The word of the week is irascible.
Feb 3 – Slashed Hours
My three( or two )day work weeks begin now.
Leaving lots of time for writing and doing
other things. Well, mainly writing. I've little interest at the moment in
anything other than putting words together and finding a more fulfilling job –
both monetarily and personally.
Meaning books, gaming, socializing and most
other optional activities have gone by the wayside. Which is strange, as I used
to enjoy the deep diversions that PC gaming or reading a story series gave me.
Now, the more visceral visions of reality have sapped my desire to deviate
daily and I sometimes find myself wondering when the last time was that I
played / read one of my many, many PC games / books.
Maybe this summer; I’ve a lot to do until
then.
 |
| This makes about as much sense as sidewalk cat today... |
On a different note, I was lightly mauled( slightly savaged? )by a sidewalk cat today. I’d headed out in the afternoon, all
chuffed for a relaxing tea and to prep for writing this week, when I
encountered said cat as I’d done many times before. This time, for no reason,
he decided my hand would make good practice for killing small animals; it was
all over in a few seconds. I walked quickly to Moka House, where I washed and
wrapped my shredded skin, then headed home – my hand felt oddly cold due to the
copious amounts of blood I was losing, but a tentative examination after first
aid showed no deep or major wounds.
 |
| Thankfully not all that deep, but definitely ouchy... |
It was not a good start to the week and
really threw off my night. I’ve no idea what set off the cat, even being a cat
person, so all evening I wondered where I’d managed to tick off the universe. Obviously,
I did little writing; I was neither capable of typing not desirous of attempting to do so, even by voice.
Just… bummed out. By a random cat, no less!
Feb 4 - Novel progress!
Shaking off yesterday, I got to work
writing today.
Reviewing notes, making more new notes,
going over critique suggestions and corrections… a very good portion of today
was productive and that made me quite happy. Being able to devote an entire
day( one of three this week! ) to JUST working on my novel was fantastic and
brought back the same feelings of creative progress as I had writing the
novel’s first draft a year and a half ago.
It’s not all easy going, though. There was
an accident some months ago with my notes, where salt chemicals were spilled all
over the entire pile of papers, soaking through many pages. So whenever I handle them, I have to wear impermeable gloves,
which really makes things awkward. Especially as I have to remember I can’t touch my face or rub
my eyes when I'm tired.
But then, nothing worth doing is ever easy,
right?
Feb 5 - Loneliness Is An Addiction
Why am I more observer than participant?
I’ve thought for a while that I may have some
asocial tendencies, but lately I’ve wondered if there’s some other category I
fall into – asocial people are indifferent to
socializing in general and tend to be more monastic.
For me, I tend to spend a lot of time
alone.
Whether that’s time alone in my head or in
person, it amounts to the same thing. I’ve pondered if that, for me, it’s a
combination of being ‘new’ in Victoria and being a writer, which tends to lead
one to observe things happening rather than interact. When I was in Ontario, I
was out with friends on a fairly regular basis, but even that changed fairly
regularly over time: it went from boardgaming in high school to video games in
university back to roleplaying and then… not much.
The cycle of work, bar socials, repeat wore on me,
I think, and helped spur my move to Victoria. Now that I’ve been here for over
half a decade, I have a little perspective on things and can see that while I
didn’t repeat the work / bar cycle by any means here, nothing has really taken its
place.
Previously, I’ve mentioned that people need
at least three spaces in their lives: work, home and somewhere that’s
neither of those two things. For me, I’m distancing myself from work and there’s
not much of a home life, being single… so that leaves the Somewhere Else still to be found. So far, I've not found coffee shops or park benches conducive to being able to relax and write, while pubs are definitely out too.
For some reason, the phrase ‘Loneliness is
an Addiction’ popped into my head this week. I’m not sure why, but the
connotations of that phrase are intriguing. Related to depression in general,
one can easily wallow in the aspects of loneliness, something I’m familiar with
from years past; it’s easy to do.
Fortunately, I’m neither depressed or
overly lonely, but saying that doesn’t always keep the feelings at bay. For
me, I’m caught between an unfulfilling present and an uncertain future which I’m
making every effort to see as bright and attainable. It’s the equivalent of
seeing the light at the end of the tunnel blinking at you in morse code,
sending you a message you can’t quite decode...
For me, all I do then is close my eyes and
keep walking forward, trying not to stumble.
Feb 6 - How NOT to do business
Tech support is a family sideline of mine.
For many years now, I’ve had my parent’s PC
set up so that I could log in and deal with whatever minor emergency had
cropped up that day. It was convenient and quite a lot easier than physically
going over to their place at the drop of a hat, given that most ‘fixes’ were
quite simple.
The software I’ve used to date is LogMeIn,
which up until a week ago was free and worked very well. Yet all of a sudden,
this year the company decided to abandon its lowest-tier customers with a mere week’s notice
that they had to move on or buy an ‘introductory’ year-long subscription for a
substantial cost.
When it comes down to it, I wouldn’t have
minded paying SOME kind of fee, with a little notice. A week’s notice is not
time enough to make an informed decision and so myself, along with thousands of
others, were left adrift for our remote access needs.
Fortunately, there are a few other alternatives, albeit none of them working as well as LogMeIn or with as many
features. I ended up installing the dully-named Remote Utilities, which is a
free bit of kit and does all that I need. I imagine they’ll still be around in
a few years and even if they decide to charge a fee at some point, I hope
they’ll give a LOT more notice than their competitor LogMeIn did – there’s a
lot of angry people out there, for no reason really, which I find amusing in an
age where customers can form communities at the drop of a hat.
LogMeIn is finding
itself ending up on the short end of a large stick of negative opinion, which
won’t help their company much.
If they’re remotely in tune with the
community, they’ll find a way to regain our trust.
Feb 7 - Dang
My taxes aren’t going to be all that great this
year.
I was hoping that since I earned so
little in 2013, that I'd get a decent return( ie. a couple of paycheque's worth )and my
initial calculations showed this. However, plugging in the actual numbers this
week resulted in a five-fold( yeah... )reduction in my return amount - but at
least I'm getting a return, right?
Taxes are strange that way. Everyone feels
as though they are entitled to getting money back, but few people understand
the WHY of how the system works, even in general terms. Myself, I dealt with
taxes peripherally for years and picked up quite a few tips, as well as doing
my own family’s for the last decade… but I don’t consider myself all that
knowledgable.
Which is fine, as simple tax returns don’t need experts; if you’re
rich and / or have a lot of business taxes to do, definitely get yourself help.
In the main, people expect to get money back and when it doesn’t work out that
way, frowns follow quickly.
Be grateful for the positive, don't spend
your chickens before they hatch and all that. What I should be doing( instead of
lamenting a loss of money that was never really there )is planning on what island I'll
be buying for a writer's retreat once my books take off.
That's definitely positive thinking.
Feb 8 - Star Trek Continues!
The second episode of Star Trek Continues
premiered tonight online – oh yeah!
For those who haven't yet seen the first
episode, Pilgrim To Eternity, you can find it here – it’s incredible to see!
Below is Episode 2: Lolani …
Scoot, go watch them both and tell me what
you think. I’ll tell you what I think:
I can’t wait for the third episode to show
up!
Feb 9 - For a Laugh
Today, I really needed a laugh.
My bike tire went flat on the way to work;
nothing new there. I took it across the lot to SportCheck to have the tube
replaced and picked it up after work: all done, no biggie.
The tire went flat as I stepped out the
door on my way home – again, nothing new there.
It was admittedly no fun walking home in
the cold rain / wannabe-snow-droplets when I’d expected to be cozily eating dinner
much sooner. It sparked a bit of a down spiral tonight, where I felt rather out
of control of many things: my personal life, career, day job, writing
aspirations, finances… you name it, my mind sounded off about it all being
beyond my ability to have any control over it. All from a simple flat tire; the
brain’s odd that way and usually I’m able to ignore such subconscious ramblings
of mine.
Thing is, when they contain a fair amount
of truth, it’s much, MUCH harder to ignore them.
After a late dinner and an even later chat
with a great friend back in ON, I still hadn’t made a dent in my
blog. The weather system moving in across lower BC here is a doozy,
making my head pound rather nastily to the point where I needed need some heavy-duty
Tylenol to try and keep it from becoming a migraine. Which didn't work; as the heavy rains moved in, my head felt like bursting from the inside - not a pleasant sensation to deal with.
Needless to say, I wasn’t in a great mood
tonight and so again, I needed a laugh. Which I found quite by accident in the artistic scribblings
of a subway commuter:
That helped, letting me hoping the
week to come will see a lot of progress with my novel!
It’s funny: reading my blog this week, it
seems as though it was written by someone else. Someone with a more positive
outlook on things, who doesn’t let life’s little( and large )bumps get them
down. Which is amusing, as I’m obviously the author of both my blog and my own
life, yet I am able to surprise myself when what I’ve created takes a totally
different tack from how I’m feeling inside. Which I think is fantastic; who
wouldn’t want a pick-me-up to arise from the words spilling out of their own
mind?
PPS - the blog's done after finishing Monday morning, a little before noon. My head's still killing me, but I definitely felt better completing it in the AM than trying to struggle to a semi-conscious finish last night.
