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A third journal of personal musings |
 My life always continues to change and it only stands to reason that with each change, there should be a journal dedicated to it. |
  Prompt:October. Halloween. Autumn. Has anything happen strange happen to you this month? Write about this in your Blog entry today.  This year? No. Busy and Chaotic? Yes. In general? Once, when I was a kid in middle school. I've always been pretty mature for my age. I always seemed to enjoy the conversation of adults over kids my own age. Not that I didn't also have friends my age, because I did. Though I didn't have super connections to kids my age, except for two neighbor girls I grew up with that I now consider to be my sisters. Anyway. I didn't have flights of fancy as they say even though I have always had a super creative mind and could easily think of ideas for stories. I was in 4th or 5th grade I think and it was Friday the 13th. I don't believe in that kind of stuff. I'll walk under a ladder and have a hoard of black cats (voids are my weakness), and toss a mirror on the ground. BUT, this Friday the 13th was a rainy and cold day and I was already frustrated because I thought I'd lost my house keys. I was home alone and this wasn't new, at this point after school I was for a couple of hours until my dad got home. I was on the stoop, putting my house keys in the knob when I felt something hit my shoulder and out of the corner of my eye it looked like a giant bug, like a beetle or something with a hard shell. It FREAKED me out. I jumped back off the small stoop and realized that it was the wooden handle of my dad's snow shovel. How it fell? I don't know. I just remember that everything felt so weird about the whole situation and realizing after that it was FRIDAY THE THIRTEENTH and did that mean anything?? Made me question my whole life. I was fine and once I was warm and comfy inside my house, I laughed at it. But it's funny how just one thing being off can just make you question your whole reality sometimes! |
Prompt: Feeling Happy “Let us be grateful to the people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.” - Marcel Proust What are your thoughts about this prompt and/or what makes you feel happier, people or some other things? There are a few people who make me happy. I'm mostly an introvert and so I tend to have a very small inner circle. I tend to have a "social meter" and I can feel drained and tired if my meter has been drained. But! Mathew is one of them. He constantly makes me laugh and makes me feel good about myself. After twenty and a half years with him, it's one of the constants in my life that makes my life better. I have members of my family that make me happy to be around also. I don't get to see them as much, due to living in a different state, but whenever we get together, I feel a comfort just by being around them. Mostly, animals make me happy. Pets probably more specifically, since I can often touch them lol But, my two boys made me happy, because they'd greet me when I'd get home, snuggle with me, sleep with me. Y'know, pet things. My new kittens, two girls, make me happy too. They've helped me get through my grief of losing my boys, while also making me laugh because of their kitten hijinx. Reading is another one. Which, for probably a lot of people here, is probably a popular thing that makes them happy. Being creative is another. It's something where it's the act of doing it that makes me happy and then if I can give them away, also makes me happy. Like right now, I love to crochet and then be able to give those away to people. I get to practice and do the art of it, then I can gift them to people. I make digital pet portraits and those I do specifically for people. It's also something fun and relaxing for me to do. |
Prompt: "Why insult someone when you can say something nice in a very sarcastic tone?" Maggie Smith as Violet Crawley in Downton Abbey Write about insults and/or Maggie Smith. Also, if you wish, how would you show a sarcastic tone of a character in a story? Maggie Smith was an awesome actress. I loved her in the Sister Act movies, Downton Abbey. The Secret Garden, and Hook. I never watched the Harry Potter movies, though I know she was great in those. I also loved her on The Graham Norton show. I'd love to watch some of her older work from when she was younger. I loved her personality and her humor. She seemed like such a real person, which when it comes to Hollywood and the like, how hard that is to come by. I think it's why I enjoyed her performances so much. Her sarcasm and how it could sometimes just underline things she did or said, was wonderful. I loved Ian McKellen's impression of her on Graham Norton, which made the story he told that much better. I loved her dry sense of humor and that realness of hers. It's refreshing, especially now where (and maybe (probably) it's just me being an old person) it just feels rare for actors to feel like real human beings who've had real experiences and emotions. Granted, it doesn't help that originality feels dead and those directing anything doesn't have a sense of what real people even are. So everything feels alien and weird. So, here's to Maggie Smith! |
Prompt: Do you ever write stories just using dialogue? Write about this in your Blog entry today. I've thought of doing this, but it feels like it goes against some kind of rule in my head? I don't know why. Sometimes when I'm writing in general if there's "too" much dialogue, I feel like I have to break it up with some description or movement or...something. I think it's definitely something about myself where I feel like things have to be a certain way whether or not there is a rule. Maybe it's because of the types of books I read at the time? Of course now, I see stuff like that and do it as a challenge, see if it's something I like or feel comfortable doing. I find myself one of those people, even though I'm of a creative nature, that I will sometimes keep myself in a box. I love people who step outside of that box. Like the book "A House of Leaves" by Mark Z. Danielewski. I love that someone can just imagine it and write it into existence. People can be amazing and I love that. I love that kind of creativity. I know it's just something simple like writing something that is entirely dialogue, but someone who apparently falls into the traditional mold a lot of the time, it's awesome. It definitely inspires me though to try that out and see what I can come up with. |
Prompt: Sunsets and Sunrise “Why did dusk and fir-scent and the afterglow of autumnal sunsets make people say absurd things?” L.M. Montgomery Describe a sunset or sunrise that took your breath away. What emotions did it stir in you? I was very lucky to have grown up just a few miles off of Lake Ontario when I lived in New York. I got spoiled with both sunrises and sunsets. Sunsets I've seen most and if you would like to see some examples, just Google: "Oswego, NY sunsets" and you'll get to see some. A lot of local photographers love to take photos of them so there are a lot to peruse through. Which makes me happy since I've moved to Indiana 11 (already somehow!) years ago. I went to college at SUNY Oswego, which was 20 minutes from where I lived, and I remember that it was constantly mentioned that Oswego had the best sunsets in the country. I never really thought about it until I was older and especially after I've moved and I've gotten to experience them since experiencing the ones here. They really are so pretty and just...a moment. They're never the same and you can't help but stop doing what you're doing and just watch. Having lived in central Indiana for the last 11 years, I miss being so close to Lake Ontario. There's a type of peace that it brings and it's definitely emphasized when there's a sunrise or sunset. It's a type of peace that is internal. I miss that a lot. Definitely something I took for granted, even though I appreciated having it so close by. |
Prompt: Do you like Reality TV Shows like Survivor? Write about this in your Blog entry today. Goodness, no. None of them ever appealed to me. It's not like I'm above cheesy things, but I need some kind of intelligent structure going on. I still can't believe that the dating ones are still happening. Those ones are the WORST. I guess because they're so predictable and the non-good petty gross behavior (nothing like grown ass women acting like desperate children fighting over a man they don't even like and the winner will divorce in like a month after the wedding or even when it's reversed and it's a woman the men are vying for and it's just like 12 year old boy behavior) isn't even interesting. It just reminds me of girls in high school crying over some idiot boy they were "dating" for a day. Granted, I hated that crap even when I was in high school, but at least being a teenage girl it's justifiable. If there was some kind of humor or like a "straight man" in one of those shows, maybe? I just can't. The others...? Eh. They just aren't interesting to me. Mathew liked Survivor for awhile and I tried to watch it when he did. That show I can understand why it's still on. There's some characters that are interesting and the whole premise can be interesting, but learning about how much of the behavior and drama is forced and how absolutely fake the whole thing is, including sometimes who wins or loses, who stays or goes, just really turned me off. If it's all going to just be written, then I'd rather just watch a movie. Big Brother I never got, though the weird drama I guess I can understand why that thing is still going, but I just never connected with that kind of stuff. It's funny because I usually hate talking about my opinions on reality TV because it makes me feel like I'm really pompous about TV and I'm not.  It's just not my cup of tea. It's not my type of garbage. I have wished they'd do something interesting with it, but it's always the same rehashed topics and themes. I am really surprised though that new shows still pop up and that reality TV is still something that continues to exist. I had always figured it would've died off, just because it really is just kind of the same thing. But here we are, nearly or maybe have (I can't remember if it was pre or post 2000 when they started) met the 25 year mark of reality television. I guess at this point it will be interesting to see how long Big Brother and Survivor go on for and whether or not they'll last longer than the genre does (will there be a resurgence in popularity for those shows?). |
Prompt: "Opportunity is fleeting and judgment is difficult." Let this quote from Deborah Harkness inspire your entry I would like to start by saying that I rather enjoyed A Discovery of Witches and the rest of the trilogy. I had forgotten where this was at first, until I looked it up. To give context, the two main characters have gone back in time (16th century London to be exact). The FMC buys a silver gilded rat trap and it has an inscription engraved into it, the full Hippocrates aphorism: "Life is short, art long, opportunity fleeting, experience treacherous, judgment difficult.", but in latin. She makes a comment about the object being sentimental, considering what it was made for. The MMC replies back: "Sentimental? From the viewpoint of the rat, it sounds quite realistic: opportunity is fleeting, experiment dangerous, and judgement difficult." It is definitely a nice play with words! It does really highlight the meaning of the original quote in a short and quick manner. We are often given a lot of opportunities, some good, some bad, some in-between. Sometimes we take them and sometimes we don't. For me, those opportunities which we don't have much time to make a choice often make me nervous. I'm not a very spontaneous person by nature, so it is very hard for me to quickly pull the trigger on things like that, especially if it isn't obvious at first what type of opportunity it is. Or, especially if it an opportunity that can affect my life in a major way. This summer my fiance and I bought our first house! The housing market has been insane, if you've even had to sniff it in the last 4 years. It's calming down slightly in our area, but we were still really nervous. Buying a house is a big thing! We were nervous, as we're first time home buyers, of being out bid. $50,000 saved seems like a lot of money, but when $30,000 of it is the downpayment, we had to have 2 rooms painted (and decided to paint a couple others), plus buy a lot of new furniture, the remaining $20,000 didn't last very long. So, yes, we were nervous. Plus, how do you know if the house is the one? And if you do love the house, what happens if there are other bids and you aren't chosen? Fortunately, everything went incredibly smooth (we ended up putting in a bid on day 2 of the house being on the market (we ended up seeing it on the first day it was on the market). We just felt like we were home when we walked around the house. It had the comfort of new windows, new HVAC, new hot water heater, new carpet, all of the bathrooms and the kitchen had been updated. It was a wonderful feeling! Definitely a fleeting opportunity that was worth the "treacherous experience". |
Prompt: "Fine Mess" Oliver Hardy often said to Stan Laurel in several Laurel and Hardy films, "This is another fine mess you've gotten us into." What is your definition of a fine mess and what kind of images does the word mess bring into your mind? Fine mess always felt like "helluva mess" to me. A nice hint of sarcasm. Especially in movies where it always felt like this "fine mess" was what the adventure of the movie was based on. Now it begins. I feel like it works in real life too. Fine always kind of implied "now this is a real specimen of a mess", "a good example of a mess" instead of a regular mess that you had to deal one. One that meant there wouldn't really be an easy solution or quick clean up of said mess. I've seen people be called a fine mess too, implying that it's going to be a lot of work to clean them up (hair and clothes, make-up if necessary). Something I often call myself (aside from a swamp witch). Along with being a hot mess (probably my favorite tbh).  In general, I always felt like it was a lighthearted way of describing something..or someone, can be some work without being mean or rude about it and make the person or persons not feel as bad. Or, like me, using it for themselves. I like that using a fine mess (or hot mess) has a nice flexible connotation as well, meaning maybe a metaphorical connotation instead of a literal one. One of my favorite things about the English language (and the pity I have for those trying to learn our language) is how flexible it can be. |
Prompt: Dreams What do you think about dreams in general? And if you wish to elaborate, what recurring themes or symbols appear in your dreams? Are there any patterns you can identify? I've always kind of wished I had dreams like what a lot of people say they have. I've never had any stereotypical dreams and mostly, with the exception of some that I can count on one hand, don't really have any "meaning". At least to me they don't. Most of the time it just feels like I'm part of some movie. Sometimes I'm not me as the "main character". Sometimes I am. The few that have some kind of "meaning" are where I'm trying to go to a class, sometimes it's high school, sometimes it's college. I can't find my class. I think I know where I'm going and suddenly I'm lost as if I've never been in the building before. I did have a dream along that same vein (a couple of times if I remember right) where it was like a house I was staying at? I'm pretty sure there was some other narrative, but I don't remember now. I also had one as a child where my mom, my older sister, and myself were leaving. Walked into the garage to get into the car, my mom and older sister got there first and then took off before I could get a chance to get in. I remember standing in the open garage as I watched my mom's car head down the drive way. I've had dreams with my mom and my dad, sometimes together, most often apart and those I've always just liked to believe that they've come to say hi to me (as they've both passed and have been gone now for 11 years). It's funny as those often feel the most realistic to me. I remember the first dream I had of my mom, in which when I asked her if she had come back, she said no. That she was only here for a short time and wanted to see me. It was like "a day together", because when I went to sleep in the dream and woke up, she was gone. I do dream vividly, with color and voices. Most of the time I remember them, but sometimes they've gone by the wayside once I've woken up. I remember one of my earliest dreams from when I had to have been 5-7 years old. I left my house and had gone wondering in the yard (we had a pretty decent yard/property when I was a kid. Total of 12 acres, but some of it was woods. I had gone towards the woods, seeing a giant iguana. Me, being ever the animal lover, headed towards it. Unfortunately, it was a cursed, evil iguana, because it shot its tongue out at me and the only way I can describe this next part is that myself, including my vision, had the texture of a golf ball, where it's those rounded indents. It was shortly after this happened and I realized my new vision/texture, that I woke up. I remember it feeling so lifelike to me as a kid and later that day going out to where it had happened in my dream and feeling such a connection to that dream still. It was funny that it was an iguana as we never had one as a pet and I lived in Central NY at the time. Definitely not a place where they would be wild. I must have seen one in a movie or a TV show and it got snagged into a dream. I did have a reoccurring dream where a faceless (never saw the face that I can remember) man would chase me, a la Michael Myers or Jason Voorhees, and I would run and find a place to hide, in a very not good hiding place where in real life I would have been found, but he'd walk past me. I haven't had these dream since I became an adult living on my own and when I'd have it, it would be in a place I had lived previously, so never at the current place I lived. I always kind of wondered what the meaning of that was, but they happened far enough apart that I never ended up dwelling on it until much later into my adult life. I've always found the thought of meaning behind dreams to be interesting, but since most of my dreams always just felt like my brain entertaining me during my sleep, I never looked into it for myself.  |
| So, I think it's coming back a little bit. I've actually been playing RE4 on my PS4. Now that might seem like nothing on its own, but I've been struggling to stay interested in things, including other games. So I'm hopeful. I've also been going through stuff with my 13 Curves story, so I'm hoping that at least it's small baby steps in the right direction. That's all I really was hoping for. I'm hoping to get back into something more comfortable, writing wise, and push myself into a NaNoWriMo like situation that I was planning on doing last year until Covid hit. Last March actually. I was hoping maybe March this year, but we will see. Which month doesn't matter to me (as long as it isn't near the holidays), but if I can give myself a month to push myself in the same way people do during November, then I'll be happy. I hate that regular NaNo doesn't work for me. Working retail does that to you I suppose. There's just a mental fatigue and a creative shutdown that happens towards the end of the month as it picks up at work and becomes more stressful and also irritating because people tend to forget holidays happen at the same time of the year on a continuous yearly basis. Anyway, I don't know why I feel like I have to update here with my writing mentality, but it still feels like home and I feel like it's my duty to. I used to feel so comfortable writing here. To the point where I couldn't seem to write anywhere else. The only reason I write off-site and off-line, is mostly because of NaNo and trying to find a way to keep track of my word count. I found Scrivener and that has helped tremendously. It has also helped me keep all of my notes and stuff organized. I'm trying to find a balance between the two, because I miss this being my writing haven. I don't want to think about any of that yet. I'll get myself caught up and stressed out and it isn't that deep. So, that's where I am now. A short and sweet update, but a good one. Keep your fingers crossed for me. |
| I still haven't really had a chance to be all that creative, but I'm working on it. It's been a struggle, but like I said I'm working on it. Trying to work on my stressers and things that trigger my anxiety and try to focus on myself. Which usually means forcing myself to make sure I do the things I want to do, rather than sitting around because my head is full of a fog because I've just let things get to me. It's definitely been a tough year. I'm trying to make it so this next one isn't as tough. I want to get back into doing things that I want to do, letting myself focus on those things. I haven't really read anything. It's like I just can't focus on anything when I read and lose interest. It's been the same with a lot of things I've normally enjoyed, like video games and any real creative endeavors. I'm starting to re-read my book of Lovecraft, to try and get some inspiration for my "13 Curves"  story. Something I was working on prior to my creativity shutting off. I'm hoping it will give me some inspiration for the "monster" and "evil/scary/horror" part of my WIP that I was stuck on before. I originally, when starting the story, wanted it to be an allegory, not necessarily an actual thing, but then I realized I can have both. So, I'm working on it. Matt and I were talking about Lovecraftian things and it was giving me some ideas or at least some vague ones that reading some of his stories might lead to some more in depth ideas.So we will see. For the rest of you, I'm hoping your creativity is flowing. Me, like "13 Curves" , is definitely a work in progress. |
| It's a thing I believe we can all come together and agree on: 2020 has sucked major ass. I thought this year would be better for me creatively. It had started out that way and then things happened. Matt got sick the day after our anniversary. He was immensely sick for three weeks. We assumed—at the time—that it was the flu. He hadn't gotten his flu shot and I had. I had gotten sick half way through his illness, but mine was incredibly mild. I could still go to work, I just had congestion, a cough, and felt like shit warmed over. Then came my cat's vet appointments, which almost didn't happen thanks to my one cat flipping his absolute shit about getting into his carrier. I will totally blame that on me. I normally kept them in storage (our apartment is tiny and we have very little room to keep things) and I would usually bring them inside a couple of days before the appointment so they're warm and smell like the house (their appointments are usually always in January/February). This time I had forgotten them and brought them in the morning of. Chance basically went feral. I'd never seen him act like this before. He wouldn't let me get near him, he was snarling, hissing, striking out, pooping and peeing. I felt awful because he was freaking out. I finally tossed one of my large towels on him and was able to grab him. I made the appointment, even though a bit late. I had called ahead and explained. Then Covid hit the following month. I work at Costco and I'm sure many of you heard/saw/witnessed how insane Costco was during the early stages of the Covid panic. We were no exception. So, all of that has just straight up killed my creativity. All of it. For writing, coloring even!, drawing, Photoshop, everything. I finally got something in the mid to late summer, which was why I was doing the journal entries. It was a little bit, but not enough to work on anything. Then September hit and I was feeling it a bit. Then it was gone again. I've gotten really frustrated because I WANT TO WRITE. I have ideas! But I sit there and nothing comes out. Everything I write feels stupid. I even tried in October to do the Upgraded members contest the official one by WdC. I had an IDEA and I merged it with a short story idea I've had for YEARS. I even had the twist! I got a few paragraphs in and I just couldn't. do. it. I didn't end up even doing the contest. I knew I wasn't going to do NaNo this year, but I miss doing it. I want to do it just because of the frustration I've felt this year for not being able to write. Hell, I've tried to write variations of this journal entry and it's been hard to form...my ideas and what I want to say into words on a screen. Anyone else feel this way? I wish I had been lucky to have had to work from home, maybe I could've gotten a lot of writing in. It hasn't helped either that I've been seeing the statistics and especially this month and last month seeing everything SHOOT up and Indiana has been no exception. Our governor has been awful in dealing with this pandemic. He basically opened everything back up and everyone (or nearly) has assumed life is back to normal. We've just hit over 8k cases in ONE DAY. We've had quite a few cases at work even, one working in the same department I did. I went and got tested (even though I showed no symptoms) and it was negative. I've been wondering, the more I've learned about Covid, that Matt probably had Covid back in the very end of January, early February. He had a lot of the same symptoms, including no sense of smell or taste. It had kicked his ass even AFTER he was "better". I've also been stressed at the thought that it's only a matter of when, not if, of contracting Covid and all of this is always on my mind, even when I try not to let it. Never mind that this is the time when everything happened with my dad and then my mom. October through January 5. So all of that is on my mind too, even if I'm not actively thinking about it. Sigh. I'm going to try and fiddle around with my 13 Curves WIP and see if I can at least fiddle around with some backstory, since I didn't really finish much of that before. I have some ideas there and I want to work on them a bit. Maybe I'll get some satisfaction there. I hope everyone else is doing okay. |
| “Sometimes when everything seems at its worst when all conspires and gnaws and the hours, days, weeks and years seem wasted – stretched there upon my bed in the dark looking upward at the ceiling I get what many will consider an obnoxious thought: it’s still nice to be myself" ― Charles Bukowski Your thoughts on Bulowski's comment? Do you think it's obnoxious to be ourselves? I think it's funny that we joke about liking to be ourselves is obnoxious. It's something I've always fought with myself for nearly as long as I've been alive. I've been obnoxiously shy which didn't really start until like the end of fifth and into sixth grade? Not that I was Miss. Extrovert or anything, but like I think I noticed that cliques started and not everyone was your friend. I'd probably even say fourth grade, which was kind of when my life changed a lot. My parents went bankrupt and I had to move out of my house that I'd grown up in and loved. The yard was my favorite part and I had secret places that only I'd hang out in. We had to live with friends for 3-4 months before we got our own place. I think I changed a lot then and I think I only remember my shyness really standing out in those years. High school was awful with having to stand up in front of the glass and going over some report I had to write. I hated it. I literally would stutter and my knees would shake. I had awful social anxiety. Like AWFUL. I remember the beginning of seventh grade, we had home coming and I went because yknow, why not. A guy wanted to dance with me and I LEGIT didn't know what to do. I walked out of the school and found some secluded spot outside. Anxiety has also been something I've had to deal with too. Not a wonderful combo by any means. I never realized how long I've had it until really recently. I know it's something I've always dealt with, but it kind of hit me the symptoms and stuff and how I'd feel those things as early as middle school and I had always just assumed it was because I was shy. So dealing with self-esteem issues, shyness, and anxiety has made me hate myself for a long time. It's probably since my parents passed the end of 2012 and the first month of 2013, where something switched in my brain. And not that I still don't fight those issues, but I've realized how much I've learned to like myself. I'll find different qualities within myself and I like them. So that has been new for me, to not just hate myself, but to like myself too. This quote actually made me laugh a bit because I had this thought a few months ago. Where I was laying in bed, in the dark, and I realized that I was glad that I was myself. |
| Prompt: Eleanor Roosevelt said, “Do one thing every day that scares you.” As best stories sometimes come out of their authors’ fears, what do you say for writing about one thing that scares you every day? For example, what scares you today? It's a few degrees off I think the point of this question, but I am currently working on a full-on fantasy story. Fantasy writing has always terrified me and it's funny because I always get that it's the easiest to write. Maybe so. Maybe it is the easiest, but you need a strong foundation of your world and the people in it for it to be successful. I don't mean like financially successful, but successful to your readers. It needs to be believable. It needs to have some kind of something for the readers to feel as concrete so they can accept the rest. There has to be rules, just like there are in real life. I've never had to create the rules before. Always just based everything on what everybody already knows. Now it has been fun, but it has toyed with my anxiety. I don't want to be cliche, not fully anyway. I don't want the story to be boring. I want to have an arch that is interesting and grabs hold of the reader. Why, might you ask, am I writing something that has terrified me? Well, firstly, it's been an idea that has been stuck inside my head FOR YEARS. Like literally right after I moved to Indiana, it started as a story I'd tell myself to fall asleep. It started out as kind of two stories that I eventually merged into one and it's just kind of nagged at me. I finally decided to start world building, character creating. I even purchased some Fantasy stories to read and get inspired by. It might still be awhile before I actually fully focus on working on it. I've got some other stories to work on anyway, so it's for the better, but I am at least working with it. It also feels...good to work on something that is different than my usual. Plus I've been pulling in inspiration from mythology. All kinds of mythology. I've always found it exciting and fun, so it's been fun to pull from that and use it in different spots in my ever evolving plot. And since I'm here on this topic, maybe anyone who is reading this who is a fantasy lover or writer, if you could point out some good authors or give me some good points OR if anyone knows where I could go to get some good points for writing fantasy, that would be awesome too. I'll probably be poking around somewhere here eventually. |
| I was going to make an entry yesterday, but I decided to do it today because I figured it might make more sense in the grand scheme of things. For me, anyway. So, I always make a new journal when there's been change in my life or there's been time enough since my last entry in my previous one, which usually just means there's shit going on in my life. Anyway, since this one is still young and new it's kind of perfect for the newest change in my life: a new position at work. It isn't a promotion, though many of my co-workers believe so! But I moved from the Front End, where I was a cashier assistant (where I basically do anything and everything. Technically, I am helping out the cashier. I help unload carts, let the cashier know if there are any items still in the cart and under the cart that they need to scan, then reload the cart. I also take items back or go get items.) to the floor as a morning merchant. Which means I get up at 3 am to be to work at 4am. I am not a morning person, though at certain points in my life, I've more or less become one. Not that I am my father, because that will never happen ever (he was one of those I am AWAKE as soon as they open their eyes and you want to punch them in the face), but I can do it and I almost prefer it, because I'm out of work earlier. I'm excited for the position change because I get to have a life again. I can cook dinner, I can go do things after work and not miss time at home. I can see Matt. I mean, I have seen more of him simply because he's been working from home mostly (though he has to go on site because he's part of Eli Lilly's Covid project), so like on my day's off or maybe before I go into work. But I worked until 7:30/8 sometimes or like the last month, they've tossed me on some shitty late shifts and I didn't see him at all, because of course those days he had to be into work so he was gone before I got up and in bed when I got home. Now, I'll be out of work at 12:30. Today was my first day. I work in what we call Department 19. Which is basically just where you can buy the brick cheeses, soups, quick meals, etc. Usually stuff you'd find in a deli area at the supermarket. It's a bit challenging, mostly because I'm new and getting used to what boxes look like and how things operate, but I really like it so far. The day literally flew by. After I have my lunch, I do help out the Front End, but it's like 3 hours. So, I'm okay with that. But I am really happy and I'm hoping that I can get back to things I've once enjoyed and haven't really been able to because of the hours I was working. Plus when it comes to my writing, I'm hoping it will be helpful too. Obviously, a lot of it has been this Covid stuff and with the way it's been at work, it has been mentally draining and has literally just put a stop to my writing. More recently, I've had some itches to write, but again, that has come to time, so with this new position change, I'm hoping that it will help. Anyway, I'm going to end this so that I can COOK DINNER. Because yknow, I want to and not because I'm tired af. |
| On this day in history, North America had what is thought to have been the worst power outage. The weather channel is projecting record heat days above normal for the vast part of North America. Do you think we're better able to handle the demand for power? Your thoughts? How do you handle power outages in general? Some of us have experience from hurricanes, tornadoes,or winter storms that might have suggestions for those unfamiliar. I remember I was at my sister, Cathie's, house when it happened. I was sixteen years old, getting ready to head into my senior year in less than a month. It wasn't a big deal at first, because I don't think any of us realized how widespread the outage was until like the next day? It was kinda still "the old days" back then when it came to the news getting out and the Internet not really being a place to spread stuff or to even look to to find out about things. I remember they tried/attempted/succeeded? at fixing whatever the issue was, then. So it's entirely possible that we might be better able to handle the demand for power, but we're also in a very weird spot than we were 17 years ago. Then again, maybe some of the places (offices/restaurants/factories, etc) that are working less or closed all together, offset those who are home working or home without a job. I also won't even pretend to act as if I understand how our grid system works or even how they might've changed it. Like it's there in the back of my mind, but not enough that I can grasp at something to bring it back even fully enough for me to feel confident in it. I think there are also a lot more people who are using green energy sources, especially solar, these days. That might also help alleviate the strain on the grid system. Matt and I handle power outages pretty well. We haven't had anything in which it lasted any long stretch of time. The longest I ever didn't have power was waay back in 2004, the end of winter, around late March into early April? I remember the time only because March Madness was going on and Syracuse won it. And thanks to my sister, Cathie, and her husband, we had a generator that could power our TV so that we could watch the Championship game. We had a small battery operated black and white TV that we managed to watch like one game earlier on in the tournament, but the batteries didn't last long and we didn't have many. We used the rest for the radio in the kitchen and listened to the tournament on there. BUT, back to how we handled it. It was an ice storm and we still had a lot of snow left (in Central NY, where I lived, snow could last into May sometimes. Giant snow banks could last into June). It ended up being incredibly helpful for us. We didn't have to worry about food as most people, and my parents (dad especially as he did the shopping) were no exception, to shopping for things they needed to last them a week or two weeks, sometimes a month, depending on how they shopped and probably how many kids they had. We always had food on hand that we, a family of four, could've survived without going to the store, for like two weeks, probably more with the way my dad could cook. He could make giant gallon jugs full of soup and tons of pasta sauce that could last us awhile easily (He had five kids in his first marriage, also was a chef apprentice in the Navy so he always cooked as if feeding a battalion.). We had gas, so we were able to cook food and it helped heat the house a bit. We also melted ice and snow and used it to flush the toilet. We didn't shower. Though I guess we could've boiled water like in the old days and bathed, but that would've been a tremendous amount of work considering our only source of water was the snow and ice outside. We had flash lights and a bunch of candles on hand. I think we spent a lot of time playing games/cards/reading/listening to the radio. My mom couldn't go to work as there were downed power lines one way and a downed tree on the other way, so we were essentially stuck. School had been cancelled. I think it was a week? Ten days? Something like that before the power came back on. We were lucky though. I couldn't imagine those who have gone through tornadoes or hurricanes and how they have to handle things. Matt and I haven't had to deal with much power loss and only a few hours when we have. We would be fine for a couple of days I think. Depending on the spread of the power outage as we have an electrical stove here, so we would be screwed. Though I definitely plan on having a generator when we get a house as back up. Though I also do plan on having a gas stove then too. |
| Prompt: At the end of the play Oedipus Rex, Oedipus blinds himself possibly out of guilt as he realizes he is the one who has bought ruin to Thebes. What do you think makes people punish themselves, knowingly or unknowingly? Is it always out of guilt feelings? I'll say that I doubt it is always about guilt feelings. There are people that do it either out of needing attention, they're just incredibly dramatic anyway and it's just how they are, or some other weirdly selfish reason. But, I think a lot of people do it because of some level of anxiety or depression. Goodness knows I apologize over real dumb shit because of mine. I'm often criticizing myself a lot harsher than anyone else could and a lot of times over things not even worth worrying about. It's a complex and ridiculous thing I deal with. Originally, I took a break from here because life had gotten stressful at home. It ruined my creativity and at the time I was a moderator. I was the youngest moderator. I was made a moderator before there was the requirement of being 18+. I took it very seriously. I was proud of the fact that people could come to me for assistance and I could help them. I tried to make myself as approachable as possible because I know what it's like to be shy and awkward. So when everything happened at home, it made it hard for me to be present here in the way that I had always wanted to be and my creativity was shot. I eventually had my modship removed because of it and even though I agree and understand why, it was very hard for me. I ended up taking another long leave because of it, because I felt like I had failed. I had failed SM and SMs, I had failed the site for not being there. I was really rough on myself. There was a lot of other things that had happened during both breaks. Of which I will save for another entry. It's a lot of drama and heartbreak that would just derail this entry. Anyway, it is a guilt that makes people do it. Whether it's real guilt is a whole 'nother story. Again with depression and anxiety being factors, whether or not someone is actually propelled by real guilt of something or an imagined guilt of an imagined thing they perceive to have done, they will react with it to punish themselves in some way, Especially if you just continue to think about it and let yourself brew in your self pity. It kind of builds. Which can be easy to do if you aren't in the best of places mentally or physically. You lose a job, your relationship goes bad, you lose someone close to you, etc. It can be hard to pull yourself out of it. It's taken me a long time to have the freedom to work on myself. There was stress from my job. My living situations. My lack of financial gains. I tried to go back to school, realized the place I went to school was an idiotic place to go to school and then I also got screwed on the major I was going for and I blamed myself for that. I also had to file for bankruptcy thanks to someone else. So I can only imagine how it feels for others who are in worse situations than I was or people that suffer from anxiety or depression that was worse than mine. The lack of proper mental health care in this country (and I'm sure other places as well) don't help either. |
| Okay so the 21st was my first day of vacation and I just realized that I had completely forgotten about writing in my journal. I wish I could just say that I was excited about playing The Ghost of Tsushima. Which I was, but even when I was working and incredibly tired, I'd write an entry. Or a couple of times I'd just write two the next day. I utterly and completely forgot that this or much less anything else that I "require" myself to do normally on a daily or somewhat daily basis since Tuesday. It's kind of like how I trained myself to forget work stuff once I leave work. It was something I did at Walmart when I worked there so that I didn't stress myself out or bring it home with me. Though at the end, I started to, which was why I was incredibly desperate to leave and thank everything holy that Costco was opening. Anyway, I still do it and I think I must've done something similar once I was on vacation. It's just unfortunate that my journal writing (and my world building stuff for my fantasy story) was also included. I haven't been online actively since my vacation started. I've watched Youtube and Twitch, Google searched stuff. But not on any kind of social media. I did have a Pampered Chef FB party and my niece's daughter had a birthday party, in which I obviously cannot attend thanks to living here in Indiana, but I wanted to send her things and they had updates and such in a group. One day, some day, I might not be such a mess.  Until then though, I guess I'll just have to deal with it.  |
| Besides writing, tell us about a hobby you have. How did you discover it? How long have you been doing it? Aside from writing, I've always loved arts and crafts. I've done some cross-stitching, I made a friend of mine some button art for her baby when he was born (spelled his name on 4 separate canvases covered with fabric with the buttons sewn on in the shape of the individual letters), I have a cricut and I've made some window clings, some birthday cards, I made a mobile for my niece's first baby shower, some food labels, again for my niece's first baby shower. I also made a pretty (simple) wall art using a star fish that my boyfriend has had for years, it reminds him of his dog that he loved and grew up with. I have it hanging in our bathroom and it's lasted 4 years already. It is relaxing for me to do things with my hands. I've actually thought of getting some kind of cross-stitching thing to work on. I also want to learn to crochet. I'd love to learn needle point at some point too. So we will see. I'll probably start with crochet first tho, just because it seems like a mindless thing once you learn it and I'd love to have something like that while I watch something or heck, read something on my kindle. I just have to set some time aside and do that. As far as discovering it, I have always loved to be creative since I was young. It's tied in with my love for stories (reading and writing). I remember creating a little picture book when I was probably six or seven and I remember "reading" it multiple times with different stories each time. I also remember being in sixth grade and using green printer paper that my parents had left over from something and I'd take it with me to class and I'd make like outdoor settings in 3 dimensions, like I'd crinkle up a ball of paper to make a bush. Maybe curl a small strip of paper to make a wooden bench, etc. I'd do them during class, during a lesson. I got really good grades so I didn't ever get in trouble for it or talked to. Plus my sixth grade teacher was pretty liberal in general, so... (I was a weird kid, ok! )I've inherited it from my dad, I think. He was very creative. He could draw pretty decently, at least from what I can remember as a kid. Which I don't mean to cheapen it, but that when I got older his vision went (macular degeneration), so he barely wrote, much less drew. But I remember it being very good. He drew animals, much as I remember. I often wish I had kept them. He was a wonderful cook and could take all kinds of things and make a meal out of it. There were off-shoot meals that he made that friends of mine loved. He made some kind of pasta salad with some left over spaghetti, some black olives, parmesan cheese, some onion, and some vinaigrette dressing (probably some other stuff, but it was really basic pasta salad) and one of my friends still talks about it to this day. My dad made this amazing stew, he happened to just call zucchini stew, which he made from some left over pasta sauce my mom made, then he added some cut up yellow squash, zucchini, green peppers, and italian sausage. It was a m a z i n g. He made it for our graduation parties (from high school) and my college graduation party. It was always gone in a flash and my dad (who grilled the burgers and hot dogs) never got to enjoy any when he got to sit down. My older sister always had friends who heard about it, bought all the ingredients, and had my dad make it for them. I actually literally just gave the recipe to my cousin to texted me to ask about it. She was talking about it with her dad, my uncle, and her mom, my aunt, (I feel weird for doing that, since that seems obvious!) and they were both excited that I had the recipe for it. So yknow, it still exists.But anyway, yeah he was very creative. Even in a white trashy, sort of recycling things, kinda way. He was born in 1933, so he also had that kind of mentality. Like we got him one of those round charcoal grills (I forget the name of them!) for his birthday or father's day I can't remember. Probably father's day, because I think it was warm out? His birthday was in January and while it's still possible we could've gotten for him then and he would've used it then, in the dead ass middle of Central NY winter, but I'm pretty sure it was warm out in my memory of it. Anyway, the legs rotted out from the snow. He had an old ass wooden casing for an old gas grill that had finally died on him (hence why we got him the charcoal one) and he removed the grill part from the wooden casing and just set the round grill part from the broken metal legs and wallah, a whole new grill. |
| Have you ever boycotted a company or product? If so, tell us the story. If not, what would a company have to do for you to boycott its products? Oh yes. Chick-fil-A for one. I have a lot of LGBTQ friends and I believe that people are who they are. They love who they love. I don't give a dingus how good their food is or how swiftly efficient their drive-thru is, I ain't eating their shit and supporting them. Fuck 'em. Hobby Lobby is another. Just aside from the fact that they are fucking looney "Jesus speaks through the missus" toons and the whole birth control thing, the way they treated their employees during this whole Covid thing AND how they are with literal priceless artifacts. Ugh. They're garbage people. Jimmy Johns. I loved their bread and their sandwiches were pretty decent. They were just a nice sandwich that wasn't super fancy or tried to be anything that it wasn't. Their owner is a giant douche who hunts large animals for sport and then poses fucking weirdly with them?? I would boycott Facebook as they're horrible as hell, but it's literally the only way I am able to stay in contact with my family in NY. As it is, I've been trying to stay off it as much as possible just because I need to keep what little sanity I have intact. |
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