sorry, Emily D, but I'm cracking myself up here

sometimes it feels like hope

is the thing with feathers

you just hit with your car

: /

thoughts at the end

Today
was for writing
for reminding myself that
even though it was not my best year in any other way
I still wrote more
than the year before,
and if that is not a success,
what is?

small victories? a (terrifying) glimpse into my head on a bad day but at least not on a pike or anything

Missing a deadline because you are not sleeping well and thus are terrible at adulting is really irksome.  I felt like I was a plastic bag on a windy day getting blown around from one thing I needed to do to another and then all of a sudden there were no more days left.  (However, I did manage to exercise enough self-restraint to keep myself from replying with a number of mean things to a guy being a(n incorrect) grammar/writing jerk to one of my friends on Facebook.  That was a heroic effort today.)  These are the times I think I will never really be an "author" instead of a writer.  (This is not actually an awful thing because I'd rather be a writer even when I am not sleep deprived and scattered to the four winds.)  I already have no desire or motivation to get my work out there like one is supposed to do, but when a call for entries that seems tailor-made for my work comes, and I am a space cadet due to sleep deprivation for a couple weeks and miss it, it's frustrating, and I want to wallow in self-recrimination (which would be easier if I didn't keep getting distracted by everything in the world), but I also know that melodramatic wailing and stressing out is something I need to avoid (it's really bad for me because it kicks up the pain that leeches the sleep that scatters my brain all over the walls of the house that Jack built).  Did you know that sleep deprivation by itself causes symptoms that look almost exactly like fibromyalgia?  They did studies (that are totally illegal now) once upon a time.  (Seriously, Blogger, I promise fibromyalgia is a real word.  You and certain members of the medical community who also don't believe in it are not helping.)  I'd love to promise to do better next time, but if I'm honest with myself, I'll probably be sleep deprived next time because I am always sleep-deprived to a varying degree, and I just want to throw up my hands and give up, but that's not good either.  All of this thrashing makes me more tired, but the pain makes me not sleep.  I LOSE NO MATTER WHAT I DO OR DO NOT DO.  Therefore, I am going to go read a book, so the day is not a total loss.  Here's hoping I have the self-control to stop reading book at a reasonable time in order to not make things even worse . . .

what is worse

Do you know what is worse
than considering giving plasma
in order to pay
for Christmas presents? 

The fact that I might
not be healthy enough
to give plasma
in order to pay
for Christmas presents.

right brain, left brain

I am at an awkward part of the pain spiral.  My left arm started going numb, so I shifted to carrying the heavier things on the right shoulder, but then that old subluxing injury started to flare up with intent.  Then I have to use the left arm, but then it starts to warm me that this is treatment up with which it will not put, and I am impaled on the horns of a dilemma.  I think I just need to learn telekinesis, so I can use my mind to lift things.  As long as I make sure to evenly use both the right and the left brain, I'm sure it will all work out.

giving up haiku

I would settle for
sleep without dreams if only
I could get the sleep.

Give yourself a chance to fail!

I'm pretty embarrassed when I go back to look at my first teaching applications.  I had good ideas about how to write a cover letter or organize a resume, but I hadn't developed an ability to say things concisely.

Of course, since I still haven't even had a real interview, I can't say I'm anything near an expert, but I blame the content of my resume and lack of teaching experience for those things.  I'm still open to revising my resume and cover letters (each one is personalized), but I have basic templates.

I needed to let myself stumble around failing for a while before I could develop the ability to create these documents successfully.  As I mentioned, getting a job is another thing entirely, but now I can't blame it on clumsy formatting.  :)  Whether this is good or bad, I'm not sure . . .

All this to say: as an adult, I recommend that you be willing to fail at new things, so you can develop new competencies.  We often resist trying new things because we're afraid (correctly) that we'll fail.  Being that afraid of failure means we'll never get to experience success or competence, either.  I hope I will eventually . . .

The joy of rejection

I never thought I'd be so happy about rejection, but after a couple years of apparently sending off applications into a black hole, I've finally gotten responses.  They were, of course, negative, but I really will take what I can get.  Outright rejection means I don't have to waste hope on fantasies.

I could be in a slightly negative frame of mind because in the last week, I went sleepless for 3 or 4 nights (I really can't remember), and my arm is twitching and hurting and getting tingly and generally being a huge nuisance.  I'm getting all clumsy and taking micronaps (where your brain just shuts down for a few seconds even though you're up and around and conscious) and stressing out about being a hazard.  The good news is that sleep-deprived people who can't sleep are not likely to actually cause nearly as many accidents as they think they will because the chance of them actually falling asleep at the wheel is low.  See, another positive fact.

Also, the magnolias are blooming.  And a single tulip.  Yay.

Matchless

So I found out I had an apartment inspection coming up around the same time I discovered that my what-a-deal-impossibly-sale-priced oranges were a tad moldy.  Fortunately, this occasion coincided with my employee discount days at my RetailEstablishment, and I was able to find a scented candle set that didn't smell terrible or make my asthma and allergies kick up.  I brought it home, wrestled off the plastic packaging, and realized I had no matches.

. . .

Ever had one of those situations where you didn't quite think things through?

Practicing for Failure

Why is it that I don't get better at failing, even with all the practice I've had?  Should I even want to?  I'm pretty sure that being good at failure is not something I should be striving for, but it's the only thing I've had a lot of practice in lately, so I should be great at it.

My small group music fell through.  I could blame it on unprofessional singers, but it was more a matter of priorities, or maybe high expectations.  True, we're not professionals, but if you commit to doing something, especially something as complex as an a cappella musical piece, then I darn well expect you to follow through.  I don't care if you're not a professional, if you're a college student, or if you can't play piano.  I just care if you do what you say you'll do.  I expect that you will.  I am . . . disappointed.

It's partly my fault for choosing the group members I did, but I really think I chose people who had the ability to get things done.  I tried to strike that balance (I thought I was getting better at) between pressuring enough to make them work hard but not so much that they quit.  Should I have turned into Captain Blood?  I don't know if that would have helped.

There were things I could have done differently, such as dropping that easy song the second time it went so badly because some of them just didn't want to learn it, or dropping both in favor of the one tune we all knew from an earlier concert and could have done with the Christmas words . . .

I think the trick is that even if you fail a lot, you have to keep trying or you'll lose.  Something.  Your forward momentum?  The game?  I don't know.  I blame Miles for his bad influence by insisting on playing the game and winning with the hand dealt.  I should pause and consider what he lost, I suppose. 

Sounds like it's time for another read-through.  Maybe I'll stick with the later ones.  I always did like the summary for Memory in the chronology for the Vorkosigan books: "Miles hits thirty.  Thirty hits back."  In theory, Miles was far more breakable than me.

There will still be plenty of beauty in this Christmas concert without my special pieces, and I can go sing from the balcony tomorrow before rehearsal.

Tire pressure and sinus pressure

I have discovered another way I am like my car: sometimes we don't do well when the weather changes. 

Last year when fall and winter fought, and the temperature dropped, a warning light burned bright in my car, and the same thing happened this time.  The pressure in my tires was off, so I went to a gas station and tried to fix it.  I learned several valuable lessons from this experience.

• There is a 75% chance that when I am unscrewing the air valve cap,  I will drop the air valve cap into the tire.
• It is easy to pop part of the hubcap cover off to retrieve the cap.
• It is easy to pop the hubcap cover back on if you know the trick (which does not involve kicking).  (I learned this one after cracking one hubcap cover with the help of a nice guy who was also at the gas station and noticed my cluelessness.  I hold him blameless.)
• You can't tell if any air is actually going into your tire; you just have to believe.
• Even if enough air goes in, you won't know until you drive your car for 15 minutes, according to the nice guy from the tire shop that was, in fact, still open.
• There are nice people who will let you into the tire shop (the nice guy at the gas station pointed you toward) even though it is 5 minutes until closing, and they will stop vacuuming and come outside to check your tire pressure and fill the tire that is still low even though the freezing cold wind is blowing.  And then they will not charge you because you are obviously too pathetic, and, for once, you won't mind.

Failing with God

People at my church seem quite willing to talk about how you can't succeed without God.  They seem less willing to talk about what to do when you have God and are still failing miserably for no obvious spiritual reason.  I rely on God to get me through every minute of every day.  (It would be physically impossible for me to be functioning with my level of exhaustion without His support and unconditional love.)

Still I fail.  I cannot find any job, let alone the one I feel called to (teaching), and my debts are beyond catastrophic.  Without my parents, I would be bankrupt and financially ruined.  I am so grateful for my parents and for God for letting them be in a position to assist me, but they really shouldn't have to.

I think maybe I'm living part of a Psalm (I've been reading them lately).  Why are my enemies living in ease and comfort when they have committed injustices and laugh at my sorry condition, metaphorically?  Hold them accountable, Lord!  Rescue me, already!  Reward those who trust in You, Righteous One!

I've been puzzling about this language as I go through the Psalms this time.  Usually, the psalmist goes on to thank God for punishing the wicked and rewarding the faithful, and I guess I took that too literally, as something that had already happened in the story of the Psalm.  But what if it's at the end because it's a future aspect of the story?  Praise and thanks for what will most assuredly be because God has promised it will be so?

We, trapped in time, want this now.  How long, oh, Lord, do we have to wait for that now to happen?  Most likely we'll never see it on this side; we are sometimes so privileged here that we forget that, I guess.  Maybe I was so blessed I got spoiled?

The story will end happily.  Eventually.  I can't expect it to end happily now, or I'm setting myself up for more discouragement, and God knows I don't need to make things any harder for myself.

The Lord gives, the Lord takes away; blessed be the name of the Lord in both the now and the not-yet-that-will-be.