Step 104: Introspection

Lately I've taken to thinking a lot. Not that I don't normally think, just that it's usually things and not Things that I'm thinking about. ("What's for dinner?" as opposed to "When am I going to move into my own place?") Recently it's been the other way around Dinner is decided at the last possible moment while moving out and making a life for the long term has been pondered and repondered.

What I've settled on is making short, mid and long term goals for myself, and then setting a time frame for each based on the oldest I want to be once they're accomplished.

I'll not list them all here right now, because that's kind of personal and for whateverreason when I set public goals I nearly always miss them out of some weird defiance quirk, I dunno. BUT! What I will do is announce when I've reached a goal, and reveal it at that time.

For now, the only goal I've reached is deciding to set goals. Meh, gotta start somewhere.

Also, here's our dog, Butch:

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Step 103: Picture Dump

Generally speaking I feel like picture posts are a kind of lazy man's wayout of really saying anything, but I've been meaning to post a couple photos for awhile, so now's as good a time as any, being that I've nothing else to report.

Missy


My Awesome Desk


Toes, Showing Me Exactly How He Feels About My Reading Rather Than Snuggling


Toes Being Picturesque. And My Nephew's Stuff Ruining It Sort Of.


My Keyboard In Nice Lighting And Interesting Focus


Just five, as that's all tinypic lets me upload at once and I'm too lazy to upload more.

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Step 102: An Endless Night

Last night I volunteered to take the dog, since the previous night my sister didn't get much sleep. I'm not really feelin' the whole hairy details thing, but suffice it to say that I was up until 4, back up a 5:45, and then back to bed at 8, until about 12:30. The last bit was my favorite part. As much as I put off actually going to bed, once I'm there, I love sleeping.

In fact, as I was waking up, I snuggled into my blankets and decided to take my time waking up, because the bed was warm and the night was long. It was nice to be awake without really being awake.

I tend to have a lot of lucid dreams in that state. This morning it was something about being able to kill zombies by simply pressing their foreheads. Apparently zombies had become a normal thing, so insteda of handshakes, people began touching one anothers foreheads as a greeting. The zombies wer exceedingly stupid, and none of them seemed able to remember that a human's touch in that spot would kill them, so they always fell for the "Let's be friends, see?" gesture. ANYWAY. It was a funny dream, if you'd been there.

Beyond that, I've not much to report. Things are still chaos around here with all the people, I'm still unemployed, blah blah blah...

Oh! I did enjoy about an hour of quiet solitude this morning. Mom, M and L had all left for the day, Sister and Brother-in-law and T and Butch were all sound asleep, and I was alone in silence for an entire hour. It was wonderful. No snotty breathing from a crib across the room, no footsteps overhead, even the heating system saw fit to stay quiet. I suppose I could've gone to bed then, but I stayed up to relish the hush. Then Brother-in-law got up, and I left him in charge of Butch while I went to bed.

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Step 101: Deep Breaths

It seems like so much has been going on around here recently, but now that I'm sitting here, ready to type it all out, every detail seems to have left me, and I'm left with the simplest of them to say: We got a puppy.

I suppose that's a good place to start. On Friday, after days of searching for a dog, I stumbled across a link to a dog that seemed to be what everyone in the family wanted.

My mom wanted a bichon frise (WHICH I feel obligated to point out is pronounced BEE-shawn free-ZAY, but is more fun to pronounce as bitchin' frizzy). My sister wanted a schnauzer. Nephew wanted a boy dog he could name. Eldest Niece wanted a small dog (she's not a fan of large animals). Youngest niece was just excited about getting an animal that would love her back (the cats do NOT). Brother-in-law didn't care one way or another, so long as he didn't have to be responsible for it.

Me? I didn't really want a dog at all, as I've got Toes, but whatever we got, I knew I'd be in charge of grooming, so I wanted something young that I could mold into a model groom dog. (Coincedentally, if you get a puppy, get thee to the groomer post haste. None of this waiting until it's a year or six months nonsense. POST. HASTE.)

Enter Beethoven. He's a boy, 11 weeks old, a schnauzer/bichon mix that will top out around 20 pounds, if he makes that. Perfect. So now, he's here, and currently snuggled down in his crate until The Pooping Hour, which I'm told is around 3 am. I volunteered to take him for the night, since my sister didn't get much sleep last night.

He's cute, I'll admit, and so far a good fit for us, as he's slightly submissive and therefore eager to please, and therefore nearly housebroken after only being here three days.

Anyway, beyond the new dog, I suppose the "a lot" that's been going on is mainly introspection and reading. Since Butch came home, I've read three books and started a fourth the first two were my niece's, from her book fair. I read them because they were there.) Smile, My Life in Pink and Green, A Great and Terrible Beauty, and now I'm working on Wicked. The introspection is a direct result of this renewed interest in reading, as I always think about the books I've just read, and what I can take away from them.

So far I've learned that I belong in my own apartment with Toes and a published novel or five under my belt to pay the bills. I know it doesn't show here, but I am a rather accomplished novelist when I want to be. The trouble is in wanting to be. I've determined that when I don't have a job, I feel guilty for writing. ANd I don't think that's a bad thing. I'm not sitting here right now thinking "I need to stop feeling guilty." because no, I don't. I DO need a job. Once I have one, I'll begin writing in earnest. In the meantime, however, I'll keep a sporadic blog and sneak in a few paragraphs while the household sleeps.

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Step 100: True Blood

I have spent several of the past few nights watching episodes of True Blood. I'd only ever seen one episode before (the season 2 finale), but my sister hapened to have every episode on their PS3, so I've been watching.

FIRST, there is a lot of naked on that show, but after awhile you get desensitized to it. After all, it's an HBO show, so...there's that. SECOND, the cliffhangers, were I watching weekly would drive me insane, and probably will once the new season picks back up. And THIRD, I'm totally addicted.

In other news, this week marked the beginning of the Applying for Jobs process. I hate this part, because it can get a little on the disheartening side when you keep applying for jobs and no one calls you. But I do turn in a lot of "Just in Case" applications where there aren't actually any openings but I turn in an app anyway. What I'd love is for something cool to just fall in my lap, but in the meantime, I'm going it the hard way. Feh.

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