Things I could do with myself instead of worrying about how I have no internet or cable

It's been a few days since poorness required me to take time off from my close and loving relationship with the internet on my computer, and it's hard. Me and the internet were made for each other, and it's still weeks before I can upgrade / properly replace my phone to one that almost works like a computer, and get back online more easily and naturally through my data plan. In the meantime, here's a pep-talk-list for myself--and for you, if you're in a similar situation:

1. Meditate on the ways the world likes to block my dependence on dumb things, and see if there's some deep and meaningful epiphany hiding in there.
2. Read the rest of those three books I've started and not finished this week, and then move on to other books.
3. Figure out how to bake a gluten free cake, because a situation like this sort of requires cake.
4. Sleep more.
5. Spend some time outside.*
6. Write more. Because, yeah, I need to anyway, and now there should be more time and less distraction, right?
7. Watch through the DVDs that I own but mostly ignore because we have Netflix and On Demand and Hulu and cable, most of the time.
8. Depend on phone-app-Tumblr to tell me everything I need to know about my shows, if we're still without, when everything starts coming back.
9. Cry some. And make myself cry by composing terrible fanfic to fill the void.
10. Focus on the garden until it's super-flourishing, because there's nothing else to distract me, and also because plants will start going on late-season sales soonish.

I don't like this at all. I joke, but it's only partially because of my love of TV; it's mostly about how I hate being so poor that I have to sacrifice basic parts of culture (basic cable) and the literal most basic needs of my online business (internet) just to keep feeding myself. Which, really, is another point in favor of #10; I can focus on building up a garden so impressive that I can cut a large chunk of the food bill, and maybe free up cash? Even if I can't right now, halfway through summer, I can tell myself I'm doing that and maybe feel better about being so damned poor, right?

NOTES:

*This one is a possibility, but not likely, as it's about a million degrees outside all day long, and full of biting insects, and also smotheringly humid.

Sami's top ten rules for life

1. Be nice. Read as Wil Wheaton's "Don't be a dick". When faced with any situation where you can be nice or be a dick, pick nice.
1. Note that 'nice' does not mean 'be a pushover' or 'be a victim'; it means 'don't needlessly be hurtful or rude'.
2. Pay attention. Learn to know when people are tying to pull one over on you, but also learn when you should see the wonderfulness around you.
3. Ask questions and get answers. Don't take things at face value just because someone said them with a strong voice; ask why, ask when, ask 'how does that even start to make sense'. Learn how to find the answers, and teach others how to.
4. Do you. Aside from being a psychopath or something, you know what you want to do, so do it. Build the life you want. Live in accordance to your own beliefs. Don't be damaging to society, but also don't excuse the badness of society just because it's your culture.
5. Aim for healthy. For yourself, but also for the world, for your community, for your house and your kids and your pets and your garden. For conflict-resolution. For mental state.
6. Lessen your footprint. There's always a cleaner, kinder way to live. You don't have to turn eco-terrorist overnight, but think about these things--choose to be better. Pick farm-raised over battery-raised. Pick gas-saving over gas-guzzling. Pick walking over driving less than a mile. Pick up your trash. Recycle. Buy local.
7. Remember your lessons. Life is made of lessons, and if you aren't learning them--and the lessons your culture should have learned, you aren't doing your best to improve and avoid past mistakes, big and small.
8. Share. Knowledge, funds, food, stories, art, your talents, your gifts, your experience, this article you just read, this beautiful thing you just saw, this terrible news we can do something about. Share it all. Be open and ambitious with your sharing.
1. Don't ruin yourself, though; remember "Aim for healthy".
9. Build family. Not hate. Find the people you would have in your family if you got to choose, and keep those people around you.
10. Love. It's harder than hate, but it's so much better. Fight against the piles of bullshit that make people keep being mean and hurtful and scared and crazy, and replace them with love.

Top Ten Tuesday - Ideas that would make the world better if we implemented them

1. Teachers are super-important to the future not only of our children, but to the world the children will build
2. We aren't the bosses of everything; it's our responsibility to make sure we don't use everything up now, and that we make it easier to live lightly on the world in the future
3. Communities support communities, and it's up to the community to build the community it wants to be
4. Kids really can do stuff for themselves sometimes
5. We aren't the police of the entire world just because we have more guns; that's not really all that great a way to judge actual progress and usefulness
6. Smart is better than conformist or strong in this modern world; focus on making people smarter
7. Public transportation. Across the board.
8. Urban gardening can feed almost everyone it's needed to feed in a city
9. Buying local and supporting local business could totally change the economy and make the collapses we're weathering much less likely to happen again
10. Everyone in the world needs to travel to see how other people live at least once in their lives

What ideas do you think could change the world?

Top Ten Tuesday - Things that make life better

1. Repainting your nails any color you want
2. New haircuts that you love
3. Collectibles
4. Vacations--even really short ones
5. Cats who like you
6. Tea, all of it
7. Chocolate, all of it
8. Sleeping in because you don't need to be up yet
9. Babies laughing
10. Finding the exact thing you need to bring the room together

Top Ten Tuesdays - Places I want to visit

1. Ireland
2. Slovenia
3. All the places I used to live
4. Macchu Picchu
5. Sweden
6. The Redwood Forest
7. Stonehenge
8. The Moon
9. Tuscany
10. Skara Brae

What about you guys? Where do you most want to visit?

Top Ten Tuesdays - Some of my favorite songs

1. "What the Water Gave Me" - Florence + The Machine
2. "Little Talks" - Of Monsters and Men
3. "Karma Slave" - Splashdown
4. "Soul Meets Body" - Deathcab for Cutie
5. "Be My Wife" - David Bowie
6. "Blinding" - Florence + The Machine
7. "Love Is A Battlefield" - Pat Benetar
8. "Broken Wings" - Mister Mister
9. "Once In A Lifetime" - Wolfsheim
10. "Lullaby" - The Cure

What about you lovelies?

Top Ten Tuesday - Geeky items it would be super-useful to have in real life

1. Sonic screwdrivers
2. Tricorder
3. Spaceships that can fly faster than light
4. Ubiquitous supercomputing that you just have to talk to to get whatever you need
5. Holograms
6. Heads-up displays in our actual vision
7. Phasers
8. Scanners of all sorts
9. Replicators--the kind that make food and clothes, not the kind that take over the planet and kill everyone
10. Little robots who maintain things, fix things, plant things, etc

Top Ten Tuesday - Art supplies everyone should have in a box that's always on hand

1. Sketching pencils
2. Colored pencils
3. Watercolor pencils
4. Paper--a nice selection of it
5. A clipboard or other hard surface
6. Sharpies
7. Gel pens
8. Whichever paint you prefer and basic useful brushes
9. Scissors
10. Glue

I'm convinced you can make anything if you have these things.

Top Ten Tuesday - Things We Need In Sleepy Hollow

1. The obligatory shopping scene that next week pretty much promises us--but in the end he decides to keep his own clothes, and just have a tailor copy them so he has the ability to change his clothes.

2. Abby allowing just a little bit of fondness to show through, and Jenny jumping on it as proof that she likes him--then Crane walking in on that conversation and protesting that he's married, which shuts Abbie down and doesn't even faze Jenny.

3. Flashbacks of Jenny and Corbin working together to extract magical items from dangerous parts of the world--and doing their best to help people. Crane sharing some of his own adventures, A bid feeling left out--until he points out that these are her adventure stories.

4. Abbie agreeing to that other cop's attempts to rekindle their spark, but finding him boringly ordinary after everything she's seen; he decides to win her back though, and doesn't give up just because of one tepid date.

5. Modern Templars.

6. Also the Illuminati. 

7. Possibly Nazi Occultists.

8. Others who aren't on the side of either witch coven, but who wind up like Jenny and Abbie and Corbin, studying and dealing with this stuff, and surviving it. Both good ones and bad ones.

9. Other contacts in the supernatural world--seers, researchers, freelance witches, lesser spirits that don't want to kill the world, other ghosts...

10. Ichabod really feeling the loss of everything he knew and everyone he loved, and a moment quiet enough for him to really deal with how he can't go back and how strange and alien this world is now. Preferably before he has to lose Catrina again, because I want it to really feel like it comes from him.

Top Ten Tuesday - Reasons to journal

1. It lets you clean out old pains
2. It preserves current daily memories that would otherwise be forgotten
3. It also preserves great triumphs and the best days, as they are when you live them
4. It shows you the inside of yourself so that you can better understand yourself
5. It's a holistic view of your life, so you can see the patterns you miss when you're living it
6. "the unexamined life is not worth living" and this is exactly examining
7. Anything you put in your journal is journaling
8. A planner is really just a stripped down journal, and journaling can reclaim that day-to-day aspect
9. Have you seen all the awesome people in history who kept journals? You could be part of that group.
10. Clearing out your brain helps you sleep more and worry less

Top Ten Tuesday - Reasons why cats are awesome

1. They can just flop over wherever they're standing and take a nap, and people think that's cute
2. They're easily amused by things like laser pointers and a fly in the room
3. Like Jupiter, they put out more heat than they absorb
4. They purr at the exact frequency that helps bones heal and keeps them strong in old age
5. Look at those little paws!
6. No matter how they land, they always totally meant to do that
7. They're easily befuddled and therefore very entertaining
8. They let us pet their soft-soft fur
9. They used to be gods
10. They're essentially the same as a Tiger, but much more portable

Top Ten Tuesday - Nonessential things I'd spend money on if I had money

1. One of those full-room climby-things for Ninja
2. Full-body hair lasering
3. A personal hair stylist
4. A year-long trip around the world
5. An orchard with a selection of different fruits to eat
6. Weekly massages and spa days
7. A 1969 black Chevy Impala
8. A housekeeper, so I don't have to do it myself and therefore it won't get forgotten
9. A building to stock as my personal lending library
10. A computer that is top-of-the-line instead of second-to-bottom-of-the-line

Top Ten Tuesday - The most likable characters in Game of Thrones Season 1

Which I'm rewatching late at night when I can't sleep. Which is fairly common.

1. Arya
2. Syrio Forell
3. Dany
4. Nymeria
5. Tyrion Lannister
6. Jame Lannister
7. Jon Snow
8. Rennly
9. Bran
10. Samwell Tarly

Top Ten Tuesday - Favorite moments in my life

1. When expensive teas go on sale and I can get them cheap

2. When the cat decides of her own accord to cuddle up and be sweet

3. When my favorite shows do exactly what I always wanted them to do

4. Those conversations that are like sharing a brain with someone and that moment when you realize it

5. When I wake up early and the first thing I see is a beautiful day outside the window--and realize I can go back to sleep

6. Eating delicious food in a new restaurant

7. Finding a new song that I will love for all time

8. When the baby does something sweet and is so eased about it

9. Visiting old friends and snapping right back into the friendship as if you were never away

10. Tallying up the day's calories and finding that I still have 400 to spare and can therefore have seconds or dessert

What are your favorite moments?

Top Ten Tuesday - Things that are wildly unfair

1. The bites of baby bugs are just as itchy as the bites of adult bugs
2. Benedict Cumberbatch is never making out with me
3. November has so many new episodes of shows I love and is still so far away
4. Cats are allowed to sleep wherever and whenever they want and I'm not
5. Whoever designed the kitchen in my apartment was probably an orangutan
6. Thinking doesn't make me thinner, even when it's exhausting
7. I wait for summer for months, only to miss cool weather
8. It's past 4am and I'm still awake
9. There isn't an unlimited supply of chocolate in the house
10. Benedict Cumberbatch still isn't making out with me

Top Ten Tuesday - Ways To Save Money

1. Get used to having tousseled hair and spend less on styling products or give them up all together.
2. Adjust your personal clothing style to be more timeless than faddish, then find a thrift shop near a good part of town and buy things there.
3. Eat what's on sale and what's in season, and mealplan based on weekly sales at your local grocery store.
4. Give up meat once or twice a week-- you'd be surprised how much meat costs!
5. Find free cultural and community events to attend instead of paid ones.
6. Make your own lotions and things when you can.
7. Use coupons for everything.
8. Get rid of the disposable-life mentality; things aren't useless just because a newer model comes out, and you want something new--that's brainwashing at work, not reality. Save jars and bottles and boxes, and reuse them. Patch up clothes. Share things that aren't totally necessary to own yourself.
9. Actually save money--when the receipt says you saved three dollars, put three dollars in a jar and don't use it.
10. Cut back or remove money-eating habits like smoking, Starbucks, daily sodas, needless cab rides, paying for services you don't use.

How do you save money?

Top Ten Tuesday - Cutest Things Dogs Do

1. Shaking water off their fur so hard they kick their feet off the ground.
2. Putting their chin on your knee and looking up at you.
3. Wagging their tail so hard their butt bends back and forth.
4. Wiggling their butt before they launch into motion.
5. That doggy-smile when they're having fun.
6. Herding babies to keep them safe.
7. Being afraid of silly things like cats that live in the same house, or jello.
8. That head-tilt when they're trying really hard to understand you.
9. Giving hints that they want to go outside, like dropping their leash and ball on your feet and putting it back there when you move it.
10. Dreaming with the little whimpers and foot-kicks.

Top Ten Tuesday - Criminals With A Good Heart In Movies And Tv

1. The Transporter
2. Luc from French Kiss
3. Remington Steele
4. Most Irene Adlers
5. Patrick Jane
6. Sawyer from Lost...eventually
7. Captain Mal
8. Han Solo (and maybe Lando Calrissian)
9. Finch and Reese
10. Delores VanCartier

Top Ten Tuesday - Things That Are Improved With Sweetened Condensed Milk

1. Coconut cake
2. Coffee
3. Tea, especially spiced
4. A spoon
5. Instant pudding
6. Shaved Ice
7. Key lime pie innards
8. Custard
9. Fingers
10. Life

Top Ten Tuesday - Plants I Have Failed To Grow

1. Heirloom tomatoes
2. Thyme
3. Natal plums
4. Dragonfruit
5. Lychees
6. Honeysuckle and jasmine cuttings
7. Citruses of all varieties
8. Pears
9. Sea grapes
10. Lingonberries