speaking the truth

So I've got this job. I ought to have mentioned it earlier, but, well, I didn't.

I'm working for a friend, Kass, who runs a pattern business. Mostly I fold patterns and get things ready to ship. Sometimes I beat on the printers. Occasinally I get to do graphics-stuff, which is awfully fun. Also, I get to play with her two greyhounds.

There are times I'm getting _paid_ to play with her greyhounds.

So far? Doing okay. Getting used to the whole concept of 'work' again. Yeah, I'm not gonna get a lot of sympathy here, I know. Mostly it's two days a week, but with luck that'll increase as the business builds. We can but hope.

Also, went to New Orleans over the weekend, about which more later.

So Evil Kirsten calls me, entirely out of the blue, and just after I got my spiffy new cell phone up and running...there was a bit of confusion whilst I hastily figured out how to answer it.

What with one thing and another, it looks like I'm heading down there tomorrow so she can help me with my resume.

!

She's already given me more ideas on how to phrase things than I'd come up with in probably the last month of working on the thing...

She's the _bestest_.

I spent some time jobhunting today, because I need a job.

After that I was going to go and see TLTWaTW, because I _still_ haven't got round to it. I decided to put it off for one more day, though; the weather was too nice - almost sixty degrees - and I wanted to be _outside_.

So I drove up to Columcille again. This time, I got there well before sunset, instead of _right_ before. I spent probably two hours wandering the paths, looking at all (and there are a _lot_) of the standing stones and piles of stones and stone circles and...things.

There's a labyrinth at the nearby Kirkridge Conference Center, and I walked that (after waiting for someone else to finish). It was lovely, peaceful, very centering. Then I went into the St. Columba Chapel and just...sat and thought for a while. Asked for a clue where I'm going. I don't know if I got any answers, but we shall see.

I ran into the guy who runs the place (and his dog, who refused to give me his frisbee). He welcomed me very graciously and we chatted for a bit (mostly about the dog).

All in all, it was a lovely calm grounding sort of day. One I needed badly.

Instead of vacuuming the cat, I've decided to read through my entire LJ and see what I wrote a while ago that strikes my fancy, or doesn't make sense any more, or something.

( Nostalgia, or something. )

Everything newer than that is new enough that I don't want to comment on it again...

I suppose I ought to have done this post about a month ago, actually, or in two weeks when I'll have had this journal for a year. But now's when I did it, so too bad.

I'm sick as a dog. My throat is full of crap and everything aches.

I've written 200 words so far today, and they all suck.

I tore the sleeve on my favourite flannel at work today, so I didn't even have another to change into.

I kept _dropping_ things. And getting pissed off, and then dropping something else.

And frelling Bush got elected again.

I said to meradudd earlier that I felt like half of the country had just voted me off the island, and he pointed out that actually, at least in eleven particular states, it was between 2/3 and 3/4.

I cannot freaking believe that all eleven states voting on measures to ban gay marriage passed them. Apparently overwhelmingly.

Well, fuck y'all, too.

Yeah...those of you who are reading this aren't the people I'm saying that to. Many of you are probably feeling much the same way. And with reason; lots and lots of my dear friends are gay, or bi, or polyamorous, or oddly gendered one way or another, or just prefer sexual practices which aren't mainstream, or indeed several of the above.

And that's only one of my issues with the election, but I'm not going to go on about that; I think elfs said it much better than I could manage, here...

Anyone want to move to Canada with me? We can buy a big ol' chunk of land, build a wall around it, and grow food, and not have to deal with the rest of the stinkin' world.

I'm going back to bed.

Before I get to Crusades...yeah, it's just after 9. And I'm awake. Further, I'd wanted to be awake closer to 8. For those who know me well...yes, that's morning. I don't like it much. But I need to start getting up in the morning, so here I sit.

*yawn*

Anyway, on to Stuff.

( Crusades )

Worked yesterday, which I wasn't thrilled about, but I got up early enough to take a walk before work which was good - it's been far too long. Stopped to help an older gentleman with his garbage, stopped again to pet someone's highly-enthusiastic dog. Got a lot of thinking done.

Work was just...one of those days where things keep going wrong, and no matter how hard I concentrated or how many times I checked things I kept getting them wrong anyway. And the laser engraver kept having issues despite the guy coming in yesterday morning to work on it. New parts coming in today that Mom and Bill have to install...I'm sort of wondering why the guy didn't have them with him yesterday. I mean, okay, I can sort of see not carrying a spare motor (though it's small) but spare belts...? And they're _really_ small. But, well. Here's hoping the new parts will get the thing working right. Otherwise I swear I'm gonna take a baseball bat to it...

By the end of the day I was achy, grumpy, and fairly antisocial, so I blew off fighter practice and just went home. Had a good big salad for dinner and read some, then got on the computer and talked to my Tim again for a bit. Lewis got home really late but in a good mood which I was happy to see. Went to bed and slept like a rock.

Today's my day off, so to speak; lot of stuff to get done around the house, though.

I think I probably got to sleep around 4 this morning, since Lewis is away. On the up side, Chocolate decided to actually sleep next to me for once, and I enjoyed that thoroughly.

Had to go to work, though, and I expected to be rather fuzzy. I was, but I did a better job of staying with it and actually being useful than usual, mostly by changing my self-motivation methods...

See, I realized a week or so ago (and forgot to talk about it here, bad Kate...) that when I'm having a hard time getting motivated, or staying on focus, or otherwise generally not doing very well at the task at the moment, I get really negative at myself. 'Hey, stupid-head, what'd ya do that for' and 'get off yer ass and get moving' and 'just shut up and stop whining and _do_ it' and stuff like that.

It gets me moving, but I'm not real happy about it.

So...today I tried to keep moving without being a jerk at myself about it. And whaddaya know, it worked...I was still tired, and I was still kind of grumpy, but less grumpy and more useful than usual when I'm this behind on sleep.

meradudd, yeah, you were right and I _am_ too hard on myself...

Fight practice tonight, except that what with the shire meeting and it being so close to Pennsic I think we only had two people in armor, and one was a grownup and one was a page. We had to talk Gunnar and Jenny Becca out of trying to fight each other _anyway_, but they're both thugs that way...

Spent a tense hour or so trying to help convince someone I don't know well that she _really_ had to get out of her grandparents' place (fairly nasty mental abuse going on) _and_ that no, really, we _would_ do what we could to help her...I hope she believes us and takes us up on it.

At the very least, we got her to laugh a couple times. That's got to help.

Off to bed. Lewis gets back tomorrow.

Edit: Forgot to hit the 'go' button to post this until just now, but I _did_ write it last night...

Been a while. Again. I have to work on that...

It's the busy season, officially. Trying not to let it stress me out too much, but when it's the end of the day Tuesday and you've got part of Monday, part of Tuesday, and _none_ of Wednesday done...

And my back is hurting already, even though I've hardly made any trophies.

Gonna back up a bit, though, I think.

( Planning and Scheduling... )

( The Weekend )

More catchup tomorrow, as it's stupid late...

...now that I'm awake.

Every five years or so I look back on my life, and I have a good laugh...

( Van the Size of France )

So, on to other things. The stress...well, let's just say that I've had three headaches in the last week. As my normal rate is much closer to perhaps one headache a year, this is beginning to worry me. If it keeps happening, I'm goin' to the doctor.

Had a long and frequently annoying discussion on Herald's Mush a few days ago that really got me thinking about the ways that the rules and customs of the SCA make it hard for those of us who are interested in serious authenticity. With the old persona, it was the red sash that I couldn't wear; now, there's not so many obvious issues since my new persona is much closer to 'SCA-standard' but there's still bunches of things my persona could do that I can't. Easy enough to avoid, but getting more annoying...

( Lovely work musings )

( Jim Freaking Watts )

Wound up blowing off poor Meradudd as my eyes hurt too much to look at a computer screen, which I feel fairly bad about, but he had Lewis and Gise to talk to.

( More Workfoo )

Picked up the van Saturday morning. It's huge. But I did that bit.

( Bardic Champions )

In other news, Eldrich and I vaguely discussed forming a household for the Loyal Opposition. He's all over the idea now; it's fairly amusing to watch. :)

Slept in Sunday. Was briefly useful. Went out for late breakfast, shopped. Was briefly useful. Opened windows. Took shower, promptly napped for three hours. Was briefly useful. Ate dinner, went to Olwyn's to fix her computer, which consisted of sitting around snuggling cats and talking about Tiernan's book.

Came home to a cat-peed bed. Slept on the futon, downstairs. Buh.

Tired today, but got a lot of work done. Was fairly worried about Tim, as I'd barely heard from him since Thursday when I blew him off. But we're talking now and all seems to be good.

Bed soon.

Also I need to learn how to do cut-tags.

[ edit: having learned how to do cut-tags, added probably way too many... ]

Long day at work, but I got a lot done, which is always fairly encouraging. My back is being bizarre - normally sitting down is good, and standing up (especially to make trophies) is bad, but today...my back ached after sitting barely a half-hour for lunch, but I blew through seventy-five trophies (heavy ones, with marble bases) without so much as a twinge. Weird-oid.

Listened to Buffy: the Musical on the way home today. Got me thinking about a lot of things, a few of which I feel like sharing. Some of the Buffy stuff really reminded me of Lewis and the amount of stress he's under these days, and how he really does sort of act like he's 'just going through the motions, walking through the part' sometimes recently. He's trying not to - and clearly, he ain't as bad off as Buffy was at that point - but I keep thinking that things better slow the hell down or he's gonna burn crispy. Which feeds right back into the storyline, ya know?

And that's why I keep taking on more of the burdens, to take them off of him. Cooking, which I've been trying to avoid for _years_, and I'm finding I rather enjoy when I have the time and aren't hurried. And doing the January decisions, which wasn't _nearly_ as bad as I thought it'd be. Not to say it wasn't tough, mind you...

And I'm thinking I've finally got to the point in my life when I _can_ take on new things, and new burdens, and not be terrified of it, and do them really pretty well. I suppose it's about time, I was only useless at new stuff for seven or eight years, and I've only been on the Lexapro for six months now...

I needed that time, though, just to rearrange my own brain. I think I've got a lot of that done, now. I still go through my paranoid moments and there's still times I feel like all the things I have to do are a crushing weight on my shoulders - but it's a lot less often, and I feel a lot more capable of keeping _up_ with everything.

And I've finally got to the point where I can be in relationships with people other than Lewis and be _comfortable_ with the fact - I'd managed it a bit, before last Pennsic, but there were some real bad experiences then too - and these days there's three people I'm sleeping with on a semi-regular basis other than Lewis, one I'll be sleeping with as soon as we're in the same general physical proximity (which really is taking just _too_ damn long), and (pause to count) four more people I can think of offhand who I really wouldn't mind hopping into bed with, two of which I may actually have a shot at. And it's all _just_fine_. :)

The (admittedly mostly new) circle of friends I've gathered around myself has got a lot to do with my being more confident, too. It unnerved me a bit to realize that of the people I generally hang out with, two years ago I didn't even know most of them and really wasn't close with nearly all the rest. But then I realized that two years ago I really didn't _have_ a whole lot in the way of friends. I've just gotten...braver. And having a bunch of people around me who I know will save my ass if I need it (or bust my ass, too, but that's part of the deal) gives me a whole lot more space to get brave in.

Which comes back 'round to the other bit I was thinking of earlier...

What can't we face when we're together?
What's in this place that we can't weather?
Apocalypse
We've all been there
The same old trips
Why should we care?
What can't we do if we get in it?
We'll work it through within a minute
We have to try
We'll pay the price
It's do or die
Hey, I’ve died twice
What can't we face
What can't we face?
If we're together?
What's in this place
That we can't weather?
We're together
There's nothing we can't face
Except for bunnies

Rather flip, I'll admit, but at the same time...gather my current crowd around me, and I can't think of a whole lot we couldn't accomplish, one way or another. Well, world peace is probably beyond us...

It's a good feeling, though.