Going to end the psychologist visits today. She's not helping me and I need that nearly $300 a month elsewhere. Am I resentful? Yes I'm resentful. Because I'm paying $70 / wk for answers and all she's doing is nodding like a bobblehead. So enough of that. I need that money for real solutions.

The postal service will be laying off between 120k and 200k people soon. We'll be insolvent by October. Due to not having any seniority, I'll probably be laid off soon. So yeah, looking at having to make a decision re the magazine project sometime soon. Do I go ahead with it, damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead? Or do I scuttle it again in favor of survival? I'm sure my mother will go for option #2. And would find Kickstarter the devil incarnate.

Could use some people in my corner since I seem to have the backbone of a single-celled organism when it comes to standing up to my mother. Oh well.

Huntsville made the Top 5 list of Geekiest Cities. Maybe I could move there?

I have ConStellation coming up in September, less than a month away. Feel like Wile E. Coyote feebly waving a flag as he's falling off the cliff again.

I have to learn that my first reaction to fear should not be to pull away even further into my shell, but to keep trying to connect. Even if doing so ends up exactly as I fear it will. Correlation does not equal causation.

Have changed name on the project. Magazine will be called "JumpGate" and the whole shebang will be JumpGate Press.

At the moment, I am in the process of trying to save up $6k as start-up money. Also investigating various aspects such as how to do the conversions from RTF format to Kindle and EPub formats, how to get them sold on Amazon, etc. Have bought the domain names. Need to do some biz cards and letterhead, I suppose. Also signed up as a monetary contributor to Duotrope, which has probably the best publisher info database for authors looking for where to submit stuff.

I try to do one thing per day, however small, toward the project. Under the concept that every line is really a series of points.

So as a result of the recent therapy (on the fence about whether it's helping or not), I decided that I need to do SOMETHING even if it appears to have little chance of making a living. If I just sit here, nothing's going to happen anyway. If I go on the criteria that whatever I do must result in making a full living, I'll never get anywhere because I have no viable options.

BUT if I remove that from the table, then I have more options available. I arrive at a place where I can do something that I want to do with the criteria that it could possibly EVENTUALLY make a living, but it's not mandatory. If the criteria is, "what can I do that I could spend 40 hrs a week doing and feel as if it meant something to me", then the answer was immediately clear.

So I'm resurrecting the sci-fi novella magazine project that I was going to do just before we were told the REC was closing. It's not going to be "The Terran Conspiracy", but it will be the same project under a different title. Since I actually did file LLC paperwork and had to scuttle it, I think I should change the names so as to avoid confusion. Instead, I'm planning to call it "The Sidereal Times."

This time, I'm actually going to try to do a business plan. And I've ordered new desktop publishing, website making and photo editing programs that look to be somewhat more capable than MS Publisher. I've bought a new computer.

I've been here more than a year now in Jonesboro. I'm honestly tired of not being able to plan for the future, and I just said the hell with it. I'm tired of my life being on hold, so I'm going to assume that I'm going to be here a while and get on with my life. If I'm not, if I get excessed next week or a month from now or whatever, oh well, change all the addresses and carry on. This superstitious thing that the minute I put down roots they'll be ripped out has to stop.

In light of that, I've also put in for a week off in September. I'm going to ConStellation. I'm done with fafiating. I'm going back to fandom, and I'm going to find new friends.

So yet again my guildmaster didn't stay gone, he came back, only days after I quit the guild. 3 of my 4 toons are now back in. And he made Ancasta a Co-guildmaster.

*sigh*

Ancasta is now 80th level.

Skyamaalu, my lowest-level toon, is now 41st.


It's Memorial Day. I went out and got a hamburger, stocked up on Diet Coke. Back to work tomorrow, after 2 days off.


Latest wild-hair wish: To get a piece of land somewhere, build a yurt, put in a few solar panels, dig a well and a septic tank, and live off what I can make making soap, growing herbs, and building junkbots out of old tape players.

Because I'm really, really coming to hate being around people. And I'm really, really coming to hate living by everyone else's rules and schedules, in a nature-less environment, at a job that I hate.

See www.coloradoyurt.com for details.

So I've been thinking lately about what things or conditions truly help me, calm me down, give me space to breathe, etc. What subjects feed my soul, what do I truly love that makes me feel like there's some reason to go on, what makes me forget the usual mantras. This line of thought started during the ice storm, when I ran out of Diet Coke and started drinking so much tea. The tea literally puts me in a meditative state -- provided I drink it mindfully. Or maybe that's the thing. I dunno. I just know when I take the time to make the tea properly, sit down in a quiet room or with some soothing non-frantic music playing, I feel better. At peace.

Maybe I'm getting old, I dunno. But I have to start digging myself out of this hole I'm in and not just mentally race around the same old crazy.

This kind of path can lead you to some uncomfortable truths. For one, Warcraft is a net negative effect. It's a stressor. It makes you forget, sure -- the same way TV does. It's not constructive, though when I started playing it was. For all that I'm an officer in one of the largest guilds on our server, I have a grand total of 2 people I talk with semi-regularly -- Kill and another Gnome mage named Morgianna (another older lady like myself, we have much the same experiences in WoW so we commiserate a lot). Otherwise, there are names I know because they are often troublemakers. But they're not friends. Also the frustrations of just playing the game get to me a lot, which just adds to it all. Zoning out on farming motes in Nagrand is not a healthy kind of forgetting. It's the kind that leads to "what the hell, it's 11 PM already, where did the time go?" and waking up the next morning feeling like the previous night wasn't restful at all.

Problem there is, I love Warcraft. But it ain't healthy for me.

Further along that line, the realization that spending every night and most of my days off in front of the computer is only exacerbating things. It's alienated me from a lot of things that used to be of interest to me, such as my mythology studies, my writing, my crystal collection, the podcasts I used to get into, the ambient music I used to get into. My hippy side. The psychospiritual side of me.

Playing Warcraft, mindlessly checking Fark or my RSS feeds and the fanfic sites, it's just escapism. It's not dealing with myself. It's worsening all my problems, not helping me to heal. It's not letting me think beyond a narrow set of parameters. It's not just Warcraft that's the drug, it's the whole shebang. Everything I do in my life.

As I said, uncomfortable truths.

But the tech is inescapable. It's woven into my life. The tech itself isn't bad. It's what I'm choosing to do with it that's screwed. And it's not going to be solved in a day. No more than heroin addiction is.


And aside from pulling myself out of this, there's the larger issue of my job and my life circumstances in general.

But we will see.

I'll be taking 6 days of vacation time here starting on the 16th. I was planning to blow some money and take a spa vacation thing back home (the Chattanoogan does the whole shebang) but checked the prices and nearly swallowed my tongue. So that went kablooey. Still, planned to take Mom to English Rose, but she thinks they may be closed. Can I pick'em or what? So I guess I'll end up going to see Mom and Muzz and that's about it. May spend some money to get Muzz some tea stuff, I figure she might like that.

Will spend some time here at home trying for the spa vacation thing at home and "renewing the source" as it were. Trying to do something to alleviate the emotional and spiritual exhaustion.

Well, so I've been sick for much of the winter. A cold around Thanksgiving, another cold middle of December, then week before last here I caught the flu. We had the snowstorm ("Snowpocalypse 2: Ice Road Boogaloo") and I was home for 2 days before my guilt and fear for my job got me out of the house. Work that day was all right, but then when I got home the ice on the pavement of the driveway made me fall 3 times. I dinged at least 1 rib, and was afraid I'd broken it. This happened right before I got the flu, so while I was coughing my head off with the flu my ribs were killing me. But I went to a walk-in clinic and got some Tamiflu, and I was off work for 5 days. But a couple days after I went back to work I felt healthy again.

Well, except for the downward spiraling. But I went back to listening to the brainwave entrainment as I fall asleep every night and it acts like an anti-depressant for me. It's weird. It's like I'm on Paxil again but without having to take any pills or risk the whirly-head and barfing when I go off it.

I'd been feeling pretty down. Being sick so much, then not being able to get away from the facts that I'm at a dead end. My job is a dead end, my life is a dead end. I was going to file a grievance but when my union rep at work would go off on a tangent whenever I asked if she'd filed it yet. Then after talking to our new postmaster (new new postmaster, 3rd one at Stockbridge since I've been there), I realized why: Because she can't file a grievance, there's nothing to file about. Yes, I really have been put into a dead end job. I can't get out. I can't advance because there's nowhere to advance to. I've hit the wall. My life, essentially, is over. I'm just waiting to die. So I quit asking about the grievance, and quit talking pretty much at work. There's no reason to. Just take out the garbage, clean the toilets, and wait out my meaningless, pointless life.

Think how it's going to look on my resume -- 16 years and counting at the same employer, and I've never advanced but have in fact been demoted. I was fired and then re-hired after six months. If I was an employer, I'd conclude that I was a troublemaker and / or had absolutely no ambition at all. Another employer isn't going to care nor even care to know that there was nowhere to go in all my jobs with the USPS -- they'll simply ask me why I didn't job-hop within the organization until I got into something where I could advance. So I'll never be able to get a job outside the USPS now. If the lack of education didn't damn me, this would.

And anyway, I'm a janitor. No one's going to hire a janitor for anything but being a janitor.

Part of me wishes I could sue the USPS Human resources department for putting me here and claiming there were no other jobs in the Atlanta district. For one thing they didn't give me even a quarter of the money I should have gotten for back-pay from when I was out of work. For another, they've put me in a situation that is hurting my career advancement. But no lawyer or union rep is going to take that case. I can't even blame anyone, or get back anything for this whole clusterfark.

The whole thing is crushing me. It's like a physical weight pressing down on me. I can't think of anything else sometimes. The brainwave entrainment is helping, but it doesn't do anything to solve the problem. I'm out of ideas and options.

I don't know what to do.

Think I've almost had it with the guild. Kill has left WoW and given up control of the guild to others, and they're making changes to the officer structure and have "temporarily" restricted access to the gbank only to officers. People have to ask an officer if they want to deposit or withdraw from the gbank. They've also restructured officer status to be dependent on how much a person raids, essentially. Raiding is something only higher levels (60+) do, so anyone below that is pretty much shut out of officer status. It's also dependent on whether one is a "casual" or "committed" player, which seems very discriminatory to those of us who can't spend 12 hrs a day on the game due to things like working for a living.

I got in a big argument about it with one of the new "officers" last night and quite frankly I see no advantage to being in the guild anymore. Why should I work to level, gather mats to put in the gbank, make armor or potions to put in the gbank, when I can't expect to get anything out of it? I asked if high lvls were going to be putting in mats that I could use to level my alchemy or leatherworking and was told to go out and level and get them myself. I have to pay out the nose for the herbs that Ancasta needs now on the AH because she's too low level to effectively gather them herself in Arathi without dying constantly (which uses up the very potions I'm using those herbs to make). So my toons are broke, and can't expect any help from the guild beyond being told to "go out and level and do it yourself, when you're 60th lvl you'll be worth bothering with."

Hell with it. They're not worth it.

So I am 41 years old.

I never know what to think on my birthdays anymore. I've tried horror, I've tried suspicion, I've tried indifference. None of them seem to work.

It's better to remember it that 41 years ago, humankind launched for the Moon and made us forever a space-faring species. That can't be erased, even if we've rejected it now.

Have been in new house total about 48 hours now. Fuzz has been sleeping with me as usual though for the first 12hrs or so he wouldn't come out of one or another closet. He seems to be okay for the most part now, though still looks around fearfully from time to time. I have yet to see him eat anything, though he has used the new litter box. He'll get there.

Tomorrow I go back to Gainesville to clean up the old house and hand back the key to my landlady. Ah well. Everything changes.

I've arranged the room that shall be the new Fortress of Solitude for the most part, though I have not yet arranged the source books, crystals, whatnot. Magazine carts, video and book drawers are all in attendance. Debating hanging the dragon picture in there.

Will need a stepladder for kitchen. All cabinets are just too high for me to use more than the lowest shelf and I need more space than that.

Am writing this from local library since do not yet have DSL turned on at the house. A bit miffed they seem to be filtering content and cutting off downloads, mutilating several of my podcasts. I guess it doesn't occur to them that some of us are new in town and this is the only 'net we've had in 3 days and we've gone thru all our previously saved podcasts. Also, why would they care if I'm reading FF.net? Or Keira Marcos's site? Thought it was just a glitch until I tried FF.net, then MrsHammill's site. None of them loaded. Yet MrsHammill's dreamwidth site loaded. Kinda hinky. :-b

So yesterday I went to Jonesboro and signed the lease.

The money came in but instead of the $4500 I was expecting it was $2900. They apparently took out taxes, etc. Still, I'll pay Mom back the money she loaned me, I'll get moved in. Set up all the utilities today though the gas company won't have my gas turned on until July 6th. So it'll be cold showers until then. Joy.

It's a nice house though. Mom is panicking because Aunt Janice told her Jonesboro has the highest crime rate in Atlanta. I'm not sure what she expected me to do about it. I have to take the job. If I refused it I'd lose unemployment for refusing a job. I guess she wanted me to move to a nicer section of town but how was I to know what's a "nicer section of town"? This house is one good sized room larger and yet rent is $25 less than what I"m paying here. As far as I'm concerned it's comparable to what I have here. And anyway I'm not racist like she is, I don't particularly care if there are blacks and Muslims all around me. It looks like I'm going to be surrounded by black people at the place where I'll be working, my Postmaster is black, so it's either I live with it or I'm out on the street homeless and jobless. Personally, I don't care. I'm a single, white, childless, female-with-gender-issues science-fiction writer and fan. Just being myself puts me in so many minority groups I could apply for recognition as my own tribe.

The blacks and the Muslims got their own schtick. Leave them to it.

Anyway, I'm being moved on Monday. Power and hopefully water will be on by then. DSL may be waiting for me when I get there Tuesday.

So I'm sitting here just being glad the money came in even if it wasn't what I was expecting, when the realtor who's dealing with my house in Ft. O sends me an e-mail saying GMAC wants me to send in paycheck stubs, tax records, etc. I sent him an answer back asking when they need this in since I'm moving on Monday and I won't be able to get to it until Wednesday at the very earliest. Then in talking to Nate he was wondering why they needed such from the SELLER of the house. So I sent another e-mail asking for clarification.

The pile just keeps getting deeper.

I think once I'm back at work and my health insurance is back I'm going to look for a therapist.

Okay, so I have a deposit in on a rental house in Jonesboro, GA. On the drive back the other day I saw a structure on the side of GA 85 that had some distictive architecture. I know there's a Hindu temple somewhere in that area and when I got home I checked on the net and sure enough I passed by a real Hindu temple. This will require investigation in the future.

So now it's packing, getting a moving company set up, and waiting for the money to come in. If it doesn't come in on the next paycheck cycle I won't be able to get said moving company, and the vast majority of my stuff will be stranded here until the money comes in. Meaning I'll have to keep paying my landlady here for this place AND pay rent on the new place. Or else Mom will have to help me pay for it all, which I simply find unacceptable. She's already paid off my car, it's not going to snowball any more. I'll live in Jonesboro with my computers and the air mattress again if I have to, and cart my books, kitchen stuff and clothes down in the car. I lived for almost 3 months here in Gainesville like that before my stuff got delivered here, I can do it again.

I've tried calling the Labor Relations manager for Atlanta twice to ask when I can expect the money, she hasn't called me back. What's the use of giving me your phone number and saying call if you have any questions if you don't answer when I do?

In the midst of all this, my neighbor at Radio Free Ross-a-Noodle who is trying to buy the house told me that someone had broken into the house there. Also the usual disconnect between GMAC, the realtor handling the case and real life -- the realtor not getting on GMAC's short sale system, lady at GMAC I had been working with now not answering calls, someone else in GMAC Loss Mitigation answering the calls, my neighbor worried that the house will go into foreclosure even though she's had her bid in for it on the short sale for WEEKS. And of course in the midst of all that, I'm going back to work in a new job and a new place with new people.

Considering I didn't expect my job back at all, I'm still trying to get my head wrapped around that one.

Am I happy? No. It's one thing after another and I keep waiting for it all to go away. My patience is wearing thin. I have no idea how long this job will last, and as I'm starting at the bottom again I'll be the first to go on the next round of cuts. I'm fragging tired of being told either you take this one option we give you or you're out of a job, and the options always seemed designed to screw me over and I'm expected to smile, say yes, and be grateful that my life is being disrupted like this. That's like being raped on the edge of a thousand foot cliff and thanking your rapist for not shoving you over and while he's at it feel free to do it again. Even when you're making close to $50k a year you have no control over your life.

So the "arbitration" was today.

I use the word loosely because the "arbitrator" didn't bother to show up. A couple of ladies from the PO's HR division did show up, and we reached a settlement. It wasn't what I was expecting.

They gave me my job back. But not as a window clerk. As a custodian. In Stockbridge, Georgia.

I have 3 weeks to find somewhere to live down there, pack up, and move. I report for duty again on July 3rd.

I'm getting $4500 in the settlement, which will cover the move.

3 weeks.

I'm getting my job back.

I'm not sure what to think about the whole thing. Other than OMG WTF 3 WEEKS TO PACK UP AND MOVE?!?!

I'm already worrying about Fuzz, but I guess that's to be expected.

I don't know why I haven't put this on here til now, but arbitration for my grievance cases with the Post Office is set for June 9th.

Also have signed up to take 2 Excel continuing ed classes at Gainesville State. One day classes covering basic and intermediate. I know how to use Windows apps, I just need the specifics for Excel. That at least will allow me to put Excel on my resume.

gOS working out well on the netbook. Will play Pandora, YouTube, etc. It's finally turned into a good little machine instead of a problem child.

Have been posting a fanfic I'm writing for WoW on Fanfiction.net and had 2 people favorite it so far. It's only been up about a week. So I'm kind of bemused by that. Wondering if history is going to repeat itself. Waiting to hear "Are you a professional writer?" on the reviews. This time, though, I don't think I'll get delusions of grandeur.

I feel completely cut off from the rest of the human species.

Extraneous.

Well, I thought I had a job. And I did, for all of 5 days.

One week ago today, I got a call out of the blue from a local rep for Kelly Services. She asked if I'd be willing to take an assignment with a company in Dawsonville. Shipping and receiving. The Kelly rep thought it sounded much like what I'd done in the postal service. This was at 11 AM. I was in the Kelly office at 1 PM. I was told to go take a drug screening test then report to the job. Hours were 7:30 AM to 4:30 PM, Mon-Fri. Okay, fine. I did so, and off I went.

The job was physically demanding, but other than my feet feeling like hell from the brand new steel-toed boots (could hardly walk after 2 PM every day they hurt so much), I felt I could learn the job given a week or two. And by today (Friday) at the end of work I felt like I was getting the hang of it. It wasn't so bad. My immediate boss was something of a hard-ass, but not nearly so bad as the PM in Cornelia. I stayed out of her way. I'd been told at one point that if there was nothing to do, to sweep the floors, dust the shelves in the inventory, etc. The which I did, when I wasn't filling orders, packing them up, and preparing them for shipment.

So I was on my way home tonight when I got a call from a Kelly rep from Athens, subbing for the rep from Gainesville who is apparently sick at the moment, telling me that the company "doesn't need your services anymore".

When I took the job last week, the rep mentioned the last girl who worked for these people stayed there 2 years. The job was "indefinite" but I was under the impression that it was going to be long term.

Thank the Force I haven't ended the unemployment yet.

Anyway, I'll have to talk to the Kelly rep on Monday. If she can't find me a job in less than 2 weeks I'll have to end that and stay on the unemployment, because that at least is stable. At least for the next 3 months or so.

I'd like an explanation too but that's probably going to amount to "sorry, I was sure it was going to last, but you know how these things go" (with a nonchalant shrug of disclaimer thrown in).

Well, I can't rely on "sure things" that turn out not to be.


I'm vaguely angry. When I talk to the Kelly rep on Monday I'm going to ask if she knows the MBTI (she ought, since it's such a big part of career counseling and placement) and tell her to find me an INFJ job or a boss who can work with INFJ. Because I'm tired of getting bludgeoned by the whole damned world.

Anyway. Mom said to take it easy this weekend.

And honestly, I've missed reading fanfic on my phone in the middle of the night.

DoL decision went my way. Postmaster failed to prove by predonderance of the evidence.

Of course she can still appeal that decision. I would assume since I can appeal, so can she. But we'll see.

It appears she did this mostly out of spite. The Post Office has one unemployment account for the entire service, not individual accounts for each office. And anyway, it's not coming out of her pocket, we all pay into unemployment. So I'm not exactly sure why she did this except for spite. Oh well. I don't see much use in that myself, but...

Went to Norcross today for a job fair at the Gwinnett Cty unemployment office. There were supposed to be 3 companies there. There was 1, and they weren't prepared for all the people that showed up. But I got info for the US Census and Clear (he WiMax company putting the network up in Atlanta), and will see what I can do tomorrow with that.

Will be going to Chattanooga on Friday-Saturday.

The thing with the DoL could go either way. I did my best. They'll send the decision in the mail.

The job training thing may actually be a legitimate job. They're sending me a check to buy a computer, a barcode printer, and 4-in-1, and a bunch of software. That's fragging scary, but it makes me think it's legit. So for the moment I'm tentatively hopeful.


My emotions are all over the place and I can't stop worrying. I wish I had someone to talk to, but there is no one. But that's why I've started doing this blog again. Because if I don't put it somewhere, it's just going to bounce around in my head like a super bouncy ball shot out of a rail gun into a raquetball court.

Maybe I'll finally open that "Mythos" DVD box tonight. I need something to make me think and get my mind off everything. Who better than my guru?


If it all goes to hell, maybe I'll go out west. I'd like to see the Milky Way from the desert before I die.

So last week I got a notification of a hearing from the Department of Labor. Apparently the post office is appealing the unemployment benefits.

Yes, apparently the employer can appeal the unemployment benefits. And if the DOL finds for them, not only do the benefits get cut off but I have to pay back everything I've already gotten. No, I can't pay it back since I've been living on it. Mom can't help me anymore.

So two of the three reasons should be easy enough to deal with -- I have no control or even influence over when the post office turned in the paperwork to the DOL. I have no idea why my benefits would be cut off for something I didn't do, but it's listed on the hearing notice. Also, I didn't accept a lay-off for lack of work nor did I quit, I was fired. I have a notice of removal to prove that. I didn't quit, I was fired. The third reason will take some doing, but I've got it covered. The exact wording is "discharge or suspension of the claimant was for failure to follow orders, rules or instruction or failure to perform the duties for which employed." I was fired for failing to qualify for the position of SSDA, not for failure to follow orders, rules or instructions or failure to perform the duties for which employed. I plan to explain how on my shift there was no way I could have done the 30 hrs. required Distribution for the job to be considered SSDA, and therefore I shouldn't have been required to learn the scheme. That basically I was fired for something that shouldn't even have been part of the job. Also planning to mention the grievances, and how the PM and the supervisor have had past grievances filed against them for harassment. And that I've got grievances pending for violations of the contract in several instances.

I wanted to get a lawyer to deal with all this but after talking to the state union steward she called one of the union lawyers and they said that it's frowned upon to call a lawyer for these things. That the DOL wants to hear from the claimant personally. Personally, I think if whether or not you're going to be rendered not only jobless but homeless is the kind of case where you should ALWAYS have a lawyer present your case, especially if you're nervous and having to confront a couple of psychos intent on destroying you.

They already fired me. I think appealing me getting unemployment pretty much clinches the "harrassment" issue.


I guess I've just got to have faith.

So do I want to go back to school or not? That is the question, and it must be answered within the next few days because I gotta get the paperwork done. Deadline is April 1st.

It's clear that I'm not going to be able to get a decent job without a degree of some sort.

The people at the WIA office said that if I can find 5 job openings for a particular job, I can use that as my intended job and go for the appropriate education. So I could do "social work assistant" and get the AA for Sociology or Psychology if I can find 5 job openings to prove it's an "in demand" occupation. All well and good.

Just that I don't feel any motivation to do it. Nor do anything else. Which isn't a good thing, I'm well aware. Depressed again, but really when have I not been depressed?

I look around at so many people chugging right along doing this that and the other thing, goal-oriented and going after it, and I just feel nothing. No desire to do anything. No draw to an area of expertise or pull to any particular profession. Not even writing, anymore. No goals. No plans. I know I should, I just don't.

It's not like Sociology or Psychology is a bad thing. It's just that's closest to the way I think normally. I'm not as likely to fail at it and it shouldn't take much work.

After that, I dunno.