UFYH – A Most Unreliable Narrator

Wulf-monath

Dear Internet,
Last night when I crawled into bed, way past the witching hour, TheHusband was up watching The Nazi Gospels. Apparently if I need something akin to a sleep aid, docudramas about Third Reich mysticism is it.
The Concerta is doing my head in, I think. My new sleeping pattern has become going to bed between 2AM – 4AM and waking up between 10AM – Noon. Since I’m taking the Concerta when I first wake in the morning, logic would dictate that the late start is causing the shifting of time cycles. When I woke up today, I decided to skip this days dose of Concerta and only take my lithium. It is nearing 9PM, on New Years Eve no less, and I’m yawning like a maniac. Thankfully, TheHusband and I have no plans for this evening, as it would require the putting on of pants. Bed and a book are forthcoming.
One of my projects during our staycation (I do not head back to work until the ninth of January, TheHusband goes back on the second), was to get my office sorted out. It had become a cesspool of everything in the last year and again, the things I could not find or didn’t know I own was becoming really apparent. I’ve seen some postulating across the Internets in the last few days it was bad luck to have a dirty house on the first of the New Year. I’d rather throw salt over my shoulder then get crushed by a falling safe, and since the rest of the house was more or less clean enough, the office got a good unfucking.

I pulled out all the books I had purchased either for research or pleasure and had yet to read and hauled those downstairs and added them to the giant to be read pile in the living room bookcases. So now all of my books, with the exception fo the Kindle ones, are in one spot.
Pulled out all my comics and graphic novels, bags/boards, and took those downstairs as well.
Storage containers of various things from ye olden days were reorganized and put into the office closet.
Random hardware/software was also sorted and put away.
I put my writing desk on the other side of the room and completely cleaned off/put away everything that was once on it. You couldn’t see it under all the books, papers, random bits stockpiled everywhere! The only thing it will house is my my Macbook Air, iPad, and my paper/calligraphy/writing supplies.
The three bookcases were resorted and moved to various places around the room as space allowed.

You can see the final outcome here, here, and here. (Yeah, not so great without the befores, I get you on that, but you have to understand even the dog couldn’t make way to her pillowed bed before the great unfucking.)
I also sorted through mail, got rid of a lot of junk, and finally have space again, which is the whole point of this shenanigans. It also got a good vacuuming, which the dog was nonplussed about when I ran the vacuum up to her pillow bed, with her on it, and she didn’t bat an eye. (But her hair filled up the vacuum canister.)
I’ll need to get TheHusband to put up my diplomas that I had framed earlier in the year this weekend, and I need to replace the magnetic board to go over my writing desk, but I’m pretty pleased how this turned out. With it being a L shaped room, where the foot of the L is not very deep, I’ve been mixing variations since we moved in. A very down the road project is to turn one of the unused basement rooms into my workspace so I can move all the supplies for Excessively Diverting downstairs and have the ability to make giant messes. This would free up even more space in here (right now a lot of the supplies for ED is tidily hiding in the closet.). I’d love to get a reading chair in here but with the current configuration, that would be impossible, but may another configuration later down the road may work.
During the unfucking, when sorting out a few of the older boxes of things, I unleashed some great smell we can’t find the source to. It’s living in the closet, that we know for sure, and it smells like rotten tuna fish. There is no food, mold, or water leaks, so no bloody idea what the hell it is. What I do know is that I’m not opening up that closet door for a very long time.
Compared to NYEs of the past, this one is pretty quiet. 2012 was a big giant year of reflection and making the slow path back towards wholeness. It was painful in a lot of ways, and also a gift in many others. Here’s to making 2013 more powerful than ever.
x0x0,
Lisa

If not then, then now

I knew it was time to take a break after working steadily on cleaning my office for a few hours when I put the carbon copy of a check in the envelope and sealed it without thinking. And my brain has been throbbing for half that time. UFYH rules say you should take breaks every so often to keep your focus up and your mind engaged, brain fatigue is painful when attempting to accomplish something, and when finding the simplest of tasks become too mountainous, it’s time to rest. (But am I not superwoman, who can do everything?)
I noticed that I am finding myself struggle with brain fatigue quite a bit as of late. Conversations that require me to think beyond the shallow depths of my knowledge, books that require me to be more engaged then a passive reader, thoughts that I should have but somehow I can’t find the words to express. My inner world seems so rich and yet, when I go to articulate it, I sound uninformed or even worse, like an idiot.
I can physically feel this barrier that is pitting me against the world, I find it even in my superficial thoughts to be a skim over the edge but when I dig deep, and burrow myself in to find what I’m looking for, then I find myself scraping against the wall, my voice shouting on the inside to let me pass! But nothing happens, no break through and no release. So my words are strangled in my throat, in the elbows of my arm, for they cannot get to my finger tips, in the unknown reaches of neverwhere, where everything goes to live and yet nothing seems to come back alive.
The pug continues snoring on, her cadence is reassuring and at times, the most honest thing in the world.

angry girl is angry

“You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.” – Winston Churchill
My primary work husband let some words slip today, in regards to me, that is currently traveling around our place of work. I wasn’t terribly surprised to hear what was said, though to his credit he gave generalities over specifics, knowing that if I knew more about the situation(s), it would or could make it uncomfortable for me in future interactions. He did, however, throw me a bone in that a female in a similar level and power as myself was, instead of clutching me to her bosom, also responsible for some of what was said. I wasn’t terribly surprised to hear that she was making noises about me, but, I was genuinely distressed to hear that she felt it necessary to gingerly throw me under the bus rather than embrace our uniqueness.
This is also not the first time, nor will it be the last, where my character has or will be called into question. Not in this current postion, nor in the past positions I’ve held. In the past, I’ve typically placed the blame on myself: I was too opinionated, too honest, too many whateverits and thus, it almost always got me in trouble. My work ethic and job performances were never criticized, no, but my personality often was. I’ve always taken responsibility and the blame for these things when it has happened, even if I was in right, because work politics is work politics, no matter how inane and how misguided they may be. As Omar from The Wire keeps saying, “You’ve got to play the game before the game plays you.”
Continue reading “angry girl is angry”

the perfect storm

is how my GP referred to my left eye. Random hemorrhaging that randomly appeared on a random day last week. The “perfect storm” attribution comes as I hit all the elements just right (allergies with allergy meds waning, working out in the garden, a sneeze) was all it took to look like I had tangled with a liger.
Several days later, I had a massive anxiety attack while at work, the first one in months.
And I believe the hemorrhage and the anxiety attack are related.
It’s time to strip naked everything.

Day 13: Tales of the Blue Monarch Unlocked

Not much terribly to report for Sunday. TheHusband and I went to Meijer Gardensto take advantage of the beautiful 60F+ weather we were having and he had never been, so we thought why the fuck not? The downfall was that the gardens were not in bloom and the interior + sculpture park were jammed with kids with overly engaged parents. By overly engaged, I mean parents who completely disregarded the signs to not touch the sculptures and letting their children use them as play things. We saw more people posing pictures with their kids to illustrate WHAT A FUN TIME THEY WHERE HAVING over, you know, actually having a fun time.
Continue reading

Day 12: Unlocked

Broke down all the recycling and stuffed our 96 gallon recycling bin. Recycling pick ups in GRap are every OTHER week. Thanks to Amazon.com Prime, we keep UPS delivery guy busy and our recycling bin filled to near overflowing.
In an attempt to unfuck the porcelain cooktop to our gas stove, we found Barkeeper’s Friend, which unfucked a lot of the mess TheHusband tends to leaves behind when he cooks and which I can never get clean. It also apparently works well with stainless steel sinks, so you know what is going to get unfucked next. Huzzah!
Unloaded the diswasher, reloaded it. Washed the hand-wash only pots and wiped the sink down.Then put away ALL THE THINGS. Countertop AND sink are now empty!
Cleaned down the working areas in the kichen, EVEN PICKING UP THE THINGS I USUALLY WIPE AROUND, and put all putable items away.

ProTip: You know the problem with having a house that is 3200 sqft (297.28 m2) and served over three floors? You need 3x as much shit! You don’t “a” broom, you need THREE brooms (one on each floor). Thus, for every X thing we need for one floor, rule goes you need the same item on other floors. Yes, yes, you could argue you could have one thing and carry it between floors, but let me tell you, that shit gets old quick. Especially with cleaning supplies.
Continue reading

Day 12: A few weeks of fail

The runic symbol of thorn, on my left wrist, done by Gareth Hawkins at Wealthy Street Tattoo.

If plans had gone the way they were supposed to, I’d be writing a little snarky aside right now on Day 12 in the UFYH movement and how my life was coming together nicely. The previous 11 days would have been already posted on the Internet, keeping myself in check. I would be less stressed, more relaxed, and better organized.
Instead, you get one giant post filled with snarls and teeth gnashing.
Day one was as it was to be: Clothes laid out the night before, coffee made for the morning, lunch/breakfasts made and packed. Most of everything laid out in this reminder post over at UFYH is what I do (more or less) on a regular basis prior to my discovering UFYH but this time I did ALL THE THINGS. The morning the first went without a hitch as I woke up on time, did my five minute yoga and seven minute writing bits and the rest of the day, since I was not stressed, flowed as smooth as a baby’s bottom. I even started laying out the post I was going to write for that day. But something – IT IS ALWAYS SOMETHING – ate in my world and well, the post was never written and the days that followed were a complete and utter fail because of a hiccup, I tore the entire project down in my head.
Continue reading

Unfucking Throbbing Manor

Recently, I saw a bit of Tumblr posts on Twitter scroll on by from Cat Valente, which the titles lead me curious and curiouser down the dark rabbit hole that is Tumblr. I was fine with this since the occasional tapping of the Tumblr vein never really hurt anyone and Cat’s posts all pointed to the nirvana – a blog called Unfuck Your Habitat.
After perusing the site for a bit, it took me a minute to figure out that Unfuck Your Habitat builds/uses the same methods as The Fly Lady, only in a more OMGBBQ and animated gifs heavy way, with a teensy dose of profanity. Which if I’m honest amongst my close friends here on the intarwebs, I’m moar likely to use something where “fuck” is sprinkled liberally about and the cherry on top are vaguely obnoxious animated gifs say over a site that seems to be geared towards, well, women I’d like to strangle on a daily basis.
The premise is simple: You find something you want to unfuck and you unfuck it. It can be as small as simply taking the steps to making your bed everyday and laying out that day’s clothes the night before or even just unfucking an area that is always in a cluster and working on keeping that unfucked on a more regular basis. In an related but not kind of way, I’ve been working on unfucking my emotional/creative life for the last month by meditating every morning for five minutes and then writing for 7 minutes before I begin my day. And by “begin my day,” I mean pour coffee down my throat in order to become human.
Continue reading “Unfucking Throbbing Manor”