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Wonder of Wonders, Miracle of Miracles ...
I actually got all the classes I wanted!

I feel optimistic, for the first time since I heard about the impending layoffs.

Current Mood: optimistic

Shredded
This morning, when I was bending over picking up trash, Hobbes jumped on my back. Since I was wearing only a sports bra, she managed to do more damage than usual. I've got scratches on my right forearm, shoulder, and side.

I really need to figure out how to clip her nails without drafting someone to help hold her.

Current Mood: sore

Meme: Off the Top of Your Head
First thoughts about:

1. Today: wish I didn't have to leave for work in half an hour

2. This year: lyrics: "I'm gonna make it through this year if it kills me" -- Mountain Goats

3. Next year: unemployment

4. Writing (in general): wish I had more time

5. Yourself as a writer: diliettante

6. Your current WIP: unfocused

7. Your goals as a writer: unrealistic

8. Other goals: school: yay I'll finally be able to take more than a couple classes!

(Ganked from

queenoftheskies.)

Want!
this t-shirt

Current Mood: dorky

School Stuff
Yesterday, in Sculpture, I had the brilliant(ish) idea that I could use crochet for a sculptural element. I wanted to show the professor what I planned, but alas, I had no hook or yarn.

So I whittled a crochet hook out of a random twig and cut up a couple of old plastic bags and hooked them together.

Also, I've picked out the classes I want. Since I'm going to be unemployed, I'm going full-time. 16 units, which isn't as crazy as it sounds, because it includes Sculpture 2 (I love the teacher, and the class) Intro to Creative Writing (which is just yay) and Basic Guitar (which I've wanted to take for years. There's also Art History, which will be useful in all kinds of ways, and Elementary Spanish, which will cover all the stuff I took half (my) lifetime ago in High School.

Now, it's just suspense as the clock counts down to my registration. Because there are 21 hours between now and then, and competition for classes has become more intense with the shortage of money.

*crosses fingers*

Current Mood: nervous

Feeling Oddly Pre-Apocalyptic This Morning
Dunno if it's from reading too much Lovecraft-inspired fiction (as if there ever could be such a thing) or the impending layoffs or all the ads for 2012 and The Road. And I've got an imagination and a half, of course. ;)

Current Mood: weird

Dropping out of NaNo
My life's gotten too crazy, too stressful, and hey, I'll have a LOT more time after they lay me off in mid-January!

In about an hour and a half, it will officially be Veteran's Day where I live. Which in years past has led to me feeling like an impostor.

I've always been conflicted about claiming the "veteran" as part of my identity, and even more so during the ongoing wars. Mostly this has had to do with my role. I spent two years on a ship, wiping up oil. I didn't see combat, or anything even resembling it. I wasn't in harm's way. And while what I did was an important job (without people like me to do the soundings and work the valves, the fuel wouldn't get where it was needed, the ships would drift aimlessly and the planes wouldn't be able to fly) it's not the same as the people who are on the front lines, risking their lives every minute of every day. I feel like, when I say that I'm a veteran, I'm stealing their glory, which I don't deserve.

There's also the fact that I feel like I wimped out. Like I abandoned my duty by accepting the diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder, and the discharge that came with it. And there's a part of me that still hasn't forgiven myself for that, which is kind of silly, because it was over 15 years ago, and I was afraid for my life, afraid not of enemy combatants but of my own workcenter supervisor.

I think there's a tiny little part of me that's still stuck in EDG#2, with two dogged-down doors between me and safety and a big man looming over me, screaming that he's going to kill me. Remembering it is still terrifyingly vivid; the door at my back that I don't dare turn to open, because I'm afraid he'll hit me and if he hits me he'll have to kill me, because if I showed up with bruises I'd have proof, actual evidence, and someone would have to listen.

We were underway, and I knew exactly how easy it would be to get rid of my body. Stick it under the deck plate and wait until night, then tie my ankles to some moderately heavy piece of equipment and toss me over the side.

No body, no crime, and it would probably have been written off as a suicide. They were certainly eager enough to say I was suicidal later on.

I wasn't, though. I decided I was going to live, that I wanted it badly enough to kill for it. There was a big monkey wrench there and I got my hand on it, and I decided that if he laid a hand on me, I was going to assume I was in a fight to the death, and I was going to hit back as hard and as many times as it took. And in the cold part of me that was calculating chances while the rest of me was gibbering in a corner, I decided that, if I had to die, I was going to do enough damage that everyone would be able to see that he'd been in a fight.

He backed off. I don't know if he came to his senses or if he saw the cornered-rat look in my eyes and decided that maybe this would be a bad idea. But he stepped back, and though he continued to berate me, the threats stopped, for that moment at least.

I didn't last much longer in the Navy (which I'm still feeling guilty about) but I escaped with my life.

I'm not sure what the point was of writing this, it didn't end up where I thought it would. There's a part of me -- a big part -- that wants me to just delete it. It's not the kind of post I should be making with less than an hour until Veteran's Day.

But I think I'll leave it up anyway.

Current Mood: uncomfortable

Considering Dropping Out of NaNo
My jaw has been hurting a lot these past few days, and while the crazy writing pace is hardly the only thing that could be contributing, it's the thing that has the least consequences for dropping.

I'm going to go to Henry's and get some flaxseed oil capsules and see if adding some omega-3s to my diet helps, since they're supposed to both help lower cortisol and improve joint health.

Sometimes, it sucks to be right.
Call me paranoid (believe me, plenty of people did) but one of the reasons I was REALLY cautious about the whole government health care thing was that I was worried that it would be a really easy way to make abortion impossible to obtain, while not trying to challenge Roe v. Wade.

But I've seen my friends suffer from lack of health insurance and President Obama was elected so I started to think, hey you know, maybe this wouldn't be such a bad thing after all.

And then ... I saw this:

As drafted, the measure denied the use of federal subsidies to purchase abortion coverage in policies sold by private insurers in the new insurance exchange, except in cases of incest, rape or when the life of the mother was in danger.

But abortion foes won far stronger restrictions that would rule out abortion coverage except in those three categories in any government-sold plan. It would also ban abortion coverage in any private plan purchased by consumers receiving federal subsidies.

I just ... I have no words for how furious this makes me.

Current Mood: enraged

Back on Track
After a couple of days of disappointing (but understandable) counts: 229 and 1,263 respectively, I dedicated yesterday to get caught up. I managed an impressive (for me anyway) 3,556 words. Which is not a sustainable pace, with work and school and Grandmommie in the mix. But being caught up is such a load off my mind!

Grandmommie seems to be incapable of knocking on my door like a normal human being. Not when she can pound and scream my name at the top of her lungs, scaring me half to death.

Current Mood: awake

The whole "job going away" thing is still slowly sinking in on an emotional level. I had a crying jag and I'm still feeling kind of weepy.

NaNo: Day Three
Words: 1667

Beginning Line: Perhaps one day, Araveth thought, she would become used to the new collar.

Ending Line: Then the fence pulled the thin panel of stone across the small opening, and Araveth imagined that this was what it would feel like when she was sealed into her tomb.

5193 / 50000
(10.39%)

Current Mood: listless

And a gratuitous icon post.
Gil is on the left, Araveth's the one on the right.