Entries tagged with 99 problems

words

yes i also hate that i posted to tumblr first rather than DW, but i needed to embed the image easily, so that's where i went dont shoot me

word count update is here!

yes: I'm behind my GYWO target. Behind by about 25,000 words going into june. for someone who writes the way i did last year, this isn't too concerning yet, especially because i have two new projects i'm excited about and a bunch of year-old comms i want to dig into for motivation. but like ... like you'll see on the post. life has been A Thing. it's been too much of A Thing. I give up.

also realizing its already june has been a punch to the gut; my brain still thinks it's, like, april. somehow. halfway through the year and i've made no significant progress on either of my two goals for 2021: finishing my first original novel and getting back into shape. i don't know why the turning of the calendar hits like this - i'm of the opinion that the best time to start a project is right now - but if it motivates, i'm going to use it.

i mean, i've been cancelling my two standard weekly original fiction dates lately because i am either overworked or too exhausted, so i only have me to blame, but then again gestures at tumblr post That's A Thing.

anyway im overworked and tired and mad and slowly going crazy, how are yall

(EDITED) to say that every single tag on this post is accurate but while going through my tags i found this and im fucking howling why am i like this

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99 problems

april becomes may

I got my second shot of the vaccine on Wednesday! I then spent yesterday in an absolutely horrible preview of what COVID-19 would have been like in my body, and seriously, thank God and Gramma I didn’t get it, because yesterday was miserable. Fever and feverish chills, shakes, every single atom in my body hurt on a pain level i haven’t had to deal with in a long time, and utter exhaustion — for the first half of the day I just couldn’t stay awake longer than an hour. I did end up taking Tylenol and it helped in the way wearing earplugs at a heavy rock concert helps, I guess: took the edge off, but you know what’s lurking there underneath. It was abysmal. I’ll stop talking about it. Anyway, I feel better today in the way you feel better a few days after you get hit by a truck, but compared to yesterday, I’ll take it.

We’re having work done on the downstairs bathroom so that Feathers (my murder husband) can move into the basement in the middle of May. This is a money-saving move on both of our parts; I’ll get some income from a space I’m not really using, and he’ll get a more affordable rent. The pandemic / quarantine has hit us both financially so we’re going to combine some things for a year or two until we have some more respectable savings available. I don’t really do roommates so it’s really going to be just like a separate rental, except he’ll come up here for the kitchen and I’ll go down there for the laundry. Crown has thrown himself into this, which is great, because up until this week I’ve been absolutely slammed with work. He’s really come through and I am super excited for the extra income.

However, it’s been obnoxious because of course there are all kinds of horrible fucknoises coming from the basement which makes it really headache-inducing and hard to concentrate and yes i know that’s what its like when people are fitting 2x4s into the frame and cutting pipe but wahhh its loud. And I’m v tired of having people in my house.

Around that I’ve been getting ready to launch a few fan projects in May that I’m excited about, trying to survive work, and trying not to get so depressed about gestures at the world in general that i spent 42 hours a day playing Sims 4. I don’t know. Having the second shot means in 2 weeks the world kind of opens up again but I’m just so. Worn. Out. From everything.

Also my birthday is 03 may and I’m turning 39 and that’s just a big ol what the fuck.

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thinking on drawing

ever since the beginning of this year when i made it one of my goals to get better and more prolific with art, i've been really, really having to reevaluate my approach. overall i think i've made some pretty significant progress with art, and i need to tell myself that, because part of it is just still disappointing to me.

what i want to be able to do with art is sit down and draw something that's in my head and have it come out more or less like what i want. it doesn't have to be total realism -- i'm sure i'll have a style. it doesn't have to be neat - my art is messy by default. but i want to be able to, like, draw a comic panel or something, in a reasonable amount of time. mostly, it's drawing people that i want.

yeah, im nowhere near that.

my FIRST big adjustment this year was finally getting through my own head that using references isn't "cheating." once i got established in my little corner of the good omens fandom and talked to more and more artists, i finally got it through my brain - and i mean this has been years in my brain rent-free - that using references is something a lot of artists do. some of them will even trace a generic pose before going on to make it their own. this is what has substantially improved my art - FUCKING SURPRISE, SURPRISE - because as it turns out, i can draw nearly anything with a reference, and draw it rather well -- or, well enough to satisfy my internal monologue.

but i know not all artists have to look up 4-5 references and mash them all together if they want to make a piece of art? and i know a lot of artists can sit down and do a doodle that looks great in like a half hour with no refs at all? and that's what i want to be able to do, because sometimes, looking for a reference that fits perfectly is exhausting - takes as long as the art lol - and even then there's something about it that doesn't always feel "yours."

the thing is that for me, art takes time, and whine delayed gratification is haaaaard. but i think i have to get it through my head that at the stage i'm in, art is going to take time. if i could work on one piece a week i could probably put out some pretty good stuff, but my brain is still like "we sit down every night and draw A Thing and then judge it" and like .... jklsdhgksjllgk im not sure what i'm trying to say here. lkashflksahgsdhklg coming out wrong.

i think this is the point on that learning-scale graph where you're in the plateau that you can see what's good and what's wrong about your art (and others' art, which is surprising!) but you aren't good enough to get there. which of course means practice, but it's really hard to practice when you're absolutely failing at your actual goal, which is to sketch (let me reiterate - PEOPLE) reasonably well without a reference.

so i think my SECOND art adjustment of 2021 has to be learning that a lot of good art takes a lot of time, even for 'real' artists, and i should allow myself that time when i'm trying to create things of a certain standard -- and also to learn that the more i draw FROM references, the better i will get at being able to draw WITHOUT them.

i've already come this far just with practice, and for the first time ever i signed up as an artist for the GORBB (reverse big bang) (you can see it here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29072034) which was a big milestone too. and the work was in the middle in regards to detail and time put in (i'm not going to say, nor judge, on the quality of other people's works, but i was happy with how it ended up, even if there are still things i'd change). i've done a ton of color studies and portraits and things like that, and it has resulted in actual improvement, so i know it works.

it's just stupid, because my brain is whiiiiiining about it, and i know the answer is "art more and learn", but boy howdy do we not want to.

anyway that's thoughts whats the haps anyone want to gimme an art prompt i guess lmfaoooo

Commissions and WIP targets for this week

COMMISSIONS and COMMITMENTS:

Bem and Roy do Tiamat (7-10K) --> START
MCU / Black Jewels crossover (10K+) --> FINISH OUTLINE
PaNcaKeS (however long it is) --> POST
Measure of Distance, new chapter --> POST
Old Vines, new chapter --> stay 5 chap ahead of posting (updates wednesday)
Patreon smut fic --> patrons only!

BACKBURNER STUFF:

Sokka fic I owe Lua --> GOT THAT IDEA FROM TUMBLR GOTTA WRITE IT
knees deep in water (but we're not sunk yet) --> finish the GO triptych

writing is hard!

BUT HERE! are recent fun things you may not have seen!

( Read more... )

me, belatedly looking at this list from a distance: jesus christ i'm writing 1400 different ideas and AUs and universes here why
also me, squinting: no im not in a character and pairing niche right now what do you mcfuckin mean

me, after posting: STOP LOOKING AT MY WORD COUNTS LIKE THAT AAAAAAAAA

(current (i think) masterlist here: writing / comms log)

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NaNo recap, 2019

We’ll start with the tl;dr version, saying that I have in fact met NaNo on the field of battle this year and emerged with about 50,004 words in a jumbled document that is something like an original fiction.

However, I had a LOT of thoughts about it, and in absolutely no order, here we go.

( “NaNoMusings” )

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Adventures in Homeowning: the Faucet Episode

Are you ready for this? Cause buckle up, chucklefucks, I’m about to tell you the fuckin’ comedy of errors that was my life last week.

Spoiler: this was only supposed to be about a faucet.

Background:

my old faucet dripped. It was a small drip, and I got into the habit of leaving a pitcher underneath when I went to work, and then using the water for my plants, which I personally thought was a great fuckin’ idea. I want to redo the entire kitchen in the next year or two, so my mindset has been basically “live with it now, fix it later.”
my mother, on the other hand, just could not get over the goddamn fact that a faucet somewhere three hours away from her own kitchen, in a different state, was occasionally dripping. This should tell you a lot about my mother.
so it turns out that I get a new faucet for Christmas. Just a plan, average, nothing-exciting faucet. Mum was so pleased with herself. She thought it was hilarious. Spoiler: it was not.
My husband (Crown Royal himself) and I don’t live together, but he does me a lot of favors around the house when I have fibro days.
My husband is incapable of stopping at anything less than what HE considers perfect.
My husband, Crown Royal himself, is almost as much of a disaster as I am.

Story: ( “Here.” )

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words, and words, and words

so i had a new idea for a novel that has grabbed on to me and i'm about to dive into -- which is good, because it has been a struggle to come up with things i want to write lately. i've been so long out of fandom that, while i can still write interesting bits and pieces about characters, i've lost the drive to tell really big stories about any of it. i don't think it's lost forever, of course, because i still have a lot to say about things, but there's no real internal push to say this or that specifically. it's more about taking prompts, and things like that.

likewise, all of the original fiction ideas that i have are... stalled? or? ok, so. like, with my Ausrine verse, I am so engaged in that story that like, whatever I write needs to be perfect and awesome and I need to work out a lot of details about plot, and character drives, and etc etc. Likewise Beacon is just too important to fuck around with; it's really complete in terms of plot and all, and it just needs to be written, but. It's complicated?

Maybe that's it; a lot of the universes my head has produced are quite complicated; almost intimidating with it, really. And I love love love them and that's the way they are, the way they need to live, but like ---

sometimes i read snippets of things in the sort of mashed-up urban fantasy scifi whatever genre and i think, i could easily do that; i could easily make that story. and that's what i want: something easy to play around with, something that i am into but not as devoted to - something to write for funzies, just a "normal" ass novel i would hope would be interesting to generic market without being something i've dumped heart and soul into and therefore fear. ???

i realize this sounds incredibly weird because who wants to write something they're not as invested in? but i need something that creates words, something fun, something easy to start with before I start trying to explain lesbian werewolves in space and how much i adore Morgan DeLumens?

anyway this has been a weird post! the point is, i had this new idea for a story and I'm going to run with it. it's gonna play out as a 'basic' urban fantasy mystery drama story; in my head it feels like mixing Robin McKinley's Sunshine and Chalice with the Kate Daniels / Mercy Thompson / Jane Yellowrock business, with a hint of Locke Lamora type setting and a whole lot of plantlore. my heroine is a young woman with the ability to scry into the past; if given some sort of talisman belonging to someone, she can often hone in on a specific part of their past, which is a good part of how she makes a living. She lives in this tight-knit community in a sort of grey place between the rich elites and a bunch of crazies, and together they discover some suspicious shit and things proceed from there.

and i would kind of like to write it with minimal outlining and for funzies and see where it goes

aren't you glad i shared this wonderfully interesting information with you. someone shoot me

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ten years later, they finally got the memo / sent it to accounting, and knocked out my front teeth

so i've talked here a lot about fibromyalgia, and stress, and energy and chronic fatigue, and the concept of overcharging on a credit card and then having to pay the balance and interest later; it's an analogy that feels pretty close to the experience, just another way to phrase the spoon theory. I've been managing this on a microscale for the last couple years: spend all my energy at work, push off the crash until i get home, have no energy to do anything; repeat. well, it turns out this happens on the macroscale as well, as i found out last week when i finally had the first part of the breakdown i've been holding off for four years running.

i took two days off of work to manage it - yeah, i haven't even been here a month and i'm taking vacation, but they know about my health problems and are v understanding - and it was ... just ... weird

it's very overwhelming when all the bullshit you've been suppressing for four years straight decides to come due and crash down on you all at once. and it isn't over -- you can't recover from four years in ten days, you just can't.

but that's where i am, and that's what is happening, and my partner and i had an incredibly pleasant lazy weekend and he also cleaned my entire kitchen (as in, exiled me to the couch to relax while he cleaned it, which did lead to a massive meltdown on my part, but worked eventually when i fell asleep on the couch) and we went to the farmer's market and bought delicious fresh local food and veggies and fruits, so i have good motivation to eat well and take care of myself this week.

i'm very wary of what else might be behind the (cracking, breaking) dam, waiting to flood me out, but ... if i could handle those four years, i can handle whatever backlash they're gonna dish out

Crossposts: http://first-seventhe.livejournal.com/377993.html

new year's resolutions done backwards, aka The Sev Way

So over my brief microsabbatical I decided on a list of things I want to get done by the end of the year: thus, New Year's Resolutions, in reverse, ie my resolution is to have this done before the new year. See? Get it? It's like I'm clever instead of backwards and wrong!

Get Healthy [metric: exercise 3+/wk; lose 10+ lb]
Content note / Note this: being healthy and losing weight are not always the same thing! Health has a unique meaning to every individual body!
That being said: for me getting healthy and knocking off weight go hand-in-hand at this point in time. From May-September I ate poorly, rested poorly, drank too much, drowned in stress, and had no time or motivation to work out at all. That plus medication changes has resulted in what is, for my body, unhealthy poundage.
I miss swimming. I miss yoga. I don't miss running, fuck running, but I miss being able to run I guess? I miss punching my bag. I want to have Korra arms. And I have, quite reasonably, 10-20 lb I could lose before being even close to "danger". (Trust me, I'm a Taurus; we don't diet.)
This is something I can make happen by 01 Jan 2016.
Inhabitable basement [metric: obvious]
Right now the basement is storage, which is part of what basements are for, but mine opens up to my patio (and grill, and fire chimney) and has a nice little area by the windows where friends could sit and drink wine and grill things. I've two drum sets in my basement and my keyboard, all of which I have been missing desperately. (I miss music! I dream about pianos.) My workout area is functional, but not at all welcoming. My laundry area could use some sprucing.
Much of the storage is related to the above, which means I just need to sort it and work through it. A good part, however, is my grandmother's stuff. She finally passed away in August (I am not sure I even mentioned it here; I was too broken by it to do so) and I do not mind storing her things forever but need to go through them and decide which way makes sense.
This is, also, quite doable by 2016, and having those areas back in my life will please me immensely.
Shame room --> Craft room [metric: obvious]
I want to turn my spare bedroom into a crafting room, to house sewing / knitting / beading / anything else I may start doing. Right now it's a shameful repository of clothes-to-be-donated and a few boxes from moving (not original boxes - these were empty boxes that were repacked with "shit i do not want to deal with rn" and hidden).
Plan for the greatroom [metric: having an estimate / loan]
I have plans in my head to redo my entire greatroom, which started with my neverending desire to replace the horribly stained carpet in there and grew into a really, really epic floor plan. I need to get it from my head onto the page, then find a contractor who can give me estimates on time / cost to make it happen. Why not? Houses are investments, and my cafe-bar thing will be incredible.
Work-Life Balance [metric: ???]
I need to prove to myself that I can, in fact, work the kind of job that pushes all of my success buttons without killing myself. The next 3 months will be busy, as always, but not deadly, so it's time to fucking do it. I still don't know how to make a metric for this; maybe I can use success on the other Resolution points, because they won't happen if I continue to use my energy on work.
Mental Peace [metric: ???]
I went back through some journal entries and I've been in a massive depression funk since early 2014. That's too long. It has started to severely affect my health and my job. I need to attack this. I realize depressions don't "go away" but I haven't tried anything really and I at least deserve an effort.
Write Again [metric: get some word count] No real comments. I just miss writing.

I stopped there, since there are really only 3 months left in the year, and they will contain not only the major hols of Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas, but also the birth of my newest niece or nephew, so I'm well aware that this is a lot to do in that time frame. (Obviously they won't need to be complete, but I work better with deadlines, even self-imposed ones. Better to not let myself cheat.)

There. Public posting makes it real, right?

everybody jam now

I come home from work every day with the intention of working more. I realize this sounds dangerously pathetic or pathetically dangerous - choose one! - but it's the way I get myself out the door: go home, just bring this one thing, NOT EVERYTHING, just this one thing; working from home is much more comfortable and productive than being in the office anyway, you can have no pants on and cats get in your lap and there is always wine and music and more comfortable chairs and your wife the hot pad! don't you love your wife? DON'T YOU LOVE YOUR WIFE SEVENTHE DON'T YOU

it's a fine compromise that I am actually more than willing to make: the workload never stops, but it's much nicer working from home, PLUS it's much nicer to come home and be able to focus and do a much better job on something. it's nice to come home to an hour of catching up on email, or 45 minutes of pulling data into a report: I don't work all night; it's just small individual tasks I can get done in a low-key and helpful way.

But lately. BUT LATELY: lately, I come home and my brain just won't focus on the work. I have this report about all of the kerfuddlefuckery that has taken my plant down for four weeks already that the CEO asked me to write and I am all yes sir please let me hand-deliver this horrible news to your office, shall I seal it in my blood now or later like I actually do want to write this report and show what we are doing, what we are fixing, what we are facing - what the dumb godsbefucked people before me left to us, what I have sacrificed the last fucking six weeks to defeating which is like running a thousand goddamn marathons all at once on three hours of shitty sleep because I have been up at night worrying about my plant and my people because everything is goddamn fucked right now and -- and anyway, I want to write this report. But I get home and I open it and my brain gives this long-ass, horrible groan-sigh noise just like : reeeeeeeally, Sev, we are going to do this?

I am not going that way. No.

I'm trying, I want to, I'm in a comfy chair with the laptop on my lap right now. Come on, fucker. I just need an hour of your energy and we'll be ok.

Crossposts: http://first-seventhe.livejournal.com/365074.html

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in which the day goes to hell

So I've been reading about stress management, and one of the things I've seen recommended a couple times is to keep a journal. I assume it's along the same lines as let it alllll out kind of thing, which often causes more problems for me than it solves -- much like the whole "talk to someone" thing; it doesn't work for me because while talking to someone about an issue may make me feel slightly better about that one issue, that gain is utterly and completely negated by the hassle involved in telling someone about my shit: background on the situation, background on me, background on my brain, what's bothering me, why it's bothering me, what I don't want to hear, what I meant because the first explanation of something is guaranteed to be shit; plus the neverending hassle of that person then, continually, and without fail, asking me, "so how is [issue]?" at a future date, which frustrates me so much that it literally undoes any small good I may have gained from the conversation in the first place: I don't talk to people because it doesn't help me, and that isn't because I think I'm some special snowflake and no one will understand my problems; it's because it quite literally on paper does not help me.

But! Despite the derail! Keeping a journal is supposed to be helpful, and luckily I already have a journal of sorts I use for this kind of thing, so here we go. I will probably be slow with replying to comments, because it's occasionally difficult to keep up with them via mobile, but please officially note that I read them and appreciate them.

SO today sucked. I could start off every day like that: Dear Diary, Today sucked nasty fermented goat balls. Gundam Wing was good today.

At one of the management trainings I was at recently, we went over some of those "life tips" they give you in classes like that. I've decided to give a trial run to one of them: do three things every day. It appealed to me: three things is enough that you're making progress, but not so much that you feel overwhelmed. Just pick three things and do them. I figured I would start with work: Three things every day. On busy days I can pick three easy ones; on days I have no meetings I can try for one longer one. But three things a day, of my own, off of my own to-do list. Should be manageable, right?

I can hear you laughing. Shut up.

Today I came in and the first thing I did was pick three things: Finish slides for a training I have to give Thursday; print out training sheets for about 5 outstanding MOCs; compile a brief incident review on the last month that I also have to give Thursday. None of these are quite extensive.

I worked on my slides for approximately 7 minutes throughout the course of the day.

I started alright, but of course I've been out of the office for a while, so once I'm back everyone has to come in: how was the baby (cute), how was babysitting (exhausting), how was the weekend (fuck off), let me tell you this thing I did (fuck off), this happened last week (kindly fuck off), I did this thing (unkindly fuck off), did you get my email about (fuck right off with a british accent), I left you a note but (go fuck a rhino) -- you get the picture.

Had a meeting at 9:00am. Blew the entire rest of the day. Something exploded in the middle of the meeting, when E just exploded at Golem and the whole thing devolved into this weird yelling-and-cussing bit where they both snapped at each other (using stronger language than I've ever heard from E in all my days there) and then E calmly told Golem to fuck off, stood up, and walked out.

Because E is my Starbucks-and-texting friend, and because Golem is my eidolon team friend, and because this project directly affects my department, not their shit, so if something gets fucked I get directly fucked, I then spent the rest of the morning attempting to fix this shit. I took E into an abandoned conference room, let her rant, listened to what she was saying, and made sure I was picking it up right. That of course got invaded by L and L's boss, which threatened to devolve into a general wank-n-whine about this stupid godforsaken software system at which point I said nope nope noooope this ain't my problem, kindly fuck off and left to talk to Golem, who I got calmed down right in time for my 10:30 meeting on Running Chemicals In The Pilot Plant That We Aren't Electrically Classified To Run: An Exercise In Horribly Stressful Operation, By Me (Introduction written by Fuck Previous Management In This Plant And Their Complete Lack Of Oversight And Shits To Give).

Ran out for Starbucks and a Wendy's salad at 12 with E. Spent more time resolving the fight after lunch, in addition to having to deal with the fact that one of our monomer feeds is having a grand old time self-polymerizing and plugging up everything it finds up to and including an entire process area (joy; cue trumpets), and went right into the meeting I was running from 2-2:30 on the results of the alarm management workshop I did when I was in Midgar -- meeting #3 of a 4-part series -- which just infuriated me because no one understands the goddamn ANSI atandard, like, not that nobody understands the language, nobody understands why we want to align ourselves with an industry standard????????????? and they all keep insisting that the old system will be able to handle it, which is like telling someone that Internet Explorer 5.0 will be able to do your web browsing for you.

So that whole meeting got me riled up and went way over - despite the presence of my boss Bahamut, who claimed he was only trying to help - and fed right into the 3:30 meeting which was on a project for improving finishing that I desperately want and have been begging for but at that point had like 0.27 fucks left to deal with.

4:30. Out of meeting. Caught twice on my way down the hall. Sit down. Write up the follow-up minutes/record from the 10:30 meeting and send them out. Write up follow-up notes from the conversations I've had regarding the 9:00am shitshow and send that out. 5:45pm. I can finally start my workday.

5:48pm one of my second shift operators shows up in my office. I had asked for him to come down, because I'm promoting two of them this year (because fuck they deserve it), so I gave him the papers and congratulated him and we chatted a bit about the year and everything and then it's 6:20pm so I decide I am just going to go home

--and Golem catches me with a question as I'm passing his office, the conversation devolves into work shit we actually have to take care of, and suddenly it's 7:15pm.

My normal work hours are 8:00am-4:30, 4:45-5:00 if I have a long lunch.

I was home and changed and making dinner by 8:00pm. Watched one episode of RPDR, drank a glass of wine, and that's it.

This is how days go in this job though. Out of the 3 things I wanted to accomplish today? Ha. And that doesn't even consider 3 things at home, as well. This is an average day in my job.

I'm so tired. I'm so, so, so tired.

[EDIT] THE WORST PART OF ALL OF THIS is that I look back and there's this sick satisfied part of me that knows I was super effective today and that I, personally, just being me, made shit better by dealing with this bullshit today, and so there's like this load of angry exhaustion and then this tiny little shit candle of fuck yeah and that, my friends, is what keeps me from walking out the door and never coming back

Crossposts: http://first-seventhe.livejournal.com/360897.html

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it's never really a 'new' year

Since I use this as a medical journal / history sometimes, I figured I would drop this in: yesterday my neck locked up again.

I realized that it hasn't done that - the thing where it actually locks and I can't move my head more than a few degrees on any plane of rotation, in addition to the stabbing pain - for almost a year, I think, so maybe those cortisone shots actually did something. However, no peace lasts forever.

I had to take the day off - which sounds more exciting than it really is, since I couldn't really do much (since I can't move) and I've now got a pile of things that need doing here - but today at least I can move, so I'm back at work.

Crossposts: http://first-seventhe.livejournal.com/356354.html

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(no subject)

You may have noticed I seem to have vanished off of the map. This is because my new job is absolutely batshit fucking crazy. I think I've only posted like three times in all of July?, and I send far fewer text- and email- based daily communications than I used to (it's funny how long my phone battery lasts when I am not using it!), and this is because my new job is absolutely batshit fucking crazy.

There are days my employees catch me before I have even entered the building; I swear to god they're timing their smoke breaks since they know I pull in at 7:55am every morning, because they flag me down walking from my car to the door with whatever the day's update is. There are days I don't log into my own computer until 10; there are days I don't start my own actual work day until 4-5pm when everything else has calmed down. There have been evenings I am there until 6, 6:30 pm; there are nights I bring work home (tonight being one of them). There have been absolutely zero days where I leave at 4:45pm like I am supposed to. I use my mobile so much for work the company has started subsidizing it.

Did I mention things are absolutely batshit fucking crazy?

I have no time for anything anymore. I'm basically now working the same 10-hr days I was working beforehand, with added bonus 8+ days on Fridays. Becky is joking that I didn't actually get a raise, I'm now just being paid for epic overtime; it's actually truer than it should be.

It's a common joke among the management team (who I think I shall nickname after summons, because it pleases me to think of us all as a team of eidolons), because on those days where shit has been flying off the fan at intense and disastrous rates and we don't sit down at our own desks actually alone until 4:30pm it's actually nice to stay until 6:00pm because we don't know what's going to happen tomorrow but it's quiet now and we can focus. Ditto on Fridays; Fridays have become a blessing, the one day a week I know I will be minimally interrupted and can make a reasonable attempt to churn through all of the work I meant to do during the week and was pulled away from: 40 hours in one 8hr day, that's doable, right. Siren (the manager focused more on products and projects) and I mourn the loss of our ability to tell everyone to fuck off (Siren is also new to her position) and complain about the intense upkeep we need to do to stay targeted on our underperformers; Golem (the manager focused more on mechanical aspects) and I are already planning late-night office pizza parties as we are forced into a software update we weren't consulted on and weren't a part of but are still expected to launch into our maintenance program by some ridiculously unwieldy date like September. I am lucky to be surrounded by amazing people who understand and desperately want me to succeed (although in Golem's case I think that is mainly so that he can stop working on Saturdays); I adore them immensely, even as we all joke about using and abusing each other. (I, as Operations, am the cross-sectional point where Siren's research & development & troubleshooting projects intersect with Golem's preventative maintenance & plant improvement work; this makes my life difficult but also means that they both have to be nice to me, ha.)

I am overwhelmingly, bizzarely, incomprehensibly in love with this job.

This is what I was made for. I have already, after a month-and-change: dealt with a problem underperforming employee in a way that promises to either make progress or GTFO after basically 20 years of experience and 5+ years of not seeming able to do the job; sent nastygram after nastygram until the two worst communicators in the plant specifically come to me to let me know what they are doing before anyone else even knows; solved scheduling mishaps; yelled at the EPA; called our safety director's work stupid and dumb in the same meeting (although that was inadvertant and accidental), to her face (which I realize is tactless; here's the fucks I give, because incompetence is the match that lights this stubborn Taurean fire); defended my own employees against attacks and slander and bullshit they shouldn't have to put up with from other people and been specifically thanked for doing so; learnt how to buy things within our online file management system and promptly spent $300 on hard hats to play with; improved the attitude of a supervisor who has been a negative vendetta-hound for 8+ years; redone the old lab where I used to sit into what will be usable office cubicles (although I can't take full credit for that one); made my boss say the phrase "you are right, he/she/that is fucking clueless" half a dozen times; made my boss either grin maniacally or put his head down when I walk into his office; made my boss regret his decision to hire me probably four hundred times; made people actually run from me; made changes, made improvements, made an impact. I've revamped systems and redone OPSs and made demands of our alarm management system that no one has made until now. I've let out my inner asshole, my inner control freak, my inner perfectionist: they're all running around rampant making decisions and giving orders and frightening bystanders everywhere. I'm not sorry; I was not hired into this position to be good and play along.

I am absolutely loving it which is good because right now this is my only life, my highest priority, the shit I eat and breathe.

It will not last forever. I will not last forever in this: canceling PT because I have to stay until 6 because there's work due tomorrow, not scheduling doctor appointments because I don't have the time, not working on my thesis because fuck more work; this level of intensity will eventually fade as all of the plant becomes used to this position's existence and my presence. I will burn out, the initial activation energy will be met, the workload will become manageable even if I have to light half of it on fire. It's not forever.

But right now all things Sev are absolutely batshit fucking crazy, so please forgive me if I take a while to reply to an email or respond to a comment or do anything I have told you I would do because I am running on fumes and adrenaline and caffeine and stubbornness at the mo.

HOW ARE YOU ALL

Crossposts: http://first-seventhe.livejournal.com/355905.html

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there are lots of things but not much energy to talk about the things

I am still in love with my sleeping pills. I've discovered through some trial and error that trazodone has a very narrow window of sleeping -- so my usual "get in bed and read/play games/whatever for 45 minutes" method does not work. Once I take that pill I've got 5-10 mins tops and if I get caught up and read through that drowsy couple minutes, I'm back to my usual looonnnnn-n-ngg-g-ggg ass falling-asleep time. Trazodone is apparently a picky mistress. I forgive it its quirks because it is so good to me.

I have solved my shorts dilemma - a shorts dilemma I may not have mentioned here; I hate shorts. Absolutely despise them. All ladies shorts I've tried - and I have tried quite a few - just don't fit right, don't look right on my body, make me feel many levels of uncomfortable: it isn't just an issue of how I look and feel while wearing them, uncomfortable in the sense ofoh god I look ridiculous, most are actually legitimately uncomfortable -- like help I cannot bend over, also when I sit down my thighs bulge at angles I didn't think skin could do and my ass sticks to what I am sitting on and also did I mention I cannot really move at all and I feel sweaty and sticky?. The problem is mainly that shorts are tight, and my thighs are ungracefully still built as if I'm running half marathons - even if that muscle has been replaced with pudding - and no matter what length the shorts feel like they are as tight as saran wrap and my legs look like sausages. I swear to god I have tried every style out there in the stores and I just went to wearing maxi skirts made out of the kind of fabric that feels like you're just wearing pajama bottoms even though you look ~fancy~.

--- BUT THEN I FOUND THE ANSWER, and it is: DUDE SHORTS. They are comfortable as legitimate fuck, exactly the feel and convenience I was wanting, and since my "sense of style" is already kind of like "hobo bum that can't match things" anyway, they go with everything I have. I am legit so happy about these shorts I am blogging about them. Don't make fun. THEY ARE SO COMFORTABLE. I AM SO HAPPY. Today I was actually a normal temperature in the summer because I wasn't wearing jeans. HOW DID I NOT FIND THIS SOONER.

I have a lot to say about the new job but it would take up so much time. I have been there late 2/4 nights this week. I had to take Friday off because I was just so fucking behind on everything that I needed a day to lie in bed and then do four loads of laundry. (This is not a joke.) On Wednesday we had a massive storm front move through that flooded out a giant portion of the tank farm - complete with tornado warnings! We evacuated! - this is seriously the kind of thing that makes old hands at the job stress and die, and I had been there all of ten fucking days.

I am exhausted. But I freaking love the job so far. It is -- it is a breath of fresh air to be actually doing things that will help people, even if they are so far the small things - "low hanging fruit" - and I'm probably going to feel underwater for the next three months before I get the hang of it all. I love the job; and I hate that I love it, because it is very tiring and all-encompassing. I get emails at 1am -- and sometimes I answer them when I get up to pee. But so far this was the right decision. I will not say a GOOD decision because I am so tired and burnt out on people I had to take a vacation day to wash my unmentionables -- but it was the right decision.

I'm now out of energy on this entry. Whoops. More later, then.

here are some things

Apparently my new sleeping pills work so well that this week I've managed to pull my flat sheet out of the bed/mattress entirely; it sort of flops out from under my blanket and comforter (neither of which I need in Ohio's quest to become Louisiana) like a sad detached piece of fabric, drooping towards the floor and doing me absolutely no good at all. I am not complaining; I am not sure I have ever slept this well in my life. Is this how everyone sleeps? I am so envious - and so happy to be getting there via drug :D

My first three days in the new job have been... incredible. I mean that in a good way and a bad way. Each day has actually been packed with the feeling of being productive: being useful, being effective, being efficient; I'm already making small changes and contributing to things in a way I think we've needed for a very long time. I love that part. That being said: I've already got two HR issues - one being one of my guys; one being someone not technically under me but as it relates to something I need to sign off on, it's also mine - and I've spent the past three days literally not having more than 15 mins uninterrupted at my desk (in my new! office!!!!!!) between phone calls and visitors and meetings, oh god the meetings, and shit I have to take care of and deal with and uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuugh.
I get the feeling that this job will be much more exhausting and much more fulfilling than my old job. Thank the lord I have sleeping pills. I cannot imagine taking this shit on with insomnia.

I went to PT today and then went for a 30min run/walk at the gym. Spoiler alert: That is too much activity when your body ain't used to doing anything. My neck and back hurt from PT; my legs hurt from running and I am tired as hell. (my body is crying, druuuuuuuuuuuuuug me) I am so fucking goddamn out of shape. :( I love the fact that I can get in the pool and swim for 30 mins and get out of the pool raring for more, saying to myself, "You shouldn't overdo it, ~1300 yards in 30mins is a good workout, don't break yourself further, take it easy" -- and I cannot run more than, like, 5 mins without needing a walking break. I now run like an 80-year-old woman. Hello, I would like to return this body and upgrade to a newer model, please.

Have I mentioned I love my night pills? I love my night pills.

In the last ~month I have been both home and home on time less than 50% of the days: it's more like 33%. I am so sick of people. Next weekend I may lock myself in the basement and not come out.

Happy 4th of July, American yos. Enjoy some awesome fucking fireworks.

Crossposts: http://first-seventhe.livejournal.com/355476.html

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aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaasdasl;dka;sldk;ajfsk;lakdsl;skd;alker oeimodkaewoicfnh

If I had a dollar for every post I thought about starting out saying "I'm not dead (yet)", I wouldn't have to work anymore.

I really don't know what else I have to say other than a ripping chain of profanity so long it would make string theory look pedestrian and quaint.

I'm tired. I'm on a new drug (anxiety drug scribed for insomnia - cross your fingers) and I have a new doctor (rheumatologist), increasing my army of medical specialists to a whopping 5. I hate Midgar and its humid soggy heat. I start my new job on Monday. I don't get a "break" for three weeks. My car needs an oil change, I need a haircut, my lawn needs mowed. My life needs a live-in secretary/google/organizer. I am not going to finish FFVI this month, although I am actually trying my damndest to get close.

I am. so tired.

I think I need a vacation

Crossposts: http://first-seventhe.livejournal.com/353717.html

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I found pills and ate them

This has been a particularly busy and interesting day. I had one simple checkup this morning but it blossomed into an all-day medical ~extravaganza~ ( /rupaul voice) that I'm simultaneously hopeful about, exhausted from, and dreading the slew of medical bills.

Today I had a checkup and discussion with my pain doctor, went to get a slew of x-rays on my lumbar spine and sacroiliac joint, went to my general doctor, got a major new prescription, and am having like a dozen blood tests done tomorrow. Anything worth doing is worth overdoing. When I do something I do it thoroughly. I hope today results in some answers.

( cut for medical talk )

Crossposts: http://first-seventhe.livejournal.com/348202.html

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the usual monday list time

Had my last surgical injection on Thursday. Turns out that it's pretty easy to forget that just because these things aren't hella invasive does not mean they aren't a big deal; I spent Friday attempting to do a bunch of physical-labor-type stuff around the house and was reminded that my system is still full of anesthetic aftermath at about ~3:00 when I seriously just... burnt out, like my body crapped out, like literally just stopped functioning, like someone had repeatedly punched me in the everything and left me for dead. Whooooooops. Lost a lot of the weekend recovering from that too; turns out overproductivity results in less productivity when your body sucks like mine does!

greeted with a 3-hour 3-meeting back-to-back boredom extravaganza this morning at work (boredom being relative; two of the three meetings were informative and the third gave me a platform to complain loudly about stuff so it wasn't really a waste of time; just not the way I like starting off my Mondays)

tired

Finishing up FFIV for moogle_university; have been reminded why this game is special to me. It isn't that it's the "best" of the FFs or the best game I've ever played; it's just the correct combination of [nostalgia points] + [characters and plot points highly relevant to my interests] and will probably always be my favorite, which just proves that I have horrible taste in life.

HAS ANYONE / EVERYONE STARTED THEIR DOINK FIC/ART/WORK??? Every year I swear I'm going to blog more about the exchange and then every year I'm like, I'm just too tired. I have so many thoughts and they are all living in giant apartment complexes on the corner of "You can't talk about that in public Sev" and "no1currr" and so I look at that and go back to my fic and monitoring of our inbox and sigh, heavily.

I'm finally living in my own room...? I have my new carpet and the paint job is done and it's set up in a way that makes me feel happy and comfortable, and ... I like it? I've felt and been transient for years and I'm not sure I have words for how comfortable and safe I feel finally putting down roots in a place that is mine, that I own, where I am the one who gets to have final say on everything, where I have my own space and my own dominion and all things I've needed for years but haven't prioritized, where I can do whatever the hell I want. Including paint my study leaffire-orange and yellow, because I am dumb. Not having to answer to anyone is apparently the space where I am the most comfortable with myself; it is also a completely appropriate adult goal. don't question me.

where am I

oh yeah lunch

Crossposts: http://first-seventhe.livejournal.com/347226.html

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icon never been more fitting

I am moved.

I am exhausted.

--this is a post that was supposed to go up yesterday but I had "one of those days" at work yesterday where people come down from Research to do things and I have to assist / chaperone (I am the highest-paid babysitter in the world some days) meaning I was on my feet manual labor from 7am-3pm minus lunch, which meant basically nothing else got done. I was so tired yesterday I had that grey ring of fuzz around my vision. Cool.

I am operating entirely out of my phone too because although I know where the computer is amidst the 31209487 boxes in my house, my dad packed up all my cords separately and neatly... somewhere in the third dimension apparently. Hopefully I will find them before it is August. This is a very helpful thing when you are running an exchange! >.>

I already love the house and being in the house. Even though my bedroom isn't ready and I won't have actually "moved in" to my own fucking room until this Sunday... I'm not entirely surprised to find that a partial but major source of all of the awful anxiety and depression I've been fighting lately is the should-be-familiar feeling of upcoming change, of not having an actual home, loss of foundation and safe place. Now that I've got that back, even though it's a fucking disaster world that doesn't look at all like "my place" and I'm not even in my own bed, I already feel more stable.

My everything hurts. Literally. The disc in my neck is sending spasming pain down my right shoulderblade; my lower back pinched nerve is sending electric shocks down my right ass cheek into my right hamstring like a glorified final boss. I have eleven bruises on my left leg, my knees hurt (???), I've gotten more headaches in the past three days than in the past entire year... I am apparently too fragile to move. good thing I will never do it again

I-- I swear I had more things to say but well this is what you get

edit: REPLYING TO COMMENTS VIA EMAIL IS FUCKING BOSS AS FUCK. DREAMWIDTH WINS

Crossposts: http://first-seventhe.livejournal.com/345237.html

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interim

It's that weird overlap time where you are moving and you know you are moving, but you haven't yet; the place you're in now becomes less home by default, just a feeling, but there's nothing yet to take its place. For a Taurus like me - grounded by the places I feel safe - this is a very strange and uncomfortable feeling.

I'm working on making the place feel like my home in my head though, so that once I get there, I will feel settled. Took the cats and had a sleepover party on Friday (Marzy had an absolute blast; Porter was pretty terrified and spent the first ~15min hiding under the laundry tub, but eventually warmed up to it. Rydia, showing once again that she truly is my familiar, somehow felt out which room was the master bedroom and spent most of her time lounging under my window); spent all yesterday afternoon putting up a first coat of paint in Becky's room. Going to spend time this week taking vacation from work to paint the other bedrooms, tear up the master BD carpet, fix a leaky sink etc.

I'm calling it the Feymarch. Although it also goes by Castle Gaylord (which is actually a more fitting name when you realize what an absolute dork I am for interior decorating. My dining room is going to be straight out of fucking Rivendell, you may all defriend me immediately.), but the Feymarch is fitting for a place that feels like it's out in the middle of nowhere.

Hard to believe I'm going to be living there in less than a month. When in the absolute fuck am I going to pack?

My moods are still, honestly, all over the goddamn place. I'm excited about it, but then I reach a point where I'm preemptively overwhelmed and just don't want to think about it - and then I start bouncing off all the other angles: I want credit for doing something this awesome all by myself; I don't want anybody else knowing or talking or helping because this is mine; I want to have a million parties; I want to be there alone forever. I swear my depression-brain is a manic depressive these days. I could deal with it when it was straightforward depression brain. I seriously don't know how to operate with manic depressive headbees.

But it's mine. If you're an address person and you'd like my new address, fire me an email -- I'd love to get some cute moving-in mail. :D