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In a pact with the ladies of Casa DeRP, I have made plans for the new year! Not resolutions so much as pathways to goals, or things I can check in on every few months.

Health
+ mental: It's been pretty bad the last part of this year, not gonna lie! I need to start seeing a counselor or psychologist again, and I really should get on better meds now that I have insurance (I am currently on the cheapest pills as opposed to the most effective pills). And there are other things below that will definitely help with my mental health.
+ physical: I joined a gym and got a good start last year, but at work in mid-December I started making deliveries ON TOP of all my current tech duties, and let me tell you, lugging around bags of lead canisters (because RADIOACTIVE) is pretty damn exhausting! So I need to see if my body is going to get used to the new physical demands (or if we're going to hire someone else so that I can get back to being a tech instead of a tech/courier) and figure out if it makes sense to keep paying for a gym membership, or if I need to cancel the membership and come up with a more tenable and less intense exercise routine.

Finances
+ saving: I did pretty well last year! Keep it up, Z!
+ spending: Uh, well, I definitely need a new bed. And I actually have a spending resolution because years of living in poverty have made it VERY hard for me to get around to buying things that are not food, even if they're perfectly reasonable and useful purchases. So it might be good to make a list of things I've been thinking of buying in order of priority or something.

Work
+ So, this year has obviously been pretty great in terms of work. Many of you may remember how low I was last year around this time, but I got it together, got my certification, and landed my first full-time non-temp non-contractor job. And I've been enjoying this job far more than I initially thought I would! It's had its ups and downs, but I think it's been going especially well this past month, so I'm on the right track. I just need to keep studying for my NUCLEAR pharmacy technician certification, and there's no rush on that so I can go at my own pace.

Social
+ OH MY GOD. I am so bad at this, and since I am a raging extrovert it is DEFINITELY not helping with my mental health, and it's a catch 22 since my mental health is the main block. I really have no plan of attack on this yet, so if anyone wants to poke me about this in the upcoming month FEEL FREE. It would help to start using social media again (facebook, tumblr, DREAMWIDTH HI) because that gives me a lot of minor mental boosts, and it might be good to make sure I initiate contact with at least one person outside of Casa Derp or my family per week through other means than social media. I think the biggest step for me would be getting to a place where I can actually utilize something like meet-up.com, and I need to figure out how to get to that place in the first place.

Writing
+ Another thing I need to come up with a plan of attack for! I'm talking mostly about RP writing of course, and it's another bad cycle: I feel depressed so I cut myself off from the internet and people because I'm "undeserving" and then I feel more depressed because I have cut myself off from things that make me HAPPY. THIS IS NOT LOGICAL. So, maybe re-institute Panera Productivity Day, or maybe set aside at least one day a week where I can allow myself to do fun things on the internet without feeling guilty about it.

I will probably add more later, but this is a good start!

New Job is going very well, and I'm continuing to work at CVS at least once a month because 1) the employee discount is useful, 2) so I can keep up my community pharmacy skills, 3) I actually like my coworkers, 4) it makes me appreciate New Job even more, and 5) after being unemployed for so much of my life it feels really good to have two jobs.

I was working there this Saturday (day 13 of my 13 day work week! v(°∇°)v), and I'm very glad for it, because otherwise I may have never had the chance to say my final goodbye to one of my favorite patients.

He's a liver transplant patient who's been coming in since I started working there over two years ago. Back then he was the happiest guy in the world, excited to be alive and excited to be talking to people! And especially me! And I was always excited to be talking to him as well. We bonded over a mutual appreciation of each other's dumb and/or awkward jokes. He was pleasant, courteous, the sort of person who was happy to see other people happy.

He still IS that person, but he's been walking more and more slowly. It's much harder for him to get his words out, and there's always pain on his face. He has the desperate look of someone being drawn more and more inward by their own body as it shuts down.

We talked. He asked me about my new job. "Is this a step in the right direction for you? Are you happy?" Yes! "I'm glad to hear that, I truly am."

It was lucky I saw him that day. His sister usually picks up his medicine for him now.

Just before he left, he told me, "I hope I see you again someday, if not in a drug store... then maybe somewhere else."

And I went in the back and cried. And I went to the speakeasy alone that night. I ordered a champagne cocktail and honey fig gorgonzola toast -- delicious -- and ate it very slowly. I wrote in my notebook and people-watched and swayed to the live music.

As I left, I was staring at the full moon and humming the last song I heard in there, trying to place it, when it hit me: "Did I severely overestimate my alcohol tolerance, or was that a 20s jazz rendition of Killing Me Softly?"

I'll have to tell him about it if I ever see him again.

I've survived two weeks at New Job so far, and for the first time this year I feel like things are finally slowing down to a more normal pace. Or maybe I'm just speeding up? I feel like I've finally had a break in my depression for the first time in a long time, probably due to a combination of 1) being done with the anxiety of TEST! INTERVIEW! NEW JOB! 2) more exercise and 3) actual sunlight (whaaaaaat).

But I'm not gonna question it too much, I'm just gonna roll with it.

WOR_xK

Week one of New Job involved a lot of radiation safety, learning about the lab, and learning how to draw doses from a vial into a syringe whilst the syringe is in a lead shield and the vial is in a tungsten shield. It is... hard. I stabbed myself three times, and really elegantly, too. One time the needle actually went IN one part of my thumb and OUT the other. Like, seriously, I'm almost proud of that. That is talent.

I haven't stabbed myself since, which is good since in week two I started handling the radioactive materials. I guess I've been doing well. I made one of the pharmacists say “wow” while he was training me; that made me happy. I mean, I'm doing well enough that every time I fuck up in a new way one of the pharmacists says “finally, you did it wrong!” so I'm trying not to stress too much. (TOO much. I'm stressing anyway.)

Walking with Hobbits

Oh, I have done so little walking this winter. In fact, I have an entire “winter walking” soundtrack on my mp3 player that I never even touched. It's my goal to make sure I'm walking at least every weekend now that the weather's nicer.

Let's see, I'm up to 364.6 miles, which puts me on day 36 between some asshole trolls and Elrond. SO CLOSE.

Make Words Do

AHAHA I am so far behind on posts I'm ashamed to even list what I owe. BUT, I've written two posts in the past two days! I need to keep this momentum going, because I've missed my characters, and everyone else's characters, and their adventures. As the internet says, I've missed my “precious bbs”. So precious. Such bbs. I'm going to start using that phrase in earnest because it's accurate.

This post was going to be longer, I think, but while I'm in training I'm working 6 am to 2 pm, and it's just made me realize: I'm not meant to sleep at night. I'm not. Something went wonky in my genes somewhere and I can only sleep under the soothing light of the daystar. But once I'm on my normal shift I'll be 12:30 am to 8:30 am, so I can come home, sit on the porch with a nightcap and make passers-by think I'm just a drunk, and go to sleep around mid-morning. I'm looking forward to it.

And the point of that was: I'm sleepy.

NEARLY THREE MONTHS LATER...

I passed my certification exam and have been hired as a technician in a nuclear pharmacy starting next week. Done pretty good by the first almost-quarter of the year, all things considered.

Thank you to everyone who offered reassurance and encouragement, here and elsewhere. Depression and logic are almost always at odds (as many of you know), so even if hearing/reading those things from someone else doesn't magically make everything better, it's helpful to have evidence that the non-negative things I'm thinking about myself have some backing in reality. It's also helpful to go back and read them when my mood is not so low. Also, part of the reason I haven't updated here in a while is because I wasn't sure how to express my gratitude in a way that makes sense. I guess I could just say “thank you”, but for some reason it's important that I have a “why” to back it up.

So here's how it went down!

January I did pretty much nothing other than study and/or freak out in my spare time. All my colleagues who knew I was planning to take the exam were convinced I would pass it easily, saying things like “if so-and-so can pass it, then you can definitely pass it”, or “you're not an idiot, you can pass it”. This was not at all helpful! It upped the stakes too much! If I failed, not only would I have to pay if I wanted to take the exam again, but I'd look like a massive tool. Still, I managed to almost convince myself that they were right, and the exam would be super-easy.

OH MY GOD, they were all fucking LIARS. I mean, the test questions are randomized, so maybe the test is usually pretty easy and the universe just decided to dump on me that day. Most of it was hospital-based: procedures and drug families that I never encountered at work in a community pharmacy. Part of the point of studying was to fill in those gaps in my knowledge, but this test was bringing up gaps I didn't even know I had.

Fortunately I'm pretty strong in math, and I think that's what ultimately saved me because I did pass it after all. Then I texted a bunch of people telling them that I wanted to vomit in relief. (Angie: You didn't actually vomit, did you? Me: Not quite!) Now I can put CPhT after my name, which is great because it means I can stop pretending to be esquire just to look all fancy.

The test was February 7th. I gave myself a few days reprieve to celebrate and let the massive wave of relief nausea fade away, and then started casually investigating job postings. I only found one full time position on that first day of searching and I applied for it on a whim. I didn't expect them to actually call me back the following week.

I had a phone interview right there on the spot, and at the end the HR manager said she'd recommend me to the lab director for a second interview. He agreed to see me, and I interviewed with him the week after that (filling the long week in between with more freakouts).

Despite the tension and nervous apprehension I was actually pretty confident: I don't always look good on paper, but I always nail the interview. This one was actually pretty informal. He asked me about my previous work experience, we got a little off-topic, he had one of the other pharmacists show me around the lab, and that was it.

Side note #1: Boy am I grateful for that stint I did working at the Marana Airport. That tends to catch people's attention in a good way, and the guys especially (but not exclusively) tend to get really excited about it. “You used to work on Skyhawks?” “Why? Is that relevant to the job?” “No, but it's AWESOME.”

Side note #2: Apparently the lab director used to work in community pharmacy 15 years ago before switching over to nuclear pharmacy.
Him: Ah, the good ol' “pour, count, lick and stick” as we call it.
Me: Yeah, they don't let us lick things anymore.

The final obstacle was the batch of interviews he had to do following mine, so I spent the next week hoping that no one else would be more awesome than me, and the following week they called to offer me the job. ᕙ(⌐■_■)ᕗ

I start on Monday, WHOOOooooOOOAAAaaaAA. (Nervous and excited.)

Did I mention it's a nuclear pharmacy? Because it's a nuclear pharmacy, which means we deal almost exclusively in radioactive materials, sending them out to various hospitals and then receiving the used containers and instruments because we're the only facility within [huge number of] miles capable of storing them.

My primary job starting out is going to be preparing doses of Technetium-99m to be sent out to local hospitals for use in PET scans and such. After a 90-day probationary period they'll start training me for nuclear pharmacy technician certification, and then I'll be able to put NPhT after my name.

And did I mention this is my first non-temp full time job? FINALLY I AM A MAN. It took me so long to get just this far; I really hope I don't fuck it up.

So that's what I've been up to.

Bonus chibi-Z in lab coat (accidentally summoning demons?) because why the fuck not.

There's nothing like a birthday followed shortly by a new year to make one introspective, and in my case there's nothing like introspection to cause that usual simmering self loathing to heat into a rolling boil.

I keep thinking about this past year and what went wrong with it, and of the year ahead and what I'd like to do to make things better, and I just can't get away from the fact that I'm a 30-year-old who's never held a full time job, or finished my second year of college, who has no marketable skills to allow myself to earn an adequate living despite these setbacks, and who is $10,000 in debt.

I'm trying to become certified in my field, and I find the prospect terrifying because in going over what I want to improve upon myself I realized that every aspect of my life depends on whether or not this happens.

And even if it does happen, I look at all the catching up I have to do and I feel overwhelmed, because this last year - these last ten years - has been a string of failure after failure, and I still can't figure out what's wrong with me or how to fix it, assuming I can fix it.

I haven't felt this low in a long time, and I tried my usual methods of pulling myself out of it - walking, driving, cleaning, straight up escapism - but I feel like I have lead in my limbs and my chest, so I spent New Year's Eve sitting alone in the dark hoping for this to pass or at least for sleep. And I don't know how to get past this right now.

But at the very least, my go-to New Year's song does make me feel a little more peaceful.

"I'm definitely going to get some studying done on this trip!"

"I'm going to clear out ALL MY TAGS before I get home!"

"I'm going to eat all the Mexican food. Every flauta. Every burro. Every re-fried bean. Every Mexican restaurant will shut their doors forever when I leave because there will be no food left because I ate all of it.

"ALL OF IT."

Guess which one of these goals I came closest to achieving.

I finally posted the answers to those questions I requested, a full three weeks later because I am so on top of things that I toppled over the other side. Yes.

Actually, these past two months I've had trouble dealing with my depressed brain, so what productivity and energy I do manage to squeeze out has been devoted to more pressing things, like getting out of bed, going to work, cleaning, studying... mostly that. It could be worse, and I'm assuming my medication is softening the blow, but I'm only taking half the dose I should be and I can't afford to take the full dose. It's frustrating.

Missing my trip back to Arizona certainly did nothing to improve my mood! Not getting to see my friends and family and missing out on the parade and my most favorite holiday, um, sucked. It necessitated a full day of crying in bed in a blanket burrito.

BUT the next day I drove out to Jersey City to deliver supplies for the people affected by Sandy, aaaand I got kind of lost so I got to drive around for a half hour and really see what a mess the storm had made. By the time I delivered the supplies they were full up on volunteers for the day, and I couldn't afford the gas to drive out and help the following day, but at least I managed to be slightly useful.

And Thanksgiving wasn't too bad! That is, I wasn't super upset this year about not being able to be home for the holiday, partially because I'm going to be home for my birthday this year, and partially because last year my family celebrated Thanksgiving in December while I was there. So, not Thanksgiving so much as Beardsleymas. And even if we don't do another Beardsleymas this year I'm still touched by the sentiment. I think the only upsetting thing about not being there was that my mom was really upset. :(

But instead I worked (overtime yessss) and

tatterpixie and I went to

mindsplinters's parents' house for dinner, because her father offered to have a second meal just for us after the extended family had cleared out and we found that offer too damn thoughtful to refuse. AND we had a lovely time!

And now, apropos of NOT A GODDAMN THING, some pictures of the Catalina Mountains at the end of monsoon season (late Aug/early Sep) 2008. They're not the best quality because they were taken on my old Sony Ericsson phone, but I just recently rediscovered them in a long-lost folder and I like them. So I guess it's apropos of that.

Panoramas are hard to do on a cell phone. Especially old, non-smart phones.

( And two more, looking west from Windy Point. )

Current Music: Clark "Plazmataz" Powell - Even in Death (T'Morra's Belly Mix)

Stealing from

prodigy: So I want you to ask me something you think you should know about me. Something that should be obvious but you have no idea about, or something obscure you just have to know. Ask away. All topics, within reason, are open for discussion.

Or just whatever question pops into your head, which is how I interpreted it, because reading comprehension is for people who are not me.

FIRST DAY OFF AFTER EIGHT DAY WORK WEEK!

I AM SO FULL OF JOY TODAY.

THIS REQUIRES THREE ANIMATED GIFS OF CELEBRATION.

It's been a fairly uneventful two weeks! I've had one non-food-based outing - a solo outing - though I did text

mko to let her know I was pining for her and send her disturbing spider pictures.

Said outing was to Lake Nockamixon and the surrounding state park, which I've driven past many times but never explored. I did only a little bit of hiking (because I had to pee XD) and accosted their park office, then tried taking a new road home and got semi-lost.

( A couple of pictures! )

And my favorite picture:

This will be my happy place for the next several days, because...

WOR_xK

I'm currently in the middle of an eight day work week.

t(°_°t)

That's really all I have to say about that.

Walking with Hobbits

The only walking I got done was a measly half a mile on my hike HAHAHAHAHA wait no that's not funny. I'm so tired.

Gastronomic Goodness

Let's see, since we have a visiting Tet we went to the Bookstore Speakeasy again, where I discovered that elderflower liqueur is AMAZING.

I made my chicken casserole of victory again and decided that regular Ritz should not be swapped out for low sodium ones.

Rose and chocolate is probably the best flavor combination on the planet, hands down. Especially in ice cream form.

Also I bought a horned melon but keep forgetting to eat it.

Make Words Do

So this AMV came up in conversation the other day, and it made me think about how my favorite character + drag = happiest Z ever, because I love drag, have you noticed? And I was even more obsessed with it when I was younger, to the point where I had three concurrent RP characters involved in drag in some way.

And then I started wondering why none of my current characters have wound up in drag yet (the obsession slumbers, yet lives!) and then I realized OH RIGHT, I already got Binshou in a dress (or, Marina and Futatsu did), and as for Ari I'm gonna say that dressing up as Dr. Frank-N-Furter counts. So now I just need to get Tetsuya in a dress, and let Akhet have a drag-venture with Vaiko, and Kaminski... oh god, Kaminski.

So I cleared only two tags in the past two weeks, but: work.

A Few Bricks Short of a Wall (Perfect World - Binshou)
Age-Appropriate Attractions (Perfect World - Tetsuya)
I Love the Nightlife...? (Perfect World - Binshou)
Welcome to the Jungle! (Perfect World - Tetsuya)
Elysia: Explorers of Darkness! (Silvermoon)
Burning Water (Kingdom)
That's No Moon... (Silvermoon)
Boot Camp, Part Deux (Kingdom)
Go! Go! Fortress Rangers! (Kingdom)
Weighty Responsibilities (Kingdom)

Second Best Thing on the Internet

I started reading Homestuck (NO, SERIOUSLY!), because I liked the other MS Paint Adventures, and because some of the vid makers I follow in other fandoms had started making some very well-done Homestuck vids, and after watching those enough times I figured I should probably give the source material a shot.

And I was going to go into this whole breakdown of the comic so far, what I find weak and what I downright dislike, what I like and what I think the author does well, blah blah blah, except suddenly my brain cannot process anything other than Rose x Kanaya: the inter-species teen lesbian debatably-canon couple I always needed and never knew I wanted.

OTP OTP OTP oh my god my perfect little ladies you delight my heart.

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
1	2	3	4	5	6	7
8	9	10	11	12	13	14
15	16	17	18	19	20	21
22	23	24	25	26	27	28
29	30	31

Bandolero by Day

Goo Goos Pralines Divinity by Night

ATTACK THE NEW YEAR

some sunny day

circadian rhythmically challenged

Z Esquire

(no subject)

Dream big. Dream x-tra large. Dream DDD.

lost in a foreign land

since I am currently glued to my computer

what chicken?

I invented a new weekday, it's called "fuck it"

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January 2017

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