4440: Echoes
Wow, it's been a bit since my last long-form post, huh... =| Lemme sum up:
- still sick
- having an identity crisis
- vaguely making career progress
- losing touch w/ people
- fixed car = phone
Elaboration on those points:
1. I've been wary of the state of health care ever since it became my duty to pay for my own [pretty much since I left Target], for a number of reasons including an article somewhere where a nurse practitioner or other confessed that "treating disease is more profitable than curing disease" [which is similarly why I've been wary about anything to do with cancer foundations], that going through the motions to "treat" patients earns, for example, $100/visit, while actually taking the time to correctly diagnose the patient's problem earns $15. Tell me this isn't a broken system. [I'd link, but I also want to get back to sleep here...]
With that in mind, I finally "caved" and went to a walk-in clinic [for the immediacy, since I'm an idiot and don't have info for the other place where I was going off the top of my head]. They did the basic minimal poking around and gave me a "Z-pack" and prescription-strength cough syrup, but I actually feel WORSE than when I went in--my breathing is harder and I'm coughing more, to the point of headaches. My hunger is coming back a bit, but I'm still not in the mood to eat more solid food than soups. So I get the feeling I'll be doing what Miss Priss is doing [she also has a "sinus infection" but is partially deaf from it] and going for return visits, to no particular effect other than draining time and bank accounts... Me, jaded? ¬_¬
2. I can't go into certain specifics about this, but for all I've been proud of my doing daily sketches for that 420-day stretch, the combination of burn-out + sick = I totally don't ever want to draw again [this year]. I feel frustrated that I work so hard to do things to no particular accolade--which I've generally come to expect as no surprise, but it's just so much to keep doing it and even I don't appreciate it. I mean, sure, I really like when I pull off a pic I really like, but do I have to kill myself to finish it? Letting go of my latest [unspecified to avoid setting up disappointments] self-inflicted deadline as unattainable was like a weight off my shoulders, giving me guilt-free recovery time for whatever the abovementioned affliction actually is [though that's been spotty--I wake up every hour or two even when I get settled].
Some of it, though, keeps coming back to my self-sabotage upon realizing just how much I really don't want to be famous and deal with fans and things like that. [I still seriously feel strange meeting someone who professes to be a fan of mine.] I know there are things I can do and could have done to get to a "better" place than where I am now. I also know that that kind of life spooks me, and--the Internet being what it is--I can't face the idea of ACTUALLY crossing that line, going into that territory. I like my relative anonymity too much.
3. This is somewhat straight-forward: Falco likes what I've been doing and still wants me on as a full-fledged employee, expressing gratitude for a rush scan-job I did for a court thing they had to do. I'm getting there, but it seems to be a lot of red tape and personnel management, besides everyone just getting the proper boxes checked. Still worried a little about company solvency, but one day at a time here.
4. This is the hardest one to come to terms with, I think, even in general, since it happens to everyone. When we're little, all our friends are whoever is nearby. When we get older, friends move away, regrouping based on needs, wants, interests, etc., and it's harder to stay in touch. I didn't have a particularly large number of friends in the first place--not really good BFFs, just due to my nature of being slightly embarrassed to talk about various things [and I've only managed to overcome that after finding friends with whom those kinds of "barriers" don't seem to matter [if you need me to explain that, you haven't been on the Internet much, have you?]]--so when I found myself, over the years, drawing farther and farther into myself, it reached a "breaking point" where I felt myself going crazy, especially from having so much alone time compared to before C's switch to second shift... we don't eat dinner together every night anymore, we only have a few hours together before I go to bed even when I nap, and even then I've pretty much had only his and Dan's company in my off-hours. Even if we had more time together each day, putting that much demand on a single person for entertainment is stressful--on the most eventful days, I run out of things to say after five minutes. My daydreams are usually about me being in my characters' positions, but almost none of them are enviable--most of them are dealing with coping with the harsh realities of life, that there are one or two "bursts" of fantasy [as in, the parts movies romanticize], and the rest of the time is misery and/or boring [phrasing it that way, because I well realize that sometimes boredom is good, however unbearable at other times].
What I came to realize was, though I simultaneously resented not having enough focus devoted to my projects, having that much alone time with only my own thoughts [even when futzing around with Neopets, for example--so much of that is disengaged brainlessness] is like being in an echo chamber, and I feel like I'm losing so much objectivity by being mired in so much of myself. I ran out of ideas because I had mucked about in mine for so long that they were losing solvency. My best work was often when I broke away and did fan pictures. I felt like the writing was on the wall, and it was just a matter of me reading it.
I do still want to do art, mind you. I just don't know that I can until I can get past these preconceived notions I have of what I'm "supposed" to do with it. There are scads of things I would love to do [animate is a regular one, which I can only pull off in short bursts], but that's always been the case, and the possibilities are rapidly decreasing... I mean, a permanent job is a more desirable, more immediate goal in my mind =p [and I don't mean "full time web comic artist"--I really don't want to manage all the nitty-gritty of merchandising it takes to pull that off]
5. This was just I took my car to the dealership this morning, after much unnecessary fighting with the power steering constantly going out [which wouldn't have been a big thing except that restarting the car fixes it back "on"]. They replaced the motor without charge or contest [it was under warranty, though I've been getting mail about my warranty running out, so I guess that's just their code for the recall issue], so that was good.
When I was getting in the car, I noticed a tool bit under my seat, which I handed to the guy wiping off the water spots from the free car wash, and he said something about giving somebody a "beat down" because they aren't supposed to leave tools behind.
When I got off work, I threw my bag in the passenger seat as per usual and was frowning because how did my phone fall out of my bag?! Except... not my phone \='
So I drove BACK to the dealership, handed the phone to the first person I saw, and explained that I found it in my car after bringing it in this morning and didn't know whose phone it was. Okay, sure, I could've done some things with it, but... I'm not really that kind of person, and I know even though I'm not really a fan of phones, I still freak out when I think I've lost mine, so.
And I guess that's it for now. Time for more down-time... hoping this whatever goes away soon, it's taken my mood along with it -_-
- still sick
- having an identity crisis
- vaguely making career progress
- losing touch w/ people
- fixed car = phone
Elaboration on those points:
1. I've been wary of the state of health care ever since it became my duty to pay for my own [pretty much since I left Target], for a number of reasons including an article somewhere where a nurse practitioner or other confessed that "treating disease is more profitable than curing disease" [which is similarly why I've been wary about anything to do with cancer foundations], that going through the motions to "treat" patients earns, for example, $100/visit, while actually taking the time to correctly diagnose the patient's problem earns $15. Tell me this isn't a broken system. [I'd link, but I also want to get back to sleep here...]
With that in mind, I finally "caved" and went to a walk-in clinic [for the immediacy, since I'm an idiot and don't have info for the other place where I was going off the top of my head]. They did the basic minimal poking around and gave me a "Z-pack" and prescription-strength cough syrup, but I actually feel WORSE than when I went in--my breathing is harder and I'm coughing more, to the point of headaches. My hunger is coming back a bit, but I'm still not in the mood to eat more solid food than soups. So I get the feeling I'll be doing what Miss Priss is doing [she also has a "sinus infection" but is partially deaf from it] and going for return visits, to no particular effect other than draining time and bank accounts... Me, jaded? ¬_¬
2. I can't go into certain specifics about this, but for all I've been proud of my doing daily sketches for that 420-day stretch, the combination of burn-out + sick = I totally don't ever want to draw again [this year]. I feel frustrated that I work so hard to do things to no particular accolade--which I've generally come to expect as no surprise, but it's just so much to keep doing it and even I don't appreciate it. I mean, sure, I really like when I pull off a pic I really like, but do I have to kill myself to finish it? Letting go of my latest [unspecified to avoid setting up disappointments] self-inflicted deadline as unattainable was like a weight off my shoulders, giving me guilt-free recovery time for whatever the abovementioned affliction actually is [though that's been spotty--I wake up every hour or two even when I get settled].
Some of it, though, keeps coming back to my self-sabotage upon realizing just how much I really don't want to be famous and deal with fans and things like that. [I still seriously feel strange meeting someone who professes to be a fan of mine.] I know there are things I can do and could have done to get to a "better" place than where I am now. I also know that that kind of life spooks me, and--the Internet being what it is--I can't face the idea of ACTUALLY crossing that line, going into that territory. I like my relative anonymity too much.
3. This is somewhat straight-forward: Falco likes what I've been doing and still wants me on as a full-fledged employee, expressing gratitude for a rush scan-job I did for a court thing they had to do. I'm getting there, but it seems to be a lot of red tape and personnel management, besides everyone just getting the proper boxes checked. Still worried a little about company solvency, but one day at a time here.
4. This is the hardest one to come to terms with, I think, even in general, since it happens to everyone. When we're little, all our friends are whoever is nearby. When we get older, friends move away, regrouping based on needs, wants, interests, etc., and it's harder to stay in touch. I didn't have a particularly large number of friends in the first place--not really good BFFs, just due to my nature of being slightly embarrassed to talk about various things [and I've only managed to overcome that after finding friends with whom those kinds of "barriers" don't seem to matter [if you need me to explain that, you haven't been on the Internet much, have you?]]--so when I found myself, over the years, drawing farther and farther into myself, it reached a "breaking point" where I felt myself going crazy, especially from having so much alone time compared to before C's switch to second shift... we don't eat dinner together every night anymore, we only have a few hours together before I go to bed even when I nap, and even then I've pretty much had only his and Dan's company in my off-hours. Even if we had more time together each day, putting that much demand on a single person for entertainment is stressful--on the most eventful days, I run out of things to say after five minutes. My daydreams are usually about me being in my characters' positions, but almost none of them are enviable--most of them are dealing with coping with the harsh realities of life, that there are one or two "bursts" of fantasy [as in, the parts movies romanticize], and the rest of the time is misery and/or boring [phrasing it that way, because I well realize that sometimes boredom is good, however unbearable at other times].
What I came to realize was, though I simultaneously resented not having enough focus devoted to my projects, having that much alone time with only my own thoughts [even when futzing around with Neopets, for example--so much of that is disengaged brainlessness] is like being in an echo chamber, and I feel like I'm losing so much objectivity by being mired in so much of myself. I ran out of ideas because I had mucked about in mine for so long that they were losing solvency. My best work was often when I broke away and did fan pictures. I felt like the writing was on the wall, and it was just a matter of me reading it.
I do still want to do art, mind you. I just don't know that I can until I can get past these preconceived notions I have of what I'm "supposed" to do with it. There are scads of things I would love to do [animate is a regular one, which I can only pull off in short bursts], but that's always been the case, and the possibilities are rapidly decreasing... I mean, a permanent job is a more desirable, more immediate goal in my mind =p [and I don't mean "full time web comic artist"--I really don't want to manage all the nitty-gritty of merchandising it takes to pull that off]
5. This was just I took my car to the dealership this morning, after much unnecessary fighting with the power steering constantly going out [which wouldn't have been a big thing except that restarting the car fixes it back "on"]. They replaced the motor without charge or contest [it was under warranty, though I've been getting mail about my warranty running out, so I guess that's just their code for the recall issue], so that was good.
When I was getting in the car, I noticed a tool bit under my seat, which I handed to the guy wiping off the water spots from the free car wash, and he said something about giving somebody a "beat down" because they aren't supposed to leave tools behind.
When I got off work, I threw my bag in the passenger seat as per usual and was frowning because how did my phone fall out of my bag?! Except... not my phone \='
So I drove BACK to the dealership, handed the phone to the first person I saw, and explained that I found it in my car after bringing it in this morning and didn't know whose phone it was. Okay, sure, I could've done some things with it, but... I'm not really that kind of person, and I know even though I'm not really a fan of phones, I still freak out when I think I've lost mine, so.
And I guess that's it for now. Time for more down-time... hoping this whatever goes away soon, it's taken my mood along with it -_-