Category: Uncategorized

218? 218?

My weight is going up. And up. And up.

I’ve been … I hate to say ‘depressed’ because of the way people react to that word, but … I’ve been depressed for a long enough while, but …

Well, a few weeks ago I got my tax return money deposited into my account. And … And after paying my bills for the month of March and making sure I had money to make it through most of April, too, I saw I had a little extra money for the first time in a long time.

And I started to spend it.

I started buying ice cream and cookies and candies and crackers and chips. I started buying CDs and DVDs. I started spending my own money on hardware to improve a home that is not my own, because the landlord wasn’t doing it fast enough. I started going to the movies. Things that … in one way or another help comfort me and make me feel better.

Things I couldn’t afford before, and which may have been mistakes to spend on… if this furniture I’ve been working on doesn’t sell soon enough. See, I’m only good until the last week of April, when a bill comes due… and I can cover that with the old Peter=>Paul routine, but then in the first week of May several other bills come due, and ol’ Peter’s wallet’ll run dry before they’re all paid. Which, if any one of the larger items sell, or a couple of smaller ones, is fine. I’ll be more than covered. My bills aren’t that big. No mortgage, no utility bills, just the debt payments created by a little overspending followed by a long unemployment. Oh, and I bought that Bowflex about 7 weeks before I lost my job (that is, about a week after the 6-week return period ended) on credit, and I’m paying that off, too. Just another three and a half years at this rate.

Anyway, the idea there was supposed to be that because of my … emotional spending, my emotional eating … if this furniture thing doesn’t work out before the end of April, at least a little, I won’t be able to make it.

Lots of time, of course, for things to go right.

Silly hope there, shining through as best it can, saying that things are going to go well. Despite the almost overwhelming depression, the feeling that nothing can go right, that I’m destined to be an eternal failure, it’s always there. But it usually doesn’t win me over when I get this bad, just … keeps me from total darkness.

Anyway, my weight is going up. That’s not something I’m happy about. It shouldn’t be. If I’d been working out, like I keep … intending to … then the weight gain might have something to do with building muscle. But I keep not working out. Like, I didn’t work out but once between when the rod broke and the replacement arrived. I should have worked out today, but didn’t. I should work out tomorrow… I hope I do. Maybe it’ll get me into the shower.

That’ll be a pretty good “to do” list to start the day. How about I wake up, drink a high-protein shake, do two days worth of exercizes (to make up for today), take a shower, dry off, get on some clean clothes, check my email and site and … and then face the day. Tomorrow is also supposed to be bible study. I plan to attend, even though we’ll be going over verses I studied in depth weeks ago … if we get to verses at all. I think it’s a good idea to attend. And in between, talk to Becky about taking some of the stuff from the store, and then packing up the rest. And at some point, I really ought to do the last bit of sanding on the third leg for the coffee table, blow out and glue together the top of my small table, and put yet another coat on my current project. Yeah. Not too ambitious. At least it doesn’t have anything about writing or painting or drawing or any other creative things on it. Those things are just a little too hard to try to do in this state of mind.

Gha.

I seem to be going nocturnal… and it feels like it’s to avoid my dad. Some days I try to wake up before or around noon, and it goes okay for a while… and then I cross paths with my dad, and all I want to do is go crawl back into bed, or into a hole in the ground, and disappear. Today was not the first (or second) time this month I’ve gone back to bed after only a couple of hours awake. Except I don’t seem to be doing too well in the “get back to work after dad gets to bed” department. Theoretically I could have finished that third leg tonight, or finished packing everything, or something. Something instead of … what did I do? I made comments on FYTH pay-only. I uhh… I read about the introduction of Jedi into SW:G, and how it went … quite wrong for a lot of people who … had different expectations from the developers about what the Jedi experience should be. I … made this post … I … ate and ate and ate … and now I’m going to bed, I suppose.

Damn, if I didn’t forget about some bible study I wanted to do before bible study this week. I wonder if I’ll get to it. It’s not crucial; as I said, I covered what we’re working on directly. There’s just some supplemental reading I wanted to do. Some things to look up. I’ll still want to look them up tomorrow. I did look one thing up. Even with ASU’s new, raised and raised again tuition, Southwest College (a bible college) costs more per semester. But there are some bible colleges out there that offer full tuition scholarships to all their students… Still, I think that by the time I get to going to bible college I’ll have money, and will be able to select the best school for me. Could be a while.

And now, to attempt sleep before the dawn. Trying to think motivating, pro-exercize thoughts as I drift off…

A hard day already

Okay, I can’t take it, I need a break.

I know, I know, I haven’t been working very long, haven’t got much of anything done, but … this is just …

Sigh.

I did a bit of sanding and got interrupted.

So then I went and tried to get some boxes together and … well, I did. So now there’s … well, there’s boxes to pack the crap from the store into. And I know where there’s plenty of paper for wrapping… though I’m definitely not confident in my ability to safely pack delicate and fragile items for long-term storage. Which is just part of why the entire thing is so stressful.

Maybe I should just go back to sleep, get up later, work all night and get the store empty.

That would work.

And I wouldn’t have to deal with my father while I did it.

Which might help.

So, have I mentioned what’s happening with the store?

My dad made an agreement with one of our former renters, Jim. Jim and his wife suffered various debilitating illnesses last year that reduced their ability to make new product and run their shop, so they couldn’t afford to keep it up and moved out. They seem to be doing better now (I only saw them briefly, myself) and my father has arranged to trade shop space for having the shop open. That is, Jim will open/run the shop on weekdays and in exchange, the front half of the shop will be filled with his products. Our furniture will be in the back. This isn’t a problem, visally; the store is small enough that one can see all the way to the back without really walking in the front door. In fact, since I don’t like working retail it isn’t much of a problem at all, once it gets going. There’s even a possibility that Jim will gladly work weekends, too, saving me the trouble, which would be great.

Except that, of course, there’s all the stuff still in the shop from when it was my grandparents’ junk. (Err, collectibles and antiques.) And not long ago my father had me move about half the stuff out of the back half of the shop into the front and the other half of the stuff from the back half of the shop into boxes which are also sitting in the front half of the shop for now, but which … need to be deployed elsewhere. And now, before the end of the day Wednesday (for I shall surely be out of town on Thursday, and in Phoenix to get Heath and … shop for stuff for dad, and on Friday Jim and his wife Nancy will be here to start setting up the front half of the shop), I have to get all of everything out of the front half of the shop, product, shelves, everything. The product is double-thick on the shelves, and basically all glassware and other fragile things. It’ll be a joy wrapping two thousand little things in paper and stuffing them into boxes. A joy. Then, disassembling the shelves … which I don’t actually know how to do… and then, what else? Cleaning up, generally. Oh, and finding someplace to put all the boxes of stuff. That might actually be the hardest part, since it will basically require several long hours of working with my father directly, shuffling other things out of the way and these new things into where the other things were. Well, except several nested layers of that. It gets complicated. It will certainly involve a forklift.

I’m just complaining, aren’t I?

I think that’s okay, though. I think I determined that the blog is mostly for me and only a little bit about other people. For my own mental well-being. Because seriously. I don’t have any friends to talk to about this stuff. No one to “bounce it off”, no one to help me vent my spleen, as they say, no shoulder to lean on. So this is it. I put it out into the internet and … well, if my friends read it, that’s something, and if they don’t, it basically has the same therapeutic effect for me. Well, until I find out my friends don’t read my blog. That usually stings for a bit. But then I get past it. I mean, it’s not like they ever see me or I’m important to them in the ways I wish I could be important to someone in.

Okay, this is getting off topic, I think.

I was planning on posting about … about packing up the store within only a couple of days. Perhaps about the fact that my dad, for some reason he refuses to express, has been in a bad mood for the better part of a week, and takes it out on me. He might also be taking it out on Heath if Heath were around, but Heath’s in Phoenix. So it’s me. ‘Cause he’s not going to take it out on his dying parents.

So every little thing is a problem, whether it’s a problem or not, and more than likely he’ll make it out to be my fault, or that I should have known better. I’ve never known better, never known what to do when I haven’t been told, I don’t know why he thinks that’ll suddenly change. I asked him a question about boxes earlier, because I hadn’t really figured it out yet and thought he might have thought about it. But it seems only to have upset him. So I went and figured it out on my own, I thought, and took this break. But just now I heard him rummaging around on the other side of that wall, and went to see that he was upset with me because the way I’d figured out to do it when he hadn’t told me what to do wasn’t the way he meant for me to do it. So I’m wrong again and he’s still upset.

Or this morning… with the vacuum cleaner. Two days ago I expressed my interest in vacuuming my room. Yesterday I asked him if it would be alright if I took the canister vacuum upstairs so I could vacuum my room. This morning, before I woke up, he decided that it was suddenly time to clean the house, and he needed the vacuum. He waited until he was actually at the step where he needed the vacuum, then called me, waking me up, asking for the vacuum. Not dressed, it would have taken me longer to get out the door than he allowed before I got another call from him, upset again, saying he’d simply swept the floor instead, and I didn’t need to bring it down. Except that by then I was dressed, and I had just finished vacuuming the couple of square feet of floor I hadn’t got to last night, and I carried it downstairs, where he didn’t need it at all. And where, because he was cleaning the floor, I couldn’t eat breakfast. But then I was too awake and too hungry to go back to sleep, so I just went upstairs again and checked my email.

This has not yet been a good day.

I suppose that’s why I needed to take a break.

And now I hear him moving things around outside. Who knows what he’s up to now. He certainly hasn’t asked for my help in any way yet, but … what do you want to wager he’ll be upset at me for not helping him? I should have known he needed help. He shouldn’t have to ask for it. At least, that’s what he seems to think. I think he should ask for it. Every time. If he needs help, he should ask. And I’ll help. He’s feeding me, providing shelter and internet access, I should help out when he needs it. But he should ask for help when he needs it. It isn’t hard. And then I’ll be able to tell the difference between the jobs he does where I’d just be standing by, watching him work, unable to help, un-needed there yet unable to do anything else, and the jobs where he actually needs help, where two hands are not enough, where I have something to add other than just being someone to take frustrations out on when things don’t go his way.

I’m so tired. What was the plan for today? Take a nap? Get something done first, then take a nap? Well, I did a bit of sanding, did another layer on that project, pulled out boxes for packing the store up … ate breakfast … what else do I need to do, now?

Damn, I think I hear the chainsaw. What the heck could he be doing now?

I just want to go back to sleep.

__________

I did. I just spent a little over an hour asleep. Now, it’s time to go face the dad.

Word Count Problem

Okay, Iain just posted that he’s already over 15k words. That puts him on track for 30k for the month or better. Now, a couple of days ago I was on track for 30k for the month, but the last couple of days have no long posts created. I can’t really check it right now… well … maybe I can. Hang on

…

It looks like 13,884 words before this post. And I doubt this post will add more than a couple hundred words. Which puts me at only 14k, only a thousand or so words behind Iain at the moment. About a day’s worth of posts.

Which is reasonable, considering there was that one day I didn’t post. 135.1, why have you forsaken me?

Anyway, I’d better get on track. This whole “secret word cound” ruse only works so long as I actually come out ahead of Iain. And he’s threatening actually ramping up his posting speed and reaching that mystical 50k words this month. I don’t know if he’ll do it, but it’s a possibility I’ve got to watch out for. Of course, spending the last two nights transcribing poetry and short stories probably didn’t help. Heck, I was up until almost six this morning transcribing the last Man With The Coat story and then making a brief post. Like I said then, though, just a few more stories and I’ll have finished the “Vintage” collection.

Anyway, I’m hungry. I’m going to go get the mail and some breakfast and then … I don’t know what. Maybe work or some such. Lots to do.

That is it. That is all of it.

No more. No more old, bad poetry anymore, anyway. I’ve got all the “Vintage” poetry transcribed and online now. I’ve just finished transcribing and uploading the last of the Man With The Coat stories, though I don’t think I’ll post it until tomorrow. I’ve got to BitPass register it and the entire Man With the Coat collection and … I think I’m going to give away “May I take Your Order, Please?” to entice readers.

Forty-five poems. Took me two nights to get it all done. Well, all of tonight, plus all the productive time I found myself with last night. I’m so tired. I hope someone reads … at least some of them.

Anyway. Got up “late” today, around 2. Hauled the brush to the brush pit with dad and unloaded it. Worked on some parts for a ‘practice’ small table before moving on to the full-size coffee table. It seemed to work pretty well, I thought. The next one ought to be quite a bit more complicated, but basically just an expansion on the same general ideas. I put the first layer of … well, I got started on the ‘fun’ lamp I’m working on, anyway. I should go put another layer on it. Whaddya say?

You think I should wait until morning?

You think I should get up in the morning? The morning?!?

Bah.

It’s morning now, and I haven’t gone to sleep yet. What makes you think I’ll be getting up any time soon? Getting up soon is for my father, maybe my grandfather, depending on how he’s feeling. For me, nights.

I’ve got half a dozen more short stories to transcribe, and I’ll be through with the “Vintage” collection. Well, sort of. I want to do some re-writing on some of it, polishing on other bits, some new writing as well, and then put together an anthology and publish it via CafePress. Before the end of Focus On: Writing, definitely. How soon within that depends on what other projects steal my time and money. For instance, I’m thinking of heading down to the valley on Wednesday, staying the night and coming home Thursday with my brother.

I didn’t finish cleaning tonight, didn’t finish vacuuming. Perhaps I’ll … Perhaps I’ll get up in the morning, clean, do another layer, perhaps eat and do some sanding, get the mail, take a nap, and then address the day. Address things like glueing the parts for the top of that small table together. Or maybe I should do that before my nap. We’ll see how things go. Four or five hours sleep now, three to five hours later, plenty of daylight hours for the work that needs to be done around here in the day, plenty of wakefulness to do the things I seem to do better at night.

I think I’m almost warmed up enough that I could write something original soon-ish. It’s almost clean enough, too.

Something about a clean, quiet room really enhances my ability to get started writing. A tidy writing surface, a just-vacuumed floor, no visible clutter, it just feels good. And then without thoughts of “things to do” popping up from my visual range, my mind seems more free. Not having a pending “To Do” list helps, too.

But … but if I don’t have a pending “To Do” list in the morning, one I’m already aware of, I have a heck of a time getting out of bed at any specific time. When I worked and the “To Do” list consisted of “Get Dressed, Eat, Go to Work, Come Home, Eat, Get Naked” it was no trouble to get up (relatively), because one of those was time-sensitive and flagged as “Very, very important” to do. Nowadays… It’s a little harder.

Shit. I just remembered I have to get the entire contents of the store boxed up and out of the store and … somewhere … before Friday. And since I’m supposed to be in Phoenix on Thursday to get Heath, I really need to get it done before the end of Wednesday. And when I wake up, it’ll be Monday. I’m adding a whole new page of “To Do” list to my new spiral-bound pocket notebook. Empty the store: move the wood up out of the wheelbarrows and out of the way, find boxes to pack up the stuff in the store into and fill them and stack them on pallettes to be moved upstairs, disassemble the shelves that the stuff sat on, find a place for them, clean up the store. Oh, and find some way to clean dad’s crap off the table that’s supposed to be my work area in the warehouse, because I’ll have to start working there as soon as we can’t work in the store anymore. (Next week, anyone?)

Okay, this is taking too long. I need some sleep. I have things that need to get done. I meant to take a shower last night. Then again tonight. Perhaps tomorrow or the next day. We’ll see.

Right now, sleep. I’ll try posting again later.