EEK! NaNoWriMo is looming!

Weather: Still WindPocalyptic! High: 60º & WINDY!ZOMG!
Well,kept my promise to work out this morning, albeit not as long as I’d wished. Managed a good 20 minutes of aerobic movement. Not bad for a start. I also have my daily 2 mile hike to and from the office. (2 miles round trip)

Hopefully I can start disciplining myself into working out a full 30-45 minutes in the morning. It’s difficult to work it in,  considering my morning schedule, but it’s not impossible.

Just realized with a rather harsh jolt that NaNoWriMo starts on Monday! ZOMG!  Since I decided to completely trash what I had for Book #2  and reboot the story, at least I have fresh material to work on, and won’t be in violation of the “rules”. Nice thing is, I’ll be taking some vacation time in November, so I’ll have NO excuse not to make my wordcount. 🙂

Indulging in my Foodie tendencies today. Had lunch at Hannah’s Bretzel, which is a Chicago only sandwich shop (so far)  which specializes in organic, vegetarian & sustainable foodstuffs. They have a literal WALL of CHOCOLATE, which contains all sorts of high end, fair trade & organic chocolate offerings. Today, I got their Apple, Thyme & Brie sandwich, a Clementine Izze sparkling juice and a couple of Vosges Chocolate bars (One is for the Husbeast. Because I’m a good wife. 🙂

Speaking of the husbeast, this weekend is our fifth wedding anniversary, which is still low on the married years list. But if you consider that I’ve known the man for 15 years, and we’re still not bored of each other yet? Yeah, I consider that a fantastic milestone. And he’s still as wonderful as he was the day I met him. ::hands out insulin shots for everyone:: Yes, I tend to gush when I speak of him, but that’s what crazyLove does to you. 🙂

The TinyBuddha twitter feed offered up this gem today: “It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.” ~E.E. Cummings

A few of my friends were commiserating that the statement is even more pertinent as you get past your thirties, or even into your forties (where I am).  My comment on this quote was that at some point, when you get a little older, you shake off the dross of others expectations and become who you really are. And yes, it takes courage to do that. Especially if who you truly are as a person flies in the face of parental expectations or familial & cultural mores.  The first hurdle is accepting that you’re an adult. Seems easy, but I don’t know one person who didn’t balk at the idea. Second, you have to truly not care what others think. You have to let people’s opinions roll off your back like water.  Honestly, the easiest way to be who you truly are, is to BE WHO YOU TRULY ARE. As in, start living your life the way you want: Dress the way you feel comfortable, eat what you like, live where you want to live. Yes there might be constraints of a legal nature, as in, if you’re most comfortable in a thong & high heels…and nothing else? You might find yourself at odds with the authorities if you were, say, walking around the supermarket like that. But you know what I mean.

I knew I was an adult, and had embraced who I was when, at 24, I moved to Boston with no money, no job and a bare foothold on an apartment. EVERYONE said I was nuts. Well, except for my friend, Terri, who was moving with me.  But I did it. Terrified, flailing and unsure of what to expect, I just did my best to make it work.  Got a job, and started spending most of my free time writing. Now, it was “finesse your craft” time, and I didn’t try to get anything published, but I embraced the writer in me & threw myself into the deep end to try and make it work on my own. I partially succeeded. I ended up moving back to Indiana, but I brought a stiffer resolve home with me. I got an apartment, got a job in Chicago and the rest is sort of history. It took me until I was almost 35 to figure out that other people’s opinions were just that, OPINIONS. And even longer, into my 40s before I stopped trying to apply traditional models to every aspect of my life.  I stand here, at 43, on the brink of getting published, and moving away from everything that is settled & safe (Well, excepting the Husbeast… He’s coming with!) . And I’ve never felt happier or more fulfilled at the prospect. I just wish some days that I could go back and let my 20 year old self know. It all works out.

 

T- 1day till WATCHMEN! ZOMG!

weather: High: 61 degrees and sunny. ::glee::

Am SO EXCITED to see Watchmen tomorrow night.! We’re going to see it at the IMAX theater out in Portage. Getting tix will be tricky considering that they don’t allow for advance purchase online. Crud. So we’ll be hightailing it early to get the tix and killing time until the show. Maybe we’ll get some early dinner. Will depend on funds.

Eleventh Hour last night was FTW! Good episode and produced  couole lines of dialog that actually made me turn and high five the hubby!:
Rachel: You know there’s a band called Anthrax?
Hood: I’m more of a Cradle of Filth guy.
ME: O_O FTW!!!

Lunch was beautiful. wish I’d had more time to stay out there, as it had soared up to 68 degrees. Sigh.

Found an amusing anecdote on Neil’s Blog. Apparently in Iceland, the belief in elves is so embedded in the national psyche that whenever a large building is about to be built, they have to bring in a nationally acredited elf detector, to make sure that there aren’t any elves living under the location, before they build. Yes. I too want a job as an elf detector.

Heather may be calling tonight which makes me squee! ALso have BSG tonight, which is also of the squeeage.

Done and Done.

Have a good weekend all.

Thursday and busy as crap again…

Weather: High: 58 degrees and WINDY. No SERIOUSLY WINDY!

Am realizing that I need one good night’s sleep and soon. Body is starting to hate me for making it get up at 5 and trundle off to work.

Cracked Brian up hardcore this morning when I wandered in after washing my hair and blurted out, “I have a charley horse right in the middle of my butt meat.” Apparently, “Butt Meat” is the funniest thing he’d ever heard because he practically sporfled himself out of the bed. ::shakes head:: This ranks up there with the infamous “fanny clapper” comment that almost got us killed on the highway because my husband was laughing so hard he wasn’t focusing on the road. I’m really good with the timing, haven’t I mentioned that?

Need to go run out and grab some accessories for lunch. Like a bottle of water and some desserty type item.  Then do some writing. Lots and lots of writing.

YAY! YAY! YAY! My friend Heather just sent me and Brian a box loaded up with  good smelling soapy yumminess!  She makes the most fantastic soaps, lotions and lip balms!! Everyone should go here, and buy from her!
Oak Haven Soaps

Am feeling discombobulated today. Don’t know if its the weather or just the lack of sleep. Could be a lot of both. Can’t seems to concentrate on much these days.

Need to go home and do some writing tonight. May only watch CSI and then go into the dining room so I’m less distracted.

Need to wrap this up. Sad that my average post this week has been under 300 words each day. Sigh.

Vid for today:
Reptile by The Church

Because it has one of the most amazingly catchy guitar riffs. It’s one of my top 10 songs of all time. Seriously.

Life at the crossroads…

Weather: High: 37 DEGREES I SAY!!! HUZZAH! and partly cloudy. Let zee big melt begin.

Today is an interesting day in that I’m feeling the double edged sword of seething resentment and crystal pure clarity. Positive and negative emotions so very carefully balanced on a sword blade. The sharp side, I might add, so you can see the balance is precarious.

Sometimes you reach a crossroads in your life and don’t even realize you were heading there until you arrive.

Several things have happened over the course of the past few weeks to make me realize that some heavy choices have been dumped at my feet.  Most of these fall under the “Time to make a decision on what’s your priority?”. The rest fall under the “Is it time to let this go?”.

Writing has taken over the forefront of my life and focus right now. With the exception of Brian, this is what is important to me. It’s not a social or group endeavor.  It is solitary by nature and necessity. And I’m finding that people who are not writers, do not seem to understand this.  If I say I didn’t get my cleaning done on a Saturday because I was writing, half the people I know are “Cool! Good on you!”
The rest act like I’m just slacking and why couldn’t I just do it another day?
Sigh. This isn’t a goddamn hobby, people.  It’s not like knitting or WOW or any other things you can just do when the time allows.  When something pops in the skull and demands to get written, you have to stop what you’re doing and write it down or you lose it.  And you don’t just schedule an hour to get some writing done. I’ve had days where I’ve sat at the laptop for 6 hours straight writing and not even realized the time had passed. Other days I can sit for an hour and be done. There’s no simply setting an hour aside in my daily schedule for it.

Another thing that has come like a fiery epiphany is that I’m no longer  allowing other people’s issues to become my priority. Sorry, if that seems harsh. I’m quite willing to help out and listen to problems, but I’m sorry, I have a metric tonne of stuff I’m trying to coordinate right now. (A major move, career change, start a family, get 4 novels finished) and they are my priority.

The one thing that is chapping my ass the hardest is people’s lack of understanding where my work is concerned.
At my office there is me and my boss. We comprise our IT department. We are responsible for 100+ brokers (At 2 separate locations) and their PCs and their Citrix connections. Add in the new software we’re trying to roll out and the training to go along with it and a shit ton of data entry related to some new brokers who have joined our company recently, and yes, I AM REALLY DAMN BUSY! (Yes I post online, but I have 2 monitors and my browser is on one and my data entry is on the other. Therefore when something it processing, I can type a few lines over here.)
NOW. I am in an OPEN CUBE. This means I have 2 walls and no door. People can just walk up to my desk and bug me. I also SHARE this cube with another woman. Who sits 5 feet away from me. This means I have ZERO PRIVACY when it comes to my phone or in person conversations. This is why I don’t like taking personal calls at work. My family is NOTORIOUS for this. Also, if you call my work line? I have Voice Mail. LEAVE IT. I have  a hotline for the IT department on my phone that requires my priority attention. So if I say I have to go, I HAVE TO GO. Don’t get huffy if I hang up on you after telling you I HAVE TO GO and you insist on babbling. My cell phone is on vibrate when I’m in the office. It’s a moot point because I get shit reception  in this building.

My lunch hour at work is precious to me. Usually this is when I get a lot of writing done. And catching up with e-mail and bills. I like to take advantage of the T3 we have here at work.

Now if all of this is coming across as me turning into a selfish bitch, all I can say is this: Yes, I am. And it’s about time.
I have put everything I have ever wanted to do on the back burner for the past 30 years of my life.  I’ve said no to things I really wanted to do, because friends or family wanted to do something else. I have put my problems aside to work on everyone elses. I let my writing languish while I wasted hours on things that held ZERO interest for me.  I’ve let other people natter on about their problems, passions and traumas while finding that noone ever had time to listent to mine. (Brian being the exception to this.) I’ve let other people’s disapproval or condescension make me hesitate in doing things that I would have loved to do and now there’s no second chance on some of those things.
Life is not a series of checkmarks in a book. If I do something for you, to help you? I do it because I want to help, not because I’m SUPPOSED to. And I don’t hold that in reserve to require reciprocity. I hope that if I’m in a bad situation, someone would offer to help. I don’t hold people in contempt if they don’t “return the favor”.  Help is only noble if it’s offered, not obligated.

So, this is my crossroads. I can either keep on being the go to person for everyone and setting my own goals and endeavors aside, or I can choose the harder path to do what I need to do, following my own path and hoping that the people who matter come along for the ride.

::Re-reads what I’ve written above::

I think it’s self-evident what path I’m going to choose.
To mis-quote VNV Nation: Enough is enough, No has meaning. This is my line in the sand.
I no longer will defend my decisions.
My life is no longer up for debate.
My choices, for good or bad, will be MY CHOICES.
And if you don’t like any of this, you may want to reconsider associating with me.
I am a good friend, I am a good person.  But I deserve the right to determine my life and what choices I make. As do you.
Three Days Grace says it nicely here:
Vodpod videos no longer available.

Anyway. Enough spleen bleeding from me today. I feel better now that’s out of my head.

Understand, I’m not aiming this at any person in particular. The list of people this applies to is lengthy and most of them will never read this. It’s just cathartic for me to say it. Doesn’t matter if any of them read it or even take it to heart.

ENOUGH.

Back to writing. 😉

New Year’s Eve: Standing on the Brink…

Weather: High: 22 Degrees and partly cloudy.

Gonna be a short day at work today, thank the benevolent deities.

Getting a lot of crap done here today so this may be short.

Brink of a New Shiny Year. I’m both exhilirated and terrified. It’s one thing to make grand pronouncements and plans, it’s quite another to suddenly find yourself face to face with actually implementing them.

Bri and I both have a touch of the noody naddies (quoth Bri’s Dad), which is a crappy combo of sinus and coughing. Hopefully we’ll be able to kill the germs with a gallon of Woodchuck Cider tonight.  Was SOO hoping for naughty new years games tonight, but I may have to settle for some tipsy snogging. Still nice, mind you!

SO we’ll be bidding a not so fond farewell to 2008. While there were plenty of reasons to hate this year (The Flood, too many deaths, including my poor wee Apache!, Brian getting laid off, and health issues across the board) , there were many many good things as well. My sister got married, my brother got a job, and I finally beat my writer’s block to death with a two-by-four, thanks to a great plot bunny buried in a video.

So thank you Adam and Brad and Barry and Neil for kicking through that wall for me.  A foreward thank you is in the offing. And maybe even a request for some lyric usage if you’re so inclined. ::grins::

And additionally thank you to WordPress for giving me a much more free and open outlet for my meanderings here. I still like LJ for the interaction, but I still feel awkward posting a lot of stuff there. Facebook is still my go to for the quick and dirty update as well.

So…Goodbye to 2008. My post for 2009 will be up tomorrow, after my hangover dies down.

A little WOOT! and a lot of WHAT????

Weather: high 77 degrees (O_O) and much cooler! And no humidity! ZOMG! THANK YOU WEATHER GODS!!!

So the weather was a lot cooler this morning, in fact downright unseasonable. (Though again, seasonable is enough to make me run screaming into the fridge. I HATE HOT WEATHER!)

Suffering the fools at work not so gently. I’m really starting to lose patience with them, mostly because once I’ve explained a simple procedure for the 10th time, I get a little cranky.

Had a brainstorm last night and concocted a scene that will finally shatter my writer’s block. Trying to get it into text format so it doesn’t disappear into the ether again.  Thanks to Liquid Story Binder, I’m able to get the scene written out of order and stored alongside the manuscript in progress. WOO! (I was able to get a free licensed copy from Giveaway of the Day, though I wish I’d had my laptop to download it onto that day. Sigh. Anyway

Had coffee and convo with Lisa today. Always a joy and a nice respite from the drudgery of work. We both agreed we need to do something fun to get us out of the house. With her lifemate Tom on nights for the rest of the month it kinda impacts our double dating , so to speak.

Saw the news that Christian Bale had been arrested on Assault charges by his mum and sister. Turns out it was much ado about nothing. Apparently in England, you can get charged with assault if you yell at someone.  If you actually HIT someone it’s battery. The charges were subsequently dropped and noone’s talking about it. I’m kinda assuming that what happened is an argument got a little escalated and someone called the cops in anger. Bale doesn’t strike me a someone who would lash out at family. He keeps his private life pretty private.

Anyway. Work is getting hectic so I’d better cut this short. Need to get my projects done. Photoshop beckons.

Back from New York and feeling fine!

Weather: Today- 81 Degrees and partly sunny!

So. New York.

All in all, I think 90% of my negative preconceptions were blown away. And 90% of my good ones remain intact.

We flew out from Midway in Chicago on Thursday morning, a rather turbulent flight for me. Bri was unaffected and makes the “She’s Loopy” hand motion when I mentioned this.  We arrived at LaGuardia Airport around 2:00 and were met by Terri and Keith with many a hug and big grin. We piled in the Funky Blue Van and were off to the Bronx where the wild writers live.

Got to Terri & Keith’s and got settled in. Met the furry children, Aoki and Marcus, (well, it was re-meet Marcus for me, since I knew him from when Terri & I lived in Boston) , and we were easily subdued by their feline charms. They are both two of the most loveable , sweet kittens ever to be seen.  🙂

While setting in to chat about stuff and what not and fandom galore, Laura Gilman swung by to join in our welcome party, to share pizza and some absolutely fabulous red wine. Terri and I reminisced a lot about the past, Keith and Laura entertained us with many many stories, and  much good fun was had.

On Friday we were up, caffeinated,  and out the door to go meet Laura again and head into Manhattan, where we visited Times Square (Somehow smaller in person, but good lord all the LIGHTS!), saw the size of god’s ego Toys R’ Us, where much squeeing was done, especially when Terri spotted the WALL-E remote controlled robot. ( Said item was purchased so fast I think the clerk’s head was spinning!) We stopped for lunch at the Europa cafe, then off to  see Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull, which was wonderful! (Plus got to see the trailer for Twilight again. HEE! WOT?? DON’T JUDGE ME!!!!)  Back onto the subway where we were treated to impromptu theater when a rider on the subway took exception to our rather animated discussion and proceeded to move to the far side of the car and relate this to his friend, loudly and drunkenly. We were amused and just continued on our merry way.

We then stopped back at Chez Terri & Keith to clean up and waited fro Keith’s Dad to pick us up for dinner. We were taken out to the absolutely fantastic Mario’s, where we met up with Keith’s mom- Grace Anne, who is possibly the most incredibly warm and lively person I’ve ever had the pleasure to meet. Both his parents are great conversationalists and we had some really great conversations over dinner.  Also there were Laura, Helga and John (who share the house with Grace and Bob, Keith’s Dad), Keith’s cousin Elizabeth, and Aunt Livia.  We crowded around a big table and tucked in for some amazing Italian food that just left me gobsmacked. I had a spinach gnocchi that  was absolutely mouth watering. SOO GOOD!  Accompanied by some really good wine and finished off with some dessert that was so rich, I swear I was in a coma for the rest of the evening.

After dinner, we headed back to Terri and Keith’s, stopping by Elizabeth’s apartment (She lives in the same building as Terri & Keith) for some very tasty homemade ice cream. (Espresso chocolate & mint chocolate chip. NOM NOM NOM!) Sleep hit us like a brick and we had a big day planned for Saturday, so off to sleep we went.

Part Two of the trip later.

You can go see some of the pictures from the trip here.