the lonesome lows don't quite go away overnight

I need it.

I wrote up a budget where I'm actually saving about $150 a month, but it means only seeing my gf once a week (and eating her food and watching tv), only seeing friends once a week (and eating their food and watching tv), spending less than $10 a week on food (so eating like, bread and jam for lunch? and begging my mom -- who is also broke but generous when it comes to her kids eating -- to feed me other times) and probably, for the first time in my life, not paying bills in full. Not exaggerating -- the thought of not paying my bills in full is GIVING ME HEART PALPITATIONS and I feel like my throat is going to close up.

Not to mention I have to go to the doctor soon ($$) and probably get on new/more meds ($$) so I don't dive headfirst into OCD. [And lets not even talk about how I haven't taken my cat to the vet. Ever.]

(And lest I sound like I am exaggerating... You buying a $1 drabble isn't going to make or break me. I'll be okay. I'm still planning to visit Minneapolis in a month, and I'm not going to cancel my insurance. So if you don't have the money, and have dire-er needs to attend to? Please don't spend money on me. If this stuff sounds appealing, or you have cash literally falling out of your hands and you're like "Oh god what do I even DO with all this money" first of all, who are you, and second of all, I think I know what you can do with that money. Hah. )

I, unfortunately, don't have much to offer but I have to try something. I can't get another job with this variable schedule (other than like babysitting, and believe me, I am trying) and my energy/productivity is usually scraping the bottom of the barrel. But here's what I can offer.

• Small decorative pillow. Sized roughly 5-6 inches by 5-6 inches. Color of your choice. Can be made to match a room if you provide pictures. $8 for shipping in the US. $10 for outside the US. Add $2 for pillow creature allowing for extra decorations and body features as requested. Pay up front so I can purchase any extra materials.
• Sock creature. Sized roughly 12 inches high by 4-5 inches wide -- exact measurements depend on creature request. Color of your choice. I have experience making: Generic monster/bear/monkey/rabbit -- $10; Squid/sea monster -- $12 (involves extra time). I can attempt another design and will estimate cost at request. Add $2 for shipping outside the US. Add $1 for "beans" in hands and feet. Pay up front so I can purchase any extra materials.
• Drabbles. $1-3 for 100-300 words. Please choose from fandoms listed in the top three categories. Pay upon receipt of drabble.
• Hand-sewn Homestuck logo shirts. $9 for a plain T-shirt, $11 for a modified shirt (cut sleeves, cut neck). Add $2 for sizes above XL and $2 for shipping outside the US. Pay up front so I can purchase any extra materials.
• Podfic. $5 for anything up to 3,000 words. $2 per additional 1,000 words. Pay upon receipt of podfic. Note: I will not podfic any non-con. Also, if I am triggered by the material, I reserve the right to decline your request.
• Something else you want? Ask, and I'll estimate if I can do it and what it would cost.

A requested donation button. You can use this to pay for something you'd like, or if you're more comfortable with a straight donation... just indicate that I guess. *hearteyes*

The bout went really well. Hosting is always a flurry of activity and last-minutes, but it pulled together (minus a brief snafu of drama, one that I think will be resolved soon) and we made the other team work HARD for their 20 point win. Considering the last time we played them we lost by over 100? We did fucking awesomely. I'm so proud of everyone, and proud to be a member of such an incredible team.

As far as I know, the only serious injury goes out to my wife, who coached. She jumped on her bad knee, sending it back about three months in healing.

Such a huge expenditure of energy left me feeling vulnerable, however. I've spent the past two nights sobbing in my dreams. Saturday, it was wave after wave of rejection, judgment, and being left behind/out. Last night, I suppose the tears were more of joy, with a darkness behind them.

--

Have a meme: cast the movie of my life, based solely on how I come across emotionally to you (so, forget any pictures you've seen, not that I look like any celebs). You can also cast the co-stars: my wife, my sister, prozacpark , damariscain  and her wife Laura.

--

Let me tell you about my dream from last night. I don't remember chronologically, so bits and pieces.
- My mother told me she almost disowned me when I came out. (this kind of colored the rest of the dream)
- I found out a number of celebrities were gay: Kristin Chenowith performed a song from Wicked (with a female co-star) ending with a kiss by a Christmas tree, for a family audience. In a question-and-answer session afterwards, I told her how much it meant to me, to be presented with the possibility of belonging. Dakota Fanning (future!Dakota Fanning, she was older) was topless under overalls (surprisingly hot, or not surprisingly at all) and her nipples were pierced and she confessed to a small group that she was a homosexual. (Of course, even in the dream I couldn't quite believe this. One part of me sure it was to get lesbian fans, and the other part fiercely protective of her secret.) There was also a book of photos of famous lesbian couples. I don't remember most, but Anne Hathaway had a girlfriend.
- I think I watched a little too much Oscars.

--

This muggy, perpetually rainy weather is killing me.

The past two weeks have been somewhat nightmarish. I've been caught in a spiral of guilt and paranoia and irrational thinking. Crisis mode at home really didn't help.

I normally wouldn't talk about a "cure" like this, but the change has been so... almost instant, and so dramatic, that I really need to stress what is going on.

Until yesterday, I had been eating basically fast food and soda for my one, sometimes two meals a day. Not awesome intake. I was reading up on things I could do to help with depression, and something I kept coming across was a change in diet. I remembered seeing it while researching epilepsy. The food recommendations were the same. Why not try it.

Yesterday for lunch, I bought a bunch of portable health foods (important for work): dried fruit, nuts, granola, juice and soy milk in small containers. I ate a sampling for lunch, and that afternoon started working on a chart to process things I was feeling irrationally guilty about. I could tell a difference between the things I wrote down right after lunch and what I wrote later, as the food and energy kicked in.

Derby practice... hard, but I felt good as usual.

And then this morning. I was able to wake up at the first alarm. I nibbled on snacks during the morning, continuing the healthy diet, was able to keep positive and guilt-free even though I was over-due for posting my femslash10 story and received an AWESOME 6k Mean Girls fic featuring JANIS IAN THE LESBIAN which I will link to once I've read all the fem10 fics and have a big giant link post together.

AND I finished before I went to lunch, thanks to my awesome writing partner Maia, and here it is:

http://community.livejournal.com/femslash10/18643.html (Whip It, Bliss/Pash)

I've been having complex partial seizures for around a month now, and mostly didn't realize it, but lately I've been ignoring them or filing them in my brain as "weird space-out moments" when I, experienced seize-ee as I am, should have recognized first go around what these were, despite their shortness and frequency.

The first time I remember noticing was during practice scrimmage with SIRG. I couldn't "get my head in the game" and I kept thinking about that awful High School Musical song. The lights were strange.

Then, lately, while driving, I've had full body "hiccups" where I phase out and in, and within minutes, repeat the process. Now, the action has increased (but not in danger, I suppose) to phasing while sitting at work. Three times (I counted) from arrival at 8am until this writing at 10:30.

Within this period, I missed my medication one day, but if the SIRG scrimmage date is the same seizure, than this is not the cause. Also, I do not recall any incidents occurring on or directly after that day.  They feel almost like I am falling asleep and then being jerked awake--there is an electric current that zooms through my body and I come out of the phase. I suppose these blinks last only seconds, but I have not seen myself have one, so they could be longer.

I was talking to Angela about trying to find a safe way to get to work, assuming they don't let up on their own this weekend. She wondered what might be the cause of them, since I am on my medication. I suggested stress, since there seems to be no other potential answer, and I can't bear to entertain the thought that roller derby could be involved (in fact, I think that epilepsy patients are encouraged to be involved in physical activity...)

In any case, stress is a big part of my life. Despite being out of school and largely done with my graduate program, I have not, in fact, graduated. At some point, I will have a thesis to complete--that is not off the shelf. Of course, that is taking a back burner to my current projects.

I work from 8-5 every weekday. My job is not wholly demanding, but it does keep me occupied. I constantly take calls and field them to roughly 25 offices and three businesses in the building. I am the face of the company. I file incoming service calls. I log service calls that have been completed, and reported numbers for each machine. I am supposed to know where every member of the business is at all times to be able to reach them fastest. A mistake that I make could affect the paycheck of another.

While I work, I attempt to RP. This keeps me up on writing skills and socialization. It is also fun, but sometimes topics and even my characters can become overwhelming. While the experience itself is worthwhile, on top of everything else I do, it can be a bit much.

I try to keep roller derby out of the work day, but as the Web Coordinator, sometimes it just makes sense to update Facebook or Twitter during my free moments at work. All work on the forum or website, however, must be done at home because of my limited work resources. All of my practice hours are logged after 5pm, in a rush to change clothes and get to where I'm going--whether that be in Cape (the A.C. Brase Arena) or Marion/Carbondale. 

Nights off? Spent working on derby, discussing derby, meeting about derby, or occasionally, sitting at home, watching television, and talking about roller derby. Understandable, considering derby is the one connection through which I know my new friends, and there is a LOT to talk about, especially in this season when we are planning, planning, planning for two upcoming bouts and really getting off the ground, but constantly cycling through the same things and hacking apart the same issues can't be good for stress.

Weekends are usually derby-soaked as well. Last weekend, I found myself volunteering for two separate babysitting jobs simply to get away from the immersion culture for awhile. And, yes, while those jobs came with their own set of stresses, it was nice to get a bit of head clearing. I spent more time with them than I had to.

Thursday Itself:
Stress-- Back to work after being sick, messed up service tickets, Lura discussion at bar, hair
Remedy-- took it easy at work, hair therapy, alcohol
Food-- Culver's Butterburger w/cheese, fries, rootbeer float, mixed drink, 6 wings, fries
Sleep-- 1am-7:30am

Okay, this is so big that I had to put it on my website. If you have more pictures that you think should be added (especially pictures of the actors/actresses out of character and without tags) please drop them in a comment. I'll give you credit if you want it.

Here goes!

Part 1: Lauren Collins, Deanna Casaluce
Part 2: The rest of the cast in solo pics
Part 3: Paired photos of the cast
Part 4: Group Shots of the cast
Part 5: WTF pics and Screenshots, pt1
Part 6: More Screenshots

Granted, these are not for the slow connections. But let me know if you come across any problems.