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.

Poetry Wednesday #1

I wrote this several years ago while getting my bachelor's degree.  It is quite possibly my favorite poem written at KU.

                                                    Roane

He is the ocean to my eyes

The ebb and flow of blood through my veins

The tidal pull of the moon on this

My earthly soul

He sings

And I am lost                                   drifting

In the warm

Wet

He shows me Manannan's horses as they

Rise up from the water and race-- crashing upon the rocks

He smiles and the stars come tumbling down

To shatter

On the ephemeral border between land and sea

Him and me

We are 

Lunatics                       dancing

Moonstruck and

Mad

He calls me mo chroi

                My Heart

In the cold air, where he touches me, 

                                                        I burn

He tastes purple to me

                Of night waves and reflected sky

My fae, wild man

He is a wild thing

                                               A magic thing

Ruled by the forces of nature

                  The moon

                          The sea

The tide

When he is gone

I will look out at the ocean

And remember

Imagine

The Rainbow Lies in the Curve of the Sand. (1901) John Reinhard Weguelin.

“Those who fear the imagination condemn it: something childish, they say, something monsterish, misbegotten. Not all of us dream awake. But those of us who do have no choice.”
~Patricia A. McKillip

I was hanging out with a friend today, and she said something about how when you work towards something, taking positive action towards a goal, life has a tendency to work out the way you want it.  That wasn't it exactly, but you get the idea.  After she said this, I grumbled something about finding it hard to find motivation to do anything, which was a real downer, and shortly thereafter our conversation ended.  Now, I don't think our conversation ended because of my comment - by that time we'd been talking for about an hour, and we both have lives we have to lead, chores to do, and the like - but I still wouldn't be surprised if my comment had something to do with it.  I'm pretty sure my friends are just as tired of hearing me whine and complain about my life as I am to do the actual whining.

That, however, is not the point.

Something struck me at that point in the conversation, started nibbling away at a corner of my brain, a thought that needed to be examined later - after our conversation was truly over, and it was this:

I am suffering from a profound lack of imagination.

Or maybe I should call it "practical imagination."  It's sad really, I can dream up a thousand fantastical stories, but I just can seem to think of any action to take to get out of my current state, let alone positive action.  Everything seems to lead to more standing still.  I'm applying for jobs, but that's not getting me anywhere, and I just can't think of what else to do.  What can I do?  I'm bogged down in this quagmire, and truly have no clue.

The trouble, I think, is that I don't know the rules of the outside world.  I understood school.  In university I knew exactly where I stood, and where, ultimately, I was heading.  The real world?  I'm completely lost.  I'm a cog that was left out of the grand machine of full time employment.  Then, not only am I a cog, but I'm a cog that graduated with a bazillion other cogs that fit just a little bit better than me.  What's a girl to do?

It's obvious that whatever I do, I won't be able to do it the easy way - if that even exists.  But what steps to take?  I don't even know that.  I just keep blundering around and losing my footing.  What do I want to do?  I'm not even sure of that.  Mostly I just want to work one full time job that pays a decent wage - and hopefully offers insurance - while figuring out my next step.  It'd be awesome if that job could be in a library, but I'm rapidly losing hope in that prospect, but anything.  Right now, I work around 50 hours a week (my commute is added in) at two part time jobs and still only make around 17k a year.  I can't move out of my parents house.

But what do I want?

I want a little place of my own.  One that I can share with my cat.  I want to be comfortable dating again (there's no way I'd invite a guy to stay the night at my folks' house, though that's not my only excuse).  I want work I find rewarding.  I want to be able to pay back my student loans.  I want to be able to take a vacation somewhere at least once every couple of years.  I want a future, but I don't know how to go about getting it.

At the start of this year I wrote that I wanted to pursue writing as a career.  It's something that I wanted to do as a kid, through high school, and my first couple of years at college.  Somewhere along the way I lost it.  Maybe my inability to find a job is my gods/the universe telling me that I need to get back on that path.  I'm not really sure, but there's no harm in trying.  Of course, it would be easier if I had a full time job to support myself while writing (hint-hint, gods, hint-freaking-hint), but I don't know if that's going to happen.  What was the last count before I quit keeping track?  Eight-hundred-fifty-something applications, five interviews, eight-hundred-fifty-something rejections.  (Oh yeah, I had my fifth interview for a full time position at the library for which I currently work in a part time position last week, it went really well, but they decided to go another way.  Nicest rejection I've gotten so far.)

Will sitting down to write a novel be my positive action?  Will it be enough?  I wish I knew.  A part of me says that I could totally do it - live my dream and all that.  Another part of me urges practicality.  I'm not sure there's a way to balance the two.

Hopefully I'll get this figured out within the next couple of months.

Well anyway, wish me luck - the good kind please!  

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.

Brain Dragons

Man, I'm telling you, sometimes it seems as though I let all my crazy out here.  I suppose that's a good thing, getting out in cyberspace where it's not even all that wacky.

Anyway, this is to inform everyone that I will be going through and deleting a bunch of posts.  I've been thinking about it for a while now.  There's so much here that's not on point.  I have specific goals in mind for this blog, so a bunch of stuff is going to get scrapped.

What this means - what I hope this means - is:

• more of a "theme" will come through as I write new posts that more align with my goals
• clearer, more thoughtful writing (I'd also like to have more consistent posts in terms of length, but we'll see)
• a little less of the crazy
• more regular posts (bi-monthly?)

That's it.  I plan to start posting again in July.

Until then...

Armistice Day/Veterans Day 2014

The Parable of the Old Man and the Young

Wilfred Owen, 1893 - 1918

So Abram rose, and clave the wood, and went,

And took the fire with him, and a knife.

And as they sojourned both of them together,

Isaac the first-born spake and said, My Father,

Behold the preparations, fire and iron,

But where the lamb for this burnt-offering?

Then Abram bound the youth with belts and straps,

and builded parapets and trenches there,

And stretchèd forth the knife to slay his son.

When lo! an angel called him out of heaven,

Saying, Lay not thy hand upon the lad,

Neither do anything to him. Behold,

A ram, caught in a thicket by its horns;

Offer the Ram of Pride instead of him.



But the old man would not so, but slew his son,

And half the seed of Europe, one by one.

Changes are being made

 Okay, I am slowly, but surely cleaning up my online presence.  Slowly, but surely cleaning up my life.  I've deleted or reverted to draft ALL my posts from 2011 and many, many others.  They just don't fit where my head is right now, or where I think it will be again.  Or at least anytime soon.

I've been in a strange and contemplative mood for the last couple of weeks, and feel like I am undergoing a sea-change.  Maybe I am.  I certainly hope I am: things need to change, I need to change.  Maybe this is the beginning.

Or maybe this is just a mood.

I suppose I'll find out.

It doesn't really matter.  All I know is that I feel different.  I feel like I'm changing.  I feel . . . like maybe my life will get a little bit better soon.

I'll write more later.  Something deeper, more in depth.  I want to write more on my religious beliefs and my life and goals and dreams and whatnot.  I'm going to be taking more time between posts, working on my own things, and I want to make sure that what I do post is more coherent.  Life has been complicated (and rather awful) lately, but I feel like that is going to change.  I just want this blog to keep up.