Title: Coyote Songs
Author: Gabino Inglesias
Publisher: Broken River Books Date: 2018
This is another book that I wish I had a physical copy for my personal library. The Kindle edition is fantastic. The font was such that I didn't need my reading glasses. Again, this was a great thing.
I'm not sure where to begin. This book tells several stories all at the same time. Each of them is heart rending. Each of them is horrific. And yet, in the conclusion of the book, there is some form of solace in a curious manner. Mr. Inglesias's writing style is tight and fast paced. It was easy to get lost in the book because of how quickly he moves the story along. It is like being caught up in a river and next thing you know an hour's gone by and you can't put the book down. His deft handling of the very human emotions of the characters, even the most monstrous of them, makes just about all of them easy to empathize with. This is precisely why the plot twists are like a punch in the gut. Mr. Inglesias has an excellent sense of dramatic timing an keeps his readers on tenterhooks through out the entire wild ride.
10/10
Originally Published: 5/10/2019
The original post has a link to where you can purchase a copy. I whole heartedly encourage you to do so. I'm sure that we're going to see more amazing work from Mr. Inglesias
Friday, May 10, 2019
Book Review: A Slip of the Keyboard
Title: A Slip of the Keyboard
Author: Sir Terry Pratchett
Publisher: Anchor Date: 2014
ISBN: 0804169225
I wish that I had a physical copy for my personal library. That said, the Kindle edition was very easy to read and well formatted. I highly recommend it on the basis of the fact that font size was very easy on my eyes. (AKA I didn't need my new reading glasses to read it. It was great.)
The forward was written by Sir Pratchett's friend Neil Gaiman. It give a brief and intimate glimpse into the relationship between these two writers. It is also something of a peek at the man behind the phenomenon of the Discworld series through the eyes of someone who knew him closely.
The collected non-fiction essays and short works were a delight to read. I found Sir Pratchett's account of his life as an author on tour especially entertaining. His writings with respect to Alzheimer's disease were both heart breaking and inspiring at the same time. I couldn't help but be in awe of the fact that in the face of such a serious and degenerative disease, Sir Pratchett fought with words against the stigma of having Alzheimer's and for better care for people who had early onset Alzheimer's disease, like himself. It was especially moving to see how he noted his position of wealth allowed him better access to care and his demand that others not need to jump through so many hoops to get the care they need.
A Slip of the Keyboard was a relatively quick read. It was not the light hearted fare that one typically expects of Sir Pratchett's work but it gives a deeper look into the mind behind the Discworld series. That in turn illuminates the Discworld series and all of his other work to give one a better grasp of what Sir Pratchett was attempting to convey through his work.
Originally Posted: 5/10/2019
Edited to fix typos.
Author: Sir Terry Pratchett
Publisher: Anchor Date: 2014
ISBN: 0804169225
I wish that I had a physical copy for my personal library. That said, the Kindle edition was very easy to read and well formatted. I highly recommend it on the basis of the fact that font size was very easy on my eyes. (AKA I didn't need my new reading glasses to read it. It was great.)
The forward was written by Sir Pratchett's friend Neil Gaiman. It give a brief and intimate glimpse into the relationship between these two writers. It is also something of a peek at the man behind the phenomenon of the Discworld series through the eyes of someone who knew him closely.
The collected non-fiction essays and short works were a delight to read. I found Sir Pratchett's account of his life as an author on tour especially entertaining. His writings with respect to Alzheimer's disease were both heart breaking and inspiring at the same time. I couldn't help but be in awe of the fact that in the face of such a serious and degenerative disease, Sir Pratchett fought with words against the stigma of having Alzheimer's and for better care for people who had early onset Alzheimer's disease, like himself. It was especially moving to see how he noted his position of wealth allowed him better access to care and his demand that others not need to jump through so many hoops to get the care they need.
A Slip of the Keyboard was a relatively quick read. It was not the light hearted fare that one typically expects of Sir Pratchett's work but it gives a deeper look into the mind behind the Discworld series. That in turn illuminates the Discworld series and all of his other work to give one a better grasp of what Sir Pratchett was attempting to convey through his work.
Originally Posted: 5/10/2019
Edited to fix typos.
AW: Morning (nope) post No. 8
I'm sitting here and it is almost time to make dinner. It's been a long miserable day for me. I love the rain. The sound of it is so peaceful. But, I hate the rain because rainy days make my depression act up. It has been a day of alternating rain and mostly clouds. There was a little bit of sun when I was getting my youngest child off the school bus this afternoon, but not much. And since that front passed through, things are much cooler than they were yesterday.
I have been trying to push through the depression when it rolls over me. It has been very hard. I just want to sleep and I feel as though I should hide somewhere and cry when the weather turns bad. I'm not sure, but I'm starting to suspect there is some kind of trauma memory attached to this kind of weather. The thing is, I have lived through so much trauma, I honestly have no idea where to begin sorting that out.
I used to love storms with high winds. I have a mild fear of tornadoes, but the sound of the wind howling along with the thunder crashing used to make my blood pump and my heart go pitter-pat. Now, I feel this cold sense of dread. It is probably tied to what ever is the cause of my getting depressed when the weather is overcast, chill, and there's precipitation.
I don't know what to write, hence my rambling about this stuff. I don't have any forward momentum going on book seven. It has been languishing for a few weeks because I have written myself into a corner. I think I'll be deleting a big section and re-writing it. I'm just not happy with it and I find myself looking at it as terribly contrived. Deus ex machina is a thing but I try not to use it very much this way when I do use it, it has some effect. I try to make it so that the characters are in a position of awe and wonder when deities and demigods are around them. I don't want these characters to be ho-hum about the fact that there's a shape shifting dragon near by. I don't want them to get comfortable with the fact that there is a demigod in their company.
I feel like with this section of book seven, I have taken the awe out of these interactions and made them into something rote. I don't like that. It feels like a bad role playing game session where the dungeon master has decided to flex their might to force the players along a path for the sake of their convenience rather than allowing the story to develop on its own. I've never liked games where that happened. At one point, I had a DM decide that my character was going to get seduced regardless of if it made sense in the plot or if I wanted it to happen to my character. Rolls were made, and while that non player character was getting the benefit of natural 20s, I wasn't playing the reaction he wanted. My character loved the NPC like a little brother and not like a lover. The DM tried to push the issue and it was making me uncomfortable and angry. That was when I stood up to grab the fire poker in the joists of the ceiling of the room we were playing in to beat him literally. And that's when the game ended with the DM making lewd 'jokes' at me and insisting that I was a bad player for not going along with essentially my character getting raped.
I quit gaming for a while after that. But it gave me fodder for how to describe a scene like that and that guy was no longer a friend. When we met several years later, he tried to give me a hug and I told him if he laid one finger on me I was going to punch him in the face. He was irate. Called me a cold bitch before stalking off. I knew that he had a crush on me. I had been kind and polite when I turned down his advances because I was already with someone. Apparently, I should have just beaten him up to make clear that I didn't want that kind of attention.
He wanted to make a comic book at one point in time. He tried to get me to write stories for him. I wrote a few scenes and he was upset that there was nothing remotely sexy in them. I stopped writing scenes for him. That really should have been my first clue that he was going to get aggressive with his attentions towards me. My discomfort with the bad DM's attitude and sense of entitlement translated into discomfort writing erotica.
I haven't quite fully recovered from that. Doesn't help that [redacted] insisted that I write him erotica while he was stationed overseas (and it had to be of a specific sort that he preferred). [Redacted] insisted I write him things like that when we were dating before he joined the military. I was embarrassed by it but I wrote it because then he was less likely to hurt me or do something that would humiliate me to punish me for not doing what he wanted. [Redacted] was a world class asshole, to put it very lightly. I still kinda regret not letting him get hit by that truck when he was jaywalking.
I have been trying to push through the depression when it rolls over me. It has been very hard. I just want to sleep and I feel as though I should hide somewhere and cry when the weather turns bad. I'm not sure, but I'm starting to suspect there is some kind of trauma memory attached to this kind of weather. The thing is, I have lived through so much trauma, I honestly have no idea where to begin sorting that out.
I used to love storms with high winds. I have a mild fear of tornadoes, but the sound of the wind howling along with the thunder crashing used to make my blood pump and my heart go pitter-pat. Now, I feel this cold sense of dread. It is probably tied to what ever is the cause of my getting depressed when the weather is overcast, chill, and there's precipitation.
I don't know what to write, hence my rambling about this stuff. I don't have any forward momentum going on book seven. It has been languishing for a few weeks because I have written myself into a corner. I think I'll be deleting a big section and re-writing it. I'm just not happy with it and I find myself looking at it as terribly contrived. Deus ex machina is a thing but I try not to use it very much this way when I do use it, it has some effect. I try to make it so that the characters are in a position of awe and wonder when deities and demigods are around them. I don't want these characters to be ho-hum about the fact that there's a shape shifting dragon near by. I don't want them to get comfortable with the fact that there is a demigod in their company.
I feel like with this section of book seven, I have taken the awe out of these interactions and made them into something rote. I don't like that. It feels like a bad role playing game session where the dungeon master has decided to flex their might to force the players along a path for the sake of their convenience rather than allowing the story to develop on its own. I've never liked games where that happened. At one point, I had a DM decide that my character was going to get seduced regardless of if it made sense in the plot or if I wanted it to happen to my character. Rolls were made, and while that non player character was getting the benefit of natural 20s, I wasn't playing the reaction he wanted. My character loved the NPC like a little brother and not like a lover. The DM tried to push the issue and it was making me uncomfortable and angry. That was when I stood up to grab the fire poker in the joists of the ceiling of the room we were playing in to beat him literally. And that's when the game ended with the DM making lewd 'jokes' at me and insisting that I was a bad player for not going along with essentially my character getting raped.
I quit gaming for a while after that. But it gave me fodder for how to describe a scene like that and that guy was no longer a friend. When we met several years later, he tried to give me a hug and I told him if he laid one finger on me I was going to punch him in the face. He was irate. Called me a cold bitch before stalking off. I knew that he had a crush on me. I had been kind and polite when I turned down his advances because I was already with someone. Apparently, I should have just beaten him up to make clear that I didn't want that kind of attention.
He wanted to make a comic book at one point in time. He tried to get me to write stories for him. I wrote a few scenes and he was upset that there was nothing remotely sexy in them. I stopped writing scenes for him. That really should have been my first clue that he was going to get aggressive with his attentions towards me. My discomfort with the bad DM's attitude and sense of entitlement translated into discomfort writing erotica.
I haven't quite fully recovered from that. Doesn't help that [redacted] insisted that I write him erotica while he was stationed overseas (and it had to be of a specific sort that he preferred). [Redacted] insisted I write him things like that when we were dating before he joined the military. I was embarrassed by it but I wrote it because then he was less likely to hurt me or do something that would humiliate me to punish me for not doing what he wanted. [Redacted] was a world class asshole, to put it very lightly. I still kinda regret not letting him get hit by that truck when he was jaywalking.
Wednesday, May 8, 2019
AW: Morning blog No. 7
So, it has been an eventful few days for me. Saturday we spent most of the day visiting family. Sunday was a day of hurry up and get everything done that didn't get done Saturday. Monday was taking the eldest to the orthodontist to get his braces off. I also happened to have mild food poisoning that knocked me down Monday afternoon through Tuesday afternoon. So, either it was food poisoning or a 24 hour norovirus. Either way, I felt awful for most of two days.
I have replaced my writing time in my morning pages with writing time in my camp NaNoWrMo manuscript to finish it. I am not enjoying my morning writing sessions. I was busy running errands this morning. As such, I will be working on the manuscript this afternoon. I'm upset with the whole project. It feels like it will never end. It feels like I'm writing something that should never see the light of day. And I am miserable with it all.
I've had a therapist tell me that if you're not happy doing it then you should stop doing it. They don't get it. Once I start on a project, I have to finish it. It is not because I am on a deadline. That's passed and not coming back. I'm one of those people who once they start something they have to work on it until it is done before the move on to the next thing. Or at least that is how I am with big writing projects.
I'm currently stuck on two things and it has me feeling miserable. Book seven is just not resolving and getting to a point where I can wrap it up. The plot has taken so many sideways turns that I have no idea what I am doing anymore. And I just can't wrap my head around it. I feel like I've failed in that book to actually advance the major story arc of the entire series. It is a horrible feeling and I am half tempted to scrap it and start over again. But I know if I just scrap it, I'm going to scrap the whole series. Because I'm not going to come back to the books because I feel like a failure on that front.
I have noticed that I am an 'all or nothing' writer. I have to either do everything and have it all come out 'right'or I just drop the project and give it up. I'm a perfectionist. It is driven by anxiety and a large amount of emotional trauma that is unresolved. And yet, here I am trying to write and make some money with my writing.
But I haven't really made any money with my writing. I haven't figured out how to market anything. I'm writing some esoteric religious material for a niche group within a niche community. I think I have saturated that market with material and that is why I am not getting anywhere with my latest releases. And yet I still have more ideas coming up to write for that group. I am hesitant to follow them because the last few just fell completely flat.
I started writing because I have worlds inside my head that I need to get out. I started writing because I needed to process the awful things that happened to me over the course of my life. I started writing because I saw a need for certain things in the world and I was well posed to write and fill that need. There was no desire for money.
But, money is necessary to keep pushing the writing thing forward. I can't manage to meet my own deadlines. How on earth can I freelance write? And my writing style apparently isn't that great for freelance blogging. I mean if it was, I'd have more hits and more traffic. I am not a good example of SEO material. It is demoralizing to be in this position.
I have replaced my writing time in my morning pages with writing time in my camp NaNoWrMo manuscript to finish it. I am not enjoying my morning writing sessions. I was busy running errands this morning. As such, I will be working on the manuscript this afternoon. I'm upset with the whole project. It feels like it will never end. It feels like I'm writing something that should never see the light of day. And I am miserable with it all.
I've had a therapist tell me that if you're not happy doing it then you should stop doing it. They don't get it. Once I start on a project, I have to finish it. It is not because I am on a deadline. That's passed and not coming back. I'm one of those people who once they start something they have to work on it until it is done before the move on to the next thing. Or at least that is how I am with big writing projects.
I'm currently stuck on two things and it has me feeling miserable. Book seven is just not resolving and getting to a point where I can wrap it up. The plot has taken so many sideways turns that I have no idea what I am doing anymore. And I just can't wrap my head around it. I feel like I've failed in that book to actually advance the major story arc of the entire series. It is a horrible feeling and I am half tempted to scrap it and start over again. But I know if I just scrap it, I'm going to scrap the whole series. Because I'm not going to come back to the books because I feel like a failure on that front.
I have noticed that I am an 'all or nothing' writer. I have to either do everything and have it all come out 'right'or I just drop the project and give it up. I'm a perfectionist. It is driven by anxiety and a large amount of emotional trauma that is unresolved. And yet, here I am trying to write and make some money with my writing.
But I haven't really made any money with my writing. I haven't figured out how to market anything. I'm writing some esoteric religious material for a niche group within a niche community. I think I have saturated that market with material and that is why I am not getting anywhere with my latest releases. And yet I still have more ideas coming up to write for that group. I am hesitant to follow them because the last few just fell completely flat.
I started writing because I have worlds inside my head that I need to get out. I started writing because I needed to process the awful things that happened to me over the course of my life. I started writing because I saw a need for certain things in the world and I was well posed to write and fill that need. There was no desire for money.
But, money is necessary to keep pushing the writing thing forward. I can't manage to meet my own deadlines. How on earth can I freelance write? And my writing style apparently isn't that great for freelance blogging. I mean if it was, I'd have more hits and more traffic. I am not a good example of SEO material. It is demoralizing to be in this position.
Friday, May 3, 2019
AW: Morning blog No.6
I don't know what to write. I feel like I failed Camp NaNoWriMo because I didn't finish my manuscript. I feel like I am just a hack because I am just not able to go out there and make sales. I have never been good at sales. I am the type of person who just makes things and gives them away. I know I want a career in writing. I know that I have been working towards this for pretty much all of my life.
I also know that being disabled fucked up a lot of my life goals. I wanted to go back to school and get my teaching certificate. That got hosed. I wanted to just work in a school as a teaching assistant. That got hosed. Now I look at the situation with my books and I break out into a cold sweat and feel sick over the idea of being on social media. I almost get the feeling that the walls are closing in on me when I think about aggressively promoting my work.
I'm on medication for this. But it doesn't resolve the issues. It just takes the edge off of them so that I can at least stomach watching what other people are posing on social media. I feel like I'm nothing and nobody. It is awful. I know that this is because my brain is at a bad place right now.
A few days ago was the anniversary of my uncle's murder. It's been twenty something years. I still remember the way kids at school reacted to the Inside Edition expose on the crime. I had peers talking about how 'cool' it was that a teacher got murdered. No body except a few very close people in my life knew it was my uncle they were talking about. I wasn't allowed to talk about it, even with the school counselor because my parents were convinced that we'd become part of the media circus.
I was keeping a journal again by then. But I didn't really write about it because I had already had the embarrassment of [redacted] and [redacted] each deciding to pick up my journal and read it aloud to the study hall much to my humiliation. I just did my best to keep my head down and not be noticed. I was depressed and struggling with life at that point in time.
At seventeen, I was a shy, awkward girl who didn't talk very much. My peers decided it was a great idea to vote me most unique in our class. They thought it was wonderful fun. I didn't because these were the same people who had done everything from spit on me to shove me into lockers for not being just like them. One of them literally attempted to light me on fire. It was a mildly traumatic experience. Of course, my bar for mildly traumatic is far higher than most peoples' because of the level of trauma that I have lived through.
If I had been a 'normal' student then I would have rated that having someone trying to light me on fire in the middle of physics class and the teacher ignoring it rate pretty highly as traumatic. But the fact that they didn't succeed and the teacher eventually did say something once they saw that the lab bench immediately behind me was covered in burning alcohol made it less traumatic than the months of sexual assault I endured with a boyfriend that I had two years before.
I don't know why, but all of this stuff from high school has been coming up over the last few months. It has seeped into my writing and it's been impossible to write fiction. My Camp NaNoWriMo project was supposed to be an erotic fiction piece. I got two pages written and it completely changed into my writing about my personal history. I'm not at the half full point of the notebook. I am not sure what my word count is. I gave up on logging that and writing time daily because I wasn't writing daily. Depression and mixed episodes fuck up your plans. But I'm going to finish this damn manuscript this month.
I also know that being disabled fucked up a lot of my life goals. I wanted to go back to school and get my teaching certificate. That got hosed. I wanted to just work in a school as a teaching assistant. That got hosed. Now I look at the situation with my books and I break out into a cold sweat and feel sick over the idea of being on social media. I almost get the feeling that the walls are closing in on me when I think about aggressively promoting my work.
I'm on medication for this. But it doesn't resolve the issues. It just takes the edge off of them so that I can at least stomach watching what other people are posing on social media. I feel like I'm nothing and nobody. It is awful. I know that this is because my brain is at a bad place right now.
A few days ago was the anniversary of my uncle's murder. It's been twenty something years. I still remember the way kids at school reacted to the Inside Edition expose on the crime. I had peers talking about how 'cool' it was that a teacher got murdered. No body except a few very close people in my life knew it was my uncle they were talking about. I wasn't allowed to talk about it, even with the school counselor because my parents were convinced that we'd become part of the media circus.
I was keeping a journal again by then. But I didn't really write about it because I had already had the embarrassment of [redacted] and [redacted] each deciding to pick up my journal and read it aloud to the study hall much to my humiliation. I just did my best to keep my head down and not be noticed. I was depressed and struggling with life at that point in time.
At seventeen, I was a shy, awkward girl who didn't talk very much. My peers decided it was a great idea to vote me most unique in our class. They thought it was wonderful fun. I didn't because these were the same people who had done everything from spit on me to shove me into lockers for not being just like them. One of them literally attempted to light me on fire. It was a mildly traumatic experience. Of course, my bar for mildly traumatic is far higher than most peoples' because of the level of trauma that I have lived through.
If I had been a 'normal' student then I would have rated that having someone trying to light me on fire in the middle of physics class and the teacher ignoring it rate pretty highly as traumatic. But the fact that they didn't succeed and the teacher eventually did say something once they saw that the lab bench immediately behind me was covered in burning alcohol made it less traumatic than the months of sexual assault I endured with a boyfriend that I had two years before.
I don't know why, but all of this stuff from high school has been coming up over the last few months. It has seeped into my writing and it's been impossible to write fiction. My Camp NaNoWriMo project was supposed to be an erotic fiction piece. I got two pages written and it completely changed into my writing about my personal history. I'm not at the half full point of the notebook. I am not sure what my word count is. I gave up on logging that and writing time daily because I wasn't writing daily. Depression and mixed episodes fuck up your plans. But I'm going to finish this damn manuscript this month.
Thursday, May 2, 2019
Locales: Aldstone
Located in north-central Dakon-Bar, Aldstone is a village with a very long history. It is known chiefly for the mill which has been standing since the last great war. Aldstone boasts one of the largest mills in central Dakon-Bar and is situated at the side of one of the great rivers that run through the kingdom. In the north, this river is known as the Usiage-Ban, The White Waters, for its turbulent path through the mountains of Tarsus where it begins. As it reaches the rolling lowlands on the border of Tarsus and Dakon-Bar, it is known as the Wide Waters. It follows a great looping path down to the sea.
Aldstone is one of the large villages that is not quite big enough to reach a city status. This is mainly because of its close proximity to the more well known Dragonwood Keep, seat of the king of Dakon-Bar. The mill of Aldstone is under the auspices of the queen of Dakon-Bar and during the reign of the hero Erian Talisid, the queen was known to regularly come and visit the mill and the people of Aldstone. This is why it is sometimes known as the Queen's Village. Aldstone has not had the opportunity to grow to its full potential for several reasons.
The most unfortunate of them is the fact that after Askemb rose to power, the village was burned in an effort to quell an uprising. Astonishingly, the mill survived intact. Much of the population of the village died or fled into the forest. It is slowly recovering but strange tales of the Grey Lady make outsiders wary of taking up residence there. These folk tales speak of the vengeful spirit of the forest trying to reclaim Aldstone.
Some of Askemb's forces reside in Aldstone but they come to strange misadventures when they go into the forest to hunt with out a guide from the native people of Aldstone. Aldstone was not just burned once but twice. During the Great War, Aldstone was known as High Grove and a place where many people lived. High Grove had vast apple orchards in addition to the mill. The deamon prince Atroniac marched on High Grove for he had decided to root out all of the men who resisted him from the forests of Dakon-Bar. Atroniac's forces chopped down the orchards and burned High Grove to the ground. They were frustrated in their efforts to slaughter their foes for when they arrived at High Grove they found it deserted, as though all the people had vanished in the middle of the day.
Aldstone is one of the large villages that is not quite big enough to reach a city status. This is mainly because of its close proximity to the more well known Dragonwood Keep, seat of the king of Dakon-Bar. The mill of Aldstone is under the auspices of the queen of Dakon-Bar and during the reign of the hero Erian Talisid, the queen was known to regularly come and visit the mill and the people of Aldstone. This is why it is sometimes known as the Queen's Village. Aldstone has not had the opportunity to grow to its full potential for several reasons.
The most unfortunate of them is the fact that after Askemb rose to power, the village was burned in an effort to quell an uprising. Astonishingly, the mill survived intact. Much of the population of the village died or fled into the forest. It is slowly recovering but strange tales of the Grey Lady make outsiders wary of taking up residence there. These folk tales speak of the vengeful spirit of the forest trying to reclaim Aldstone.
Some of Askemb's forces reside in Aldstone but they come to strange misadventures when they go into the forest to hunt with out a guide from the native people of Aldstone. Aldstone was not just burned once but twice. During the Great War, Aldstone was known as High Grove and a place where many people lived. High Grove had vast apple orchards in addition to the mill. The deamon prince Atroniac marched on High Grove for he had decided to root out all of the men who resisted him from the forests of Dakon-Bar. Atroniac's forces chopped down the orchards and burned High Grove to the ground. They were frustrated in their efforts to slaughter their foes for when they arrived at High Grove they found it deserted, as though all the people had vanished in the middle of the day.
AW: Morning Blog no. 5
It is a wet and gloomy day out there this morning. As we were waiting for the bus, my youngest child and I watched a worm squirm its way across the sidewalk. I told him facts about the worm and we speculated where it could be going. My son was delighted in all of this. He was fascinated by the tiny creature. I suppose with the right approach, I can keep him from hopping in all of the muddy puddles along the front walk.
There are a few house finches, a pair of cardinals, and a blue jay squabbling over the bird feeder hanging right outside my window. The birds are not entirely happy but so be it. It looks like the highway department is trying to fix a hole in the end of the driveway again. It is right where the driveway meets the road. Every time it rains, gravel washes out. A few weeks back, the landlord hired somebody to fill in all the holes of the drive way with gravel and level everything out. The guy didn't do the job quite right so the hole are back.
I'm not sure why the highway department stopped to fill in that hole. I suppose if your landlord is the town supervisor, they can call in a few favors or something. I don't know. But they shoveled some gravel into the hole and then drove off. I wish that the landlord would spring to actually fix the problems around here. For that matter, if the dumpster could get moved away from my building that would be amazing. It isn't going to happen, though. The landlord has been talking about making repairs on this place and getting it 'ready for summer' which I think means he is going to try to sell the place again.
Last summer, I came out my front door to be met by some realtor with a couple of clients in tow stating that they were told they could look at my apartment. I had no phone call from the landlord prior to this. It was a shock and the whole affair sent me into a bit of a panic. Was the building getting sold? Were we going to have to move out? Was our rent going to go up? Lots of other similar questions came up as well. I was as gracious as I could be on being caught unawares and gave them a tour of the apartment in the state it was in. I answered their questions honestly, like the fact that the hole in the entryway ceiling had been there for almost a year.
The place didn't sell. We still have the same landlord. I'm not impressed with the guy. He apparently has a reputation as a less than stellar landlord in the community. All I want is for my damn sink to get fixed and we've gone through three landlords trying to get that resolved. The last plumber to look at the sink took the sink apart and now we can't put the drain plug in because they took the linkage away with them. So, my bathroom sink is even more broken than it was to begin with.
I'm frustrated and disappointed. I also feel fooling posting this entry. I don't think I'm doing these morning pages/blogs quite right. Almost all of them are ranting or some kind of journal like entry. I think I should be doing something more 'art' oriented but I can't come up with anything. I am struggling right now to make art or to write creative stuff. I'm not blocked as much as therapy things keep getting in the way and I can't kill things in effigy to help the process. I am going to attempt the poem a day challenge as I am working to finish my Camp NaNoWriMo project. Maybe some bad poetry will get the messed up thoughts out of my head.
I have started keeping an art journal again. I haven't done much on sketches right now. But I did do some basic art therapy prompts. I felt kinda stupid doing the two hands one. On one side of the page you draw your hand and list the things you need to let go. On the other side of the page, you draw your hand and list the things you need to gather into your life. Then you decorate it. I felt stupid doing this exercise. I don't think it did me much good. But I'm going to be doing this once a week for next several weeks. As long as I just keep working, I'll make progress at something, I suppose.
There are a few house finches, a pair of cardinals, and a blue jay squabbling over the bird feeder hanging right outside my window. The birds are not entirely happy but so be it. It looks like the highway department is trying to fix a hole in the end of the driveway again. It is right where the driveway meets the road. Every time it rains, gravel washes out. A few weeks back, the landlord hired somebody to fill in all the holes of the drive way with gravel and level everything out. The guy didn't do the job quite right so the hole are back.
I'm not sure why the highway department stopped to fill in that hole. I suppose if your landlord is the town supervisor, they can call in a few favors or something. I don't know. But they shoveled some gravel into the hole and then drove off. I wish that the landlord would spring to actually fix the problems around here. For that matter, if the dumpster could get moved away from my building that would be amazing. It isn't going to happen, though. The landlord has been talking about making repairs on this place and getting it 'ready for summer' which I think means he is going to try to sell the place again.
Last summer, I came out my front door to be met by some realtor with a couple of clients in tow stating that they were told they could look at my apartment. I had no phone call from the landlord prior to this. It was a shock and the whole affair sent me into a bit of a panic. Was the building getting sold? Were we going to have to move out? Was our rent going to go up? Lots of other similar questions came up as well. I was as gracious as I could be on being caught unawares and gave them a tour of the apartment in the state it was in. I answered their questions honestly, like the fact that the hole in the entryway ceiling had been there for almost a year.
The place didn't sell. We still have the same landlord. I'm not impressed with the guy. He apparently has a reputation as a less than stellar landlord in the community. All I want is for my damn sink to get fixed and we've gone through three landlords trying to get that resolved. The last plumber to look at the sink took the sink apart and now we can't put the drain plug in because they took the linkage away with them. So, my bathroom sink is even more broken than it was to begin with.
I'm frustrated and disappointed. I also feel fooling posting this entry. I don't think I'm doing these morning pages/blogs quite right. Almost all of them are ranting or some kind of journal like entry. I think I should be doing something more 'art' oriented but I can't come up with anything. I am struggling right now to make art or to write creative stuff. I'm not blocked as much as therapy things keep getting in the way and I can't kill things in effigy to help the process. I am going to attempt the poem a day challenge as I am working to finish my Camp NaNoWriMo project. Maybe some bad poetry will get the messed up thoughts out of my head.
I have started keeping an art journal again. I haven't done much on sketches right now. But I did do some basic art therapy prompts. I felt kinda stupid doing the two hands one. On one side of the page you draw your hand and list the things you need to let go. On the other side of the page, you draw your hand and list the things you need to gather into your life. Then you decorate it. I felt stupid doing this exercise. I don't think it did me much good. But I'm going to be doing this once a week for next several weeks. As long as I just keep working, I'll make progress at something, I suppose.
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