I wonder sometimes, when the world gets too big (again) and I have a bad day at work, and the General begins to load the cannons, if

- is it me or is it the world? Am I a magnet for assholes in power? Should I be more compassionate to my superiors and understand their position?
- do I spend too much time solving problems of pretty elves fucking, orcs hunting, space-ships breaking down and art being judged by their monetary value lately, to fit into the Real world?

Why do I always feel like a square being shoved into a round tube?

Because wasting precious time we have on this earth is a cardinal sin, that's why.

The General sometimes has to be held back. When I fuck around and bark, it's just a retarded pug showing teeth. He is a cave lion. I am ashamed of the fact he has to worry every time he picks up the phone that on the other side I will be crying. That is the greatest millstone on him: having chosen a wife who is constantly at war with imperfections of humanity, if on a miniature scale.

I do get angry. I really do. And I'll tell you why. In the army I was the quiet little mouse, taking the shit from every Tom, Dick and Harry who had five minutes to piss on me. They had me clean toilets, they wouldn't let me out when nobody else could go to heart surgery with my father. At the chocolate studio, I watched the workers being treated like garbage and my hands bleeding from working for not as much as a single dime in the end. In the museum, I watched the girls slave without pay on the promise of employment, which was never real. At the post-office, I took shit from the superior who wanted to fuck my husband and eventually got rid of me. On the ship I cried myself to sleep every night from the abuse at the hands of Shitty Little Squeak Basket. And as of few months ago, the client who owed me money that could pay off our debt screwed me over and I got nothing - and I did nothing about it. I was just glad it's over.

So, is it me or is it the world? I am volatile, to be sure. My fuse is short, getting shorter. But is there some scientific proof that miserable employees are more effective? That treating people like dogs gets the message across better than admitting the work is hard but we'll get through together? I love the work. It's why I do the work. But I sooooo fucking hate hate hate hate hate the people. Even the kind strangers I meet for the briefest of interactions depress me. Only thing I hate more is seeing what I may turn into if I start to believe them 'this is normal'.






The answer to both questions is really simple.






Finish the goddamn fucking book.

Well, when you can't decide whether you need new winter hiking shoes or a new sex toy, it's time to invest in some literature. Fuck me but I haven't read a book since New Year's Eve shift. 

Trying out some of the new ideas, none of which are working quite yet, but, you know, it's early. I made eight bucks, which are going straight into an investment fund (read: I'm buying 50 half pans on AliExpress...) Gotta start somewhere small, ammarite? :P

MY BRAIN WOKE UP! I HAVE AN IDEA!!

I'll tell you all about it super soon, but holy noodle, what a strange feeling. To see sparks again in the old furnace ...

... please don't die out in the long winter night, please don't die out in the windy night ...

Bah, awoke yesterday through a myoclonic twitch. Amateur. I'll attribute it to new-job stress and not to my dreaming brain becoming soft. It was a funny scene (not ha-ha), resonating fervently for several minutes after. In the scene, I was accompanying a band of police officers into the apartment of a man suspected of killing a small girl. (Case was not graphically shown, but it was shown making veteran detectives nauseated.) His apartment was vast and circular, so while the investigators were entering, and I was snooping around for interesting things to photograph, as you do during manhunts, I spotted the old man trying to exit. I called out to the officers and he saw me, coming at me over and around the furniture. I tried to kick him in the stomach, but he tackled me to the floor and while I tried really hysterically, desperately, to stall his attack until someone shoots him, I was fully aware he is either going to produce a knife and stab me or try to bite me, being infected with some shitty disease. He snarled: No jail time for me! and spat right into my eye. The moment saliva hit my eye I woke up. All in all, a shitty dream.

The one from today (slept really badly) was a lot better - I was a demon hunter in Diablo III and had to use my fists to punch through skeletons' skulls, but I was good at it. When time came to kill mini-boss, some putrid fatso monster, I suceeded.

So, the new job, as all lowest-paying menial jobs go, is depressing, tiring, demeaning, bad for health and soul-crushing - just how I like them. Thing is, I have better offers. But having a better job would mean I want to settle and I would rather wither and die than settle. People who come to shop and see me there, see me in those ugly white fluorescent lights, pale, bags under my eyes, hair thin and greasy, lips dry and pale, are not even surprised. I always pick the worst jobs. It is the exact opposite of a long vacation.

The General, if at all able, surprise-shows up to come to collect me, or makes me dinner or buys me food he knows I like (these days I love buckwheat and quinoa salad and soy stake, because it doesn't make me too drowsy if I eat for the lunch break), although the other day he made yummy bean stew, bless him, and that was not the best idea - it is not easy, holding in a fart for nine hours. 

I have two methods of coping with the negative bits of the job - making shopping lists for all the shit I want to buy to stock up my hiking and drawing supplies, and allowing my brain to fully appreciate the vacuum left behind by my deep disappointment with clients of the art world. As the job has me at the main cashier station most of the time - the station providing the worst humiliation and stress when I fuck up in money terms, the brain is required to keep completely and entirely dormant: I cannot reminisce about sex of the previous night, I cannot plan ahead, I cannot conjure concepts that might drag me out of poverty and back into arts and crafts business. It simply needs to keep its head bowed low and do the dirty little job. (It's a shop of mainly Made-in-China products, so the amount of dust, fiberglass and synthetic materials easily airborne. My hands are so dry and cracked they're starting to micro-bleed.)

There is one added bonus (more like a conscious choice) to this job (The hostess at McDonald's post would pay about 200 bucks more, but then we'd all die of cholesterol within a season. :D ) The shit we sell is so freaking cute. I cannot get enough of it. We keep getting new stuff and I keep making my list longer "The first few bucks I get, this is exactly what I'm buying!" ... :D

Good thing the General has a monopoly over our finances. We would die of exposure and starvation, surrounded by buttons and bows.

This artist's impression of exoplanets just made my whole day :D

Can't I just pick one and go be happy there?

A NewYear's love letter to a beautiful red-haired photo model

Goodnight, sprite, banshee, kelpie,

Goth shy story, Joan of Arc,

goodnight poetess of morning light

inspiration, distant ambition/dream,

I cannot wait to be a witness to your tales

in 2019 (what a weird SF number),

goodnight moth, flame, gem. 

They locked me in the freezer and won't let me drive, even thought it is my plane. But where are the duckies? WHERE ARE THE DUCKIES??

... Might have overshot a little on the painkillers. 

I still had five hours of a really heavy shift, plus a family dinner later, and my headache was starting to graduate to a full blown migraine, so I opted for two safe, easy, light-on-the-tummy and free of side-effects painkillers (Analgin), which usually take care of any inflammation of pain for me... But I realized too late that my faithful supply was entirely fresh out because I gave the whole box to a friend the other day for her toothache. So, I rummaged through my other pills, only to come upon Ketonal, which said 'for pain' on the tag and I recall they gave me that after surgery.

Boy. That is some good shit. It makes sense now people take drugs. Holy fuck but was I happy for about an hour. Warm and pain-free and everyone was so friendly and all the boxes were so interesting. Every time I opened some plastic flowers or Easter arrangements, countless souls of poor Chinese workers who assemble all this stuff came wailing out.

Because I take so few of them and lately lean on the side of clean living, drugs have a ridiculous effect on me. When the General materialized unannounced to bring me the Analgin, I tried to explain they wouldn't let me drive, even though it is my plane, but where are the baby ducks, man?!

All in all awesome day. Happy New Year's :*