You know, I was thinking today that I should try subsidizing my addictions with other addictions. Like trading commissions for geological cabinet specimens. I can't afford to add new stuff to my rock/fossil/gem collection, but I can afford to draw for hours every day. The question would be how to quantify the value of any particular specimen compared to the art, since both are very subjective. The same fossil that will sell for $6 on eBay will go for $100 at a metaphysical shop--it's all about the value the buyer assigns to each piece when it calls out to them.
Hmm. It is a pretty interesting idea, but I have such a particular taste in shinies that I would feel bad turning down offers. But really, I dislike money and the idea of trading with other rock fans does appeal to me. Maybe I should keep pursuing this. If nothing else, it would be funny as shit to try.
Meanwhile, Kagerou is migrating to www.kagerou.org as its permanent home. Adjust bookmarks as necessary, folks! Electric-Manga.com will not be going bye-bye, but Seebs has written a hell of a good piece of code for a webcomic browsing site and I've offered the domain for it. It's by fans, for fans. No aggregating comics, it's just like having a bookmark folder that you can send to friends, write and rank reviews, add your own discoveries and find similar strips to read. It'll also keep track of where you leave off in any given story. When beta testing is done and it goes live, I plan to erase my comic's hideously outdated link page and just post my electric-manga account page instead.
Tomorrow I need to make an appointment with the doctor. I am fairly sure my tonsils weren't this red-streaked and bumpy last time I looked. The cold appears to be going away this time, so there's something to be happy about. It's no fun being falling-down sick during an influenza panic.
Showing posts with label fixing my life. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fixing my life. Show all posts
April 29, 2009
April 22, 2009
More Katamari Imagery Than Is Strictly Necessary
Deciding that taking apart the katamari of fail would be too difficult, I rolled a katamari of win instead.
First I called the rehabilitation services folks to set up a meeting with intake (this is vocational training, not the neck therapy stuff). Then I called my social worker to ask about appealing the cancellation of my benefits for February (forgot to pay a $4 premium) on the basis of the ADD making me forgetful. If I can get this sorted, I won't owe $300 worth of bills for that month, which is a very very good thing. Then I called my health plan about getting a new card. They told me I'm not officially on the plan until May and that's why there isn't a card already sent out. Which means I need to pay for this month's appointments and medications myself and then apply for reimbursement in May.
Then I called the organization that provides the health plan to ask about changing from UCare to Blue Plus when the plan is re-activated, and they told me that will have to be done through the worker as well. I'm waiting for her to return my call tomorrow. Then I called the bank about locking myself out of my online account and reset the password.
Then I called the pharmacy, got them to list the prices for the medicines I need to refill, and worked out a plan to fill only the urgent items. Generic Prozac is $16.99 for a month's supply of 20mg pills. My psychiatrist gave me a scrip for 40mg to see if it cuts the anxiety down a bit better, but doubling the dosage for some reason raises the price to over $80 per bottle. So the pharmacist told me to bring in the scrip anyway, and he'll fill it as two bottles of the 20mg instead, and I can just take several pills to get the same dosage. I did that. They also transferred my prescriptions from the Walgreens pharmacy, saving me the trouble.
Sometime during this flurry of doings, I read two articles on the topics of mindfulness and the science of late blooming that my shrink recommended to me, and took the magazine back to her office. It was closed, so I left the magazine in a box by her door where she keeps her business cards, called her up and left a message to let her know it was there.
I did this all before breakfast.
With that in mind, I drove to the grocery store and spent $7 on a big fat juicy sirloin steak, which I cut in half and shared with Rah. My half was bleeding copiously as I ate it, and it was fantastic. Sadly I mistook cinnamon for Old Bay seasoning and ended up having to spray it with tap water to get rid of it. Even then, it was oddly flavored in a not-so-awesome way along the edges.
But goddamn it, it was a bloody steak and that means it was automatically the best thing in the world. Also broccoli and the last of the steamed rice from last night. Nom.
After that I went to the other store, filled the prescriptions, and bought Rah some cookies. Thus ended my day.
I did not contact my lawyer about the bike information, which is bad as it's getting pretty urgent. I'll make that tomorrow's project instead. I think I did enough life fixing for today. The katamari of win is now 3 meters in diameter, almost large enough to roll up the katamari of fail that's been growing all month.
My life gets tangled in a hopeless ball of unpleasant tasks every now and then, but each time it happens, recovery is faster and less of a hassle, and the faltering takes less of my time and energy. Dr. D says it will keep getting easier with practice, so that's my plan.
As Brother Ali would say, "Keep your lip stiff. Keep your fist clenched. Sometimes you gotta kick your way through this bitch." That song has seen me through some tough times this past year, but things are getting better.
Once the chaos is settled a bit, I think I'll be taking a small number of commissions on a strictly trial basis. Just to see if I'm ready to get back to full-time arting yet.
First I called the rehabilitation services folks to set up a meeting with intake (this is vocational training, not the neck therapy stuff). Then I called my social worker to ask about appealing the cancellation of my benefits for February (forgot to pay a $4 premium) on the basis of the ADD making me forgetful. If I can get this sorted, I won't owe $300 worth of bills for that month, which is a very very good thing. Then I called my health plan about getting a new card. They told me I'm not officially on the plan until May and that's why there isn't a card already sent out. Which means I need to pay for this month's appointments and medications myself and then apply for reimbursement in May.
Then I called the organization that provides the health plan to ask about changing from UCare to Blue Plus when the plan is re-activated, and they told me that will have to be done through the worker as well. I'm waiting for her to return my call tomorrow. Then I called the bank about locking myself out of my online account and reset the password.
Then I called the pharmacy, got them to list the prices for the medicines I need to refill, and worked out a plan to fill only the urgent items. Generic Prozac is $16.99 for a month's supply of 20mg pills. My psychiatrist gave me a scrip for 40mg to see if it cuts the anxiety down a bit better, but doubling the dosage for some reason raises the price to over $80 per bottle. So the pharmacist told me to bring in the scrip anyway, and he'll fill it as two bottles of the 20mg instead, and I can just take several pills to get the same dosage. I did that. They also transferred my prescriptions from the Walgreens pharmacy, saving me the trouble.
Sometime during this flurry of doings, I read two articles on the topics of mindfulness and the science of late blooming that my shrink recommended to me, and took the magazine back to her office. It was closed, so I left the magazine in a box by her door where she keeps her business cards, called her up and left a message to let her know it was there.
I did this all before breakfast.
With that in mind, I drove to the grocery store and spent $7 on a big fat juicy sirloin steak, which I cut in half and shared with Rah. My half was bleeding copiously as I ate it, and it was fantastic. Sadly I mistook cinnamon for Old Bay seasoning and ended up having to spray it with tap water to get rid of it. Even then, it was oddly flavored in a not-so-awesome way along the edges.
But goddamn it, it was a bloody steak and that means it was automatically the best thing in the world. Also broccoli and the last of the steamed rice from last night. Nom.
After that I went to the other store, filled the prescriptions, and bought Rah some cookies. Thus ended my day.
I did not contact my lawyer about the bike information, which is bad as it's getting pretty urgent. I'll make that tomorrow's project instead. I think I did enough life fixing for today. The katamari of win is now 3 meters in diameter, almost large enough to roll up the katamari of fail that's been growing all month.
My life gets tangled in a hopeless ball of unpleasant tasks every now and then, but each time it happens, recovery is faster and less of a hassle, and the faltering takes less of my time and energy. Dr. D says it will keep getting easier with practice, so that's my plan.
As Brother Ali would say, "Keep your lip stiff. Keep your fist clenched. Sometimes you gotta kick your way through this bitch." That song has seen me through some tough times this past year, but things are getting better.
Once the chaos is settled a bit, I think I'll be taking a small number of commissions on a strictly trial basis. Just to see if I'm ready to get back to full-time arting yet.
April 21, 2009
Cintiq Progress and Art Post
In order to learn to use the Cintiq to its maximum advantage, as well as mastering as the Painter 8 interface, I decided to begin from the leftmost character in the Kagerou lineup sketch from yesterday, and draw one person at a time from start to finish. The upside to all this practice is that I'll be left with a great piece of Kagerou character reference, plus the art itself will be visible proof of the speed at which I adapted my skills to the new format. So far I'm surprised and delighted by the speed of improvement. By the time I hit #33 (the Black Angel) I should have a fairly decent idea of what the fuck I'm doing.
Using layers is new to me. Hell, the last time I had Painter was the 2001 version. Getting used to these new options on this new tablet will take a long time, and I'm not good with huge changes. So I'm going to keep going down that line, experimenting, trying new tools, til I'm comfortable with the setup and ready to expand into new and interesting fields using what I've learned.
Switching Kagerou to a Painter comic is a possibility, depending on how the style would change. I'd like to keep the cel shaded anime thing going as much as possible, but I would be happy to sacrifice that for a more organic look if I could do it justice. If it sped up production I'd just about have to at this point :D
But before I go counting comicky coup, I need to learn the basics like a good little newbie. No "I'll learn as I go!" crap, only to find out after years and years that I was doing everything the hard way the whole time. Nope, this time I'm going to put in as much time as it takes to acclimatize to the tools, then unleash the fury of technology upon the cities of my enemy once I'm good and skilled.
It will be tough, but I'm going to figure this shit out and make it my bitch. For one thing, it's redoubled my drive to better my skills. Also it's just plain fun to dick around with this awesome new toy. I've wanted a Cintiq since I was a kid and it was still science fiction, ever since that Supergirl movie where they would draw stuff in midair and make it come to life. Yum.
I spent all of today reprogramming the Cintiq's shortcut keys. My goal is to eliminate the need for a keyboard altogether by putting all the hotkeys on the tablet. This was doomed to failure since there are only ten buttons on the tablet itself, but then I discovered the Radial Menu and its amazing collapsing menu tree.
Now I've got every shortcut-able command in Painter mapped to the back-click button on the stylus, right down to turning the volume up or down on iTunes without touching the keys. For things that still need the keyboard, I use the XP Onscreen Keyboard.
Once that was done, I did it all over again for Corel Photo-Paint (which has different shortcut keys) and calibrated the monitor.
End result: ease of use is fucking unbelievable. My wrist is fucking killing me, but it's the ache I get from drawing for hours and hours, not the one I got every time I used the Graphire. No carpal pain or finger numbness after something like 12 hours of on-and-off drawing.
I do wish I'd gotten the larger tablet, but it would have meant waiting another year to save up the cash. I will be able to afford it much sooner if I use the 12" model to do commissions. Then I can trade up.
Other than the art, my life is in shambles. Forgot to pay a bill, now I owe $300 in medical expenses because I lost coverage. Lost my cell phone (found tonight at least), lost my medical card, ran out of medication and can't renew the scrip (which may explain the rest of my sudden fail, actually). Not sleeping well. Room's a mess. Housework is crazy backed up, and I haven't talked to my lawyer in months. I know it's going to bite me in the ass later, but I'm avoiding everything as much as possible. It's sort of congealed into a giant katamari of suck, and I don't negotiate with terrorists. The only thing I've done well all month is get my Etsy orders out on time.
But all of this is OK, because suck happens. The trick is to break the katamari of suck back down into small, manageable pieces so that it no longer has the power to intimidate. So tomorrow I'll pick a small task from the failbin and start by fixing it. Disability schmisability, I'm a powerhouse of radness. Because why? Because digital watercolor.
March 15, 2009
Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes
Two years later and I'm actually proud it happened. Humans are so weird.
You can be so completely attached to another person that the notion of letting them go under any circumstances is beyond the pale. Choosing such a heartless abadonment and then being happy about it? That's just unthinkable. What are you, some kind of monster? You'd have to be crazy to blah blah blah.
So yeah, we broke up. And yeah, it hurt like hell for a year. For most of that year I literally grieved. I pined and obsessed. It was all through my dreams, where I could--and did--cry. I raged, I blamed him, I told myself I had to work up the courage to go back because I felt I couldn't take the loneliness for one more second. I felt like it was a moral failure on my part that I never quite got pathetic enough to go back on my knees and make him forgive me for bringing out his rage and contempt by being flawed and human.
I'd done it before, but this time my stubborn pride wouldn't let me make things better. I didn't want to pretend I was wrong or sorry when I wasn't, just so I could have the old relationship back. In my eyes, this made me the bad guy. Petty. Had to have my way. So arrogant I'd betray a friend rather than lie to them and make them like me again, etc. etc. But I had drawn a line: if he didn't come back, I could not chase him.
Too many times before, I'd done just that, and I always felt so diminished afterward. Pigheaded as he was, he never would have returned or apologized first. I could do it, and I saw myself as a martyr because I did. Yay for me, I had the courage to take the blame I often felt was undeserved, and my prize was having him like me again.
So fucking disordered, but I needed it. And you know, he always wondered why I hate love songs and chick flicks so much. Well, basically it's because everyone hates having that black mirror shoved in their face. I think I just can't stand watching people celebrate the same kind of twisted codependence I secretly suffered. I have just enough insight to recognize dysfunction, but as for applying it to my own life? Still working on that. Lots of denial in there to cut through first.
And time went by. Slowly I began to realize that what I labeled as obstinacy and pride were actually protecting me from allowing my poor sense of boundaries and ragingcodependence to keep me in a bad situation. Nothing would have changed if I went back. It would be a huge fuck-you to my sense of self-preservation. Another fit of martyrdom would have been killing the first healthy impulse I'd had in ages--to not fix everything at my own expense. Deep down, I knew this from the start, but I tried pretty hard to bury it in layers of obfuscatory bullshit, and for a while it worked.
By the time the anger and obsession began to fade, I started to see how emotionally unhealthy things were. I had never realized just how much the relationship had warped when I wasn't paying attention. It was rusted through. Nothing held it together now but my determination to keep it alive at all costs. That was when the grieving stopped and I began to move on.
Starting a few months ago, I realized that, far from missing the way things were, I was actually celebrating its end. I was relieved! For the first time, I thanked my stubbornness instead of being ashamed of it. That petty little line in the sand that I drew in anger had finally put an end to a relationship that ought to have died naturally many years before.
Kids, they don't know any better. Kids think friends are always forever and that every love is the only true love they'll ever have. Kids don't recognize the signs when the time comes to stick a fork in a relationship. I missed this stage of development when I was growing up, and that has led to years of animosity and dysfunction. The people involved grew up and went their separate ways in life, and our friendship began chafing as it ceased to grow along with us.
The resulting swan song droned on, unheard and unheeded by either of us, until what should have been the happiest memories of my life were polluted by the regret and resentment of the latter years. That makes me sad.
So many grudges and self-censorships, trying to be a different person from the one I was, just so someone else would like me. All because I was in love with someone who didn't exist anymore. Oh, the depression, the recriminations. The self-loathing. Why wasn't I good enough? Why did he change? Woh, woh, woh.
Imagine my surprise when I realized that this, all of this, was normal. Normal and okay. A vital part of being human. Imagine my relief. It's not about finding company in misery, it's about finally connecting to a major component of interpersonal relations.
So kids, when you're in a relationship and things change, don't be scared to change with them. When the skin you're in gets too tight and starts to itch, try shedding it. Spend your whole life terrified that your guts will spill out because there's nothing left to hold them in, and you'll never get to see what's actually underneath. For me, it turned out to be a much thicker skin, and it fits pretty good.
You can be so completely attached to another person that the notion of letting them go under any circumstances is beyond the pale. Choosing such a heartless abadonment and then being happy about it? That's just unthinkable. What are you, some kind of monster? You'd have to be crazy to blah blah blah.
So yeah, we broke up. And yeah, it hurt like hell for a year. For most of that year I literally grieved. I pined and obsessed. It was all through my dreams, where I could--and did--cry. I raged, I blamed him, I told myself I had to work up the courage to go back because I felt I couldn't take the loneliness for one more second. I felt like it was a moral failure on my part that I never quite got pathetic enough to go back on my knees and make him forgive me for bringing out his rage and contempt by being flawed and human.
I'd done it before, but this time my stubborn pride wouldn't let me make things better. I didn't want to pretend I was wrong or sorry when I wasn't, just so I could have the old relationship back. In my eyes, this made me the bad guy. Petty. Had to have my way. So arrogant I'd betray a friend rather than lie to them and make them like me again, etc. etc. But I had drawn a line: if he didn't come back, I could not chase him.
Too many times before, I'd done just that, and I always felt so diminished afterward. Pigheaded as he was, he never would have returned or apologized first. I could do it, and I saw myself as a martyr because I did. Yay for me, I had the courage to take the blame I often felt was undeserved, and my prize was having him like me again.
So fucking disordered, but I needed it. And you know, he always wondered why I hate love songs and chick flicks so much. Well, basically it's because everyone hates having that black mirror shoved in their face. I think I just can't stand watching people celebrate the same kind of twisted codependence I secretly suffered. I have just enough insight to recognize dysfunction, but as for applying it to my own life? Still working on that. Lots of denial in there to cut through first.
And time went by. Slowly I began to realize that what I labeled as obstinacy and pride were actually protecting me from allowing my poor sense of boundaries and ragingcodependence to keep me in a bad situation. Nothing would have changed if I went back. It would be a huge fuck-you to my sense of self-preservation. Another fit of martyrdom would have been killing the first healthy impulse I'd had in ages--to not fix everything at my own expense. Deep down, I knew this from the start, but I tried pretty hard to bury it in layers of obfuscatory bullshit, and for a while it worked.
By the time the anger and obsession began to fade, I started to see how emotionally unhealthy things were. I had never realized just how much the relationship had warped when I wasn't paying attention. It was rusted through. Nothing held it together now but my determination to keep it alive at all costs. That was when the grieving stopped and I began to move on.
Starting a few months ago, I realized that, far from missing the way things were, I was actually celebrating its end. I was relieved! For the first time, I thanked my stubbornness instead of being ashamed of it. That petty little line in the sand that I drew in anger had finally put an end to a relationship that ought to have died naturally many years before.
Kids, they don't know any better. Kids think friends are always forever and that every love is the only true love they'll ever have. Kids don't recognize the signs when the time comes to stick a fork in a relationship. I missed this stage of development when I was growing up, and that has led to years of animosity and dysfunction. The people involved grew up and went their separate ways in life, and our friendship began chafing as it ceased to grow along with us.
The resulting swan song droned on, unheard and unheeded by either of us, until what should have been the happiest memories of my life were polluted by the regret and resentment of the latter years. That makes me sad.
So many grudges and self-censorships, trying to be a different person from the one I was, just so someone else would like me. All because I was in love with someone who didn't exist anymore. Oh, the depression, the recriminations. The self-loathing. Why wasn't I good enough? Why did he change? Woh, woh, woh.
Imagine my surprise when I realized that this, all of this, was normal. Normal and okay. A vital part of being human. Imagine my relief. It's not about finding company in misery, it's about finally connecting to a major component of interpersonal relations.
So kids, when you're in a relationship and things change, don't be scared to change with them. When the skin you're in gets too tight and starts to itch, try shedding it. Spend your whole life terrified that your guts will spill out because there's nothing left to hold them in, and you'll never get to see what's actually underneath. For me, it turned out to be a much thicker skin, and it fits pretty good.
March 3, 2009
Lifedump
I finally got the Captain a new collar. This one's traffic-reflective so he'll be more visible at night. I also got him a proper harness for bike-runs, and am going to attach reflective tape to it as well. Then I'll go to the hardware store this week and buy tiny reflectors and make buttons out of them, which I'll wear on the back of my biking jacket. I already have a flasher on my bike and a blinking pendant shaped like a bone for the Captain, but you can never be too visible.
The bike's brakes were getting loose so I took it to the shop where I got it. The owner came out, looked it over and told me to bring it in anytime for a full going-over with adjustments, because some of the factory settings aren't quite to his liking. He showed me how to tighten the handbrake in the meantime (modern bikes have such weird interfaces! I didn't need a screwdriver) and when I asked how much for the tune-up, he said they wouldn't charge a thing. Fucking amazing. I'll be getting the handlebars adjusted if there's any more wiggle room, and if not, I'll need to buy a longer set so I can sit completely upright to save my neck and wrists. Then I'll buy a rearview mirror and get it installed on the handlebars. It's good times.
Still working on the comic, still dragging ass. I haven't gotten much sleep lately so I'm slow and easily bored. Today was therapy and we had a really long, really thought-provoking session talking about codependency and boundaries. Also about my need to get my life started and gain some independence (especially financially) so I can feel like more of an adult.
It's really weird climbing out of the pit I'm in. And not all that painful, at least not yet. We're doing good work. Starting to establish a rapport. I guess I got lucky on that one--no one I know has ever liked their first therapist, and I adore mine.
I've been listening to the Adam Carolla podcast since he lost his morning show and decided to continue doing the job for free out of his basement. He's such a belligerent dick, but I love him. I miss the old Loveline, before Scrappy Doo (aka Stryker) took over and David Allen Grier was barred from returning as a guest. I don't agree with all of the Loveline advice (they are completely ignorant and judgmental about gender dysphoria, for example) but most of the time it's dead-on. I've been listening to the archive of 2004 for the past month or so while I play One Piece and collect my non-thinks.
Spring is coming. I need to get out more, and take a bunch of photos with this awesome camera before everything turns soggy and brown.
Pictures of snowman sex acts to follow.
The bike's brakes were getting loose so I took it to the shop where I got it. The owner came out, looked it over and told me to bring it in anytime for a full going-over with adjustments, because some of the factory settings aren't quite to his liking. He showed me how to tighten the handbrake in the meantime (modern bikes have such weird interfaces! I didn't need a screwdriver) and when I asked how much for the tune-up, he said they wouldn't charge a thing. Fucking amazing. I'll be getting the handlebars adjusted if there's any more wiggle room, and if not, I'll need to buy a longer set so I can sit completely upright to save my neck and wrists. Then I'll buy a rearview mirror and get it installed on the handlebars. It's good times.
Still working on the comic, still dragging ass. I haven't gotten much sleep lately so I'm slow and easily bored. Today was therapy and we had a really long, really thought-provoking session talking about codependency and boundaries. Also about my need to get my life started and gain some independence (especially financially) so I can feel like more of an adult.
It's really weird climbing out of the pit I'm in. And not all that painful, at least not yet. We're doing good work. Starting to establish a rapport. I guess I got lucky on that one--no one I know has ever liked their first therapist, and I adore mine.
I've been listening to the Adam Carolla podcast since he lost his morning show and decided to continue doing the job for free out of his basement. He's such a belligerent dick, but I love him. I miss the old Loveline, before Scrappy Doo (aka Stryker) took over and David Allen Grier was barred from returning as a guest. I don't agree with all of the Loveline advice (they are completely ignorant and judgmental about gender dysphoria, for example) but most of the time it's dead-on. I've been listening to the archive of 2004 for the past month or so while I play One Piece and collect my non-thinks.
Spring is coming. I need to get out more, and take a bunch of photos with this awesome camera before everything turns soggy and brown.
Pictures of snowman sex acts to follow.
January 25, 2009
Pep Talk
I have a plan for this upcoming summer, but I don't know how to put it into action.
Basically, I want to travel the country on a rockhounding tour. I plan to visit Oregon, possibly Arkansas, the North Shore of Superior and Thunder Bay up in Canada. If I can get my shit together by then, I can contact folks with private mines who take guests and learn how they do their stuff.
Maybe I'll meet some other hounds who know good collecting spots and stay with them as well. I may hit rock shows and talk to the people who work them. Ask how they got into their line of work and take notes and advice. They give it freely to others who have the bug, I already know that much. I wonder if people in the rock business take apprentices or interns. At the very least, I can join the Minnesota rock club and go on field trips.
One thing that's for sure is that I'll never break into this business if I don't get out there and do it. And I know I can do it. For all that I feel like I'm completely adrift and incompetent, all I have to do is look back to 2004 and see what I did with conventions despite having clue zero. Despite being WAY more messed up than I am now (god bless you, therapy and the soothing affects of maturity), I made plans. I bit my lip and jumped into the chaos and it all worked out beautifully. I think of the hours of travel and the hard work and it makes me nostalgic as fuck.
My fear of burning out on what I love to do should not hold me back either. I have never been as enthusiastic about going to conventions as I feel about fossil and crystal hunting, but I still like them just fine.
There is nothing to be afraid of. I have a charmed life and I have support. If it blows up in my face, I have a hilarious blog entry to share with the world so you can all taste the schadenfreude. If it all works out, I will have knocked down a huge portion of the wall between myself and a Genuine Sense Of Meaning In Life. I know what I want and it's all about dirt and sweat and sunshine. It's what I've always wanted, and only now that I'm older and starting to define myself as a person can I admit it. I've begun to understand that I, Luka Delaney, have a genuine Passion and can follow it. All these years spinning my wheels and it was right there, but I never thought for a moment I could seriously do it. It never even occurred. I'm slow like that.
I love art, I love writing. I'm well aware that my talents in the creative field will not win me any great status in life, and I'm OK with that because I do my shit well enough to satisfy me and get my ideas across, and that's awesome. I'm always getting better, always learning, always impressing myself in new ways. But I don't want to attach pressure to these things, and that lack of fire holds me back from turning art or writing into a genuine Career. I love creative stuff, but I NEED to explore my world. These things can co-exist. I know what I'm doing. Admitting that my largest drive lies elsewhere won't make me give up on my art, like I used to think it would. Why quit doing something I love just because it isn't my entire universe? That kind of flawed all-or-nothing thinking holds me back way too much in life as it is.
What I need is my own permission.
All of this makes me excited as hell. And worried. Most of all, it makes me insanely, giddily optimistic. I can realize all of this if I work hard. I need to train, plan, save and scheme. No excuses, just jump the hell in and watch the results.
I've driven through all but three states in this nation and I can read a map. I can't get lost, I won't be murdered, the planet won't throw me off. There are no excuses left, only problems to be solved so I can move on. No fucking way am I wasting another year sitting on my fat ass, feeding my life to a glowing screen so I can watch other people live my dreams and continually sigh "If only!"
You all have my permission to quote this entry back at me if I get discouraged or whiny or angsty later. I have a habit of shying away from big plans when they start to feel tawdry, once the glow of euphoria wears off and I start to second-guess myself. Right now I have clarity, and no matter how discouraged I get later, I won't be able to take it back. Can't even fuck with what's already been said on the internet.
So basically, I want to be like Brother Ali when I grow up.
(Well get to it, dork!)
Basically, I want to travel the country on a rockhounding tour. I plan to visit Oregon, possibly Arkansas, the North Shore of Superior and Thunder Bay up in Canada. If I can get my shit together by then, I can contact folks with private mines who take guests and learn how they do their stuff.
Maybe I'll meet some other hounds who know good collecting spots and stay with them as well. I may hit rock shows and talk to the people who work them. Ask how they got into their line of work and take notes and advice. They give it freely to others who have the bug, I already know that much. I wonder if people in the rock business take apprentices or interns. At the very least, I can join the Minnesota rock club and go on field trips.
One thing that's for sure is that I'll never break into this business if I don't get out there and do it. And I know I can do it. For all that I feel like I'm completely adrift and incompetent, all I have to do is look back to 2004 and see what I did with conventions despite having clue zero. Despite being WAY more messed up than I am now (god bless you, therapy and the soothing affects of maturity), I made plans. I bit my lip and jumped into the chaos and it all worked out beautifully. I think of the hours of travel and the hard work and it makes me nostalgic as fuck.
My fear of burning out on what I love to do should not hold me back either. I have never been as enthusiastic about going to conventions as I feel about fossil and crystal hunting, but I still like them just fine.
There is nothing to be afraid of. I have a charmed life and I have support. If it blows up in my face, I have a hilarious blog entry to share with the world so you can all taste the schadenfreude. If it all works out, I will have knocked down a huge portion of the wall between myself and a Genuine Sense Of Meaning In Life. I know what I want and it's all about dirt and sweat and sunshine. It's what I've always wanted, and only now that I'm older and starting to define myself as a person can I admit it. I've begun to understand that I, Luka Delaney, have a genuine Passion and can follow it. All these years spinning my wheels and it was right there, but I never thought for a moment I could seriously do it. It never even occurred. I'm slow like that.
I love art, I love writing. I'm well aware that my talents in the creative field will not win me any great status in life, and I'm OK with that because I do my shit well enough to satisfy me and get my ideas across, and that's awesome. I'm always getting better, always learning, always impressing myself in new ways. But I don't want to attach pressure to these things, and that lack of fire holds me back from turning art or writing into a genuine Career. I love creative stuff, but I NEED to explore my world. These things can co-exist. I know what I'm doing. Admitting that my largest drive lies elsewhere won't make me give up on my art, like I used to think it would. Why quit doing something I love just because it isn't my entire universe? That kind of flawed all-or-nothing thinking holds me back way too much in life as it is.
What I need is my own permission.
All of this makes me excited as hell. And worried. Most of all, it makes me insanely, giddily optimistic. I can realize all of this if I work hard. I need to train, plan, save and scheme. No excuses, just jump the hell in and watch the results.
I've driven through all but three states in this nation and I can read a map. I can't get lost, I won't be murdered, the planet won't throw me off. There are no excuses left, only problems to be solved so I can move on. No fucking way am I wasting another year sitting on my fat ass, feeding my life to a glowing screen so I can watch other people live my dreams and continually sigh "If only!"
You all have my permission to quote this entry back at me if I get discouraged or whiny or angsty later. I have a habit of shying away from big plans when they start to feel tawdry, once the glow of euphoria wears off and I start to second-guess myself. Right now I have clarity, and no matter how discouraged I get later, I won't be able to take it back. Can't even fuck with what's already been said on the internet.
"They say my reputation precedes me
I don't know the meaning of off season, I ain't taking it easy
Ain't taking a day off, never had an off night
Never been laid off, I live on the job site
It all pays off though when I squint in the spotlight
And see your lips are moving to the true shit that I write
And we gon' be alright every night of my life
It's my night cause I view the future like it's hindsight
I ain't waiting, I'm patiently persevering
I see greatness in the person in the mirror very clearly
And that's why I take this seriously
Baby come near to me and truly, truly hear me."
So basically, I want to be like Brother Ali when I grow up.
(Well get to it, dork!)
January 23, 2009
January 23
Made it through another year without my mother.
Aside from some truly weird and morbid dreams about her corpse showing up in various disturbing places (and sometimes in various disturbing pieces), the second year wasn't so bad. Definitely better than the first one was, by a longshot. That first year kinda sucked monkey dicks, and I'd heard that the second could be even worse. But nah, it's just getting better.
I am very glad to be getting some peace. Her death coming after a decades-long slow motion suicide plunge might have made things easier--I was already braced for it when it came. The years of dreading the inevitable end were much worse than the real thing. At least now I'm free of the waiting, and she's free of the everything else that sucked for her.
Last night I had another tower nightmare. I have these a lot, and I hate them. Usually they involve having to go to the top of a very high building, against my better judgment, then trying to get back down again when the building begins to sway and distort and fall over. Ever since I started having them, the leaning tower of Pisa gives me cold chills.
Sometimes in these dreams, I'm clinging to rickety fire stairs outside the building. Other times I'm inside, lost on the 78th floor. Occasionally I try to take an elevator only to plunge to the bottom with that horrible sinking sensation in my belly, or I get hauled back to the top and have to get out and start all over again. Last night's was one of the latter.
If you're really into dream interpretation from a Freudian standpoint, I gues you could blame this theme on a repressed fear of teh cock, but it's not. I'm just very afraid of tall buildings. Five stories or more makes me very uncomfortable, but I can handle it. 10 or more means I will try not to go inside. Fifty or more stories and I need to drink alcohol to stop the panic, even if my room's only on the 25th. Conventions in big cities always fuck me up because of this. You just know that sucker is going to come down right on top of you. If you're, you know, me.
Meanwhile in real life, functionality is restored to my brain. Life goes well. I'm currently tired as fuck from the day's errands, but it's a good tired. An honest tired, earned with productivity and sweat. I'll spend tomorrow working on the comic so I can update on or before Monday.
Ah, Monday. A nice arbitrary day for a nice arbitrary change of schedule. You may have noticed that Saturdays appear to be cursed lately. Oh wait, that's just me sucking. Ho ho.
Aside from some truly weird and morbid dreams about her corpse showing up in various disturbing places (and sometimes in various disturbing pieces), the second year wasn't so bad. Definitely better than the first one was, by a longshot. That first year kinda sucked monkey dicks, and I'd heard that the second could be even worse. But nah, it's just getting better.
I am very glad to be getting some peace. Her death coming after a decades-long slow motion suicide plunge might have made things easier--I was already braced for it when it came. The years of dreading the inevitable end were much worse than the real thing. At least now I'm free of the waiting, and she's free of the everything else that sucked for her.
Last night I had another tower nightmare. I have these a lot, and I hate them. Usually they involve having to go to the top of a very high building, against my better judgment, then trying to get back down again when the building begins to sway and distort and fall over. Ever since I started having them, the leaning tower of Pisa gives me cold chills.
Sometimes in these dreams, I'm clinging to rickety fire stairs outside the building. Other times I'm inside, lost on the 78th floor. Occasionally I try to take an elevator only to plunge to the bottom with that horrible sinking sensation in my belly, or I get hauled back to the top and have to get out and start all over again. Last night's was one of the latter.
If you're really into dream interpretation from a Freudian standpoint, I gues you could blame this theme on a repressed fear of teh cock, but it's not. I'm just very afraid of tall buildings. Five stories or more makes me very uncomfortable, but I can handle it. 10 or more means I will try not to go inside. Fifty or more stories and I need to drink alcohol to stop the panic, even if my room's only on the 25th. Conventions in big cities always fuck me up because of this. You just know that sucker is going to come down right on top of you. If you're, you know, me.
Meanwhile in real life, functionality is restored to my brain. Life goes well. I'm currently tired as fuck from the day's errands, but it's a good tired. An honest tired, earned with productivity and sweat. I'll spend tomorrow working on the comic so I can update on or before Monday.
Ah, Monday. A nice arbitrary day for a nice arbitrary change of schedule. You may have noticed that Saturdays appear to be cursed lately. Oh wait, that's just me sucking. Ho ho.
January 21, 2009
Chore Wars
Fuck yeah, my Chore Wars ranger hit Level 2.
This website is the absolute best thing ever. I had planned to make up something like this, an RPG-style planner website where you frame your to-do list as a series of quests, and gain exp for doing chores. Turns out somebody else has done it already, and way better than I would have managed.
Rah, Jesse and I formed a party yesterday and created about 20 different custom adventures. They cover everything from changing the litter box to updating Kagerou. We also plugged in a ton of zany shit as items you can win for clearing the adventure. I got a puppy, an empty condom box and 225 gold pieces for two days' worth of work. Rich beyond the dreams of avarice!
I used the empty condom box already, but it didn't give me any stat bonuses :(
I am particularly pleased with the way this system logs your cleared quests. Now I can keep track of how often I do the laundry. Also, it is insanely fun to compete with the other roomies to see who can get the most done. I caught myself doing another load of dishes before bed last night just to claim the 10 XP and bragging rights. Inking my comic gave me 40 points and put me in the lead.
Your move, dickfaces.
Anyway. Bedtime for me since it's past midnight and I'm being good for my therapist and obeying the clock.
Try that site out though, seriously, it's rad.
This website is the absolute best thing ever. I had planned to make up something like this, an RPG-style planner website where you frame your to-do list as a series of quests, and gain exp for doing chores. Turns out somebody else has done it already, and way better than I would have managed.
Rah, Jesse and I formed a party yesterday and created about 20 different custom adventures. They cover everything from changing the litter box to updating Kagerou. We also plugged in a ton of zany shit as items you can win for clearing the adventure. I got a puppy, an empty condom box and 225 gold pieces for two days' worth of work. Rich beyond the dreams of avarice!
I used the empty condom box already, but it didn't give me any stat bonuses :(
I am particularly pleased with the way this system logs your cleared quests. Now I can keep track of how often I do the laundry. Also, it is insanely fun to compete with the other roomies to see who can get the most done. I caught myself doing another load of dishes before bed last night just to claim the 10 XP and bragging rights. Inking my comic gave me 40 points and put me in the lead.
Your move, dickfaces.
Anyway. Bedtime for me since it's past midnight and I'm being good for my therapist and obeying the clock.
Try that site out though, seriously, it's rad.
January 10, 2009
Slight Setback Snowballing Into Suck, Subverted Swiftly
Feeling much better now. Still painful to do art because of the position it puts my body in, but I'm getting as much inking done as I can in little bursts, and trying to adjust my posture when I work on the computer.
I have these AWESOMETASTIC shoe inserts that were custom-molded from my very own foots. I've been breaking them in and enjoying the strange sensation of arch support. My podiatrist assures me that proper support will stop my toes from going numb when I jog or walk very fast. That's fantastic, because the pain distracts me from hitting my Zone, and frustration leaves me less willing to move my big fat ass, leading to depression and even further reduction of energy.
My schedule flipped again, for the first time in months. At the same time, my desire to get exercise, do housework and get my comic done utterly tanked. I've been flipping it back for the past four days or so, and everything's been kind of smeary and bright through a film of exhaustion. I couldn't sleep more than four hours at a time, and four hours after waking up I'd be drowsy and stupid again. My interest in cooking was reduced and I'd find myself standing in the kitchen in the middle of a blood sugar crash, staring helplessly at the ingredients and wondering exactly how I keep myself alive when nothing in there looks like food. So I'd eat sugary stuff that was ready-made, and then wonder why I felt like shit a few hours later, and eat more sugary stuff that was ready-made to drive away the headaches. It was a way to live, I guess.
Last night I put off sleep til 5. I spent the time playing 1500 Rupees worth of 5-Rupee Rollgoal on Twilight Princess. Then I slept, praying I could make it a full 8 hours. I had restful sleep until 1:30 this morning, and woke up feeling sparkly and alive again, with the urge to go for a night walk under the full moon blazing in my head. This after over a week of complete torpor and timeless confusion.
I had a big breakfast (1/3 of a frozen pizza instead of something home-cooked, but baby steps, you know?) and took my meds to bring on competent ADHD focus. I've been inking and answering emails since then and feeling generally energized.
The fact that this has only happened once since the onset of medication makes me feel very hopeful. Backsliding is to be expected, and compared to my previous situation of constant pendulum-swinging insanity, the setback I am getting over now wasn't such of a much anyway.
I'm reading tons of audiobooks while I go about my day. I made it through Christine, Gerald's Game and most of Insomnia just while playing Zelda. I think I spent 200 hours on that fucking game during my wacky spell, but I beat it the other day. I even whooped the Cave of Ordeals' ass! Hint: Stand on the ledge and drop bombs on the unseen cluster of Darknuts below, two or three at a time. Armor will shoot across the room on a regular basis, and after about 60 bombs, you should have at least two of them throwing away their heavy gear and going ninja. You'll still need to dodge their weapons from up there, but it levels the field nicely and is pretty fucking hilarious.
I found all 60 poe souls. There were 2 left and I was going insane, printing out all the location guides and crossing the completed ones off one by one until I was down to a list of 14 or so that I couldn't remember getting, but every single one of them was a wash. After three long and miserable days of this (during which I DREAMED about the little fuckers) I finally noticed that one of the areas marked as "already cleared" mentioned a hidden grotto between some trees and two poes inside. The tree configuration didn't sound familiar, and sure enough there they were. It was close to another dig spot and I guess I just conflated the two. WOWFASCINATINGLUKA.
Four great things about Twilight Princess:
1. Midna is the most adorable thing on the entire planet. I've been doodling little Midnas all day. I love her little fang, the pot-belly and shrunken legs. And her hair-hand. Holy crap, the hair-hand. She reminds me a lot of my early sketches of Cho, who was more feral and about the same size as Midna. Eventually Cho became much more humanoid-looking, but the personalities are still similar.
2. Link is a genuinely awesome hero. I actually bought the "farm boy hero" archetype for the first time playing this game. Something about how humble and determined he is, coupled with a certain lack of angst and spiky hair.
3. Twilight Princess managed to creep me out way more than Silent Hill ever did. Three words: NOT TAKE MIRROR!!!!!!
4. My ultimate OTP is now Yeto and Yeta. Even though they discuss eating Link right in front of him if he's in wolf form, and even though Yeta kicked my ass 9 times out of 10 at snowboarding, I forgive them. Because yeti wuv. Yeti wuv.
That's about it for now. I've got a bunch of comic to do and a dog who desperately needs exercise after my several-day hiatus from the real world. Better go get to it!
I have these AWESOMETASTIC shoe inserts that were custom-molded from my very own foots. I've been breaking them in and enjoying the strange sensation of arch support. My podiatrist assures me that proper support will stop my toes from going numb when I jog or walk very fast. That's fantastic, because the pain distracts me from hitting my Zone, and frustration leaves me less willing to move my big fat ass, leading to depression and even further reduction of energy.
My schedule flipped again, for the first time in months. At the same time, my desire to get exercise, do housework and get my comic done utterly tanked. I've been flipping it back for the past four days or so, and everything's been kind of smeary and bright through a film of exhaustion. I couldn't sleep more than four hours at a time, and four hours after waking up I'd be drowsy and stupid again. My interest in cooking was reduced and I'd find myself standing in the kitchen in the middle of a blood sugar crash, staring helplessly at the ingredients and wondering exactly how I keep myself alive when nothing in there looks like food. So I'd eat sugary stuff that was ready-made, and then wonder why I felt like shit a few hours later, and eat more sugary stuff that was ready-made to drive away the headaches. It was a way to live, I guess.
Last night I put off sleep til 5. I spent the time playing 1500 Rupees worth of 5-Rupee Rollgoal on Twilight Princess. Then I slept, praying I could make it a full 8 hours. I had restful sleep until 1:30 this morning, and woke up feeling sparkly and alive again, with the urge to go for a night walk under the full moon blazing in my head. This after over a week of complete torpor and timeless confusion.
I had a big breakfast (1/3 of a frozen pizza instead of something home-cooked, but baby steps, you know?) and took my meds to bring on competent ADHD focus. I've been inking and answering emails since then and feeling generally energized.
The fact that this has only happened once since the onset of medication makes me feel very hopeful. Backsliding is to be expected, and compared to my previous situation of constant pendulum-swinging insanity, the setback I am getting over now wasn't such of a much anyway.
I'm reading tons of audiobooks while I go about my day. I made it through Christine, Gerald's Game and most of Insomnia just while playing Zelda. I think I spent 200 hours on that fucking game during my wacky spell, but I beat it the other day. I even whooped the Cave of Ordeals' ass! Hint: Stand on the ledge and drop bombs on the unseen cluster of Darknuts below, two or three at a time. Armor will shoot across the room on a regular basis, and after about 60 bombs, you should have at least two of them throwing away their heavy gear and going ninja. You'll still need to dodge their weapons from up there, but it levels the field nicely and is pretty fucking hilarious.
I found all 60 poe souls. There were 2 left and I was going insane, printing out all the location guides and crossing the completed ones off one by one until I was down to a list of 14 or so that I couldn't remember getting, but every single one of them was a wash. After three long and miserable days of this (during which I DREAMED about the little fuckers) I finally noticed that one of the areas marked as "already cleared" mentioned a hidden grotto between some trees and two poes inside. The tree configuration didn't sound familiar, and sure enough there they were. It was close to another dig spot and I guess I just conflated the two. WOWFASCINATINGLUKA.
Four great things about Twilight Princess:
1. Midna is the most adorable thing on the entire planet. I've been doodling little Midnas all day. I love her little fang, the pot-belly and shrunken legs. And her hair-hand. Holy crap, the hair-hand. She reminds me a lot of my early sketches of Cho, who was more feral and about the same size as Midna. Eventually Cho became much more humanoid-looking, but the personalities are still similar.
2. Link is a genuinely awesome hero. I actually bought the "farm boy hero" archetype for the first time playing this game. Something about how humble and determined he is, coupled with a certain lack of angst and spiky hair.
3. Twilight Princess managed to creep me out way more than Silent Hill ever did. Three words: NOT TAKE MIRROR!!!!!!
4. My ultimate OTP is now Yeto and Yeta. Even though they discuss eating Link right in front of him if he's in wolf form, and even though Yeta kicked my ass 9 times out of 10 at snowboarding, I forgive them. Because yeti wuv. Yeti wuv.
That's about it for now. I've got a bunch of comic to do and a dog who desperately needs exercise after my several-day hiatus from the real world. Better go get to it!
December 10, 2008
Wake Up
I had been putting my life on hold.
I was a terrible student. People said I was smart, told me I was going to be somebody, urged me to live up to my potential, but I skipped school as often as I could get away with starting from the seventh grade. I didn't do my homework, which stacked up. I started missing crucial stuff in math class, earned a reputation as the weird kid, made enemies and alienated potential friends. I fell behind. I gave up. I dropped out.
Then college happened, and for one semester I felt like I was really going to accomplish my goal of getting a degree and leaving my shitty life behind. My anxiety got in the way--I didn't have a pen, but I couldn't bring myself to approach the nice girl sitting next to me and ask to borrow one of hers. I didn't have a study partner because I was terrified of strangers. The professor had a thick Korean accent and his descriptions of Venn diagrams would have gone right over my math-deficient head anyway. I skipped all study groups to avoid talking to people. I flunked the class, gave up on college and switched to part-time at a different school. I used my scholarship to take Japanese and Composition instead. Then I "took a semester off" because I finally realized I was having too many issues to focus on schoolwork.
For the next five years, I maintained a holding pattern. Work on the comic, do the art, hide in the bedroom, shelve the books. My only social communication was with my few friends or the people I helped at work. We moved out of the apartment where my Mom and I had weathered 9/11, and I retreated into my one-room hovel in my sister's backyard, shrugged off the lack of running water and heat, wondered if I might be autistic, came out as transgendered, dissociated and ranted on the internet and injured myself for kicks. I remember it as good times but it was really kind of pathetic. All alone in a little party house with my bad music and the undefined substances crusted into the carpet. Chest strapped flat, nails through my ears while my right eyeball flared up red and swollen every day from the layers of dust I swam through. Family drama alienated me from all relatives except my Mom. I kept in touch with the world outside through my modem.
I started going to cons. Met Seebs, Rah and Jesse for the first time at Anime Central 2004. I had been planning to stay with Rah, but when we all started talking at the tables it was nakama at first sight and we stayed in the same hotel room for the rest of the weekend. I didn't buy my next $80 bus ticket to Canada; instead Jess and Seebs brought me home from the convention to stay at their place in Saint Paul. They extended pseudopods and replaced my plans to go back to Nebraska with the urge to go native, which I did. Told my Mom I wasn't coming home except to pack my shit. She was sad, but my brother was getting out and she wanted to live with him anyway. I gleefully jettisoned my home life and never looked back. I didn't call her enough. I still feel sad that I didn't call her enough, but I just forgot. I knew I'd regret it very soon but I forgot.
Then Mom died. I went back to Nebraska to be with her during the end, got sick, came home, went back but I was too late. She died the night before I returned, and I was on the phone as it happened. The funerals weren't bad. She was polyfaithful so there were two, plus the wake where I wore an offensive T-Shirt to piss off the relatives who didn't like me anyway. My brother and I made up and I gave him a wad of money from comic fan donations to pay the funeral director for one pitiful box of ashes with a side of shitty attitude.
Now I had no connection to my past. Now I've been kissing-close to death and I realized I was wasting my life. Everything I felt was now under scrutiny as suspected bullshit. Two months later I had a petty disagreement with my childhood friend and he dumped me. I couldn't muster the willpower to apologize first like I always did, and because he never learned how to apologize at all we ended up never speaking again. One more piece of my old life fell away. Rain moved to North Carolina a few months after that, and I got depressed. I adopted a dog to force myself out of my head and being responsible for him got me through the worst of the sadness. Dogs and cats do their best to cure the blues by being small and pettable and needy, and in return we make sure their bellies stay full. It's a good trade.
The household moved to a small town where the atmosphere is much more laid-back. There are two colleges here, and I started thinking about going back to school. Thinking I didn't have what it takes to be a student, I was too old, too dumb, too anxious.
Then the accident happened, and I guess almost dying must have knocked some sense into me. Suddenly I was making plans instead of daydreaming about them. Small plans at first--see a dentist, find a good vet in town--and then larger ones followed from that. I got a therapist and a psychiatrist because I was overwhelmed, instead of hiding in my room and hoping the world would forget about me. The therapist hooked me up with health care and pointed me at assistance programs. Things became possible.
I re-established contact with my Dad, and we're slowly getting to know each other again. I really love the guy, but we've got to tread lightly for a while at least. I've always hated the idea of wasting my life, but now I feel more like there's something I can do about it. Medication helps with a lot of this, but some of it was just plain good luck.
So where am I now? Making plans. Establishing normal living activities like schedules and chores. Learning to work with the ADHD meds, and I've just started Zoloft for the social anxiety and OCD. I'm creating a new routine to replace the flawed one that was more of a prison than a refuge. There is comfort in routine, and just lately mine's been changing quite a bit and creativity has taken a backseat to the real world. I figure it's now or never--I either ride this wave or spend more years in the holding pattern. I'm impatient to get back to the old habits that I enjoy--comics and writing being the two major ones--but so far they haven't found where they fit in my new life. Creativity is kind of like a cat that will curl up in your lap if you stay put, but if you move around too much it gets pissed and wanders off for a while. Luckily creativity and cats are also sort of stupid, and will eventually come back for another try.
Hopefully within the next month or so I'll wake up with that cat back on my lap so I don't have to go chase it down like I've been doing. My comic is about to go awesome places and I'm getting annoyed by how slowly it's unfolding compared to the four-pages-a-week powerhouse of yesteryear.
Things go well at home. The Captain's nose is turning pink at the base. I still haven't mailed off the buttons for the folks who donated to get his vitiligo diagnosed, but I've got all the info here and will be getting to it as soon as I can. This damn cold isn't helping much, but it's slowly getting better.
Also, I've begun to think about college again. Scary stuff, but why not? "Too old" is bullshit anyway. I feel certain I'd make a better student in my 30s than I ever was in my teens.
That's it for now. Musings on a quiet Wednesday morning while the sky is gray and the snow is a few layers thicker than it was last time I blogged. Hope you're all well.
I was a terrible student. People said I was smart, told me I was going to be somebody, urged me to live up to my potential, but I skipped school as often as I could get away with starting from the seventh grade. I didn't do my homework, which stacked up. I started missing crucial stuff in math class, earned a reputation as the weird kid, made enemies and alienated potential friends. I fell behind. I gave up. I dropped out.
Then college happened, and for one semester I felt like I was really going to accomplish my goal of getting a degree and leaving my shitty life behind. My anxiety got in the way--I didn't have a pen, but I couldn't bring myself to approach the nice girl sitting next to me and ask to borrow one of hers. I didn't have a study partner because I was terrified of strangers. The professor had a thick Korean accent and his descriptions of Venn diagrams would have gone right over my math-deficient head anyway. I skipped all study groups to avoid talking to people. I flunked the class, gave up on college and switched to part-time at a different school. I used my scholarship to take Japanese and Composition instead. Then I "took a semester off" because I finally realized I was having too many issues to focus on schoolwork.
For the next five years, I maintained a holding pattern. Work on the comic, do the art, hide in the bedroom, shelve the books. My only social communication was with my few friends or the people I helped at work. We moved out of the apartment where my Mom and I had weathered 9/11, and I retreated into my one-room hovel in my sister's backyard, shrugged off the lack of running water and heat, wondered if I might be autistic, came out as transgendered, dissociated and ranted on the internet and injured myself for kicks. I remember it as good times but it was really kind of pathetic. All alone in a little party house with my bad music and the undefined substances crusted into the carpet. Chest strapped flat, nails through my ears while my right eyeball flared up red and swollen every day from the layers of dust I swam through. Family drama alienated me from all relatives except my Mom. I kept in touch with the world outside through my modem.
I started going to cons. Met Seebs, Rah and Jesse for the first time at Anime Central 2004. I had been planning to stay with Rah, but when we all started talking at the tables it was nakama at first sight and we stayed in the same hotel room for the rest of the weekend. I didn't buy my next $80 bus ticket to Canada; instead Jess and Seebs brought me home from the convention to stay at their place in Saint Paul. They extended pseudopods and replaced my plans to go back to Nebraska with the urge to go native, which I did. Told my Mom I wasn't coming home except to pack my shit. She was sad, but my brother was getting out and she wanted to live with him anyway. I gleefully jettisoned my home life and never looked back. I didn't call her enough. I still feel sad that I didn't call her enough, but I just forgot. I knew I'd regret it very soon but I forgot.
Then Mom died. I went back to Nebraska to be with her during the end, got sick, came home, went back but I was too late. She died the night before I returned, and I was on the phone as it happened. The funerals weren't bad. She was polyfaithful so there were two, plus the wake where I wore an offensive T-Shirt to piss off the relatives who didn't like me anyway. My brother and I made up and I gave him a wad of money from comic fan donations to pay the funeral director for one pitiful box of ashes with a side of shitty attitude.
Now I had no connection to my past. Now I've been kissing-close to death and I realized I was wasting my life. Everything I felt was now under scrutiny as suspected bullshit. Two months later I had a petty disagreement with my childhood friend and he dumped me. I couldn't muster the willpower to apologize first like I always did, and because he never learned how to apologize at all we ended up never speaking again. One more piece of my old life fell away. Rain moved to North Carolina a few months after that, and I got depressed. I adopted a dog to force myself out of my head and being responsible for him got me through the worst of the sadness. Dogs and cats do their best to cure the blues by being small and pettable and needy, and in return we make sure their bellies stay full. It's a good trade.
The household moved to a small town where the atmosphere is much more laid-back. There are two colleges here, and I started thinking about going back to school. Thinking I didn't have what it takes to be a student, I was too old, too dumb, too anxious.
Then the accident happened, and I guess almost dying must have knocked some sense into me. Suddenly I was making plans instead of daydreaming about them. Small plans at first--see a dentist, find a good vet in town--and then larger ones followed from that. I got a therapist and a psychiatrist because I was overwhelmed, instead of hiding in my room and hoping the world would forget about me. The therapist hooked me up with health care and pointed me at assistance programs. Things became possible.
I re-established contact with my Dad, and we're slowly getting to know each other again. I really love the guy, but we've got to tread lightly for a while at least. I've always hated the idea of wasting my life, but now I feel more like there's something I can do about it. Medication helps with a lot of this, but some of it was just plain good luck.
So where am I now? Making plans. Establishing normal living activities like schedules and chores. Learning to work with the ADHD meds, and I've just started Zoloft for the social anxiety and OCD. I'm creating a new routine to replace the flawed one that was more of a prison than a refuge. There is comfort in routine, and just lately mine's been changing quite a bit and creativity has taken a backseat to the real world. I figure it's now or never--I either ride this wave or spend more years in the holding pattern. I'm impatient to get back to the old habits that I enjoy--comics and writing being the two major ones--but so far they haven't found where they fit in my new life. Creativity is kind of like a cat that will curl up in your lap if you stay put, but if you move around too much it gets pissed and wanders off for a while. Luckily creativity and cats are also sort of stupid, and will eventually come back for another try.
Hopefully within the next month or so I'll wake up with that cat back on my lap so I don't have to go chase it down like I've been doing. My comic is about to go awesome places and I'm getting annoyed by how slowly it's unfolding compared to the four-pages-a-week powerhouse of yesteryear.
Things go well at home. The Captain's nose is turning pink at the base. I still haven't mailed off the buttons for the folks who donated to get his vitiligo diagnosed, but I've got all the info here and will be getting to it as soon as I can. This damn cold isn't helping much, but it's slowly getting better.
Also, I've begun to think about college again. Scary stuff, but why not? "Too old" is bullshit anyway. I feel certain I'd make a better student in my 30s than I ever was in my teens.
That's it for now. Musings on a quiet Wednesday morning while the sky is gray and the snow is a few layers thicker than it was last time I blogged. Hope you're all well.
November 12, 2008
Things Are Getting Better
Everything is going well. I have an appointment for an EMG coming up, my asthma meds are doing their job, therapy is going to interesting places and my blood sugar is settling down a bit. I've been getting lots of exercise again, and last night I even managed an hour at the gym for the first time since You Know When.
And last night, it snowed! The whole town was pale purple and I had to hover around 20 miles an hour on the highway or risk slippery death just getting home from the gym. Fantastic.
Last but not least, I'm back in contact with my father. The other day while I was in the shower, thinking thoughts the way I do, I realized that I want to know more about the guy and my own roots. So I sent him an email asking him to tell it to me. So far the results have been pretty interesting. My family has one fucked up backstory. I'm glad I took that shower.
And last night, it snowed! The whole town was pale purple and I had to hover around 20 miles an hour on the highway or risk slippery death just getting home from the gym. Fantastic.
Last but not least, I'm back in contact with my father. The other day while I was in the shower, thinking thoughts the way I do, I realized that I want to know more about the guy and my own roots. So I sent him an email asking him to tell it to me. So far the results have been pretty interesting. My family has one fucked up backstory. I'm glad I took that shower.
October 30, 2008
Medical Fun!
Had the first doctor visit this week. We talked about my blood sugar problems and she said he was pretty sure it wasn't diabetes (YAY) but we'll do the fasting/tolerance thing to make sure. He prescribed me Adavair and a new albuterol inhaler, and then we talked about my wrists. He used a little rubber hammer to tap on the base of my hand and I felt it all the way in my fingers, worse on the right side. I could barely do the hold-hands-together test because the left one hurts so badly.
At first he told me to just continue taking anti-inflammatory drugs and bracing the wrists at night, but I told him I've been doing that and it's getting worse and I'd like to try the next step up to stop it. Lately I wake up with both hands feeling numb and weak, and I can't hold a fork or a pen without losing the feeling in my thumb and half my fingers. If I set the pen down and flex the fingers the blood rushes back in, but that only lasts a few minutes. I can't draw like I used to, and I can't lift free-weights or ride a bike comfortably.
He said that in cases where the pain wakes you up at night or you start losing grip strength it's time to look into surgery, and that's right around where I am now (although I don't recall waking up at night, I'm sure yelping in pain in the early morning counts). He's referred me to a neurologist for an EMR(?) test. Basically they're going to stick needles in my arms and run a charge through to see whether the signal slows down in the carpal tunnel area. I have been offered cortisone shots in both wrists to temporarily relieve inflammation, and if that doesn't work, there's always surgery. At this point I am absolutely committed to whatever it takes to get my hands to stop buzzing and going numb on me when I try to draw. It's so hard to lose yourself in the work when the work is hurting you!
Cross your fingers y'all. Lord knows I can't. I go back next week for a physical, and am hoping all goes well and my heart isn't likely to asplode at the gym or something.
Had a two hour bike ride with the Captain today, the longest since you-know-when. His hurt toe didn't bother him at all, but I kept our speed down and the bike in low gear for my knee's sake. We were mostly on the sidewalks (legal in this town) so the Captain could pad along on the soft grass instead of the harsh street surface. We went all over the place. Even to the dog park, which was empty, so I brought in my bike and rode around with the Captain chasing me until he was good and exhausted.
During the ride I tried so hard to induce an asthma attack, pedaling as fast as I could and breathing through my mouth, but nothing happened. This new medication is fucking amazing. I'd forgotten what it was like to be able to go all-out physically and still be able to breathe without my lungs shrinking to the size of itchy, burning little raisins.
Life is good.
At first he told me to just continue taking anti-inflammatory drugs and bracing the wrists at night, but I told him I've been doing that and it's getting worse and I'd like to try the next step up to stop it. Lately I wake up with both hands feeling numb and weak, and I can't hold a fork or a pen without losing the feeling in my thumb and half my fingers. If I set the pen down and flex the fingers the blood rushes back in, but that only lasts a few minutes. I can't draw like I used to, and I can't lift free-weights or ride a bike comfortably.
He said that in cases where the pain wakes you up at night or you start losing grip strength it's time to look into surgery, and that's right around where I am now (although I don't recall waking up at night, I'm sure yelping in pain in the early morning counts). He's referred me to a neurologist for an EMR(?) test. Basically they're going to stick needles in my arms and run a charge through to see whether the signal slows down in the carpal tunnel area. I have been offered cortisone shots in both wrists to temporarily relieve inflammation, and if that doesn't work, there's always surgery. At this point I am absolutely committed to whatever it takes to get my hands to stop buzzing and going numb on me when I try to draw. It's so hard to lose yourself in the work when the work is hurting you!
Cross your fingers y'all. Lord knows I can't. I go back next week for a physical, and am hoping all goes well and my heart isn't likely to asplode at the gym or something.
Had a two hour bike ride with the Captain today, the longest since you-know-when. His hurt toe didn't bother him at all, but I kept our speed down and the bike in low gear for my knee's sake. We were mostly on the sidewalks (legal in this town) so the Captain could pad along on the soft grass instead of the harsh street surface. We went all over the place. Even to the dog park, which was empty, so I brought in my bike and rode around with the Captain chasing me until he was good and exhausted.
During the ride I tried so hard to induce an asthma attack, pedaling as fast as I could and breathing through my mouth, but nothing happened. This new medication is fucking amazing. I'd forgotten what it was like to be able to go all-out physically and still be able to breathe without my lungs shrinking to the size of itchy, burning little raisins.
Life is good.
Whoever loves, let him flourish. Let him perish who knows not love. Let him perish twice over whoever forbids love.
-Graffiti found on the wall of the House of Caecilius Iucundus, Pompeii.
October 29, 2008
No More Toes for the Captain.
Took the Captain in for his appointment today, to get his pink lips looked at. The Doc was pretty stumped and had to go get her reference and look through it for a while before coming back with the educated guest that Doggie has vitiligo. It's another Pointer tendency, from what she told me. I'm to watch for sores or crustiness in the affected areas as signs that there's something else going on, but in all likelihood he's fine beyond the skin color change. Fine by me--he can be Captain Jackson as long as he's healthy. I'll need to make sure he has sunscreen on the depigmented areas if it starts to creep up his nose, also.
While we were in the office, I had his paw looked at. Yesterday I woke up to the sound (and wetness!) of him licking his foot excessively. A claw was broken and splintered all the way back to the quick, and the wound was starting to smell a bit funky. I called as soon as I noticed and they said it would keep til the appointment. I duct-taped a sock onto his leg to stop him constantly licking the foot for much of the day. It sapped all his powers, that terrible sock. He could barely move other than to slither from floor to Best Chair and back again. Deep, abiding sighs in numbers too great to count--the whole canine guilt trip. Only ferrets forced to wear a harness can do the dance better than an intelligent dog. A ferret will go the extra mile and throw in a death rattle before going completely limp and still.
Once the vitiligo was out of the way, Doc called a technician to come and hold the Captain while she took care of the claw. I tried to distract my brave puppy with treats, but he lost interest the second the shears came out. Doc lopped the whole bloody claw off in one move, right down to the base of the split. The Captain screamed and wailed and bled all over the place. It was pretty terrible, and was followed by several minutes' worth of dark-eyed canine betrayal angst.
Doc calmed him down with several spoonfuls of the really good treats she keeps in the office for post-torture apologies, and the Captain relaxed a bit. A few minutes later he was doing tricks for snacks, albeit with more caution than usual.
The bright orange bandage they put on his foot was like a clingy, blood-stained business card for the Ministry of Silly Walks. Poor dude tried not to use that leg at all the whole time it was on, but his torment was not over yet. I took him to the pet food store and bought him a nice new pair of clippers. The old pair was getting dull, and I need to keep his nails extra short from now on to prevent this ever happening again. I also got some fish oil supplements because Pointers tend toward brittle claws, and our floor is hardwood with gaps between the boards. Doc says that's usually how talons get splintered.
I am pampering the shit out of my boy right now. Even still, he keeps glancing at me with this expression that says "You did this. You let them cut off my feet." Oh, Captain, you are such a fucking drama queen.
Also today, I opened up a bank account here in town. My previous bank was in Bellevue, NE, and I'm tired of the inconvenience. I am now considering getting a credit card. I've never had one before, and it's a bit intimidating. But I really should establish an emergency financial backup plan for the future.
While we were in the office, I had his paw looked at. Yesterday I woke up to the sound (and wetness!) of him licking his foot excessively. A claw was broken and splintered all the way back to the quick, and the wound was starting to smell a bit funky. I called as soon as I noticed and they said it would keep til the appointment. I duct-taped a sock onto his leg to stop him constantly licking the foot for much of the day. It sapped all his powers, that terrible sock. He could barely move other than to slither from floor to Best Chair and back again. Deep, abiding sighs in numbers too great to count--the whole canine guilt trip. Only ferrets forced to wear a harness can do the dance better than an intelligent dog. A ferret will go the extra mile and throw in a death rattle before going completely limp and still.
Once the vitiligo was out of the way, Doc called a technician to come and hold the Captain while she took care of the claw. I tried to distract my brave puppy with treats, but he lost interest the second the shears came out. Doc lopped the whole bloody claw off in one move, right down to the base of the split. The Captain screamed and wailed and bled all over the place. It was pretty terrible, and was followed by several minutes' worth of dark-eyed canine betrayal angst.
Doc calmed him down with several spoonfuls of the really good treats she keeps in the office for post-torture apologies, and the Captain relaxed a bit. A few minutes later he was doing tricks for snacks, albeit with more caution than usual.
The bright orange bandage they put on his foot was like a clingy, blood-stained business card for the Ministry of Silly Walks. Poor dude tried not to use that leg at all the whole time it was on, but his torment was not over yet. I took him to the pet food store and bought him a nice new pair of clippers. The old pair was getting dull, and I need to keep his nails extra short from now on to prevent this ever happening again. I also got some fish oil supplements because Pointers tend toward brittle claws, and our floor is hardwood with gaps between the boards. Doc says that's usually how talons get splintered.
I am pampering the shit out of my boy right now. Even still, he keeps glancing at me with this expression that says "You did this. You let them cut off my feet." Oh, Captain, you are such a fucking drama queen.
Also today, I opened up a bank account here in town. My previous bank was in Bellevue, NE, and I'm tired of the inconvenience. I am now considering getting a credit card. I've never had one before, and it's a bit intimidating. But I really should establish an emergency financial backup plan for the future.
October 20, 2008
PRODUCTIV'D
Today was my day off. So naturally I
Next up: Mail arts, find bedframe that will fit this futon mattress for a reasonable price, finish some bitches and ship off the keychains people have ordered.
FUN TIMES!
Oh yeah, and ZippoMage--you are indeed correct. Maxtor is fucked but the data seemed to be OK. Seebs has backed it all up and we're going to lobotomize the drive and repurpose it as simple external storage, the way God intended. Bummer because I liked having automated backups every week, but the heart attack when it plays catch-me-fuck-me with my data just ain't worth it.
Now I think I'll go to bed.
- Collected and mailed off the last paperwork for lawyer guy.
- Filled out and sent in my paperwork to choose a health plan (ended up being Blue Plus).
-Called around til I had a clinic and a dentist to use as my primaries.
-Called Anytime Fitness and discovered that yes, I really DO owe them another month's pay plus failed transaction fees because they switch members to a month-by-month auto renewal deal when your contract runs out, and I also need to give them 30 days' notice when I quit. My own damn fault for assuming it'd just run out on its own without checking my contract. Maybe I should just start going again like I've been wanting to since the weather got colder, and give notice in Spring.
-Paid Netflix.
-Found the Miracle Fruit I bought on eBay but which supposedly never arrived. It had been sitting on the kitchen table in plain sight all this time. Still doesn't explain why the seller never got back to my polite inquiry, though. (IT'S CALLED KARMA YOU FUCKING FLAKE.)
-Grocery'd!
-Inspired by a post in the cooking LJ community, combined two boxes of Spice Cake mix with 30 oz of canned pumpkin and 2 1/2 cups of water (no oil, no eggs). Baked into fist-sized loaf cakes at 350 degrees for ~30 minutes, and ate two a la mode right there. Snorf grampkl nom nom nom. Tasted exactly like pumpkin pie, left me with a fuckton of batter for later batches, and a person would have to be an idiot to fuck up the recipe.
-Finished inking the comic for this week. Holygod so much hatching!
-Called the CHR and made appointments with Dr. D and the resident psychiatrist using my SHINY NEW MEDICAL CARD.
-Laundry'd!
Next up: Mail arts, find bedframe that will fit this futon mattress for a reasonable price, finish some bitches and ship off the keychains people have ordered.
FUN TIMES!
Oh yeah, and ZippoMage--you are indeed correct. Maxtor is fucked but the data seemed to be OK. Seebs has backed it all up and we're going to lobotomize the drive and repurpose it as simple external storage, the way God intended. Bummer because I liked having automated backups every week, but the heart attack when it plays catch-me-fuck-me with my data just ain't worth it.
Now I think I'll go to bed.
October 18, 2008
Hacking My Life, More
I am having a good week. The dental clinic isn't taking new MinnCare patients, but they referred me to one that has plenty of openings for my December cleaning. I still need to select a plan, but my medical card arrived today. I could break my face and as long as I had it, my credit rating would not be destroyed along with my looks. This is soothing as fuck.
I can go to the shrink every week and not have to cancel any more appointments due to financial unsettlement--and apparently get reimbursed for some or all of the bills racked up after August 22. I can get a bedframe and take the Captain to the vet to have his bald lip thing checked out just from what I spent out of my own money, not to mention Jesse and Seebs getting back what they comped me.
Online, people are buying my Gender WTF keychains. Offline, I got a paycheck for the first time in years for the window display. Spent it on kinky sunglasses. Sweet Jesus!
Also, I have everything I need to submit for payment via my lawyer, which is awesome because the hospital bills are being turned over to collections as we speak. Oops.
I have found tutorials for transforming buttons even 1" in diameter into necklaces, keychains and hair ornaments and the parts I need turned out to be fairly cheap. I have Ideas about how to utilize the discoveries. Oh yes, such ideas.
Gui visited this week, and it was pretty cool. We watched the entire first season of Pushing Daisies and took the Captain for a bike run all through town. The other night, it was getting on toward sundown so I drove Gui and Rah through Big Woods State Park to check out the autumn landscape. We were lovejacked by somebody's farm dog while driving slowly through the woods. Photos were taken, and eventually he let us 'chase' him with the car for a few hundred feet, before running home with his less adventurous black lab companion.
Dogs.
I can go to the shrink every week and not have to cancel any more appointments due to financial unsettlement--and apparently get reimbursed for some or all of the bills racked up after August 22. I can get a bedframe and take the Captain to the vet to have his bald lip thing checked out just from what I spent out of my own money, not to mention Jesse and Seebs getting back what they comped me.
Online, people are buying my Gender WTF keychains. Offline, I got a paycheck for the first time in years for the window display. Spent it on kinky sunglasses. Sweet Jesus!
Also, I have everything I need to submit for payment via my lawyer, which is awesome because the hospital bills are being turned over to collections as we speak. Oops.
I have found tutorials for transforming buttons even 1" in diameter into necklaces, keychains and hair ornaments and the parts I need turned out to be fairly cheap. I have Ideas about how to utilize the discoveries. Oh yes, such ideas.
Gui visited this week, and it was pretty cool. We watched the entire first season of Pushing Daisies and took the Captain for a bike run all through town. The other night, it was getting on toward sundown so I drove Gui and Rah through Big Woods State Park to check out the autumn landscape. We were lovejacked by somebody's farm dog while driving slowly through the woods. Photos were taken, and eventually he let us 'chase' him with the car for a few hundred feet, before running home with his less adventurous black lab companion.
Dogs.
October 10, 2008
MinnCare A Lot
Seebs messaged me earlier to let me know that a package had arrived for me. It was a big envelope from Social Services, congratulating me on being poor enough to qualify for MinnCare coverage of my very own.
The cover letter went on to explain that now that I am officially registered, I need to go through the phonebook-sized stack of booklets, fill out some final forms, and choose one of the three plans available in my area. Basically, I need to call around and check to see which plan the various local medical facilities accept. Then I choose the plan that suits me best based on which one turns out to be the most convenient, and wait for my medical card to arrive.
Reading through the packet boggles my mind. Glasses, dental care, mental health, checkups, even freakin' chiropractors--it's all covered. I even get a copay on medicine prescriptions with a monthly limit of like $15.
The office of my therapist, who pushed me into going through with this in the first place, accepts MinnCare. So now I can go back and see her every week until she's thoroughly sick of me.
And I can finally get asthma medication to replace my dead mother's inhaler (which expired in 2004)! And have my wisdom teeth removed! And get my wrist problems checked out! And suffer through my first physical since 1994!
It's like moving to Canada but without the curiously sweet ketchup or the thousands of dollars' worth of immigration fees and citizenship testing. I'm rich, I tell ya! Rich beyond the dreams of avarice!
Next stop: FOOD STAMPS :)
The cover letter went on to explain that now that I am officially registered, I need to go through the phonebook-sized stack of booklets, fill out some final forms, and choose one of the three plans available in my area. Basically, I need to call around and check to see which plan the various local medical facilities accept. Then I choose the plan that suits me best based on which one turns out to be the most convenient, and wait for my medical card to arrive.
Reading through the packet boggles my mind. Glasses, dental care, mental health, checkups, even freakin' chiropractors--it's all covered. I even get a copay on medicine prescriptions with a monthly limit of like $15.
The office of my therapist, who pushed me into going through with this in the first place, accepts MinnCare. So now I can go back and see her every week until she's thoroughly sick of me.
And I can finally get asthma medication to replace my dead mother's inhaler (which expired in 2004)! And have my wisdom teeth removed! And get my wrist problems checked out! And suffer through my first physical since 1994!
It's like moving to Canada but without the curiously sweet ketchup or the thousands of dollars' worth of immigration fees and citizenship testing. I'm rich, I tell ya! Rich beyond the dreams of avarice!
Next stop: FOOD STAMPS :)
September 18, 2008
Canadian Geese All Up In My Sky
The only thing I know about this election so far is that Obama's volunteers work truly ass hours up there in the local headquarters, and that if I never hear the word maverick again it'll be too fucking soon. I've been watching McCain campaign ads with the sound turned off, but it hasn't helped.
Palin's a milf, though. I'd sure like to make her pretend to birth MY secret teen sex baby, if you know what I mean. *Eyebrow wiggle.*
Got all the icons done! Am now taking ten more. It's a bunch at one time, but I'd like to see what RitalAIDS will do to a new commission. Hopefully it'll help keep on top of things as well as letting me finish the old ones.
I'm working on some other projects, including that huge overdue comic from waybackwhen. Kagerou is kicking me in the face yelling WORK ON ME LUKA WORK ON MEEE and crying when I tell it "wait your turn, cookie-pants."
If this keeps up I'll start dreaming about it.
The local art store is now selling Rah's chibi buttons and my flower ones. No idea what the interest level will be, but it'll be fun to find out. We're also working on designs for the store's Halloween display. I'm drawing the monsters, and Rah and Jess will ink and color them and we'll all have to figure out how to hang them up in the window.
This is the most social and normal I've ever been as an adult. My conservative half chalks much of it up to my usual self having a really good couple of weeks, but it sure started abruptly, and at the exact time I caught the RitalAIDS. Unfortunately, so did my latest bout of problems with blood sugar. I can't fuck around on this medicine--when the blood sugar plunges while I'm taking it, the result is the most unpleasant headache/dizziness in the universe. So I've cut out most sweet stuff and am trying to eat regular meals and not just 'whenever I am so hungry I will eat anything that does not bite me or run away.' Not doing too well, so I may need to see a doctor.
There is one tree down the street from our house that has already gone to full-on, neon autumn colors. It's surrounded by green on all sides, and every morning when the sun starts to peek over the treetops and I always do a double-take because it looks like it's on fire. Neat.
Palin's a milf, though. I'd sure like to make her pretend to birth MY secret teen sex baby, if you know what I mean. *Eyebrow wiggle.*
Got all the icons done! Am now taking ten more. It's a bunch at one time, but I'd like to see what RitalAIDS will do to a new commission. Hopefully it'll help keep on top of things as well as letting me finish the old ones.
I'm working on some other projects, including that huge overdue comic from waybackwhen. Kagerou is kicking me in the face yelling WORK ON ME LUKA WORK ON MEEE and crying when I tell it "wait your turn, cookie-pants."
If this keeps up I'll start dreaming about it.
The local art store is now selling Rah's chibi buttons and my flower ones. No idea what the interest level will be, but it'll be fun to find out. We're also working on designs for the store's Halloween display. I'm drawing the monsters, and Rah and Jess will ink and color them and we'll all have to figure out how to hang them up in the window.
This is the most social and normal I've ever been as an adult. My conservative half chalks much of it up to my usual self having a really good couple of weeks, but it sure started abruptly, and at the exact time I caught the RitalAIDS. Unfortunately, so did my latest bout of problems with blood sugar. I can't fuck around on this medicine--when the blood sugar plunges while I'm taking it, the result is the most unpleasant headache/dizziness in the universe. So I've cut out most sweet stuff and am trying to eat regular meals and not just 'whenever I am so hungry I will eat anything that does not bite me or run away.' Not doing too well, so I may need to see a doctor.
There is one tree down the street from our house that has already gone to full-on, neon autumn colors. It's surrounded by green on all sides, and every morning when the sun starts to peek over the treetops and I always do a double-take because it looks like it's on fire. Neat.
September 3, 2008
The Stones of Autumn
I made some buttons from some early Autumn leaves I found yesterday:
Also yesterday I saw the Doc again for another round of diagnostic tests. Good God.
I mean it's one thing to suspect there might be a number of things very very wrong with me. Having a psychologist read off a laundry list of diagnoses and tell me I should set up an appointment to see a psychiatrist in October because a physician would be overwhelmed trying to find the right med combination in my case? Different. Definitely an experience.
We did confirm that I'm fairly fortunate in one respect. My issues are, as a group, utterly catastrophic--but taken individually, they wouldn't be nearly as crippling. This will make treatment less of a tightrope walk, from what I gathered talking to Dr. D.
It eases my fear of going out the way Mom did, my OCD and anxiety getting worse and worse and worse until finally modern medicine can't even keep me stable during an induced coma because I'm so anxious I fight the damn ventilator no matter what magic mushroom mega mix they put in my IV.
Preventative care FTW, I reckon! (Even though I'm broke again.)
Also yesterday I saw the Doc again for another round of diagnostic tests. Good God.
I mean it's one thing to suspect there might be a number of things very very wrong with me. Having a psychologist read off a laundry list of diagnoses and tell me I should set up an appointment to see a psychiatrist in October because a physician would be overwhelmed trying to find the right med combination in my case? Different. Definitely an experience.
We did confirm that I'm fairly fortunate in one respect. My issues are, as a group, utterly catastrophic--but taken individually, they wouldn't be nearly as crippling. This will make treatment less of a tightrope walk, from what I gathered talking to Dr. D.
It eases my fear of going out the way Mom did, my OCD and anxiety getting worse and worse and worse until finally modern medicine can't even keep me stable during an induced coma because I'm so anxious I fight the damn ventilator no matter what magic mushroom mega mix they put in my IV.
Preventative care FTW, I reckon! (Even though I'm broke again.)
August 27, 2008
Best Chair and Kefka's Prayer
The gods have heard my cry for more furniture to populate my crack-den looking bedroom! While I was biking with the Captain tonight, I found a tiny gray-blue rocker/recliner by the roadside with a FREE sign on it.
It looked okay, but I've done this dance before. First thing to do with free shit is always, always perform a sniff test. It smelled like somebody's nice clean apartment, so I checked all over for nasty shit--bugs, burn marks, vomit inside the cushions. Nothing wrong there either. So I sat in it and reclined to check for broken parts or random collapsing furniture disorder.
Nothing seemed amiss, although there was one small tear on the footrest and a small red stain on the backrest (not blood). It fit perfectly into the station wagon, too. After Seebs and Rah carried it up the stairs for my crippled worthless ass, I spent the next two hours lying in it, playing video games and occasionally demanding my roomies each come and admire the Best Chair Ever.
FACT! Best Chair is super squishy and just the right size for a short wad of Lukas to snuggle up on.
FACT! The little stain took three seconds to scrub out using 409 and a rag, and the rip is on the bottom and won't even show if I take the trouble to mend it.
FACT! It provides support for my neck while I watch DVDs on the computer. This will help the healing process.
FACT! Nobody cares about Best Chair but me.
In less perseverative news, I had another psych appointment today. Dr. D wanted to see my art, so I showed her on her laptop. Kind of awkward since she's such a nice lady and my sense of humor is awfully rough around the edges, but hey--this is someone I'm paying to get to know me better. Sooner or later she'll find out I draw My Little Ponies on fire and girls with masses of eyeballs instead of cooters, so it might as well be sooner.
I also did a little depression quiz thing, and am assigned the task of picking a local doctor so I can get a prescription for ritalin.
Also I screwed up and forgot to ask lawyer guy to send the Northfield clinic their own separate proof that I've retained him, so they're threatening to send my bill to collections.
Hmm. You know, next time somebody brushes off ADHD as no big deal, I should show them a printout of my credit rating. I don't want to become diagnosis-becomes-my-catchall-scapegoat guy, but if the shoe fits...
FACT! I was sleeping this morning and the dog started scratching himself in his sleep. He was kicking the wall Rah and I share so loudly it woke me up. I made him get off the bed, and he fear-peed all over my nice soft blanket AND it got on my sheet. I suppose I should be happy that this has only happened a couple of times in the past year of dog ownership, but I can't pretend visions of luau roasts weren't dancing in my groggy head.
Completely unrelated, but I composed this earlier and need to write it down so I don't forget:
THE INSANITY PRAYER
Lord, grant me the ambition to conquer the world,
The power to enslave mankind with my Ray of Judgment,
And the badass final boss mutations to kill any spunky heroes who invade my dungeon and try to make a difference.
Amen.
It looked okay, but I've done this dance before. First thing to do with free shit is always, always perform a sniff test. It smelled like somebody's nice clean apartment, so I checked all over for nasty shit--bugs, burn marks, vomit inside the cushions. Nothing wrong there either. So I sat in it and reclined to check for broken parts or random collapsing furniture disorder.
Nothing seemed amiss, although there was one small tear on the footrest and a small red stain on the backrest (not blood). It fit perfectly into the station wagon, too. After Seebs and Rah carried it up the stairs for my crippled worthless ass, I spent the next two hours lying in it, playing video games and occasionally demanding my roomies each come and admire the Best Chair Ever.
FACT! Best Chair is super squishy and just the right size for a short wad of Lukas to snuggle up on.
FACT! The little stain took three seconds to scrub out using 409 and a rag, and the rip is on the bottom and won't even show if I take the trouble to mend it.
FACT! It provides support for my neck while I watch DVDs on the computer. This will help the healing process.
FACT! Nobody cares about Best Chair but me.
In less perseverative news, I had another psych appointment today. Dr. D wanted to see my art, so I showed her on her laptop. Kind of awkward since she's such a nice lady and my sense of humor is awfully rough around the edges, but hey--this is someone I'm paying to get to know me better. Sooner or later she'll find out I draw My Little Ponies on fire and girls with masses of eyeballs instead of cooters, so it might as well be sooner.
I also did a little depression quiz thing, and am assigned the task of picking a local doctor so I can get a prescription for ritalin.
Also I screwed up and forgot to ask lawyer guy to send the Northfield clinic their own separate proof that I've retained him, so they're threatening to send my bill to collections.
Hmm. You know, next time somebody brushes off ADHD as no big deal, I should show them a printout of my credit rating. I don't want to become diagnosis-becomes-my-catchall-scapegoat guy, but if the shoe fits...
FACT! I was sleeping this morning and the dog started scratching himself in his sleep. He was kicking the wall Rah and I share so loudly it woke me up. I made him get off the bed, and he fear-peed all over my nice soft blanket AND it got on my sheet. I suppose I should be happy that this has only happened a couple of times in the past year of dog ownership, but I can't pretend visions of luau roasts weren't dancing in my groggy head.
Completely unrelated, but I composed this earlier and need to write it down so I don't forget:
THE INSANITY PRAYER
Lord, grant me the ambition to conquer the world,
The power to enslave mankind with my Ray of Judgment,
And the badass final boss mutations to kill any spunky heroes who invade my dungeon and try to make a difference.
Amen.
June 14, 2008
Riding the Wave of Sane
I decided to try the Adam Carolla method for fixing your life if you're a walking disaster area. Basically, when faced with a problem, ask yourself "what would a sane person do?" and do that, no matter what you personally want to do.
So here's a list I compiled of what a sane person in my situation would do:
1. Clear up what's left of my docket of overdue tasks:
3. Get the shrink appointment. Get diagnosed and, if necessary, medicated for the crippling social issues and anxiety that make me withdraw from the world and keep me from getting anything done. Contrary to my previous assumption, the proper time to set up an appointment is probably when I'm in my right mind and capable of setting it up, NOT when I'm so overloaded I can't pick up a phone.
4. Learn to complete commissions on time so I can make art my job, meet my expenses and become independent. Or, failing that,
5. Get a part-time job that forces me to interact with the world.
I have already made a fairly decent headway by using the Adam Carolla method. I've gotten the vet stuff done, seen a dentist and had my teeth dealt with, and put myself on a shaky but tolerable schedule of household chores that serve to anchor me to a sense of time. These small and overdue successes have led to significant improvements in my overall mood, plus a general feeling of can do, can fix, can achieve.
Proving to myself through action and effort that I'm not helpless to change my life means I will not be as likely to give up on future efforts before I've properly tried. A few bad doctor experiences, family dramas, and financial setbacks have retarded my development for years, and I'm so tired of apathetically taking it up the ass.
A sane person would fight back, especially against the self-destructive urge to withdraw and give up because sometimes things suck a lot.
So that's what I'm gonna do.
So here's a list I compiled of what a sane person in my situation would do:
1. Clear up what's left of my docket of overdue tasks:
- Kagerou commission
- Pirate comic
- A-Kon sketchbook commission
- Tonbo/Nick art for Megan
- Pay A-Kon related taxes
- Color "Something Wicked This Way Flops"
- Remix another chapter of Kagerou
3. Get the shrink appointment. Get diagnosed and, if necessary, medicated for the crippling social issues and anxiety that make me withdraw from the world and keep me from getting anything done. Contrary to my previous assumption, the proper time to set up an appointment is probably when I'm in my right mind and capable of setting it up, NOT when I'm so overloaded I can't pick up a phone.
4. Learn to complete commissions on time so I can make art my job, meet my expenses and become independent. Or, failing that,
5. Get a part-time job that forces me to interact with the world.
I have already made a fairly decent headway by using the Adam Carolla method. I've gotten the vet stuff done, seen a dentist and had my teeth dealt with, and put myself on a shaky but tolerable schedule of household chores that serve to anchor me to a sense of time. These small and overdue successes have led to significant improvements in my overall mood, plus a general feeling of can do, can fix, can achieve.
Proving to myself through action and effort that I'm not helpless to change my life means I will not be as likely to give up on future efforts before I've properly tried. A few bad doctor experiences, family dramas, and financial setbacks have retarded my development for years, and I'm so tired of apathetically taking it up the ass.
A sane person would fight back, especially against the self-destructive urge to withdraw and give up because sometimes things suck a lot.
So that's what I'm gonna do.
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