Big Living

It's Saturday, and I have no intention of going anywhere, unless it's to get gas, buy a book with a 40% coupon, pick up a CD I want (yes, I am old school - I like to hold the factory product in my hands), and maybe buy some crickets.

I live big.

What felt a few weeks ago like surrender and not caring anymore now feels like harmony, if not peace. I don't get much done. The floors are still not swept, though the dishes are done and new ones accumulating. I have laundry to fold and more loads to process. It gets done, eventually.

I'm cleaning out a couple of dusty and hairy corners in the dining room, trying to make it a room where art will get done OR dinner eaten. It used to be that I could whip up dinner at the table from 3 hours to 30 minutes. Now? It's been at least a month since anyone has sat at that table, much less eaten.

This is another thing I tried to get my shrink to address: my list. I could sit down and write a list of all the things I need to do. That part is easy. It's doing them. I never actually got to show up my list, much less come up with strategies for accomplishing things. I realize now that I was pretty much just wasting my time with him, though I'm sure it was nice to have him "be my friend" for that year. In retrospect, he wasn't exactly listening to me, and he had no agenda for "our work." His main goal seemed to be getting me to take anti-depressants. When I succumbed and tried 3 weeks of Vitamin P, I had such a panic attack at the gym no less, that I didn't go back for 3 months and I quit Vit. P on the spot.

So, though he was handsome and laughed at my jokes, it was a wash. Now where am I? wishing I had someone to talk to in a therapeutic environment? probably. Wishing for a grief group? maybe so. Lately, a nice hearty cup of tea has chased away the anxiety, but a cup of real coffee can trigger it. At least caffeine is a legal and very cheap drug.

A bright spot: I am good at something. I mean really really good. At Luxor. Ha! I lost my one game where I had 8 million points and was pwning everything the game dished out. So I had to start from scratch. Two hours later, and I'm back to 2.5 millions. PWN!

I found some sketches by the lad and decided that I would make a "coloring book" of his work, along with my dad's. Kind of like an album, except it's their drawings, maybe for coloring, maybe with some colors. The photo album thing in iPhoto is perfect for this sort of thing. That feels good. That's a nice kind of productive.

Back to the dining room. The lad is out of the house for a party, and will come home unhungry, but maybe tomorrow we'll eat in there.

Random

I've had quite a few thoughts in the past couple of days. Not sure if any of them will get fleshed out, but this is a journal, right?

It's high time I wrote a book, published it and all. Question is, which one? I have two novels in the works, a novella, a couple of short stories, more ideas for short stories. I have a number of guidebooks and e-books to write for "passive revenue streams!" Rock on. I have a couple of workbooks and a non-fiction book about creativity in draft somewhere.

I have a coloring book idea to develop, and a couple of patterns to write up (mostly embroidery and little felt figures for sewing).

I really should do something with my father's sketches - I have hundreds of them.

If I win the lottery, I want to get this house fixed up, buy another house with a pool, and a vacation home somewhere. Then I'll have enough wall space to hang all the art I own and want to make.

The car and garage need cleaning out. Working at home is very difficult for me, as I'm completely isolated and barely productive. But working FT in an office is hard because I get so tired, there's all that OFFICE nonsense and I despise wasting my day indoors.

I am filled with contradictory beliefs about life. "The Secret" for me is to reconcile them, not simply to (buy a book and then) imagine how it will be.

I believe chocolate is part of a balanced diet.

Incompetence and mediocrity (mine and esp. that of others) are the bane of my existence.

Sometimes even junk mail triggers my anxiety.

I would like a week's paid vacation, complete with maid service and a personal chef. Someone to do the morning school run would be heavenly too. Massage 4X that week, a hair and pedicure appointment, and perhaps a nice lunch in the sunshine with my erstwhile main squeeze.

The other night, when I wasn't sleeping, I had a complete and total epiphany about how Photoshop and Illustrator work, and the difference between them. It was rather profound, and everything has been easy since I figured that out. Now, THAT'S a Secret that works!

And here it is: Illustrator works as vector art, using points on the X/Y axes. Single points, and you tell those points what to do with each other. That's it.

Photoshop works like a grid, using ALL the points (72, 150, 300 dpi, or higher) in a square, along with "millions" of colors. Each pixel has be one of 256/1028/millions of colors, and they combine to make images. (When you think about inks, overlays and separations, it gets more complicated.)

But the simple explanation: Illustrator is a small collection of points in 2D, along the X or Y axis. Photoshop is a grid and each box in it must have a color value, even if it is black or white. And this stuff matters to the machines that are used to reproduce the images. It matters a LOT.

Neat, huh?

I dreamed the other night of asking for my old job and salary back. I think that's because I'm stressing about money, and also about moving forward. Going backwards in time is psychologically safer because it's a known.

My mind is a dark and scary neighborhood where no one should have to go alone.