Stuff

I have discovered a couple of things in the past few days. They're interesting to me, although they may bore the pants off of you guys. (Just in case, you may want to read this at home to prevent embarrassing moments. Otherwise, it's strictly at your own risk).

(1) There are only so many hours in a day. I know. It's obvious. But the fact is, I keep TRYING to manage more than is even remotely humanly possible and then beating myself up because I can't. I have a full time job. I have a home life. I have friends and family. Oh, yeah, and I have this budding career in writing that takes huge whomping chunks of time on top of it. There is no WAY I can do everything perfectly to everyone's satisfaction (especially mine) all the time. When I'm up against a deadline, for example, ALL my correspondence falls by the wayside. My visits to online friends disappear. The blog gets one entry a week if that. I'm not available by telephone. AND I usually get sick besides. Some of my friends understand. Some really DON'T. They keep thinking "It'd just take five minutes" but multiply that five minutes times several people and the time just isn't there. I hate it, but it's a fact. So I have to forgive myself and move on. It's hard. I'm not particularly good at forgiving myself.

(2) I have to do a new list of goals. You know why? Really good news. I've achieved all but one of them. WOW... Had to stop and stare at that for a few moments in utter awe. I FRIGGING DID IT! Things I've wanted to achieve my whole life are happening. I'd do the happy dance, but I'm too blasted tired. (See (1) above -- and remember that we had a deadline for Cat for Monday). I heard and read that putting your goals in writing makes you 90% more likely to achieve them. Well folks, wasn't sure I believed it, but it's been working for me. SOOOOOOO the first free time I have (Monday night, I think, after I've sent Cat to Anna at Tor)I'm sitting down and plotting out the next group of goals. Wish me luck!

(3) I can't please everybody all the time. Hell, I can't please MOST of the people most of the time. Which leads to

(4) The best I can do is the best I can do. If I am truly trying my hardest and doing the best work I can, that's all I can ask of myself. Despite the trend of people saying "I gave it 110%" the fact is, 100% is it. That's all she wrote. The rest is hype and bullshit. And frankly, if you're in it for the long term, you need to spend most of your life at 80-90% so that when the real push comes and it's balls to the wall you've GOT 100% to give. Because once you've given everything, it takes a while to recharge.

For example, Cathy asked me an intelligent question yesterday. It required actual thought. My brain acted like a car with a dead battery on a sub-zero morning. It TRIED to turn over, but it sure as **** didn't WANT to start. Eventually I dragged a coherent concept out, but it took a while and it WASN'T pretty. That is because between work, home life and the Cat book, I was at 100% for a long damned time and the bod and the mind have now got to recharge.

So I need a couple of days where I take bubble baths and eat chocolate, read a few good books and play mindless computer games. Maybe I'll haul out the canvases and paints and finally do the paintings I've been wanting to work on. Whatever it takes to recover. Because I NEED to recover.


SO, I apologize here and now to anybody who was offended by the fact that I lost track of them completely over the past few weeks. I really am sorry. I truly couldn't help it. I'll try to do better (and will succeed up until the defacational matter hits the rotary oscillator again). I apologize that the blog has been both sporadic and boring. And if there's any other way in which I've screwed up -- I apologize for it too!

Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.

Later!

Cie