Tindomiel--43T keeps dropping my acute "o"!

Oh yeah, I haven’t been here for several months have I? Life has been busy…

-I have not touched my savings yet, thanks to unemployment payments (which I still feel kind of guilty for taking, but hey, I paid into the system). I will need to starting next year when my health insurance premiums go back up to the full price (farking COBRA).

-STILL organizing my inventory. So I had a bit of drama with one of my housemates over my volume of stuff and it looks like the way to save everyone’s sanity is for me to divide my studio space between my bedroom and garage. Retooling my plan accordingly.

-Got a lot of script written during November. Taking a break this month.

Now it’s time to look towards phase 3. It’s going to be a long time before I can finish my graphic novel. The thing to do is to fund my continued work on the novel by selling art and jewelry online as soon as the checks end. Which means getting stuff lined up now. I have some designs in the pipeline; the jewelry is not getting done as fast due to the move to re-organize.

...so farking terrified. Five more weeks before I get laid off from my job and I still haven’t solidified my plans. Eeep.

So there’s a local charity that does door-to-door donations pickups for their thrift store once every two months. Clearing out old stuff has never been easier! Well, for me anyhow. Getting the housemates to haul out the rest of their stuff in the garage so I can set up my workshop is going to be a little more difficult.

By convenient coincidence, the med I am on for fibro is a SSNRI, which, unsurprisingly, has also lifted my mood and made me more motivated to go do things. I think the norepinephrine side of this has been extremely important. On SSRIs I was chipper and pain-free but didn’t get much done. Being able to be productive is a positive spiral; being productive makes me happy, which lifts my mood and makes me more productive, etc. I’m still taking Omega-3 pills, and notice that this still has a substantial effect even though I’m already on cymbalta.

I was almost looking forward to getting laid off, too…

Just the news that I may be stuck here another six months until I get my severance is enough to make my physically sick. :p

I had some worrying side effects develop, so I’m on Cymbalta now, and it is going much better save for one thing: I’ve gained weight. Darn, this is supposed to be an appetite suppressant but now I have a constant case of the munchies! Oh well, worth the tradeoff. I think I will stick with this one.

Not sure why it matters anymore, I’ll be a pauper soon enough.

I’ve moved out of the cottage and in with friends, and so far it is pretty awesome. Organizing everything as it is unpacked is proving to be quite the challenge. I have been slogging through my various project deadlines—maybe overextending myself a little bit since I’m so relieved to be feeling better on my new meds. so there haven’t been too many updates as of late. Still learning how to balance. More soon…

I tried to lose as much as I could before moving, but towards the end I ran out of time and had to pack all of the remaining stuff. Curbside donation is on April 2, and I’m trying to get rid of the last of my junk by then.

March: -beading contest for Fire Mountain Gems. Currently working on it. If I win, the prize is enough gift certificate money for me to buy the last bits of equipment I need.- FAIL

May: -taking another crack at carving that stone pendant.- eh, forget it.

I’m convinced, personally, that medicine will advance enough eventually to subdivide fibro into several different syndromes with different modes of treatment. The things that work for different people are so wide-ranging that it seems unlikely that we all have the same underlying mechanisms going haywire.

For now, I’m taking Zoloft, eating right, exercising, taking supplements and taking hot showers/soaking in hot tubs. I drink homemade bone broth twice a day. I know I need a better sleep schedule, because that makes a huge difference. So far, this is enough for me to still function at my job. I’m contemplating some very radical lifestyle changes to help take the load off my system (I think hatred for my job added a lot to my symptoms). I feel optimistic about where things are going from here.

Meds have destroyed my will to practice. I’m kind of pissed off about that, but it means I likely won’t do the YTSO audition, or if I do, just the video part, not the concert bit.

I really do suck at drawing. My problem, especially now, complicated by my health issues, is not the product, which looks good, but the efficiency of my process getting there. I never developed a solid method and so, as they are fond of saying in manufacturing parlance, my process “generates waste”. Getting faster at drawing is going to be crucial for the next several years of my life. Practice, practice, practice…

So, it looks like my plans are going to be accelerated slightly. I’m getting shoved out of my job, and now have to deal with the added complications of being sick. Rather than move out of the Bay Area immediately, I have an offer of reduced-cost sanctuary for a while here. Thus begins my sudden and ungainly transition into Phase II.

• I have saved up enough money to survive unemployed for a year. Unfortunately, I will be using it starting next year.

• no more details about moving.

• still organizing the inventory I’ve acquired from all the fire sales this year. Durable goods are worth it if you don’t plan on moving too much. At least now I have no choice but to get organized, because I’m moving all this stuff out.

• I haven’t completely lost it yet. Go me!

• working on script for comic, still not done with character designs, but ask me about this again in March after the more pressing projects are done. I’ll have plenty of time to work on these after next year anyhow.

• illustration projects have been replaced by craft ones. More on this later.

Projects I will be squeezing in between transition time at work (projects to do after termination TBD):

January: -YTSO auditions. May involve a trip somewhere to record auditions with less ambient noise.- FAIL. Lost my will to practice while I was still on Zoloft.

February: -move out of the cottage. I’m going to need help taking care of myself going forward, so I’m moving in with L.- DONE. This is a decided win.

March: while I still have disposable income, will set up shop and buy any last major tools I need for jewelry. – still working on this!

April-June: will be making a goodbye present for someone.

Past June: I think in terms of getting side cash crafts may be my better bet, so I will probably start on making beads, and also revive the Lúthien costume and the Quenya songs for fun.

1. I have been diagnosed with fibromyalgia. I will probably require meds of some kind for the rest of my life going forward.

2. I will be laid off from my job next year.

Increasingly, I’ve begun feeling that I probably will not be able to reach this savings goal at all. I am desperately in need of a sabbatical; if I get a job again before my severance runs out, I won’t have much of a break. If I wait and give myself a vacation, I will run out of health coverage and it will be difficult to find a job unless I start burning my savings on medical expenses. The third, risky option that presents itself is for me to not actively look for a job and plan on taking that year long break to create now, instead of four years down the road. In other words, this is kind of forcing my hand on the whole art thing. I have a situation now where people are willing to cover my rent if necessary to see me through my launch into a second career. So long as I can make enough to eat and get meds in the meanwhile, I can potentially give myself enough of a time window to finish the script and revise my portfolio.

As I watch the slow-moving trainwreck on my life that is fibromyalgia, I realize that I’m still pretty angry at them. I think part of the problem is their chronic denial of… well, just about everything. They actually think everything’s wonderful and they refuse to react in any way to all indications to the contrary. It so terrifies them to deal with actual issues that they’re simply willing them not to exist.

I feel like I wasted years trying to make them happy, trying to live up to the impossible, and all my plans to undo that damage are falling apart. My savings cushion is nowhere near high enough, and I have no one to fall back on if I become permanently disabled and unable to work. It’s hard not to be angry again.

Well, I guess that was inevitable (I mean, hey I’m writing a script, not a novel, although this script is likely to hit 50k words eventually). I’m happy I’m writing again, though. While I have nowhere near enough time to write 50k by the end of the month, I am surprised that I’ve had time to write at all, given my current circumstances. So, good times.

I got a little… ahem, derailed by a certain ELE music video. So here’s what I’m racing to finish in the last two months of the year:

• clean the goddamn cottage, god damn! I mean shit, look at this place… I’ve been getting better about dumping stuff that needs dumping, though, and people have said they’ve noticed a reduction in the clutter.

• -Na. No. Wri. Mo. Because I am a masochist. On the bright side, I’m doing my script as my NaNo project. Even if I don’t win, I don’t really lose, either, because I get more script done.- FAIL. But it was good to get a few thousand words done. So, not really fail.

• carve pendant for mom’s necklace – her Christmas present, if all goes well. I don’t have as much sentiment invested in this as might be implied. I wanted to try carving, slabs are cheaper than the finished product, and she made a necklace that she can’t find a matching pendant for (that doesn’t cost a bajillion dollars; nobody really carves emeralds anymore). Everybody wins.

• practice for the YouTube Symphony – why am I a sucker for punishment?

In the end I still come out ahead because of employer contributions, and I’m not counting that in my savings total anyhow. But I’ve held onto my god damned CS account because I don’t want to pull out now. Between what’s left in there and what’s socked away in my savings, I am hovering at about 46%.

I’m not sure it’s worth my time and sanity to keep at it.