To Forfeit and Disperse; To Pursue and Connect

Utagawa Kuniyoshi [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
This totally came up when I googled "too much stuff."

Next year is going to be a busy year for me.  I'm already in the planning stages.  More than, actually, as I'm due to start one of my 2018 projects new long soon (like within the next three days), and another shortly after.  Since the majority of both projects—I'm thinking long term here—will fall within 2018, I'm counting them as part of that year's project.  I'm taking a page from Ivy Bromius' book and breaking all of my goals into smaller actionable tasks that will ultimately help me accomplish my big goals.  I'm hoping this'll make it easier for me to stay on target, so to speak.  I bought a fancy fucking planner that is supposed to help me do all that.

Let's hope it works.

One of the things I'm considering, and have mostly decided to do, is getting rid of all my stuff.  Well, most of it anyway.  That is a huge project, one that means going through boxes packed in the basement, and looking at almost everything I've ever owned then deciding whether to keep, sell, donate, or toss.  Then arranging yard sales, ebay, and craigslist in the spring and summer, getting a donation truck to show up, throwing out everything that doesn't fit, and organizing the rest of it.  It'll be worth it, but I've a feeling it'll also be exhausting.  I mean, I own upwards of 1000 books (rough estimate) alone.  Not to mention all the other crap I've collected through the years, or what my mom kept from my childhood.

I think it may be easier to make a list of what I don't want to get rid of, to be honest. 

Anyway, I'll have to see if I can fit it in.  Getting rid of all my stuff.  Yikes!

My other projects are more personal, focusing on health, wealth, and, well, magic.  Right now, I'm going to hold them all close to the chest as they're sensitive and neither fully realized nor formed.  And I'm feeling superstitious.  There's a lot of learning, breaking down, and planning involved between now and launch day.  And as for the projects I've either already started or am due to start soon?  Well, I'm feeling superstitious with those too.  There's something inside me warning that if I talk about them before they're further underway–or even completed and successful–that I won't ever get them done.  So you don't get to know what I'm doing/have planned.  At least not right now.

Though, I will say, that one of the things I did today involved looking over my budget and deciding that I have enough expendable cash to become a Rune Soup premium member.  It's something I've wanted to do since Gordon launched the program, but for some reason I kept talking myself out of it.  "Can't afford it," I'd say, "I'm in debt to my eyeballs."  One of which is very true and the other only relatively.  My debt hasn't gone away, but I can prioritize some things over other, and if it gets to be to much I can quit. 

I suppose that's a big part of what this upcoming year will be about for me: prioritizing what I really want to do, then setting things in motion to get it done.

I'll keep you apprized of my progress—even if I don't give you the specifics of what I'm doing.

That's all for now.  I'll write again soon.

Movement: a Post in 8 Acts

via Giphy

First: Happy October everyone!!!  This really is the best month.  Cool nights, warm (but not hot) days.  No one looks at me funny when I display my witchy accessories.  Halloween.  It's all just fabulous.

Second: As of today I've gone four full weeks without a cigarette.  I'm super excited about it!  Seriously.  I've been trying to quit smoking for years and I've never been this long without before.  I won't say I've kicked my addiction, but I'm pretty sure I can refrain from here on out.  Yay!

Third: Still no luck on the job front.  Hiss!  I continue to rethink my desire for a real job.  I mean, I need one.  Desperately.  But as job after job passes me by, I become more and more convinced that it's never going to happen.  So I need another option for making a living.  So I need to start actively pursuing other options for making a living.  It's going to be hard and I'm terrified that I'm going to fail, but what other options do I have?  And until I succeed in my "other option" I need to continue applying for real jobs.  Blah.  I hate that life's so complicated.

Fourth: Moving the odds on the job front in my favor a bit is the fact that my local county library system is opening up a new branch and will have LOTS of jobs open for application at the end of the year.  Also working those odds is the fact that the city library for which I work will be having a number of full time jobs open up at the end of the year due to retirements.  Possibilities abound!

Fifth: Despite the fact that I just ate nachos made by my younger brother, this month I'm focusing on cleaning up my diet.  I really want to feed myself a mostly plant-based diet of minimally processed foods, you know?  I feel better when I do.  Plus, I want to lose some weight.*  I'm also thinking of starting intermittent fasting for spiritual purposes, but I haven't decided on that yet.

Sixth: I've decided to go deeper into my spiritual and magical practices.  Actually, I've been working on this for the past few months and I've come to something of a crossroads.  Now it's time for me to take the next step** and start actively becoming who I want to be.  So I'm taking a greater, more active*** hand in my life and recovering much that I've lost to depression these past almost two decades.  I will no longer sit on the sidelines of my own life.

Seven:  Even though I'm basically broke because my uvula thing last month caused me to lose nearly a week's worth of work and thus a week's worth of pay, I managed to come into some spending money today so I purchased the Samhain Ritual Vault and some Flying Ointment from Skelton Key Shop.  I'm pretty excited about it, and already have plans for use.  The bath bombs in the Vault won't do me any good since I don't have a tub, so I'll gift them to friends that do.  But everything else will come in very handy.  I'd like to subscribe to Moon Box as my two best friends also subscribe to it, but I'm not confident I can afford it right now.  Maybe next month.

Eight: My memoir writing class starts this Tuesday!  I'm prepared.  Mostly.  I'm excited.  Also extra hours mean extra pay in November.****


*Okay, I want to lose a significant amount of weight, but "some" will do to start.
**This is the overall theme to my life right now.
***I guess the keyword here is "active"
****Yeah, I only get paid once a month.  Have I not mentioned that before?

How do you create change?

By Krzysiek.W [CC BY-SA 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons

This is a question I've been pondering for some time.  How do I create change in my life?  It sounds simple enough: you make a decision and work towards it.  But in practice it's so hard.  I make promises to myself at night that I forget during the day.

So, how do you create change?

My guess is slowly and with great difficulty.

I've made some decisions in the last few months, now I just need to follow them through—keep working even if I stumble, even if I fall.  I just need to remember and keep working towards my goals.

Don't you think?

***   ***   ***   ***   ***

In other news:  I'm feeling particularly crafty, so here soon I'm going to start working on a project I've been wanting to do for some time.  It involves scrimshaw—which I really need to learn to do better, my last scrimshaw project didn't turn out particularly well.  It was okay, I guess, and I know what went wrong.  I'm not particularly artsy, and this project kind of requires it, so that's going to take some time.  It's also going to be rather expensive to buy all the bone discs I need, so that's going to take some time as well.  Unless I miraculously find a job or a way to make money some other way—I'm working on that, by the way.

So, what's the project?

Making Weirdin.

What are Weirdin?

Weirdin are divinatory tools created by fantasy author Charles de Lint (one of my favorite authors) for his book Moonheart.  In the book they're carved bone, but scrimshaw is more my style.  Plus I want to add some color, not a whole lot, but some.

I'm also going to need to paint a reading cloth.  I'm thinking silk.  It's a simple design, so that shouldn't be too difficult.  Not as difficult as scrimming 61 double-sided bone discs, at any rate.

I'm also thinking that I'm going to make a set in wood.  That should be faster.  Burned, not carved.  I've more talent for sketching than for carving—which I have no talent for whatsoever.  The wooden should be done by the end of the year.


And then, I still have no idea what I'm going to do for my family's winter holiday craft exchange.

Plans for the coming days

Meditation by Moyan Brenn

I quit Facebook at the beginning of summer.  I missed it like mad for the first week, but now I don't really care one way or another.  That got me thinking, and I recently decided to call a moratorium on all my other social networking sites until the start of 2017.  Though, if you follow my Instagram you may still be able to catch a photo or two of my cats now and again between now and then.  And you can always find me here—I do plan on picking back up with Poetry Wednesday again this week, and hopefully adding some more content of one type or another.  But my other sites?  Nah, they'll be cold.

Actually, after spending some time soul searching, I plan on doing more than that.  I'm cutting myself off from most other forms of mass media too: television, Netflix, Amazon Prime, et cetera, et cetera, several blogs and news sites, and every form of video game from my brother's new PlayStation 4 to computer solitaire are all getting cut from my life for the next several months.  Maybe forever.  I'm just tired of it all, you know?  They're huge time sucks for me—used to avoid doing things that I want to do but are more difficult than laying around and staring at a screen—and I don't really get anything out of it.  I don't even really enjoy it.

So, I'm cutting my screen time.  By a lot!  I plan on only using my computer to apply for jobs, write, and to study languages (Mandarin Chinese and Irish).  There are a few blogs that I follow that I'll continue to check in with, but only once a week.  And, of course, I'll still be using a computer at work.  I'm a librarian, 90% of my job seems to be looking something up online for someone.

I think of these things as small changes, but I think they'll have a big impact on my life.  I think they'll lead to bigger changes, but who knows?  Though, I imagine I'll find myself with a great many hours of free time soon, and I hope I can use that constructively.  I hope to use it to transform my life into what I want it to be, as soon as I decide what, exactly, that is.

I deleted most of the apps from my phone a few days ago, and found that, like Facebook, I don't really miss them.  I spent the day–aside from while I was at work–away from both the TV and the computer, and I think this can work.  I'm actually looking forward to rediscovering the real world.

Wish me luck!

Discipline

My life of late has been chaotic, messy, and really no fun.  There are a lot of things that I can't exactly fix about it: the job situation being one of them.  Oh, I can work towards a solution, but it still depends on other people giving me a chance.  That is some thing that is pretty much out of my control.  So I've been trying to figure out what is in my control, what I can change to make things better.  And I'm thinking that I can use a bit of discipline - not the fun/sexy kind - but the bone-deep fortitude of knowing oneself, the strength of being.

I'm not entirely certain how to learn discipline, but I know I need to try.  It's no secret that without the regulation of school, I've been drifting, falling apart.  I don't know what to do with my time.  For a while, the freedom I had with my free time was thrilling, but now it's stifling.  I've been filling it with work, and that's no fun.  Especially since my work is not fulfilling.  Part time gigs when you want a full time job rarely are.

I interviewed for a part time job in the library of one of the local community colleges.  Afterwards, well, I went to my gig at the library, but when I got home I wept over the interview.  I really don't want it.  It's not worth the hassle.  Not giving me enough hours or enough money to really justify giving up one of my current jobs.  The only thing is, is that it's a "professional" position, meaning it requires an MLS.  What the hell kind of part time job requires a fucking Master's degree?  Talk about devaluing my profession.  I'm hoping they don't offer it to me.  I don't want it.  I know I'd be miserable in it, because 90% of the reason I'm miserable at my other jobs is the fact that they are part time.  If I'm offered the job, I'll take it, maybe, but the slight raise in pay and hours means that: 1) I'll lose my current ACA benefits and have to pay more for insurance, negating the pay increase I get, and 2) I'll lose the only day off a week of work I have (also my planned vacation at the end of August, and the long weekend in September I'm taking to go to my best friend's baby shower).  Misery stacked on misery.  But, as I said, if offered I'll take it, even though, at best, it's a lateral move that offers me no extra benefits.

Of course, I've basically been unhireable since before I graduated, so the likelihood of being offered this job is practically negligible. /rant

Anyway, back to discipline: I've tried before - many times - to introduce some semblance of rules in my life, and it really hasn't worked out.  But I need some type of structure to be able to both better my situation and follow my dreams, and since I'm a list-maker I thought I'd start with lists of what I want and need to do:

Needs:

1. Clean bedroom
2. Sand & paint bedroom walls & trim
3. Lose weight
4. Trim & tone my body
5. Quit smoking
6. Meditate regularly (for stress relief & other benefits)
7. Exercise regularly: yoga, aerobics, strength, stamina
8. Find/create social life (I'm so gods-damned lonely, you wouldn't believe)
9. Buy a new car
10. To weed and organize personal library (books & DVDs)

Wants:

1. To write
2. To dance
3. To celebrate my gods and the changing of the seasons
4. To garden
5. To have sex again, relatively soon, and on a fairly regular basis
6. To have tea on a regular basis, like with a teapot and quality tea

My upcoming/ongoing projects will revolve around these wants and needs.  Tomorrow, I've decided, will be my last day smoking, as it's long past time I quit.  I'm going to try to work out a schedule so that I can meditate, exercise, write, work, socialize, and sleep.  A couple of rules to make things easier:

1. My computer will no longer be housed in my bedroom, but at an actual table somewhere else in the house.  At least, until I rearrange the furniture and find an "office" space in my bedroom to house it, and maybe not even then.
2. I will work on my computer (writing, researching, not playing solitaire or dicking around on the internet) at least 2 hours nearly* every day, but no more than 5 unless the writing is going well.

Let's get schedule-ish too:

1. Poetry Wednesdays are back on this blog.  Every Wednesday a new (and original) poem will be posted.
2. Fiction Fridays are being introduced.  The last Friday of every month, starting in August, a new short story will be posted.
3. Regular (non-poetry) posts at least once every two weeks.
4. My bedroom will be cleaned and decluttered by mid-August; the walls will be sanded, washed and ready for painting by the end of August.  (My parents are having new siding put on the house in early August and painting shouldn't happen before that is done).
5. A new car will be purchased some time before the end of the year because my current car is not going to make it much longer.

That's it.  I'm going to have to think about this more, and discover, for me, what discipline really means.

*"Nearly" because 2-3 days a week I work 10-12 hours and I don't know that I'll be able to keep myself from just passing out after getting home, especially if I throw exercise into the mix.

Delete

So, I made another big decision recently.  In addition to deleting a myriad of post here, I have also delete the database I created to record the all the jobs for which I have applied.  Yikes!

It was just . . . weighing me down.  I'd look at it and see the pages and pages of entries, and get so angry and sad.  I'd ask, "What more can I do?  What am I doing wrong here?"  There were so, so many jobs listed.  Some I was, admittedly, under-qualified for and those didn't bother me so much, but the others . . . There were many, many jobs for which I was over-qualified on that list - way more than the ones for which I was under-qualified.  Then there were those jobs that seemed to be perfectly tailored for my skills and experience, and those too gave me nothing.

There were so, so many jobs and statistically none of them even gave me a chance.  Four interviews out of nearly 1000 applications filled or resumes sent.  Four.  It was - and is - crazy-disheartening.  But no more!  For now that database doesn't exist.

I feel as though a huge burden was lifted from me.

Of course, I also feel a bit panicky too.  I suppose I'm going to have to start again from scratch soon.  But not now.  Now, it's been deleted and I am . . . free.

For the moment anyway.

I'm going to try to declutter my life.  This, my great purging of posts, is part of it.  My plans, however, go far past cyberspace.  My goal is to, before winter sets in, clean the shit out of my physical world as well.  I'm dreading going through my books, but it needs to be done.  Truth?  It needed to be done 10 years ago.  Everything needs to be weeded, and I need to be ruthless about it.  That's the only way I can think to allow myself to bloom and blossom.  I have everything picked out. The color of my bedroom, new furniture, window dressings, even what I'll grow in my window box (if I'm allowed to have one).  I know what art I want on the walls, and where it will go.  I know what sheets I want on my bed.  I know what car I want to buy to replace my current one.

Most of my plans for my physical space will have to wait.  We're getting new siding put on the house, and that will affect the inside walls.  Patching and painting will have to be done after.  Getting rid of the stuff, though, that can be done now.  Since most of my stuff is books, well, that means I'll have to go through them all, decide on what to keep, throw away, or sell.  Then following through.  Difficult, difficult.  But needs be.

Hopefully, once I get my space done I can start working on the rest of me.

No more living provisionally, though.  No more I can't do this until that gets done.  I want to move forward, which means, you know, actually moving.

Wish me luck.  The good kind of course.

Oh.  I almost forgot.  I applied for two new jobs today.  Office librarianship.  Could be interesting.  I'm worried that I won't be able to do fun things with my hair like I want - conservative workplace and all that - but it's not like I can do those fun things now.  I hope I get it so I don't have to worry anymore about money and can focus on progressing through my career, but we'll see.

I guess I need double the luck.

And finally it ends

It's auspicious, I think, that I'm writing this now on the autumnal equinox, Mabon, or whatever else you want to call it.  (Though this probably won't be published until tomorrow, I got a late start and I keep letting myself get distracted.)  Finally, finally The Summer of Death and Pain is over.  Not to say that Death and Pain won't still follow me, but it seems to mostly be coming to an end.  This summer is coming to an end.

Please let it be coming to an end.

This summer started with my cousin dying, a horrible and tragic death, and it's ended with my dad being sick - not the blood clots that almost cost him his leg from last month, but some crazy gallbladder thing that caused renal failure, and the collapse of the lower part of his lungs.  He's home now, my dad, with a tube to drain the excess bile from his gallbladder into what looks like a colostomy bag.  In a few weeks, once he's recovered enough, he'll head back to the hospital to have that gallbladder removed.  Right now, though, he's got to empty his bag regularly, and the house smells weird (in a bad way).  Between Sara's death and this new horror from my father, I've hurt my hip, caught a virus that knocked me on my ass, got stuck in the middle of crazy drama at the library (which may ultimately cost me my job there), have seriously neglected my blogs and felt guilty because of it, haven't made any headway on any of the writing stuff I wanted to get done, been rejected by several prospective jobs, and haven't been able to claw my way out of this damn depression.  Top that with my last remaining grandparent in the hospital for some old person malady, gaining five pounds, and not being in full control of my emotions (most notably anger).  

It's been a hell of a summer.  Or, more accurately: this summer has been hell.  I need a change of season.

It's made me reevaluate some things.  I don't have a clear plan on what I want to do, but it's coming.  I'm moving slowly, cautiously to the next road in my life.  I'm standing at the crossroads and I want to check my maps.  I want to move forward with a plan this time.  I don't want to have a vague idea and the "see where the world takes me" attitude that I've used to go nowhere for the past several years.    I want to know what I want and go after it with my whole self.  Fear of failure be damned.

While I rest here a bit and discover my route, I'm cleaning house.  If you're familiar with any of my other blogs, well, I've deleted them.  Except for this one and my professional blog (which I haven't updated in a month or so), and my tumblr accounts which are no work at all to maintain.  I'm still working on The Gothic Library too, but that's not so much a blog as it is a resource or collection of resources - it's slow going there too.  But that's it.  I'm whittling away my online presence.

From cyberspace to the real world - I need to clean house there too.  Literally and figuratively.  I'm going to take a bit of a break next week, recharge, run some ideas past an old friend down in the Ozarks, and then maybe come home to implement those ideas.

All I really know right now is that I need to get a handle on life.  It's a freaking mess and has been for a while now.

I've had some good things happen recently, though, and am hoping that more will happen, momentum will build, and I'll be able to put this awful, awful summer behind me.  What good things happened?  Well, I had a good interview with Burns and McDonnell for a corporate librarian job (Data Curation Librarian is the actual title).  I'm hopeful, but not exactly holding my breath.  Still, a good interview is something.  And I got a new cat.  We named him Jasper.  I'll talk more about both in my next post.