I’ve just gotten halfway through writing the last of 8 songs for a video game my boyfriend and his longtime friend are making. I was laid-off from a decent paying job after a long fight to the lower middle, shortly before. So I pretty much jumped at the chance. We’re releasing the songs also as a group, just the two of us, and I’ve been wanting us to agree to collaborate on original music for some time because we have perfectly complimentary skill sets and overlapping aesthetics, but it’s the kind of thing you have to be really sure is comfortable first so it took time to get here. All that said it’s been freaking awesome… but unfortunately I also told myself that once all the tracks were mixed for the release I’d start looking for a job again. I’m not really sure due to my medical needs that I can actually live day to day, pay my mortgage, and figure out how to launch a career I gave up on 15 years ago tbh and I’d better be sure I can do it if I don’t want to potentially destroy a group of lives including my own. So my best angle is to go back to corporate life, see if I can shake out enough money to buy myself say, five years, and just try not to get sucked dry before I can get anything else working. Unless of course the games take off… but again… nice thoughts are nice but they don’t pay the bills.
Compromises… eh… hey I’m lucky and I know it, but that doesn’t keep me from wishing I was luckier so meh.
Then, being so tired, I completely forgot that I took my car to work, and bussed home.
I look in the garage this afternoon, to find grass shears… and there’s no car there. No one else uses my car, so there’s always a car there when I’m home. It takes me a moment to realize where it must be, and I pull out my bicycle and start on my way to work.
I get there: my car is still there, and has no ticket on it.
I think that’s more exciting than meh! But I get it — trying to make a living at creative stuff like art, music, writing, etc., is so difficult. Few people manage. I’ve read that there are maybe 100 science fiction writers who can write full time. I bet many have spouses supporting them. I tried the sf writing route as a hobby; acquired over 100 rejection slips, and placed only a few stories in minuscule markets. Waiting months for replies to submissions (or not getting any reply at all) wore me out. Meh on that.
But as an avocation it’s fun, especially enjoying the community of other wannabes.
Yeah, that was just about how I felt. Something could have gone really poorly, but didn’t. There’s relief, but the most likely consequence would have just been a small fine, so not that much relief.
Just had a bump taken off my dominant hand. It doesn’t hurt (yet), and it may or may not be skin cancer (if it is that would be #4 so not a new thing to get too excited about). The surgeon is really good so hopefully got it all if it is.
But my hand is out of commission for awhile till the incision heals.
Good news: I get out of chores for a while. Bad news is typing is a pita, so comments here may be limited for a bit (except for this one). Meh.
Perfect weather today, did a little weed-pulling to get the garden area looking nicer. Then decided to trim some of the branches that overhang the walking area and hang down too low. My wife held a branch while I sawed at it with my pocket chainsaw, but it’s live wood so the saw kept getting stuck and I kept having to reach up and free it. Just before I finished the cut, it got stuck again. I could feel the warm sticky sap all over my hand and as I reached up to free it, I thought “Wow, this tree is really leaking, I’m going to have to clean the sap off and that stuff’s hard to clean.”
Then I noticed my hand. The warm sticky sap was red, and it was coming from me instead of the tree. Finished the branch and then put pressure on the cut (apparently I’d pushed a sawtooth completely into my finger without noticing) and bandaged it up. Five hours later, took the bandage off to clean it up with peroxide and neosporin and switch to just a bandaid, but it instantly started bleeding again.
So for now I’m typing with one less finger while that one rests in gauze. Going to wait 24 hours to switch the bandage again and then if it still bleeds get it glued shut on Tuesday I guess.
Fits in a pocket and actually works quite well. Well, as long as you don’t grab it by the teeth and yank to unstick it.
Tonight it didn’t start bleeding again so I’m down to a much more comfortable bandaid instead of a big wad of gauze. (If it had bled again I’d probably still be looking for the superglue to seal it up. Haven’t used superglue in ages so it’d probably be glued shut and I’d have to try not to injure myself again opening it. )
Holding it by the straps does seem preferable. I never had luck keeping a bottle of superglue useable for more that a year until I broke down and bought some Drierite. Now I’ve got two bottles, instant and gel, in a Mason jar, with a cup of Drierite in the bottom (it’s for models, not first aid). It’s been two years, maybe more.
My youngest cat had to go to the vet yesterday for her shots and while she was there they trimmed her claws and the bits of fur that were getting matted. She was so terrified; bit and clawed at the carrier (broke a claw in the process) and yowled and shook. They gave us sedatives to give her next time we have to bring her in.
Since she’s been home, she’s mostly either been hiding or running around all spooked, acting as if she thinks the shaved bald patches on her butt are chasing her and she’s trying to get away from her own butt. Tonight though, she came out for pets and treats and food, and even played for a bit. So at least she doesn’t seem to feel unsafe or afraid of us. I think the hiding is just an “I’m injured, need a quiet place to recover” instinct and the freaking out about her butt is not a totally unreasonable reaction to her first non-consensual shaving.
We had to have one of our cats dematted on Tuesday. We left her at the vet for several hours because they might have needed to sedate her, but she’s 16 and they wanted to avoid it if possible. Instead they did it a little at a time. I think she recovered pretty quickly, maybe because it wasn’t the first time.
We were offered the choice of giving her a lion cut, but we declined on that. Her fur is too pretty to be all gone.
Nearby community center installed outdoor exercise machines. They installed them directly into orange clay instead of concrete or gravel, meaning eventually the machines will be adjacent to muddy orange bogs.
So yesterday I went to a taping of Antiques Roadshow. My friend and I had an 8:30am show up time. The people who make the show have it down to a science. We were in, through security, and had our stuff appraised, and back in our car in about an hour. So, needless to say, none of our treasures were good enough to make it on the show. I brought an old hassleblad camera that I inherited from my granddad, and that was valued at half of what it was when it was given to me. The other thing that I brought was a collection of hundred year old Royal Doulton profession plates and the experts told me that they were able to sell these particular plates for $100 each 10 years ago, but they’re now selling for about $25 each, mostly because they are more plentiful because the people who were likely to have them have died, and younger people have little interest in them. And even worse, the one that I thought was extra rare and valuable was actually damaged by either being put in an oven, or being exposed to a fire. So I did get to see and speak with some of the experts on the show that I’ve watched for years, but I wish that the things I brought would have been more interesting and important.
A couple years ago, I had to stop wandering around antique malls and junk shops when I realized that I was rummaging through the remains of somebody’s dead grandma’s house. I think it struck me when I saw a macrame owl next to a set of McDonald’s glasses, and that sometime in the not too distant future, some kid will be making wise ass remarks about all of my stuff.
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