What I'm doing with my life

Hello blogosphere! I don't post here nearly often enough. Right now, that's because I fear I'd just sound like a depressed broken record, but I'm getting to the point where I have to do something and I have to do it soon (and I really should have done it months ago) and I can't stand to hear myself being depressed and beaten down anymore.

I'm making plans.

Always a bad idea, I know, since nothing ever goes according to plan, but I have to do something or I'm going to just accidentally jump off a cliff or something. In Florida, which means I'll have to build a cliff and then accidentally jump off it. Which is too much trouble.

I've been applying for real-life jobs and online writing jobs left and right and I'm struggling to maintain faith that I actually know what I'm doing there, but it gets a little easier every time to put myself up for positions I really want. It's not that I don't think I can do the jobs so much as it's that I'm afraid of getting the job I want and then failing and being right back here. But I can't possibly do more than another year or so of a job I know I'll hate just because I need the money. I can't. I'll die in some fundamental way, and I won't become one of those beaten down, hateful waitresses that are all over TV, because I doubt some rich millionaire will fall for me and bring me back to the land of the living the way they do on TV and romcoms. Real life isn't that nice to me.

But what I'm really doing is trying to set up my life the way I want it. It started when I discovered Puttylike and Rightbrain Rockstar and then all the other people who are doing just that out there, and suddenly I was hopeful again. There really are people out there doing what I want to do. And they're successful at it! Which means I can do it, too, once I figure out how.

Right now, I'm looking at the list of things I like doing and trying to formulate an overarching theme, while pinpointing the life I actually want to be living. In no particular order, here's what I do know:

• I love writing more than I love any other job I've done, and I have Ideas I want to pursue there
• I love embroidery and silversmithing, and I want to make pretty things for peoples lives
• My dream house is not really a house so much as a collection of all those little movable houses that green designers keep putting gorgeous pictures of all over the internet--so I can take it with me and go anywhere
• I don't want to live in Florida anymore
• I do want a garden, even if the garden, too is portable--and maybe especially if it's portable
• I need to get some stamps in my passport before I go insane
• I need to work online because offices make me sad, but a good office is a different matter entirely
• I'm tired of being solitary, but any non-solitariness needs to happen on my own terms or I'm just going to feel smothered and bitter again
• I have far too much emotional investment in television, which means I need to make more of a living off it so that the investment matches the income
• I really, honestly love making video games that tell fun stories
• The Where Should I Live? test told me I should move to Bartimore--or Minesota, but I think Baltimore is more reasonable
• I like making lists and paperwork and handouts more than anyone else I've met
• I need sunlight to finction
• I am not a morning person, and I'm less each time I wake up in the morning
• I want to take up piano again, and learn to sing
• I'm so tired of being non-creative in large parts of my life that I feel like I could burst into flames--I'm already diagnosed as semi-dysfunctionally-rightbrained, and that isn't going to change so I should figure out how to use it

And that's what I have to work with

Space Gardening and you

This article in Utne says: "Researchers suspect that space gardens won’t be the primary source of sustenance on galactic missions, but fresh-picked vegetables will be a welcome addition to the cycle of processed and packaged meals.
“Along with reducing trash and launch mass requirements, such crops would give astronauts a little diet variety and psychological lift,” writes Witze. After all, even astronauts love to eat local."

It's a great little article with a good link to the source, and that's great for my research purposes, but I'm just left with the question: Why can't astronauts grow all their own food? The ideas exist for making frakking skyscraper farms, and most of the basic tech has already been developed. If new tech needs to be developed, it has a reason to get made right here. If astros do it, then other people can, too, and a ship headed to Mars is not really so different from a skyscraper. Meat might be a problem, but soy grows just about everywhere as far as I know, and there are plenty of plant-based forms of protein.

And if they're really planning a colony on Mars, wouldn't it be a jump-start to that colony's survival to already have plants that are alive and growing? Rather than starting from scratch when they get there?

I do agree with the psychological boost, though. Plants are proven to be soothing--we're wired to unwind in nature. Plus, they will give people something to do in the long stretches of time between needful emergencies (if all goes well). Maybe they can set up a whole hydroponics bay, and each astronaut can grow something just for pleasure in a corner of it, something not necessarily needed for food?

I'm pretty sure this is the wave of the future. I have a basically science-fictional, forward-looking mindset, and I think if the tech is there, if the chance to use it is there, we should all jump on that bandwagon early and enthusiastically before we have to scramble on out of dire need later. I mean, if it works on the way to Mars, then it'll work in orbit, which should be much easier, really. We could have space-farms feeding space colonies. We could claim all the living room this breeding species needs. So lets go do it.

Panic Attacks

So it happened again last night. That's two in the last week and a few of the lower-level roving sort in between. Someone said something a little mean to me and it just uncorked, like, half a years' worth of doubt and fear and sadness and annoyance, and I cried for two hours straight, maybe longer. Then spent two hours watching Sherlock to distract myself, and then another hour and  a half not sleeping.

This is what it's like when they're bad.

I know that there are triggers, and I generally know what they are-- certain foods, too much caffeine combined with too much stress, not eating well, being low on vitamins, depression, not writing enough-- but I hadn't realized that it was this bad. It seemed like I was coping, that I was pushing through and everything was fine, and then last night I just fell through the ice and couldn't find the way back up for a really long time.

It's not pleasant, dear readers. But I think I can ease it.

I'm lessening up on the tea / only drinking herbal until I even out again. I'm going to try to eat better, though I don't know how until I can get some income flowing. I'm going to write more; I haven't been writing enough, and it weighs on me and keeps me from emptying my brain and processing things. I'm going to flood my system with brain-friendly vitamins today and for the next few days. I'm going to try to get some time in for meditating. I'm going to try to sleep better.

I've had this condition long enough that I know I can do it. But the day after a bad attack always feels like looking up a steep mountain, and I really just want to hibernate until that mountain erodes to flat land.

End mope.

Guys, I'm in distress.

I haven't said much about it because I'm not that sort of drama-monger, but I'm just about broke. I have six dollars in my bank account, and I can afford rent for next month but none of my other bills and nothing at all for Feb. I don't know what to do with myself.

The only real upside is that the stress mad made me drop ten pounds. This is now how I want to lose it, however.

So here's what I'm asking you: How can I legally make enough money to keep my head above water? I've been applying online and in the real world for months and no one has called me back. I haven't sold any stories or poems yet. Reviewing doesn't make that much money. I need ideas. Quick, actionable tips. I'm out of ideas on my own.

Tech, singularity and the FYOOTURE

Over on io9 again. This time, talking about how everything is going to get worse before it gets better. It's an article about how environmental collapse forces change, and how in the long run, that's good. As usual, the comments went somewhere else. Here's my thoughts:

• If rejuvenation becomes a thing, the issue won't be that some can afford it and others can't; the issue will be that no one is dying off and leaving space for those who keep coming after. 
• If there's perfect and endless rejuvenation, it's not likely that it's going to be only for the rich OR only for everyone. Likely, it'll land somewhere in the middle, or it'll develop gradually so that people don't think about it-- or the whole issue will be drowned by some other tech spinoff / invention / discovery that no one saw coming and the whole path will be diverted somewhere else. In the 60s, we could have colonized the moon by now, but focusing on small tech devices was cheaper or whatever, and we have the internet instead.*
• One of the commenters thinks there'll be revolution, and soon. Just says it offhand like it's a foregone conclusion. I don't think there will be. I have no doubt that people will do crazy things and think it's a revolution at some point, but a full-on one? There's too many people here who can't be arsed to answer their phones, let alone live in a ditch somewhere, plotting a war. If it comes, I think it'll be more that people have chosen other ways of doing things, not by fighting, and the social pressure will force change.

* Incidentally, I'm old enough to have noticed as things changed. I was 24 when I got my first cellphone; my niece was seven. And then there's the ubiquity-- I know that for my senior project in high school, I used the library research books to get my info, but now, I don't know that I remember how. What the hell did I do before Wikipedia and Google??

Piercings are where it's at

I just looked at my stats, and the single most popular post in the last two years was one I did about piercing. Way back when I was looking at dermal anchors. Neat.

Nuclear blasts, propaganda and wondering

So over on io9, a discussion of Crystal Skulls* became a long comment thread about the pros and cons of the Indiana Jones movies**, and as of right now, this is the last post:

"Youtube old nuclear testing PSAs from the 50s. Yes, those weapons were destructive on a scale beyond conventional weapons but they were not unsurvivable. Those PSAs give some pretty detailed instructions on what to do to survive and what kinds of shelter would be adequate, and some of the suggestions are no less improvised than Indy's fridge dive. Hell, they even recommended, if nothing else was available, to lie flat in a ditch and let the blast wave pass over you. It wasn't guaranteed, and a hardened structure was much better, but it gave you a chance.

In the Japanese bombings, there were many survivors, some with no shelter at all. The radiation aftereffects were often worse than the initial blast, fallout's a bitch. Evacuation from the radiation zone and scrubbing like Indy got would have saved a lot of lives.

There was a reason they once preached "duck and cover" and sold basement bomb shelters. Against 50s era atomic weapons, they would work. Once modern megaton-range thermonuclear warheads were invented, that stopped. Because nothing would save you. Not even if your name was Indiana Jones. "

Because I live in a world where I might, it's possible, get nuked***, I'm sort of always collecting bits of info about what could happen in that event. I saw some of those videos once, and the drills they were offering were almost identical to the ones we were given in Okinawa for earthquakes and in Florida for tornadoes. I suppose that all big disasters have similar personnel issues--keeping everyone calm (and knowing what to do helps that), knowing where to look for survivors, etc--but I always have to wonder: how much of what they tell us to do is just so they can identify the bodies? How much is just giving us something to do so we're comforted, like on TV when they tell husbands to go boil water while their wives are delivering babies?


Maybe I'm just jaded or cynical****, but it seems like in even a small blast, or an earthquake, or whatever else, that if the thing is bad enough that you have to really worry about these things, it's probably bad enough to kill you anyway, even if you do duck and cover. This isn't to say I'm not going to duck and cover given the chance, but I have this skittery feeling that it's all just to keep me calm and put me somewhere where they can know who the red smear belongs to.


Cheerful, right?


---
* They say it's better than Temple of Doom; commentary is pretty much evenly divided. I think the skulls themselves are neat, mostly hoaxes, and not related to the Mayan calendar that isn't telling us the world is ending anyway, but make great story-starters because they're weird. Also, I agree that the fridge thing was WAY overblown. Literally.
** I like 1 and 3. I'm scared to see what they'll do to 5.
*** And because I'm a writer. And because I reached social consciousness just at the end of the Eastern Bloc and all that proliferation and all that losing of nukes. And because I've seen Terminator 2's opening dream sequence too many times and periodically I'll have dreams where everything is fine, and then there's a flash and the sky goes the wrong color, then a mushroom cloud, then I die, and I don't like that.
**** I probably am jaded and cynical to some extent. I'm also a writer, as I said, and it sort of makes you think through all the options and possibilities, even when they squick you out.
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Thankfulness

This year, I'm thankful for:

• This lovely new house, even if it's accompanied by my longest-running lack of ordinary work.
• That same lack of ordinary work that has let me put so much effort into getting my writing career off the ground, and getting the legs under my freelance writing career.
• For Hayden, Alex, Ally, Leo, Nick, Sam, Lauren, Christine, and everyone else who makes life fun.
• That my dad is still here, even being sick.
• That my mom is still here, even when they keep having to take parts out and turn her into a cyborg.
• That Alex's family just sucked me up like another cousin, without a second thought.
• That the cats are starting to get along, even if they still fight sometimes.
• That I'm finally free of a tourist town, for the most part.
• The Troublemakers, in their entirity.
• The intermittent Fall weather; it's better than no Fall weather at all!
• That I still have candied sweet potatoes and butter down there in the fridge, to eat for breakfast once I'm done here.
• For technology and all the neat things it lets me do (this next year is going to be full of side-projects, I can tell).
• For our yard, and the fact that there's enough of it for me to plant things in the spring and have a lovely garden.
• For Binka, who keeps me warm when it's cold.
• For all our wallspace, to finally hang up all our pictures.
• For unusual design and storage solutions that make this house ours, and not anyone elses.
• For the Muppet Movie I get to go see tonight.
• For the leftovers, even if I didn't get to boil down the carcass for broth this year (we'll just have to roast a chicken later).
• For the greeness and tree-ness of this place we live in.

Thank you!

Rules to Live By: 1 to 4

One of the ways I'm trying to improve my life is to have a defined set of rules to live by. I used to have note cards covered in rules when I was in highschool and I thought I could change the world, but they've all gone missing in the 20 or so moves since then, and I find I miss them. So I'm starting over from scratch. I'm a different person than I was then anyway, and I should  have new rules.

Maybe one day I'll publish all my rules together, when there's enough to form a book out of them, but I really think that while some will be universal, a lot of them are going to be personal, geared to correcting and improving my own individual quirks and weaknesses, and I think that's how it should be. The reason while societies lose their strict rules is because they don't apply to everyone, and people start bending and shifting them. People need their own sets of guidelines, and they should make their own. It's an extension of the first rule:

1. Be Accountable.
Whatever choices you make in life, you've made them, and you're the one responsible for how they turn out. That also means that you're the one responsible for how your life goes, and if you want it to be a certain way, you're the one to make it that way.

2. Don't be a dick.
This one's borrowed from Wil Wheton, and it very concisely says how to treat others--if what you're doing seems like something that you'd call someone a dick for doing to you, don't do it.

3. You aren't entitled.
Nobody is entitled. The world doesn't owe you anything you haven't earned, so if you want something, go out and earn it. Even if you're born to millions of dollars, go out and be worthy of getting them.

4. Do it now.
Whatever you're doing, don't put it off. I'm terrible about this, I put off all sorts of things even when I don't realize that I am, and it makes a backlog that I never quite catch up with. It's a constant struggle to keep up-to-date, and I'm getting better (I miss very few deadlines anymore), but it's necessary to keep it visible.

More will come, and they'll likely get more specific as I go, but here's the first four. What are your first four rules to live by?

This is where I am

I'm looking for a job. I have to, I'm almost broke again. But there's a problem, and it's called OH MY GOD, THAT'S GOING TO KILL ME.

There's a good and solid psychological reason why I left my last job, and it's the same reason I took the job before it and the same reason I left the one before that. I get so bored. I get so frustrated. And then I just can't take it any more. All I really want to do is be myself, make my own living, and be left alone, and that's a huge problem when it comes to working for other people, but business owners will almost never give a new employee that sort of benefit of the doubt.

But I need the money. So I've been looking. Online, in news papers, in person. And more and more, I think I need to start my own business. And then I found Puttylike. It's like coming home--it's not that I'm indecisive, it's that my brain won't be limited for long and my attention is branching, not linear. I know this already from various tests I tool in elementary and middle school, but this is a new context: I don't have to limit. It's not a matter of learning to be linear, it's a matter of learning to let my strengths guide me.

So I'm recasting this blog a little. It's already my place for almost everything that used to have its own blog. And now it's going to be the place where I work on building myself the world I want. Not just losing weight, not just mental health maintenance, but all of it. This is going to be my new world, and I'm going to make it into something I can live off of. You just watch me. I've got the first draft of a Theme in mind for this blog, finally, and I'm going to make it work.