lets up, and by day 3 I haven't had good sleep for three nights. I get into desperate bargaining mode where I'll try just about anything to make it go away. Maybe if I eat some carbs. Maybe if I eat some protein. Maybe if I have alcohol. Maybe if I drink more water. Maybe if I have more caffeine. Maybe I need a hot drink. Maybe if I eat something salty. Maybe if I get some fresh air. Maybe if I take a shower. Anything. Always 15 minutes from it going away if I pick the exact perfect magic cure at the right time, and by day 3 it's all I can think about. But the headache always recedes on its own time, leaving me with half a brain of pure jelly, high on simple painlessness and relief. I'll have the deepest, dreamless sleep and wake up feeling like the inside of my skull got powerwashed with cold seawater. The best mornings are always the morning of day 4. I still can't think very well, but I'm in a stupid cheerful mood and literally everything seems amazing.

Sometimes people ask if anyone's gotten sick in my tattoo chair. One person, me. I was a dummy and thought I'd tattoo myself when I had one of my headaches, because I've learned to just push through, do what needs doing. Either I'm in pain at work or in pain at home lying in bed, it doesn't matter, it's not going away, so may as well work. Apparently having a headache messes up your normal endorphins. So I ended up puking twice and having to limp home early with what felt like a railroad spike through my eye. Don't get a tattoo while you have a headache, even if it feels like you can tough it out. Don't do it. It is not good times.

When I first started getting the headaches I went to the doctor and he diagnosed me with tension headaches. I had a very stressful job that required me to work a lot of overtime. I was young and idealistic and cared intensely about the work and I hadn't figured out yet that the higher ups didn't give a shit if I had to work 80 hours a week to make a deadline they knew was too tight when they promised the government they would deliver. I hadn't figured out how to parse out reality from the company bullshit yet. But I was also responsible for the last step in the process and I'd gotten the position because the last guy got insta-fired for not catching a foolish mistake in the deliverable. I was super stressed out and started getting headaches. At first they would only last a couple hours, but soon they would take up my whole weekend. I was getting them two or three times a month, and the pain was much worse than it is now. I would throw up. So I went to the doctor hoping it wasn't brain cancer, doctor says "tension headaches" and gives me a prescription. And at first it was a miracle in a bottle. Half a tablet and they were gone. But then it took a whole tablet, and then one and a half, and then two tablets, then more frequently, and then it didn't kill the headache but it left me feeling drunk and unable to drive due to the side effects. So I didn't renew the prescription.

When I quit that job and moved to Alaska the headaches stopped being as frequent and intense. I got a job that was much less stressful. Later I realized I also stopped hormonal birth control and that might have been a big help too.

I went on keto and noticed it helped my headaches, so that's why I've been trying to eat low carb ever since. One time on keto I took a nap and the headache ACTUALLY WENT AWAY. Blew my mind. It helps, but stress is a factor and learning to tattoo was incredibly stressful, mostly because my mentor is not a stable person. I learn fast and I am easy to teach - if I know anything about myself, it is that. Give me a positive, straightforward environment and I will consume myself with the work. I like learning. I don't need threats or trickery or power games. But there's "optimal" and there's "reality", and reality is often a tangle of unnecessary motives and stressors contradicting the goal. My mentor liked things chaotic, so it was cartoonishly chaotic. He's the male tattoo artist equivalent of the Red Queen in Alice in Wonderland. I like the guy - amazing tattoo artist - but jesus christ, terrible teacher, worst boss. Sometimes I remember the shit he pulled on me and I've no idea what he was thinking, because he just took a giant steaming dump all over my learning process and blamed me for it. I just had to grit my teeth and get through it, headaches and all. Started having panic attack symptoms on the way to work, laying bets with spouse if I was going to get yelled at or not that day for god knows what. I was working on some script yesterday and had flashbacks on some of mentors' teaching. I'd try a different approach to try to grasp something better and he'd come down on me and tell me I was all wrong, just because I was trying something different. All my instincts were wrong, everything I did was wrong, and if I tried to anticipate what he'd want, even more wrong. Shit, no wonder art has been sitting like a heavy grenade in the back of my mind.

Just because you understand a relationship is abusive doesn't mean you can somehow magically make it not abusive. People are what they are. You can recognize the abusers, you can understand what they're doing and why they crave it, but you'll still have to choose for yourself if and how to weather the storms they generate. And you'll still take damage in ways you couldn't anticipate and have to invest time and energy repairing yourself. There will be a toll.

I would not have survived my tattoo apprenticeship in my 20s. I hung on by the skin of my teeth as it was. I'm going to have to put in some work to heal that relationship with my art (which was never very good to begin with). But the energy is feeling better. I'm feeling the old itch to create. I think I am ready to begin.

I got us a pair of 22oz stainless steel double walled tankards. I have a 1 liter bottle for the sodastream to make fizzy water, but the 16oz steel tumblers we have wouldn't hold a full half liter so I always ended up with leftover water in the bottle and that just drives me BONKERS. Completely infuriating!! Done, can't handle it. Needs to hold a full half liter with ice. NEEDS. So I found these big tankards. Wide base so they don't tip over, classic look, not nasty plastic, etc. I think for valentines I will break out the rotary tool and see if I can engrave them with scenes from the mandalorian. I watched a couple of youtube videos, so I'm basically an expert engraver now. This will either be amazing or I will be buying new tankards and never speaking of this again. Arts are all I've got as far as real presents go. It's worth as much or as little as the value a person puts on it. I know spouse will like it, and I haven't blabbed about it yet so it will be a real surprise.

Doing okayish at getting back to keto. We ordered takeout at the end of the headache because I had no brainpower left for cooking. I wanted a thai curry (without rice). I ordered a Malaysian curry, sounded good. What I got was like a curry fried rice thing. I ate it anyway because I was so hungry, but I am 99% sure they sent me the wrong thing. All that rice bombed my ketosis gains. (I'm making a thai curry for dinner tonight because I still have the craving. My curries are sadly not as good as restaurant curries.)

Spouse got his second vaccine shot yesterday and it made him mildly sick - sniffles, headache, tired. He stayed home from work today. Still it feels like a victory. We made it! He didn't catch covid and end up with organ damage that would end his chances at his dream job! Feels pretty good. :-) He redid the job interview thing he failed and it went better the second time. Now we play the waiting game.

Crypto stuff is going well (but the market is so good right now I'd have to work to do poorly). I felt bad for selling my dogecoin too early, so I did put in $10 worth at 6 cents and sold it at the peak of 8.5 cents to make up for a little loss. Felt better. I'm not going to buy any more of that for a good while. I've just been making small profits off different currencies, also figuring out which ones I want to pick for the long haul. I'm going to talk to spouse about a long term investment strategy ("Listen, we're going to take a bit of the tax return and we're buying ponies. We want these ponies, those ponies, and some other ponies too because reasons, and we're going to do this thing called staking where they live in our stable, but we lend them out to a pony petting zoo and they earn us rewards."). It's a worthwhile gamble, I think. Time feels right, before bitcoin climbs too high and bursts the bubble. On the upside, after the bubble burst is a great time to buy cheap. *taps head*