Books I Will Be Happy to Own

Yumyumyum. Should be out July 22nd.

After I burned myself out on slash-and-hack fantasy, I started looking forward to Abraham's books a whole lot more. They may not always be my cup of tea (more chicks with swords! [ok, really, everybody's books need more of those]) but they are always damn interesting.

I have yet to walk away from one of these books without a whole hell of a lot to think about.

What if

Chipotle or Peru?

When I finally made the decision to try and tackle my finances, after my roaring 20s of pure excess, the concept behind financial freedom sounded incredibly simplistic:

Just don't spend money.

That's it. I didn't have to *do* anything. I didn't have to go to the gym, or set up a writing schedule, or try and find a good kickboxing class. No, all I had to do was just stop spending money.

I live in a big apartment complex, which means we're always getting these random takeout menus tacked to our doors. I spent tonight perusing a very tasty-looking Chinese menu before throwing it away.

What I hate about control over finances is the same thing that I hate about control over my diet. It's that you have to make the right choice time after time after time, multiple times every day.

I went out to write at Caribou Coffee tonight, and had to force myself to bypass Chipotle on the way home. I had to remind myself of all the groceries I just bought today. As I passed The Cheesecake Factory I reminded myself that I'd already gotten a piece of their low carb cheesecake last week to bring home, and July's budget does not have wiggle room for *more* cheesecake. Then I had to come home and peruse the Chinese takeout menu, and then remind myself of how awful I feel after trying to inhale Papa John's pizza.

In fact, diet choices and financial choices are linked pretty heavily for me. If I'm not splurging on lunch or dinner out, then I'm getting a book, or a magazine, or out at a movie, or the comedy club, or trying to find clothes that don't make me look like Raggedy Anne.

I was raised by very impulsive parents; it's gotten them into a lot of trouble too. But it means that budgeting and delayed gratification are really foreign to me. When I come into cash, I feel I "deserve" to spend it. I need to "treat" myself. Well, you know, sure, one "treat" is great, but four or six weeks of treats and you've blown all the money and you're right back where you started with not much to show for it.

I sat down and put together my post-raise budget today, and in big, bold letters across the top it reads, "Budgetry, or how Kameron is going to get a house and go to Peru."

And that's the mantra I'm trying to bring to every one of my decisions now. I need something to keep me on track. I need constant motivation, because it's just not going to happen on its own. Like anything else, I have to retrain myself, and just like training yourself to workout regularly, there's this awful, painful adjustment period where you feel utterly deprived.

I hate it.

I want to go out, and have fun, and live, because dammit, life is fucking short.

But I'm really fucking tired of being in credit card debt. I'm done with it.

So which one wins out?

That's the battle I fight with every one of my stupid daily decisions. I now have $750 a month budgeted toward paying off that fucking credit card (starting in August). That's more than my current rent and utilities combined.

Seriously.

Imagine what I can do when I free that $750 back up? Think about it.

That's what I'm thinking about.

And it's what I'll be thinking about when I'm eating my hot dogs and leftovers from last night's BBQ tonight.

Terrified Waitresses & Chicks Who Kick Ass

"Come on. Do I look like the mother of the future? I mean, am I tough, organized? I CAN'T EVEN BALANCE MY CHECKBOOK."
- Sarah Conner, The Terminator

I have a love/hate relationship with the Sarah Conner of the first Terminator movie. Part of me wants her to be the same tough, kick ass heroine you see in the 2nd one, and so I'm always slightly annoyed when I start re-watching the first one again. Blah blah yeah, she's the holy womb of antioch, whatever. Seriously, is her only worth in the world as the womb that carried John Conner?

Then I sit down and really think about it, and I remember that even though she's the "mother of the future" she's no passive fucking vessel. What I love about the first movie is knowing who she becomes by the second one. Because how many of us are terrified waitresses who can't balance their checkbook and whose biggest heartbreak on a Friday night is getting blown off by some random date? Living that kind of life, how would you really react when you found out you were the one who taught the leader of the human resistance how to fight? That you taught him honor, how to make bombs, shoot straight, and bind a wound? Would you change your life, after that? Would you have the strength to do that? Or run away from it?

What I like seeing in this first movie is a timid nobody finding her strength, and knowing she's got the guts to get there.

The utter tragedy of T3 (I don't even consider it canon, especially after watching the new Sarah Conner Chronicles) was dumping Sarah Conner. These movies are far more about Sarah Conner than they are Arnold Swartzenegger (hence the success of the Chronicles).

It's a much gutsier, gritter version of Titanic (also a James Cameron movie, for those keeping track; he made tough female heroines awesome long before Joss came along). Wallflower with the heart of a fighter tells the world to go fuck itself and finds her voice and her strength and her self-esteem. She finds out what she's really made of.

It's a woman's coming of age story that doesn't involve marriage or being "saved" from her life by a man who does all the work for her followed by a pan-to-the-lamp happily ever after. It's a coming of age that takes work, courage, brute strength. Sure, this realization is kicked off by a hot guy who doesn't generally stick around for the end (just as in The Wanted and other boy coming of age stories have their bland boy's superpowers awakened by the arrival of a mysterious hot chick - who also doesn't generally stick around for the end). He holds out his hand, but she has to take it. And when he steps away, she needs to be able to stand on her own.

I'm always looking at why these particular movies work so well for me (Titanic, the Terminator movies, the first two Alien movies), and you know, it's because they're traditionally masculine coming of age stories. A formerly obscure nobody woman finds out she's the chosen one. She gets to battle evil in its many forms; she gets to slay the monsters. She picks herself up and builds her own life.

At the end of the day, she realizes that nobody is going to save her but herself.

And she becomes the hero of her own life.

That's good shit right there.

Quote of the Day

"All that we are is the result of what we have thought. The mind is everything. What we think we become."
- Buddha

The 4th

Went out to Steph and the Old Man's for a BBQ (always diabetic friendly over there - they take good care of me!) and chatted with them about life, the universe, and everything, including the future. There are future things I don't want to think about just yet, not until the CC debt is under 5k, but that's about the time I'll need to look into whether or not I want to settle here, buy into a house, the cheap but... illfitting? Ohio life.

I like that I can buy a house here. I love my job. But I don't know how long the job will last, and I don't know that I want to marry myself to Dayton, or to the limited jobs in Dayton. I want a better writing job. I want a different town.

I'm a bit of a bad fit here. I always feel like such a misfit. I mean, sure, I grew up a fat geek girl, but this is something different. I just don't feel like I fit out here. Too loud, too opinionated, too interested in books and big ideas, and with utterly and completely different values and expectations than the people around me. It's uncomfortable sometimes, to want something different in a place that is happy and content with a life that I spent most of my life trying like hell to avoid.

I will need to decide at some point, likely at the end of the year. Sink or swim. At some point you have to stop hedging your bets and build a future.

Drank some good whiskey and came home and sat out on my porch in shorts and a tank top, lit a candle, and watched some fireworks. I can hear a lot more out there than I can actually see, but man, it's nice.

Am I the only person to sit out on the porch and think, "Hey, about 10pm on the fourth of July would be a great time to shoot somebody!"

I'm a writer, yo. I have to think of these things.

Steph's coming over for pancakes and coffee tomorrow morning, so I'll play some WoW and call it a night. A good night. Nothing fancy, nothing big, certainly cheap and totally unstressful... just a good night.

Sometimes I can stop running and just be. For a night. Those are good times.

But I just get so damn restless.

Sometimes I think it would be great to have enough. Then I remember that when I have enough, I lose all of my motivation, and it's all take out pizza and sleeping all day.

Restless can be good. Restless keeps you moving.

But, for tonight: a good night.

Sometimes Good Things Happen

Got an unexpected call today from Insulet corporation, the makers of the Omnipod.

Insurance had rejected my claim for one last summer, deeming it "out of network" and requiring me to pay the first $4400 up front.

Well. That wasn't going to happen. I have enough medical bills, thanks.

Back in February, Insulet corporation asked me if they could reopen the claim, as they were partnering with another firm to help them get in-network status with a number of insurance agencies. I said sure, hey, why not.

Six or eight weeks ago, they called and said, hey, no dice, but they were going to try and get some kind of "exception" from the insurance company to get them in-network status because they're the only makers of this kind of pump.

Go for it, I said.

Today, I got the call saying my claim had been approved.

Insurance is paying the whole thing - digital remote/meter, testing strips, insulin pods and all.

100%

I don't have to pay a goddamn dime.

I admit, I got a little teary eyed. No more 5:30 am Lantus shot, no more shooting up at the table. I can program the whole thing from the remote, which doubles as my meter.

Should get it at work on Monday.

It's funny, you know. You get so used to bad things happening. Every phone call, every text message, every update, is a bad thing. You stop thinking that good things happen. But for the last year? Good things. Such incredibly good things.

And this is what I told myself through the worst of it, when I was running up credit card debt and running out of cashed-out 401(k) in Dayton, living on expired insulin and the good will of my friends. When I was ready to pack it in I just said, hey, you know, remember when you were 18 and living in Bellingham and thinking up ways to kill yourself to get out of a shitty life and shitty relationship? You thought that was the end. That was it. It was always going to be like that.

And when you dumped that loser and took back your life flew to Alaska, you had two of best years of your entire life. You wouldn't have gotten those two years if you gave up then.

So I didn't give up last year, when I hit rock bottom for the second time in my life. I didn't give up because this year was coming.

And I know there will be horrible times to come, dark times, but we live through those dark times for these ones, for the book deal and the great health insurance and the great job and fun coworkers and good friends and amazing apartment.

You keep going because everything changes, and if everything changes, you have a 50/50 chance that it's going to change for the better.

Things That Suck

A holiday weekend in which one has no money. I have $450 to make it to my next paycheck (and that's after just being paid *today*).

After paying off 3 outstanding medical bills and stuffing $700 toward the credit card, I'm out of cash again, and I have groceries and a Verizon bill to pay out of that $450 (and another $100 toward my last outstanding med bill). Did some freelance resume work, which will bring me my $30 in Chipotle money, but not until next week.

::sigh::

Long weekend of beer, video games, novel work, gymming, and peanut butter cookies ahead.

A year and a half of living like an adult to get me out of debt and in my own house.

Just a year and a half.

Man, this sucks.

Long push to get there.

The Personal Trainers, Oh How They Hate Me

Seriously, I haven't hurt this much since I was doing kickboxing and mixed martial arts classes at POW (man I miss that place)

Ask and ye shall receive.

Job Tips

For my buddies in the middle of job searches (including my Daddio!), here's some stuff to keep in mind:

"Here’s why you’ll need humility: If you are like most people, you will get the shit kicked out of you in the job search. Typically, the job search process is a six month-long, broken, politically-biased, ill-conceived, and poorly-executed racket. For most companies, the candidate’s dignity is an afterthought. Some of what will happen to you will not be fair. It will be expensive and frustrating. The injustice of it all will sting, and raging against the machine won’t help. You will need to forgive your transgressors just to maintain your sanity."

More here.

Morning Reminder

Milestones

It occurred to me today that I'd told my sister many years ago that I'd get a second piercing in my upper ear to match the one I got for Clarion when I sold my first book. I still like this idea for commemorating my first book.

I'm also thinking every writer needs a cool tattoo. And being 30 with a published book is as good an excuse as any.

I'll need to ask the Bad Boy at work if he knows of any good places around Dayton for such shenanigans. I have a feeling that in order to find any place great, I'd need to go to Columbus.

Tra-la

(also, it will not be a stupid ankle tattoo. Or a stupid lower back tattoo. It will not be of a heart, a butterfly, or a fucking flower. I mean, seriously, what's up with that?? If you're gonna do it, it better fucking mean something)

Dying, Not the Worst Thing

My first book comes out next year. Somewhere in all the craziness of my life, I think that has been kind of lost in the crazy, you know? Or maybe it's just been taken for granted all along.

Something else that's been lost during my three months of recovery and bliss in my new digs was that drive to be better, to be the best I can possibly be.

That's the thing that starting to come back.

And that's a pretty awesome feeling, too.

Some of that has been sitting down and going, OK, how hard am I willing to work? How badly do I want it? Because getting the money under control means budgeting for things like my expensive haircut, and Chipotle. More than that, it means a commitment to regular gym going and shunning pizza. Because I'm not really getting anything from pizza or *not* going to the gym. Being better means finishing the damn fucking book, expanding on to other projects. It means getting ready to present myself to the world as, like, a real author. It means a mean haircut and a search for some new kickboxing classes.

I want to be better. The best. My best.

When my drive isn't self-hatred, isn't fear of becoming somebody I hate again, then it's gotta be something better, something more. It's about potential. Some people are afraid of dying alone. Or dying unmarried. Or dying without kids. Or dying in a nursing home. Or just, you know, dying. I'm afraid of dying without living up to what I could be. Having it all end and knowing, there at the end, that I wasn't doing everything in my power to be the best I could be.

That's my real fear.

When I came out of that coma two years ago, as I recovered over the next few weeks, I thought a lot about dying, about how OK I would have been with dying. And you know what? I realized that, at that point in my life, it would have been OK to die. Because I was doing everything I could to be better. I'd traveled around the world. I had a decent job. I was plugging away at my books. I'd been to Clarion, I'd dated a little, I had a great life. I was working toward my goals. I hadn't given in, given up.

And that's the sort of life I want to have every day, that life that says, "Hey, you know, I could die today and be happy."

That's always a pretty good day.

Things That Just Aren't Going to Work

In general, in order to do 45 minutes of cardio after work, I have to take 2 units less insulin at lunch than usual.

Which would be great, except that by 2-3pm, I have the beginnings of a sugar headache and I'm starting to feel sluggish.

Thing is, I need to be at 200+ before working out so I don't fall over afterward. And I'd prefer to do that by taking less insulin at lunch instead of eating *more* right before working out (and *more* after working out just to get me home).

I so much prefer the two-units-less thing. Not sure why it's getting to me more these days. Maybe because I'm used to being so well controlled? Taking two less in Chicago worked pretty well. But then, I tended to work out *directly* after lunch.

Blarg.

Diabetes, yo. It fucking sucks. Expecially if you hate math.

Steph's Old Man Gets a Blog!

Steph's Old Man has started a blog!

Welcome to the internets!

Call Me Crazy

But I have a strange compulsion to watch The Wanted again.

Maybe all I really want is a big gun and a sweet-ass tattoo.

Kicking Up the Fitness Routine

I've been re-polishing my fitness routine to get myself back on track. Now that fitness days are back at work (at the end of each quarter, we get a week off while the trainers do our fitness assessments), I'm working at getting the most bang for my buck.

The trainers are really cool in that they know I'm pretty strong and need a challenge. Today they kicked my group up again (it used to be me, the Amazon, and the marathon runner, but it's down to just me and the Amazon), so it was all walking lunges with medicine ball twists followed by weighted one-legged squats, rinse and repeat.

We finished with 15 min of cardio. I hobbled down the stairs.

But I wasn't done for the day. I came home and put in my 20 minutes of pilates, mainly because I saw a huge difference in strength and flexibility today after just two weeks sporadic pilates sessions while waiting for our regular workouts to come back.

So right now the goal looks like:

Mon/Weds
Morning: 15 min freeweights
10:00-11:30am: 30 min strength training + cardio at work
Evening: 20 minutes pilates

Tues/Thurs
Morning: 15 minutes freeweights
Evening: 45-50 minutes of cardio

In an ideal world, I'd kick that up to 5-6 days per week. But for now, I want to get through two or three consistent weeks of this before I kick it up. This one looks doable. Pushing too far too fast has gotten me into trouble before.

And really, the only addition to this is the twice at week cardio at the gym. I've been doing the pilates sporadically for awhile now.

Yeah, I'm continually amazed at how much regular exercise I have to get just to stay this size. It's kinda weird. On the other hand, if I look at it more as "this is the amount of work I have to do to stay this strong," that *does* make a lot more sense.

Lifting shit takes a lot of work, yo. And after reading somewhere that something horrible like 90% of women over age 50 can't lift more than 20 lbs... Yeah, that's a huge motivator for staying active and lifting weights.

I do not intend to be brittle-boned at 50 (yes, weightlifting decreases your risk of osteoporosis. More reasons to get buff!).

What I Have Decided

I am so fucking ready for this book to be DONE.

And I have 6,000 of the last 20,000 words in hand....

... in scribbled notes and loose scenes and last night I wrote a really icky drug withdrawal torture scene, and this after I thought I was done writing icky scenes.

I'm thinking that tonight I will just write the last couple thousand words, and then fill in the whole damn middle part between the resurrection and Rhys and Suha and the rest trucking off into the desert to fulfill their part of the Big Plot Tie Up.

So. Fucking. Sickofthisdamnbook.

And then I have to start writing the third one!

Conversations with my Hairdresser

Gone are the days of the $14.99 haircut. I started spending a fortune on my hair after 1) going to Supercuts for the 3rd time in three weeks trying to get them to fix the mullet they'd given me 2) getting dumped - for the second time - by the guy I was dating here in Dayton.

At some point, you just realize you have too much self-respect to spend the rest of your life looking like Raggedy Anne.

In any case, I've ended up with a hairdresser that reminds me of my sister. She's short, mouthy, bleached blond, and meaty, with the chatty naivety of somebody about four years younger.

As we got to chatting, she asked if I lived in the apartments just across from The Greene, where I was getting my hair done. I pointed my building out to her (yes, it was just across the parking-lot construction going on right outside the salon windows) and she laughed and said. "That's what I thought! We live in the same building. I saw you a few weeks ago and I was like, `I think I did her hair!'"

She moved in in May, and I moved in in April.

"You must love the commute," I said. "Being able to just walk to work."

"Oh, I don't walk," she said. "I drive."

This gave me pause. It's a ten minute walk across the nearly-constructed parking lot to get from my house to the salon. It will be five minutes as soon as the construction is done and they tear down the fences.

She drives to work? God, how Ohio, I thought.

"I was going to walk," she said, "but my dad pointed out that if I did that, it would be easier for people to follow me from work, you know? So you get clients or weirdos following you home after work, and then they know exactly which apartment you live in."

Ah, yes. It's so fun to be a woman.

Actually, I thought, it's fun to be a *young* woman, when you're still ruled by (sometimes very valid) fear of the world at large. And men in particular.

This was another one of those little daily concerns that guys just never have to think about. There's no concern about walking to work from you house. Or walking around after 9pm. Or trying to decide if wearing a tank top will be considered an invitation to harass or assault you.

But see, the thing is, I don't think about those things so much anymore. Rightly or wrongly, I don't know, but I don't think about them as much. I'm confident enough that I could put up a fight. But more than that: I got tired of living in fear all the time. South Africa burned me out on that. I got paranoid and weird. And you know what? 99% of my freak-out fears were unjustified. I spent far more of my time worried about all the bad things that could happen to me than I did being in actual danger.

I always wonder where you draw that fine line. How much is too much caution? Sure, bad shit happens to people, especially women, cause people think we're "easier" targets. Some of my confidence comes from knowing that I'm not an easy target. But am I any more or less safe than the woman who's afraid to walk to work because some psycho will follow her home? Does the fear really save us, or does it oppress us?

When curfews get called because some guy is going around a college campus raping women, the curfew is on *women.* When we get assaulted or menaced, the first question people ask - the first question we ask ourselves - is what did I do to deserve this? How could I have avoided this? What did I do wrong?

This is oppression. It's the worse kind of oppression because it's the kind that's so close to us, so tightly wound up in our society, in the way things *are* that we see it as normal. Obviously, if someone attacked you, you were doing something wrong. Don't you read all those e-mails you get telling you how to avoid being raped in a parking lot? You should have checked your back seat before you got in! You should live in terror every time you unlock your car, carry groceries, walk to work. You must be ever vigilant! FEAR THE WORLD, PUNY WOMAN!

Well, you know what?

If I lived in the woods in some kind of uncivilized, barbaric conglomerate of loosely aligned clans, yeah, you're right, we'd *all* need to be hyper vigilant. But you know what? This is a civilized fucking society. We should all watch out for each other. We shouldn't put up with some rogue guy's bullshit behavior. And we shouldn't punish women's freedom because of one stupid asshole.

I have always been an advocate of teaching women to fight back. We get so socialized to be fearful, to go quiet when menaced, to be good, meek, docile, nice people, because nothing bad ever happens to nice people. And it makes us easier to fuck up and fuck over.

I don't want to raise women to live in fear. I don't want that to be our first impulse. I want us to raise our sons to be good human beings and teach girls that telling that guy to get his hand the fuck off us isn't "inconveniencing" him. It's asking for your body back.

Fear makes me sad. It makes me look at all the fantastic things we could do and say and be if we weren't crushed by fear. Everybody's got fear, yeah, and there's such a thing as being cautious, but "I can't walk to work (in broad daylight, across a parking lot!) because I'm afraid of being assaulted in a posh part of town." Wow, seriously. The Greene is in fucking Beavercreek. You pay $100 for a pair of jeans (I just paid $140 for a FUCKING HAIRCUT!!). There's security everywhere. To not even feel safe *here*? Really?

Wow. Just... wow.

That's not the world I want anybody living in.

Again, South Africa screwed up my standards. I'm not afraid of walking around downtown. I'm not afraid of walking around downtown after dark (which I have done). This is small potatoes compared to Durban. Does that mean I'm not aware of the risks? Of course I'm aware. I'm also aware that the risks are a lot less than we make them up to be.

Fear is one of our biggest oppressors.

I hated not feeling comfortable in my own skin. I hated feeling weak. It's why I work out, speak my mind. I tried so hard to be a good, little, docile woman when I was a teenager. I tried so hard, but my body was all wrong, and I talked too loud, even then.

At some point, you have to realize that if trying to "fit in" is killing you, then maybe you're not the problem. Maybe it's the model. If trying to "be safe" feels like it's choking you, maybe what you're doing doesn't make you as safe as you thought it did.

Safety is a joke, anyway. Fearing things... you know, it's like fearing a chronic illness. Shit happens. You can sit around in your apartment being terrified of getting hit in the back of the head with a shovel, but illness sometimes does that. Oh, sure, there's stuff you can try and avoid. You can not be stupid. Don't try and walk four miles home, drunk, at 2am, and avoid the possible asshole who would take advantage of that. Don't have sex with 12 different people over the course of a year and not use a condom, and avoid the higher possibility that you'll get AIDS (or some other, less threatening disease). Don't be stupid.

Not being stupid will certainly help reduce the possibility of you getting assaulted or getting a chronic illness. But it will never *eliminate* your risk.

So live your damn life. Don't be stupid. But live.

Cause a lot of the shit that happens in our lives, we can control it. And some of it, a small but sometimes significant part, we can't.

So have a beer, but don't get drunk every night. Walk the fuck to work, but don't tell all your clients your apartment number. Eat some cookies, but do something later to get your blood pumping again.

I'm all about not being stupid, but there's something to be said for living without fear.

Interpreting Notes to Myself

I'm working on line edits this morning, and while paging through the typical "take out the 'and' insert a period" types of edits (I have a lot of winding, comma heavy sentences that must get truncated during revisions. This should not surprise anyone who reads this blog, or anybody who's seen first drafts of my corp world writing), I found, at the bottom of one of the pages, an arrow pointing to a sentence describing Rhys's wife sleeping.

Below the arrow I had written "Mad sex."

I have no idea what this note means.