Becoming a Queen

I had my last NLP session on Wednesday, and ... it was pretty intense. I've had some hard sessions through my series, but this one was just ... wow. I'm not going to go very much into what happened, since it's pretty personal and all, but I feel like a lot is going to change as a result of this session. I'm really happy about it. This combined with the Ambien that's really been helping me sleep better .... I feel like a real person.

I've realized that I need to practice being the sort of person I want to be. Less "Fake it 'til you make it" and more just taking time out to consciously act the way that I eventually want to be all the time. I've been trying, every day, to take ten or so minutes every day to actively practice being the person I want to be. I think it's helped me.

Which is what the symbol over on the side (which I generally call a "Crowned Pawn" or a "Queened Pawn") represents. I've never been much of a chess player - in fact I think I barely learned most of the rules a couple months ago. I'm not really much at strategy games in general, honestly. But I know that the pawn pieces can only move forward, and when a pawn gets to the other end without being taken out by another piece it can become any other piece. A pawn, the simplest piece on the board, can become a queen, the most powerful piece in the game.

I've kind of taken this as a philosophy for my own life. I don't really have other pieces opposing me that can take me out - I know I can surpass most, if not all, the challenges life throws at me. All I, as a pawn, need to concentrate on is moving forward, one square at a time. And eventually I will be the person I want to be - a Queen.

I've been considering getting the Queened Pawn tattooed on the inside of my wrist as a reminder of all of this. I don't know if I will or not - to be honest I cringe and flinch away when I even hear a tattoo gun on TV or in movies or whatever. So, I don't know how I would be able to sit still through an hour (or more) of the pain and that buzzing sound.

In other news: I have to go to a physical therapist for my ankle, knee, and shoulder. I went to the doctor and the problem seems to be a musculature one somehow. Hopefully a PT will be able to help.

June to August

So, the last time I posted anything meaningful was waaaay back in June. Even before Tene's birthday.

So, for Tene's birthday I made dinner and a cake. I, unfortunately, spent more time on the cake, when what Tene was looking forward to was me making him dinner and having it ready for him when he got home.

Regardless, I had a lot of fun making dinner and a cake for Tene (or, rather, making .... four cakes. They continually failed, and I was trying to make a multiple-layered cake - three of the four layers ended up being useable, if broken in half), and I enjoyed making him dinner.

The cake I made, as I mentioned above, ended up being three layers - and was a very rich chocolate with a chocolate ganache frosting. I also made a little red marzipan robot to decorate it with! The end result wasn't the most beautiful of things, but I was happy with it anyway, because it was fun to make and it was special and everything. The robot ended up looking like the Pusher Robot (possibly the Shover Robot, I can't remember which one is red) - here to protect us from the Terrible Secret of Space. Or like the red robot. That wasn't intended, it just ended up happening. And ... Tene asked me for a red robot, and I only had so much chance to do anything special with him (I wanted him to be much more detailed, but ran out of time).

I've been doing better at cooking dinner nightly the last few months; missing fewer nights than before. I'm really proud of myself for that. My main-made meal is still rather plain - pasta with Parmesan chicken and some type of vegetable or green.

I've become very fond of artichokes, personally. Especially their delicious centers. We eat at least one a week, and usually two each within the course of seven days. Hooray Costco! Bringing us healthy food in bulk!

I've also found that I'm okay at making steak. This was my second attempt, and was better than the first. Although I didn't actually cook the steak (Tene did that for me), I did do all the preparation for it, though. I was focusing on steaming the artichokes, asparagus, and broccoli, as well as frying (and burning) the onions.

I prefer working with chicken to steak, perhaps because I prefer lighter meat to red meat. Chicken is also a lot cheaper (hellooooo Costco and buying waaaay more chicken than I need!), although a lot nastier when raw (I wash my hands a dozen times when cooking with chicken, a lot less when cooking almost anything else).

Which brings me to tonight! Parmesan chicken, baked potatoes, baked Brussels sprouts, baked asparagus, and steamed artichokes. Made way-too-late to be reasonable, but we needed dinner.

In the last few months we've also added some things to our home - Now we have three bookshelves (two are full: one with books, the other with DVDs and video games), and a dining room table and chairs. We also have a nice red couch! Soon I should be getting my craft desk and shelves (ordered them from Ikea today), and hopefully within a few weeks or a month I should also get my computer desk as well. I'm excited that our home is coming together and things are looking so nice. It makes me feel nice and at home.

Speaking of my crafts - I've started up on them again. Right now I'm focusing on soft toys and possibly making a quilt for us for Christmas (a gift for us). I've also been working on fixing Tene's favorite blanket - a quilt his mother gave him when he left for college. Unfortunately (or, perhaps, fortunately I suppose), it has been well-loved, and is falling apart.

I'm doing the best I can to repair it, but it's taking a while and is difficult.

I'm hoping to get a sewing machine in the next few weeks/month or so, which will make my soft-toy making a lot easier (and save my back).

Otherwise, not much has been happening the last couple of months. Tene's been working and I've been sticking around taking care of home (and loving it). I'm starting to take up Yoga again, and I've joined a couple of local groups for books, writing, and crafts. I'm hoping to start taking classes again,  but I know it will be a while before I can - I'm really getting impatient, though, and wanting to return to school.

Well, that's all that's been going on around here. I've managed to kill three more plants (two small roses and a flowering plant called an Orange Star - I had named them Rosie and Posie, and ... I never named the orange one), and the girls are doing well. I'm hoping to get something to make a play area for them soon, so that I can have more than one of them out of the cage at the same time - as it is right now I'm too afraid of them running off in two (or four) different directions at once - leaving me unable to find them again.

So, that's it! I'll try to post more regularly again from now on.

Things I Learned At Penguicon 2010: Methods of Life Hacking

Title: Methods of Life Hacking
Panelists: David Erik Nelson, Jim C. Hines, Dave Crampton
Date and Time: Saturday, May 1, 2010; 3:00 PM

This was one of the panels that I was really excited for. I've been looking into life and mind hacking to try to help myself, so I figured this would help me out. I wasn't disappointed!

We started with finding time to write. Everyone gets the same 24-hours in a single day, and how those hours are used is up to the person in question. It's always a choice, and you need to take what you can get! Once the writing time has been chosen, I need to stick to it. It needs to be routine - so that my brain builds "Time to Write!" pathways and make it easier to write in the future. Part of this is that I should avoid doing anything but writing during it - no checking email or various websites, no leaving my chair, just writing for an hour or so. One warning about the routine is that it's hard to break away from that if you ever have to.

One suggestion I really liked from this panel was about writing itself: The suggestion was to write long hand. It's slower, but that's often a good thing - it forces you to think about what you're putting on the paper - rather than just blurting out everything that comes to mind. Besides, in a word processor what's typed looks like a book, which could cause anxiety about it being absolutely perfect. Also suggested were writing on index cards or legal pads - because that makes it more difficult to ramble or lose track of the story.

My favorite advice was to "Write crap for ten minutes every morning" - that way all your bad writing is out of the way, so you can work on more serious things. I don't think I would actually be able to do this one, but it would certainly be nice!

The overarching theme was to try new things, different things - and find what works for each you. And to remember that things that are attempted might now work, and so as a writer I/we need to be flexible and able to try something else.


One book that was brought up numerous times was Booklife by Jeff VanderMeer. I hope to get a copy of it soon, because it seems like a very nice resource.


Penguicon 2010 Posts
Character Driven Storytelling
Non-Obvious Reflections of Culture in Science-Fiction
[[Methods of Life Hacking]]
Publicity 101
Post-Scarcity Futures

Sickness, Sushi, and Self

It seems that all of us are adjusting well to life here in Mountain View. I've been taking care of the apartment - cleaning and organizing things, trying to figure out how best to organize the furniture (and even what furniture we want - thanks Ikea!). It's been fun.

In less fortunate news, Absinthe has gotten sick. On Monday I went to check on the cage, only to find dark red urine on the second full level. It took me much of the day to figure out which of the girls it had come from. The next day I took Absinthe in to a nearby vet (which I'll talk about later). Fortunately it doesn't appear that she has a tumor (which would have surprised me, but was a possibility), and instead she has a UTI - a basic urinary tract infection. Now she's on a medication regime, which she (and I) hates. I'll be done next Monday. Hopefully after that it will be cleared up.

Last night, Tene, Bancus, and I went to a newly opened sushi bar - Sushi 85 - and I ate real sushi for the first time. I didn't like it. Well, there was one type that I enjoyed - but overall I've decided that sushi isn't for me. Which is fine - there are plenty of other delicious Asians food that I do like - and I'm glad I finally found out.

As for myself: I'm still doing alright. My depression and motivation isn't quite as great as I would like, but now Tene and I have registered for our benefits, so I should be able to go talk to a psychiatrist sometime soon.

Anxiety, Part 2

Part One: Earthquakes

After I got over my earthquake fear (which, I didn't mention before, led me to asking my seventh grade History teacher to let me leave the class and go to the library to study, or something like that, if we were going to continue discussing earthquakes in general - and the Big One in particular) I didn't really have any new "thing" to be anxious over (that I can remember). Perhaps the social anxiety of having few friends in middle school (my original clique had kicked me out sometime halfway through seventh grade) and being a veritable loner was enough to keep my stress levels busy.

Then I got into High School. My Sophomore Year I started Drivers Ed, which I was not looking forward to. Oh heaven's, was Driver's Ed not my favorite class.

When I was little - four or five - I was almost hit by a car in a parking lot. This memory has stuck with me through the years, simply because it was so frightening. Naturally, this was the first - and only - thing in my head when I got behind the wheel of a car for the first time.

I'm going to kill someone with this thing.

I could think of nothing else. My first time driving on real roads I got yelled at a lot by my instructor.

I'm still amazed I passed my driver's test, nervous as I was.

Another academic anxiety I had was related to maths and science, which Tene can likely attest to. I had a hard time understanding what I realized were basic concepts in the maths and sciences, and I was so anxious to prove to myself - and in a somewhat larger degree, to my parents - that I wasn't stupid, that I would often start crying while doing my maths homework. I don't recall if I had similar emotional reactions to my science homework, but if it involved mathematics I wouldn't be surprised. My stepfather and mother would make fun of me for this constant emotional outburst - which didn't help my self esteem or my anxiety about the issue much.

I would also have trouble sleeping before a test in nearly every subject.

Anxiety, Part 1

Nothing much is happening in my life currently. Tene has had 3 interviews with the New Company, and we'll find out next week if they want to fly him out to California to interview him in-person. It looks hopeful.

I've been looking at apartments, but have yet to act on any of them. I hope to begin my emailing campaign sometime today. Otherwise I've been working on cleaning up the apartment to try to get it available for someone else to move in to. Speaking of which: Does anyone want to move into our apartment for 2 months?

I've also switched medication again. I'm now on Cymbalta, which is not an SSRI, but something else (I'm unsure exactly what it is, but I know it helps with the reuptake of dopamine rather than serotonin, so maybe it will help me?). I've been taking it for two days, and it reaches saturation around day 3 or 4. Celexa takes about a week to fully leave the system. So, I guess I'll find out the effects of Cymbalta in ... five days? Here's hoping it works.

Otherwise, my life is quite boring.

I wanted to talk about my anxiety - it's been a little worse lately, and I've wanted to write about what I go through, in the hopes that my friends and family who read this may understand a bit better what I go through when my anxiety gets bad.

I'm going to be writing this in parts, otherwise it will end up being one single huge post.

First off: I've always had problems with anxiety. Looking back, it was obvious that I had problems. At the time, I figured the fears/worries/etc that I had were normal, and if not normal - at least they weren't too far from the norm. Now I know that my reactions to a lot of things was very very very odd. I sometimes wonder why my Mother never did anything about my anxiety - I don't believe my Dad knew about what I was going through.

The earliest memory I have of disabling anxiety started when I was in or just about to start sixth grade - shortly after August 11, 1999, the day a tornado hit downtown Salt Lake City. My entire life up to that point I had been told and reassured and reminded that: "A tornado couldn't happen here, the mountains and tall buildings would prevent it" and that Utah didn't have many tornados anyway, and they occurred in the desert, salt flats, and more open areas. After the tornado I began having trouble sleeping at night. I became worried that some horrible disaster would occur while I slept (tornado, earthquake, fire, etc) and I would lose my family. I became hyper-aware of any Bad Thing that could possibly ever happen.

Soon my anxiety shifted to solely concern earthquakes.

The Salt Lake Valley sits right next to a fault line (I can't even read that article without anxiety, obviously this is still a problem), which has tendrils that go underneath most of the valley. I believe my Junior High School was  (is) situated on one of these faults. There hasn't been a large quake in a good long while. I believe that we're supposed to have a large quake every ... I think 5000 years, but I could be wrong. Anyway, we're supposedly overdue for The Big One any year now.

This was driven into my head all through Grade School, and some more in Middle School. It never scared me, until the tornado. Suddenly the abstract idea of an earthquake happening became real. And everything I was being taught in class became terrifying.

I had a hard time getting to sleep. Any movement - even slight - of my bed was enough to make my heartrate raise and get my adrenaline going. I became more and more tired as I got less and less sleep. I didn't talk to anyone about this. Even the counselor I saw later that year.

The nightly fear and anxiety continued until February 2001, when a decently large earthquake hit Seattle, Washington, and only one person was killed in it. However, I still have nights where I have trouble falling asleep due to anxiety or fear about Something Bad Happening.

Almost a year and a half of having trouble sleeping, and the only help I ever got for it was a poem my stepdad would tell me - almost every night.

If there's a worry under the sun
There is a remedy or there's none
If there be one, hurry and find it
If there be none, nevermind it

But I couldn't just forget my worries, or ignore them, no matter how much I tried.

What should have been a serious warning sign that something wasn't quite right with my brain was ignored, brushed aside with poems and blessings. Looking back, I honestly feel like I was being ignored, and that I wasn't being taken seriously.

Part Two: Cars and Tests

Decisions Decisions

Lately I've been trying to decide what I want for my near- and far-term future. Looking at near-term as within the next year (possibly 2 years), and far-term as 2 to 5 years in the future. I've been having a lot of trouble trying to decide.

Some basic problems I've come up against are that I no longer know what I want to do for my life. I don't think I want to teach anymore (unless I'm teaching college), and I'm pretty much completely certain that I don't want to teach English anymore (unless I can teach creative writing). I don't know what I do want to do, though, just what I don't.

So, here's what I'm debating:
Near-term (from 2010-2011)

• I don't know if I want to continue going to school here in SLC at the Community College. In investigating what I would need to do to get my AS I found out that it's very possible that the schools in San Francisco I would likely apply to wouldn't accept my AS as completion of general education requirements. I was originally planning on completing my AS here because I was afraid of my credits "expiring" (due to some misinformation), which won't happen. So now I don't know what to do.
• If I don't go to school I think I'm going to focus on my cooking and baking, and my writing.
  
• Tene and I were planning on moving to SF after I finished my degree. Now that I might not be finishing my degree here ... should we move sooner? I'm afraid of moving out of UT, and as a side effect away from 95% of my friends.
• I'm trying to decide if I should get a part-time job (regardless of school or not). It would be nice to have some extra income, but I had so much anxiety just with school this semester that I don't know if I would be able to handle a job, even a part-time "monkey-push-the-button" job.
  
• I'm now going to be seeing a psychiatrist for my mood problems. Before we move I would prefer to be on a stable set of medications, if only because I don't want to have to wait even longer to find a psychiatrist (I'm not going to be seeing my new doctor until January ... so ... ).
• I want pets. When and where ever we move next I am so going to make sure that our apartment is pet-friendly. I hope to have three (maybe four!) rats, and possibly a kitty.
• I want to get my digestion problems figured out. I'm debating beginning an Exclusion, or Rotation Diet within the next year.
  
• I want to have our Commitment Ceremony on June 12, our one year anniversary. I mentioned it to my mother, and she pointed out that it might be weird to have this ceremony so long after the "real" wedding. I don't think this is actually too much of a problem. I'm basically going to treat the ceremony as our wedding.

Long-Term (2012-2015)

• I don't know what I want to do with my life. I'm currently debating between some form of Biology (following the lead of friends Jekka and Kayleigh - I am considering Marine Biology), or possibly Physics (with the end goal of teaching college). Another consideration is to get a business degree, or just open a coffee shop, cafe, or clothing boutique (or some other small shop).I'm also considering aspiring to be a housewife - an idea that sounds very nice to me.

That's actually all for now. It's late and I'm having a hard time thinking. So, probably more later!

Ratties, Ratteries, and Pets

Shortly after Avi's death I had a really hard time with my depression. We're talking absurdly hard time. I would cry when I saw her empty cage - and it took me a good week to finally move it out of my room. I had a very hard time adjusting to not having any pets.

Then I read a horrible story about a kitten killed in a horrific horrible way (no link, because the story is old and because it's so sad: here's some links to cute things instead) and it made what I was dealing with worse.

Well, then I started planning on getting married and moving in with Tene. I started doing better when I moved in, and I soon saw a doctor (I like my doctor) and she put me on Zoloft. I haven't done excellently on Zoloft (I was started at 50mg, which wasn't enough and so was raised to 100mg where the side effects made me feel miserable practically all of the time and my mood didn't improve at all, lowered back to 50mg - again wasn't enough for me, now I'm on 75mg ... Next time I see my doctor I'll likely be referred to a psychiatrist and I'll play the "Wheel of Meds" game again), but I've at least been functional/moderately able to manage my mood. I've still had a lot of motivational problems, as well as mood problems. No hyperactivity, though, which is good.

Something that seems to help me is having something - really anything - to take care of. At the moment, that's my plants - the bamboo and my bulb. The bulb is starting to sprout finally, and I'm becoming excited to see what kind of plant it is (I found the bulb downtown, unplanted, and figured I'd take care of it). I tried planting some bonsai seeds, but they're not sprouting - I suspect that they're far past their expiration date. Anyway, I think that I should try to take care of something that can return my affections.

Unfortunately it's unlikely that I'll be able to have rats in the current apartment, and I would have a hard time affording some basic things for them right now (let alone spaying and/or neutering them ... ). But, our lease is up in June, and we might not sign on for another six months, but instead move to a different apartment complex - perhaps one that allows pets! Or one that would honor therapeutic pets (this complex allows companion animals for the blind/deaf/etc, but not therapy animals).

So, in the meantime, I'm going to try to save some money up for some new rats - 3 of them, to be exact :). I'm also going to keep my eye on two local ratteries: Adelaide's and Frannie's. I've sent an email to both of them about my intention/desire to adopt in six/seven months, and I hope to keep in touch with them over the intervening months.

Tene and I have also talked about getting a cat, but I'm uncertain if we're actually going to or not.

Thanks

I was going to post this yesterday, but yesterday ended up being a very busy day, being Thanksgiving and all. So instead, I'll post it today - on a day when leaving the house seems like a very bad idea (crazy black Friday shoppers ... ).

I am thankful that by chance I was born into this world and was able to be adopted by a loving family who took great care of me and raised me well.

I am thankful that by chance a certain boy began speaking to me in a high school computer course, thereby changing both of our lives forever.

I am thankful that by chance I have met so many wonderful people, friends, who stand by me and love me - they are part of my family.

I am thankful that by chance I was born into a good middle-class family, and so have always been provided for.

I am thankful that by chance I live in a world that can provide for me more than I need.

I am thankful that by chance I live in a country where I can get an education, rather than being considered little more than a womb. I am also thankful that I have the option of having, or not having, children - and no one else can decide that for me.

I am thankful that by chance I live in a world where I can choose an occupation, or none, for myself. That I live in a world where I can honestly be anything I wish, and that my future is not decided by anyone else.

I am thankful that by chance I live in a country with wonderful healthcare  - and yet I can still complain that I want it to be better.

I am thankful for this world - this beautiful, natural world.

I am thankful for my parents, my stepparents, and my otherparents. I am thankful to my birthmother, for choosing to carry me to term. I am thankful for my brother, halfbrother, stepsiblings, and othersiblings - they are all so supportive of me when I need them to be. I'm thankful for my nephews and nieces. I am thankful for my lover and partner, I hope he will always remain by my side. I am thankful for my friends - Kayleigh, Zoie, Jekka, Teffy and Ima, Jaaku, Marty, Sherry ... and all the others who have touched my life in ways unimaginable.

I Make Plans

Tene and I were married nearly six months ago (crazy, isn't it?), and we didn't have a large ceremony. I, however, want a bit of a larger ceremony - what I'm going to call a commitment ceremony. We were making plans to have such a ceremony in October, but stress and some points of life got in the way of it. We've finally set on a date for the ceremony, and that date is the anniversary of our wedding: June 12, 2010.

I am the main one making plans for the ceremony, and so far this is as much as I have decided (well, I've decided on colors - white, blue, and orange [blue is Stephen's favorite color, orange is mine, and they are complementary colors]). I plan, however, to update Rats In Pants with any plans I have for this ceremony.

In other news, I now know when I'm going to be finishing up my Associates Degree (Associates of Science)! I should be graduating in two semesters, so the end of summer semester. I'm excited!

Fun with Guns

Tene and I have a visitor from out-of-town staying with us for a couple of weeks. Yesterday we went to to the Lions Gate Rifle, Shotgun, and Pistol Range with Tene's boss. He bought some new guns recently and needed to test them out.

I really enjoyed firing a nice suppressed .22. It didn't have too much of a kick, wasn't too heavy, and I was pretty good with my aim. I also fired two higher-caliber pistols, but I didn't like them quite as much. Too heavy, too much kick, etc. I got compliments on my "sharpshooting."

I also got to play with a laser sighting. It wasn't correctly sighted to the gun that I was using, but once Tene figured that out (after I had used up three magazines from the gun) I realized why all my shots seemed to be hitting lower than I thought they should.

I really would like to get myself a nice handgun. They're fun to fire, definitely give me some form of stress relief, and it would be a nice "I feel safer" sort of thing. But they're expensive, and I'm not quite ready to consider classes and such to get a concealed carry permit. Maybe eventually though.

Safely Confined

I have a hard time with my depression sometimes. Lately I've been doing okay overall, but there'll be days when I'm just not up to anything at all.

My meds are still not at a comfortable level. I saw my doctor yesterday, and she raised my Zoloft once more (to 75mg) but I have a suspicion that when I go back in around 6 weeks we're going to have to play the Wheel of Antidepressants again. She also mentioned that it would be good for me to possibly see a psychiatrist (to manage my medications), and would definitely be good to get me into some type of therapy program. I agree with her.

I also go my flu shot.

Last time I saw her she gave me a prescription for Klonopin, which has helped on days that I'm feeling really anxious in the mornings. Out of the 15 pills she gave me a month ago, I have 7½ left. I've been very careful when taking them, because it is very easy to built up an tolerance to Klonopin (and its sister medications Ativan and and Xanax), and the last thing I want is to have to be taking a bunch of these pills to feel stable. Only real side-effect I've noticed from the Klonopin is that it makes me a little sleepy.

Today, however, is a down day. I'm feeling depressed, very sad, mostly apathetic. I'm annoyed by the book I was reading (which until today I'd been reading voraciously, absolutely intrigued by it), I found John Stewart and Colbert only vaguely entertaining, and I'm mostly apathetic about things. I've also had a few impulses/desires to cause myself harm.

It's this last thing that I wanted to talk about. I get these impulses every now and then, and usually they mean that I'm in a bad spot mentally or emotionally and I need to be very careful. One thing I've learned to do when I start feeling this way very strongly is to get into a safe, preferably confined, area or space.

Currently that space is my bed.

When I start feeling overly depressed and thoughts of self-harm start looking like "good" options, I will tell Tene what's going on, and then I will wander over to the bed and curl up on it. Until I start feeling better or he is home I will stay there. Safe, confined to the mattress. It may sound weird, and is probably a little crazy, but it makes me feel safe. As long as I stay on that bed nothing bad can or will happen to me. Not as a result of my own actions, or as the result of anyone else's actions. I am safe.

So, I'm going to retreat to my safe area now.

Zombieland and 9

I got to go see Zombieland (rated R) last Friday (October 2) with an interesting group of people. The group I went with all dressed up like zombies or zombie hunters - which, lets face it, was awesome. I'm not in the zombie picture because I didn't dress up - I don't have any makeup at the moment, or clothes that I wouldn't mind tearing up, and I had to go pick up my boy from the airport since he had been out working all week.

Now, Zombieland was awesome. Had your classic zombie-movie elements, and was a little more gratuitous with the blood/gore than I generally enjoy, but ... it's a zombie movie. Of course there's going to be blood. What probably made it the most enjoyable for me was that, while it was a zombie flick, it was also very, very funny. I was laughing almost the entire time.

First: I loved the main character's "survival list" - because I swear that's something I will be doing if we ever face the zombie apocalypse. The little popups throughout the movie, reminders of various rules, were also great.

Second: I loved all the characters. I could empathise with geeky Columbus, beat-em-up Tallahassee was just awesome (and reminded me a little of "Shoot then ask" Jayne from Firefly, except with less guns), Wichita was hot, and Little Rock was cute in a "I'm older than I look" kind of way. I was so worried near the end that some of them were going to die and I was like "But, noooo! I like them too much!"

Third: The whole thing was just so absurd. Driving across the country to get to a theme park, massacring zombies all along the way? The basic plot makes no sense - but it was well done.

In all: 3.5 out of 4 stars due to some things being a little too cliche or gimmicky.

Now, I tried to not give away much plot on Zombieland, but there will be spoilers for 9 as I discuss it, so ... if you haven't seen it yet and are planning on seeing it, don't read anymore! My rating of 9 is 2.5 out of 4 stars.


The next day, (October 3) I went and saw 9 (rated PG13) with a small group of friends.

I liked 9, but wasn't overly impressed by it. I left the theater feeling a little let down and underwhelmed, after having heard so much good about the film.

I liked the characters, but couldn't really empathize with any of them. They all seemed very one-dimensional, which was perhaps on purpose, since they were all pieces of someone's soul.

On that note, it seemed that each of the characters embodied some specific part of their creators personality.

• 1 was Self-Preservation, and Preservation-of-Group. His main interest was keeping everybody (and himself) safe. Perhaps that aspect of the scientists personality was the first to go, so that he could complete the remaining 8.
• 2 was Innovation and Exploration. He was, at his center, Inquisitive.
• 3 and 4 were probably my favorites (tied with 6). They are twins and don't speak (3 has no mouth) but communicate with blinks and other visual cues. They are Scholarly. They spend most of their time in, what I think used to be, a library - cataloguing, memorizing, and learning.
• 5 was the Healer, Pacifist, and (according to Wikipedia) the Engineer. He was also the Student to 2. The main things we see from him is his Healer nature.
• 6 was my other favorite - the Artist. He rarely talks, but when he did it was important. I don't know why I liked him so much ... I think he reminded me a bit of myself.
• 7 was the Warrior. Bravery, a Fighting Spirit. She's also the only female in the group. I liked that she was included, and female, but it felt almost like a patronizing sort of thing. Also - the stitchpunks were given life from the scientist. Who was male. Where'd a female personality come from?
• 8 was most definitely the Bully. Perhaps he is supposed to protect the group, but he seems to be more a stereotypical more-brawn-than-brains-bully. He also has a drug problem.
• and, of course, titular 9. 9 is, of course, the Hero. He has aspects of all the other stitchpunks (bravery, curiosity, questioning), and seems to be the most fleshed out of all the characters. I didn't like him much, though.

Something that bothered me, a lot, was the ending. Now - I didn't mind the use of "alchemy" or "magic" in the movie (after all, it fits with Clarke's third law: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" and Niven/Lackey's law: "any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology"), it fit with the scene, and I was comfortable with the combination of "magic" and technology.

No, the part that bugged me was that the spirits of those who were lost (1, 2, 5, 6, and 8) were just released. They have a way of bringing the spirits back. They have bodies for 4 of the 5, and could easily get a holding body for 2, and yet .... they release the souls into the sky where they give birth to .... bacteria? amoebas? I know it was supposed to be a touching "farewell" scene, but I just kept thinking "No! You can save them! WTF are you doing!?"

Finally, I didn't feel like there was a plot so much as "Oh, here's some events I want to happen. Lets string them together!" Which I didn't enjoy very much.

So, 2.5/4 for 9 because of a lack of plot, character development, and a crappy ending.

Life Goes On, Things Change

A lot has happened since my last post. Lets see if I can get them down in the order that they happened.

First off, I got married! Stephen Weeks (Tene) and I married on June 12, 2009 - just a tiny civil ceremony at the city county building. Our witnesses were our friends Nic and Marjut, who live in Finland and happened to be visiting Utah at the time. Others invited were our immediate family, and one of my stepsisters (who took photos), and that's all. In total, there were 16 of us in the room. We're considering doing something bigger later.

The next day Tene and I moved into an apartment complex. We have a cute little loft apartment, that feels a little big than it is. We need to get ourselves a couch still, but we mostly have everything we need, which is good. One unfortunate aspect is that the complex doesn't allow pets aside from service animals, and when I asked them specifically about therapeutic pets, they said they didn't count as service animals. So I might not be getting rats again for a while. Which is unfortunate. (I'm still going to try, though. I mean, they would help me out a lot)

I also got to go see VNV Nation when they were in town. That was really fun and I got all done up to see them. I really enjoy their music, and they were awesome to see in concert. It was also a lot of fun to get dressed up like I did. Even better, I got to meet them! I thought it would be a bit more fun, but we were the last people to go see them at the Greywhale they were at, and they had to run off to do a soundcheck for the show, so I guess that it not being as exciting and fun as I thought it would be is forgiveable. I also learned of a new Industrial band that I really like, one of the groups VNV was touring with - Ayria. I also got to meet the singer for their group, and she signed my CD. It was really a lot of fun. Tene and I also went to the afterparty at Club Vegas, but I was soooo tired and dead by that time.

The only other thing that's been really big and going on in my life has been working out all my health problems - both mental and physical.

On the physical side, before Tene and I got married I went in and had a CT scan for some bumps by my left eye. The bumps hurt a little, and they are growing and multiplying. The CT was done to figure out exactly where the masses were (which it revealed quite well) so that I could go in for surgery to have them removed and biopsied. I go in to see the doctor who will be doing the surgery on July 31 - hopefully we'll be setting up an appointment for the surgery that day, and I can get it done with. The downside to the CT scan was that it found a mass inside my ear. I haven't had a chance, yet, to see an Ear-Nose-And-Throat doctor about that so far, but I'm pretty sure it's not too urgent.

On the mental side - I am back on Zoloft (50mg). I have felt better since I started taking it than I have in .... quite a while. I'm happy, I'm enjoying my life, and my anxiety has been manageable! It's amazing. My motivation and creativity are still not here, however, and I've been having stomach problems (nausea and cramping) since I started taking the meds. Hopefully those will fix themselves and I'll be just fine, but I may have to tweak my medication a few more times before I'm good to go, not that that is very surprising or anything.

I also have some creative projects in the works, but you can go read all about those over at Truth in Lies!

Life Changes ... A Spot Of Silence

I apologize for my lack of communication lately, I've been busy ... and when I haven't been busy I've been apathetic.

So, a few changes are happening in my life right now! Some of the major ones are exciting to me, and possibly disappointing to some (if not many/most) of my friends and family, while other major ones are terrifying to me. I'll talk about them in the order of exciting-terrifying.

EXCITING!

• I am moving out of my mother's house within the next couple of months (hopefully I'll be moved out within 6 weeks). Currently everything rests on me getting health and dental insurance. I'm applying for it shortly, and will move once I have confirmation that I have received the insurance.
• I am moving in with my boyfriend, Tene. This is where people will probably be disappointed in me (heaven knows my parents are). I understand concerns, but I'm happy with my decision, and I haven't made this decision lightly.

IN THE MIDDLE!

• Once I have insurance set up and everything, I'm likely going to start looking for a new psychiatrist. Although I feel that I have conclusively proved that I do not have bipolar (I've been off of medication for it for months with no adverse effects in the manic range), I feel that I should look back in to being placed on medication for depression. It sucks, I hates it, but hopefully I can learn to manage this somehow - be it with, or without, medication.

TERRIFYING!

• Before I moved out I wanted to have a clean bill of health (or have a moderate idea of anything that could potentially be a problem). As a result I went to my regular doctor and dentist, and in both cases was sent to specialists.
• First was the plastic-surgeon who deals specifically with the eye region. I was sent to him by my regular doctor after these little bumps formed by my eye, and didn't go away. The eye-bumps hurt a little, especially if I mess with them (imagine that!), and while they aren't obscuring my vision or anything, are a little annoying. The eye-doctor looked at them, measured them, and prodded them only to come to the conclusion "I don't know what these are! But they don't seem to be dangerous!" He sent me home without doing much, and told me to go back in 6 months (or so) if they don't go away or get worse.
• Second was the dentist who deals specifically with the gums. I was sent to him by my regular dentist (who is a pediatric dentist. I like that I watch Rattatouie when I see my dentist ... ) after he noticed some recession of my gum line. The gum-dentist looked at my gums, listed out some numbers that I don't understand, and then told me that he had to do surgery. This will be done in the next few weeks and I'm scared for it.

Well ... that's the sum of my life at this point. I hope everything goes well, and I'll try to keep ya'll updated!

Medicine Changes, and So Do I

It's been a week since I went off of my crazy meds completely, and I've noticed a few changes, bad and good.

Bad or lingering effects
- Disinterest in everything
- Anxiety attacks
- Insomnia and trouble waking
- Apathy
- Temporary numbness in fingers and hands

Good effects
+ I am coherent
+ I actually remember and recall things
+ I have written more, although none of it has been very useful or interesting
+ I want to want to do things things (drawing, writing, etc), although I'm apathetic when it actually comes to doing them.
+ I feel ... normal. Mostly.

In all, I am feeling better, but I am still having problems adjusting. I'm suspecting that I'll get better soon, but will take some time.

Nothing Creative Comes to Mind

Good Happenings
- I am enjoying my job
- I am lowering my Lamictal, and should be completely off of it within a month - which means I'll be completely CRAZY MED FREEEE!
((HAPPY DANCE!!!))
- My new Nalgene water bottle is BPA free, which I didn't know until 2 seconds ago :D (But have been worried about all day ... )
- I'm starting to get to a place where I can do the things I want to with my life
- The new cage is almost complete, and I should have 3 new girls in the next week or so

Not-So-Good Happenings
- I am nervous about school starting in a month
- My anxiety attacks haven't gone away yet :|
- I may need to get a second job, but really don't want to
((the raise I was expecting to have a few months ago [after I was done "training"] still hasn't come my way ... ))
- Gas prices suck
- Still can't draw or write decently at all
- I broke my laptop

All in all, I'm doing good - I can't really complain much. Most of my problems are manageable, or will go away with time :) Which I'm grateful for.

Sorta here

Hello all! Sorry I haven't posted anything in a while.

So ... my life ...

((Also, yes this is almost a perfect copy-paste from devArt))

Work
At the moment I'm very much enjoying my job. My coworkers are awesome, my "boss" is one of us, and in all I feel welcome there. They're even accepting to the fact that I have issues at times :D That's really cool to me.

School
Well, you all know I dropped out of SUU spring semester. Since then I've applied to go to SLCC (my GPA was/is too low for the U of U), and have registered for classes this fall. I'm a little worried that I won't do any better here than I did in Cedar. :|

I'm also severely missing Cedar City - or more accurately, SUU. I've had a couple of episodes of randomly crying because I want to be at SUU, but I realize that it isn't ... healthy for me to be there. I'm too far away from my doctors and from Tene, and I just seem to get sick in Cedar :(

My hope is that I'll do well at SLCC this semester, and probably next spring, and then I can transfer to the U of U.

Home Life
Can I just say that I don't like living in this house? That's all I really need to say, right?

Rats
Min and Avi are both doing great. Min's tumor is getting quite large, but so far it isn't inhibiting her ability to get around. Until it does, I'm going to be keeping her around :)

Other
I've been trying to be more social lately, but I think I've been failing horribly. I sorta feel like I've been failing horribly at just about everything lately. It sucks :( I'm trying to improve myself, but I feel like I'm stuck somehow. I can't improve ... but I'm also not getting worse :| Confusing

I'm writing a bit more than I used to, but not very much. I'm also working on my second unseen Kyoot! comic, and have ideas for lots more. Those will probably start getting completed soon.

And, I can't think of anything else to say.

--Michelle "Washi" Maxfield

PS: It is too bloody hot right now. I HATE SUMMER D:

Introducing ....

Hello, and welcome to my blog. Just starting out, I'm going to try to post in this as often as possible ... or that I remember. Which I guess is as often as possible.

So! About me! I'm Michelle "Washi" Maxfield, almost 21, Aries born in the Year of the Rabbit. Brown haired, blue eyed. I live in Utah, currently attending Uni (more on that in a bit). I've been diagnosed with Bipolar II/hypomania, and severe depression. I'm on medication, and aside from side effects, doing well. For a while I was happier than I had been in a long time. Now I'm just sorta apathetic.

I'm dating Stephen Weeks, also known as "Tene". He's two years older than me, Cancer, and an Ox. He's a sweet guy, although his job often requires him to travel a lot, and he's often away - but I'm away at school right now, anyway, so ... yeah.

Oright, me! I'm easily distracted, and have a very short memory span lately. I often forget what I'm saying partway through a sentence, and I often have to ask people "What?" when they're talking to me, because the words don't fit, or I forget what they were saying the second their done saying it. It is very frustrating.

School ... well, I'm somewhere between a Sophomore and a Junior at my Uni, but I've had some problems this semester. I'm having to take a medical withdrawal, and I won't be coming back to this University, which makes me sad. Things are too hard when I'm so far from home.

The problems? I, and Tene, believe that these problems are caused by my medications. I'm often tired and I have a hard time waking up in the morning. We're talking I can sleep through 3 separate alarms set on my cellphone, which go off at 15 minute intervals, and stay going for 5 minutes each. Yeah, I can sleep through those. What the heck, right? Aside from that is the apathy - I don't care that I'm not getting up, I don't care that I'm not doing things. I know that I should care, but I don't. Also, the forgetfulness thing. That's somewhat new. I'm working on getting off of the medications, but my doctor is ... not a nice word ... and I'm hoping to find someone who knows what the heck they're doing with my medications, instead of the things my current doctor does. Again, frustrating.

Umm, non-complaining things ... I enjoy writing, it's my main hobby and joy. Lately I haven't been doing so well at it, but I hope that gets better as my meds are fixed. I also enjoy drawing, although I don't believe I'm very good at it - I hope that as I draw more I will improve. I have my own webcomic, Kyoot! which is semi-autobiographical, but I'm hoping the characters (personas of my friends and I) take on their own "lives" eventually - like what happened with MacHall before it closed, and Applegeeks now.

There's another thing - I looooove webcomics. There are a little over 30 that I currently watch, but my favorites are Applegeeks, MegaTokyo, Ctrl-Alt-Del, Questionable Content and Dominic Deegan. Not necessarily in that order :) I've also recently fallen in love with Erfworld over at Giant in the Playground. Dwagons are so cute :) I'm thinking of making a plushie of one.

I enjoy doing things with my hands - making and creating things. I want to learn how to sew, as well as crochet and possibly knit. For a while I was interested in cross-stitch, and I could do that again. I also enjoy making hats and scarves on these looms I got a few years ago. They're very nice. I want to learn how to cook, but so far all I can really make aside from packaged foods and pasta are some gooey chocolate cookies, and pull-apart sticky buns.

I wouldn't be a girl if I didn't enjoy shopping - and I do enjoy shopping. A lot. I love cute clothes. Tene has mentioned that I've been becoming more and more "girly" lately. I fear he is correct. But that's because I'm not athletic, at all, and I would rather ... well, I don't know. I have no interest in makeup or other "girly" things, but I like to dress up and look nice. When I'm not apathetic of course.

I like playing on my computer and playing games - on my PS2, GBA-SD, and once I get it, I'm sure I will enjoy games on my DS. I really want an X-Box 360, as well as a Wii, but those are in the future purchases. I have no interest in the PS3 at this time, too expensive and not many games for it that look interesting. I also play games on my computer, but not as many.

I'm an anime geek. I'm currently into One Piece and Bleach, although I really like Ouran High School Host Club - I've just watched all of it. I like reading manga too, of course, and I really like Tsubasa Chronicles and Tramps Like Us.

I was raised in the LDS Church from birth, but now identify as an atheist. I want Truth, but I no longer believe that there is an Ultimate Truth. We'll see what the future holds for this.