Inner Monologue

The first week we were here was taken up mostly by the trip up to Oscoda, which I did take many nice nature-y pictures which I will have to upload onto FB or put in an LJ cut. The picture quality on my new phone is much nicer than the last I had (which I did expect), but what made my day was the fact that despite us forgetting the internet MiFi verizon adapter, I still had internet wherever I got a cell phone signal, so I was able to keep in touch with people through texts.

I got my fishing license, I caught a fish, I learned how to clean a fish, but we couldn't eat them because they had lots and lots of worms. I also shot of a few guns, and I decided that my aim is terrible and I need something with little to no kickback, or a LOT of aim practice.

The night before last we managed to get Ryan over here for the night because Robbie needed to stay up to get his schedule back on track for work. Robbie fell asleep several times, but Ryan and I stayed up the whole night playing games. I also got re-situated with a copy of the Sims 2, which will be a nice outlet for a while (I'll get to why in a few).

So Ryan is grounded, and after talking with him for a little I'm actually more surprised that he isn't more grounded. He has a lot of self control for having to deal with everything that is going on with him right now, I don't think his dad really sees it, but I'm not a parent and I have no right to say anything really, but I do think that if Rick and Teresa knew what was going on they would have a lot more to say to their other children.

So about the MiFi really quick. It has a limit on kB/sec. MEANING, I can't skype call, I can't torrent, and I can't LiveStream here. In order to do any of those I need to go to Rick and Teresa's (who have wonderful internet BTW) and I feel rather awkward to go there and pull out my lappy. But w/e. Robbie has talked to his dad about adding internet onto his coverage and paying the difference, the problem is that it's satellite and will probably be buggy, but it's something.

About yesterday, being unemployed has started to set in, and me, with my already quite obvious issue with being useful, started to feel like crap...to the point where I wore myself out crying and then cried myself to sleep. It doesn't help that any of the things that I used to do to get myself out of a rut were impossible to do. And I'm getting teary just now thinking about it. There's no tea salons, no Samm to run around with, no skyping, I am feeling trapped. And to top it off I'm dreaming again. But no dreams with Morpheus, that might have been a comfort, I get the strange cryptic kind.

Of course regardless of the fact that I spent the last year and a half taking care of crazy patients and families of people who were dying, I am apparently not considered experienced in customer service and retail, so any job I apply for I don't have much hope in getting. This of course hasn't stopped me from applying anywhere I can. I really did have my eyes set on the new Charming Charlie, but I doubt I'll get a call from them. I just have to wait for some kind of response.

Robbie did have a good first day at work, he got out on time regardless of them being understaffed by 3 people, and said that the labor was handled much differently than it was in C-Bus. His shift isn't forced to do the work of the other shifts, and if they are running short the management isn't worried about conditioning to give the illusion of the shelves being full, they just want the product up there. So Robbie came home laughing and we talked for a while and then I looked at the clock (which at the time read 730 or so) and I told him that the people in C-Bus were probably still hard at work.

I just want a job, something to occupy myself with. Sims 2 will get old quick. I think I may pull out my paints and canvas today. We're supposed to go meet with the owner of the small grocery store down the street today, hopefully that will bring some good news.

I don't really know how to begin, so I'm just going to dive into it.

Everything has happened so fast, I just don't know how to react. Almost like I would rather go numb and let everything happen. everything just happens.

the funeral was lovely really. she was the first corpse I  saw that didn't look plastic. although i suppose its wrong of me to call her that. she found her blue outfit I suppose. the one i remember her looking for. with the small pink polka dots. the adema had gotten bad, she was rather puffy still.

on the way back from the funeral I agitated things, i told robbie i just couldn't move out of the city. i felt awful for saying it immediatly. with as many things that happened that day he really didn't need me to be wishy washy about the move.

i feel helpless.

we set things straight i suppose, the move is so far planned for july 27, but i have no problem in telling my job to bugger off before then if need be.

but the icing on the cake (or rather the cherry on top, as rob's grandmother's death was the icing), is that when we returned home there was no water. Not because the bill hadn't been paid, but because while we were gone someone broke into the other side of the double, turned off the water, and stole the copper piping.

my house isn't livable. and now i'm a nomad with my bag and my laptop, and a cat on a harness and leash that is living at my parent's house for the time being. that is until the dogs get to her like they tried to earlier.

and now i feel like i'm about to cry, but i just can't get to it. like too many things have happened and i really do just want to let go and curl into a ball and let robbie take care of me like he wanted to. but up north i'll be useless, with no job to help support us, and i still don't feel up to writing, what good am i?

i suppose it got around at work what happened. of course that is my fault, no one elses. I sat at the table and outright said that after the week i had, rob's grandmother's death was hopefully the end, and when they asked about the rest of the week i flat out told them. and they asked, and wondered, why hadn't i said anything before?

i saw a FB message when i logged on earlier today from someone wishing me well. that's all well and good, but i didn't tell anyone at work (save Cammy and Margo) what was going on when it was going on because I don't trust them. i spent the past year and a half putting myself out there and trying to make friends and became outright ostracized from everyone.

i tell myself constantly that i need to be more outgoing, that i need to pull myself out of my shell, but then i look back at all i've done and it frustrates me that I HAVE, I certainly have. But i just don't understand why. but i'm slightly glad all the same. i owe them nothing, no explanation, no thanks, no regrets. just pack up what little i have left and let robbie carry me away.

alright, i think i feel up to crying now.

The house was robbed and they took my computer and flash drive.

I came home ALONE to everything gone and turned up-side-down. I have the first 50 chapters on my e-mail, but unless by some miracle we find they tossed a drive somewhere...I will either give up on Artemis or start the last 25 chapters from scratch. I don't even know right now.

To top it off one of the cats got out, she's still missing, and she's afraid of everything.

I'm at my parent's right now, they're away on a family vacation, and when I called them to ask them for help, I was met with no support at all. After talking with Robbie we decided that the best thing to do would be to save up enough to get us back to Michigan with his family. They immediately offered us a place to stay while we got back to our feet. Robbie is working on getting his job transferred, I would be starting from scratch with my school loans to pay...of course he keeps telling me that he'll support me for as long as he has to, even if I never go back to work.

All the sweet things make me cry even more.

At least I get internet on my phone, so my email is raintree.willow@gmail.com, my phone number is 614-580-4551. Text, call, email. It makes me even sadder that most of the people that I've been there for here aren't there for me. I'm lucky to have friends who live far away that I email, who listen to me, but I don't think I'll ever stop crying.

I feel like I'm living that moment of coming home over and over again.

Don't comment on here, I won't be checking my LJ for a LONG while.

I don't know if I already posted this up here, I may have, but its a little more polished now, I'm darting around Chapter 50 and realizing that the story is just going to get depressing from this point on.

Also an interesting note: the "Haven" that Kamen keeps in order for the family and constantly offers to hide Artemis in, is referred to at least once as "Haven in Jannah". Jannah is the name of Celeste's forest, the center of which is said to contain the gates to the afterlife, making Jannah the forest of life and death. The reason why it was named "Jannah" in the first place is because it's an Arabic word for heaven. Heaven in the more Islamic sense, but its not so blatant a connection that any 13-year-old (who wasn't Muslim) could make, something that's become expected this far into the book.

( <Insert Cool Title Here> )

For 14 days, it started on the 13th and it still hasn't really sank in yet. Probably due to the fact that I usually have 4 days in a row off anyways, I think by next Sunday I will start feeling a lot better.

The whole reason why I put in for my vacation and wanted it all at once was so I wouldn't rage/quit, so I'm slowly unwinding and then the 13th, the day my vacation started, I was already getting phone calls asking me to pick up hours. WTF? There is a giant R next to my name until the 28th, meaning I requested time off and I am getting paid for that time off. DO NOT CALL ME. As if that wasn't enough I got on FB today and checked my inbox to find that one of the day shift wanted me to pick up 4 hours for her on Friday. First off, I don't work days. Second, VACATION. Third, I have plans that day. This vacation is me trying to convince myself to not quit, its having a reverse effect thus far.

We're up in Michigan until tomorrow morning, we got here early yesterday and I have to admit...I'm a city girl. I need to have everything at my fingertips. I'm not okay with the classiest restaurant being Olive Garden, Wet Seal being non-existent, no tea salons or 24 hour coffee houses, and Twilight being considered the epitome of modern literature. I did miss the kids though, and we've been over at Robbie's sister's house often in the past 24 hours.

Speaking of kids, why is it that EVERYONE up here has an adorable toddler? I swear my uterus is screaming at me, and at this point I only have to look at a kid and then back to Rob for him to get the hint.

Concerning Artemis, I discussed the issue with Chapter 50 with Samm and she suggested going along the same route as I had used before, where you have to know what you're looking for to catch what is going on. Kyle suggested blacking out the pages to give the reader an "ohshiiiiiiiii" reaction. But the fact of the matter is that I'm not going to be able to get around writing this part, the whole book leading up to this the reader thinks that there's a line Van Dean is trying to stay away from, and then he actually crosses it.

Why do all my protagonists DIE? I'm seeing a pattern here.

No excerpts today, the content is too graphic.

It's started to scare me. The simple fact that all of my recent dreams start out with me in my pajamas. I feel like the gap between this and the past dream was a lot longer than it had been previously. There was no song, but it was a lot more...personal? I can barely describe it. I was able to ask a few questions, get angry with my answers, then.... I do plan on a more lengthy description later.

We've finally bought the deep fryer and I am enjoying all the foods that I stick in it. Curry buns are pretty awesome, but pizza rolls are the best.

I'm currently watching the new "karate" kid. It's the KARATE kid, so why the hell are they doing KUNG FU? Get your shit straight people. Also, any idiot that thinks Detroit actually looks like that IRL needs to go there and get shot. EL-OH-EL. Other than that, it's cute.

Not sure what I'm going to to do for thanksgiving yet, I got a bunch of time off for it, but Robbie is working most of the time. Hopefully we'll be able to go up north for Christmas, but this week it looks like me and the kitties. I do plan on making some of Robbie's favorite fried chicken and asparagus.

I ordered Robbie's Christmas gifts while he was sick in bed last weekend. I'm having fun torturing him with how far they've come so far in the shipping process. I'm planning on ordering some legos for him too soon if I can. But seeing as how I ended up spending roughly 170 on the present that is on its way, I'm not sure how that will go.

I'm thinking about going to sleep here soon. I have four days off and I have no idea how I plan to use them yet. I know I still have a bit of editing to do, I'm not sure when or how I want to go about it.

Zen Cha let me down for the first time. I guess they decided to get rid of tuna AND umiboshi onigiri. Those would be the two kinds we always get, they're completely traditional and it looks like once again the only way I'll be able to eat them is if I make them in my own kitchen. Its saddening, because now I see not much reason to go there as often as I would like, maybe once or twice more so that I can try their Darjeeling (I still haven't because I'm worried I'll hate it.). Other than that I'll have to wait and see what their winter menu is.

Of course I would talk about sleep with an extra large kahve in hand. I'm officially too tired for depth perception.

I have a livestream account. For the record. I was thinking about using it to broadcast my work on my picture book! Something I talked about with Samm a while back. A lot of stories have their own "bible" which is basically just that, it explains how things are the way they are in the story etc. The picture book would be the buenan creation story, Celeste and the Ancients, the birth of buenans, and Ellioweish. If I can pull it off I would be tempted to do something similar with Thorn Tower.  I need to get more familiar with my table before I attempt something like that. I do however need to pull out Google Sketchup and plot out the structures to use as reference.

Speaking of plotting out, I have an old project/story/comic I was writing for Samm years back that I wanted to go back to and finish. The issue is that I really really want to do it comic, the issue with that is figuring out a distinct style for it, and then again, it requires me to become more familiar with my tablet. So it will probably have to wait in either case, and self-publishing a regular book version couldn't hurt too much either. I'm very interested in looking into Barns and Noble's Publit a little closer. Apparently they have their own self-publishing tools for writers, the issue is finding out if they reserve the rights to the work.

No excerpt this time, I've been a bit blocked for the past few days and music isn't really helping. It isn't that I don't know where I want the chapter to go, its just using a new technique that I haven't played around with at all before. Basically the previous scene presented through Kamen's fractured memories later while there's an active scene going on. Very busy and will require a lot of editing once it is finished.

In other news, I'm working on a winter Clovinian BDU set for myself. I just need to get proper fabric for the epaulettes and some gold thread to create the rank. I got my hands on a "Chambers" standard military nametag. The handy thing about their uniforms is that they aren't very decorated as far as medals etc., BUT to complete this I am going to need a rank pin. Which I will have to have made special. How does one go about that anyways?

I'm really beginning to see why this season was never aired in the US...first and foremost there are these guys that turn into girls when there is trouble. This episode features a nun! ...who moonlights as a choreographer for boy bands.

Vacation was nice, taking trips always seems to make the time stretch, although the ride up there was a little troublesome. The clutch on the saturn is fried, as well as a few other pieces. We'll have to see how things go.

We returned home and I feel somehow apprehensive of work, like something bad is about to happen. Of course my hunches are usually incredibly far off base. I do believe in the sneezing theory, once for talk, twice for gossip. I've been sneezing like crazy this past week. That in itself makes me feel uncomfortable.

About to go to bed, finally. I feel nervous. I wonder what dreams may come.