EPIC POST: My Last Five Months and Missing My Creative Side

Section Jumps:
I. SURVIVING ACA-COMPLIANT POLICY SELLING
II. SURVIVING THE POLAR VORTEX BIKING MOST DAYS
III. PIZZA DOUGH
IV. TABLETOP GAMING
V. GEEK CONS & EVENTS
   A. Chi-Fi 0
   B. C2E2
   C. CNSC and Chiditarod
VI. MISSING MY CREATIVE SIDE
VII. LINKS OF INTEREST

Just a funny note: Apparently after the US, Russia and Ukraine vie for 2nd highest sources of traffic on The Lextopia for all time. Ukraine wins in the last month. They have a a long lead ahead of Russia for the month.

What's up with that?

Anyway, the last couple months have kept me busy and worn thin.

SURVIVING ACA-COMPLIANT POLICY SELLING

First three months of the year, I spent long hours at the office selling Affordable Care Act-compliant policies. A lot of new products to learn. I also had to learn a lot of new procedures, Website portals and what to expect for tax filing time.

The new plans, themselves, didn't cause difficulty. Procedures, portals and tax stuff came easy after seeing it all repeatedly everyday. Odd new question here and there didn't cause much challenge after awhile, either.

The volume of demand caused the most trouble. I had to wait for hours on end to get in touch with representatives at insurance carriers for answers. New and current clients filled up my days trying to secure new coverage. Their feeling intimidated by everything didn't help, either.

Repitition got to me by the end. Sending out form e-mails with information here and there changed didn't tax me much.

Giving the same verbal presentation, whether in person or on the phone, started wearing me thin. My throat and neck (from keep phone steady on my shoulder) had gotten pretty sore. My brain and mind had grown fatigued, too.

I survived the labor-intensive three months of the first open enrollment of the Affordable Care Act, though. Coming home at night, I had plenty of laundry, dishes and ironing to do. TiVo needed its attention, too. Michi showed great patience throughout the ordeal. Now I need to make sure all these new clients pay the first premium. They only have one more week!

SURVIVING THE POLAR VORTEX BIKING MOST DAYS

Could commuting to and fro work during this Chiberian Polar Vortex have drained me even more. Covering all of my skin in four layers of clothes and accessories, I could tolerate all the way down to -20 after windshield. I might have found it even a little comfortable by the end, temperature-wise at
least. All that bundling got me a little stiff after awhile.

Most of the time I would don the same clothes for the bus commute when the temps got lower. I might have biked when things got a little colder every once in awhile, too. No one born in the last forty years had seen anything like this! Seriously? A day that got lower than -50 windshield? I had no precedence to follow.

Temperatures rising might cause me more difficulty. I still have trouble figuring out how many layers to wear and which accessories to use. People complain about it not reaching 60 on a consistent basis in May yet.

I fear it a little. I still don't feel comfortable wearing fewer than a couple layers at a time.

Trying to predict the rain gets irritating, too. I can ride through snow, as long as the city salts and paves the roads. A couple weeks ago I had a fall during a freak icy storm without salty roads. Oops! At least with snow, though, I don't get too drenched.

I look forward to warm weather again, though. Putting on all those layers takes time and effort. Will it actually get warm, though?

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PIZZA DOUGH

Still experimenting with dough. I've found a good base "regular" pizza dough: 1 cup pure gluten, 1 cup whole wheat flour and 1 cup bown rice flour. It does poweder the trick well enough.

I'd like to figure out a recipe that friends who have celiac disease or a gluten-restricted diet can eat. In my opinion, people who haven't been diagnosed with celiac, allergies or intolerance to gluten shouldn't hesitate to eat gluten.

I like having my friends that have gluten issues around, though. They should have the chance to enjoy food, too.

Maybe I also look forward to the challenge. I have yet to hear anyone rave about any gluten-free recipe that synthesizes a food everyone expects to have gluten in it (pizza dough, bread, etc.). I more often hear about the recipe not having a taste or tasting like cardboard.

I like receiving praise like anyone else.

Over at Gluten Free Girl, I found a guide of gluten-free flours. It does a good job explaining textures, flavor profiles and how the flour can work in a recipe.

Based on the guide, I'll probably end up with 1 cup teff flour, 1 cup sourghum flour, 1 cup brown rice flour and a yet to be determined amount of amaranth for taste.

My last batch of flour used some tapioca. It may have made the flour a little too sweet, though. I'll try it without tapioca in the next batch.

Up to now, I've tried taking a gradual approach from my base "normal" recipe toward a gluten-free recipe. Changing just one part at a time would help me figure out the properties of each ingredient.

This approach proved wanting, though. The pizza would have that tasteless/cardboardy taste right out of the oven. Some time in the fridge fixed it. Waiting for pizza to "ferment" in the fridge doesn't strike me as the way to go. I want it ready to eat out of the oven.

I think I depended too much on psyllium husks and guar gum. People had told me about using them in gluten-free recipes. I've seen xanthan gum as another popular ingredient. I think depending on these ingredients for their binding properties made the pizza too fragile and liable to fall apart.

Apparently teff makes a great binder. It doesn't have gluten, but it has a similar part to it called prolamin. Both gluten and prolamin act as storage proteins. All grains have some type of storage protein. The proteins have their amino acids in different orders, though. Prolamin could have similar enough properties to make teff a good replacement.

I won't know for awhile how this recipe will turn out. I hate letting stuff go to waste and sit around. I want to use up the flours with gluten in them, so I'm mixing all of it together. This process also satisfies my desire for trying to learn the different properties of ingredients.

Funny thing I've noticed over the last couple weeks: people write and say that a good gluten-free dough requires a mix of flours. My experience has shown me that even a recipe with gluten in it requires a mix of flours to get the recipe right. I can only think that maybe people buy a pre-mixed mixture of flours for their recipes?

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TABLETOP GAMING

Tabletop role playing remains my constant nerd activity. Playing in a Pathfinder group and a D&D 3.5 group. Both mark my first extended time playing either game. Nothing too much to report there. They both do a good job distracting me from the day-to-day and get me to hang out with people. Only so much goal-directed productive stuff you can do everyday.

I've found myself questioning what I'm getting out of the games, though. They haven't grabbed me as much as in the past. A friend and I agreed that sticking with just a somewhat serious fantasy genre might have gotten monotonous. Maybe I want to switch it up after one or both these campaigns conclude.

Couple weeks ago I helped someone play test a tabletop boardgame. My first time playtesting something. They've put years of thought and work into this thing. I can't really say much about it since it's proprietary. I wouldn't want anyone to steal his idea.

I had a fun time at it. I'd love to play again. Us play testers and Michi spent a lot of time encouraging the creator to finish up the game and release it. I could see a lot of people getting into it.

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GEEK CONVENTIONS & EVENTS

After Chicago TARDIS last October (or was it November?), I've wondered if I want to go to cons as much as I have. I can appreciate them. I question what I get out of them, though.

My fandom runs to a more casual bent. I don't have anything to market (yet!). I don't have money to spend. Visual arts don't grab me. Panels haven't gone as in depth into things as I'd like (people tell me I should check out WisCon for more depth). I find myself more tired than invigorated or inspired lately from going to them.

Ah well. I'll probably take more of a break. Try to focus a little more on myself, trying to build up some assets and projects. Maybe if I can chill a little more, I can get into these things a little more.

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Chi-Fi 0

A little more than a month ago, we went to Chi-Fi 0, a one-day con in downtown Chicago. They originally wanted to have it a weekend long event downtown, which would be something new since I moved here seven years ago. A dispute with the original venue caused them to downsize to one day, however.

I prefer a one-day event. This one delivered a good time. Maybe it didn't have the breadth of say, a C2E2 or a Wizard World, but it had some degree of intimacy they don't. It felt a lot less intimidating. I found myself chatting with vendors a lot more rather than feeling like I have to rush all over the place to SEE EVERYTHING.

A one-day event also doesn't tax the body as much. Walking around for a day doesn't require as much recovery time. Smaller crowds minimize the irritability and tension from dealing with claustrophobia. Plus I rather like the ability to take in everything a little more indepth while having time for other things during the weekend.

I spent most of my panel time at ones about diversity, creating safe spaces and issues of harassment at cons. I learned a thing or two, had a couple laughs and enjoyed the personalities of the panelists. Disclosure: Michi was on most of those.

These panels were more on a 101 level. Living with one of the panelists proves difficult to hear about all this stuff, already. Michi and the other panelists do a great job, though.

Maybe one of these days a panel or workshop for "allies" would do some good. If I had more time, I might consider it.

I had a good time in a panel on World Building. I tried writing a more involved blog entry on it. No luck there. It just wouldn't come out the way I wanted, and I gave up. I also have forgotten a bunch of details.

The panel gave me a trick or two for fleshing out characters. I might have made a useful connection for the future once I get one of my projects finished. Some underlying tension and differences in style between the panelists proved compelling but nothing too extravagant. Nonetheless, I found myself in a good mood afterward and inspired for some of my own projects.

Most of my socializing with vendors occurred after this panel. I tried attending a panel on community building through gaming. The panelists couldn't make it, though, so someone else got that room.

We attended the Geek Bar Chicago room party. As Chi-Fi was my first small, intimate general interest con, this was my first con room party.

A lot of people had a good time. Exhausted and feeling a teeny bit introverted, I didn't engage as much in the party as I would have in a better mood. They served some good drinks that I believe acted as samples for what they'll have once they open this Spring. They had food, too, but nothing ovo vegetarian.

The party got a little too loud, though. Hotel broke it up after other guests complained. Ah well, it was late and fun while it lasted.

We topped off the night by catching Raks Geek. Michi performed with her LED poi and flags. She did a great job. So did everyone else in the troupe. This happened long ago, I was tired, memory not so great, so no indepth review there.

Overall, a good time. I wouldn't mind Chi-Fi 0 sticking with the one-day format. I understand the motivation for a whole weekend: more people will come, more ability to get big talent to sign autographs and do panels, it's expensive in downtown Chicago, etc. etc. Yet, a one-day event allows me to manage my time sooooo much better.

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C2E2

This makes the fourth Chicago Comic and Entertainment Expo (C2E2) I've attended in its five-year history. It keeps expanding, getting bigger spaces in McCormick Place each progressive year. I only made it for Friday and Saturday.

Not because of anything bad, C2E2 may have sealed the deal on me pulling back on attending cons so much. I listed a whole bunch of reasons above.

One other thought: I feel like C2E2 might emphasize the comics a little too much and not enough on gaming. I know it highlights COMICS in the name, but I'm just not so into comics. And as things stand presently, the city of Chicago doesn't have any gaming conventions. Games could use some con love in this city.

For panels, I only went to ones organized by Michi: Opening the Clubhouse Doors -- Creating More Inclusive Geek Communities and Glass Ceilings, Missing Stairs and Gatekeepers: Geeks Still Deal with Sexism.

Both good panels on a somewhat 101 level but still providing a few insights I hadn't heard before or thought up myself. Actually, enough insights that I don't feel like I'm doing enough to be an ally or to be educated on these topics.

If you get a chance, go check out Michi's panels and essays. People come for the topic, but they keep coming back for more because Michi does a good job putting these things together, recruiting talent, writing and analyzing these topics. A bunch of change has and will come about because of all the energies she puts into these issues.

Saturday morning I spent a couple hours event marketing for The Chicago Nerd Social Club (CNSC) table in artist alley. I had a ball!

For once, I got to use my event marketing experience to promote a group that I have an emotional connection to and would love to see grow. Plus I find that I socialize better when I have script or some kind of framework to use.

The amount of people who live in Chicago that haven't heard of us surprised me. We have over 2,000 people in the Facebook group. They've sponsored Michi's panels in the past, and many people planned on going to her panels that day.

It's a big city, though. As much as the group pervades our lives, I guess it doesn't pervade the whole of Chicago Nerd Culture yet.

I would feel remiss to not mention the upcoming Maneki Neko Con. I'll admit, I probably won't go. One of the organizers of it manned the CNSC table with me, though. It sounds like a fun time for people into anime being run by passionate people.

Most of the time, I had great, positive interactions with people attracted to the table. One negative conversation sticks in my mind, though. Some guy just walked up to the table. He said, "Isn't the CNSC name opposite of what nerds are like?" or something like that.

I responded simply with "Oh, we've found that nerds are quite social."

He quieted and walked away. I'm just amazed that someone walked up and said this at C2E2, a con catering to nerds! Of course, I guess it could have been someone from one of the exhibitor tables that just wants to make money off nerds, not connect with them.

Otherwise, I spent most of those two days following Michi around. I made up a schedule of panels for Friday. General mental fatigue overtook me before I could put a schedule together for Saturday. I bet I really wouldn't have bothered going to any other panels, though. I just didn't have it in me.

C2E2 gave me the chance to see a few people I haven't seen in awhile and meet some new people. The event didn't give me a bad experience. My general status of mental fatigue and exhaustion just makes big things like this not really my pie these days.

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CNSC and Chiditarod

Even longer than a month ago, I volunteered for the CNSC station for Chiditarod: A grocery cart race with the goal of raising money and food to help feed Chicago's hungry. CNSC volunteers turned one half of Emporium Arcade & Bar into Mos Eisley Cantina from Star Wars: A New Hope.

I manned the check in station, making sure racing teams complied with requirements to enter, start the clock and tell them to have fun in the Cantina. They had to hang out for 30 minutes to stay out of the cold and have a good time. We had some Star Wars trivia, but they didn't have to participate if they didn't want to.

Good time meeting and working with some new people. I enjoyed being something of an authority. Just being amongst all that excitement and general giddiness was a fun experience in itself. Seeing the novel costumes and themes that teams took on made for an amusing time. Plus, all the shenanigans, the shenanigans!

Chiditarod pushes for a great cause, makes for a fun time and raises quite a bit of food and money. I encourage anyone and everyone to participate in it, whether as a racer or a volunteer. You'll have lots of fun!

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MISSING MY CREATIVE SIDE

I've felt at a loss for the last couple weeks. Not much creativity has occurred. With so much focus on work and chores around the house, I've felt stretched thin and a little depressed. I've wondered if I've lost touch with myself and who I am. All this has led me to believe I need to take more care of myself. . .somehow.

Last night I went the annual meeting of our local credit union, Northside Community Federal Credit Union. As I told a fellow member, I joined the credit union a few years ago for the good yield on my savings and, as I found out later, my savings would get invested in the community rather than farmed out to suburbs and more affluent areas. Michi and I live in a good part of the city, but the credit union's neighborhood can always use some investment.

I went to my first annual meeting a couple years ago. That one seemed a little looser and less about sticking to a schedule. The board and other presenters brought up some interesting history about the neighborhood, the credit union and also the state of the economy back in the '70s when the credit union started. I enjoyed that presentation and learned some stuff.

I enjoyed winning some Cubs tickets, too.

Last night's meeting proved lackluster compared to the first meeting. One of the board members seemed to want to get into some of that history stuff, but we had to stick to a schedule. It was mostly business last night with an interesting video recording of one of the original founders. She made a point about the economy in the '70s and how important the credit union was back then to unconventional savers and borrowers.

The weather last night felt comfortable enough that I walked the mile and a half home. It gave me some time to think. Like my response to the annual meeting, I thought about more interesting times that I've had in the past compared to my fairly repetitive present days.

Back in high school, I published a very low budget 'zine called The New Beat. It stressed creativity, literature and an attempt at culture. I wouldn't really consider it of high quality, nothing that I would publish today when I'm trying to be professional.

It had a bunch of creativity, though. My friend who I convinced to act as editor for a bunch of issues wrote an interesting essay on Mozart and Salieri. Sure, you could look it up on the Internet today. Then, though, no easy to access Internet, and I had never heard of Salieri before then. I tried my hand at writing short reviews of books, movies and music.

We also reaped the benefits of being part of the press. I received at least a couple demos from bands. I did an online interview with an electronic musician who performed in Boston.

Erik, my friend and editor for a couple issues, and Igot to go backstage to interview Sam Black Church, our favorite Boston hardcore band and fun, down to Earth guys. Those made for some experiences.

In college, I contributed to a 'zine called FEED. I started writing a column called "The Partee Man." It followed a style similar to this blog entry and like many of the entries I've done about events.

I went to parties and reviewed them. I let my writing get a little bit more personal then, so they came out more like this entry than most of my other ones.

The editor of that 'zine and I would spend late nights laying out the thing and finalizing it. We didn't get the interesting benefits of the press like I did with The New Beat. I guess I could have done stuff like that if I wanted and tried.

At the time, I wanted to focus more on my creative writing. I probably could have gotten some interesting experience and learned things if I pushed that angle.

Later when that editor graduated, he handed the reigns to someone else. I continued doing the layout (got some college credit for it, too).

The 'zine still needed a "Partee Man," so I gave the title to someone else. I didn't have as much fun working on it that way, but I didn't want to see it just disappear. I gave it another semester or two then let it die. More serious academic and writing duties called to me.

Around the time of FEED, I also had a two-year stint as manager of the band Aesthetik (hey, I'm credited for the lyrics I wrote on one song, whoo!). The band played a bunch of gigs around Massachusetts, Vermont and New Hampshire.

I followed them to a bunch of gigs that I booked. We had a lot of adventures. My last adventure with them included one late one spring/summer night in Boston after gig, public transport having closed, no shelter arranged and ending negotiating the rate on a hotel suite down for a roof over our head to sleep.

Near the end of that time, I had taken a couple other bands on to represent.

Gave up all that for my college studies and creative writing.

Sixteen years later, I've moved halfway across the country. When I find the time and energy, I'm still working on those studies and creative writing. It has become something of a compulsion. I feel lost without thinking or working on it.

Now that I've found some time for it, I've run into some researchers and writers block. The writers block extends to other things like this blog or what have you. The mental exhaustion, the work, the chores, trying to save up money, etc. etc. it has all just piled up.

Maybe a lot of this thinking comes up because I grow a year older in just a little over a week. I have no idea why I don't have as much time as I used to. . .. I'm surrounded by some degree of creativity, but I'm not really engaged in it. I'm blocked.

I'm missing my creative side.

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LINKS OF INTEREST:

• Michi Trota: Geek Melange
• Gluten Free Girl
• guide of gluten-free flours
• prolamin
• Chicago TARDIS
• WisCon
• Chi-Fi
• Wizard World
• Geek Bar Chicago
• Raks Geek
• Chicago Comic and Entertainment Expo (C2E2)
• McCormick Place
• Opening the Clubhouse Doors -- Creating More Inclusive Geek Communities
• Glass Ceilings, Missing Stairs and Gatekeepers: Geeks Still Deal with Sexism
• The Chicago Nerd Social Club (CNSC)
• Maneki Neko Con
• Chiditarod
• Emporium Arcade & Bar
• Mos Eisley Cantina
• Star Wars: A New Hope
• Northside Community Federal Credit Union
• Sam Black Church
• Aesthetik

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C2E2: "Hanging Out" with Peter Davison and An Auditorium Full of People

Peter Davison came out to the cheering crowd in the auditorium at McCormick Place. We all had gathered together on that April Saturday afternoon to spend some time with Mr. Davison at C2E2.

He sounded quite youthful, much like he did during his earlier years. I shouldn't expect any less. When I've only seen a youthful version of him on television, though, it feels a little unsettling to see him having aged so. Felt that way even after having seen the "Time Crash" short.

Maybe more apt to say that he broadcast a youthful spirit rather than simply sounded youthful. Somewhat uncanny.

His charming demeanor, both at the lectern and when he played the Fifth Doctor, still makes it hard to believe that he was something of a trouble maker in his youth. How could he have trouble with academics during his secondary school years (or whatever they call it England). An interesting story to hear that he ended up in acting very much because it captured his passion unlike any other activity or field.

Entertaining to hear that his role in All Creatures Great and Small, which made him a household name in England, consisted a lot of sticking his arm up the asses of cows. He played the role of a veterinarian and that job apparently consists of putting your arm up cows' asses a lot. Who knew. . .that someone could get famous doing that?

C2E2 is a nerdy geek convention, though, and most everyone there knew him as the Fifth Doctor, as the father of the actress, Georgia Moffett, who played the cloned daughter of the Tenth Doctor and then, as the actress, married the actor who played the Tenth Doctor, David Tennant.

Suffice to say, that's just the tip of the iceberg in the relationship and acquaintence of Peter Davison and David Tennant. You, fine reader, can attend a con and see Peter Davison to hear these stories. The thought of sharing those stories as my stories feels a little wrong. I'll let those fine Doctors breach their own privacy.

Also, I don't want to take the man's "market share." I have a hard time seeing more people visiting my blog in a month than going to see Davison just once. Nonetheless, they're his stories to tell, not mine.

Davison had some fun stories about the interaction of his family and Doctor Who before Tennant became part of the family. One story involves one of Davison's sons preferring other Doctors before him. Another fun story made for interesting one upmanship in traumatizing the exit of two of the Doctor's companions: Adric and Rose Tyler * * * SPOILERS: Don't read these links if you don't want to get spoiled * * *

One question and answer interaction really has stuck with me, though: an aspiring actor or actress (OK, maybe the question doesn't stick with me so much) asked Davison either about tips on how to make it in the business or what kept him going. Davison had a pretty frank answer: Don't act or really do anything creative unless you have the love or compulsion for it. If you can stand doing something else, do that. If you can only act or something like that, then go for it.

There's generally not enough money in the creative world to make it worth it. Too much crap and dependence on luck to get to that point.

Something I heard on a podcast the other day made me think of that answer. For the life of me, I can't remember where I heard it, sadly. The interviewee said something to the effect that to them not to create and not to work on their craft caused pain to them.

I think for most of my life, I had felt this way. Whenever I took time away from my academic project, I felt like I would keep going back like some kind of battered spouse (not to make light of such a situation, but the combination of distraughtness and compulsion made me feel that way).

Davison's statement about doing something creative only if you have the love for it really hit me in the heart. For a good while now, I've been going though a lull in that love. Life has gotten in the way too much. I've started doing a lot of manual effort to save time. I've been working long hours to just keep up at work. I've focused on investments and trying to make them grow. I spend more time with my wife and have more of a social life. I watch more TV and play more role playing games (like D&D, Pathfinder, etc). . .but read less.

I've largely relegated my writing to mornings, this blog and Tuesday nights with the Just Write Chicago Meetup group at Dollop Coffee. I started going to Just Write Chicago after "hanging out" with Peter Davison at C2E2, even though he has no idea who I am. I need to put myself into situations that will surround me with the energy to create.

At that point, I had reached a low point with my writing. I had grown tired and my love had grown weak. It had reached that duty stage, suffice to say. Davison articulated the need to feel that love at the perfect time for me.

I've had to go through a couple more interactions with other creatives and do a bunch of my own thinking to start pulling myself out of my rut. I can't say that I've pulled myself all the way out of the hole yet, but I've reached a good point.

I've realized that I had gotten so focused on legitimizing myself to the world. I had become so focused on doing the academic stuff. I wanted a degree to qualify for a job that I would like to do everyday. That's all well and good, but then. . .what?

In this day and age of financial ruin, I have a hard time seeing my liberal arts degree having a direct impact on my job prospects or getting me more respect than I have from people. Not to speak poorly of liberal arts degrees. I just don't see it providing me with a practical benefit.

I went to college to write creatively. The academic side of things got tacked on to legitimize the writing. Someday, I would like to complete that project, but not for legitimacy. The project has grown on me. I feel like once I can finish it and figure out what there is to figure out, I might help make a difference in the world with it.

But with all my other activities, I don't have the time or energy for it. I can hardly keep all the facts straight in my head. That difficulty may come from having too many drafts of the same essay. More of it comes from not having a concentrated amount of time to think about it. My time has become way too broken up and fragmented.

I've settled on the goal of trying to do what I can to free up more blocks of time. I can't do it freqently enough in the short term. Too much life in the way. It comes down to needing enough money that I can live off the yield and interest. That's far in the future if I go at the pace I'm following now. Maybe I can figure out how to invest smart and speed things up, but that route will still take some time and free up time the short term.

What if I can write a best seller, though? Maybe I won't, though. Even if I don't, though, I'll be engaging in the love that started this journey: writing stories.

Going at things this way will even fulfill my dream of being a working class writer. I won't really do the working class part, but I'll do the creative writing schlub thing on top of all that life stuff. Even if I don't find success, at least I'll be doing what I love, not looking for legitimacy from the world around me. Maybe I'll find time to do all that other stuff someday, too.

Thank you, Mr. Peter Davison, for inspiring me both as a child and as an adult.

LINKS OF NOTE:

• Peter Davison
• C2E2
• "Time Crash"
• All Creatures Great and Small
• Georgia Moffett
• Tenth Doctor
• David Tennant
• Adric
• Rose Tyler
• Just Write Chicago
• Dollop Coffee

Writer with Obsessive-Compulsive Tendencies Productively Procrastinating

Lately I've found myself getting more in touch with my Type A personality by productively procrastinating to the nth power.

• Dishes need to get done
• Keep my organization technology all in sync
• Keep in touch with all my social contacts
• Scan tons of documents then shred them to make room in apartment
• Keep dishes washed to keep counter clean
• Put clutter away
• Provide tabletop gaming friends with information to cut down on time at sessions rehashing what's happened before
• Go through e-mails to keep in touch with people, delete a bunch, stay on top of stuff going on in the world
• Cut down on tasks, programs and e-mails that demand CPU resources needed to index information and e-mails
• Keep up with social networking streams to stay up to date with people and news in the world
• Read free newspapers to keep with the world and help prevent world from falling into chaos
• Write in blog to market self for when I finally have something to publish, people will want to read it and to keep self relevant
• Put together some type of tabletop gaming organization because I can sense the need for Chicago gamers to build that kind of community (and yeah, it'd be cool for it to reach the level of receiving compensation for it. . .to be compensated for something I can get excited about is a dream of mine)
• Stay in touch with people
• Keep up with movies and TV
• Keep food stocked but not overstocked
• Laundry
• Career development
• Work on bachelors project (tragic that this item added during an edit instead of rough drafting)

I don't want advice. Maybe a little help with the tedious labor stuff. If anything, I'm looking for understanding or, in this case, even a "Hey, that's just Lex. He's crazy like that." Camraderie with those facing the same issues would be nice.

In long run, though, my personality just thinks "Get as much tedious short term stuff out of the way then move onto the important stuff." I read somewhere that small stuff can actually give building sense of accomplishment and feed self esteem, so the big stuff doesn't seem so intimidating.

Maybe it also creates a sense of security. Sometimes that security, however, comes at the cost of productivity. Or does that productivity go away when you're dealing with all the tedious crap that's built up into a big pile of chores? Nonetheless, I'm actually trying to pare down these lists of mine to only do things truly important to me or will cause difficulty if not done.

Do other writers and creative types deal with this type of issue? Do they get distracted by bunches of little tasks that just add to clutter of cognitive dissonance? Or do the successful ones have the ability to not care about all the clutter and just move forward with putting their creativity out there?

I'd love to hear from other independent creatives out there on this one.

Specializing

Specializing in a topic sucks. It gets in the way of having interesting conversations with people, since they yawn after the first couple minutes of me describing my topic. Coming up with varied topics to write about on the blog without giving away material that I hope to sell later becomes difficult. Overall, specialization gets in the way of enjoying socialization except for people in your field or in some adjacent field.

I miss having time to read newspapers for the news, entertainment and to learn what there is to do around town. To accomplish the things that I want to do in good time, I've had to give up reading the newspaper and knowing what's up. I get most of my news through friends, acquaintances, AOL and MSN while at work and from NPR. Yeah, I can pretty much stay up to date on the major political topics, the weather and sometimes even sports. I don't really have much to breach the topics of the day or my specialization, which really doesn't interest people for too long.

Balance is needed in my life but right now proves difficult to find that balance.

Die, Mad Consumption Cycle, Die!

To add a little more color to your knowledge about consumerism destroying the human quality of life, check out:

The Story of Stuff

Thank you to the friend that sent me the link for it. She sent it to me a couple days ago, and I only got the chance to watch it this Saturday afternoon, right after I woke up.

Nonetheless, we started in on a good conversation around the topic simply because I mentioned that I rarely check out these video things. For the same reason that I don't click on many links (someone else told me that I should check out The Zeitgeist Movie because it will blow my mind about society) nor do plenty of fun, educational or activist things, I have so many things taking away my attention that I can't make many more partitions, even short term ones for 20 minutes or an hour, except for maybe a movie or spending time with friends once or twice a week.

The last comment/question I made really sparked the conversation, though: "What's it like to have free time?" Sadly, the fried said that she nor any of her friends knew what it's like, the lack of time is a part of the mad consumption cycle in which we live, which was an awesome response. . .especially since I had a recent reaction to someone who wanted to find happiness through some degree of consumption but didn't necessarily contribute their labor to it. I went off on a rant about my reaction to people who don't feel a calling, a dream or simply want to provide/help other people and find meaning in a relationship in the society/culture around them by trying to improve it or their lives.

Not only have we started a really cool e-mail conversation about the topic, but it has provided my mind, subconscious and conscious, to mull over for my bachelor's project/novel. There's an argument out there that corporations outsourcing into 3rd world countries is a good thing because it provides poor people and families with a means to provide themselves. It may not provide them with as good of conditions as if they had executive positions or the positions or anything, but they don't have marketable skills, so it's better than nothing. What that argument fails to take into account, though, is that the corporations and Western civilization have done a fair amount to create those bad conditions in the first place. Maybe if that's not totally true, though, and it's the vice of their own country people that have made things hard, there's plenty that could be done instead of trying to help them with sweatshops.

The video brought up another issue that I've contemplated but never in the terms that it presented. Whereas I thought about literature and culture enriching people and the importance of it but feeling guilty because I'm coming from an ivory tower, the video argued that people consume to such a degree that they then have to labor and work to the point of exhaustion to support their physical quality of life while probably allowing their emotional, mental and spiritual lives suffer (my note: just look at all the debt issues in the United States alone -- good way to keep a country stable when people could pin all types of vice on things: allow them to consume then worry about how to pay off the costs of that consumption). And to bandage the suffering of their minds, emotions and souls, they go out and buy more. A lot easier and less time and labor consuming than actually trying to develop these facilities.

All the above really helps to bolster the foundation to my novel, a society that provides salvation through consumption, consumption, consumption, identifying with an image, trying to transcend themselves to embody that image only for that effort to get mutated into losing your soul. And crap. . .I hate revealing my interpretation of my own work, but I'm just way too excited right now about this topic to stop myself.

I feel like I can apply to my current paper this information and its relation to the theory I'm using for my project. My mind is mulling over how to do it, but it's kind of difficult since the paper is on a utopian community back in the mid-19th century, roundabout when mass consumption was in its primordial stages. In many ways, I think some of the people back then sensed the issues at hand, but it will take a fair amount of work and research to translate the current argument to that much in the past. Maybe some of the identification and transference ideas that I'm trying to use the novel will help. . ..

But dangit, I've got to clean up around the house, maintain the family's conspicuous consumption and address some holiday consumerism.

Sleep is Good

Last week, I averaged between 4-5 hours a sleep a night. Combine work, chores, minimum socialization and hyperfocusing on research and attempts at coming up with a hypothesis for the last paper, and I lose sleep.

Frankly, it's the hyperfocusing that causes the problems. At the same time, though, it definitely has its advantages. It makes life a little difficult in the short term, day-to-day, but for the project and things require intense concentration, it helps wonders.

If only I had that hypothesis, though, things would go so much smoother. . ..

Friday and Saturday night, however, I got 9 or 10 hours of sleep, and I FEEL GREAT! Even after only getting 4 or 5 hours last night, I still feel good. Hopefully I can average better sleeping hours this week to help on the short term.

I don't know if I should expect better or worse sleeping hours tonight. The wife and I are going to see Tori Amos in concert. I'm not a fan, but since she's one of the big quintessential musicians from my teenage years, I figure I should see her at least once.

Should be interesting to see if I get to bed at a good time or not after a concert that starts at 7:30ish.

Fear of Obselescence

Last night, I think I got a bit too tangential. Yeah, I dislike not having time to do personal things that create meaning and value those things, but the thing that I really wanted to focus on that made me afraid is:

THE FEAR OF BECOMING OBSOLETE.

Just take a look at this article:

Girl Power: No rich relatives? No professional mentors? No problem. Ashley Qualls, 17, has built a million-dollar web site. She's LOL all the way to the bank.

When I first read the article, I thought that this girl was missing out on an education and the benefits of one. I still think there's a benefit to a higher education and an "innocent" childhood, but really, were those reactions just guarding me from thinking that I'm becoming obsolete?

This girl isn't really doing anything BEYOND me. Sure, I probably wouldn't design MySpace pages like her (crap, I haven't even touched the design of my MySpace page. Not making the time is one thing for not working on my design or doing something like this girl. Until reading this article, though, I hadn't even thought of doing that type of thing.

The article got me to thinking who's coming to my blog. I've been kind of annoyed with my content lately, much less the lack of entries. Most of the entries lately have felt more like complaining that I don't have the time to write or analyzing reasons why I'm not writing here rather than providing any useful content. And now I'm sounding like the typical blog. . .which I didn't feel like awhile ago when I had been writing reviews and on actual topics rather than complaining about life. . .which is something that I probably need to do, but I want to make content that interests people.

Damn. . .I feel so obsolete and like I can't make the time to get over it. Ugh.

Some Things to Understand About My Intensity

I don't think people truly appreciate the level of intensity at which I live. Only last night did the fiancee come close to understanding my mindset when it comes to my bachelor's project and other herculean tasks.

Rollo May, in his book Psychology and the Human Dilemma, probably touches upon my intensity best. In the book, May differentiates between normal anxiety and neurotic anxiety. Normal anxiety acts to our bodies response to a fearful situation, and if we resolve that situation, the anxiety level goes down again. Neurotic anxiety, on the other hand, is unresolved anxiety that we have ignored or repressed to the point that comes back again and annoy us until we've resolved the root source of that anxiety. People sometimes try to lower their anxiety level by taking drugs, watching TV and engaging in other relaxing or pleasurable activities, but unless they resolve root causes, that anxiety will continue to haunt a person.

As many of you know, I've been working on my bachelor's project for a long while. The labor on it has somewhat reached a point where I'm annoyed with it and wouldn't mind just finishing it and moving on with my life. Someone from work the other day said that age 47, I'd look back to the present day and feel like I had wasted it away because I didn't have the right priorities. Now, she didn't say that because she thought I had the wrong ones but just because it's the way of life. She had even told me that I should just enjoy the journey instead of worrying so much about finishing it. I told her that I already look back anytime between 6 or 10 years ago and feel like my priorities were out of place. Frankly, this journey has gotten frustrating to the point of boredom at times.

The fiancee, at some point in the past, mentioned that she worried about me because of how agitated I got when the project frustrated me. She wanted to just take my mind off of it. Well, she also worried that working on the project wasn't getting anywhere and would lead to nothing in the end, but that's another story. Only the other night, when I explained to her that even though I could work a white- or pink-collar day job and have the capacity for success in them if I put my mind to it, they pretty much eat at my soul. Except for maybe certain specialized, creative fields that hold my attention, I get extremely bored, distracted, anxious and pretty much just work for the money.

When I find myself engrossed in the project, I love life and feel invigorated. I feel free. More than likely, other writing and research projects would do the same thing for me. I see finishing this project and getting my degree as the ticket to freedom, where I can spend 9-5 doing work that invigorates and feels significant to me, including even writing an essay on a TV tray.

Given this situation, not working on the project fills me with anxiety. The only way to permanently get rid of this anxiety will be to get the project done, so I can work on moving onto the next step of my life, which I hope will be many of these projects. The core of my current anxiety is this project, not having a degree and being forced to work in an industry that doesn't interest me.

Addressing and fixing this anxiety will involved working on the project, in which I get to face another anxiety, but a more positive and shorter term one. All these anxieties, if approached correctly, make for very positive growth and happiness on my part.

My co-worker probably does make a good point, that I should enjoy the journey while it lasts. I guess, when it comes down to it, though, I enjoy the journey of working on the project. As for enjoying the distractions from my journey that are supposed to help alleviate the anxiety and stress of it, I generally don't do it well unless it's something that engrosses my attention. Even then, I feel a strange guilt that I didn't find pleasure in the distraction, as most people do, but that's just because, for some reason, my mind and body don't want to be distracted. They simply want to engross themselves in the things they enjoy, which includes this project and the other projects it can lead to.

So, yeah, I'm a pretty intense person. I don't necessarily want to skydive, bungee jump, go on roller coasters, get dropped in the middle of nowhere with no money to my name or anything like that. Instead, I want to engross myself into projects that will feel significant to me and hopefully do the same to other people who encounter them. Maybe I'll be able to relax more after finishing the project and having the freedom to work on projects from 9-5, 5 days of week. For now, though, I feel anxiety when not working on this project.

Kinda Sad but Excited

This evening hasn't turned out bad for my first day off from studying. I wrote two more pages in my short story, which I hope to have a draft done soon. This one has started feeling like an albatross, even though I enjoy the story. It just feels like it has taken a lot of writing to reaching my current point and it will take a bit more to reach the conclusion.

At least I don't have to study anymore.

Just a couple other notes:

Lately, I've found after cleaning up my desktop of adware, loose ends in the registry and the hard drive, the World-Wide Web needs a little patience and cajoling before it comes up to speed. The most recent time has come as a surprise, since I turned off the Windows Firewall (have a router, so it takes care of the firewall duties). I think everything has returned to normal, though. Maybe it just needs a reset to do some further clean up processes.

And just as a way to garner attention from a certain group of my audience: Heroes comes back next week. Yay! Woohoo!

Moving Onward, Upward and Forward

Well, I did it yesterday. I passed the life, accident and health insurance licensing exam yesterday. Frankly, I'm a little surprised that I passed. I had too much time to do it and felt weird that I pretty much finished 1 1/2 or 2 hours early, especially when I felt as if I didn't feel comfortable with a fair amount of the questions.

The whole only giving me a pass/fail result kind of annoys me, too. I would have liked to get an actual score to see how much better than the passing score I had gotten. I wouldn't have gloated or anything, but I would have liked to know HOW knowledgeable I am and how much it could help me, in the long run, to possible do a little more brushing up on stuff. But oh well. . .I passed. Everyone keeps telling that's the important part.

I passed it, though, and now can have my work-life balance more equitable. Nonetheless, I'm dealing with a small amount of withdrawal from how much I've dedicated myself to the project over the last couple weeks, when I decided to go from dividing my attention between writing and studying. After passing the test yesterday, I came home and spent the rest of the day watching stuff on the TiVo to make space available for future recordings.

The fiancee and I even took a couple hours to watch the not so great movie, Ultraviolet. The fiancee really put it best: It's like a 14-year fanboy thought up some great scenes then slapped them together. I see that point, but I generally think that the movie had some really interesting ideas that pretty much failed in execution. It could have happened because the movie had SO many ideas or the characters didn't have enough characterization to transcend the unoriginal ideas.

The Wikipedia entry for the movie, however, mentions plenty of valid reasons how the movie could've started well then sucked after post-production. In the end, though, I enjoyed the movie on the level I enjoyed Aeon Flux, which I apparently more than most people.

After seeing Ultraviolet and reading the Wikipedia, though, I'd like to check out Equilibrium. How bad can it be with Christian Bale in it? I'm not a girl, but he acts well. In addition, Equilibrium fits into the utopianism field.

But alas, I need to get ready for some chores soon. I'd like to get that stuff done, so I can spend more quality time with the fiancee (watching The Riches lately, reading Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning as support for the bachelor's thesis and learning more about the ethics of care have all inspired me to try appreciating the importance of close human relations over many other things in the world -- and OK, maybe even some inspiration from Orson Scott Card, too, despite how much we'd probably disagree about theology, international politics and other values), work on wedding stuff and get moving on my writing and bachelors project.

I guess the work never ends. This time, though, at least it's for stuff that I enjoy and, deep down inside, really value.

A Culmination of 2 Years

This upcoming Friday, the 13th, should become the culmination of about 2 years of my life. I take the Life, Accident & Health licensing exam. If I pass it, I'll consider my job search complete, as I will fulfill the qualifications for the job I've worked for the last three months or so.

I feel pretty confident about passing. Each day until then, I will study but mainly to keep myself sharp on the subject rather than to learn anything new. I don't have full knowledge of the topics, nor do I expect to get that kind of score on the exams. The knowledge I have, though, I believe will be enough for me to get a 70% and pass.

Then I get back to really writing and working on my bachelor's thesis. I feel so confident about the exam, actually, that I think I'll probably get back to working on my current short story. Yay.

Things get serious after Friday, though. I will get moving on with my life, finally!

Maybe I Have Nothing to Fear. . .YET!

Link courtesy of kisrael.com,

Human Computer Interaction in Science Fiction Movies

Oh crap. Just noticed that it's dated 2003. Maybe I do have something to fear.

Nonetheless, the report doesn't have much for any critical innovations or anything. It's more of a survey of user interfaces in science fiction movies, and it's not very comprehensive.

If nothing major has changed in the last 4 or so years, though, I may not have anything to fear. And the more I think about it, the more I think the user interface for my novel still has a little more fuel to it, as long as I can release the novel in the next 3 or 4 years.

Get a move on with your life, Lex!

Starting a Writer's Life?

I have had one long week. Didn't get to bed before 11 PM and averaged a bed time of 12:30 AM. In summary, my time management skills had taken a vacation, and I wanted to do too many things every individual day.

Work has really become a damper to my day, too, especially since it requires me to study for a licensing test at the beginning of April. In addition, I have to deal with a lot of frustrated customers during the day and figure out the intracacies of companies we represent and the laws they don't mention in the industry source book. Combine those two without any real culture of mentorship nor the time for training, and I often feel stranded in the middle of a room without any gravity.

On the flipside, I have had a lot of writing activity this past week. To start, I attended the Chicago Writing Meetup workshop Thursday night, plan on attending a more spontaneous one tonight with the fiancee and a friend then on this upcoming Tuesday, the second Chicago-SF workshop happens.

A mash up of forum/e-mail messages I've made about the Thursday night workshop:

I just received an agenda for the next Writer's Meetup. It looks like they've dedicated about a half hour to each piece. I haven't done that much research into the organization of the group (how they distribute pieces, the culture and so forth), so I don't really know what goes into that half hour.

My report back:

Setting a limit to each piece isn't productive.

Forum thread 2:

Just another observation from the Chicago Writer's Meetup Workshop I attended last night: At least two people (10 or 11 attended) mentioned that that group doesn't work the best for workshopping novels. Apparently has to do with the incosistent attendance of individual members.

Their main problem had to do with, say, they wanted to critique the middle of their novel, they would have to provide a synopsis of the important things that happened up to that point, which could be onerous. I would guess the same thing would have to apply if they were submitting the novel, chapter by chapter, then a new member or more started coming. The new member would need the background to provide a satisfactory critique.

Oherwise, the Thursday night workshop provided me with some amount of culture/age shock. I haven't workshopped with non-age peers before. Most of them obviously didn't fit into my age group, a majority of them having lived 10 or 15 years more than me. At most, three or four of them fit within a 10-year range, up and down, from me that I could tell easily.

Not having a full impression of the group's culture or organization, I still spoke out and didn't face any repercussions or anything except for the usual sense of ego bruising all around for such a large group. Did I forget to mention? 10 or 11 people showed up, and we critiqued 4 pieces. In the end, though, no serious ego bruising, arguments or anything like that. I just formed my (probably wrong) bad impression of at least one person and surprisingly got along well with a person whose piece I found relatively well written but not compelling to me.

As I've mentioned in the past, writing workshops have always proved tricky atmospheres, especially when relative strangers or distant acqauintences fill the ranks. Also, exposure and favoritism to different genres by workshop participants can make things a little more difficult, too, because it take them awhile to start tolerating a new genre then even a little longer to learn how to read and critique such a strange new form.

I don't know how much of my work I'll submit for critique with this group. As I mentioned about genre, a lot of the pieces written for this last meeting fit into the realism/naturalistic genre with a heavy amount of expository character meditations, whether through fantasy or flashback. One guy there talked about his thriller/adventure novels that he published, but I haven't seen anything he's written and have somewhat of a bad impression of him. I wish I had a better way to describe the category that most of the submitters wrote, but they didn't really fit sci-fi/fantasy/thriller/adventure, the type of stuff I usually write. Maybe mainstream attempts at middle to high literature?

Honestly, I wish I had an easier time getting into that type of stuff. Back after getting our school, when I had more time to read, I made a point to switch off between speculative fiction and more realistic fiction. It actually felt unnatural, but I felt too pigeonholed sticking with spec fiction, especially since the "mainstream culture" doesn't necessarily "get it." I wanted to "get" the realistic stuff so as to understand my potential audience more. And at that time, I wanted more understanding of it to find more acceptance in it, too.

I still would like to work on "getting" the mainstream realistic stuff, so I'll continue attending this workshop. My criticism might help someone, and maybe I'll learn to get it more by working with these people.

Having all these workshops to attend also feels like I've gotten a lot more involved in the writer's life. The job that I don't so much like has exposed me to some writing organizations, also, which may help me improve my skill and also get more connections. Who would have thought those type of connections could have come from working in insurance? But yes, I do feel like I'm living something more of an aspiring writer's life. I just want to pass this licensing exam in April and get a better work-domestic-romance-life balance going so I can enjoy living more and not feel so tired at the end of the week.

Ugh. . .oh right, there's also the wedding after I pass the licensing exam. Ugh. . ..