Monthly Archives: October 2020

eBay Sales: None

Craft Projects Completed: 0

#MilWordy Update: 67,533 words (2843 words/day to complete on time)

I suppose I really ought to start titling these things something more interesting. I just don’t have that many clever titles. Ask anyone who’s been on one of my email lists. Normally it’s “update” or “new submission call” not anything clever. Still, people open those emails and they serve their purpose, so they’re not suffering.

The spam bots and I seem to have hit a creative slump today. They weren’t even trying to copy and paste essays today. It was very sad. I would love to tell you something interesting, but my main accomplishment for the day was getting my email under 300 and typing up meeting minutes. Meeting minutes are the bane of my existence and the equivalent to the weekly journal review you might have to write for your theory classes. Not my favorite subject or even anything I’m particularly interested in.

The problem, not just for me, but for many people, is that we’re rather good at whatever we’re hired to do and people interpret that as being interested or loving the job. No. This is a job. You hired me to do it. I have been trained by my 18 years of schooling to do the assignment I have been given to the best of my ability. The brainwashing is strong. That doesn’t mean I enjoy what I’m doing. Or that I sought it out. I fell into my career when my actual *plans* for a career careened into a health issue and I lost my way for awhile.

It seems to me, that these days, I could probably circle back to some of what I was planning. Even if I just do it on-line and for fun. It’s not as though I’m not competent or actually credentialed on the subject I want to explore. Hmm… You might see something a little more interesting in the future, but I don’t want to 1) spoil the possible surprise or 2) disappoint myself when this new plan smashes up against something else. It would be nice if I could actually find a way to leverage myself into one of the R&D tracks that my old company was doing. I think I still have the cards of some of the folks who were working on it.

I could wax poetic about the Northern Lights that I got to see once when I was shorter than I am today. Or I could blather on about some sort of writing thing. But the reality is, I’ve got a headache and I really just want to sleep. So, goodnight, my someones, goodnight. (Song cue!)

eBay Sales: mystery mini, Girl Scout Badge, Creepy Baby Doll, book

Craft Projects Completed: 0

#MilWordy Update: 62,513 words (2,850 words/day to complete)

So, I broke my streak yesterday. I found out that a co-worker died over the weekend and I just didn’t have the wherewithal to write anything. Stress does that to me. I just lose my creative edge. I could take this time to consider mortality or maybe meditate on how people are more important to you than you think they are. I wasn’t particularly close to the individual who passed, but it’s still a bit of a hole after you’ve lost a tooth loss rather than full on grief. But I’ve been contemplating mortality since this pandemic began and meditating on personal interactions with co-workers gives me a headache and I just don’t want that right now. For now, I’m going to focus on the future and the good things which are coming.

Vacation is getting closer and I’m starting to do the packing. Or at least the packing lists. I hate the last minute type of packing that means I’ve forgotten my head and everything else. Thus, thinking ahead. And trying to not overpack. It seems that I take less and less with me on trips. This year will be slightly different because we’ll need to take more food with us and more things like disinfectant wipes and hand sanitizer and masks. (I am not forgoing the masks, even if the local we’re headed to has. We’re from VA and the possibility that I’m a carrier is high, even if I’m asymptomatic.

I’ve been listening to the back-catalog of a podcast and they’re just hitting the beginning of the pandemic and the self-isolating phase. It’s strange to think that it was March when that really hit. It’s been so long that I barely think about it. My team at work is all back to full time. I’ve been more than half-time for much longer, so if anyone whines (looking at one person in particular) I’m going to smack them with my rolled up to do list.

Going on vacation means that I have to get all of the things at work set up so that someone else can take over for me. I’ve been single strung for months and trying to get all of that information set down in a way that makes sense is harder than just telling her to call me. However, I do not answer calls from work while I’m on vacation. They can leave a voicemail. Work does not exist when I am on vacation. I refuse.

What are you looking forward to this year?

Love, leaves, and pumpkin spice, cousins.

EBay sales: 0

Craft Projects Completed: 0

To Do List Completed:

• Replaced light bulb in hallway
• Replaced light bulb in bathroom
• Listed on eBay
• Picked up items purchased at auction (and resisted petting the cat there)

#MilWordy Update: 60,548 words (2,830 words/day to complete on time)

Despite the fact that I’m feeling completely unproductive because I haven’t managed to spend any time writing yet today and I didn’t hit my word count yesterday. This is getting a little ridiculous because I know very well that I can do this. I think I may have to resurrect “Write or Die” to get myself back on track.

I highly recommend Write or Die. it works for me really well because it starts sounding an alarm when you stop writing. Avoiding that annoying sound is motivation enough to keep typing. I have never been brave enough to let it start deleting if I stop typing. I’ve lost words due to program crashes and it’s hell. I can’t volunteer for that. My general practice is to set the number of words I need as 2500/45 minutes. It’s doable. At least for me. And this is why I haven’t figured out why I can’t manage to hit my MilWordy numbers every day. I mean, I understand that stress messes with my brain. I understand that right now the world is very stressful. The thing is, writing has always been my escape. And losing that escape is pretty scary.

Let’s step away from the emotional stuff for different emotional stuff. Writing has been hard, but so has finishing things on my to do list in general. I’m guessing it’s a larger problem of executive dysfunction or dysthymia, so I am trying to be kind to myself. That doesn’t stop the frustration though. The light bulb on the hallway has been out for about a week.

Now, the light bulb in the highway was in the ceiling and near the back stairs, which activated my heights issues. I forced myself up to the top platform of the stepstool and changed the bulb. (Nine foot up and doing my best not to look down the stairs.) Some things are harder than they seem. And this is a call-out to everyone to be kind to themselves. Some things which are trivial to some people are really hard for others. For example — walking from the car to the door of a store. This is not an issue for me, but it is an issue for my mother. Or crawling up a ladder. This is hard for me. I’ve never been happy on them, but it’s an act of will to force myself to climb more than four-five steps on a ladder.

That being said, I have climbed on a mountain and repelled. My summary: I survived. I cried. And if the plane has crashed and NO ONE else in the area can manage to climb the mountain, I will do it and light a fire on the ridge so that someone can find us. I will not be repelling back down unless I need to for food.

With that, I’ll sign off. Love, luck, and pumpkin spice, sweethearts!

eBay Sales: vintage doll

Craft Projects completed: Shortened the sleeves on my Halloween shirt. I’m going to use the leftover fabric to make gauntlets.

#MilWody Update: 58,627 ( 2818 words/day to complete on time.)

I was listening to a podcast about St. Anthony’s Fire. It’s a horrifying disease that I only knew about partly. It was a medieval disease which [Trigger Warning for Intense Disease Discussion. If you are at all squeamish I’d skip this paragraph and the next.] in which the limbs felt as though they were on fire, then turned red, blistered, then turned black and fell off accompanied by stench and hallucinations. So lovely.

My brain was instantly believing that this was leprosy (limbs dropping off) or a form of the plague (Red and black pustules which bleed and decay along with fevers)  before the actual reality of it being ergot poisoning came up.

[Safe paragraph. Trigger Warning for discussion of LSD] Ergot, if you haven’t heard, and many haven’t, is a mold which grows on rye. It has been blamed for the Salem witch trials. (Mostly debunked. See Unobscured Podcast Season 1 for more information on the Salem Witch Trials.) And for an outbreak of violence in France/Prussia. I can’t talk to whether those are true stories even, and I’m not really going to address that here. I’m going to give a very brief discussion of Dr. Hoffman.

Dr. Albert Hoffman was working with lysergic acid in 1943. Now, the story I was told in college was that he got a little onto his hand and either rubbed his eye or touched his face. However it happened, he ended up having a 24 hour trip during which he actually managed to bicycle home. After recovering from his very intense and interesting adventure of tipping balls, he returned to the lab to eventually create LSD.  He also worked with other psychedelics like psilocybin and was the one to isolate the compound.

Thing is, this man was an incredible an incredible chemist with more than 100 articles and several books. I am looking forward to trying to read his work in actual German. It will be a challenge, but he has an entire book dedicated to LSD which I want to read. I can only hope to be as prolific or live to his advanced age. He was 102 when he died. Possibly because he was smart enough to commute with a bicycle for part of his career. Something I will probably never manage to do.

Well, that was a tiny overview and a happy memory of my History of Psychology professor. He was a proponent of empathogens and psychedelics use in counseling activities. Especially drug rehab and end-of-life work. I’ll talk about that more on another day, when I can see where the research is currently. In other words, maybe in a few years when I feel up to facing the actual reality of reading psych journals again.

Anway, Love, leaves, and laughter! G’night!