BitterSuites

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!

eBay Sales: lunchbox purse

Craft Projects Completed: 0

Dead Bulb Watch: Fixed today! Someone else put in the ticket though, so I’m considering it a win.

#MilWordy Update: 54,194 words (2,813 words/day to complete)

Spending the evening writing.

Work was, as big a pain as usual.

And, honestly, today was pretty much a filler section of a book and not worth discussing. On the other hand, I’m still here, still blogging, and still writing every day. I count that as good.

What did you get up to today?

eBay sales: figurine, cross-stitch pattern

Bonanza sales: Camcorder tape

Craft Projects Completed: 0 (Yes, progress on the scarf)

Dead Bulb Watch: 22 Business Days (Although, someone actually mentioned putting in a ticket for it. But she’s like me and is refusing to do it herself this time.)

#MilWordy Update: 53,931 (2,807 words/day to complete on time)

Turned in my November short story for the GFP Patreon. Doing the last line-edits on my October short story. (Just a little out of order, but there’s reasons for setting it up this way. The November one has to do with Veterans and the October one is a horror story.) I’ll hopefully get the October turn-in done tomorrow. Or tonight, if I end up feeling ambitious.

eBay is slowing down, but I’m pretty sure that’s my fault. I haven’t been listing every day, which means that there’s very little new product for people to find. However, Bonanza sales are going up. (Not that that’s hard. I’ve only had a handful of Bonanza sales over the long-term.) Do any of you shop on Bonanza?

My eBay focus is on new products, Halloween products, or Christmas products. Hopefully, quick listing will lead to quick selling. There’a a whole host of items which take a lot more time to describe and list. (Patterns, magazines, dolls) Things with barcodes are easy to list. Vintage things, not so much.

I’ve been diving into some writing lectures lately and I don’t know if it’s helping, but at least it’s not hurting. I’ve got a notice set up for a virtual write-in for Wednesday and you should consider joining us. Porscha Simmons:

Should be fun.

I’m meeting a friend for dinner on Thursday. It’s been a long time since we really could do that, given the situation in Virginia. But I’m looking forward to it. I’m going to try to do a Discord-Write in with a friend on Thursday or Friday night. Basically, I’m trying to remember what it’s like to have a life again.

I’m in post-Basho blech when it comes to TV because the next Sumo tournament that they broadcast is in November. And November seems so far away. I think I’ll sign off and try to be productive tonight.

Pumpkins, Leaves, and Laughter, my Lovelies!

eBay Sales: magazine back issue

Craft Projects Completed: 0 (scarf progress continues)

Dead Bulb Watch: 21 Business Days — I am beginning to twitch. Can no one else see that the light is out? Is the light not out and my eyes are failing me? Am I going insane? Or are people really that incapable of just putting in a freaking ticket. Honestly, my money is on the fact that people are freaking lazy and incapable of putting in a ticket because I still regularly need to talk people through how to do such a thing. “How do we get a coffee maker?” REQUEST ONE. Put in a ticket. *deep breath* *deep breath* Let it go. (Song cue!)

#MilWordy Update: 53,664 — Finished another short story and sent it off for beta reading. At least some projects are getting finished, even if they aren’t *long* projects.

Okay, if MS Word doesn’t stop trying to open One Drive which I DO NOT USE, I will not be responsible for my cursing. So done with your shit MS Word. I have to batter you into a corner every time you update because you’re trying to override my systems. If I want your crappy grammar help, I’ll ask for it. If I want you to autocorrect to fancy quotes, I’ll tell you to do that. But I DON’T because this document is destined for the WEB and your FANCY QUOTES don’t TRANSLATE PROPERLY.

Walk away. Just walk away from the computer. That is all I can do tonight. Just walk away and let it stew in how wrong it is.