Drunken Owls and Other Delights

I am extremely happy that I have today and tomorrow off, as Christmas week was VERY busy for me with the day job. Yes, even post-holiday it was a bit crazy as one of our bookkeeping systems was absolutely convinced that we were open on the 25th and would not let me close the day otherwise...and that took me two days to resolve. Sheesh!

Anyway, I'm pretty much at the wind-down part of this last week of the year. Today the in-laws will be stopping by for lunch and whatnot (in which A and I did a marathon cleaning of the house, including terrorizing the cats with the vacuum cleaner), but tomorrow I have very few plans other than dropping a very heavy return off at the local UPS store, doing laundry, and finalizing my end-of-year blog posts and best-of music lists. It felt SO GOOD to sleep in until 8am this morning, as I'm usually up around five-ish due to my early work hours. I desperately needed the rest.

On a more personal note...yeah, there was Drama and a Life Event that went on earlier this year, but I think I'm doing pretty well regarding, as I actively made it a point not to spiral into moodiness and reactive emotions. I think that was probably one of the last life-cleaning things I really needed to do at this age, and it felt really good to move on from that part of my life. I'm able to move on and reach that clarity I've been needing. And yeah, I'm still not thrilled about what the next four years might entail, but I'm learning to face it directly and with a healthy dose of "oh FUCK no, not on my watch" instead of shrinking and hiding away. I've always hated that part of me and I don't want to do that anymore. I'm tired of avoiding conflict, especially when it is desperately needed.


That said...signing off for the year. Hope everyone has a great 2025!

...but the only thing holding me back from doing anything about it is my own damn self, so at least I know who to blame. :) 

After a hellish start at the Day Job on Monday (in which I was tempted to ragequit at least twice, ignored repeated pings from people and may have responded not entirely kindly to an internal email that pissed me off), I forced myself to calm down for the rest of the day.  Not the best way to go about things.  I chilled for the remainder of my shift and then took it out on the treadmill at the gym afterwards.  And felt SO much better for it!  Yesterday was infinitely better so I just told managers that I'm hiding in Do Not Disturb so I can Finally Get Shit Done.  I'm only a day behind now, yay!  *facepalm*

ANYHOO.  Some more life choices coming up that I really shouldn't put off any longer.  I say this because if I do continue to put it off, I'll either start second-guessing myself (which I HATE, because that's the number one way for me to kill my own dreams and goals), or worse, I'll just shrug and roll over and take it.  And I realize I am SO DONE with doing the latter.

More on this at a later time, he says vaguely.  ;)

Still focusing on a lot of personal things lately.  Not complaining, just that it's keeping me busy.  Let's just say that this latest thing I've been thinking about has somehow jumpstarted a few other things that I've put off for far too long.  In particular I've been thinking about my current health status and what needs changing.  I need to lose weight -- probably around 30-40 pounds, most of it in the stomach region.  I need to take better care of my skin -- something I've had issues with for years.  I need to be more active -- especially since both my Day Job and my career require that I sit on my ass for hours at a time.

So why now?  When I've got other things on my mind, such as the Day Job situation and A getting laid off, among other things?  Well, that's the thing.  I let myself be stressed out and miserable for a day or so, just to get it out of my system.  Then I turned it around: I was NOT going to be that mopey miserable bastard again.  No fucking way.

This is my current outlook:  it's time to take a serious look at myself.  Confront the fears instead of running away from them.  Face the truths instead of avoiding them.  Question the things I've taken for granted.  Take my life choices seriously.  And most importantly: decide what I need to do for myself without the influence or input of others.  Yeah, I know... this all sounds as pithy as a self-help section of the bookstore, but there's nowt wrong with that.  Not this time.  I've got a few things on my mind that I've been wanting to change up, and it's far past the time I looked into making that happen.  Or barring that, coming to terms with why I don't need to make it happen.

Is this my own version of a midlife crisis?  Who knows.  I might be questioning what I've done with my life to date, but I'm not feeling regret.  With my past, it was what it was.  I've made my peace with those events.  I'm not responding by trying to have a second childhood, that's for sure... that's not what I want, and it's certainly not what I need.  This is me changing my life -- purging the things I don't need anymore and moving on. Making the necessary changes.  

Which brings me back to weight and health.  I'm kind of treating this the same way I treat my novel writing: a lot of moving parts that need equal focus time, in a specific order.  So while I'm working on changing the inner me, I'm balancing it with adapting the changes of the outer me as well.  All in, as they say.

Right now I have no idea if it will pan out, or if I'm just deluding myself, or if these are the changes I've so desperately needed for years now.  Self-doubt can be a bitch, especially if that's what I've run on for most of my life.  Even worse is outside influence, when I find myself so easily talked in or out of things -- that's been my worst enemy of all.  To have an idea that would benefit me, only to have someone say 'come on, is that what you *really* want?' followed by me giving up... that is the one biggest weakness of mine that I've battled with for years.  Sure, I could call myself a nonconformist all I want, but that doesn't mean anything if my instinct is to shrug and say 'maybe you're right'.  I can't do that.  Not anymore.

This has got to change.


Yeah, I know... heavy shit for a Sunday afternoon.  :p

Hope everyone has a good week ahead!

So yeah...come to find out that the answer to wishing I could go back to the days when I wasn't beholden to the Great Internet for hours at a time and got All The Writing done (read: late 90s, early 00s) is rather simple.

Close the damn browsers.

The hard part was breaking the habit. I realized it wasn't the sites I was addicted to, it was their payoff -- the dumpster fire of politics, the indignation of injustices, and so on. I was actively searching for this stuff to get the emotional response, just like the Yankee Candle and HMV days when I'd look forward to my breaks so I could light up a smoke.* The funny thing is that I understood this back in those days too, because I'd purposely stopped watching TV and gotten myself into the habit of hitting the PC at 7pm every night without fail. The payoff there was hitting a thousand words or more a night.

So what's different this time?

I think this time it's because I let the habits run their course. I saw the futility in futzing around online, hopping from one site to another like I was crossing off a shopping list. Check email, read web comics, Twitter, Facebook, news, political websites, YouTube, rinse lather repeat. Did I really need to be doing this all day long? Was I really seeing anything different? It just seemed so futile and wasteful after awhile.

Granted, I think there's also better time management going on, especially now that I understand the ups and downs of self-publishing more. I don't have time to waste watching silly videos or social media dumpster fires when I have things I need to get done. [I wish I'd have taken this tack during my school years, I'd have been a much better student.]

In the process, I've given myself new habits. Some of them are kind of silly and lightweight, but they're helping me keep this new life setting. Reverting to the old FreeCell habit instead of hitting Twitter (as I'd said elsewhere, a five minute game is better than a half hour wasted refreshing a feed). Resizing the document I have open so I can see the wallpaper behind it (it's a view of a sunset that I shot out Spare Oom window). Getting up from the desk and noodling on my guitar for a few minutes, just to stretch my legs and clear my head. Drinking less soda and more water.

And the best one so far: closing the browser. Sure, I'll pop on now and again to see what's going on, or to post on one of my blogs, or to look something up. But once I'm done with that, then I'll close it. I'll even minimize everything that remains open (mainly MS Word, Media Monkey, and/or whatever web station I happen to be listening to). Clean screen, clear mind.

Happy to say, it's working just fine so far. :)


* - There's actually a TED talk out there (yes, I do watch some of them for fun) that touches on this exact thing, worth checking out.

So ends another year.

Okay, there's one more day to go, but that last week after Christmas always seems to be more of a denouement rather than a big finish. It's when everyone takes stock in what they've done over the past year, what they've achieved, what they've missed out on, and what's still on their bucket list. Some people only think about it in passing, making vague plans or thinking about general aims rather than concrete ones. Others go into minute detail, mapping out exactly what they're going to do and when. I do a bit of both, come to think of it--I plan on going to the gym more, but I also plan on finishing the revision of A Division of Souls and getting it out in 2013. I plan on doing a bit more cooking, but I also plan on taking an evening class or two. This coming year promises to be full of interesting things.

( Short retrospective bit about cleaning out the attic in 2012 )

That said...

I have resolutions for 2013!

Writing.
This coming year looks good for me. I'm about a third of the way through the revision of A Division of Souls, and I seem to be getting more done at a quicker pace now. I figure by Q3 I should have it done and ready to go. So this means that in Q1 and Q2 I'll start doing a bit of agent and publisher research and shopping around and prepare myself for the big sendout. And when that happens, I'll start in on the revision of Book 2.

I'm going to try and squeeze in another project this time, something that won't be a main focus but something I can work on "on the interim" during afternoons or something similar. I'm not sure if it'll be a new project or if it'll be one of my backburner projects, but I want to have something going, even if it ends up being more of an exercise than a full-blown project. I need to dust off the ol' noggin and get new words flowing again. It's been too long.

I've lapsed a bit on the poetry, since I ended the Dreamwidth project earlier this year, but I'm going to start picking that up again. When I assigned myself to write a poem on certain days of the week like I did a few years back, it was a fun exercise and I think I got some decent work out of it, so I'm thinking it's time to do so again.

Also, I will continue on the Walk in Silence project. I've let it lapse a bit lately so I can play catch-up with ADoS, but I have some 2013 plans for this one. My aim is to reserve weekends for this project, so I can spend a good chunk of time focusing on it, while the weekdays stay reserved for the Eden Cycle revisions and the possible new stuff.

Lastly, chances are good I may need to buy a new laptop, as I'm not feeling good about getting my current one fixed (I'm not complaining about the place I brought it to, he's actually quite a nice guy and does good work--it's more that it died only after a year and he's having problems finding replacement parts already). Not sure what I'm going to get, but I'm open to Windows 8 and touchscreen...as long as it has MS Word, a few USB ports and a cd drive, it's all good. [Note: I don't plan on getting Apple products for personal tastes and reasons, so no need to try to sell me on it. Just sayin'. ;) ] I'd like to be able to sit out in the living room with Emm while working instead of holing myself up in Spare Oom all day and night.

More on all of this come January 1, when I update my whiteboard.

Creativity.
So I received a Wacom Splash tablet and a Korg Monotribe mini synth for Christmas (thanks to my sister and Emm, respectively). Looks like 2013 is going to be ridiculously productive! I've been meaning to pick up the drawing and the music playing again in a more substantive way, and now I have two toys that will help me reach that goal. The drawing will most likely yield more results sooner, since the tablet is ridiculously easy to use and I've had a ton of fun with it already. The synth might take a bit longer as is a bit confusing to use, but I should be able to figure it out after a bit of playing around with it (that's how I learn most instruments anyway). I'm planning on getting some multitrack audio software at some point as well, so you might see me posting some homemade tunage some time down the road.

Health.
Despite our recent lapse in going to the YMCA (holidays and a business trip will do that), the both of us plan on getting back on that bandwagon as soon as we can. Basically we'll just be continuing our ongoing exercising, so this is more of a reminder than a resolution. Walking around the neighborhood on weekends continues as weather permits, of course.

On a more personal note, I think it's high time I had a physical checkup, as it's been way too long since the last one. I feel fine other than the usual aches and pains of getting older--in fact, I'm in much better shape than I was five years ago, so this would be more about seeing where I stand healthwise and seeing if there's anything I should do or at least be aware of. I'd also like to make a trip or two to a local dentist/orthodontist to get some work done as well. I'm not in pain, but I do need the cleaning and perhaps a new crown or two.

Work and Education.
Short version is that I'm about to start actively looking for a new job again, after taking some time off from doing so (partly due to no bites, but partly due to a work-related project that I ended up having quite a big hand in--who knew that I'd actually become an SME about OFAC regulations and check printing?). Still debating on what exactly I should look for. However, part of that debate will also lean on a few things: I'd like to find one of those professional job placement places in town, just to see where I should be jobwise. There's also the fact that I'm thinking of looking into some adult education courses for things that might help this future trajectory. Not sure where I'm going here, but I'm glad I'm in a position where I'll be able to do this.

Financial.
I've been sitting on my rollover IRA from Yankee Candle for too long and not putting any money into it or moving it around, so it hasn't really been making any money over the last few years. I think it's high time I started putting more money into it and reorganizing it, or maybe even moving it into another institution. I actually have some background on this from my old position at the bank, so it's not as if I'd be going in blind.

Lifecleaning.
Over the course of the last few months, I've been doing a bit of sorting and cleaning here and there, digitally and otherwise. Getting some things in order, finishing other things I've put aside. It's slow going, but I try to get some of it done on a daily if not weekly basis. I still have some papers and items to sort through, scan, shred, and whatnot, and I still need to bring quite a few items to Goodwill and books to bring to the Fort Mason bookstore. But other than that, I'm finally getting a lot of it in order to the point that any other cleaning is at the point of upkeep rather than getting things in order.


So that's my 2013 plans in a nutshell. A lot of stuff planned or scheduled to unfold, and I'm definitely looking forward to it.