Healthy Paths, Halfway Points and Hiatus

The word of the week is hiatus.

May 28 ­- Farewell, FBook!

It was time, and past time.

After thinking about it for a while, today I finally pulled the plug on Facebook, deciding to step away for a few months and possibly the rest of 2018.

I realized this week that it's just too MUCH of a drain on my focus, and there's VITAL parts of my offline life I need to give more time to... and it's no fun talking to someone who's stressed out.

Which is me, and has been for quite some time now.

I'll be 'away' for a few months at least, checking in now and then for FBook Messages, and most likely not 'fully' coming back until the end of the year, depending on what I accomplish.

Don't get me wrong: I've fine-tuned my FBook account so that it mostly serves MY needs and interests, and I've been thrilled to have found so MANY amazing people I can call friends over the years through this magical social interface.

So it's not all bad.

Yet FBook has its downsides, which I'm sure most of you know, chief of which is that it consumes too much time and energy of a day. I can get my news elsewhere, along with much other amusement, and my interests can stand to take a backseat from their daily tapping on my shoulder...

 It's just too distracting.

I need to focus on writing, on getting a better job, and on my personal life that's not tied to memes, SJW outrage, or correcting random idiots on science points - fun as much of that can be.

So, while I know I'll be back... I can't say when, and that's a good thing, I think.

May 29 - Staying Healthy

For the most part, I'm back to normal, physically, these days:

·       I can walk 10K steps a day with nary a twinge, though the tendon under the ball of my left foot still feels tight most days, so I'm being careful not to strain or push things while I try to 'loosen' it with regular gentle exercise

·       My 'muscle burning' has vanished with daily doses of magnesium( yay! )

·       I'm able to move/lift things with my wrists/legs with regular effort and no pain, though after a long day sometimes there's a little ache: not bad at all.

·       My anxiety has receded to low, occasional levels of doubt, a 9/10 rating!

·       My chest pain, as such, is confined to moving cartilage, nothing more

·       My eyestrain, especially my right eye, is improving, albeit slowly for my liking... but my eyesight has sharpened thanks to the Lutein supplements I've been taking for the last few months, and it's been amazing to see the difference: the detail in my far-sight is markedly improved!

Still, there's a few things I'm working on. For the last few months, I haven't been able to have a full pint of beer now and then, as I've had a low-level headache for most of that time: it's part eyestrain, part weather-related, part stress... all adding up to taking Tylenol too often, which I no longer combine with alcohol due to the possibility of liver damage. No sense in tempting fate, however much I'd like a drink of late.

In the main, the eyestrain is the thing bothering me the most, and I hope that regular eyedrops( 2-4x's / day )will relieve the strain: if there's not enough lubrication, then like any machine, the muscles are working harder to move it around in the socket. Time will tell with that, and I'll keep an eye on things.

Yes, I went there... and considering how wildly off my health has been for the last few years, I'm glad to be HERE right now, feeling the way I am today!

May 30 - GlowForge Update

I've had to delay getting my laser engraver.

It's actually ready for me to pick up from the USA... or for me to have them send it to me, for an additional $325 USD( plus duties and taxes )which is beyond my budget right now. As is the trip itself, as I'll have to pay for the ferry cost both ways with a vehicle, as well as the duties and taxes at the border on the rather expensive unit.

As well, the air filter accessory, which allows one to run the unit indoors without external venting, isn't ready yet, so I'd have to make two trips to pick both items up from the States which is again too costly.

So I'm waiting on that being ready before I make the journey.

 One good thing about the delays is that the GlowForge continues to be refined; as you can see from the image above, the quality of the output keeps rising by leaps and bounds. I'm keeping tabs via the Forums on their website, where thousands of people post weekly, including many beta users as well as those who have received their production units already... and all are quite happy with the results.

Still, it would have been far better timing if the Glowforge had been ready six months ago at the end of 2017 as projected, as I would have had a functioning home business and been making a few hundred dollars more per month by now - as I'd projected and planned.

But there's nothing I could do about delays except wait.

I'll get my business up and running at some point in 2018, but it's not going to be a major going concern in terms of income for this year: by the time I get the website running, talk to local businesses / interest groups, get the testing phase out of the way and settle into providing value for money, 2018 will almost be over.

By 2019, I might finally be on the cutting edge of things. In the meantime, I have thinking to do:

May 31 - Performance

It's the end of May, and I've been at my current job for 4 years and 2 weeks now.

Pretty good, as things go: I'm not leaving government anytime soon, but it's getting frustrating not to even be hitting the eligibility lists for positions I'm applying for... and it doesn't look good when people at stuck at entry-level spots for more than 4 or 5 years. I'm using very little of my abilities in my current post.

But, this job has been the best I've had in many ways: a great office environment 15 minutes walk from home that's located in the downtown core close to all sorts of shopping, restaurants and other amenities. I'm unionized, meaning I can't be let go at the drop of a hat( and I don't intend to ever be such a problem that I'm considered a liability )with associated benefits, including decent dental and related health coverage( no physiotherapy though, grr... )compared to past jobs.

 Plus the work at present is a mental snooze, for good or bad, so there's that. AS I've said before, it's the perfect job for a writer... and would have been exactly that for me for the last year, if I hadn't had other major stressors on my mind like my finances and my health.

Timing is everything.

 On a side note, I had my yearly performance review at work yesterday.

More of a signoff, really: there's not much that I do that needs reviewing, frankly, as if I didn't to it properly, it'd show immediately... and there's little room for improvement in the processes that I have any control over. Which is fine.

What came out of the friendly chat was my desire to upgrade my skills, with an eye to moving on elsewhere: no problem! As I suspected, the ministry's focus is on employee retention within government - they'd rather lose someone to another office to help them grow than have the private sector grab us again; totally understandable.

Which means that my work focus, apart from job searching / applications, will be to look into improving my skill sets any way I can with training available online while at work, as well as considering going back to school( paid for by work for applicable skill sets )to get myself some solid skills, likely in IT and leadership areas.

June 1 - Thoughts On Life 'Success'

Oscar has the right of it.

I've just been existing for the last ten years, even after I left MMart, and even after I'd written my novel's first draft. My life has been essentially in service of servicing my debts, and that's going to stop soon, one way or another.

Because my life doesn't exist to fund other people's dreams, especially bank CEOs.

I've also clung to my own definition of success, tied too closely to material things: a positive bank balance, the dream of home ownership, a newer car that I can watch get rusty as I don't use it much... all that and an aging DVD collection too.

Success, as so many - too many - people define it, is a game of comparatives: that guy has More / Better Stuff than I do, therefore he's a success! No matter that he's just as deeply in debt, despite having a higher income... all we see are the trappings of success, and not its core.

I've got too many trappings and no place of my own to keep them, save in storage.

It's time to stop talking about my success in the future tense, and start living it instead.

June 2 - Sit Back and Relax…

My weekends have been less harried of late.

Not for a lack of things to do per se... but rather due to my re-evaluation of the importance of some activities compared to others, such as my worry-vs-action ratio, which has been quite disproportionate for a few years now.

So I spent a good deal of the day testing my shift in rationale by playing FTL.

As some of you may recall, I stopped playing FTL last year because it was frustrating: a game where you can die easily and often, even on the Easy setting, was too much for me to take.

Today, I simply sat back, and watched ship after ship explode in messy pixels.

It was cathartic, in some ways: I learned from my mistakes, made better decisions, and for the most part enjoyed what I learned about the game, while letting go of the reality of each crew's survival: I won by learning, not finishing.

Food for thought.

It was also my mother's birthday today; she's in her 70's, and given her history of health issues, it's a wonderful gift that she's here with us to celebrate and is in fairly good health at that!

My parents dropped by to see my sister and I at our place in mid-afternoon, and we chatted about topics of some import for a while before segueing over into some reminiscences as is our wont. The three of them left to see the petting zoo at Beacon Hill Park after 4pm, and when my lady arrived soon afterwards we joined them there, as the weather had gone from grey to brightly sunlight and almost warm. There were almost a dozen peacocks strutting around the area, along with some shaved alpacas( dorky-looking! )plus ducks in a new small-size duck pond and the usual gaggle of zany goats with a crowd of people petting them madly.

We came back to our place again for dinner, ordering in from ACCIO here in Victoria, with some scrumptious soups, Thai salads and a chicken sandwich for me. It was a lovely, relaxed dinner, and my sister spent the rest of the evening watching movies with my parents while my lady and I did much the same.

June 3 - Hiatus

I've decided to suspend my blog for the rest of 2018.

Why?

Well, it's both simple and complicated, so...

THE SHORT VERSION:

Why the shutdown?

With my also leaving FBook, what I've done is to essentially remove myself from social involvement, save by direct means such as phone or email( or Skype? )for the rest of 2018. If I'm going to truly use my time to its fullest, I can't spend 2-4 hours each Sunday rehashing how I'm going to go about it; I've already done that for the last decade, and it's all still there if you want, dear reader... an essay a week for ten and a half years is more than enough to be well-practiced at my writing and planning. I'm due a break from worrying over the same bones so long.

 A lack of daily social involvement isn't a bad thing: I'm still going to be here, doing my day job, and using all my otherwise-free time to now focus on my writing. With a possible side of small business, if I ever get my Glowforge picked up... but that's a different headache I'm going to deal with this summer, I hope.

To summarize: I've essentially got the next seven months to myself, with interludes for family and my lady love, apart from my current day job... and looking for a better position at such will also consume some of my now more-sharply-focused energies.

That should be all the distraction-free space I need for 2018.

THE LONGER VERSION:

Now for those among you who are really curious, I'll lay things out pretty simply, and try to be concise:

I'm at a crossroads again, and there's no other way to put it.

One path leads me to more mental torture, to a loss of physical health( again )and all the negatives that come with those two not-fun things. I can continue to struggle with my financial burdens( which have not lessened despite all my efforts for the last five years )as I watch myself age towards a 'retirement' where I have little to look forward to save semi-poverty, and will likely have severe health problems when I get there. 


I'll keep plucking( not plugging )away at being a writer, finding and losing focus week to week as I deal with the Money Stress, Work Stress, Health Stress, Inadequate Success Stress, and all the other sundry things that keep me from being happy often.

The other path? That's what I'm doing for the rest of 2018, and beyond.

Cutting away the distractions, focusing on my writing, and taking steps to ensure my financial recovery are where I'm at: I'm done pretending that Things Will Work Out If I Just Keep Working Harder - that way lies the first path above, and it's not a good one.

Hell, the second path isn't ideal either, but I'm done.

Done, as in: I refuse to slide further. I'm digging in, pushing back, breaking what needs breaking, and letting it all fall away, until I'm left with what I need and naught else.

How do I know this is the right thing?

It's happened before.

Not this EXACT situation, of course... but I know the feeling that these sorts of decisions engender when their time inevitably arrives:

It's an... absence of permutations: a quiet stillness inside me, if you will.

It means that the buzz of the myriad possibilities has stopped, that all the permutations have run down to one, and that is the choice that must be made... and it IS a choice, still: take it, or don't.

I've also given thought to what this hiatus, and all it entails, means for my dreams.

Am I giving up on them?

To answer that, I have to point to my tendency to 'be realistic' when it comes to Hopes and Dreams... and also to recognize that what I Want isn't necessarily practical... or what I Need.

For example, I've shelved the idea of owning a home.

Yep. Just not going to happen at this point in my life.

Sure, it's POSSIBLE in the mid-future that I might be earning enough to put a down payment on a house, but it won't be in Victoria, and it won't be much bigger than my current apartment anyway, so what's the point? I'd love to finance a tiny house, but their time hasn't come here yet: the legalities aren't in place, and neither are the models that my lady and I are willing to live in, in terms of space vs. functionality - it's either a collapsible two-storey or nothing( no loft!!!!! )like the one below:

 I also don't have the money to do anything: no vacations, no badly-needed computer upgrades, no savings for a rainy day... all the usual bits and pieces of normalcy that most people take for granted, I've been picking at piecemeal for far too long, and the stress of that has been telling on me, as I've said in this very blog.

It's time for simplification to effect big changes, and I need the space to make that kind of focus happen. My writing's got to come first, as it's been tenuous for years now: the Flow state has been a slippery, elusive thing hemmed in by a lack of energy from multiple distractions and poor health, and I just can't continue on that path.

I'm done: time to make a bridge to cross the chasm of the future on my own two feet.

If you want to say hello once in a while in the coming months, feel free to drop me an email, and if for whatever reason you don't have that or my phone# any more, send me a missive via FBook Messenger, which I'll check in on weekly.

Thanks.

Check this space again in the new year, and we'll catch up.

Thanks for stopping by; I'll likely see you all again online sooner than you think if the stars align for me just right. Cheers!

Contests, Crazy Climate People, Contemplations and Consider Phlebas

The word of the week is dephlogisticate.

May 21 ­- Climate Crazies

Social media can cause brain rot, did you know?

Let me rephrase that slightly: social media allows people with brain rot to infect others, and I've seen too many examples of it in the last few years myself.

I'm not talking about the typically stupid comments, or the misspelled / poorly thought-out ones... or even the too-easily-passed-on viral memes that generally get everything wrong when it comes to facts and truth.

No, what I'm talking about is this:

This was a response posted to a friend's comment regarding climate change, a comment that included proven scientific facts, links to said facts, and was made in a reasonable, non-confrontational manner. My friend, like me, locks down his FBook account's privacy for when we run into folks like Nicky...

As you can see, some people don't like having their opinions questioned - why let facts get in the way of a smug sense of self-righteousness that dovetails nicely into your belief system?

Which really, is all it is: opinions, mashed up with biases and in Nicky's instance, a bad case of My Personal Experience Trumps Every Climate Expert's Evidence. Nicky states his work at a telecom company for decades as well as a media company, plus some 'climate-related' college courses and as a researcher for 'over-educated Ph.D 'idiots' ( note he doesn't say in what field )somehow qualifies him as a 'climate expert' - and things devolve from there.

What I find scary is how Nicky then immediately proceeds to show his true colours as a rabid Conservative anti-communist, right-wing monster who's comfortable threatening total strangers over the internet:

These kinds of people are resistant to facts, reason and decency... which they will immediately refute and twist into a narrative that supports their biased worldview, looking for support from other echo-chambers on the internet that have blossomed in the last decade with the advent of easy-access sites like FBook.

They're loud, organized and fearless of authority due to online anonymity, because their belief that THEIR worldview is 'right' in the face of every measurable fact that people point out... all because they're afraid. They're cowards, and it's telling that Nicky's frustration with my friend's ability to mask his own identity caused such a vehement response.

Yet the rest of us have to stand up against such people, to let them know in no uncertain terms that their twisted worldview, of 'alternative facts' and all the rest of the associated fear-based garbage, isn't going to be the norm.

Because a world like that isn't worth living in.

May 22 - Lost In Space

Tonight I finished watching the new LiS Netflix series... meh.

No spoilers below, just my opinion... and feel free to question it!

It just didn't grab me, and for most of the episodes, I fast-forwarded through most of the character interactions( much like I did with The Mist series a few years ago )as I found them uninteresting and flat: same old contrived drama.

It also annoyed me that the series 'beats' felt off: I kept catching myself saying "But why didn't they just...?" and "Okay, that's enough time staring, the ship is falling apart...!" and so forth. I'm no director, but things could have been tighter, as well as better-written, especially if these are Earth's "best and brightest" being sent out into the universe to colonize. Even the main backstory was convoluted and somewhat confusing: rather than coming as a revelation, it came as more of a "Oh, so that's what happened... cool, I guess" which isn't impactful at all.

I did like some things in the series though.

The special effects were top-rate and relevant to driving the story, rather than the other way 'round. The sets and physical props were incredible: full points for these for believability and detail, especially the land vehicles( though what's with the doors? )and the Robot suit:

Speaking of robots: the relationship between Wil Robinson and the Robot was what made the show work. They had a dynamic that was fun to watch, believable and emotional, which is hard to do with a faceless creature with no voice. 

That's about all I liked; the hokey human drama I could take or leave, as it was just People Being People In Space, which did nothing for the story but it wasn't nearly as unbearable as it was in The Mist.

Overall, I'd watch it again just for the visuals, maybe with a Mystery Science Theatre 3000 or 'Bad Lip Reading' audio track instead, for added fun.

May 23 - Phoenix 2013

Five years ago, I left home and came back a different person.

While my present circumstances haven't changed all that much since, my self certainly has: I've left burdens behind, got a job, and found love.

That's pretty good, in my view of things.

In May of 2013, I'd been at a new job for a few months after being unemployed for over a year, and I was feeling upbeat: I'd just finished writing the second draft of my novel six months prior, and was fleshing out the next two books quite nicely. My sister and I had been in our current place a year, and while my finances weren't good, I wasn't at the penny-pinching point yet, so... optimism still held.

Meaning I could scrape together the funds to get myself to Phoenix AZ to make the 20th Anniversary gathering for Babylon 5... and even though I had nothing but change to my name when I made it back, with heatstroke, a few days later, it had still been worth the trip! 

The major takeaway from my AZ trip is noted here, in the blog entry for that week, and I mention a bit more at the end of this week's blog too - see below.

Looking back, I wish I could view things from a better place in terms of finances, writing career and employment... but I'm still alive and still improving myself, so there's not much more I can ask for that I don't have to work towards myself.

No such thing as a free lunch in this world, but man, some coupons would be nice...

May 24 - Glurb...

Oof, where did that come from?

A little after lunch today, my spirits took a nosedive out of nowhere.

Of a sudden, it hit me that I was trapped, like Andy in his cell from The Shawshank Redemption. The metaphor smacked me upside the face with its imagery: my dreams were the poster on his cell wall, behind which I was scratching with my Persistent Hammer at the hard Concrete Of Reality, chipping away a tunnel I could escape in, once I reached... 

The sewer?

The metaphor kinda failed at that point, but the feeling stuck with me: I'm trapped in a place where no matter what I do, there's no way out, and the universe keeps me there so it can laugh at all my efforts to break out.

Or something.

Sure, it's only a metaphor... but man, that feeling wouldn't let go of me. Good thing all I had to do today was see to the mail and stuff envelopes...

Like every other day this year.

By bedtime, the emotional jacuzzi timer had run out, and I was feeling more balanced. A thought remained though, as I drifted off to sleep:

How long will I keep using the hammer, or should I find some dynamite?

May 25 - A long time ago...

I'm struggling this week, but it's okay:

I've been here before.

The difference this time is not only do I recognize how I'm feeling and why, but that I know it will pass... because to dwell is to diminish, not grow.

Life is struggle: it's messy, mind-breaking and monotonous sometimes... but you have to keep going, never give up, because life doesn't care if you do.

Most people won't either; they're too busy getting their own mess(es) in order.

I'm lucky to have the friends and family I do: so many of them support me in my writing, are writers themselves, or otherwise are people that I look up to and use the best parts of as examples to better myself when I'm feeling... fractured.

Situationally, sure, things could be better for me, but considering what's happened to me in the last five years, they could have turned out far, far worse: I'm still relatively healthy, I've found love, I'm in charge of my own life, and fairly well convinced that I'm a writer whose skills can be honed to where I can make a living doing it.

All else is distraction.

I could toss in the towel financially tomorrow, but I don't have to, not yet: I'm still holding on. I could give up trying to get a better position in the government... but not yet: I've only had a few dozen rejections in two years, and I'm going to intensify my applications even further. Though I suspect that beyond that, I'll have to consider mid-life retraining as a necessary step to a better position, either that or leaving for the private sector with a flipped bird for the wasted time.

I'll leave mentioning my stalled GlowForge business for another time, along with hopes of getting a home of my own in this ever-more-pricey small-sized city.

Anyway, I'm done for now, and I'll leave you with this reminder to keep one's chin up:

May 26 - We Might've Won...

Today started out messy!

My sister ended up needing to get somewhere quickly, but as we no longer have use of a car( and can't even budget a cab right now )this was a problem! Thankfully, my wonderful girlfriend was able to drive her on short notice, after all sorts of convoluted navigational updates by text from me at home to my sister, whose Google Maps decided to take the day off - whew!

After that, my lady and I headed over the new non-blue bridge to Esquimalt, where we put in our ballots for prizes at a local car-lot event: it was worth entering, as the main prize was a new car! I'd already entered online earlier in the week but not been drawn for 1 of the 5 total 'maybe-it-starts' keys; the odds of that draw were a low 1-in-100, and as only about 50 people showed up at the event for the last key-draw, the odds were even better!

We went to lunch at Spinnakers while we were waiting... and ended up having to walk back for the draw at 1pm as our food was inexplicably delayed( we told them to hold our table ). We made it back in time for the draw with two minutes to spare, and we were both excited at the possibility of winning some of the decent selection of prizes.

But, the draw was made... and neither of us got a key. Or any of the other prizes.

So, we didn't win anything, but it was a fun to try on a nice day, and the odds were certainly in our favour!

Once we were back at Spinnakers, we settled into our still-reserved table and ordered two beers... and were told that it'd be a wait until our food was ready, as they were making it again to ensure it was fresh - impressive! Our server was extremely attentive too, even bringing out a sample of the daily soup for each of us when we'd first say down: big points!

While we were waiting, and with beers in hand, my lady and I fell into a discussion of what I've been feeling this week, as I noted earlier above. I managed to express myself clearly without too much wingeing, and we delved deep into the meaning of my mental melancholy for a good hour... by the end of which I felt better, and she felt that we'd had a deeper discussion than she'd expected: win-win!

Once I was back home, I read for a bit, then had to spend the rest of the evening laying in bed with a cool cloth on my head, as a migraine had jumped me out of nowhere - probably related to eyestrain again, as it was on the right side of my head. Fortunately, by spending hours just resting, it had mostly faded by bedtime.

Special Note:

Five years ago tonight, I was sitting in a hotel lobby in Arizona, typing like mad on a tablet keyboard with tears in my eyes.

I'd just come out of the Babylon 5 20th Anniversary Reunion, and I was a hot mess.

After finding a table to sit at next to some gamers, I poured out my heart in what I later realized was my first experience of creative, and cathartic, writing Flow in many years. I blasted out the words nonstop, and thirty minutes later I had over 2200 of them on the screen as I wiped my eyes and ignored the stares I was getting - people probably thought I'd just broken up with someone, and I had:

My old self, the one carrying so many burdens. I won't post that piece here, as it's pinned in my private FBook group, but I will show this snippet, which applies today as much as it did back when I wrote it:

It was love that brought me here, chose my path for me, bound me in my duty to my family and forged the links with the so many friends that I feel so fortunate to have in my life. Duty kept me on my path, stubbornness kept my mind focused instead of fractured, and fate - fickle as always - tossed me hints all along my journey of years that each setback was but a moment in the constant tick of time. Moments to learn from, to draw strength and courage from and to move on towards that then-unknowable grey future that contained humbling hints of light. Love was there too, waiting, never leaving.

That was life-changing for me, and the picture below shows it, as I look younger than I had for many years, with the pinched lines around my nose and eyes GONE in an instant:

It's still been a rough ride health-wise since then, but seeing what's possible when your life gets itself together makes riding those rough patches a little easier.

May 27 - It's a... market?

Today was block party day in my area!

From 8am to 8pm, a four-block section of Cook St was closed to traffic down in Cook Street Village and lined with stalls for all sorts of vendors and exhibitors:

My lady and I headed down for breakfast at Bubby's Kitchen around 9:30am, and our fave server there slipped us two free cookies as we left, she was so glad to see us again after our long absence!

We walked the length of the block party, and were sadly underwhelmed: the live music was still getting set up well after 10am, there were no performers in the crowd, and to all appearances it was just a different form of Sunday market. We hope that next year things will be better in their second iteration, as we didn't bother to stay long despite the growing crowd, as there was little of interest to us.

Heading downtown, we settled into Union Pacific Coffee on their back patio to play some boardgames in the perfect temperatures( and cloudless blue skies! ). A few minutes after we'd settled in, a table of young women sat down next to us... and had soon disabused both my lady and I of the idea that one needs insight and intelligence to get through life, through the conversations we overheard and soon tried mightily to ignore...

It was nothing but inane commentary: chewing over why they'd bothered to stay friends with certain people, the complexities of paying mortgages and moving money around with only their husband working, splitting the costs of weddings with their parents, having too many bridesmaids and their unwelcome boyfriends attending... on and on, and not a shred of substance. It was like listening to a third-rate soap opera, with the accompanying bad dialogue( one girl used 'cray-cray' = crazy repeatedly that grated on my ear ) and I honestly don't know how people can live lives so mindlessly devoid of self-reflection or independent direction from societal expectations: job, marriage, mortgage, social obligations, and nothing else.

Honestly, while observation and overheard conversations are usually the bread and butter of writers, I had to wonder if in this case I'd stepped into a pocket universe where pedantic laws had run wild... *sigh* No good material whatsoever.

My lady and I stayed for over an hour, but headed out when it became obvious that the other table just wasn't going anywhere( on many levels )to wander a bit in Chinatown's shops, which refreshed both of us somewhat.

After that, we went our separate ways, and I headed home to alternate my afternoon between blogging bits and allowing my eyes some rest with some light reading of Consider Phlebas by Ian M. Banks, the next novel in my ever-growing stack of Culture books.I ended up writing a longer than usual blog entry tonight at over 3000 words, which shows I've got a lot on my mind and it's got nowhere to go save out through my fingers on the keyboard...

Good thing I've got the skills to get them down the way they need to be, now.

Yes, it's been a struggle this week to not feel sorry for myself: while I know I have to acknowledge those emotions, I know it's a waste of time to STAY in that place, instead of using them as motivation to improve my life.