I don't do tension well. Let's be clear on that up front. Waiting for my SSI settlement so I can move and looking for a place to live with minimal (yet challenging) information as to what's wanted by my future roomie Ryan have me pacing the floor and walking down the street in the heat to work off tension.
Having five art projects to finish and a house to clean does not help. I started the art stuff to give me something other than the waiting to think about. Now I have a baby afghan, a crocheted beret, a walking stick and a wand all in some state of completion, and I have yet to start on a basket of amigurumi Cthulhus a friend wants for her craft booth. I'm also trying to make some money editing titles for Demand Studios, but I'm too fidgety to make the quota on that job as well. I should just admit I'm not cutting it on that side of the business and stick to writing articles. I'd make more writing overall, and I enjoy it more, so I'd do more.
Which leaves the art and housekeeping. Housekeeping is not all that bad if I get off my computer chair and do it, so then the art is the question. It is not, however, an option; it's a necessity for my own mental health. I need to make things, to express the ideas that don't come readily in words, or which might be shouted down if not graven in wood or steel or stone. I am, in some ways, creating my own monuments, artifacts of my own ideas that to my growing wonder resonate with others who at least see the skill if they do not understand the forms. This has become especially important to me recently, as I am generally soft-spoken and my associates are mind-numbingly loud most of the time. I am tired of the chronic shouting matches and I am getting quieter, rather than the reverse. Since I cannot be heard, my art must speak for me.
Meanwhile, the SSI wait is almost over. All the bits are finally in, and I'm just waiting for Sacramento County to take their share paid out for General Assistance while I look for an apartment for Ryan and me. He wants badly to live in Downtown, and I am looking there first. Rents are far less in Citrus Heights or Carmichael, but the feel of the place is important, and being close to transportation, art, film and all the rest is vital. I know he would be happier being ten minutes from his medical care instead of an hour and a half, and there are grocery stores and restaurants even closer than they are here in the relative suburbs, and, to broach the unthinkable, I would pay more to live alone than I would to make up the difference in cost, and I'd have to write or produce even more to make it up, so that said, I will keep looking for a low-cost place downtown.
Still, I'll be glad when the current projects are done and we can move.
Sunday, August 22, 2010
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Minimalism
I have a dear, sweet writer friend who's dedicated to Minimalism. She writes a great blog, Living on $500 a Month Or Less, about the art and pitfalls of reducing her worldly goods as far as possible. Since I've been couch surfing for the last few months, I've actually accumulated more stuff than I started with. I've gathered and made stuff I didn't have when I arrived in Sacramento, but, more important, I've been given stuff that allows me to make more stuff -- saleable stuff, or just stuff to satisfy my own aesthetic -- and this has caused a multiplication of raw materials, partly-worked projects and odd bits of scrap that have all but outgrown the one bin I bought a couple months ago to corral my clothes and keep all out of sight on the patio.
I am not sure what to do about the accumulation. A small sack of basswood cutoffs and a protective glove full of tools has expanded to a tool chest that's too heavy to move and the three changes of clothes I had have grown to two loads of laundry a week. Much of this is a good thing, but I'm feeling overwhelmed. I made a bag to hold my gaming supplies and to carry my crafting stuff -- a round-bottomed bucket bag that I've been using even as I finish up its details -- but I think a culling is in order, as well as serious work on the projects to get them done. I have too many pieces of wood, too many bits of cloth and so on.
I'd best I get to it. It's turning into a long, hot day already.
I am not sure what to do about the accumulation. A small sack of basswood cutoffs and a protective glove full of tools has expanded to a tool chest that's too heavy to move and the three changes of clothes I had have grown to two loads of laundry a week. Much of this is a good thing, but I'm feeling overwhelmed. I made a bag to hold my gaming supplies and to carry my crafting stuff -- a round-bottomed bucket bag that I've been using even as I finish up its details -- but I think a culling is in order, as well as serious work on the projects to get them done. I have too many pieces of wood, too many bits of cloth and so on.
I'd best I get to it. It's turning into a long, hot day already.
Monday, June 14, 2010
In Spock We Trust
My friend Annie sent me a tweet she found today, with thanks to Steve Broback:
WSJ on the oil spill: If only we lived in a world where "Data and Geordie" existed. http://bit.ly/98w2Gw @levarburton @brentspiner
I didn't know whether to laugh or cry at that one. We could all wish for such a thing, though I'm more old school Trek myself. We know what Spock and Scotty would do. They'd slap a containment field around that leak and then work up a filter that would transport all that shit-brown goo to a holding tank, preferably far, far away from the shipping lanes. Meanwhile, down on the site, Captain Kirk would be directing the whole messy operation from the ground with the assistance of a band of redshirts who would periodically slip, fall, or be dragged into the unrelenting goo, all the while foiling a Klingon plot to ship BP's entire leased oil reserve to the Empire to keep the Klingon war machine going.
In the meantime, McCoy would be cleaning up thousands of sentient waterbirds in sickbay with nothing more than a hypospray and his own infinite exasperation with the universe. The poor birds would be everywhere, three deep in sickbay, lining the halls, even lying about on the galley tables like so many sick and dying tribbles. It would be a terrible, terrible day.
And yet, thanks to the brilliance, determination and endurance of the Enterprise crew, somehow they would pull off a miracle. Order would be restored, the hurt and sick healed, evil plots thwarted and all that in less than an hour.
I am convinced that Americans do share a common religion, but it's not one found in any church I know of, nor one generally celebrated in outdoor circles. It is the faith and hope found in Star Trek. It is the belief that the cosmos around us is infinitely diverse, in unimaginable combination, yet somehow knowable, and that practically anything is possible, on a regular basis.
We know what Spock would do. We are comfortable with the notion McCoy raises people from the dead-or-worse with nothing but a hissy stick and an oft-repeated mantra about not being a plumber or whatever it is that's really the more obvious solution. Meanwhile, Uhura bridges the gaps in understanding, mediating between humanity and vastly superior beings who resemble nothing more than clouds or gesticulating pools of goo, while Kirk leads them all between bouts of spreading his genome across the galaxy. They are our angels, our priests, our heroes and our gods.
And we love them all.
WSJ on the oil spill: If only we lived in a world where "Data and Geordie" existed. http://bit.ly/98w2Gw @levarburton @brentspiner
I didn't know whether to laugh or cry at that one. We could all wish for such a thing, though I'm more old school Trek myself. We know what Spock and Scotty would do. They'd slap a containment field around that leak and then work up a filter that would transport all that shit-brown goo to a holding tank, preferably far, far away from the shipping lanes. Meanwhile, down on the site, Captain Kirk would be directing the whole messy operation from the ground with the assistance of a band of redshirts who would periodically slip, fall, or be dragged into the unrelenting goo, all the while foiling a Klingon plot to ship BP's entire leased oil reserve to the Empire to keep the Klingon war machine going.
In the meantime, McCoy would be cleaning up thousands of sentient waterbirds in sickbay with nothing more than a hypospray and his own infinite exasperation with the universe. The poor birds would be everywhere, three deep in sickbay, lining the halls, even lying about on the galley tables like so many sick and dying tribbles. It would be a terrible, terrible day.
And yet, thanks to the brilliance, determination and endurance of the Enterprise crew, somehow they would pull off a miracle. Order would be restored, the hurt and sick healed, evil plots thwarted and all that in less than an hour.
I am convinced that Americans do share a common religion, but it's not one found in any church I know of, nor one generally celebrated in outdoor circles. It is the faith and hope found in Star Trek. It is the belief that the cosmos around us is infinitely diverse, in unimaginable combination, yet somehow knowable, and that practically anything is possible, on a regular basis.
We know what Spock would do. We are comfortable with the notion McCoy raises people from the dead-or-worse with nothing but a hissy stick and an oft-repeated mantra about not being a plumber or whatever it is that's really the more obvious solution. Meanwhile, Uhura bridges the gaps in understanding, mediating between humanity and vastly superior beings who resemble nothing more than clouds or gesticulating pools of goo, while Kirk leads them all between bouts of spreading his genome across the galaxy. They are our angels, our priests, our heroes and our gods.
And we love them all.
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
Oh My Tiny Gods!
Lovecraft had no idea when he wrote that he would start a strange cultus that would span the globe, uniting nerds and geeks everywhere with a subgenre of weird tales and spawning such wonderful things as handmade Necronomicons and now amigurumi Cthulhus!
My friend Rachel sent this wonderful link to me. In the dozen or so years since I first huddled around a table with friends, cheesy poofs and mountain dew, I’ve discovered the tentacles of the Great Old One reach far beyond the extent one would expect of a small company called Chaosium. Whether it’s horrific resin and bronze sculptures or cute and cuddly baby toys, Cthulhu is rising everywhere. Ia, fthagn!
Sunday, May 30, 2010
It's a Wonderful Day
Had this convo earlier this morning. I think it explains itself.
Sunday, 2010 May 30 (13:44:01)
[10:05] mackenziedrake: Morning
[10:05] lj_divine: gm dear
[10:06] mackenziedrake: How are you doing?
[10:06] lj_divine: pretty good. how about you?
[10:06] lj_divine: thanks for the comments :)
[10:06] mackenziedrake: I'm wonderful.
[10:06] mackenziedrake: :) Yer welcome.
[10:07] lj_divine: wonderful?
[10:08] mackenziedrake: I talked with my sister this morning. While she was gone a couple nights ago, the neighbors got into such a knockdown/drag out fight that they knocked a hole in the livingroom wall big enough to walk through and one in the bedroom wall that knocked my computer off the desk it was on.
[10:08] mackenziedrake: it's wonderful I'm here and not there by comparison.
[10:08] lj_divine: WOW
[10:08] lj_divine: but your computer????
[10:08] mackenziedrake: yeah, I said that several times in the course of the conversation.
[10:09] lj_divine: what happened to the computer??
[10:09] lj_divine: are they going to replace it?
[10:10] mackenziedrake: My computer, it lives or dies. My sister apparently didn't check it out much. they have been staying at my nephew's and at a hotel since, as the manager hasn't got around to putting up even particle board over the holes yet.
[10:10] lj_divine: well!
[10:10] lj_divine: I would insist on a replacement paid for by the neighbors
[10:10] lj_divine: that is a bit much
[10:10] lj_divine: just.. wow
[10:10] mackenziedrake: I told her not to sweat checking it out -- they have hardly been in the place since.
[10:11] lj_divine: well
[10:11] mackenziedrake: and yeah, she's going to demand that the management take the price of the hotel room out of the rent
[10:12] mackenziedrake: and/or any other damages or theft. the woman living next store was beaten to the point the police found her on the floor bleeding and she won't say who did it. all lisa knows is that the guy's not on the lease.
[10:13] lj_divine: omg.. I hope she is okay
[10:13] mackenziedrake: the manager took the woman's three kids so they would have a place to stay. the woman's got them back now, and they are staying in the apartment.
[10:13] lj_divine: *dropped jaw*
[10:13] mackenziedrake: but lisa won't go back 'til there's a wall between the apartment again
[10:13] lj_divine: yeah I don't blame her
[10:14] lj_divine: oh they need to find that asshole and cut his balls off
[10:14] mackenziedrake: no shit. so she has no idea what might have been stolen, lost, broken or what.
[10:14] lj_divine: wow
[10:14] lj_divine: just wow
[10:14] mackenziedrake: that's what I said.
[10:15] mackenziedrake: so this is all in the context of her trying to get my paperwork to me.
[10:15] lj_divine: wow
[10:15] lj_divine: that is amazine
[10:15] lj_divine: glad you are doing wonderful with that news
[10:16] mackenziedrake: and now it turns out the papers she thought were in her purse, aren't. they may be there at my nephew's, they may be home. no telling.
[10:16] mackenziedrake: yeah, it's fugging incredible.
[10:16] lj_divine: *shakes head*
[10:16] mackenziedrake: *nod*
[10:17] mackenziedrake: so by comparison, given I'd likely have been in the apartment at the time otherwise, I'm wonderful this morning.
[10:18] lj_divine: i bet you are
[10:19] mackenziedrake: oh my.
[10:20] mackenziedrake: I really don't know what to say besides 'Oh my.'
[10:20] lj_divine: yeah
[10:21] mackenziedrake: I have to go to sleep, tho. I've only had about four hours' rest and I've got to get stuff done today, big time.
Sunday, 2010 May 30 (13:44:01)
[10:05] mackenziedrake: Morning
[10:05] lj_divine: gm dear
[10:06] mackenziedrake: How are you doing?
[10:06] lj_divine: pretty good. how about you?
[10:06] lj_divine: thanks for the comments :)
[10:06] mackenziedrake: I'm wonderful.
[10:06] mackenziedrake: :) Yer welcome.
[10:07] lj_divine: wonderful?
[10:08] mackenziedrake: I talked with my sister this morning. While she was gone a couple nights ago, the neighbors got into such a knockdown/drag out fight that they knocked a hole in the livingroom wall big enough to walk through and one in the bedroom wall that knocked my computer off the desk it was on.
[10:08] mackenziedrake: it's wonderful I'm here and not there by comparison.
[10:08] lj_divine: WOW
[10:08] lj_divine: but your computer????
[10:08] mackenziedrake: yeah, I said that several times in the course of the conversation.
[10:09] lj_divine: what happened to the computer??
[10:09] lj_divine: are they going to replace it?
[10:10] mackenziedrake: My computer, it lives or dies. My sister apparently didn't check it out much. they have been staying at my nephew's and at a hotel since, as the manager hasn't got around to putting up even particle board over the holes yet.
[10:10] lj_divine: well!
[10:10] lj_divine: I would insist on a replacement paid for by the neighbors
[10:10] lj_divine: that is a bit much
[10:10] lj_divine: just.. wow
[10:10] mackenziedrake: I told her not to sweat checking it out -- they have hardly been in the place since.
[10:11] lj_divine: well
[10:11] mackenziedrake: and yeah, she's going to demand that the management take the price of the hotel room out of the rent
[10:12] mackenziedrake: and/or any other damages or theft. the woman living next store was beaten to the point the police found her on the floor bleeding and she won't say who did it. all lisa knows is that the guy's not on the lease.
[10:13] lj_divine: omg.. I hope she is okay
[10:13] mackenziedrake: the manager took the woman's three kids so they would have a place to stay. the woman's got them back now, and they are staying in the apartment.
[10:13] lj_divine: *dropped jaw*
[10:13] mackenziedrake: but lisa won't go back 'til there's a wall between the apartment again
[10:13] lj_divine: yeah I don't blame her
[10:14] lj_divine: oh they need to find that asshole and cut his balls off
[10:14] mackenziedrake: no shit. so she has no idea what might have been stolen, lost, broken or what.
[10:14] lj_divine: wow
[10:14] lj_divine: just wow
[10:14] mackenziedrake: that's what I said.
[10:15] mackenziedrake: so this is all in the context of her trying to get my paperwork to me.
[10:15] lj_divine: wow
[10:15] lj_divine: that is amazine
[10:15] lj_divine: glad you are doing wonderful with that news
[10:16] mackenziedrake: and now it turns out the papers she thought were in her purse, aren't. they may be there at my nephew's, they may be home. no telling.
[10:16] mackenziedrake: yeah, it's fugging incredible.
[10:16] lj_divine: *shakes head*
[10:16] mackenziedrake: *nod*
[10:17] mackenziedrake: so by comparison, given I'd likely have been in the apartment at the time otherwise, I'm wonderful this morning.
[10:18] lj_divine: i bet you are
[10:19] mackenziedrake: oh my.
[10:20] mackenziedrake: I really don't know what to say besides 'Oh my.'
[10:20] lj_divine: yeah
[10:21] mackenziedrake: I have to go to sleep, tho. I've only had about four hours' rest and I've got to get stuff done today, big time.
Friday, May 28, 2010
Uncle Says I'm Broken Enough
Well, it's all over but the benefits calculations. I'll get my first Social Security benefits check the first of July, thanks to a combination of mental and physical failings deemed severe enough together to make me unable to support myself by working. When I first found out, I was depressed for three or four days. Now, mind you, I'd been applying off and on for about two years, and this last bout was only being counted from December, but it hit me with that same old stunned-to-a-full-stop blow to the ego I felt back when what's wrong with me was called epilepsy and ended with my dropping out of high school. This time, though, it only lasted three or four days, during which I took a break from bathing and spent too much time eating ice cream in front of the computer while I found a way to remind myself I'm not a random collection of scattered thoughts and half-understood impulses struggling to make sense of a world that plays a very different game from the one I learned growing up. Somehow I missed the cues, or learned a good many false ones as well as a few that still hold true today.
Yet people like me, and I like them. I have friends, and the circles of acquaintance and soul kinship keep expanding even as the thought of the process boggles my mind. Some of them know about the voices that murmur and comment when I am tired and my eyes blink a moment too long. Some don't worry about it, some consider it a gift to have snatches of dream make themselves known in the middle of the day. I don't know. Even when I'm rested, I’m genuinely agnostic. Despite that, there are a world of people who need and ask for prayer and rituals to be done. So, agnostic and broken as I apparently am, I renewed my ordination in the Universal Life Church. Now I can do the stuff I do ad hoc legally. Funny, that.
I wonder if my coming clean about my agnosticism with Ryan has anything to do with this upwelling in religious curiosity, if not exactly fervor. Logically, of course, it's coincidental, but there is so much to be done in this world, and a lot of it is far beyond my physical or intellectual grasp. In such a case, what can I do but talk to the Being(s) that might not be there?
Your comments are, as always, welcome.
Yet people like me, and I like them. I have friends, and the circles of acquaintance and soul kinship keep expanding even as the thought of the process boggles my mind. Some of them know about the voices that murmur and comment when I am tired and my eyes blink a moment too long. Some don't worry about it, some consider it a gift to have snatches of dream make themselves known in the middle of the day. I don't know. Even when I'm rested, I’m genuinely agnostic. Despite that, there are a world of people who need and ask for prayer and rituals to be done. So, agnostic and broken as I apparently am, I renewed my ordination in the Universal Life Church. Now I can do the stuff I do ad hoc legally. Funny, that.
I wonder if my coming clean about my agnosticism with Ryan has anything to do with this upwelling in religious curiosity, if not exactly fervor. Logically, of course, it's coincidental, but there is so much to be done in this world, and a lot of it is far beyond my physical or intellectual grasp. In such a case, what can I do but talk to the Being(s) that might not be there?
Your comments are, as always, welcome.
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
How did I get here?
There are days I look around at the apartment I share with two other gamers and wonder how I got here from where I was a year ago or, Eris forbid, three years ago. Some of my friends -- folks you may meet later -- think what I did had a touch of the sublime to it. After all, how many people willingly jump from a perfectly good dysfunctional housemate relationship into trying out the survivalist circuit for five months with nothing but a computer tower, some clothes and what I think I might need should the world suddenly go tits up?
Well, it depends on how desperate a person is. In my case, I was worn down and near dispair when I got a shot at joining an intentional community in Texas. That leg of the journey was the hairiest two weeks of my life, but with help from net friends I got out in one piece with the clothes and computer tower and set out for parts even more unknown. Long story short, there were a few times I thought I was going to die, a few where my soul -- if I have one -- was on the line, but to borrow a line from Hearts in Atlantis, I wouldn't have missed it for the world. Maybe that's sublime enough.
Well, it depends on how desperate a person is. In my case, I was worn down and near dispair when I got a shot at joining an intentional community in Texas. That leg of the journey was the hairiest two weeks of my life, but with help from net friends I got out in one piece with the clothes and computer tower and set out for parts even more unknown. Long story short, there were a few times I thought I was going to die, a few where my soul -- if I have one -- was on the line, but to borrow a line from Hearts in Atlantis, I wouldn't have missed it for the world. Maybe that's sublime enough.
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