Corner of Bourbon & Division

 I promised an update, so an update you shall have! For all that it feels like nothing ever happens in my life, actually there's a fair bit to catch up on. I can't guarantee it will be interesting to anyone but me, though, fair warning.

Here we go, in order of importance, I guess:

• Sad news first: Sergent died just under a month ago. He was my dog, for those of you who may not be fully up to speed on things. Anyway, he'd been slowing down a lot over the last year--his arthritis was clearly getting worse in spite of treatments, and he became incontinent right after I moved house and basically never recouped his house training after that. Then Father's Day weekend, while my parents were visiting, he got really sick, which usually happened about once a year for him, but this time when I brought him to the emergency vet, he didn't bounce back the way he usually does. He stopped being able to walk, lost all interest in food, water, and his surroundings, and generally made it very obvious to me that he was ready to go. The vet concurred with me that euthanasia was the best course of action, and so that's what we decided to do. He went quickly, and at least at the end he wasn't in pain anymore.
• Not-sad news: I am starting university again in the fall! I took a two-day course in conflict resolution at my workplace, and really loved it. I also spied an opportunity, as the instructor said that they were thinking of expanding the Informal Conflict management program. So I discreetly inquired as to what one might need to become part of said program, and she said I'd need a degree in Conflict Studies from St. Paul University. Uncharacteristically for me, I took the plunge and not only immediately started researching the degree, I actually pulled together all the necessary paperwork to apply, and applied. To my shock, I was actually accepted for a Bachelor of Arts in Conflict Studies. So I start again September 5th, and am freaking out ever so slightly, because it has been roughly eighteen years since I was last in university, and I am pretty sure I have forgotten how to Academia. Still, it's pretty exciting. If I study part-time but manage some summer courses, I can finish in about five years. Possibly less, if I can apply to be fast-tracked to a Masters' Degree, but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. For now, just getting my feet wet again will suffice.
• In weirdly related news, I have resumed going to therapy. There's no official diagnosis yet, but it looks like I might actually have ADHD, or at least some sort of executive dysfunction disorder. ai731 asked me if I'd ever been tested, way back in November, during one of our cooking days, when I YET AGAIN skipped a step in a recipe/forgot an ingredient/whatever. Obviously I've never been tested, but the more I looked into it, the more it seemed to fit. If it is the correct diagnosis, then I'd have what's called the "inattentive" presentation, rather than hyperactivity. So, anyway, I'm working with a therapist who specializes in ADHD and related things, and we've been trying to make me less of a trash fire of a human being. It's slow going so far, but at least she's been keeping me honest about a few things. I think I'll expand on that in a separate entry.
• Work has been chugging along, in much the same way as before. We go through periods where it looks like we'll maybe pull ourselves out of the hole we're constantly in, by hiring people and training them, and then before we know it a ton of people jump ship for various reasons, and we're practically back to square one. Right now one employee is out on maternity leave, another is on paternity leave for nine months, one just up and left after being back only a few months after being out on stress leave and has dramatically declared he's never coming back, and we STILL haven't filled previous vacancies. One was out on bereavement leave for three weeks, one was out for two months on medical leave for two months and is only coming back part-time next week, and won't be full time until probably September. It's a mess. Right now we are 9 full-time permanent employees (including supervisors), 2 full-time contract employees, 1 part-time contract employee, and one guy who is helping us out because he's being super nice and knows we're in trouble. We're supposed to be 16 full-time permanent employees (including supervisors), but that has not been the case once since I started working there. Oh, and our Director just retired and our Staff Sergeant just announced she was leaving in August for another section, so we will have two completely new people above us in the chain of command, who have NO experience in our section and no idea what we do, and it will take a year of work on our part to get them up to speed.
• Related to the above, it's kind of the reason I'm looking to get out of my current position. It's not the only reason, of course, nor even the primary one. The primary reason is that the long weeks and ridiculous rotating shifts are getting increasingly difficult to recover from. I work 60 hour weeks, then get several days off in between, but those days off are increasingly spent sleeping or being useless because I'm so tired from work. I also do much better on a set schedule, and my work schedule is not regular enough for that. It's doing my head in. Another reason I was considering getting out is that my Staff Sergeant seems to have decided that I am super incompetent and that I need to be micromanaged. Now, granted, I did make a mistake. It was a mistake that was mostly minor, but unfortunately it got noticed by officers who were senior to my Staff Sergeant, and so they called her and yelled about it, and therefore that shit rolled downhill to me. I will give her props, she did not throw me under the bus, but I think she's still holding the grudge months later. I have been on the receiving end of irrational grudges from management before, and I wasn't relishing the prospect of continuing working for her, but since she's leaving in a month or so, I'm a lot less worried about it now.
• I'm still streaming on Twitch! I've really found my groove, and am having a lot of fun with it. (If you're interested, you can catch me here: https://www.twitch.tv/ratherastory) I'm part of some great communities, have made wonderful new friends, and have discovered amazing video games it never would have occurred to me to play on my own. I've also started doing cooking streams on my free Saturdays, and am having a blast with that, too. I've been managing to stream on average three times a week, and even have something of a schedule set up for it, as much as my work schedule allows for, anyway.

I think that's many of the broad strokes of what happened over the past few months. There were smaller things, too, minor drama at work, adventures with friends, cool Christmas parties, but this should give you an idea of where I'm at these days. I'm going to try to update more regularly. If not every day, then at least a couple of times a week. Once upon a time, this LJ was a good way for me to keep a record of what was going on in my life, so it'd be nice if I could start that process up again.

Sporadic Life Update #75

So life proceeds apace. Just got back from a mini-roadtrip to New Brunswick with my colleague J, which was equal parts fun and frustration, mostly because she turned out to be a slightly passive-aggressive kind of travelling companion. Overall, though, it was a really good time, and the GSCVO handled the road beautifully AND had fantastic gas mileage.

Work is work. The schedule is still wreaking havoc with what little social life I have, but is otherwise pretty good. I'm not being totally overworked, which is a nice change of pace.

We've had some unpleasantness over the past few months due to the possibility of permanent positions opening up. We are 14 temporary operators vying for six job openings, and while some of us (like myself) are being reasonably zen about the whole process, others have taken it upon themselves to make things as unpleasant as humanly possible. Even though the process of filling the permanent positions is pretty much an objective one (everyone has to pass through two evaluations, one written and one oral, which are graded by one senior staff member and one HR person who's entirely impartial), these people have decided that they will be best served by trying to undermine their colleagues in any way they can think of. It's really very unfortunate, and has made the atmosphere around here pretty tense. I'm lucky enough that my 12-hour schedule keeps me mostly out of the way of said unpleasant people, which is good all-around.

It does, however, motivate me even more to keep working toward my goal of becoming a regular member. I'm not deluding myself that there won't be other problems in other jobs, but at least I'd be paid more. ;)

Lots of other minor work-related things, which I may go into in depth at some future date.


I came home from my trip to a very sick cat. Gretzky's been feeling poorly for a while now, but she took a sharp turn for the worse when I was gone. So we hied ourselves to the vet today, where I found out that my beloved vet is on maternity leave, leaving me to deal with the evil vet who accused me of wanting my cat to suffer back in the day. Evil vet redeemed himself by A) being polite and respectful, B) telling me how beautiful my cat was, and C) not trying to sell me any ridiculously expensive procedures on my cat.

Gretzky got poked and prodded, injected with antibiotics, injected with a whole lot of saline solution to rehydrate her, and even got her claws clipped since she won't let me near her paws anymore and her claws were threatening to grow right into the pads of her feet. The possibly-not-evil vet cleaned her up, talked nicely to her, and let me hold her while he did undignified things to her so she wouldn't be too traumatized.

We got home after two hours, and she's already looking much better, and seems perkier. So all is well in the feline world.

I then got called in for an emergency night shift at work, which is where I am now, sneaking onto the internet. Bad Phnee! ;) I am tired and mostly braindead, so I'm hoping they don't hold it against me too much.

In other news, the date for Capricornucopia has been set: January 15th. Mark your calendars. :)

Not dead, just not posty. I go through phases when I don't post much, as any of my long-term friends will know. Those new to this LJ, do not despair, for eventually I will come back. Probably next week, as I plan to document what I can about my new job without compromising national security and all that.

I have done something weird to my right shoulder. It feels like a knot under the shoulder blade. I'm hoping it will be gone by tomorrow. Nothing terrible, but annoying because it interferes somewhat with typing.

NaNoWriMo has ground to a halt for me since last Wednesday, when I stopped at 40k. I figure that I can manage 10k before the end of November without too much trouble, and I don't plan on nearly killing myself the way I did last year.

I refrained from posting a long extra paragraph in my last post justifying why I put up a Remembrance Day post every year. I don't like to think that I live in a society where I have to justify doing such a thing, or explaining my motivations in great detail, the way many seem to feel compelled to do. This is mostly irrelevant, but it's been bugging me, so I'm writing it here.

The icky sinus thing turned into an icky chest thing, but appears to have run its course in exactly one week's time. All things considered, I think I got off lucky. Maybe spending an entire day in bed with tea and hot soup and Kraft Dinner and watching MacGyver had something to do with it too. Usually I suffer stoically through my colds and stagger through the days at work all hopped up on Advil (or whatever), and thus the cold drags on for two weeks and claims my voice for most of it. So being on vacation seems to have worked out well for me in that regard.

This week, there will be cleaning. It was supposed to be last week, but I got sidelined by a minor plague. See above. So there will be cleaning, and then shopping for the wherewithal to make food that I can freeze and then reheat for my first few weeks at work. I suspect most of my brain's CPU will be taken up absorbing all the new information at work. I'm quite excited. :)

There'S other stuff, too, but I will save some of it for a later post and the rest isn't worth mentioning.

Life is pretty good over here, all told. How is everyone else doing?

This has been a busy week. I'm embarking on a couple of new projects, which I shall no doubt discuss in here when they become a little less nebulous in my head.

I got felled by a monster migraine Tuesday night at work. Around 7pm my body very decisively said to me: "You're going home NOW." There's no arguing when my body takes that tone with me. I excused myself to my coworkers, called my supervisor to tell him I had to leave, and left. I medicated myself to the gills and slept for 13 hours, and luckily woke up without a trace of the migraine except the usual residual feeling of being a bit fragile for a few hours.

The moral of the story is that I'm not allowed to do overtime anymore. The last time I had a migraine this bad was the last time I did overtime. I attributed it to the fact that I was doing a double shift overnight and thus messing up my sleep patterns, but that's not the case at all. It appears that my body will. not. tolerate. more than 40 hours a week of work. A few hours of overtime here and there is fine, but not the equivalent of an extra day's work.

I had a lovely luncheon yesterday with silly_imp, whom I have asked to initiate me into the whole being a vegetarian thing. We had a delicious lunch, and a fascinating discussion that ranged from vegetarianism to the kind of professional choices people make and why, all the way to religion (paganism and quakerism, especially). It was really lovely, and I'm looking forward to the next time we can have lunch together again.

Vegetarianism is one of the aforementioned new projects, since I'm getting into it. The way I see it, I am going to be a vegetarian when I cook for myself. I eat relatively little meat anyway, and being a vegetarian at home will be both cheaper for me and allow me to contribute to helping the environment. I don't really know much about where the meat at the supermarket comes from, and I doubt it's very healthy. A lot of it, I suspect, comes from the US, which generally speaking pumps its livestock full of growth hormones and whatnot. Also, locally-produced meat is not necessarily any better, and contributes considerably to the pollution of rivers and groundwater.

I also suspect that being a vegetarian will allow me to be healthier in the long run, and maybe even lose a bit of weight, if combined with exercise and other healthy habits. :)

I had a bit of a chat with my coworker (the one who was so concerned about my eating habits) about vegetarianism last night. She didn't understand why anyone would want to become a vegetarian, since humans are *meant* to be omnivorous (her emphasis, not mine). I explained that while humans *could* be omnivorous, it wasn't necessary, and that many different populations are almost exclusively vegetarian. I went on to outline my reasons for considering vegetarianism (see above), and she appeared quite impressed by my train of thought. It appears the only vegetarians she knows had only one reason, and that was: "OMG it's cruel to kill the baby animals oh noes!" I can understand how that would be annoying and unsatisfying as a response.

As I told her, I have no objection to killing animals, so long as it's done for the right reasons: food, clothing, and the occasional protection of the self. My main problem with supermarket meat, increasingly, is that I have no connection to it: it's packed in plastic and styrofoam and shipped from far away. I cited fearsclave as an example: he goes out, shoots a rabbit, comes home (waves it at his Wuh-Mun) and dumps it in a stew pot. I have no problem with this. It just seems to me that, on the whole, Western civilization has disconnected considerably from their food, its sources and the reasons for which we consume it.

Because my day is never complete without three or four really intense discussions, the same coworker brought up the issue of what it's like being gay. (There was a very amusing incident on Monday night in which one of the supervisors "found out" that I was gay —not that I was hiding it, but he just hadn't known, but essentially now it's public knowledge, as opposed to something I'm just not actively hiding)

So I spent the better part of two hours talking to her and the other guy on my shift about my experiences. They both don't know any gay people their own age, and have only stereotypes or (in the girl's case) older family members to go by. So I fielded the usual questions:

- Did you always know you were gay?
- How did you figure it out?
- Are you completely comfortable with who you are?
- Do your parents know? What do they think of it?
- Is it something you could change if you really wanted to?
- What if you fell in love with a man? Would that change how you identify yourself?
- If you were given the choice, would you *not* be gay?
- Do you want children?

Etc. They were very respectful in their questions, and I think I made some big inroads in dispelling some prejudices they didn't even know they had. The only question that irritated me slightly was: "If you were given a choice, would you *not* be gay?"

That was asked by the male coworker. He didn't mean it badly, but it's an absurd question, and I told him so. I explained it this way to him: You're essentially giving me a choice between having an easy time, and a hard time. The fact that I am sexually attracted to women has little or nothing to do with it. I told him that I was going to spend my. entire. life having *this* conversation with people, that I was going to spend all of my life "coming out" to people who don't know I'm gay, and working to change their perception of what a gay person is or should be.

If I had the choice, I would choose not to have to do that. I am not someone who enjoys the spotlight, and having people grill me with questions about my sexual orientation is not something with which I am especially comfortable. I answer all questions as openly and honestly as I can, because I truly believe it's important for people to understand, but that doesn't mean I have to like it.

If being gay and being straight made no difference in terms of how hard my life would be (which is a moot point, because it's not true), then I said that I would flip a coin. If it didn't matter, then, by definition, it wouldn't matter which I chose. Who cares who I choose to sleep with? I am a writer, a musician, a dispatcher, a daughter, a friend, and any number of things, as well as a lesbian. The fact that I sleep with women changes very little about who I am, when seen in that light.

Anyway, I appear to have given them some food for thought, and that can only be a good thing.

I haven't been updating this thing properly lately. In fact, I haven't been doing much at all that involves the computer at home. Mostly, I've been too tired to do anything in the evening before going to bed other than read through the day's LJ entries, post something short and pithy about cleaning, and then collapse in a tired heap. I've been writing at work, so the August Writing challenge continues apace, even if I'm not posting the results every day.

Everything else has pretty much gone by the wayside.

( cut for length )

So this is what's been going on in Phnee's world of late. As you can see, dear readers, you're not missing all that much. Mostly it's cleaning and cooking and cats, a little bit of writing, and a lot of seeing friends and generally being all sociable-like. Nothing earth-shattering, just domestic tranquility.

I have been reading LJ, as mentioned, but just haven't had the energy to comment on most entries. My apologies for that. Once I get used to the new schedule I've imposed on myself, I shall doubtless start commenting more.

I'm not in a good mood, for the record, so doubtless the tone of this post will reflect that. That's all the warning you get.


Haven't updated LJ properly in a while. Today will be no exception. Have been busy running around exhausting myself trying to keep up with my life.

Have had a frustrating few days lately. Nothing huge by itself, but an accumulation of little things. Band practice was, unlike everyone else's experience, an exercise in frustration. I've read other accounts of the practice and wondered if I wasn't practicing with another band without realising it. Mostly the three hours felt like "the songs aren't working because you can't keep the tempo consistent." Not a good thing if, say, you're the drummer. I got out of practice mostly wondering why the hell I'm doing this.

No, I don't need reassurance/bolstering/whatever. I am perfectly capable of getting over myself, I do it all the time.


Spent Saturday evening and most of Sunday in Alexandria with fearsclave and kinokid, and I guess some of the anxiety/frustration of Saturday morning carried over, because I don't think I was very good company. I snapped at fearsclave's uncle at one point, mostly because he pushed a large red psychological button moments after I had had a miscommunication with someone else, and basically it sucked and I felt terrible for snapping at him. It's not his fault I'm oversensitive, and I need to watch my tongue.

I was very late for my parents' dinner party. I had wanted to leave at 4:45 and we didn't end up leaving until nearly 5:30. It turned out okay for the most part, since I arrived as the guests were sitting down, but they had pretty much given up on waiting for me.

I had to sit on my hands not to punch several people at work today. Well, maybe not punch, but I have a feeling I might have tried it if I'd thought I could get away with it. I did get a lot of work done, since after the first hour or so people mostly left me alone. Maybe they could feel the waves of hostility rolling off me. :P



In short, I have a sneaking suspicion that I have been absolutely awful to be around lately. I tapped out my resources of cheefulness and tolerance and good humour, and I have nothing left to give anyone, let alone myself. So my apologies if I've managed to offend or piss anyone off in the last week or so. Let's just say I haven't been myself and leave it at that.


Oh, and happy birthday to djs_specs and terredancer, only forty-five minutes late! At least, in my time zone.

( Spoiler here )


I may write a real update at some point. Maybe not. Stay tuned!

I really, really wanted to go do my dance class tonight. Last week I was felled by the Massive Wall of Tired™, and tonight I have a migraine.

I can't afford to exhaust myself this week. After 40 hours of work, 4 hours of volunteering, and 6 or so hours of dancing, I'm also looking at 16 or so hours of class on Saturday and Sunday. So, I'm going to go to bed early tonight. That means that, once again, I won't be learning the intermediate dance.

*sigh*

In better news, I am accumulating a backlog for Beyond the Pale in anticipation of being super damned busy over the weekend. I've already got all my installments written up until Sunday, and if I can write one or two more tomorrow, that'll be even better. I'm going to be really busy next weekend as well, so if I can keep my buffer of one or two installments intact, then I'll be good to go.

If I've learned anything from NaNoWriMo and Jan's August Writing Challenge and my own latest attempt to catch up with the serial, it's that writing damned well is a muscle. In September of 2004, when I started writing Beyond the Pale, 1,500 words was a struggle. Not in terms of finding the words to say what I wanted, but just the sheer amount of time and effort it took to get the words out. After about four months, I fell behind and didn't bother catching up.

Then I decided to do the writing challenge in August. I had thirty-one days, and I was thirty-one weeks behind. I had already been doing a little bit more writing, so I figured it might work. It almost did. It was still a struggle to write, but not as much, and I wrote other things at the same time. I wrote fourteen installments. That was fifteen fewer installments than I had planned, but fourteen more installments than I had started out with.

When November rolled around, suddenly writing wasn't like beating my head against a brick wall anymore. I could sit down and churn out my 1, 667 words a day with very little difficulty. It took me about an hour and a half to write that much. I surprised myself by writing more than that on many days. The writing wasn't always good, but I forced myself to keep going anyway.

Now, it takes me a little over an hour to write an installment of Beyond the Pale. I treat it exactly like NaNoWriMo: I don't edit, I don't delete unless absolutely necessary. I write it and post it. It's raw, unfinished art, and that's the way I want it for now.

I am very grateful to be living my life the way I am right now. I have many friends who love to write, who are fantastic at it, but who can't because other stuff in their lives has to take priority these days. I am grateful that, while my cats may be pissed off that Mummy isn't giving them her undivided attention all the time, I don't have to watch them 24/7. I am glad that my job right now doesn't take up all my energy so that I can catch up on my writing. I am very, very grateful for what I have right now, even though it's all going to change soon enough.

I stopped writing when I was about twenty-one, and heading for my first breakdown. Before that, I wrote all the time. I wrote hundreds of pages, spent all my time writing, to the point where my mother and I used to have epic battles about whether I was going to leave the damned computer and come have dinner, now!

One day, I'm going to find that Writing Place that Ceri described again. I know that place. I used to spend a great deal of time there, but not anymore. I feel as though I've been cut off from there for a very long time.

My writing is decent. I know it is. Oftentimes it's more than decent. I just miss being in that blissed-out state in which the story practically writes itself, rather than having to think about every word and every plot twist.

t! wrote today about climbing out of the pit. About how, when you have limited amounts of time to devote to your projects and routine maintenance of your life, you end up falling behind at some point, and the catch-up game is all about clawing your way out of the giant hole in the ground.

Actually, go read it here and then come back. Really, if you haven't been reading the_exclamation up until now, well, now's a good time to start. Go! Shoo! Come back when you've read it.

Right now I'm climbing out of one pit. I've still got a number of others that need climbing, but I figure one pit at a time. When February is over, I'll only be twelve installments behind. I'm tempted to keep going, but we'll see how much energy I have left by then.

In other words, I am cautiously optimistic right now.

Or possibly another substance? Who knows? All I know is that I just typoed "substance" five times while trying to write it just now.

Anyway, I got home after band practice intending to write part of my serial. I sat down in my room at around 4pm, knowing that I had an hour and a half before I had to leave again for our band potluck, which was tonight.

Then I woke up and it was a quarter to six. Oops. Guess I was tired.

I was also going to write two LJ posts today. One about writing, and one about line dancing.

The band potluck went until about midnight, and then I drove folks home, and then it was 1:30am.

Needless to say, I am now tired. It's 2am, and although I'm sorely tempted to stay awake and write my serial, I know I'll regret it in the morning. However, come hell or high water, there will be two instalments written today, Sunday the fifth of February. I am NOT going to concede defeat less than a week into my own personal writing challenge, dammit.

"Where am I going, and why am I in this handbasket? Hey, nice pavement!"

I also have posts to write about band. In fact, I have posts to write about every single creative endeavour I'm up to these days. There's a lot that I want to say, but I haven't found the time or the extra energy to do so. I shall try to remedy this today (it feels like tomorrow, but in theory it's already Sunday), but the serial comes first, and I have other commitments to honour as well.

I need more hours in the day. Actually, I need a patron who will pay me to sit around most of the time and do lots of creative stuff. Spending forty-odd hours a week either at work or in transit to and from work really cuts into the time I could be spending doing something I actually enjoy doing.

Okay, I'm off to bed now.

Guess who has her computer back?

Now I have to catch up on all the writing I haven't been doing.