So, this weekend has been tough. I'm still trying to balance the exhaustion of working 6 8-10 hour days per week. The bookshop, my last two days, is a good wind-down and doesn't require me to be on my feet quite as much but it still doesn't leave much time for me to take care of myself. Friday night descended into awful, into some hard but necessary conversations with one of the people I'm in love with, a lot of anxiety. Topped off by the neighbor downstairs cranking the music up at 2AM, right as I was getting myself close to wound down enough to get some sleep. Less than four hours later, I woke up, still in the thick of the migraine I'd cried myself into the night before.
I got up, cleaned up, got ready for work, messaged my boss that I wasn't feeling well and was going to be a little bit late but was determined to go in anyway. Trying to make something to eat to put down with the 800mg of ibuprofen I'd just swallowed was interrupted by several intervals of just having to stand still and cringe. Walking out of the house into the bright sunlight off the fresh snow almost made me throw up. I went back inside, called in to work, pounded on the neighbor's door so hard I hurt my hand, yelled at her about the music (which was still going on, loud enough to vibrate my floor upstairs), got cussed at by her boyfriend inside, went upstairs and spent 2 hours in the fetal position under my covers, about half of which sobbing hysterically cause I hurt so much.
When I came out of that, I emailed my-aunt-the-landlady about the downstairs neighbor issue (I've hinted lately that I haven't been talking to my family, so I've been resistant to call them about house-related issues - it's a major point of anxiety for me). She replied quickly and quite kindly, and is going to look into doing something about my neighbor to make sure this stops. I don't know how promptly that will occur but at least someone else knows about it other than Delia and I. I then commenced to completely lose yesterday, cause moving around a lot made me too nauseous to do much even inside the house and my brain was too gelatinous to address any of my intellectual needs of the moment.
ALSO Friday night, coming at the worst possible time, the decline on two stories that were approaching the end of the reading period for where I'd submitted them. I had rather foolishly allowed myself to be a bit hopeful about them since I felt like they'd been kept for a little bit, and they turned up right in the middle of that tense time I mentioned earlier talking with my SO, where I'd already felt a little broken open and pretty vulnerable and just... not well.
Updating my submission spreadsheet made me realize I received those rejections on the 3 year anniversary of starting to submit work at all. Nothing's been printed. Which basically started off the resounding chorus of you're not good enough and you're not working hard enough in my head, which I've been trying to quiet down since then. Today is a little better. I was still woken up at 4AM by music downstairs (called the police; this isn't the first time and I'm not the only person who's called).
What I did have my head on straight enough to do Friday night when I was still miserable and couldn't stop crying is send out everything again. Both the stories I got back plus a flash fiction piece that I've sent out before but hadn't had out recently, but still really like. I also spent some more time reading about other markets and picked out the next ones for the two longer pieces if they come back to me again. I don't have enough time in my current existence to let things grid me to a complete halt if I can avoid it. So no matter how worthless I've felt about my work the last couple of days, uh... other people have it to read and I think that's what matters at the moment.
Rewind a bit. Thursday I took my kitchen back from the entropy gods. The inertia of stress from the last several months, which I've touched on here, and my own struggle against the weight of life inside my brain has meant it had fallen into a place where I basically couldn't use it. It's not totally put back together, but I can at least cook at home again, and have a responsible amount of groceries with which to do so. I even bought coffee and treated myself to a brand new pour-over cone (it's red!). I haven't owned one of those for a while, and while I like my press, I'm more likely to use the pour-over/keep it clean.
Today, I think I'm excusing myself from more cleaning in order to focus on creative work. I'd like to have some more short pieces that are ready to go out. I haven't been focusing at all on short work lately, most of my energy has gone to the One for Silence and Dark Energy, which is fine, because I'm liking the work I've done on those, slow though it has been. But still. Theoretically, publication credits will eventually serve those projects, too. So today I'm going to go through the fragments and the old pieces and see what is waiting to be finished/rewritten/revised.
I also want to do some work on the comic, because that is a very good project (co- authoring and illustrating with![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
thiefofvoices) that is moving forward.
I also need to sing. I have the music for the piece I'll be singing solo at my choir's fundraiser in a week (from yesterday >.>) but I haven't sat down with it yet. So, uh, better get on that, so tonight I can arrange some practice time with the gentleman who will be accompanying me.
So that's that! Fuck you depression and harpy-chorus of misery. I've got shit to do.
I got up, cleaned up, got ready for work, messaged my boss that I wasn't feeling well and was going to be a little bit late but was determined to go in anyway. Trying to make something to eat to put down with the 800mg of ibuprofen I'd just swallowed was interrupted by several intervals of just having to stand still and cringe. Walking out of the house into the bright sunlight off the fresh snow almost made me throw up. I went back inside, called in to work, pounded on the neighbor's door so hard I hurt my hand, yelled at her about the music (which was still going on, loud enough to vibrate my floor upstairs), got cussed at by her boyfriend inside, went upstairs and spent 2 hours in the fetal position under my covers, about half of which sobbing hysterically cause I hurt so much.
When I came out of that, I emailed my-aunt-the-landlady about the downstairs neighbor issue (I've hinted lately that I haven't been talking to my family, so I've been resistant to call them about house-related issues - it's a major point of anxiety for me). She replied quickly and quite kindly, and is going to look into doing something about my neighbor to make sure this stops. I don't know how promptly that will occur but at least someone else knows about it other than Delia and I. I then commenced to completely lose yesterday, cause moving around a lot made me too nauseous to do much even inside the house and my brain was too gelatinous to address any of my intellectual needs of the moment.
ALSO Friday night, coming at the worst possible time, the decline on two stories that were approaching the end of the reading period for where I'd submitted them. I had rather foolishly allowed myself to be a bit hopeful about them since I felt like they'd been kept for a little bit, and they turned up right in the middle of that tense time I mentioned earlier talking with my SO, where I'd already felt a little broken open and pretty vulnerable and just... not well.
Updating my submission spreadsheet made me realize I received those rejections on the 3 year anniversary of starting to submit work at all. Nothing's been printed. Which basically started off the resounding chorus of you're not good enough and you're not working hard enough in my head, which I've been trying to quiet down since then. Today is a little better. I was still woken up at 4AM by music downstairs (called the police; this isn't the first time and I'm not the only person who's called).
What I did have my head on straight enough to do Friday night when I was still miserable and couldn't stop crying is send out everything again. Both the stories I got back plus a flash fiction piece that I've sent out before but hadn't had out recently, but still really like. I also spent some more time reading about other markets and picked out the next ones for the two longer pieces if they come back to me again. I don't have enough time in my current existence to let things grid me to a complete halt if I can avoid it. So no matter how worthless I've felt about my work the last couple of days, uh... other people have it to read and I think that's what matters at the moment.
Rewind a bit. Thursday I took my kitchen back from the entropy gods. The inertia of stress from the last several months, which I've touched on here, and my own struggle against the weight of life inside my brain has meant it had fallen into a place where I basically couldn't use it. It's not totally put back together, but I can at least cook at home again, and have a responsible amount of groceries with which to do so. I even bought coffee and treated myself to a brand new pour-over cone (it's red!). I haven't owned one of those for a while, and while I like my press, I'm more likely to use the pour-over/keep it clean.
Today, I think I'm excusing myself from more cleaning in order to focus on creative work. I'd like to have some more short pieces that are ready to go out. I haven't been focusing at all on short work lately, most of my energy has gone to the One for Silence and Dark Energy, which is fine, because I'm liking the work I've done on those, slow though it has been. But still. Theoretically, publication credits will eventually serve those projects, too. So today I'm going to go through the fragments and the old pieces and see what is waiting to be finished/rewritten/revised.
I also want to do some work on the comic, because that is a very good project (co- authoring and illustrating with
thiefofvoices) that is moving forward.I also need to sing. I have the music for the piece I'll be singing solo at my choir's fundraiser in a week (from yesterday >.>) but I haven't sat down with it yet. So, uh, better get on that, so tonight I can arrange some practice time with the gentleman who will be accompanying me.
So that's that! Fuck you depression and harpy-chorus of misery. I've got shit to do.
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