less than this

As further evidence that despite my best intentions to do so, I am not actually keeping up with posting to my online journal, even about quite important events, you will note that there isn't yet a post here about my impending wedding.

Well, I suppose there is now, but... You know what I mean.

Admittedly, we'd only just decided to go ahead with the date and general plan last Monday (one week ago), and I worked a bunch of overtime, then Thanksgiving, then an insane Black Friday and all day Saturday devoted to our new SubZero fridge (new to us, and a steal at only $300, from Stardust)... But enough excuses for not posting the details, on to the details:

Mandy and I are getting married on Saturday, December 1st, 2007 at Excalibur in Las Vegas, NV.

If you haven't been invited, and would like to attend and can get there on no notice, please let me know. I recently lost a lot of my contact info, and may not be able to get hold of you. Sorry.

Anyway, that's coming up in a few days, now, so I thought I ought to post something about it. It's big news, I know, but ... Yeah, I guess I'm just not keeping up with my online journal.

I haven't been this totally bi-polar since I was a teenager. Mood swings are one thing, but this is getting out of hand. Luckily, in a way, my manic is suppressed enough that I don't literally tear down walls or quit jobs in it, and my depression isn't suppressive enough that it can break my intensely conditioned rut of a routine life. Which is somewhat to say; I've carefully crafted a life, selected a job, where I can be totally non-present mentally and still semi-functional, and I've got myself so well trained that I don't even show up late for work when I'm in the middle of a suicide, I just mosey on in and do my job all the while. Heck, while I didn't exactly "hit my goals" for the day, neither did anyone else, and aside from the one employee I know isn't actually doing the job right, I'm the only one who even came close on Sunday by about 33%. To re-iterate, and clarify: while in the process of actively killing myself, while so dead and low and depressed that I couldn't find a reason to stay alive (Sara didn't help - she just said no again), I still did about a third more work on Sunday than the other people who were there. The people who weren't experiencing hyponatremia or major depression. Because it's rote, it's repetitive, and I can practically do it in my sleep.

I can't get myself to shave or shower or brush my teeth or even eat or masturbate (two things I enjoy quite a bit) on any continuous schedule. The "Eat Only/Whenever You're Hungry Diet" I am a proponent of, I thought up because it is somewhere between "don't eat unconsciously or as something to do when bored" and "don't forget to eat because you're too depressed / manic". I have trouble remembering to do my laundry, water the trees, whatever. But work. Work I can show up to on time, consistently. Or school, which was just another job. Repetitive. Familiar.

It's pretty easy, actually, for me to show up to (nearly) every Write-In for NaNo. it's almost as easy as work. I can even go when I'm depressed, when I'm feeling terrible, suicidal, happy, horny, whatever, it's a repetitive, set schedule, out of my hands, it's easy to show up. I don't really understand why. When I set a meeting time with someone else, that's easier to show up to than just making plans for myself; perhaps it's my overblown sense of responsibility. When I say I'm going to meet a writing group at Willow House (or wherever) twice a week, every week, to write and work on writing, that's easy -- Heck, it's hard to stop, even with good reason. When I tell myself I'll work on writing at least 8 hours a week, or when I tell myself I'll go to the Willow House (or wherever) once a week or twice a week or twice a month (that's harder than ever week, for me, btw), and force myself to sit down and work -- I peter out, quickly. Sometimes before the first time I go. If there were even just one other person I was meeting, I wouldn't miss it. I'd probably be early.

(more...)

I am somewhat stuck, here. I want this to be written. Until I write it, I will want it to be written. The ideas, the story (the memories), will be with me and torment me, begging to be let out of my head and put down on paper until I give up, give in to it. Yet for some reason, this part of it comes slowly. If it all comes this slowly, it will kill me, it will drag out for months, more years. On the other hand, I want to "succeed" at NaNoWriMo this year. To prove that I can do it. That I've still "got it". All I've finished since the last year I succeeded at NaNo is ... wait, well, two novels and two poetry books and the bigger step of actually going 'legit'. I guess I can't really discourage myself too much; I'm not as much a failure as I'd like to be able to tell myself I am (for whatever reason). One of the novels was written in a couple of weeks, the other in ~3 days work, and the first poetry book was composed in less than a week. I have 22, 23 days left in the month. Several long weekends. I can do this. Don't give up.

Started NaNoWriMo tonight. I've never done the whole "start at midnight on 11/1" thing before. Went to the IHOP, met with the other novelists, totally had a great time. Especially nice seeing a couple of (hot) friends from the old days who apparently didn't turn on me, and in fact were very happy to see me NaNo'ing again. Being liked is so much better than being loathed. Hooray, social!

The novel I've started (500 words so far, and yes, I ended on a complete sentence) is ... well, I'm writing another NaNo novel where the main characters are participating in NaNoWriMo. But... They say "write what you know" and I've been doing NaNo since 2002; I know this. Plus, it's a great story. or, I think it is, based on hearing myself tell it over and over again in the last few years. I'd thought it would make a good graphic novel (it still might), but I'm going to try to write it as a "regular" novel for now. I've been putting it off, but it seems totally appropriate to write a NaNo novel as my NaNo novel. ---On the other hand, many central elements are inspired by real life events (but highly fictionalized and in some cases people and events are combined to enhance the storyline, based on my rough outlines), and there's the possibility that it will be too emotionally difficult to write at this time, on account of I'll inevitably be rememberizing the actual events that it's inspired by... and if that's the case, I have plenty of other books to write. Worst-case, I grab my partially written Sin Eater story I didn't finish last year, and try to finish it this year.

Okay. Sleep. Have to get up tomorrow and go to another write-in.