I owe all of you guys an explanation for why I've been spamming your friends lists, dragging you into chat rooms, emailing, demanding conversation and communication at all hours of the day and night.

You all know I've been in the midst of a deep chasm of depression and PTSD for over 4 yrs now. It's been getting better, slowly, but a few months or so ago,something changed.

I realized that what I really want is to get back the person I used to be. I can't stand the person I've become, inside and out. And so...

The biggest obstacle for me was my isolation. I drew back so far into myself that I couldn't see anyone around me. I forgot how loved I am, how lucky I am with the people in my life. I started opening up, communicating. Getting back in touch with everyone, and thus with myself.

My friend weishaupt inspired me by his example to start doing readings again, to get back that essential esoteric part of my self that was always such a huge part of my life.

Doing that finished opening doors for me, and I've been expanding out in all directions. I'm writing again...poetry, lyrics, these posts...another missing piece of the puzzle put in place.

Tonight, again following my friend's wise actions, I shaved off 2/3 of my hair...not the length...I left the top intact and removed the rest underneath, so I can pretend to be respectable if necessary.

I feel lighter, freer, closer to my old punk rock roots.

All the pieces are clicking in to place. It's not just the light at the end of the tunnel...there's almost no tunnel anymore.

I feel like I can accomplish anything, be anything I want to be. I know, absolutely, that the worst is over.

Thank you, all of you, for being so patient and loving and supportive for so damned long. Thank you in advance for putting up with the posts and emails and such...communication is still vital for me, so this spurt of conversation in all forms will probably continue for a while. I'm getting back my equilibrium, so be patient just a little while longer and I'll be back on an even keel.

Watch out world...I'm back.

I ripped the living room apart and finally found the checkbook I've been needing. Unfortunately, after emptying my account and my moms I'm still $300 short for the rent. And I'm not even thinking about utilities and gas and other bills. But, thankfully, Keila and her boyfriend got me a gift card to Trader Joe's for my birthday so at least I'll have food! Good food, at that!

I need to gather some stuff together and do a sales post. But that, like everything else I need to do, seems to be getting put off daily.

It'll be okay. My landlord is kind and everything works out somehow. It's just one of those days. Weeks. Months. Years. But 2010, man? Gonna kick some massive ass!

NSFW

This song is number three on my top ten list of all-time favorites.

I have no idea why the video includes Petra, Bedouins, sword canes, and whiskey, but I like it. The world needs more ubergoth melodrama set in desert locales.

No pre-op appointment and no D&C. My doctor was called away for an emergency birth. The Lord almighty himself has it in for my vag.

Also, I can't access the account in which the majority of the rent money is. I can't find the checks so I think I need to call, pretend to be my mom, and just order more. And have them sent express because our landlord is getting impatient. For good reason.

Here's me as of yesterday. Mike got me the sweater, in Slytherin House colors, for Krampusnacht. Appropriate, nyet?



And one more:

Today I said to the IT guy that the reason I don't design on my Mac (here at work) is because the screen is too big.

His eyes got huge.

Well, here's my reasoning:

I used to work on a dual-monitor setup. It made sure that my Photoshop or Flash stage was a certain size, and was strictly bounded -- by the edge of the monitor. All my toolboxes were along the left side of the second monitor. But on my main screen (the left one) all I had was my stage (and, in Flash, my timeline and component inspector).

Once I started designing on a Mac, I realized that I wasn't boxed in enough. I need that hard edge that forces me to fill my screen to get the job done. If I have spare screen real-estate, I feel compelled to fill it with something, and on the Mac's ginormous screen (23 rectangular inches to my PC's 19 square inches) I keep opening windows and toolbars I don't need. I end up overstimulating myself and getting lost trying to figure out what I need to do because I'm constantly optimizing the placement of everything on the screen. My smaller PC screen is actually better because it forces me to only open what I need. (In Photoshop: the navigator/histogram/info box, the character box, the history/actions box, and the layers/paths box. Everything else I load as needed.)

Plus, the Mac screen is so big that it seems to take me forever to get the mouse pointer from place to place.

So, y'know, I have nothing against Macs. Everyone else in the department designs on them almost exclusively. But I'll stick to my PC if it's all the same to you.

Just dug up this photo from my life in New Orleans.
Daniel, was this one of yours?

If I came with a warning label, what would it be?

Christmas lunch at the office. It was self-service, we all had to remember what we ordered all those weeks ago, but the canteen staff pulled out the stops to make it a special occasion. The tables were festooned with festive paraphernalia, including a cracker each, and a friendly member of staff would come round to let us know when each course was available, keep us supplied with water, and collect our trays when we returned from the serving hatch. My chicken liver parfait, roast turkey crown and all the trimmings, and Christmas pud with brandy sauce were very tasty; my only problem came at the end when the waitress poured milk into everyone else's coffee and left mine black. Elaine had to flag her down en route to another table. A CD played of cover versions of classic Christmas hits, prompting Alison and Elaine to reminisce about times seeing Mud, David Essex and Slade live in their heyday. Alison was amazed that Slade are not only still around, albeit Noddy-less, but playing Gosport just before Christmas. I really liked the version of Stop The Cavalry on the CD, but, alas, it was taken off and replaced with another festive collection before I was able to ask any of the staff for enough info about the CD to buy it.

We all got credited 3 hours' leave to attend the lunch, but even with my going running round the building delivering Christmas cards to former colleagues I was still back at work within two, so got to knock off three quarters of an hour early - though the bus was late again...

This is for Xn. And Daniel. And Charles. Jesse. And Sk0t. And every last one of you. Love you, my dears, for always.

I shared some albums at my comm recently, and I'm linking to some below. If you wanna check out the other albums available at this entry, feel free to join sexy_mood_music and do so. If not, please do enjoy what I'm offering here. Also, if you snag something, a comment would be greatly appreciated! :)

[Remember to change 'hxxp' to 'http' for each link!]

Sondre Lerche - Faces Down
The Killers - Live From The Royal Albert Hall [Disc 1][Disc 2]

I was introduced to Chelada. A mixture of Budweiser and Clamato juice. It sounds horrifying and I should hate it...yet don't. I'm in love. Madly, desperately, achingly in love. It's like an orgasm in my mouth! Best birthday gift ever.

Sarra says: You should try bloody beers - beer with V-8. Buy garlic-stuffed olives to drop in the bottom of the glass and eat them last.

Dear god, I want to make sweet, sweet love to that drink!

I've lost control of shit. The house is a disaster, I can't find anything, and I haven't been grocery shopping in, like, a month. I know if I could just get things cleaned up and start eating real food I'd feel so much less chaotic and scared. But self care is always the first thing to go with me. God, I wish that weren't the case.

Speaking of self care...my D&C is tomorrow morning. Dreading it but I will not skip it. Pinky swear.

My pre-op appointment with my gynecologist was yesterday. So I went and waited for a fucking hour only to be called up and informed that my insurance had been terminated. I swear to god, I almost started crying right there in the doctor's waiting room.

I went home and called my insurance company to be told my policy was canceled for non-payment. I explained that, yes, my payment was late but I had called and explained why it would be and was told it would be fine. "Oh. Okay, it'll be reinstated as of tomorrow morning." I should be annoyed but the relief is way too overwhelming to care that I wasted my time in a waiting room filled with rude assholes and screaming children.

I go back in this afternoon to try again. I'm going to call my insurance company beforehand, just to be sure everything really is cleared up.

Because I kinda suck I didn't go to the Habitat for Humanity volunteer orientation. I just couldn't handle it. The next one is mid-January so I've put that on my calendar.

I am currently holding court on yahoo messenger, intoxicated to the point of glorious insanity. Horrific puns abound. Risque ripostes are rife.
I am King of the Lemurs, and you all must heed my command or my subjects shall come and stare at you incessantly with their googly, googly eyes.

Here are my blades. Two of them appear to be missing, but I'm sure they'll show up eventually.
Sorry for the horrific quality of the shots, but this camera does not love me.

Mama's cancer has spread to her stomach. They'll be starting chemotherapy immediately. I still haven't been able to talk to her doctor so I left a list of questions for her to ask. She's so fragile they want to keep her in the hospital indefinitely.

Something must have hit it as there's now a crack starting in my windshield. Argh.

I realized that what I really wanted to do was scream as loudly and for as long as I possibly could. And I was on the freeway with my windows rolled up so, why not? I opened my mouth to scream and...nothing came out. I was too emotionally exhausted to scream. Now that was depressing.

And now, the other side: ten reasons why writing doesn't suck.

1. When You Start -- Maybe it's just me, but when I start a new story that I know I want to tell, it feels awesome. I'm developing characters and building a world and I usually knock out 20% of the story the first day. After that I'm excited about writing the story and I want to work on it as much as possible. It's a huge rush.

2. When You Finish -- Finishing a story is really difficult. For me, the problem comes when I know how it's going to end -- it's not a surprise for me anymore. But when I finished my novel (not the one that sucks, the other one), and when I finished my "better" stories (I know, that's subjective), I felt so awesome. Seriously, it's like the post-orgasmic afterglow. And actually it's better than sex because you can at least buy sex if you aren't getting any. You can't buy your own writing until you've already finished writing it.

3. The Acceptance Note -- I sold my first story to a token-pay market. I know it's good, but I wrote it specifically for their contest, and I won the contest. When they said they were going to publish it, I was mega-ecstatic. There's no feeling for a fledgling author to hear that his/her work is going to be published. It doesn't matter about the size of the market or the size of the paycheck; if it's a legitimate market, and people are going to be able to read it, that's all that matters.

4. Self-Publishing -- Self-Publishing and print-on-demand aren't in some dark corner anymore. If you're a good enough self-marketer, you can potentially reach more readers than your book might if it just sits in a bookstore because the people you're marketing to are likely to be interested in what you're doing. Plus, it's really hard to break into "professional" publishing -- small presses and self-publishing are the way to go these days once the big guys say "sorry, you're not the next Stephanie Meyer, go back to the pond until you've written me a teen angst vampire novel".

5. The Internet -- With the internet, you no longer have to buy Writer's Market. Hell, I'm betting a chunk of what's in there is outdated by the time it's published. Save that $50 and just go to Ralan or Duotrope. Google a lot. Go on forums. And submit your stories via e-mail or submission form; save the money it used to cost to mail off a story. Plus, it saves trees, and trees are terrific. Right? RIGHT?

6. Accessibility to Markets -- Querying is easier. Submitting is easier. And, with the internet, reading more fiction is easier. By reading more good fiction you can improve your own, and with the amount of free or inexpensive fiction online, people with little or no disposable income can get on a computer and read great stuff. Plus, you can read stuff published in other countries much more easily than in the pre-internet days.

7. More Markets -- There are a lot of good markets out there. It's not all Asimov's, F&SF, and Strange Horizons anymore. There are plenty of websites that are as respected, if not more so, than some print publications. Podcasts -- radio theater -- are back in vogue, and some of them pay really, really well. That also means more markets for you to submit to. Score!

8. Knowledge -- No more submitting to crappy markets because you don't know enough about them and can't ask. Knowledge is only a google away.

9. Sex Writing -- With the advent of the internet, sex writing has come out of the dark corners and is still a growing industry despite the recession. People who love to write about sex -- erotica, but not just that; even people who just like to write stories where sex is a big part of the plot -- can now do so, and can sell their stories, and can read more of what they like without going to porn shops. The internet has made sex writing acceptable. Pretty awesome.

10. The Joy of Creation -- There's nothing like building a world, getting to know your characters, putting them through hell, kicking the bad guy's ass (or the good guy's), and then coming to a satisfactory conclusion. Nothing like it at all. No matter how difficult it is to get published, there's no reason you shouldn't be writing. So stop reading my blog and write something, damn it!

Ten reasons why writing sucks:

1. Wait Time -- Look, I know it takes slush readers a long time to get to stories. A lot of people want to be writers and slush readers need to go through the hundreds or thousands of submissions every publication gets in order to find the ones they think will tickle the editor's fancy. Then the editor has to read them and make a decision. This is a huge deal with near-future or in-the-now stories because tech may become old or obsolete and lead to needing to revise, perhaps losing the entire story if it was based on some form of technology or technological system that has become obsolete in the time it took a publication to get to you.

2. Personalized Rejections -- I've been extremely lucky in that I've received several personalized rejections, including two from Asimov's. I'm told that even one is nearly unheard-of. Due to the time it takes to write even one personalized rejection, I understand why publications don't, but it would certainly help if they could. Writers would write better if they knew what editors did and didn't want to see -- a 5000-word story could contain ten great things and two not-so-great ones, but if we don't know what those two are we have to guess, and we might end up changing something good.

3. Too Much Stuff -- Publications receive way too many submissions. If you're one of the first to be read that day, maybe you have a better chance. If the slush reader is professionally-paid instead of doing it for the love of doing it, you might have a better chance since the reader didn't just work an eight-hour day and is just reading your story at 10pm, half-asleep. You could get lost in the middle. Your story could be similar to another story that they just read. It could be about talking dogs and the slush reader happens to hate talking dogs, or maybe his dog died two weeks ago and the wound is still raw. It could be anything. It doesn't matter how great your story is if the intangibles work against you.

4. The Pay Wall -- Some of the best publications only accept submissions via postal mail. It's expensive enough to mail a bill these days; imagine mailing a 30-page manuscript (or the first three chapters of a book). Especially if the publication is based outside your home country. It can really add up. Forcing writers to mail submissions is a nice way around the reading fee -- if a writer doesn't feel confident enough about the work to pay $2 or $3 to mail it, then is it really that good of a story? And there's the other pay wall, too -- the one about how much you get paid -- but more people have commented on that in better ways than I can.

5. Learning is Expensive -- I can't afford to take a six-week sabbatical to go to Clarion West. I have bills to pay. I have a child. I don't live anywhere near where Clarion is held. I might be able to do Viable Paradise if I can scrape together the cash to go in 2010 -- which looks unlikely. The best professional writing workshops are really, really expensive (I mean, they do have to pay the teachers and the venue, so it's not like they're wasting the money), and that keeps a lot of people out of them. Unless I get divorced and quit my job, I will never make it to Clarion West. It's just not happening. But in all the publications I read, it seems like 50% of the writers graduated CW (or the original Clarion). It's disheartening.

6. Finding Out Too Late -- I submitted a story to a publication yesterday. Today I read an article by an extremely-well-respected author who excoriated them because of their pay rate. It seems like the moment you submit, someone says something nasty, and people are likely to listen to that person because s/he has +10 Authority. This is the fourth time this has happened to me -- the first was my fault, but the others I used respectable sites (Ralan and Duotrope) to find information.

7. Length -- Some people write really great short-stories. Some people need more space to fully tell the story, or want to tell a bigger story. I do at least three rounds of editing before even considering sending out a story, and it's rare that I get under 5000 words. I have some stuff that professional and published authors have said is great, but it's 7000 words long. And I've got some stuff that's well over 10,000 and can't be cut down unless I hack the story to tiny bits and lose all the details and small pieces that make it a good story. Unless I publish a collection of stories or get extremely lucky with one of the big three that accepts stories that long, I'm never going to see most of my stuff in print.

8. Audience -- There's a lot of good writing out there. A lot. It's impossible to read even a small percentage of the best stuff, especially if you're a working writer like me. And by "working writer" I mean "writer who has a job and manages to write or edit for a couple of hours at night if he's lucky". I don't have time to read any more short fiction than I already do -- and I read a fair bit. Imagine how many people are going to have the time to read my stuff if it gets published?

9. Cost to Read -- I know publications need to make money somehow. I totally respect that. But there's a recession on; I can't afford to spend $5 on a fiction magazine right now. Y'know what would be really awesome? If all the magazines got together and made their stories each cost a certain amount per story (which could vary based upon publication and story), and then you could put $20 into an account and, after reading the first 500 words, pay to read the rest. I believe this was tested several years ago and was called micropayments. Trust me; it would work with fiction, if a big enough excerpt was offered. I'd put $20 or $30 a month into an account and buy stories that way. Mostly, though, I read the free stuff because it's free and it's also good even though it's free.

10. Forming a Writer's Group -- I've tried to join and form local writer's groups, and it's nigh impossible. First, you have to find at least one person who's been published by at least a medium-sized market so the next time s/he is published the bio can say "Jane Singh is a member of the East Kenosha Writer's Collective". It's all about building a brand, really. But anyway, once you've done that, you have to meet, you have to read, you have to control discussions... it is a BITCH. And if there's already a group on meetup, good luck finding them -- I went to two meetings of the Atlanta Writer's Meetup Group, but didn't find any of the attendees, and no one responded to my e-mails.

I've got more reasons, but these are some. Feel free to tell me I'm wrong or refute my points. I'm cool with that.