the trick is to keep breathing

As of now:

• Tiers 1 & 2: 3 spots open
• Tiers 3 & 4: 2 spots open
• Tier 5: Closed

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well, it's 11 January; I've mourned 2017; I've tentatively dipped a few toes into the water of 2018; and I have a plan.

I've set some goals for myself: I have some that will be goals for the year, but with all of the shit going on right now, I've decided to run my life like I ran the pilot plant: quarterly goals, evaluation, and adjustment of said goals, with monthly check-ins.

I had a great set of plans for January, but then we decided to get fucking married and now I really need to reevaluate larger goals in that light. The wedding is 14 April, which means that - even though we are going for the most informal wedding ever - we still need to get information out to people who need to travel as soon as possible.

As I am a nerd who loves symbolism, I have decided that the theme of this year is 5H: Home, Health, Hobbies, Habits, and [some H word that really means Vocation] (i haven't picked the last one so I am open to suggestions):
- Home means the continuation of reclaiming my house from the Black Hole disaster, and working towards floor replacement, kitchen remodel, new bedroom set, basement setup, and porch renovation.
- Health means continuing work to get control of my fibro, eat better and drink less, add exercise back into my routine, and lose weight.
- Hobbies means creating spaces in my time where I can pursue my creative (and noncreative) hobbies: writing, doodling, knitting, gaming, anything else I decide to pursue; it means giving them priority space in my schedule.
- Habits means consistency. I need to build it. It means finding what works. My word for 2018 will probably be sustainability because that's the core of what I need to figure out.
- Vocation (or whatever word) means finding satisfaction in my work; figuring out what it is about this kind of work that I love doing, figuring out if this new position can become something fulfilling or if it is, after 13 years, time to move on from this company.

So let's have a minute or two and talk about what I want to establish the beginning of this year, and some of the yearly goals overall...

---

( and i'm good at being uncomfortable )

As for resolutions, those seem bigger and broader, so after reflection those need to be in a different post. One thing I can say is that I am devoting these first three months of work in the honor of:

• Emma Swan
• Avatar Korra
• Carrie Fisher / General Princess Leia

yes, i'm an old, but may these badasses guide me through the beginning of this year.

so mike and i are going to pittsburgh this weekend for my brother's birthday. i had a full list of things to get ready for today - get things settled for the catsitter, clean the kitchen, do some laundry so i have something to wear, pack, rig up my bike for the weekend, sort out my medications (this takes about a half hour every week to load them into my "morning" and "evening" weekly pill boxes, ugh) ... there was a lot.

the thing is, i have been tired as actual fuck this week. because i end up overcharging my energy credit card during the week, i usually try to save up and pay it off on weekends, meaning i need lots of sleep, relaxing, and a good amount of alone solo-time. because of the recent messes (previous posts), i haven't had a free weekend to myself since the middle of june. this means not only am i exhausted, and carrying around the static background-noise of someone who hasn't been able to ground herself and clear everything out*, but of course the house is a mess and i am behind on everything.

(*i am also suffering from not having my Vicodin at the moment; those four hours of reduced pain help me clear out the static noise and ground myself like fuck, but because i have to go back to formal pain management (which is a process) i don't even have that tool in the toolbox right now.)

so anyway, i am tired and pretty strung out at the moment, but it's jim's birthday and mary wants us to be a surprise, so we'll be a surprise :)

so last night, i come home tired from the pain-load on my circuits. i take two tramadol and a glass of wine, which i'm sure my liver is mad cool about but it helps shut the pain up when i don't have opiates. i crash on the couch for a bit, with cats, and then slowly start hitting my chores. i make a pact with myself because i'm watching Chopped on tv, so every commercial break i get up and do a thing. this continues on, laundry and litterboxes and drugs, via Chopped and Beat Bobby Flay commercials (look, i love BBF, it's all fancy cooking and trash talk, that's my jam), until the second wind wears off and i get tired. well, i say, i'll get up early in the morning to finish it.

the alarm goes off at 5:00.

1. i am having a dream where a group of people (no one i know, which is surprising for my dreams) and i are hosting some kind of event luncheon thing with food and wine for fucking Donald Trump and some Republicans, I guess trying to talk some sense into them or come to an accord or argue with them or spy on them or, i don't know, it seems reasonable in the dream. and i'm some kind of power hostess but i'm focusing mainly on the cooking (thanks, fucking Chopped and Beat Bobby Flay), and trying to make points and break up fights while making sure everyone has food?, i mean at one point i fucking leave an argument to go make more fried cornmeal balls (hushpuppies i guess)???? so like: i'm already pretty discombobulated.
2. i finally manage to get out of bed, after some snooze buttons, at about 6:00
3. i head downstairs, turn on the keurig, head to the basement. pull the dry laundry out of the dryer and put the wet laundry in the dryer. yes, i went to bed with laundry in the washing machine. it was literally only there for like 5 hours, it didn't smell or anything
4. i get my coffee and sit down on the floor to fold the laundry but i'm tired as fuck and end up playing out my stamina in FFBE
5. i fold the laundry, while finishing FFBE/FFRK stamina, with Iggy and Potato helping. this literally hakes maybe an hour? i'm so tired i feel heavy, like i'm moving slowly because everything weighs 500lb, including my thoughts
6. i finish the laundry and go to get the cats ready. write a note, set out food, fill their dishes, give them wet food breakfast, get everything set
7. my brain finally processes that i had a dream about catering donald fucking trump, where i made him bruschetta and fucking hushpuppies rather than punching him in the face, maybe with a knife. i spend a good 15 minutes severely disappointed in my subconscious
8. it's starting to get close to when i should be leaving for work, and i'm starting to unravel a bit here. i go upstairs to pack. weirdly i fucking gained back 9lb in the month of july, i do not know how, so i'm also trying on everything i want to pack to make sure it fits. a lot of random shit just goes in the bag
9. i spend a half hour sorting out my pills. i have 20 empty pill bottles and at least 2-3 refills of each type, which makes everything more confusing than it should be. i do not know how it happened and my brain really wants to know rather than focus on getting each med in its appropriate pill box. eventually the boxes are full
10. i scramble to get ready for work, throw some shit on, the jeans are actually still damp but honestly i ignore it bc they stretch out better that way after a wash. hair goes up in a braid, fucks not given
11. head down to start loading the car. checking my important list on my phone. get jim's gift in the back seat, bike pump in the trunk because once it had a spider on it. look around the garage, and i don't have my bike rack
12. it must be in fucking mike's garage
13. i legit spend 20 minutes attempting to cram my goddamn bicycle into the back seat of my fucking honda civic
14. i mean, maybe if i take the front wheel off
15. the front wheel isn't coming off, the brakes are in the way
16. how do i undo brakes
17. maybe if i wedge it this way
18. fuck it we're gonna have to stop by on the way out and get my bike
19. head back in to wash the oil and smudge off of my hands. i am sweaty, and extremely cranky at this point
20. hands clean, everything else in the car, head out to get in and go to work
21. the bike rack is hanging from one of my ceiling hooks
22. someone was helpful and "put it away"
23. at this point i am decidedly sweaty, cranky, and obscenely late for work. there's a constant stream of "fuck you, fuck this, fucking fuck, fuck this shit, fuck everything" coming out of my mouth like i'm reciting the world's worst rosary
24. while taking the rack down the straps get caught in my hair and pull half of it out. everything is terrible
25. the rack is on the fucking car. the bike is on the fucking rack. go wash my hands again.
26. get into the car. what's on my seat? oh, it's the post it note of my to-do list. let's check it. i forgot to leave the key for the fucking catsitter
27. fuck you, fuck this, fucking fuck, fuck this shit, fuck everything
28. the key is safely in a plastic bag in its place
29. i am stopping at starbucks if it fucking kills me
30. literally i do not care if i am fired for being late i'm getting a goddamn starbucks

...

1. get to work. no one is here. half the group is traveling or on vacation, and the other half is off for 9/80 fridays. all my brain can come up with is "9/11" and i sit staring into space for 20 mins trying to figure out what the 9/11 schedule is
2. it is surreal
3. i don't know what i'm doing

so now i really just want a nap. and another starbucks

Sometimes there are days where I wonder how people like, you know, live? I worked my normal day today, then went to the grocery, then came home and crashed for a bit, then got up and made a soup. And I am so fucking tired and my legs hurt and my back hurts and my brain is ready to shut off and I can't get up from this couch and I am dead and like. There are people who can do this AND go to the gym AND do laundry AND dishes after they cook AND do something brainful like pay bills or some other reasonable thing and ?????? How do people do this? What is the terrible secret? Have you all sold children or kidneys to some arcane god/dess to get these powers and if so, where do I sign up


It's hard sometimes for me to remember I have a chronic illness. Mainly because I don't want to have a chronic illness.


the soup is really fucking good tho

who doesn't like lists. if you don't like lists you are at the wrong journal.

I've made a "Words and Workouts" pact with justira. Our goals are low, but meaningful: 1500 words per week; 3 workouts per week. We will have lovely charts to share. I mean to stick to this - both of them. Here are some thoughts...

• So, I am in fact wordsing again. The shameful part is that it's Harry Potter fic. HP is like my shame comfort fandom - when I am ill, I browse AO3 and look for fics with high kudos and pairings that I like, no fucking regrets. I was ill for like 93% of last week which meant I read a lot of trash. I am now writing HP trash. I don't even give a fuck. It's words and I will have fun, even if HP fandom is beyond the grave.
• If I can get moving again with the writing, I want to work on original stuff this year, but I also want to get back to dabbling in fandom - prompt memes and the like. I miss the sense of connection that comes with fannish writing. Hang me.
• Right now my workout goals are more about consistency than actual workouts. I want to focus on swimming first - that's my best and favorite sport, and why not do a workout that I actually enjoy? After that, I'd like to go back to yoga, then running and biking. Of course there's weightlifting and punching the bag in there too - I'll make a plan once I've shown that I can stick to 3x/wk for more than, say, one wk.

My other lofty goals for 2016 include:

• Start fucking going to bed on time. I want to get up earlier in the mornings but (a) I am so lazy and (b) I tend to sulk about my life late at night and stay up until, say, 01:00 in a snit of because I can which doesn't work so well when you want to get up at 06:00. If I could get my arse in bed between 22:00-23:00 I could get up earlier and either get to work earlier (to leave earlier) or have some time in the morning just for me. Either one sounds better than the usual snooze-button-festival party-of-one I have going on in my bed for an hour and a half every goddamn morning. That's such a waste of time.
• Half hour of chores every night. This is hard to keep up with because of fibro - some days I come home and crawl into bed and get up 4 hours later to eat a pop tart before returning to blankets. However, this leads to having to spend all of a weekend day catching up on chores that have slipped (dishes, laundry, mail/bills) which is equally exhausting. 30mins is reasonable on all but the worst evenings and should allow me to have more relaxing time on weekends, which is good for fibro.
• Learn to chill about work. I will never not be platonically married to this place or this job, but getting stressed leads to high interaction costs leads to overstimulation leads to me being too exhausted to fucking blink. I'm already working to set this year up as an improvement - more support, more help, less projects overall - so I need to keep to that course.
• Empty my life. I have too much going on, and too many things taking up space (physical and mental). It's time to clean it out.

More specific goals will have to wait until I have brains to deal with them.

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

I
think
I
just
bought
a
house

I wasn't even shopping. Looked on a whim, fell for the world's most beautiful house, decided to pretend to impulse buy it and suddenly got serious. I've found my dream house. After a bunch of back and forth, Seller accepted my offer this evening.

Holy fucking shit.

For the record, I'm trying to post more; I've got a lot on my mind recently, and I've got a journal for a reason. I'm also trying to reply to comments more, which is something I'm bad at - I mostly reply via phone-Gmail*, at work, and it can be hard to keep up with. But anyway, I'm trying to post more consistently. For fun. And profit.

One of the things that has been dwelling on my mind lately is ... Well. I work hard. For the past 5 years I've been working doubletime, putting in 40 hours a week of a job and then grad school on top of that, plus I fill up the rest of my time with shit: running, races, taking care of people, bands, practices, exchanges, writing, commitments, hobbies, cons, cosplay, and an exhausting social life. As much as I joke about being a lazy fuck I'm not really sure I know how to 'take it easy' for more than a day or two; I just do stuff, I tend to do stuff, and I end up being busy by default. My job is both hard and a lot of work (they aren't always the same thing), and grad school is the same -- and even if the other things aren't 'work' and aren't 'necessary', they're still commitments, and they aren't 'taking it easy' either.

Nobody should be surprised to hear that I still feel burnt out, this year; my constant chorus of I'm exhausted should be familiar by now. I've been burning this candle at every available end for years. But I have this awful dichotomy warring in my brain about "deserving a break", and it's getting confusing.

What do you have to do to 'deserve' a break? I'll look at my shit some days and be like, gurl, all you did today was work your usual 11 hour day. You don't deserve a night off. You still have to run, and then cook, and then clean up at least half of it, and fold the laundry. Or I'll look at my week and be like, All you did was work and run and the usual chores. You didn't do anything extraordinary. You don't deserve a break. You still have shit to do! And I'll fill up my hours and my days with that to-do list that doesn't end.

And then on other days I will get to the point where I am like christ in a chevy, I am exhausted and I deserve a break and I am taking one so fuck the world, and I'll do something like drink an entire bottle of wine alone in my apartment while drunk-texting everyone I know and reading horrible fanfiction, or I'll spend an entire day knitting while watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer, or I'll skip working out for an entire week and just lie on the floor instead. And I don't really feel all that much better or feel relaxed; I feel like a giant waste of space because that's what I was. It's a little better, but it's a useless better. Like I feel like I'm entitled to deliberately spend a day doing things that don't mean shit just to prove that I can, because I can, because I am stubborn and want to waste time like everybody else does and no one can tell me I can't, especially myself.

It's like I don't know how to moderate. It's either all or nothing. And thinking back I actually don't even think it's that bad in reality, but my perception of it is: in my head it feels like all or nothing, on or off. I don't know how to hit a happy medium and realize it; I don't know how to feel like I'm compromising. If it isn't all or nothing, my brain makes it so.

And underneath all of that is the fact that I've been working for basically over 15 years straight now, and yet I still feel like I don't 'deserve' a really big break until I finish my fucking graduate degree.

But I think about all the shit that I want to do - I would like to write some fucking novels; I would like to (re)learn to draw; I would like to take more pictures; I would like to actually travel - and first I go, okay, let's do(u) it and then I go, oh god, more things, when do I get a break?

So that's what's on my mind. I need a better system to deal with both relaxing and getting my shit done. Blah blah blah whine more.


*I'm only moderately content with Gmail's iPhone app. It's decent, but not ideal. And I moderately dislike Apple's/iPhone's default email interface. Any iPhone users who use a different mail app that they adore?

I'm at Otakon this weekend.

Photostream is here.

I'm reachable by text or email, but I may or may not answer.

SEE YA

I'm always surprised at how many hours there actually are in a day.

I really shouldn't be, because I've experienced this phenomenon once before, when I was still working my full-time long-day 40-hr-week job and also attending a 20-30-hr-week graduate lab class: if you literally spend every spare minute you have doing something, it's a lot of work. (And I mean it. Sometimes I see people posting, "I'm soooo busy~!" but if I've seen you posting 10K in fic in the last week, or reblogging tons of stuff on Tumblr, or otherwise hobbying-- maybe you're busy, but that isn't actually spending every legitimate moment you have on work-like things. I realize this makes me a judgmental ass and I'm sorry.)

But really, I'm still continually surprised at how much you can actually work in one day. Because I have basically spent every free hour I have had in the last 7 days helping to basically remodel a basement which is my responsibility to fix. I don't even have time to tell you everything handyman that I've done. But I'm just still for whatever reason surprised at how BUSY you can actually get. When you come home from work at 6:15 and change and eat and then drive up to the house at 7:00 and work until 11:00 and then come home and make a lunch and do the dishes and go to bed at 12 and get up at 6:30 and go to work at 7:30 and then do it all over again, for an entire week? I mean it, there is busy and then there is, "life sat on me." They aren't even really in the same order of magnitude.

Had I known the level of fucked this problem was, I wouldn't have started it now. But you don't know what's under the carpet until you pull up the carpet.

I thought I was busy before. Turns out, there were plenty of hours in my day that could be filled up with things that make me miserable.

I am stressed as fuck, I have gotten absolutely nothing done this week, my exchange ends this weekend, I am leaving tomorrow afternoon and I have not yet finished packing. This week has been just awful.

Some day I will turn this experience into a "Handyman How-To" post because I've actually learned a lot of fun shit. Today is not that day.

- - -

I just printed out all my itineraries and reservations and flight info and blah blah and it's basically a short novel, I've killed a tree doing it, it weighs more than my laptop, etc etc.

This trip-- I am not even looking forward to it. i'll be honest. Work is so awful right now, and there are a bunch of due dates WHILE I AM GONE, so I have to work ON my trip, and just. ugh ugh ugh first world problems etc but.

I carry my stress in my shoulders and neck, and I nearly can't drive a car right now. I am pretty sure my back is about to leave me for another woman.

Whirlwind tour of the US is as follows:
- to Boise this weekend for my cousin's wedding
- fly to Vegas Mon with family, night in Vegas
- drive to Grand Canyon Tues, two nights in GC
-- work due Wednesday, have to work Mon and Tues to submit Wed
- return to Vegas on Thurs, night in Vegas
- Fri, fly directly to Houston, spend weekend weeping in a pillow fort
- Sun, pick up Japanese BFF at airport and head off to the plant
- Mon, tour of plant with guest
- Tues-Wed, work at the plant
-- work due Tues, will have to work the previous week to compile it
- Thurs, return home

- THE FOLLOWING MONDAY, submit a report of the work I did on the plant trip to the Overlords because
- THAT WEDNESDAY/THURSDAY, our biannual meeting with the Overlords begins

- probably every day forever: cry into beer, from stress and frustration

- date of freedom: 20 June
- 21 June: lose self in Diablo III for three consecutive days

I am trying for serenity now and I'm not sure I'll make it. OH GOOD. When can I give up on everything and be a crazy cat lady hermit hobo who never goes anywhere?

ON THE PLUS SIDE, I now have an app on my phone that can send a postcard photo from anywhere for $0.99, so if you want a really dumb postcard from Vegas or the Grand Canyon, email me your address.

ADDITIONALLY ON THE PLUS SIDE, I've written 4 Korra drabbles in the past few days. On my phone. While in meetings or otherwise working. Seeing as I haven't written a thing since December, this is cool.

I HAD ANOTHER PLUS but I have forgotten it so.