Miscellany of Life
Well, at long last, I’m finally getting off my ass (or out my funk) and posting a whole, real, full-length journal entry! WOOOHOOO. I am finding myself feeling increasingly isolated these days, much as I was when I first went to grad school and turned to my journal as a form of therapy. It’s been a while since I’ve felt like returning to cyberspace, but am feeling the need once again. Which I think is a good thing, because bottling things up never helps.
So, I just got back from a "business trip" - I always feel sort of like a grownup when I say that! :P I spent a little over a week with my friend/colleague sharing a room and a car. This was not a recipe for happiness, I must say. She has her ways of doing things and, it seems, so have I. I always thought of myself as easy-going, but apparently not. Or maybe I was too laid back and it annoyed her? I don't know. But by the end I was so tense and grouchy that I just wanted to quit my job and move back to Texas!
I'm sure it was all made worse by the fact that I have been chafing under my living situation here in DC. This is an expensive city to live in when you are buried in student loan debt and making less than I made in 2003. Don’t even get me started about health care (or the shear impossibility of acquiring such). So I am renting a furnished room from a very nice woman about my age, which is cool. Except nothing is mine, everything is hers, she’s been in the place for 12 years and inhabits all the space in spirit if not in body. She watches soap operas in the living room every night, which makes me avoid it like the plague, and I can even sort of hear them through my closed door (have you ever just listened to the tone of voice of people talking in a soap opera? It’s either angry, defensive, or threatening. Who needs that every day??). She has a dog who loves to lie on my bed, since it has the only front facing windows in the apartment. I don’t mind this except that it essentially makes my room into public space and not my own. She comes in when I am not there to vacuum the rug to get the dog hair off and change the dog-hair covered coverlet on my bed, which is nice, but also another example of how she controls the space and not me. She keeps the vacuum in her room upstairs, so then even if feel like vacuuming on my own schedule I need to ask her to borrow it. It is stupid shit like this which, not being particularly dire in and of themselves, contribute to my growing sense of frustration and lack of control over my own life.
But, just as it was in my hometown, and just as it was in Boston, an apartment of my own is out of my financial means. If I move further out of town, I will lose anything I save in metro costs. (Did I mention I can’t afford a car here? Yet another blow to my personal autonomy.) I am so frustrated to be this old and still be living like a 24-year-old recent grad. Ugh. I keep telling myself it was worth it, the whole grad school thing, because I love my job and it does kick the ass of all the other jobs I had before this. But when I have a 25-y.o. friend with a 1-bedroom apartment and car (because her parents help her keep afloat) it makes me feel like a total failure. Oh well. C’est la vie.
I am also sad that I haven’t been able to take much refuge in fandom lately. I love the podcast I’ve been working on (although, with my semi-public bedroom space it has been hard to complete the editing work I need to do - did I mention she provided a desk chair, but then would randomly take it out to the living room to use for her own work??). But with my disenchantment with NCIS and associated fangirls, I have found my urge to write waning. Well, this, in all fairness, is also caused in part by the epic Bonanza fics I’ve also been reading lately. Seriously, I swear these ladies are capable of writing nothing shorter than a novella! I have never written anything longer than 10k. I don’t know how they have the stamina. I get into a certain mood, write till I have to stop (for bed, or work, or something), and then it is very hard to come back days later and get back in the same mood. How do they do it?? When I think about settling down to write, I usually think, ‘What’s the point? There’s so much already out there and who will really read it anyway?’ and give up. That’s been my problem all my life, though - a tendency to give up too easily and not try very hard. Unpardonable sins in our culture, if what I’ve learned from every Afterschool Special is anything to go by. ;)
Still, despite the tension from my trip, it was nice to get away for a while and get out of my rut, and get a different perspective on things. I realize that I’ve been relying on my few friends in town for social interaction, but that we’re really only friends due to proximity, and if I really want to meet people with the same interests as me, I’m going to have to go out and look for them. Am still trying to figure out how to do that, but maybe now I will find a little motivation to go out and try some things. We have a really cute indie game store down the road, so I might see about their game night options. :D We’ll see….
I usually try to end my entries on an up note, although I find my humor has not been entirely restored by typing this up - alas. But I will once again mention how awesome it is to be working on this podcast!! It is amazing to interact with a group of smart women and analyze the heck out of something for no other purpose than that it makes up happy. Based on my limited experience, there seem to be very few all-female podcasts out there, so am hoping we can keep this going and maybe pick up a moderate audience (eventually). I just need to be more timely on the editing and then we need to improve our marketing skillz! :D But it is a goal to work towards, which I’ve been lacking lately, so this is good. WOOT!
Oh, and people liked my Yuletide story, which is still making me happy. My previous ventures have been for such tiny fandoms, they have gotten very few hits, but this one is more well known, and apparently I and my requester were NOT the only ones who were wanting someone to explore the crazy-pants, messed-up dynamics between Gene Hackman and Russell Crowe in The Quick and the Dead. Fuck YEAH! Hooray for my fellow kink lovers!
Also, I may venture to NYC to see this! All in the Timing, a set of short plays by David Ives - a friend gave me the book, almost 20 years ago now (@_@), and a group of us used to do read-throughs at lunch. I’ve never seen them performed and I’m dying to. So if I can fit it in on the same day as the Metropolitan Opera National Council Grand Finals concert, it would pretty much be the most perfect day ever! It’ll be pricey, but FUCK, you only live ONCE, dammit, and I might not be here in 20 years when they get around to another Ives revival. Alas, I no longer have a friend in Manhattan on whose couch to crash, but I don’t care. I’ll spend the night in Grand Central waiting for my train if I have to (ok, it won’t come to that…).
So, I just got back from a "business trip" - I always feel sort of like a grownup when I say that! :P I spent a little over a week with my friend/colleague sharing a room and a car. This was not a recipe for happiness, I must say. She has her ways of doing things and, it seems, so have I. I always thought of myself as easy-going, but apparently not. Or maybe I was too laid back and it annoyed her? I don't know. But by the end I was so tense and grouchy that I just wanted to quit my job and move back to Texas!
I'm sure it was all made worse by the fact that I have been chafing under my living situation here in DC. This is an expensive city to live in when you are buried in student loan debt and making less than I made in 2003. Don’t even get me started about health care (or the shear impossibility of acquiring such). So I am renting a furnished room from a very nice woman about my age, which is cool. Except nothing is mine, everything is hers, she’s been in the place for 12 years and inhabits all the space in spirit if not in body. She watches soap operas in the living room every night, which makes me avoid it like the plague, and I can even sort of hear them through my closed door (have you ever just listened to the tone of voice of people talking in a soap opera? It’s either angry, defensive, or threatening. Who needs that every day??). She has a dog who loves to lie on my bed, since it has the only front facing windows in the apartment. I don’t mind this except that it essentially makes my room into public space and not my own. She comes in when I am not there to vacuum the rug to get the dog hair off and change the dog-hair covered coverlet on my bed, which is nice, but also another example of how she controls the space and not me. She keeps the vacuum in her room upstairs, so then even if feel like vacuuming on my own schedule I need to ask her to borrow it. It is stupid shit like this which, not being particularly dire in and of themselves, contribute to my growing sense of frustration and lack of control over my own life.
But, just as it was in my hometown, and just as it was in Boston, an apartment of my own is out of my financial means. If I move further out of town, I will lose anything I save in metro costs. (Did I mention I can’t afford a car here? Yet another blow to my personal autonomy.) I am so frustrated to be this old and still be living like a 24-year-old recent grad. Ugh. I keep telling myself it was worth it, the whole grad school thing, because I love my job and it does kick the ass of all the other jobs I had before this. But when I have a 25-y.o. friend with a 1-bedroom apartment and car (because her parents help her keep afloat) it makes me feel like a total failure. Oh well. C’est la vie.
I am also sad that I haven’t been able to take much refuge in fandom lately. I love the podcast I’ve been working on (although, with my semi-public bedroom space it has been hard to complete the editing work I need to do - did I mention she provided a desk chair, but then would randomly take it out to the living room to use for her own work??). But with my disenchantment with NCIS and associated fangirls, I have found my urge to write waning. Well, this, in all fairness, is also caused in part by the epic Bonanza fics I’ve also been reading lately. Seriously, I swear these ladies are capable of writing nothing shorter than a novella! I have never written anything longer than 10k. I don’t know how they have the stamina. I get into a certain mood, write till I have to stop (for bed, or work, or something), and then it is very hard to come back days later and get back in the same mood. How do they do it?? When I think about settling down to write, I usually think, ‘What’s the point? There’s so much already out there and who will really read it anyway?’ and give up. That’s been my problem all my life, though - a tendency to give up too easily and not try very hard. Unpardonable sins in our culture, if what I’ve learned from every Afterschool Special is anything to go by. ;)
Still, despite the tension from my trip, it was nice to get away for a while and get out of my rut, and get a different perspective on things. I realize that I’ve been relying on my few friends in town for social interaction, but that we’re really only friends due to proximity, and if I really want to meet people with the same interests as me, I’m going to have to go out and look for them. Am still trying to figure out how to do that, but maybe now I will find a little motivation to go out and try some things. We have a really cute indie game store down the road, so I might see about their game night options. :D We’ll see….
I usually try to end my entries on an up note, although I find my humor has not been entirely restored by typing this up - alas. But I will once again mention how awesome it is to be working on this podcast!! It is amazing to interact with a group of smart women and analyze the heck out of something for no other purpose than that it makes up happy. Based on my limited experience, there seem to be very few all-female podcasts out there, so am hoping we can keep this going and maybe pick up a moderate audience (eventually). I just need to be more timely on the editing and then we need to improve our marketing skillz! :D But it is a goal to work towards, which I’ve been lacking lately, so this is good. WOOT!
Oh, and people liked my Yuletide story, which is still making me happy. My previous ventures have been for such tiny fandoms, they have gotten very few hits, but this one is more well known, and apparently I and my requester were NOT the only ones who were wanting someone to explore the crazy-pants, messed-up dynamics between Gene Hackman and Russell Crowe in The Quick and the Dead. Fuck YEAH! Hooray for my fellow kink lovers!
Also, I may venture to NYC to see this! All in the Timing, a set of short plays by David Ives - a friend gave me the book, almost 20 years ago now (@_@), and a group of us used to do read-throughs at lunch. I’ve never seen them performed and I’m dying to. So if I can fit it in on the same day as the Metropolitan Opera National Council Grand Finals concert, it would pretty much be the most perfect day ever! It’ll be pricey, but FUCK, you only live ONCE, dammit, and I might not be here in 20 years when they get around to another Ives revival. Alas, I no longer have a friend in Manhattan on whose couch to crash, but I don’t care. I’ll spend the night in Grand Central waiting for my train if I have to (ok, it won’t come to that…).