Christopher Bodan

June 30, 2009

It's a waxing moon, a good time for changes. Not necessarily a time for good changes.

That's a bit cynical, and truth to tell, not entirely accurate. All meaningful change comes with a degree of pain and adjustment. Mostly, I think one's view on it is determined by how one feels about the particular pain and adjustment involved. How do you feel about what you've gained and lost? I'm starting to understand that there are different kinds of loosing.

It took me a long time to realize that the things I most value are things I can't hold or dust or play with. (Well, J's the obvious exception, of course, though she rarely stays still very long for the dusting.) This seems trite, I know, but it's one thing to hear it and know it and another to understand it. I find I would not trade away most of my experiences because they have made me who I am, and I rather like that guy. I do like physical things (but not, in truth, dusting them), and I appreciate books and a nice table and a good computer and such. I like the quality of life such things provide. Sure as hell beats sleeping on the street and many levels in between here and there.

And yet, there are times when I look at all these things in need of dusting and think of Fight Club. "Sooner or later, the things you own end up owning you." Still, that's not the problem. It's not about acquisition or ownership, it's about the comfort and security the things represent. It's about the resources to acquire the things, rather than the actual acquisition, and that's the rub. I find I like resources. I like the chance to not worry about money.

But how many people really don't worry about money? You don't worry about money so long as you stay within your means, as long as you know the money will keep coming. And so you worry about staying within your means and keeping the money coming. That's really worrying about money. It's something to keep in mind, but the moment it ceases to be only a part of your thinking and comes to dominate your thinking, you're lost. The moment you're driven by fear of losing what you have, you're ruled by your fear. That's no way to live.

Still, most people live that way, they live that way their whole lives and never know anything better. I've done it, I admit it. Hell, I'm doing it now. It's one of the things that has kept me from submitting stories like I should, that's kept me from finishing so many of them. It's taken me a long time to recognize it, but I hope it doesn't take me nearly as long to fix it. I'm tired, being afraid wears you out, but it's the fear I'm most tired of. I don't want to be afraid anymore. I don't want to lie awake at night feeling my stomach cramp and fighting hot flashes. It's going to hurt, and there are things I'll have to lose, but that is the story of life: pain and loss and the most beautiful miracle in all creation. I think what I'm starting to fear most is contentment. I want to be happy, and enjoy a degree of comfort, but I think I'm done with letting that be enough.

A waxing moon. Good time for changes.

The days have stretched long, and I have turned wearing with the dearth of darkness. Leaves in full green, grass reaching high (again), and the sun drives off both clouds and shadows. The king grows strong. *sigh*

Not that I'm complaining, really. I suppose I've always been a dark half sort of fellow. I always preferred the autumn. In the east, this meant cooling days and longer nights, breezes and turning leaves and the promise of snow. It meant a relief from the heat and humidity that characterizes so much of memory. I think of mists and harvests and fog and soft lights when you want to keep reading because it's too early for bed.

I still get a charge out of the change of seasons, especially from summer to autumn. Even out here where the summer does not oppress the crispness of the air, the returning clouds, the sudden sharpness in the breeze, all give me rush. It's remarkable to me how much my mood improves and my energy. I find myself setting goals by it; "I don't want to spend another autumn in this job," things of that nature.

It's funny, though, that this year I've perked up with the sun. I suppose I always do to some extent - the spring is, after all, the time when school ended, when the camping season began in earnest, when I found I had time to waste in ways of my choosing. Still, it's unusual for me in some ways. I suppose I might finally be acclimating to living out here and finding relief as the clouds recede. Well, we'll see. Come August, I always get to a point where I long for clouds and rain.

This post has sat for way too many days, so I'm going to put it up now. I hoped to come up with something to tie the whole thing together at the end, but you'll just have to settle for my random ramblings. :)

Found something that I thought interesting and thought the people I know who loved movies more than I do would find still more interesting. What cinched it for me was the last paragraph (as is only proper), but you need to see the whole thing to appreciate it.

Around 11 hours of work today. Not as much as some, I know, but I like having a job where I go home after 8 or so. Thus the ugh.

Writing still coming slowly, still a struggle. I still can't say exactly why.

No, for those curious souls, we did not see the bear the other night.

I'm also feeling like I'm fighting something off, possibly the kind of nasty chest cold that's circulated at the office, but it's hard to tell it apart from some of my more common reactions the ungodly pollen counts this year.

On the whole, well, ugh. I'll get over it, really. And at some point, I'll post something other than me complaining. I promise.

Friday, May 1st.

Happy Friday. Happy May Day. Happy Beltane.

Tired; can't seem to get to sleep before 11:30 (minimum) and can't seem to stop waking before 6:30. Miss J (home soon!). Miss something resembling my routine, which I find ironic since I seem to enjoy minor chaos so much. I suppose the emphasis needs to be on 'minor' and specifically as it fits into a larger pattern. The universe is layers of order and chaos superimposed on each other. I don't see any reason to live any other way.

That said, I need a little more order. I need to set about a half dozen things to rights, and then I can proceed on my merry, chaotic way. Until then, everything is slightly skewed and out of joint.

For those looking for a bit of levity in a growing crisis, this should help; at least, it helped me.

Right. Back to it.

Okay, I had decided (some weeks ago now) to wait a bit before posting again. Basically, I had put up the last entry in a fit of happiness regarding the Sounder's first game, and I didn't want the next few entries to be "Yeah! Soccer!!!1!". So I figured I'd wait. Obviously, I proved too successful at this. So, do what I'm doing: don't think of it as failing to update, think of it as overachieving.

Or something.

At any rate, Project: Recovery has had its sputtering start, and the old rhythm is coming back. I don't know why it's so hard, or so slow, but it is. Persistence, child. This too shall pass.

Like the subject line says.

First game, and quite a good start for a season and a franchise. It's been tried before here, several times, but this seems like a solid effort, and I sincerely hope it succeeds. And not just because I've got season tickets. Yeah, okay, sure that's part of it, but I also find myself appreciating other aspects of the franchise.

What I've always hated about "local" sports teams is that they're not "local" really. Yes, a number of players put down roots and buy car dealerships and such, but for the most part, the players are professionals moving from one company to another. The guy who plays for Pittsburgh for a year and then moves to Cleveland and then to Boston doesn't care much about any of those places. And why should he? Likewise, the franchises are business, plain and simple, and their first concern is business, not the local community. Said community isn't even really their customers, per se, as the money most large sports teams makes comes from sources other than tickets. There are notable exceptions, but by and large, "local" sports teams aren't much more "local" than the "local" Citibank branch.

This incarnation of the Sounders is something of an exception to that, or promises to be. True, the stand-out player this evening was a guy from Columbia named Fredy Montero. And the big name that has people talking certainly isn't from around here. But Kasey Keller the goalkeeper is a local boy (well, Lacey, but that's close enough), and in my mind that bodes well. Additionally, one of the co-owners has some ideas about team management that I found fascinating and that seem to be in place. Moreover, the team has a stated goal (restated by the majority owner before tonight's game) of giving people coming up through regional youth soccer programs a shot at joining the roster. Honestly, those things answer most of my issues. I'm left with a strange feeling of being unable to gripe about a major sports team in a larger sense. It's...unsettling, in a way, because I find myself without reasons not to just sit back (or stand, as we did for much of the night) and enjoy the game.

Which I did. This came as a give from ironymaiden for Yule in 2007. She got me a chance to buy tickets. I bought tickets probably nine months ago; something like that. We set the time aside, planned the day, etc., but none of it was real until I stood eight rows from the field and felt the breeze swirl through the stadium. It wasn't a spectacular game. New York played unevenly, and though they challenged well at the top of the second half, it dropped off after about fifteen minutes. The Sounders are still a little rough around the edges, and it took a bit for them to find their rhythm together. On the whole, however, I had a blast. I'm looking forward to doing this again next weekend and, I suppose, just enjoying it.

ETA: They fired off silver streamers before the start of the game. I nearly had J convulsing when I told her to take cover from the Thread.

At ironymaiden's suggestion (nay, insistence) I provide you with possibly one of the most awesome I have seen in a long, long time. Sure it's "extreme", but please don't hold that against it. Better with sound, but quite good without.

I mean, Pong. Seriously.

Blech.

It's morning, I'm at work, and the headache has already begun. Things do, I've noticed, even in the passive: "Subject" "Verbs". Sometimes things accomplish tasks simply by doing what they do normally. Fluorescent lights, for example, hum. Hum, lights, hum. They also creep around the edges of my vision and grind into my eyes. Light has a way of doing that. I used to know a welder who explained why they wear the wrap-around masks for some things rather than goggles. He said the worst pain he'd ever experienced was after a few hours of wearing the wrong eye protection. Even though he was directly protected from the light, enough of it seeped through his peripheral vision to leave him in bed for a few days. I recall he mentioned some screaming.

Clouds cover, apparently. Just by their nature, that's what they do. Normally I have no objection to this, but today it means that they're not letting any sunshine in through the windows to cut the fluorescents. I'm tired, because I can't seem to get to bed before 11:00 (my fault) or to sleep past 6:30 (NOT my fault), which only adds to the unhappy. Now I'm just being cranky. And critique tonight, which means I probably won't get my desired two hours writing on this evening either. *sigh* Last night was cleaning, and it was very good, but J is right; if I don't get the chance to force stories out through my fingers I get unpleasant.

Okay, so that's out of my system. Sorry folks. This is a journal after all, however public. All right, coffee and then back to the grind.

Just a few more hours and I can put a bullet into this work day. I've got stuff to do, people! Critiquing, writing, fluttering over not-as-well-as-she-could-be wife. You know, Stuff. (Okay, so I don't 'flutter' well, but you get the idea.)

*Sigh* This 'paying bills' crap is for the birds.

Someday we'll stop making movies about Nazis. I mean, they're outstanding villains; they're undilutedly evil, no argument. That means they tend to get overused, though. I'd kind of like to see villains act evil without being evil by unconscious definition. Just looking for a little variety, that's all.

Anyway...Oscars mostly good.

And, it looks like Nathan Fillion has a new show. Still not enough to make me watch TV.

And now a musical number. Ignore what I said above the last comment.

Winter is winding down, which makes me think I should use this icon while it's still thematically appropriate. As further evidence of the season progression, we went to Carkeek Park on Saturday, where J took many pictures. We followed a trail up towards the school that borders the park and got a picture of the first robin either of us had seen this year. Then we walked through the lower meadow towards the sound and saw a million of the little buggers digging through the damp soil for worms. People forget that birds are omnivores. We had an excellent time and did not exhaust the park's potential. It reminded me that I miss trees. Seattle is remarkably green, and I couldn't live here otherwise, but I'm not a city boy. I grew up with regular outings to woods, and we haven't done that since we moved, really. Rickett's Glen was an easy drive from where we lived in PA, and we visited often. Outrageously beautiful. We're both reticent about camping in the NW, since we don't know the local flora and fauna like we did the ones we grew up with, but it's getting to the point now where we're going to overcome that through desperation rather than preparation I think.

So, I wrote a story this week. I haven't started and finished a story quite this way for a good long time, and I enjoyed it. I'm not sure it's particularly good, but it's done (revising excepted) and that's going to have to be enough for now. It's a good step, and that pleases me.

Chocolate croissant = not worth it. Not bad so much as not good. Nuts. Funny how something small like that can throw a wrench into an otherwise pleasant day. Oh, wait.

Sigh.

Just a quick update because I'm feeling lousy for not doing it sooner. Shows you where my head's at. I'm officially back at work, at the same place, doing the same stuff for different (mostly) clients. *Shrug* It pays the bills. Thanks everyone for your sympathy and suggestions. It's been a weird year and we're only six weeks in.

More, doubtless, to come.

Well, I am officially a victim of the economic slowdown. The client decided that, to meet their bottom line, they needed to reduce their documentation work. By about half. Sucks to be me, and around half the rest of the team, as it happens. There's a perverse satisfaction in not being alone in this but not a tremendous amount.

Sigh.

So, now I've got some time on my hands. I've got stuff to do, of course: apply for unemployment, brush up the resume, clean the house, that sort of thing. In a weird way, however, I'm kinda looking forward to it (in a this-really-hasn't-sunk-in-yet kind of way). I've got time to do stuff, stuff I keep wishing I'd get off my ass and do when I got home from work but just can't seem to muster the mental energy for. So, we'll see how that goes.

Sitting at work, trying desperately to find something to bill the hours for.

Nuts.

Worked more on book last night, which felt good. Chapter two is shaping up nicely on revisit, but I need to smooth the new bits more and be very careful with the psychic distance on my protagonist. It may take sticking notes all over the place to remind me that we get closer to her the closer she feels to whoever else is in the scene and further away as she withdraws.

With luck, I'll get chapter two done (enough) by Sunday. Three is in a good place already. Four is too abrupt and random, but that will come together fine. Honestly, the first act is really pretty solid, though the work will come in reworking eternal chapter six. Even that, though, doesn't daunt me as much as facing act II. *deep breath* One word at a time.

By the way, The Historian is outstanding, and definately worth reading first.

Also, the new icon is courtesy of ironymaiden Industries, part of their wonderful family of products, services, and snark.

There it is, scattered in front of me in all its accusing white-paper glory.

The first five chapters run to 72 pages together.

Chapter six is 96 pages.

At some point, obviously, I simply gave up.

The task: 1) break all this apart into scenes done
2) reconstruct it using the revised outline

*sigh*

One step at a time. Each day a little better. Deep breath.

(The title, by the way, refers to the day that I completed Chapter 6. I just need a minute to soak up how much I suck, then I'll move on. Almost over it...)

The funny part is that I'm enjoying this. It feels good to work on it, even if it's daunting and a little frustrating. I will finish this. It will be good. It will lead to bigger and better things.


(Almost over it, I swear...)

I'm struck by our (meaning human beings) fascination with the different. Something that seems perfectly logical at the time becomes bizarre and grotesque with some distance. Follow the logical train: Chicken is caught in a snow storm and frozen; chicken farmer finds the bird and takes her into the house to hold for burial once the weather clears; chicken thaws and farmer discovers she has a pulse; farmer uses hot water bottle, improvised CPR, and finally mouth-to-beak resuscitation to revive the chicken. Makes perfect sense in context, but watching it, those of us disconnected from the chain of events see it as weird and noteworthy.

My wife chooses strange things to watch on the Xbox.

(For those of you wondering, this was my evening.)

I found something in Alabama to interest me (other than my cousin). No offense to anyone, but I've been pleased to discover someone with a similar attitude to popular culture and literature in the South (other than my cousin). cleolinda keeps a journal that, frankly, kept me awake at work last week. Her recaps and commentary on Twilight has saved me from reading the books or seeing the movie, thank the gods. I enjoy her work tremendously and look forward to seeing how True Blood.

To update: Those of you (and I honestly think it's all of you, really) who read my wife's journal already know about our trip to Europe, the settling into my new job, and the visit from my brother. I suppose there could be more details (especially on the latter), and perhaps I shall provide them eventually. I find it sort of redundant to talk about the things going on in my life when I have someone who derives so much obvious pleasure from doing just that.

So, I'll try and devote this space to occasional observation and other materials.

Later.

( This is long and ranty, so click at your own risk. )