Hello again, world. It’s me. Howdy do? I published another book. No, not another! Yep. Black Ribbons. It’s a vampire novel. I think it’s good. That link will take you to a description and an excerpt, and links to all the many places it is available. It’s not a free one, though. It’s my first “not free” novel. Woo. Sold 2 copies so far. And, oddly, one copy of Mandra, even though it’s free… I put my free books on Amazon, but Amazon won’t let me make them free there, so they cost 99¢. Bwahaha.

Anyhoo. Where were we? December of 2009 my hours were reduced at work because of lay-offs, aka “reduction in force”. Bummer. On Unemployment for 6 months. Then a co-worker left, who also had a part time job, and I got a full time job trying to combine our 2 part time jobs into one job. Woo. Collectively we worked 9 hours a day, and I had to cram that into 8 hours. Not cool. With no assistance. Just me and my wits! Well, eventually, I had assistance. But then we had a super huge supreme volume of records requests come in and I had almost every other department in the building helping me print records! So, yeah, no brain power left after that for blogging. Then the surge of requests died down because the clinic was dying down. We were almost bought 2 times, then someone finally bought our building. Then I was laid off. Then I got a job working for the people who bought the building, but it’s a temporary job that will last 12-18 months. Which is awesome because Unemployment was offering me MUCH less money this time because I was part time for half of last year.

Phew! I like it better when my day job is stable and I can just concentrate on books books books. You know, instead of survival. So that’s where I’m at. I start my new job next week. So, I have some days off. Which I used to publish my books and post about them here and there. Learned all about Amanda Hocking, self-published success. Read J.A. Konrath’s blog, all about self-publishing success. So, I know it’s possible! It just hasn’t actually happened to me yet. I put my free books on Smashwords too, by the way. Got a very nice review of Mandra. I had to break it up into chapters to publish there. Which is weird because it wasn’t written in chapters. So, I hope the breaks are in appropriate places. My brain is full of books. My books, other people’s books, blah blah…

I just ordered Supernatural seasons 4 and 5. Because I didn’t have them. And because I got all my vacation time paid out at once with my last paycheck. Seven weeks’ worth. Yum! I’m trying not to spend it on anything besides living expenses. But sometimes you just have to splurge. I am THISCLOSE to buying myself a Kindle. Yayhoo! A Kindle! But I have resisted so far. I’m used to being poor. Not comfortable being able to buy things. My new job will pay better (infinitely) than my old job. NICE. I’m saving as much as I can. Since it’s a temporary job.

I’m wondering if I should have stuck with one genre for all of my books. I’m wondering if I should have written many books in a series, even when no one was reading it. Instead of starting new series all the time. Paranormal Activities Unit, Fugue, and Black Ribbons are all first books in a series. But then I stop. ?? I think I was waiting for one of them to get popular. Duuuummmb. Maybe they can only be popular if I continue them, eh? Duh. I have other series I want to start. It’s all I do! But I’m pretty sure I’m done doing that. My next writing plans were to write more romance novels for my pen name. In addition to that, I guess I should continue these series. Right? Hmm.

Intriguing. Then I could publish them in paperback form too, three novels per book. Since they are so short. I feel like I’ve said this before! You know what’s funny? I don’t read fiction. I read non-fiction. Mostly articles. Sometimes books when I can afford them. But reading fiction is not relaxing. Because it reminds me of work. I can’t believe people read fiction to help themselves fall asleep at night. Fiction gets me revved up. It would put my mind into hyperdrive if I tried to read fiction before sleeping. Shite! But, yeah, it’s weird to me that other authors are voracious readers of fiction. How can they stand to do that? I get all caught up in how things are written, dialogue, plot, typos, characters, etc. I think things like, “Whoops, faux pas, that should have been written like this…” or “that was awesome, should I be writing like that?” or I can see how the book will end when I just start reading because writers think like writers, and it can’t be helped. I do that with TV too, but it doesn’t bother me as much. I can predict dialogue and how the plot will go, because that’s how most writers would have gone. Sometimes you can see there are only a few options for dialogue and/or plot, and there is a best choice, and so they choose it, and I predict it. Sometimes I’m wrong, which I find pleasantly surprising. Being a writer is weird. It’s weird when I’m watching something with someone and start quoting along with it and they say, “Have you seen this before?” “No, it’s new.” Sometimes you can just tell! I would only talk along with a TV show if it was bad and no one in the room was already engrossed in it, by the way. I’m not rude!

I’m feeling pretty weirdly melancholy today. Bored, but…. yeah, I don’t know. Maybe I should buy that Kindle. There are plenty of free ebooks out there. If I just don’t read before bed, maybe I’ll be fine. I just finished watching Being Human, the US version. So cute when the werewolf looked at Nora under the door. Sorry, that was mildly spoilery. Here’s some major spoileryness. I can’t believe how many characters they killed! Some of them I would have thought would be there for years. Wowsers. Interesting. See, for fiction I seem to prefer TV over books. Hmm. In the past year, I’ve gotten into True Blood, The Vampire Diaries, Being Human, you see a theme there? And recently Glee. I’m on the verge of renting Mad Men, but I think it might bum me out. Being based on reality. But it’s not like it’s a cop show. It shouldn’t bum me out too much, right? I have to catch up on Smallville at some point too….. I’ve read spoilers. Woo hoo!

Yep. That’s where I’m at. To order the Kindle or not to order the Kindle, to order the Kindle or not to order the Kindle. It’s so funny that I can’t get enough of vampire stories. Even funnier because in real life I have a blood phobia and have panic attacks when I see surgical photos at work. But fictional blood? Okay. Well, the idea of fictional blood. I still look away if gory things are going on on the TV screen. Blaaahh. I miss Sookie Stackhouse. Sigh. Hey, new season of True Blood comes out on DVD on May 31! Whoop! I’m a vampire nerd. If there be such a thing. Eep!

So, enjoy my first vampire novel. (That would be Black Ribbons. Though, vampires make an appearance in PAU….)

Later.

Hello again. Since we last spoke I got partially laid off at my job and have been thinking of nothing else since. They cut my hours from full time to part time. In half. Unemployment payments make up almost the other half, so it’s not too bad. I’m still totally freaked out constantly. I keep being hired by these Internet companies that want to pay me $2/hr. I apply for local jobs too, they just don’t hire me. Wow.

Today I applied for a job exactly like what I’m doing now, but at another company. And full time instead of part. It’d be awesome if I got it. I am tired of thinking so hard. DAMN.

I have plans to make money with my own blogs and websites, etc., but I know that takes time. Not the thing to be doing now. And yet, I have nothing to do but sit here all day. Okay, half the day. I’m waiting to see if my article was approved for a website I just started working for. If so, I guess I will write more. It involves a lot of research. I know nothing about the subjects. Grr. I mean… uh… .

Is this a bad economy thing or am I unemployable? It would be a good idea to get some specialized training, I guess. At some point. Probably medical coding. Since I’m such a bad typist. Otherwise I would say medical transcription. And then for the love of God an Accounting degree of some sort! Even an associates! That is assuming I am never going to make a living from my writing. Safe assumption, right? Grr. I mean, wait a minute. If I write non-fiction for my own websites, I could make a lot of money there. I think I know just how to do it. Why am I not doing it then? Because something always interrupts me. A new job online, or someone calling for an interview. And then I remember, “Oh, yeah, my life is in flux.” I can’t exactly make plans. Pfft. I should, though. Make plans while I wait? Something like that. Easier said than done. This is very unnerving.

The company I work for, the one job I do have in reality, is kind of going under and on the verge of being bought by another company. YEAH. I feel the stability! Why am I not taking an anti-anxiety pill? ‘Cause I’m tired of taking daily naps, that’s why. Sheesh.

When will my life belong to me again, dammit? That is all I ask. I want to work, go home, and BE at home. Leave work at work. You know? Excellent. That is all. I still feel like I’m at work. Daytime has a buzz to it, though. I don’t mind it when I am actually at work. But being at home and feeling the bzzz is weird. You know, like the emotions of people being busy. Like that.

I’m supposed to be hanging out with my sister! If she’s even at home. Whoops. I’m hungry. Anyone have a…. what am I craving? I need to work more food into my budget. I guess.

Checking my article again…. still no change. Hmm. Stopped to check my email. Totally forgot what I was doing. Argh.

Well, this is gonna be shorter than usual. I can’t even watch Netflix! I had to put my account on hold to save money. Did not think I would be sitting here in February still with no idea what I was going to be doing. Unbelievable. It’s funny I thought I was bad off before because I had no time. HA!

That’ll teach me. To have thoughts. I guess.

Pondering what I can string together to make a meal in my kitchen. I have Ramen noodles, but those are not filling. Or healthy, let’s face it. Um… huh. Not a clue. Crap, my life sucks! I just had to be a novel writer…. DUMB.

Fine then. I’m gonna go now. See what I have cans of. Yep. Etc. Hmm, search for more jobs maybe…. this makes sense. Bah!

Later.~

I just ate some grapefruit. These titles are so irrelevant. Or barely relevant.

Hi. Me again. How are you? I’ve been all freaked out and stressed out and busy, so I haven’t written in here. I missed it, though. I like rambling on with no organization or focus. Weee!

I started my new herbal/natural blog. It’s cool. It’s fun. I write in an organized way there, though, like I’m trying to make sense and be articulate. Nothing like this place. I also finally released my romance novel. It’s doing well. At least as well as expected. Making no sales, but I’m serializing it, and I get more readers with each chapter. Nice. People like romance. Mandra continues to beat the crap out of anything else I’ve ever written, in terms of how many downloads it’s gotten. Wowsers. That’s kind of nice. Weird, but kind of nice.

I made a booootiful cover for my new romance novel. Very pretty. Very simple. Strangely noir. Hmm.

I finally got my car registered. Turns out in my state you can’t get a title until you register the car. ???? In most other places I think it’s the other way around? So I was waiting for a car title to come to me, and that was never gonna happen. The county treasurer’s office finally wrote to me and said, “Come register your car already!” Oh, okay. ???!

Habitat for Humanity picked up my old car finally. Turns out I needed a lien release from ten years ago to go with the title. Hahahaha! The bank didn’t even have a record of the loan anymore. They had to create a new lien release. GARR! Lot of trouble. I thought my new car didn’t have heat, but it turns out it does have heat. My stress level is lower now.

So, let’s talk Dollhouse! It bugs the crap out of me that fans, critics, creators of the show are always putting down the first 5 episodes or so. “It had a weak beginning” blah blah blah. The first episode is my favorite. I hate it especially when the creators of a thing put it down. Are you insulting me for liking it or what?! “Ghost” (the first episode) is just perfectly perfect. For me anyway. I do love the Alpha episodes. Who wouldn’t? But “Ghost” is the bestest.

I’ve read reviews of last night’s episode. People seem to be utterly amazed that Topher could make a woman able to breastfeed without having given birth. We already have that technology, people. It’s called hormone pills. Lots of women breastfeed their adopted babies. Don’t piss me off, America! Oops. I’m moody. Plus that’s not the only reason Echo went back for the baby. She was already glitching and remembering all her imprints. Hmm… complex. Oh, those were spoilers, by the way. WHOOPS. I think you need a treatment.

I’m watching last year’s Smallville. It is so damn good! Eeeee! And I thought it wouldn’t work without Lex. Bah! Very nice! I must see what happens next. I can’t afford to buy the season right now, so I’m renting. And I don’t have the channel Smallville is on anymore, so I can’t watch it now even if I want to. Same with Supernatural. Maybe I’ll write more novels. Pfft. Whatever.

I just bought my monthly batch of vitamins and herbs. I spend $50 a month on that stuff. Damn! So funny. Years ago, when I was on Prozac for 3 weeks, it cost $50 a month. And that’s for one pill. That does one thing. Vitamins and herbs each do many things. And are apparently cheaper, cuz I take a lot of them. Still, how many people have a $50 vitamin budget? Weird.

This reminds me of a chat I had with my mother the other day.

Me: Did you know marshmallow is an herb?
Mom: No, it’s not.
Me: Yes, it is.
Mom: No, it’s not.
Me: Yes, it is.
Mom: Marshmallows don’t grow on trees.
Me: I didn’t say marshmallows grew on trees.

Pause.

Me: Marshmallows at some point probably had the herb marshmallow in them.
Mom: That’s ridiculous.

Hee hee. So weird! Sigh. Anyway, marshmallow is apparently good for the lungs and stomachaches, among other things. Interesting.

You know what’s bizarre?! I bought these things, taquito type things, that were supposed to be full of cheese and vegetables. I microwave one and bite into it and there are all these cubes. Cream colored. I think, “Is that potato?” I put one in my mouth. It’s kind of chewy. Hey, it tastes like that fake tofu chicken–AHHH! I realize it’s real chicken and spit it out. Yeck! There were three taquitos in the package. I cooked them all up so I could look inside to see what was in them. Sure enough, cheese and chicken. No vegetables anywhere! I look on the box. Yes, indeed, the box says they are cheese and vegetable. Unbelievable! So, yeah, they put them in the wrong box. Bummer! Not buying that brand again. It’s funny my fake tofu chicken really does taste like chicken. I haven’t had meat in years. I assumed my tofu stuff was just an approximate meat-like flavor. Yeeks!

I should probably not be eating cheese anyway. I fell off the wagon. Hey, I have a strawberry banana soy protein shake. I’m having it!

That was anti-climactic. I’m waiting ’til after this blog entry to have it. Hmph.

This seems like a longer ramble than usual, but have you been to alice.com???!!!! It’s awesome! It is the land of cheapness with no crowds. Suck it, Walmart! Not that Walmart doesn’t have its charm, but crowds, yeck. I just bought a bunch of household crap there (alice.com). Every two weeks I buy stuff from them. Payday. Shampoo, Kleenex, body wash, paper plates, moisturizer. Etc. Yes!

I’m a little weirded out that I think I swallowed a piece of chicken. Before I knew I was eating chicken. YUUUUUUccckkkkk!!! No!!!!

Wow. Calm down. I ate a bunch of grapefruit afterwards. It seemed like the anti-meat. Heh. And now we’ve come full circle. See what I did there? Unplanned! Rambling is the best. Hee!

I think I’m in a better mood. Certainly better than I have been. Must go now. Gotta have that protein shake. Yummeeeeyyyy!

Later.

Now that I’ve called this “Toxic”, I think my work here is done. I was gonna bitch and complain about everything. It was gonna be fun! Whatever.

My computer is slow. I have too much stuff to do and not enough time to do it. My health sucks crap lately. Even though I’m losing weight. Hurray! Just not fast enough. Well, probably at a healthy pace, though. Grr.

I’m trying to get my romance novel released under my pen name and it has been so…. slow going. I’ve got a little bit of an audience built up, and I haven’t even finished editing the book. Though, really all it needs is some spellcheck, punctuation check, etc. And I have to design a cover. And learn how to use Create Space, and the Kindle uploady thing, and Smashwords. Three things I have never used before! Then I have to copyright the book. Then add webrings to my site, cuz you can’t add them ’til you have content on your site. And serialize my book. While selling it. ???!! It’s a thing I’m trying. I’ll let you all know if it works and I become a millionaire. Pfft. I think I would be happy with a hundred bucks. Not really happy, but hey, close enough.

I’m thisclose to thinking I have some kind of diabetes. I know, right???!!!! I’m eating a sort of diabetic diet and losing weight. I want to lose weight and get rid of the potential diabetes so I don’t even have to worry about it. So I can be in denial that it was ever there. See? I think I have electrolyte imbalance issues. Low sodium. I have all kinds of issues! Menstrual issues it makes me want to pass out to talk about. Not that you need details, but goddammit a person shouldn’t bleed that much. It gave me vertigo and made me so dehydrated I started to lose my voice. Ew. (Herbal tinctures with alcohol in them probably didn’t help the dehydration…) It sapped all my energy. I walked around slowly, like I didn’t have enough oxygen. Totally bizarre!

TMI, but I had to complain about it somewhere. I’ve been told to go to the doctor about it, but I work in a doctor’s office. They pretty much have 3 solutions to the too-much-bleeding problem. The pill (which will fuck up my hormones and make my blood pressure worse), endometrial ablation (meaning they burn the lining of your uterus, so no kids for you), or hysterectomy (also a big fat no kids for you). I guess they could also inject me with progestin. ?? Which has it’s own side effects. HMM. I have 6 or 7 different herbs, vitamins, etc. that I take. They work well enough, but I have to set my alarm to wake up a few times a night to take my pills. Sucks rocks! In case anyone wants to know what they are because they have this problem: shepherd’s purse, lady’s mantle, cramp bark, raspberry leaf (makes me so sleepy/dizzy and nauseous, but works), spirulina (blue green algae also good, or chlorophyll), vitamin c, and ibuprofen (this may be the best one, but wean yourself off of it, don’t go cold turkey, headache). Phew, I feel better. I imparted knowledge. You’ll have to google them all to find out why they work, though. I just don’t want to go into it! Oh, I also take vitex (chaste tree berry) daily. I forgot.

You know, I bought a whole domain name for this kind of gory girly talk, but I don’t want to have to build a site up and blah blah blah. Too much effort. It bothers me that this herbal stuff is stuff I should have been taught in high school. By someone. Mother, whoever. But she doesn’t know this stuff. Someone should be teaching it. This should be old hat to me now. I should have moved on to other more important things by now. Instead of learning all this shit by trial and error. Grr. I get mad about stuff like that. How the world should be. I hate reading articles and having them state things as medical fact just because it hasn’t been proven yet. Like that herbs don’t work because they haven’t been proven to work. But who pays for the big studies to prove things work? Drug companies who don’t want you to be able to fix yourself. How would they make money if you could do that? You know, I’ve noticed that people who live to be 90-something or 100-something have very short medication lists. But people in their 60’s and 70’s with huge long med lists, they die younger. At 60 or 70 something. I don’t know what this means. Maybe the people were already sick and needed the medicine. Maybe one pill makes them sick and they take more pills to deal with the side effects of the others. My friend’s mother took a high blood pressure med for years before it was discovered it caused diabetes. And by then it was too late. She now has diabetes. HMMM. Yeah, I think I hate prescription drugs. Some can’t be avoided I’m sure, but a lot of them can be. Grrrr. Have you seen that ad for the asthma medication that says, “May cause asthma related death”? Whatever!

Didn’t know this would turn into a health care rant. Health insurance companies could save a lot of money if they encouraged herbal or natural solutions for things. HMM. LOL. The German Commission E does it. I think that’s kind of like the US FDA. ?? Ooo, intriguing, I just looked it up. The German Commission E was formed in 1978 to study over 300 herbs and make recommendations, and the commission no longer exists, but their recommendations are still followed. Ooooo! Neat!

I’ve gotten sidetracked. I wanted to rant! I’m drinking Gatorade. Rehydrating. Then eating a protein bar to balance the sugar in the Gatorade. Egads! High maintenance. Yes, that is what bothers me. I am high maintenance. Very annoying. And I’m getting very sleepy. I haven’t slept through the night in a week! Tonight I will though. Weaning myself off the pills and tinctures. ‘Crosses fingers.’ Hope it all goes well. Yeeks. THEN, tomorrow I go dogsit for a week. So, I can’t work on book stuff. Two weekends lost. But I am dragging my friend to the Harry Potter movie next weekend. Weeeee!!!!!

And then, for the love of God, I hope I can finally get some work done on my book. Get that stupid thing published. I mean it’s not stupid! Hee hee. It’s actually quite good, I think, if you like that sort of thing. Romance. Hmm. I probably need my ibuprofen. I’m starting to get that withdrawal headache. Argh. A few more doses and I’ll be free of it. For a little while. You can tell that one’s a drug, it has the worst side effects. But it also works well. HMMM. But so do the others. Just… I think it works more forcefully. Something. Less gentle. And I felt like being less gentle.

Man, I’m tired. Bah. Apparently this is the end of my rant. I guess I’d better go before I fall asleep at the keyboard. Adios.~