cornerofmadness

I got through the final file box today but in it was a) my medical licenses b) all my malpractice stuff c) my first teaching job's pay scale paperwork d) the source of my worst few years of life e) the lawsuit over my hand.

a) I'm keeping my licenses because I can't give them up (I mean yes they're expired but I want to keep them)

b) outside of a few pieces just in case, I put the malpractice in the shredder

c) This is why I will ALWAYS be against adjuncts because it's such a horrible exploitive system that benefits no one, not the students, not the adjunct, no one but the budget. I was paid 2950$ for 16 weeks of work (about 4K today) not per month. That was four months worth of money. You're reading it right. In 2004 I was being paid 740$ a month. I would have been homeless or living in a dorm if not for a friend who let me stay. My parents paid for my medical insurance and I was lucky to have that

d) Starting in 2004 I was no longer going back to school post injury and I am now responsible for my medical school loans plus all the new grad school loans. Needless to say no one cared I was making 700$ a month. As bad as student loans are now, they were worse 20 years ago. (You should see what's in the shredder pile for the last few days of ALL the bullshit I used to have to do to get an income based repayment. Now I just have to let them see my IRS filing) Eventually I was sued by one of them which in a way was good. The federal court saw my 700$ income and laughed them out of court. Eventually when I got the job I have now I was hit with a 500/month lien on my income which was doable.

But there was default paperwork coming daily. For each and every loan (over 6 years of schooling) so I would have a half dozen each week (not to mention all the calls on my answering machine) It got to the point I couldn't even open the letters. They all said the same thing anyhow. I wouldn't leave my office because if I came home I'd see them and have more panic attacks. When I was still in WI (making that 700$) I was nearly instituionalized over the severe impact on my mental health. In the first few years here in OH (especially 2004-2007) it was bad. they would call and threaten me, literally threaten me (I mean they DID send the police after me when I was in WI to serve a warrant on me for nonpayment before they sued me)

Finally they came up with the income based repayment plan (which they didn't have in the beginning) they'd threaten me with 'you can only have this for a year or two which was bullshit since 20 years later I still have this).

So finding all this paperwork still opened was HARD today. I had to open them all up so what could go in the recycler went there and what needs to be shredded/burned when in that pile.

e) my lawsuit. If you work with your hands or your back (nurses, looking at you) check your state's worker's comp. I didn't know that WI would only pay 10% of my salary for a hand even though I was a frakking surgeon. No lawyer would take my case because it would pay too little. Finally found a desperate small town one who did. got 2K for my career ending injury. I will never be over this. That grief, that loss doesn't heal.

so yeah it's been a rough day, made even rougher because someone trashed the washing machines here so I had to go to Jackson and use their much more expensive ones. Sigh.

So yeah if you have cute pet pics hit me up.

My only good news is I DID send in a story to an open call. I doubt it will get in (they were pretty clear they wanted things closer to the low end of their word count range but there was no way to get that story down to 3K, it is what it is).

Oh and I asked the library to get Lackadaisy. We'll see what happens

What I Just Finished Reading:

Who Cries from the Lost - C.S. Harris. Love this series. This was good

What I am Currently Reading:

Lies on the Serpent's tongue - sequel to Bittersweet in the Hollow (so very Appalachian and oddly the protagonist in this can tell lies just like in Twisted Shadows only she tastes them) it's an arc

Nightshade by John Saul. The library had a bunch of horror out for the season so I grabbed some




What I Plan to Read Next: more library horror

The depression that is. When I'm staying in bed for 8-10 hours, it's a bad sign. Worse sign it's 1 pm and I'm still in pajamas, having done nothing but drink a cup of tea (and I mean nothing, no writing, editing, or anything I'm meant to be doing) Nothing is getting cleaned, no work on the project is getting done (or very little I should say) Everything hurts. My Halloween decorations aren't really up. I'm going to do 4 festivals in 3 days starting tomorrow. I know I will enjoy them. I sense no joy in the anticipation just dullness and lethargy about even preparing. I might need to call for some medication.

There is good news though. ALL the people I know personally in Florida are okay and I am very truly glad of that after facing 2 monster storms in 2 weeks.

I did get through a few bags of bullshit. My house looks trashed because things are in piles. WHY do I have tons upon tons of recipes cut from god knows how many magazines? My goal is now, pick one page, try it and if it's good type it in, if it is not toss.

One last call from fandomgiftbasket which only needs 4 stories (anyone a castlevania games fan?)

I just got a flash about a frost warning. I got most of the plants into the greenhouse today but I better go out there and cover the rest.

I gave up on going as Edalyn tomorrow to the anime con. they have a cyberpunk/steampunk thing. I'm dragging out my dress and calling it a cosplay.

I've been doing something on twitter 30 day pic thing of an idol and I've been balancing out the Prodigal Son's rabid fangirling of Tom Payne with a little Lou Diamond Phillips. I said if I had planned this better I would have finished on my upcoming birthday next week with an ask for Lou to friend me back as a birthday gift. Well he's been retweeting these posts and....



I swear he is such a sweet guy. Made my birthday right there.

Talked all morning about Mothman with a Pson friend (got me in the mood to write my It Came From the Trailer Park story)


The day went downhill from there. Nothing really bad happened. I got in a ton of writing (and posted that Buffyverse meta) but then I saw our gas went up 30 cents overnight. THis is horrible. What makes me angriest is a) I can't do a damn thing about it b) people THINK the president is responsible for pricing and we're already seeing the effects of this believe at the polls c) the GOP blocked anti price gouging measures (so they can make political hay of the pricing and I am sure if the GOP had suggested the measure the dems would have done the same because we no longer can work together on anything) This just put me in such an emotional tail spin.

I did go see an actual house in my price range. Dad said Dana I looked on GoogleEarth and you can hear the banjos. Yeah Dad that's true of this entire place but neither of us knew how bad this was. I was literally afraid. Ever get that Flight or FIght feeling, every nerve singing, your hind brain going RUN? Yeah that was this. I have seen countless rural poverty areas in my life especially here in Appalachia. This was the worst I've seen and I've seen people living in Amish-made sheds. Rusted out trailers, garbage piles higher than the trailers, dead cars three different sets of men fighting in the yard, the road wasn't as wide as my driveway. I did a three point turn in the middle of the road and gunned it the hell out of there. Yeah that's a nope.

spiffikins mentioned I've been house hunting a long time. Truth. Here's my issue, my student loans mean I can't afford what I really want. Also I can barely find what I really want. I don't want in town because the houses are SO close together (no lie, just looked at one where I could look at the room being shown off AND look straight into the neighbors and check their decor too) However out in the country 90% of what goes on sale (and isn't in a flood plain of which we have many) are doublewides. Here's my issue. Actually a lot of double wides are pretty nice (and with my health issues not a bad choice) BUT they do NOT age like a regular house. The stuff they're made of breaks down in just a few decades. All the ones I'm finding are 20+ years old so they're in the break down part of their life and they STILL want 180K+ for these things.

I don't get the house pricing here. It's WAY outside what people can afford. average salary here is under 30K. There is no one who can afford these places. Most people here can't even afford the rent on my apartment and I've put up with overcrowded neighbors where cops have to get called when it boils over. So what I'm looking for is outside the city but an actual house not a double wide. The search continues.


How about the reading meme?


What I Just Finished Reading:
Murder on the Mountain - a romance by a PoC Author for Popsugar (author is, characters are not the mystery/romance is forgettable)

Queen of Thieves: The True Story of "Marm" Mandelbaum and Her Gangs of New York by J. North Conway FINALLY FINISHED. It's not good, it feels like the first draft of someone's thesis.

What I am Currently Reading:


Light From Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki STILL omg why I am having such issues with this



What I Plan to Read Next:

Either something for popsugar (almost done) or an R or Z book to finish off the alphabet.


declutter day 8 what left :Two painted rocks Why kept: Gift from mom, Went with the Asian themed room Why left: They came from a yard sale and Changing the theme

But i'm still not sure where I want to go. I feel like I'm throwing up my hands and going Rhode Island/Boston because I don't know what to do. I did find a big ol' sex museum in RI though. Almost want to go...

I did get my tea (finally) today and I knew it was coming with a coffee sample (it all came after all my tea/coffee were made for the day). I'm excited to try that BUT it also came with a surprise. It's two packs of cocoa with a recipe that includes milk/condensed milk/rose water/shaved chocolate (that I'll have to get myself) and then green caradmon pods, fennel seeds and rose petals (I forget the company. I'll share it if anyone is curious) I need to get some lactaid before drinking that much milk (I often make hot chocolate with nut milks because dairy actually deactivates the flavanoids in chocolate. It's also why you shouldn't put it in your tea, sorry UK).


I did get some cleaning done. Not as much as I want/need but I got some and that's something. Also I have a big-ass bag of clothing ready for this weekend when I run up to Chillicothe to go to the veterans.

I had a visitor today. I'm pretty sure she's laying eggs. Since she's a snapper I gave her some distance




THere are a few days to write for dick_or_treat if you want to. I think I'm done so I'm going to share my stories.

Submission Prodigal Son (Malcolm/Vijay)

Moonlight Prodigal Son (Malcolm/Edrisa)

Never-Ending Nightmare Prodigal Son (Malcolm/Dani)

Thunder Fang BTVS (Angelus/Darla)

and the genfreeformexchange has revealed so here's my story

To Begin Again Post NFA Angel (Angel & Connor)

declutter day 6 what left: Asian gong clock why kept: Went with the Asian themed room why decluttered: Changing the theme

I'm always prepared for that.

WHere, might you ask, is the writerly ways? I don't feel so hot, just tired from allergies and all the dust from yesterday. I did nothing I meant to do. I sat down to write a little before lunch and seven hours later I had finished three stories, posted two of the smutty little things.

And honestly I want to keep on writing so I'll catch you up with writerly ways tomorrow.

In the meantime have the two stories I wrote for dick_or_treat

Thunder Fang BtVS (Angelus/Darla)


and

Never-Ending Nightmare Prodigal Son (Brightwell)

Day 4 of decluttering what left: jogging pants why kept: Worn for years why decluttered: Worn out

I don't know where the time is going but it does really bother me.

Things I learned today third time is not the charm. Oat Milk changes the taste of my coffee drink badly and my body does NOT like the sugars in it. Ah well. I didn't like coconut milk in those sorts of drinks either. Soy seems to be the least obnoxious. Almond a close second but I hate how ecologically not so great almond milk is. Guess lattes are out unless I go out and buy some lactaid. That seems like the best option


I need new summer/early fall work shirts. I just got them out and put away the sweaters (seeing as tomorrow is going to be 93 damn degrees. Ohio is hotter than Vegas. WTF?) and everything is SO old. Mostly because lately all the plus sized clothing I've found at Macy's/Roaman's/WOmen Within, my usual places have been so damn ugly.


And since I mentioned it I failed to get that last story edited (But I did write an ungodly amount at the coffee house)

Time to start the declutter accountability post

Day 1 - What removed - four bottles of hair product Why kept - I hoped they'd work Why Thrown - they didn't and they're old now their chemicals are suspect

It's been a weird but ultimately productive day. I started the cleaning - make my test - edited my story pilgrimage that's taking the place of me going and having fun.

1. Test got done. Huzzah. I think it's pretty fair.

2. The short story was BLANK. Thank god someone was on the editorial end and resent it. It's done and back to them already.

3. Katimac called to see if I wanted to make good on my whine about wanting to see It with friends as horror is better in groups. I appreciate it but points to the opening sentence. Up to my eyeballs in work.

4. The cleaning was...strange. I got more books in another container. I need to see if I can get the plastic totes into a plastic garbage bag. There are so many mice in my storage that the boxes end up covered in mouse shit. Then I dragged out this storage container that's been in my computer room for 13 years. It's designed to hold file folders etc in an office. It's ugly by handy. But it's also filled with SHIT. I dragged it out to the living room so I could watch the Star Trek marathon and sort it into recyclables, Good Will, keep and organize and trash bin piles.

Kanda was NOT amused by this giant mess. I was unamused to find two bag fulls of notes from year 1 of teaching (i.e. 13 years ago) some for classes I no longer even teach. I THINK I might have been keeping it as scrap paper but it was so dusty and I have SO MUCH scrap paper that it's going to be recycled. I found photos. I found handwritten bits of story that I kept just to see what it is. I found printed out fan fic and story editing for friends, a full copy of a novel printed out.

And then I found a blue velvet journal with a silver unicorn on it. I thought it was empty, something a friend had given to me. It was full. It's the journal from my first year in college. That has been set aside to be read. It's time to be reacquainted with 18 year old me. Hold me, I'm scared.

In spite of me wearing gloves and a mask my face is covered in massive hives from my allergies.

My rainbow snippet is teaching people about foxes. cool.


As I said I've been watching ST most of the day. One summer I need to sit down and watch it all because since BBCAmerica has brought it back, I've noticed something. In the first year, year and a half, Uhura, Sulu and Yeoman Rand, had more to do. The alternative Factor is on and there's an African female science/engineering officer. And I noticed in later episodes, Uhura and Sulu are welded to their bridge chairs and aren't seen as much. I know what happened to Rand (sexual harrassment) but what changed? Is it as benign as the writers deciding to concentrate on the big three or more malignant with the censors and producers demanding minorities and women having less to do? I know that WAS an issue.

I injected trulicity for the first time, a diabetic med that is made of gila monster spit but only injected once a week (and it's a fairly hefty dose). I've had issues with the earlier drug in this class (byetta) wish me luck.

I got half the kitchen cleaned up and my hoarded foodstuffs bagged up to take to Mom's because dammit I'm tired of wasting money on food I buy and never eat because there's a crossed wire in my brain. Then I decided, let's dig more into the closet in the computer room.

Wrong choice. I knew it has been a long while since I really dug into it. So I started. So. Much. Shit. I have things pulled out. The back room is buried. I realized this was more time than I have left because I want to be in Pittsburgh by next week as there's a birthday party for me on friday after all (all you can eat seafood at the Casino).

So the anxiety ramps up. I jam some stuff back in. Some I can't even imagine why I have it. LIke two land line phone systems that were so bad I replaced them. Why wasn't that in the fucking trash? And then there is something I can only assume was the result of me coming home from Christmas with a) stuffed animals from when I was a child from Grandma's b) three decades worth of high heels I'll NEVER wear again c) a bottle of wine that had to be a Christmas gift since I hate merlot.

I'll keep the animals, give the shoes to goodwill, cook with the wine. Then I found a garbage bag with my Crow T-shirts. I was just thinking about them when I pulled out the summer clothes. I knew I would never have thrown them out (I would have made pillows out of them first). I found all three plus the 1995 Neil Gaiman Death art for Comic Con T-shirt and three Italian ones. So there you have it 20 year old T-shirts all marked XL. they FIT. So in 20 years a) I haven't lost a fucking pound b) My weight hasn't changed but my shirt size has gone from XL to XXX. Thanks fashion industry. Because I don't feel bad enough about myself.

so now I have more of a mess than when I started. I found a bag of stories. Some are worth keeping. Some will never be typed. Some aren't mine (recycler). Some are Buffy stories that might be gone in a crash. I might keep and retype those.

I did make cleaning manageable by using a timer. 15 minutes clean, 15 minutes do something pleasurable. I ended up writing 1,500K on Kaleo's story.

And I'm STILL not sleeping. I was so tired last night the bed was swimming and I still could not sleep.


In better news, I got to chat to dzioo today. That was cool. And I did try out the new wordpress blog for Rainbow Snippets. You can see it here. I need to figure out how to get a border/layout on this because it looks like crap. see what you think

however in looking over Blood Red Roulette for the snippet I found TWO typos that I don't know how spellcheck missed them.

declutter day 3 Electric windshield cleaner Why kept God knows why. It was a gift. Why tossed - Because who needs this?

I got a free donut from Kroger's for National Donut day. It was maple bacon but the bacon turned out to be bacon bits....

I'm not cleaning nearly fast enough (and definitely not fast enough for mom who keeps castigating me. Sigh). But 3 bags of clothing went to Goodwill. That's a good start.

And my spare change went to the bank all 40$ worth of it. Yay for folding money.

And worked on the garden and found my asian lily under a stupid Ash tree trying to grow there and it was blooming, poor lily. Another lily had a huge mushroom mass growing around it. Sigh.

And I sorted out books (see below) to get rid of this month.

And found all the hard copies of three novels and worrisome, Riding with Strangers (more in a moment) which will make editing easier on me.

As for Riding...I just printed a copy of it and it wasn't this long. I hope I haven't lost the longer, half expanded version but if I have, at least I have hard copies now. Sigh. If nothing else, I want to work on this too.

I even joined bookcrossing.com again to help get rid of books. I can't take books from the library to Half Price book store and I used to do Bookcrossing (thanks to my friend in Finland) back when I lived in FL. Now it's even easier. I need to go to the Donkey coffee house and leave a couple of these.

This article is so me. (the pictures they chose are horribly gross though). Though my computer is my distractor, not my phone. I'll even own up to having more sex toys than one person needs.

Haven't had anyone to talk to day or night (other than yesterday) so I can feel the depression gnawing around my edges.

My diabetes isn't helping. This is the fourth time (including at the con) where my sugar was high (tonight 268) but I feel like I'm hypoglycemic and then less than 40 minutes later I am. Tonight it dropped nearly 170 points in 20 minutes. This takes so much out of me.

Been looking at Vegas hotels for that Harlequin story and now I just want to go back.

Declutter Day 1 item tossed Jeans why kept Wore them why tossed -Too big

May's Book Declutter (book, genre, where it's going)
1. Killing Club MYSTERY HP
2. Witness in Death Mystery HP
3. Chinese Cooking Made easy Cookbook HP
4. The Kindness Handbook Self help friend
5. Kahless SF bookcrossing
6. Broken Sf friend
7. Second Street Station Mystery friend
8. The Necromancer’s House Urban fantasy HP
9. The Supernatural Enhancements Urban fantasy friend
10. Deadroads Urban fantasy friend
11. New York to Dallas Mystery friend
12. Itsuwaribito Manga HP
13. Zen dawn Spiritual bookcrossing
14. The Enchantment Emporium Urban fantasy friend
15. Bloody cross Manga HP
16. Zombie loan Manga hp
17. Uninvited Urban fantasy friend
18. Queen Emma & the Vikings History non fiction HP
19. Billionaire’s blend Mystery friend

'Shopping trip to Macy's!' Mom was ridiculously excited about that idea when I mentioned most of my dress shorts are old and look like hell. I hate clothes shopping but right now I'm in the mood to donate my entire closet and start over from scratch.

I'm really cussing out that heatwave from the last two weeks because it kept me out of the garden but I have to do SOME of it before I leave here. So now I'm sore as hell hoping I don't feel like this a week from now because I'll be in Texas soon. Right now my left knee cap feels like someone bashed it with a bat and that Achilles is way painful. God, I NEED to sign up for yoga or something when I get back here. SO tight.

I am in a way a little glad though that I had to wait on the garden because I can at least see where some things came back (including the rose) so I can try to get the cardboard and plastic and mulch around. My goal is to at least half ass the plastic and mulch just enough to cover and kill what I want dead and then run up tomorrow to get more mulch and it can wait til I get back or the fall or whatever. I just jam it in the storage unit.

I did manage to finish the kitchen. I tried a life hack I found on line for cleaning the microwave. Put lemons in a cup of water and microwave for 2 minutes then just wipe up the mess off the sides. Didn't work.

I had a strange dream this morning that I only remember snippets of. I woke up to find a man in my room and I was frightened. He calmed me down and reminded me he was my nurse. I was pretty weak and I had a bed sore on my hip. I remember the room looking like one from a Victorian house but I did manage to go downstairs and it was like my parent's game room. I remember friends and family visiting. When I woke up for real my hip hurt where the dream bed sore was.

No, I don't have a writerly way this time out. I'm actually writing so let me keep that going. I DO have two posts as Jana I want to point people to: Bloghop against Homo/bi/trans phobias and what I've been doing writer-wise here

I should probably chuck my word count up because I won't next week. I should probably be roaming the Riverwalk.

Yearly Word Count -

I have no goals for next week since most of it will be finishing here and going to Pittsburgh then to Texas.

declutter day 358 item tossed-5 years worth of save the date Waynesburg College homecoming magnets why kept- I keep getting them why tossed -They’re useless for hanging things on the fridge so why keep them?