Re: Moving Day

It has been a LONG day.

Closed Wednesday night and got home at a quarter to two, stayed up to get some work done, crashed at quarter to four, slept until seven, whereupon I got up to finish what I could do as far as packing. Movers arrived for the boxes and big stuff at a quarter to nine, and were done with our home at half-past ten. Made the drive to our new home (approximately 33.5 miles away, basically on the other side of the valley) and unloaded my car into the kitchen. Since it was just a bunch of boxes, I made a decision to start carrying them down into my basement home. With about six left to transport, Chris arrived with the g-parents and movers and in came everything else. Lunch appeared with Nik around half-past three and a short break occurred then. When I sat down on the couch to eat, I seriously thought I’d gone to heaven.

We readjourned to the old place soon thereafter to pick up animals and more stuff and I took the empties I thought might make good book boxes to get the books I was unable to pack that morning. Got mostof the books; some of my Buffy and some of my Tolkien left to retrieve, as well as the bookshelves themselves.

I did not bring the bed I’ve been sleeping on; instead, I am looking into a small twin or possibly a futon as it is just me and the cat.

More on this later as I am literally falling asleep at the keyboard.

Thoughts on Pools

My Spot

This will be my spot I think, as I spend time in our new backyard.  The backyard will be where I write during the day and my bedroom will be where I write at night. Well, unless my roomies are out of town and then… the world back here is mine! 🙂

I am nervous about the drive to my dayjob until I find my new job, because I have been saving money on the non drive to the location I am at now. My new job will need to be flexible but need to pay at least what I make now plus be consistently 35-40 hours a week annnnd I would prefer that it be be an office job. Ain’t no way I’m going to be able to pay the gas from here to North Las Vegas and back 4-5 times a week. Plus, if I am completely honest, I am in a serious dislike with my job. It drives me nuts that I still haven’t reached where I was in 2004, payrate-wise. A decade ago, I still made more than I have ever made with this company. All right, Annie… move it along.

It’s strange to think that in 72 hours I will lay my head down in a completely different place. It’s weird to think about, especially since it’s been forever since I had a change of address. Halloween 2006, I left Texas for Nevada, with intent to move to SoCal in February. Now in July 2014, we’re boxing up and heading to the other side of the valley… where I will be entering into a comfortable arrangement with a beautiful pool. Still, it’s a change of address and I’ll need to change it in several different places, not just my license.

At least my editor knows where to find me. Haha!

My brother’s birthday was today (the 14th). He turned thirty-seven. I sent him a text. That’s how we do things lately, well, since this time last year when he thought I posted what he considered to be an offensive photograph to Facebook. He promptly unfriended me there, sending me a three line private message explaining that he couldn’t handle that “gay shit.” (He thought that I had the smarts to post a photo of two men kissing to my personal Facebook page… where all my very Southern Baptist could see it and comment about it. Until I had my author’s FB page, I had to be very careful about what I liked and didn’t like, because I am not ready to have that conversation with my whole family.) We had a long drawn out argument that ended up with me not having access to my brother. It’s a unique pain, being two thousand miles away from your whole family, yet realizing that there’s a much longer road than can be measured, to reaching someone that you never thought you could lose. I went down to Texas for the Christmas holidays last year and he stayed at arm’s length, even across a room.

I knew then that I could never come out to my family, not and still have them as family. Religion has too tight a hold of them. I think it would even damage the relationship I have with my mother, who I’m almost certain knows, but doesn’t actually want to know. I’m not even sure I’m making sense, and I hope that I’m just being paranoid, but I feel like the conversation is coming whether or not I want it to do so. The thought terrifies me.

Going back to my brother after that tangent. So it was his birthday and I sent him a text wishing him a happy birthday, and he sent back his gratitude, but he also asked if I was going to accept his friend request. Without ever having apologized for the hateful things he said to me, without ever having talked to me about it since then, a friendship request lands in my personal email box on July 5… and nine days later, because I feel the need to let him sit for a while and because I’ve not been on my personal page in over two weeks, he says, “Are you gonna accept my friendship request?” Well, let me think, dear brother. My heart still hurts from where you bruised it and those kinds of wounds don’t heal as fast as physical ones. Of course, I know to pick my battles and even if I didn’t, I wouldn’t be the kind of sister that would ruin my brother’s birthday, so I kept my angry and hurt thoughts to myself and instead told him that I’d not been on my personal page in a while, that when I got on it, I’d accept it.

It’s not a complete fabrication, but I still love my brother… despite his bigoted beliefs.

Thoughts like these make me happy I have a pool. Now I can immerse myself in water and let the rest of the anger and hurt float away. Quite exciting and relieving.

Well… I will curb this stream of consciousness and get to work before my beautiful men lose their patience. For now.

Strange Days

It’s been a weird few days, and I can’t help but wonder if it’s just me getting older or if I’m started to be less accepting of the things that are not in my control. I know that while my head is a mess, it’ll be like trying to see through a muddy window, but I keep trying. The song I’m listening to at the moment is actually quite a good soundtrack to this convoluted post.

“I know you know enough to say
I know you know enough to play the game

You want to be the one in control
You want to be the one who’s alive
You want to be the one who gets old
It’s not a matter of luck
It’s just a matter of time”

Yeah… gotta say I love Thirty Seconds to Mars. Most of Leto’s lyrics touch home in some way, shape or form. He might be a weird person, but the man can act and the man can write, and he’s often not bad on the eyes.

I don’t really know where this funk came from, but trying to sort through it is making it hard to focus on what really matters. I can’t help but wonder if what’s causing it is really not in my control? I mean, seriously… is it my pride that is keeping me from seeking out a different day job, or is it my pride that keeps me at my current one? Am I incapable of writing my own About Me section on a dating site, one that will actually spark the interest of my match or should I give up on the damn dating sites? If I’m supposed to give up on dating sites, then where the hell do I find a nice woman who wants to spend her life with me? It surely isn’t going to be at a bar, so where in Vegas do I look? *sighs in frustration*

And while I’m at it… I know that a bit of my frustration comes from looking too keenly at the stupid sales reports on Amazon. I’ve “sold” eight books from all the sites I’ve published on, and I am quite happy that eight people in the world took the time to purchase World’s End, because it’s great, but apparently, someone took it back to Amazon and asked for a refund.

This… this makes me sad and god, but it doesn’t help the rest of the crap going on in my head.

To whomever is out there that reads my blog, thank you for listening.

Independence Day

Kind of a weird day… and yet it doesn’t really feel like freedom. I do my best to keep upbeat, but my head’s a mess.

Will be immersing myself re-formatting and editing on Brandon and maybe later working more on TBF 3.

Finished writing my submission for the open anthology charity call. I think I did well, but we shall see what my editor/beta reader has to say.

Soon to work on my Behind the Scenes piece and count the days until my promo tour for World’s End.

Apollo’s Curse

Just finished reading Brad Vance’s book, Apollo’s Curse.  It was a really good read, very engaging and a very enlightening book for a newby like me as far as selfpub goes. Thanks for the great book, Brad. I loved Dane and Jackson and all the romance of the Greeks! So very glad I bought it! Will highly recommend this book!

Payday

… bills all paid, Omorphi bought, library card obtained. I thought somehow, today might be a wee bit more exciting, but it’s not. To top it off, I don’t think that Clark County Library District’s connection to Overdrive includes anything that looks like yaoi or gay romance.

But I got a library card so that I could borrow books from Overdrive!!! *cries*

Hopefully… I’m just doing it wrong.