Car Crash

Sooo, I'm terrified of driving.

Always have been. This possibly stemmed from having a crazy mother who drove a shitty little mini that was prone to breaking down in the middle of the road pretty much every day. Or it may have stemmed from the fact that I actually understand statistics*, and realise that a) most people are stupid, b) most people drive, c) most car accidents are caused by stupid people, and d) the chance of you being in a car accident at some point is pretty ridiculously high. Or it may have been some combination of the two.

I've never considered it a phobia as it wasn't an irrational fear. As I've just explained, cars are fucking terrifying and that's a perfectly rational, logical thing. What's less logical is me trying to train myself out of this fear and trying to make myself trust people's driving skills. I'm thinking that was a bad idea.

See, last night we were driving along a country road in the dark and the rain. This is partly because the dual-carriageway we would normally take was closed and the satnav refused to recalculate in any way other than continually trying to get us back onto that dual-carriageway by forcing us down country roads every time we got turned away from the turning we wanted to take by traffic cones and shit; partly because we'd driven all the way down from Manchester and were only 3 miles away from Rambo's Dad's place (our destination) and weren't gonna be stopped by a little bit of rain and/or dark when we were that close. Nor would we be stopped by the road being closed.

What we would be stopped by, apparently, was a tree.

I can't really tell you much about the situation leading up to this tree collision as, being utterly terrified of this whole driving thing, let alone this extra-terrifying driving-in-the-wet-and-dark thing, I had my eyes firmly shut and had resolved to do keep them that way until we got there.

Then I heard a 'shit' from Rambo, opened my eyes, saw a tree, thought 'Oh shit we're ACTUALLY going to hit that' (as opposed to all the other times I opened my eyes during this drive to see something or other that we were in no way going to hit and thinking 'oh shit we're going to hit that' before promptly closing my eyes again and telling myself to trust Rambo), heard a bang, felt some pain, and kind of sat there taking stock of my various joints to make sure they were all in place whilst Rambo shouted at me to 'Get out of the fucking car!' - surprisingly, all joints remained firmly within their various sockets at this point.

After being yelled at twice by Rambo and once by the person whose house this tree was in front of to get out of/away from the car, I figured 'screw it' and got out and away from the car despite my aching leg and lack of shoes (because shoes are evil torture devices and having had to endure them all the way TO the car I will immediately take them off until we reach our destination), managed to hobble over to the garden steps of the woman-whose-house-this-tree-was-in-front-of (aka; the-woman-we-woke-up or even the-woman-who-called-the-ambulance-and-police), and sat there in a state of terrified shock and pain until Rambo fetched me the wheelchair out of the boot so I could sit in a state of terrified shock and pain on something that wasn't wet and muddy. Then woman-we-woke-up-who-called-the-polica-and-ambulance's neighbours came out with an umbrella for me and some tea for Rambo (I think they offered me a mug but I was busy being in lots of shock and pain and mayyy have snapped at them to stop asking me questions - if so I apologise for that, lovely people who offered tea and whose umbrella I accidentally stole).

Eventually, round about the time when I was getting rather sick of shock and pain and was moving on to boredom, the police and an ambulance got there. Lovely paramedic asked me a bunch of questions - some of them repeatedly, because he refused to believe that I hadn't hit my head at all and needed to keep checking. Then wheeled me into the ambulance, helped me transfer onto the bed/stretcher/thing/(what is that called?) in there, got annoyed with me for having no conditions that he had actually heard of or knew how to spell, made me laugh, got told off for making me laugh as my stomach hurt (note - I had my laptop on my lap in the car as earlier I'd been using totally-not-scary-because-it's-not-moving traffic to write (totally blame NaNo curse for this) and airbag jammed it into my stomach quite badly), offered opiates, got more annoyed with my awkwardness when I explained they didn't work on me, then gave me laughing gas** and proceeded to spend the rest of the journey making me giggle without being told off, and telling me over and over again to take more despite the fact that the reason I kept stopping was to answer the questions he kept asking me.

Theeeeen we got to the hospital, and lovely paramedics had to go away and take my nice laughing gas with them. Hospital staff refused to give me anymore, and instead offered me paracetamol and some bullshit weak opiate that I was long past bothering to try on even my normal pain. Without the laughing gas my pain rose to an 8 and then steadily up to a 9, at which point I started crying uncontrollably because that's what I do at a 9. Then they made me lie around waiting for hours. I'm not sure why. An hour or so later a nurse tried to take my blood, failed, got another nurse to try it who also failed (they both tried on both arms so that's 4 unnecessary holes in me). The second nurse came to the conclusion that stopping me from shivering with cold (remember how I'd walked on bare feet through the wet a couple hours ago and then sat in the rain for ages before the ambulance got there? Yeah, nobody thought to get me a blanket or anything (except Rambo, but as he got me that in the rain it was then soaking wet and got thrown on the floor of the ambulance)) might be a good idea. Then they left me alone under warm blankets for another hour or so. The warm blankets don't stay warm that long and I was freezing again after only ten minutes, but nobody came back for another hour.

Anyway, hour later and finally got to see a doctor, who asked me where it hurt and then, completely ignoring me crying hysterically and pleading with him not to, proceeded to press down extremely hard over pretty much everywhere I was bruised. I may or may not have screamed. I'm not sure. Everything goes a bit blurry when the pain hits a 10 and I'm not precisely aware of anything but the pain. I do know that he spiked my previously-considered-to-be-at-a-9 pain even higher after he'd stopped. I had to re-evaluate my scale a bit to be able to call this a 9 as I sobbed uncontrollably (different to crying uncontrollably - that's a normal reaction to a 9 for me but usually involves no sobbing whatsoever as if I'm at a 9 then sobbing will do nothing but make it worse...which it did, but I still couldn't stop). Then presumably due to possible-screams (still not sure on that - will have to ask Rambo), a nurse brought me some morphine, despite it very clearly saying on the notes the doctor had been handed by paramedics that opiates DO NOT WORK on me. I had the morphine, doctor did an ultrasound on my stomach while I sobbed a lot and couldn't speak, then told me I could leave once the morphine kicked in.

...

Yeah, once that thing that doesn't work on me works I can leave.

...

So anyway, an hour later Rambo finally manages to get a hold of someone to ask them what the fuck they think they're doing, and doctor comes back and basically tells me to gtfo***. Nurse apologises that she can't give anything else to help with the pain. Rambo tries to explain that I cannot physically get up because the pain in my abdomen means I can't bend, and the subluxed ankle and swollen shin mean I can't walk, and I have no shoes on, and I don't have my wheelchair there. Doctor says we can take a wheelchair out to the taxi ramp outside, and once again basially tells me to gtfo.

...

By this point the back pain of being in a hospital bed coupled with the pain of being poked and prodded and subluxated by various doctors and nurses has me pissed off, filled with adrenaline, and most importantly ready to get the fuck out of there so I manage to transfer into a hospital wheelchair despite the dizzying-nearly-black-out-ness of the pain level 10 that creates, and then do the same again at the taxi***, and the same again when we get to Rambo's Dad's.

Long story short: I'm stuck in bed at Rambo's Dad's (where I have no air machine because he wouldn't approve). I can't sleep, because lying anywhere but on my back bumps my pain up to a 10, and trying to sleep on my back causes my brain to think I'm falling for some reason and jolt me awake with a start which hurts like fuck. I can't eat because I can't sit up properly, and because my stomach hurts like fuck. I am managing to drink small amounts of watery squash but probably not enough to combat the dehydration from not being able to stop crying. I can't get out of bed unaided, and have nearly passed out 4 times already from attempting to go to the toilet. Every single part of me is screaming from being stuck in this position but trying to move out of it puts me back in that state of complete unawareness of anything but pain that is my 10.

I'm finding it rather hard to believe that they let me out of hospital, to be honest. Let alone insisted against both mine and Rambo's wishes.

(NOTE: Rambo's fine, by the way. In case anyone was wondering. Lucky fucker got off with a graze on his arm and nothing else. And has managed to both eat and sleep since then.)




*Don't start arguing with me about this. I don't have numbers to back this up and I can't be arsed to go looking. I'm in a lot of pain, you douche.

**It's pretty much exactly like sucking on my air machine, except it doesn't last longer than 10 seconds after they take it away from me, whereas air lasts me hours.

***No not in those words. I can't remember the exact words - everything is a pain-addled haze. I just remember the gist and no matter how politely it was put, the gist was 'get the fuck out'.

****Quick sidenote - Mr. Taxi Driver, I don't care how interesting the car crashes you want to talk about are, you do not talk about them in front of someone who has just come out of hospital from a car crash and is already absolutely terrified of the fact that she's in a car, and has politely explained this to you and asked you to fucking stop it already.

Quests, Insomnia and Diary-Novels.

Me and Rambo have a new system. I've been setting him quests to do housework, that turn in for shitloads of gold on warcraft.

My house isn't looking even slightly clean yet, but the laundry pile is slowly going down and I've not felt guilty for not doing things in days. In fact, I've spent the time he's been doing things making gold on WoW, and feeling like I'm actually doing something useful and productive as that gold will buy me more housework.

I'm also very nearly NOT acutely ill again, so things are looking up I guess. Yay.

Also, whilst lying in bed being all insomniac-y last night, I was thinking about my NaNo-novel and the horrible pacing problems I was having with it. May have a solution. The problem was I was trying to put an entire condensed lifespan into one novel, and the rush of years going by and then slowing down for a day or two for specific events was making the whole thing crazy and nonsensical. It sort of worked for the narrative voice, but the close third person when it slowed down just seemed like too much of a jumpy transition.

Possible solution: Diary.

Pros:

-The choppy nature of my pacing makes perfect sense with a diary. SO many people write in them for a few days then forget for a few months, or just make a habit of writing in them once a month. Easy simple solution for the passage of time.
-I get to be all comfort-zoney first person. Woo!
-I can go on for hours and hours about feelings without feeling like* I'm dragging the whole thing down and having to find a way to transition back to action. Big win for literary fiction!

Cons:

-No narrative voice. This sucks in early stages when main character is five years old and doesn't really understand what's going on. If she doesn't understand it I can't write it. I can just heavily imply.
-Again, for early stages, having to write from a child's perspective means figuring out what kind of a vocabulary and writing style a child would have at any given age. Then adjusting for extra intelligence and bookworminess.
-It's a fucking diary. How cliché and teenage-girly is that?

Pros and cons seem to be about even at this stage, but I honestly can't see another way around my pacing problem. Although I'm sure I've read books in the same vein that HAVE handled this problem. Well enough for me to not notice it was a problem, and therefore not remember how they handled it. I maybe need to dig up these books and re-read.




*Did it again. Not sorry.

WoW Idiots, part 2

Exhibit B:

I'm not sure whether to call these guys idiots or not. They're fucktards, for sure, but it was some quite genius trolling. Or griefing, rather.

I joined a dungeon queue as dps, took a while to find a group, as usual, then got in with two other dps from random servers and a tank and healer from the same server, who obviously know each other.

Nothing unusual so far. Everyone says hello and picks up the quests at the start of the instance, then the tank pulls a hell of a lot of mobs and we start pwning the crap out of them. Awesome. We got a rhythm going; we don't stop for nothing. Pull pull pull pull pull pull. Getting the next group before the first's dead. A patrol walks into us, I start shooting it to get it off my healer and we beat the crap out of it as we have done everything else so far.

Here's where things start to go wrong. As soon as we're done killing that pack the healer and tank both immediately start screaming 'OMG FUCKING HUNTER' 'WHY U PULL NOOB HUNTER?' 'LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL'. Interesting. I 'o.O' at them and assume(hope) they're joking. The false sense of security they've lulled me into is enough for me to give them the benefit of the doubt.

Next pack. Another two-mob patrol. The kitty druid picks it up before the tank. The tank and healer start screaming 'OMG FUCKING NOOB DRUID' 'LOLOLOLOLOLOLOL' but don't actually help out at all. I help the druid out but with everyone else just standing around watching us we both die. Then they kill it. Whilst shouting 'ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST!'

Only a couple of packs before the boss. Tank pulls them both, then just stands there doing nothing whilst we dps. Aggro everywhere. Mage dead, druid dead, I feign death but my raptor dies. Tank and healer still shouting 'ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST!' and 'LOLOLOLOLOLOL' every time someone dies. Wonderful.

The two of them kill those packs by themselves as we run back.

Enter boss room. Tank pulls by body aggro and nothing else. Stands there and waits for us to dps and get aggro. We're not that stupid but I don't want to be here forever so I send the pet in and wait for him to get a bit of aggro before we start up. He's not a tanking pet but he does alright. I keep getting aggro and having to feign and the druid and mage both get themselves killed (to choruses of another one bites the dust, naturally). Raptor eventually dies when the boss enrages as he can't take the beats with just my heals anymore. Now when I feign it goes onto the tank, who still only has the tiniest margin of aggro. Just a couple of sword swings to make sure it stays off his healer. Tank takes the boss over to where I'm feigned so I start taking aoe damage. Fucker. I move off and start ressing my pet but the tank keeps following me. I manage to get the res off though, healing potion, get the pet back to tanking so the tank can't follow me around with the boss, bandage myself, and proceed to beat the crap out of the boss.

I kill him, woo. I should also probably mention that both tank and healer have been needing on every drop this run, and the awesome hunter loot the boss drops is no exception. Priest wins it. Fucker.

I leave the group, and immediately jump back in the dungeon queue to find the same tank and healer, with two random dps. I feel sorry for those poor dpsers but I'm not surprised when they don't listen to my warning. I leave the group as I can't deal with ANOTHER of those runs, and use my cooldown time to write this up.

UPDATE:

Ran into them AGAIN. Decided not to say anything in hopes that they wouldn't recognise me and we could all just play nice for this instance. First few packs go alright, as before. Then there's some aoe damage and the dpsers just bandage themselves for a while, but get sick of this pretty quickly as you can't really do all that much with bandaging, and the rogue decides to ask for a heal.

All hell breaks loose.

The chat is spammed with caps 'BLASPHEMY' 'FUCKING WORGEN' 'FUCK OFF NOOB' 'NO HEALS FOR U' etc etc, whilst the tank pulls the next pack and just stands there while the dps get beat up and not healed by the healer. Fortunately, us dps kick ass and didn't need their help. It just would have been nice.

Anyway, rather than just going 'wtf?!' at all this, the rogue decides to ask why he can't get a heal. Turns out, these guys are from an RP server and are RPing as racist dicks. Near as I can make out. Apparently they hate worgens.

That's some epic troll/griefing right there.

Idiots

The problem with playing WoW again is that it reminds just how full of idiots the world is. I mean, I know it's full of idiots, but WoW likes to shove that fact in my face. Some of them even manage to subtly hide the fact so that you give them second chances and the benefit of the doubt. Those ones are the worst.

Exhibit A:

Warrior joins our party as a tank. As soon as he joins, he says 'I'm not a tank by the way. We don't need a tank.' (grammar fixed by yours truly, of course). Now, to me, that statement could mean one of two things. One - he actually knows what he's talking about and is used to iron-manning instances. I approve of this scenario. It signals fun times. Or two - he's a fucking idiot.

My gut instinct says number two. Especially as this is a PuG and you don't just jump into iron-manning with people you don't know as there's bound to be idiots. Like this guy. Ahem.

First few trash mobs go okay. Then we jump down to the next part (Gnomeregan, by the way) as the warrior's all 'OMGZ I NOES A SHORTCUT' (grammar messed up by yours truly, to emphasise stupidity). Fair enough, we usually jump down here anyway. Except the warrior misses the giant cog thing you're meant to land on, and instead lands on a mob. Okay, it's just one mob. The rest of us jump down to deal with it. More patrol into us. Tank not being a tank, he ignores 'em. Other people ignore 'em too. They all gang up on the healer. That's me. Ow. Fine, I heal myself AND the warrior for a while figuring he can take these guys off me once the one he's fighting dies. No dice, because when that one dies he decides to pull the boss. I'm still fending off two mobs and trying to heal him as well. I'm failing quite badly. I don't have very many panic spells at my little level and the only one I have will make things worse in this room (fear) so I just try to heal us both until we all fall over and die.

Then the warrior screams 'OMGS Y NO HEALZ U NOOB'. I explain that I can't heal whilst being beat in the face, and a tank would have been quite helpful in that situation. He laughs at me.

I leave the party. Now I have a deserter debuff thanks to that idiot.


More exhibits will come as they happen. My memory sucks too badly to give you a good account of any of the other hundreds of millions that have happened already, unfortunately.

Ganged Up On

You know how The Music Man is a horribly bad influence on Rambo when it comes to video games? Well, about a week ago, he was back to stay for a bit (he's pretty much moved out to student housing in Crewe now but still back and forth for a few days every couple weeks and paying a bit of rent) and he's playing WoW on his laptop in the front room and talking to Rambo about it and I'm pretty much blocking it all out because I really couldn't care any less about WoW at this point - it's been a year and a half since I last played, it fucked my wrists right up when I did, I ebayed my warrior with all of her bazillions of pets and mounts and achievements that I'd spent years gathering, and I'm pretty sure that my account's banned from being connected to ebaying (I transferred the warrior onto a brand new account to ebay it) - but TMM somehow convinces Rambo to play again.

So there the both of them are, running instances and discussing all the changes that have occurred in the last year and a half since me and Rambo played and all the changes that will be happening come Cataclysm. And I'm doing my best to ignore them. And they're discussing all of these cool new pets and forcing me to look at the pretty models. And telling me how all of the tanks on their server suck these days and wasn't it awesome when I was tanking for them and they had the best tank on the server? And they're short on healers too, and I made a kickass healer.

And I'm ignoring them. And they're talking about my tree, who I do still have, unlike the tank, and I'm ignoring them, and they're spending hours playing WoW and I'm feeling lonely and left out. And I'm ignoring them. And they're telling me how my huntard can have 20 pets in the stable and 5 active now, rather than the 3 in stable 1 active she had last time I played. And I'm ignoring them. And they're telling me about all the new pets I can get in Cataclysm. And I'm ignoring them.

And then Blizzard sends me an email this morning offering me 7 free days of gametime if I come back before Cataclysm. And I figure they wouldn't have sent this email if my account really was banned. And I remember my password.

...

I'm up to 13 pets at the minute. I need to save a few slots for Cataclysm.

*sigh*

And I realised that auto-attacking on a BM huntard is actually easier on my wrists than writing. And this does not bode well for NaNo.