jon_chaisson | Recent Entries

Continuing on the Spare Oom Closet Cleanup project, last week I emptied out the two wood storage boxes and sorted through the three big boxes that held my CDs and cassettes. The stuff in the wood boxes was mostly crap anyway so they went straight into recycling, trash, or donation. They now hold most all of my CDs in one and my cassettes in the other. There's two boxes of spillover: one containing my Beatles/solo CDs and the other containing my CD mixtapes. Eventually I'll squeeze those back into the closet at some point. All told, I have a rather large amount of CDs to trade in at Amoeba!

In other cleaning news, I've finally started attacking the moldy corners of the shower. It's mostly from caulk that's worn away or gotten damp over the years. I'm still not the best at it so there are some sketchy lumpy bits, but I'm actually kind of happy with the result anyway because a) I didn't get any on my clothes, and b) I managed to cover a few formerly ugly spots pretty well so I won't have to see them anymore. Yeah, I've never been that great in the home improvement department, even despite really enjoying watching all those shows back in the day, but I can at least learn how to do it myself, yeah?

As for the writing, I'm still plugging. I think I've figured out a few issues with both projects (finally!!!) so I can start going forward again. Also, I've finally finished the last Diwa & Kaffi revision, so thus starts the Shopping It Out part of it. Lots of good change coming soon, I hope!

Hope everyone has a good -- and MUCH less high-octane-action -- week!

Current Mood: accomplished
Current Location: Spare Oom

These first couple of days of the year always feel like a prologue when they start on a weekend like this. We had New Year's Eve and Day off in addition to the weekend so it's an extended vacation in a way. I used to love it when school semesters started like this. It gave me that extra day or so to work on anything I left to the last minute (which, being me, was almost sure to happen). We did quite a bit of walking over those few days, usually to work off all the holiday feasts we'd had! Heh. And today we headed down the other end of the neighborhood for a bit of shopping. I bought a new wireless keyboard because the one that came with my PC is seriously starting to stick, even though I've cleaned it numerous times. Now I just need to make sure I don't get any crumbs in it!

Meanwhile, I put the Christmas tree away yesterday, but with it being a new and much taller fake tree, I had to figure out where to put it as it would definitely not fit under the bed. This meant emptying out Spare Oom closet and reorganizing a good portion of it. It took a lot of sweat and a few hours of creative Jenga, but it's a lot more accessible now. I moved all of A's stuff (yarn stash and canning items) to the side where she can get at it much easier, and I took out the three big boxes that contain the remains of my CD and cassette collection.

This ties in with my next non-writing project:

--Go through the items that were in the two wooden storage boxes (mostly personal crap). Throw away/recycle stuff I don't want/need and keep the remainder in small storage boxes (the fewer the better)
--Go through the cds and cassettes that I no longer want and set them aside for bringing to Amoeba for store credit or Goodwill donation. Put them in some semblance of order while I'm at it. [Side note: I know I have a few cds that have dvds attached, so I may rip those as well.)
--Put the remaining cds in the wooden storage boxes, with the remaining cassettes (mostly all personal mixtapes, natch) on top.
--Donate any leftover clothes/books/etc to Goodwill

...and of course, keep that corner of the room clean, because that area frequently builds up with "to be mailed/donated/traded in" items. I need to keep on top of that more often. But yeah, that was a major step I wanted to hit. The issue was that I had so many other steps to take beforehand (mailing out Christmas packages, book/clothing/etc donations, throwing away extraneous crap).

SO! As for the writing...

I'll be continuing the blogging, journaling and daily words as normal, and get myself immersed in the new fiction projects I want to tackle. I can't really say I have a block, because I know how to work past the issues I've had the last few weeks on them, but...it's the actual work that I need to get stuck in. And as always, "just STFU and DO it" tends to work well for me.

Hope everyone has a wonderful 2021!

Current Mood: hopeful
Current Location: Spare Oom

Well, 2020, it's been...a thing. Some hard stuff happened, some terrible things, but there's also been some good and very good things. Glad to see that I've come to the end relatively unscathed and all the better for it.

Still, let's not be as dramatic in 2021, okay?

Happy New Year to everyone, hoping everyone has a much BETTER 2021!!

Current Mood: hopeful
Current Location: Spare Oom

Christmas was a relaxed affair this time out, but I'm not complaining. We opened our presents, had zoom meetings with both families, and spent most of the day kicking back and just enjoying the day. A had an extended weekend anyway, so we spent most of it doing a lot of walking and watching fun UK shows and documentaries. No big plans, just enjoying the days as they go by.

I haven't done much writing work, but I'm not too worried about it. It's the end of the year and I've got more important things like my Best of 2020 mixtape to make! Heh. Seriously though, I did manage to get some work done, so it wasn't a complete wash. I'm getting closer to the end of the Diwa & Kaffi cleanup, just in time for me to prep it for submission out into the big wide and wonderful world. And the time off has actually given me some space to think of how to expand on the projects I currently have going.

So what am I doing for these last four days of this admittedly bizarre year? Well, just like the election, I'm probably just going to exhale and untense my shoulders for a few moments, thankful that it's over. Then I'll move on. I'm kind of amused by this reaction of mine, to be honest...a quick flip through the archives of most of my blogs from years ago shows me as leaning heavy on the retrospective, but now I seem to be leaning more towards the introspective now. I think part of it is that I can only repeat myself so much, but a bigger part of it is that I'm more connected with the present now. Part of the big internal housecleaning, I suppose.

Anyway! Aside from updating my blogs and maybe squeezing in some actual creative work, I don't have too much planned for these final days of 2020. Just going to take them as they come.

Hope everyone is having a good holiday season!

Current Mood: hopeful
Current Location: Spare Oom
Current Music: KEXP online

Well, I did manage to get some work done last week, so I don't feel too bad about that. I've been using the 750 Words to play around with some outtakes for Theadia, and that's helping me get a bit closer to the story. This one's turning out to be quite unlike anything I've written before, so it's taking me some time to figure it all out. And this is why I'm working on multiple projects at once. I've a feeling Theadia is going to take a lot of time, so in the meantime I'll be trying my hand at the fourth Mendaihu Universe book (aka MU4). That one is still a little twitchy, but I'm gaining more ground on that one.

Meanwhile, it's now Christmas week and this is the first time since my school days where I've had the end of the year off. I'm just going to roll with it and enjoy it, because come January I've got some major things I want to embark on. We've got all our gift packages out and it seems the only two that haven't gotten to their destination is my family and one of our friends, but we're okay with that...as long as they get there in one piece! And yes, we have now embarked on the holiday movies, documentaries and whatnot. Yay!

Hope everyone has a lovely holiday!

Current Mood: cold
Current Location: Spare Oom

Our city is so ridiculously photogenic...

*ahem* ANYWAY, A had last week off, so instead of me being an unsocial lump hiding in Spare Oom, we went for numerous walks around various parts of the city, including the Presidio marching grounds/Crissy Field area. Far too many pictures were taken and I'm sure we got at least a dozen or so miles in over the course of those few days. And yesterday afternoon we streamed SF Ballet's Nutcracker, considering we've gone to it at the Opera House almost every single year we've been here. All in all, an enjoyable and rigorous vacation despite the lockdown.

So what did I *not* do over last week? Yup. I didn't do any writing. I posted a couple of sort-of fly-bys at Welcome to Bridgetown, but that's it. No revision, no new words, not even any daily words at the 750. Normally this lack of productivity this time of year would have been caused by Q4 madness at the Day Job, which would have annoyed and frustrated me to no end, but this time out it helped me remember that simply enjoying real life and the great outdoors is definitely a good (and healthy) thing as well.

So what am I doing today? Catching up, of course! Time to write some blog posts, do some revision, create some new words! (And somewhere in there, wrap A's Christmas presents.) Time to think about long-term 2021 plans for job searching and freelance work. Time to get moving again!

Current Mood: energetic
Current Location: Spare Oom
Current Music: KEXP online

It's the end of the weekend, errands have been completed (for the most part) and A has started her final vacation week of the year. Do we have anything planned? Well, considering that our lovely state and city is currently under the Covid lockdown starting Monday, we weren't about to go on any trips. If anything, we'll be doing the usual: walking around the neighborhood, visiting the parks, sleeping in, and shopping local when needed. Which reminds me...we'll be doing our grocery shopping tomorrow, and we're banking on a) Monday morning not being all that busy, just like always, and b) the recent hoarders haven't bought up every little scrap whether they need it or not. Our shopping list isn't too long, but hopefully TJ's will have kept things under control.

As for Christmas shopping? I still need to do more. I feel like I haven't bought all that much for anyone at all, least of all A, so within the next day or so I'll be doing some final purchases and quick visits to local shops. We shall see.

Healthwise, we're doing just fine other than the occasional sniffliness from allergies or headaches from high humidity. We're avid fans of masks and social distancing, so we're good there.

Hopefully I should be able to sneak some words in this week! We shall see...

Current Mood: contemplative
Current Location: Spare Oom

Now that Turkey Day is over (and there was a LOT of it here over the weekend), it's time for me to work off all that eating. We did take a few neighborhood walks over the last couple of days, but I need to make sure I keep it going. I need to start up the stretches and the exercising during the day again. I did recently check my weight for the first time in ages and I'm down more than I thought, but I can do more. Unfortunately we also have a lot of holiday snacks kicking about so that could pose an issue...Well! Either way, I think I can at least work off what I snarf down, yeah? Then come January I can get it going in the right direction again. It's more than just weight, of course...my joints are starting to ache because I Am An Old, but I'm pretty sure it's also because I'm a lot more sedentary than I should be -- the life of a writer, alas. I'd like to be more active again, and this should be a good way to get started on that.

I'm also thinking of writing exercises as well. This of course means making sure I hit my daily 750 Words again...I have a project that would work on that platform and I need to make good on my refocusing plan. Since I've circled back to scheduling my days, I'm feeling a lot more creative and productive, which is right where I need to be right now. I'm very glad that I decided to kickstart all this creativity again, because it was long past due. Not that I'm annoyed by all the time I wasted, because I really didn't waste it -- I had a lot of personal stuff I wanted to process that I'd put aside for WAY too long, and I'm glad I took the time to do that. I returned to the writing because I missed it and was ready for it again.

So! On that note, here's to hoping everything starts running on a normal schedule again...

Current Mood: hopeful
Current Location: Spare Oom
Current Music: Soccer Mommy, 'Color Theory'

Winter in these parts is kind of a weird thing. For the most part the weather doesn't change too much, just that the temperature drops a bit. Our mornings can be a bit chilly (for us, anyway), hovering in the mid-40s, but eventually it'll lift up to the mid to upper 50s by day's end. Some days (like this weekend) will be sunny and windless, but other days it can be rainy and miserable. We don't get snow, obviously, although it has happened in the past...some of our high hills (like Twin Peaks and Mt Davidson) might get a light dusting, that's all. I've seen snow on top of Mount Tamalpais to the north of us -- we can see the top half of the peak from Spare Oom's window -- but even then it doesn't last more than a few hours.

Thankfully our building has good heating, and A has knitted both of us a few sweaters over the years, so on the coldest of days we do okay.

As I've said in the past, I do NOT miss driving in snow or shoveling it, not one bit. But I do kind of miss the quiet zen of snowy days, though. The way snow mutes any extraneous sounds, save the sound of a chilly wind through the trees. Nor do I miss the super low temperatures going into the teens, single digits and negative numbers. We did experience a chilly 20s this past March when we visited New England, and I'd made the mistake of not packing my heavy winter coat.

Thing is, weather in San Francisco can be extremely tricky. We'll wake up with a chilly 42 with our weather apps saying it'll be in the low 50s, so we'll put on our heavier coats, mitts and scarves...only to have it hit 60 a few hours later and we're sweating in our heavy layers. Neither of us have been able to correctly guess the weather and prepare accordingly, and we've been living here for fifteen years! The most we can do is shrug, put on one of our sweaters, and drink more coffee.

Current Mood: warm
Current Location: Spare Oom

Ah yes. I was distracted yesterday (a pleasant walk in GGP's botanical garden, a drive to the garden center, laundry and so on) and completely forgot to post something here.

Also slightly nervous and distracted due to the fact that I'm running a scan on my external hard drive that contains my entire mp3 library in hopes that I can figure out why it decides to randomly go into sleep mode even when I'm in the middle of using it. I'm not *too* nervous, as I have it all (I hope!!) backed up on another external, but I'd rather not lose it just the same, thankyouverymuch. It's taking forever to finish because there's a LOT of mp3s to scan for issues and/or corruption. I had it running overnight and it's *just* nearing the finish of the initial scan as we speak. [Edit: it's now doing a slightly different deep scan of empty sectors and I'm not entirely sure how long *that* will take...] In the meantime it's made the entire drive inaccessible so it can do its thing. Hopefully there aren't any major issues... *fret fret*

Meanwhile, last week I began a slightly different approach with my writing (I go into it a bit more here at Welcome to Bridgetown) and it seems to be working, so I'm going to continue with this process and see how it plays out. I'm doing the work in smaller manageable chunks and narrowing the focus of the work in front of me in the hopes that I can process it all a lot easier. It seems to have cleared the view a bit, which is good.

Oh -- I should probably add that I've been having far too much fun sketching out a storyboard for Diwa & Kaffi!! They're rough thumbnails for the most part, but they're helping me get better at my art, which was the main goal in the first place! One of these days I'll post them up on the WTBT blog.

What else...we got a new Christmas tree? That was my doing, really. Our old one is fine but kind of looking a bit threadbare. The new one is a four-footer (the old one is a much shorter one made for a tabletop) so I'll have to plan out where to put it. The plus side is that I can hang a lot more stuff on it! Yay! Maybe I should revive my old habit of putting on a Christmas album while decorating....

Hope everyone has a good week!

Current Mood: nervous
Current Location: Spare Oom
Current Music: KEXP online

I spent most of yesterday not tweeting about the Biden/Harris win, which was kind of unexpected but makes sense. I think part of it was due to just feeling so constantly stressed and irritated over the last four years, and when the news broke yesterday morning, my reaction was just...relief. It felt like whatever had been gripping the back of my neck since late 2016 had finally relented. It felt like I could just live without being on constant alert. We finally had someone who would not gleefully inspire hatred and violence. I don't claim to be the smartest person in the room but my fucking god, I was so far ahead of that fuckwit the entire time. So instead, I spent the entirety of Saturday just basking in the positive news, the celebration and the relief of everyone else. We still have a long way to go, not only cleaning up all the shit he's caused but moving forward from it as well, and I hope we'll have a better chance to do it this time.

I do of course have a few thoughts about it all, but I figured what I really needed to do was just...experience it first.

Meanwhile, not much else happened this weekend except a bit of shopping and house cleaning. We're doing a bit of book purging in preparation for my donation to the SF Public Library a few weeks from now, and I'm also gathering more things to donate to Goodwill when I have the chance. I'm still kinda sorta sticking to the whiteboard schedule, which is fine. I'm finally letting myself sink back into a few routines here and there, knowing full well that they're not habits but chores and projects to keep me from distraction. [This does kind of sound like I'm finally accepting and understanding that I may have ADD, and one of the things I'd been thinking of doing was getting tested. I'd wanted to do it earlier but, y'know, pandemic and all. I figured I'd let the bigger issue pass and calm down a bit first.]

As for this coming week, no big plans other than digging in my heels on a few writing projects that need more heel-digging!

Hope everyone had a lovely weekend! :)

Current Mood: relaxed
Current Location: Spare Oom

Oh hi there! I'm actually on time for once. No major weekend plans this time out, we just did a four-plus mile walk up Cabrillo to Arguello and back on Saturday, and today was a Lazy Day with laundrifying and a short walk up to CVS for a bit of stocking up on things.

It being November, big props to anyone doing NaNoWriMo this year! What with 2020 being the weirdass year that it's been, I'm sure some will skip it while others may use it as an outlet. Cheers to those brave enough to participate! I of course have given up on even attempting it, even this year considering my lack of employment, as I've already proven to myself that I just don't have the mindset for it.

What I'd like to do this month, however, is maybe look into some of the free online courses that some schools have been making available. One of my online friends pointed me towards this particular Rolling Stone article that talks about free courses from music schools, so that should keep me occupied for a bit. Not sure if it'll get me anywhere, but it's music-related, so at least it'll keep my interest!

Meanwhile, I'm happy to say that I managed to get an appointment later this month to drop off books at the Friends of SF Public Library warehouse down in the Mission (who'd've thunk that so many San Franciscans want to purge their book shelves after months in lockdown?), and I've just heard that the Goodwill I like using down in the Marina is FINALLY accepting donations again! Which means that sometime this week I'll go over during an odd hour and get rid of all this crap I've been staring at for the last six months. Yay clean floors again!

As for the writing...I'm kind of banging up against a wall with Theadia, but I'm making up for that by working on a few secondary projects in the interim just to keep active. It's frustrating because this is one of those "great idea in search of a stronger plot" ideas I've come up with, so I'm trying to look at it from different angles. This is how I was able to work past problems with the last three novels and hasn't failed me yet, so we'll see where it goes.

Anything else...? Not that I can think of. Just keeping busy and moving forward the best I can.

Current Mood: relaxed
Current Location: Spare Oom
Current Music: Niners/Seahawks game

It's been a very weird couple of days here in the Bay Area. Over the weekend the days would start out cold and overcast, gloomy enough that I didn't want to do anything other than hide inside where it's warm. And of course by midday the gloom clears off, leaving me feeling a bit guilty and lazy, so we'd go out for a walk around the block just to get the exercise.

And today I'm feeling a bit off because a Big Windy Front came a-sweeping through, waking me up numerous times last night. It's quietish now, sunny and clear even, but chilly. Which means I'm even less tempted to go outside.

And yes, I've even kicked on the heater back here in Spare Oom. My fingers are still cold.

Current Mood: cold
Current Location: Spare Oom

A had Friday and Monday off, so we've had a full schedule of things going on! On Friday we drove up to Petaluma and visited her parents for the first time in who knows how long (at least not since March). It was nice to be able to head out of town again, doubly so when we met at a brewpub for lunch! On Saturday we went for a loooooong walk through the Presidio, and today we walked up to Fillmore for book shopping and ice cream. And tomorrow we're going to the zoo! So all in all, we will have walked at least a dozen miles in four days!

This of course means that I haven't gotten any writing done over the last few days, but I'm finally at the point where I'm okay with that. I'm still wrapping my brain around the Theadia project as it is, and this has given me a bit of time to come up with some solid ideas. One thing I have done over the last week or so, however, is drawing! Specifically, I've been having a bit of fun drawing a quick and dirty storyboard for the opening chapter of Diwa & Kaffi, and I'm having a LOT of fun with it. I might post it over at the B-Town blog at a future point, perhaps...

In the meantime, hope everyone's having an enjoyable weekend!

Current Mood: tired
Current Location: Spare Oom

There are just some days when I'm just DONE with running around in self-created circles, and trying to believe my own excuses for creating them in the first place.

I'm just tired of deferring to my own comfortable stasis and avoiding my own fears. Tired of delaying everything because of some old crusty hang-ups that shouldn't bother me anymore.

I've been fighting those damn things for decades and I'm DONE with that now.

This needs to change.

Current Mood: annoyed
Current Location: Spare Oom

It's Sunday afternoon and most of the house errands are done. We walked up to the other end of Clement to stop at the garden store, the Ace and then check out the farmer's market, pick up some pork buns for lunch, then walked back, totaling just over three miles. We're understandably tired now, but I ended up doing the laundry anyway!

Speaking of which, someone spilled what I think is laundry detergent three days ago and no one has cleaned it up yet, so instead of doing my usual well I'd better clean it up BECAUSE NO ONE ELSE EFFING WILL, I decided to be a bit catty and post a sign above it: "Come on, people...this spill has been here for THREE DAYS. Didn't your parents teach you to clean up after yourself??" We'll see how long it lasts. And yes, I plan on going down there and updating the sign as the days go on.

ANYWAY! Not too much else going on. Saturday was a shopping day and we were indeed happy that pretty much every person we saw at the Target and Home Depot had the masks on and were keeping a decent distance. We bought a few things including carpet tape in hopes that our throw rugs will finally stop migrating of their own accord (our big rug under the kitchen table seems to move significantly which is a weird thing and I have no idea how it happens...I'll be taping that one down later this week).

I'm still doing fine with the whiteboard schedule, either hitting all the daily projects before A is done working for the day, or making up for it the next day. I'm averaging about 300 - 500 words a day for Theadia, which is pretty good for starters. I'm even getting some poetry done! Woot!

So...any plans for the week? A few, including the carpet taping. I'm gonna see if I can get some of these Goodwill donations out of Spare Oom because I am REALLY sick of looking at them and would love to have some floor space back! And I'm also thrilled to discover that the Friends of SF Library is taking book donations again, so those can go as well once I'm able to get an opening for it! [Side note: One of the reasons I wanted to clear out that space is because that will then give me room to go into Spare Oom closet and start weeding out the CDs that are there, so I can start selling them at Amoeba. That was one of my plans from earlier this year before the 'rona scuppered it.]

Hope everyone has a good week! :)

Current Mood: accomplished
Current Location: Spare Oom

Well! Here I am, posting on another Sunday evening, pleasantly surprised that I've kept to my new whiteboard schedule for the most part! Welcome to Bridgetown and Walk in Silence are both getting updated, I've been getting some practice on my guitars, and I've even been getting some drawing done! (I missed one day on the art, but that's okay, it was Friday and I was distracted by all the New Music Releases. Heh.)

The best part is that I've successfully kicked off the prep work for the New Project, which I've codenamed Theadia. It's the waystation story that I've mentioned in the past, and I've been spending the week writing out some world building ideas and rules using my daily words over at 750. I'm of course a little nervous because I don't want to mess it up, especially considering how successful the process of writing Diwa & Kaffi was once I figured it all out. I just want to make sure this one is just as successful, because I really love the idea. Especially considering I'd unexpectedly come up with a fantastic plot idea to run with!

My long term plan is to heighten the focus on my creativity. I don't know where it will lead me, but I've got the time and the drive to do it, and I have absolutely no reason not to follow through now. I know I've been my own worst enemy in the past -- y'know, Best Laid Plans versus Follow-Through and all that -- but this time I want to prove to myself that I can make this happen. I did it before to some degree when I prepped and self-pubbed the trilogy, doing everything on my own, so it's really a matter of self-belief and self-confidence. And now that I've let myself have more of that lately, there's no reason I can't do it again.

Here's to hoping...!

Current Mood: determined
Current Location: Spare Oom

I've been thinking a lot about returning to my blogging. On the one hand I went on hiatus because I felt I was just repeating myself over and over with the writing blog and phoning it in on the music blog. On the other hand -- and I've said this before -- the Day Job changes had put considerable stress on me in those last few months before I quit.

I miss sharing the music that I've been listening to. I miss sharing my writing processes. And I also miss the schedule, believe it or not. Scheduling gives my brain a bit of stability and direction. And that in turn inspires me to work more on my fiction.

Hell, I'm even thinking of scheduling my Daily Words again. I'm ready for it.

I just need to stop Making Plans to Do It and JUST FREAKIN' DO IT ALREADY.

Hell, I've already returned to journaling and poetry. Not with any schedule, mind you, but I'm actively pursuing those again.

**

I've also started leaning heavily on my music again. I've been inspired to record my noodling, and not just on my phone for demo references...I'm learning more about what I can do with the foot pedal my sister gave me last Christmas (it's a Zoom G1 Four and it has all sorts of neat sounds and effects!), and I'd like to start recording things onto my PC. (Do I even know what I'm doing? Hell no. But that's part of the fun of it all!)

Part of this stems from the fact that I haven't been able to write music for a long time, at least not in the way I used to write it. I toyed with giving it up or treating it as a hobby, but I don't think I'm ready to do that just yet. I still create melodies in my head that I haven't quite figured out to play, and they're not going to do anything if they remain there on endless loop. This forces me to hear sounds in a different way and build it up exponentially. That in turn will teach me how to layer a song, giving it depth. It's the same as my writing, really -- the only way I can learn is if I keep immersing myself.

**

So what about my artwork?

Well. That REALLY fell by the wayside over the last year or so, and I'm annoyed and saddened by that. Same reasons as above: creative frustration, little time, too many personal things going on. But you know, it's been months and things are better now, so I'm adding that to my creative schedule as well. Any aim on that in particular? Well, not at the moment, but I think I'm going to approach it a bit differently this time. No projects, no specific aim, no goal. Just taking pencil (or pen) (or stylus, if I decide to finally upgrade to a new Wacom) and doing a bit every day just to do it. See where it goes. I just want to do it all again.

**

So yeah. I miss the level of creativity I used to have just a few years ago. It's high time for me to return to it.

I still have the whiteboard up. Let's get this thing filled up again.

Current Mood: determined
Current Location: Spare Oom
Current Music: Sunday afternoon football

It's been about what, a month since I've posted here? What have I been up to, anyway? Well, a mix of keeping busy and not doing much at all, really. This has been the Summer of High Humidity here in the Bay Area, which has left me with a consistent headache and considerable exhaustion, so there's that. Oh, and there was the Orange Apocalyptic Sky last week:

Apocalyptic Orange Sky

That, my friends, was taken at noon last Wednesday. Short explanation is that the smoke from the numerous California wildfires had been pushed high into the atmosphere by a low marine layer, so the air was actually kind of breathable but creepy af. The fact that it felt like 5am all day long was extremely disorienting. Thankfully, the skies are relatively clear and blue today (still smoky but much better quality than previous days),

Other than that, what have I been up to?

Finally finished the latest revision of Diwa & Kaffi, and I'm thinking I'll reach out to a pro writer friends this week for a beta read (she'd offered a few months previous, so...). If anyone else is interested, please feel free to comment here!

On a more personal level, I've come to the realization that I'm feeling a bit anxious about taking any next steps in my professional and personal lives. More to the point, I'm feeling anxious about taking those first steps. Which is odd, because usually I don't let this sort of thing bother me all that much...in the past I may have voiced my concerns and worries, then followed it up by jumping in with both feet. Sometimes I flail, but every now and again it works out just fine. So why now?

I let myself unpack that earlier this morning, and I think I have a reason: as I'd said earlier here and elsewhere, I feel like I'm in the exact same spot I was in 30 years ago: time for some big life changes...but what? And how? But that isn't what's bugging me and keeping me from reacting. I'm not anxious about the unknown. Nervous, sure, but not overly so. So WHY on earth am I so nervous about taking that leap of faith? What kind of trauma is keeping me from taking that step, if anything? And I realized: yeah, it's exactly like 1990 all over again. I'm not afraid of taking that step, I'm afraid of the failure.

I'm afraid of the failure afterwards, down the road. I spent most of the early 90s trying to readjust my life accordingly, trying to achieve my creative and academic goals and failing for varied reasons. Deferring so many other goals and wishes because I couldn't afford them. Trying to find much-needed emotional stability so i could get my shit together and failing. I'm finally accepting that six goddamn years of that was a hell of a lot more traumatic for me than I realized.

So. What does that have to do with smoke-drenched 2020?

Good question. I have a lot of important steps I need to take, and soon. I need to get a new job. I need to shop Diwa & Kaffi around. I need to get my ass back on the saddle and write again. And I need to make some important personal choices as well. I've worked out why I haven't as of yet. It's taken me a few months to come to terms with that. But it's time for me to push forward again.

I'm not afraid of the future, not this time out.

Current Mood: contemplative
Current Location: Spare Oom
Current Music: Bob Moses, Desire EP

The funny thing about being a packrat, especially of the writer kind (and one who obsessively dates every journal and writing session entry at that) is that it really helps when one is trying to understand a much earlier point in their lives.

I say this because over the last few weeks, I'd gone through my poetry chapbooks and attempts at personal journals from my college years. I'm kind of doing it partly for a sense of long overdue closure. I've said before that the early 90s were some of the worst years for me emotionally and otherwise, for a multitude of reasons. Some of them my own making, some of them otherwise.

In this instance, whenever I looked at my poetry notebooks from around that time, I always noticed one particular thing that stuck out more than anything, even the words I wrote: I tore a lot of pages out. A lot of the poems were either rewrites (or longhand transcriptions in much cleaner penmanship), and later notebooks featured a lot of entries that were not in chronological order. I remember at the time that I'd been unhappy with the direction a few of the notebooks were going. But there had to be a much deeper reason than that.

So one of the things I did was create a chronology spreadsheet. Actually I expanded on one I already had, which I'd created for my Walk in Silence research, moving further into the 90s and even into the early 00s. I went that far because I wanted a bigger picture. I didn't want to just focus on the early part of the decade, but the latter half and into the next. What I found was that my poetry and song lyric creation came and went in waves -- I wrote a hell of a lot in 1997, for instance, which I'd nearly forgotten about, as I focus so much on the origins of the Bridgetown Trilogy from that time instead. It peters out about 2004, when a) I was focusing solely on the trilogy, b) I'd started my LiveJournal, and c) a lot of positive personal things were going on.

But back to the early 90s and those missing pages. They weren't missing, per se...like I said, I'm a packrat. I almost never purposely throw away my own writing, bad or painful as it may be. These missing pages were floating around in manila folders in various boxes and filing cabinets for years until the last couple of Great Spare Oom Purge And Cleanup sessions. They're now all safely in plastic sheet protectors and bound in cardstock report folders. I added those titles on the spreadsheet along with a few other personal events and music releases, and gave it the old Sort By Date click.

Looking at it all chronologically clarified and confirmed a lot of what I already knew: I was in a bad place emotionally, mostly of my own doing, and I was fighting it pretty damn hard. I let some of it out in my writing, but then I distanced myself from it by way of elimination. I don't think I was scared of what would come out of not fighting it...it was more that I was still firmly entrenched in not wanting to hurt other people in the process.

All that said...now that I've completed that little diversion, especially now that I'm in a much better and happier place, I can finally move forward, knowing that I can finally trust myself to do so. And that I can better understand when my priorities are a bit more important than others'.

And on a final note, I think I can finally start breaking through the creative block I've had over the last six months. But that's another post. ;-)

Current Mood: hopeful
Current Location: Spare Oom
Current Music: New music releases

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jon_chaisson

March 2026

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Drunken Owls and Other Delights

Who am I, and what have I done with me?

Recent Entries

Cleaning Up and Thinning Down

(no subject)

See ya on the flip side

Last week of the year

Weekend Chill

Where we've been and what I haven't been doing

End of the weekend

Exercises

Winter is a-coming

Where was I...?

Changes, Weekends and Cleaning

Weekend update

Weird weather

Enjoying the long weekend

Sunday Thoughts

Busy weekend

Weekend Updatery

Re: Creation

Where Was I...?

Final skeletons