Mother Nature is a C*nt

Yesterday my dog assassinated a vole in front of a seven year old girl and an infant getting their family photos taken at the park. Because he is my dog, I am sure the children are probably/maybe/definitely scarred for life. When you roll with a terrier, you have to get used to things like tiny monogamous mammal slayings and the psychological maiming of wee onlooking moppets.

People of a certain type like to imagine the universe in general, and nature in particular, as being fundamentally good, safe, even caring, but the same universe that may now be allowing you to work your dream job, or bump uglies with your one true love is also allowing otherwise sweet-natured terriers to toss half-dead and still screaming rodents in the air—joyously, might I add—in front of sheltered and impressionable children. It’s allowing hurricanes to destroy entire islands while tolerating the continued existence of a certain senile despot who shall remain nameless. Mother nature, in short, can be a bit of a cunt.

I’m currently wrestling with the whole brutal unfairness of life thing, and it’s not because I had some kind of cockeyed delusion that I could expect any kind of fair treatment from life. That ship sailed when I understood that almost none of my peers had to get their clothes from a giant black Hefty bag full of boy’s hand-me-downs and that my favorite mouth breathing Arian bully was going to get to go to private school despite having the IQ of a mentally deficient potato and the personality of Himmler with a toothache. (Brian W., if you are reading this, if you even can read, go fuck yourself. I mean it.) Fair has simply never been part of the equation, and yet….

And yet…here I am again, worrying at my bullshit like a terrier with a newly dead critter. It’s called rumination, and man, I must say, it’s just tits. 

Rumination, or repetitive thoughts is a symptom of both depression and anxiety disorders. It’s basically your brain’s super-helpful way of carving a pain-groove into itself. You know. For funsies. Right now my brain is constantly reminding me that I won’t ever be able to have kids, which is something it virtually never mentioned in all the years before I had my emergency hysterectomy. It also likes to remind me of all the dumb, horrible peckerheads who can’t seem to stop having, and ruining, their very own children. And global climate change. And the threat of nuclear annihilation. It’s like living to a bunch of frat boys with a souped up sound system playing Radio Doom 24-7 and the cops don't care.

Thanks, brain. 

It’s illogical. It’s crazy town, actually. The rational part of my brain’s saying “No kids? Awesome! We can move to Amsterdam, write novels, and get blazed every night, and it literally won’t matter because you have no substantial responsibilities. This is great news! Wait, what? You’re crying again? Why the fuck are you….? Amsterdam, motherfucker!?!” 

And so on. Depression doesn’t leave a whole lot of room for sense. Natural selection only favors making more of a thing. Doesn’t give two rats fucking in a wind tunnel about the mental health and wellbeing of the thing past making more. And so we have lovely conditions like chronic, recurrent depression and fibroid tumors and ovarian cysts that show up in midlife and look alarmingly like cancer and crippling anxiety and on and on and on. Because, and it bears repeating, Mother nature is a bit of a cunt.

So, what to do? Because I’m certainly not just going to lay back and take this hot, steaming mass of bullshit. Right now, I’m just trying to keep focused on really basic bitch stuff---things like making sure I drink enough water, and take walks and shit. As far as the rumination end, I’m keeping busy. It’s hard to fall too far down the despair rabbit hole when I have an extensive to-do list, yoga, meditation, and writing. Not impossible, but harder, and some days, that’s all I need.

Not At All Like Julia Child

A special cocktail of Daylight Savings/fucking cat related sleep deprivation and proofreading some of the shittiest proofs known to humans in utter monastic silence has left my brain the consistency of room temperature tapioca. I feel weird, y’all. Extra squirrely weird. I should probably have just say to hell with it and gone to bed, but I didn’t because I had adulting to do tonight. We’re talking kitchen cleaning, laundry, and baking an apple cake for the work St. Patty’s day bakeoff.

                Why? Because I want some goodies. Also, my entire house smells like apple cinnamon wonderfulness right now. And, it’s a good excuse to drink wine. Is there wine in my cake? Hell no. But that never stopped Julia Child from tying one on of a rainy and blusterous Tuesday evening, and it sure as shit isn’t going to stop me. Box wine 4 lyfe!

                All in all, I feel rather proud of myself today. I worked hard, I made something tasty, and I totally zeroed out my sweet conservative husband’s vote. (For the record, he thinks Trump is an absolute cockwaffle as well.) I feel almost capable of giving myself a pat on ye olde back. But that would necessitate loosening my death grip on my grown ass woman’s juice box. And that just ain’t happening. 

Touch My Wine, And I Will Cut You

                Oooh. I just had an amazing idea. What if my work cooler were filled with chardonnay instead of water? I swear, I would work so much more effectively with a buzz on. I might not even give much of a shit about the nearly mind-bending levels of boredom entailed in working in a cube farm. Also, it might make certain people less dickish, though I wouldn’t put  money on it. Food for thought.

                Seriously, I don’t have much to say this week. I’ve been working on a lot of great world-building and back stories for a few of my writing/game projects, and that’s been fun and productive, but it’s not easy to blog about yet. Early days. Let’s just say, I’m finding all sorts of nifty ways to bring super gritty grimdark urban fantasy into D&D and leave it at that. I’ve also been doing a lot more art stuff.

                As a matter of fact, I decided to make an illustration of the fat three year olds who like to jump on my chest gleefully whenever I decide to step out of my comfort zone, which is apparently just a blanket fort well supplied with box wine. So here it is. I call them Humphry and Hunny, and they’re yours to enjoy. Apologies for the crap quality of the image. I need a scanner. 

Sleep Tight! We're Coming To Get You!

               

               

A Quitting Quitter Who Quits Quitting

Resolutions are pretty much bullshit. I don't think I'm writing anything here that people haven't heard a million times before. They tend to follow the gung ho to complete burnout cycle is the problem. Actually, Inertia is the real problem. It's hard as shit to change the weight of habit, no matter how ultimately self-destructive that habit may be. It takes time and energy and a metric ton of patience and foresight. Things I do not personally poses in spades.

I never was much into the whole New Year's resolution thing for these reasons. Basically, I just don't enjoy wasting cognitive energy on things that are only going to last a month or two. It's not fun. But as I get older and crankier, the idea of a fresh start gets more and more appealing, and that's what the whole New Year's thing is really about, a fresh start.

Ugh. I so didn't want to get suckered in, but there truly are some things I want to get changed.

I'd like to start publishing, for one. I'd like to get healthier, and I would like to be able to finish a 50 mile race. All of these things require discipline and shit. Ugh.

In many ways, a straightforward resolution would be easier. It would. I could burn through a bunch of activities and flail and quit. But that's not going to make me happy. It's not.

I have decided I need to be methodical about all this shit. Take the long view.

In my writing life, it's meant implementing the Magic Spreadsheet. The spreadsheet, if you haven't heard of it, is a great little resource for tracking productivity and incorporating a nice little element of gamification into the writing process. I am trying to make writing a daily habit, like brushing my teeth and not saying what I'm thinking.

Basically, it's the same approach I used to get myself to walk during most of my work lunches. I do well with incremental stuff. Anything that turns into a rut, so I feel that the Magic Spreadsheet will probably do the trick.

As far as the health issue is concerned, right now I'm working on slowly switching to a plant based diet. So far this week, I have mostly succeeded since the first of the year, and I do have to say that my energy levels and mood seem to be getting better already. I guess this is probably the closest thing I've done in the way of a traditional new year's resolution, but it was something I have been talking about for a while now.

Running then? Well, that's probably going to have to wait to start in earnest until the ice gets a little less ankle-breaky. I have seen a few people attempting it with some success, and more power to them, but not a one of them has Buster the idiot pit bull tethered to their wrist, and that does make a bit of a difference.

Saturday we're supposed to get rain, so that's out. If you've ever run with slush in your kicks, you damn well understand why. Sunday may well be workable, though.

Anyway. That's enough resolutioning for now. Wish me luck, y'all.