What the Fuck Just Happened

I have had a bit of a shake up recently; something has happened to make me realize a bunch of different things. They are all variations of the same theme: I am an idiot. Seriously. Don't misunderstand; this is not me asking for compliments, this is me finally accepting that I keep making the same mistakes.

Although I am grappling with an enormous personal situation, I am expected by those around me to put on a brave face and pretend that things are great. This morning though, I'd had enough and that expectation was shattered. when I was asked how I am doing, I answered truthfully. 'Not great'. When the person started back, puzzled, I offered that I had just recently had a death in my family and that it was a difficult time. Again, the other person was at a loss as to what to say to me.

Honesty is a difficult value to practice. I catch myself in many small fabrications during the course of my daily life and this morning when I didn't blur the truth and answered the question, 'How are you?' with exactly how I really was doing, a strange thing happened: I felt better.

Now if I could just get that feeling to pay rent, I'd be fine.

So I Blew Up Our Ship

A few things have happened since my last post. I can't really talk about them because I am still wrestling with what they might ultimately mean. Having said that, I can happily report that I am still keeping up with the word count for NaNoWriMo and I am very proud of that. What I can and will talk about is something both delightful and entertaining. Because I am both of those things.

I recently joined a group of guys who are currently playing Warhammer 40K: Dark Heresy the role-playing game, not the table-top. I haven't played an RPG in years, and I am finding it very interesting with the variety of things my character can do. My character is a Tech Priest named 42 who has no idea of why he is involved with the current group of Inquisitors. I am having a blast exploring the innocence of my character while also figuring out how the game mechanics work. Its also a really good opportunity for me to get out of the house and do something that I enjoy. We meet once a week and play for roughly 8 hours. Let me tell you, those hours fly by while playing and every time we stop, I have a moment of 'dammit, why can't we just stay here and play straight through to Monday?'

Onto yesterday. So, my character really has clue about things like combat and can't really take a punch. 42 is a very delicate being who wants only to communicate with the machine spirit and if necessary, blow people up from a distance. He is very good at hacking which is why I think the others tolerate him. He can do things with machines and computers that the others cannot and he is constantly surprising them with his talents. Except for yesterday. He might be in trouble.

To make a long story short, 42 was supposed to be assisting with capturing data from a spaceship that was stranded in the middle of nowhere. He ripped his Void-suit and injured himself and was sent back to the ship. Strike one. He gets onto the ship and discovers a plot to kill his teammates but doesn't know how to communicate that because he has no fellowship skills. Strike two. Then, the traitorous pilot shackles 42 and disables his mechadendrites (robotic helper-tentacles that can smash through things and carry shit and are very useful) and pistol-whips him, confusing him further. The pilot forces 42 to issue the restart information to his teammates who are on the other ship and have no clue what's going on. Finally, one of his teammates kind of suspects that things aren't going according to plan and in the process of people being shot at by the traitorous prick who is piloting our ship and 42 managing to get free and turn on the robot sentries still on the ship, the pilot ends up getting pasted across the inside of the cockpit which then erupts in a huge fire. Strike three.

It ended up alright, but the fact that remains that 42 is single-handedly responsible for fucking things up every single time shit goes down. I already have my freak-out speech ready for they get back to the ship and start screaming at 42 for blowing up the ship. It will be epic.

So, when things happen in real life I can always remember that at least I didn't blow up the escape ship. Yet.

I Fucking Give Up

I am absolutely furious right now. I am at work and sent out an email asking for a volunteer to help design a flyer for our upcoming Awards competition. I recieved a response and forwarded it on to the committee, mistakenly omitting one person and adding another. I also made the mistake of saying that I thought the person who had submitted was completely qualified and that I'd like to ask her to design something for the Awards.

Well.

The Awards Chair immediately emailed me and informed me of my error in leaving the one person off and adding the other and told me that she 'knows that I mean well but an opinion such as the one submitted by me should really come from her as she is the Chair.'

Really. Should have come from the Chair. The same woman who cannot get her shit together enough to provide me with the documents I need in time for our monthly meetings and who then says it's my fault that they are not distributed. The same woman who is so process-oriented that nothing gets done.

I am so mad right now, I am shaking. Fuck these people. I don't want to be Executive Director, I don't want to help them further their association. I am just going to keep my fucking mouth shut and watch them sink. It seems every time I turn around, there's something else that I have done wrong.

And it isn't as if I can't take it when I err. All I ask is that there be some kind of accompanying constructive criticism. When I deal with these people, I feel like I am dealing with my step-father: when I get close to doing something right, they change the rules to make sure I'm wrong.

I have already withdrawn from the various commitees I am currently helping out on. Let's see what happens when I'm not there to fix their fucking mistakes. No more editing their emails, no more researching things, no more extra's. They don't deserve the amount of work I do.

NaNoWriMo Strikes Again

I am going to attempt to do this again this year. Last year I failed utterly; although it's hard to really fail something that isn't judged by anyone other than yourself. Last year I wrote approximately 2, 023 words and I was very proud of those words. Each one was carefully selected and arranged in a specific sequence to match exactly what I was thinking at the time. Since no one was standing over my shoulder, I slacked off and didn't finish. Sigh. This year will be different though.

The point of this whole thing, for me anyway, is to prove that I can apply myself to something and succeed. I write and edit for a living yet I do not put time aside for my personal writing. I have often wondered why and the answer is pretty simple: I am fucking lazy. So, enough is enough. I know it's hard to get motivated after ten or twelve hours of rewriting other people's work and crafting professional pieces of communication; however, it's imperitive that I grit my teeth and just do it.

Part of this is coming from my need to get outside of my comfort zone. I have been very complacent in allowing things to just happen, falsely believing that good things will occur if I just give it more time. My very wise older brother told me recently that he wondered when I would realize that we live a very short life. M, I got it. I totally got it. You are very wise and very smart and I thank the stars that you are here to guide me in the gentle manner that you do. I love you.

Time to get to work.

I Might Have Screwed Up. . .

. . . but that's not me. It's taken me a long time to get here but instead of cutting and running, I've decided to try and work it out. I am not sure if things will work out as I'd like them to; somehow though, I am not sure that's the point. I think at some point I am going to fail and have to reassess but for now I am just going to charge ahead and try and make a go of it.

It's no secret that I am unhappy with my current job. Although I have sent out resumes galore, it seems as though I am destined to stay here and wallow in self-pity. I am going to try and do something radical: I am going to try and make the best of it. Quitting isn't an option and I am doing well financially; I need to wrap my head around the fact that I am a very well-paid babysitter. Many more deep breaths need to be taken and I need to actually spend my lunch hour away from my desk and co-workers.

Working in a toxic environment has taught me to play my cards close to my chest and not reveal anything beyond top level information about my life. I made a mistake once about speaking my mind and it completely backfired on me, almost to the point where I thought I would need to leave. Giving someone that much power over you; I am famous for doing that and it needs to stop.

Going forward I am going to try and remain stoic about my position here and remind myself that it is only when I am outside of this place that I can be myself. It will be a hard lesson to learn but I have to do this otherwise I will go crazy and quit my job like a loser. I am not a loser. I do not quit. I make things work to my advantage, not the other way around. It's time I started making this work for me.

And I know just how to do it. ;)

Less Drama, More Awesomeness

It seems to be a continuing thing with me. The more I try and keep drama out of my life, the more it seems determined to find me. The past few weeks have proven that to me over and again and I am becoming quite tired of the whole thing.

People from my past keep popping up out of nowhere and they all want something from me: forgiveness, understanding, information, etc. Not once have any of these people asked me how I am doing or tried to explain why they treated me the way they did. I certainly did not expect to understand the why's of each situation; the time for explaining and forgiving is long past and will not be an option for any of them. I have closed the door on each one and moved on and I just find it odd that they have the same underlying reason for contacting me: They need me.

The question of whether or not I will help these people is still outstanding. While I have moved on in my brain, my heart is not as forgetful. Part of me wants nothing more than to reach out and help because that is what I do, and another, darker part of me is resisting that urge voraciously. I harbour no ill feelings for any of them regardless of how much they have hurt me through their direct actions and their more subtle attacks; however, I will not allow myself to fall into this trap again.

The issue has never been whether people can change: it's always been whether or not they actually will. It's been my experience that people will feed you whatever bullshit they think you want to hear in order to get what they want from you. I am curious as to why these people who have treated me so poorly think that it's okay to contact me and ask for help. That takes cojones and while I admire the selfishness of their actions I am fairly certain that after they read this blog entry I will most likely never hear from any of them again.

If it turns out that I end up meeting any of them I realize that I will not get the answers I am hoping for; I will be fed whatever line happens to come out at that time. That too is fine with me. By not answering the question, the question is answered.

Why Do I Write?

I have been asking myself 'why' a lot lately. 'Why do I do this?' and 'Why am I okay with that?' are questions that pop up all the time. I finally feel as though I can start to answer them, even if the answer themselves are not fully complete.

For instance, why do I write? Why do I have this overwhelming need to string words together and sell my creations to whomever will buy them? Why do I write this blog that hardly anyone reads? Because I have to. I am writer and I cannot not write. I have so many ideas rolling around in my head, so many half-finished stories and partially thought out plots, that if I do nothing with them, they will slowly drive me mad. I have had a nodding acquaintance with madness and while I enjoyed the freedom it brought, I was not a fan of the wriggly feelings that accompanied it. So, back to 'why'.

'Why' is a tricky question, no matter what parameters you attach to it. 'Why' opens up a whole new way of thinking, a whole new way of dealing with things. Provided you are ready for the answers, 'why' will free you from an old way of being. For me, asking myself 'why' has provided me with a new outlook on the reasons for my choices. Like writing.

Writing for me has always been an escape; a way for me to forget about the various problems I encounter and people I wish I'd never met. I credit writing for helping me process and heal from my divorce and loss of my then-best friend. If I didn't have my writing, I might not have made the decisions I did and might have ended up in a very different and very dark place. Putting words on paper, either literally or metaphorically, helped me realize that I needed to cut certain people out of my life and stop trying so damn hard to talk to them. It isn't always necessary to have your voice heard or to get closure: by insisting that you want those things, you are allowing other people to dictate whether you are successful or not. Once I asked myself the question 'Why do I need closure so badly?', I was able to figure out that I just wanted to be able to walk away. By writing down the conversation as I would have liked it to be, I was able to do so. I suspect that my subsequent withdrawal from those I was trying to talk to was confusing because they enjoyed watching me bang my head against the wall.

Writing for me has always been a way for me to work things out and to process difficulties that I may be facing. If I didn't write, I would have a very hard time dealing with things. I have a special folder that holds my personal writing that includes things that don't make it onto my website and are not sent out to prospective clients. Having that slice of personal writing that is all mine allows me to focus on the task at hand and lets me be free to be creative.

I don't know what drives other writers. I just know what drives me.