My mom's dog passed away the other day. Thursday, actually, but Mom had a busy weekend and only called to tell me about it yesterday. I'm pretty thoroughly bummed about it. Jake was a big sweetheart of a big, black dog, part black lab and part chow (and possibly part pit bull, though I kept telling my mom to stop telling people that last part because it tended to freak them out and we weren't really sure, anyway). He was approximately eight months old when he showed up in our front yard, during the last few months that I lived at home after the first time I yo-yo'd back after college. He was adorable, obviously not yet full-grown, and I didn't need to do much prompting to convince my mom to set some food out for him. She said, the first time, that it was just to make sure he was well-fed so he'd stay out of everybody's trash, but by the second day, she'd named him, and it was all over but the neutering and the collar-shopping. We found out a few years later that he'd actually belonged to a family down the street, but they'd pretty much turned him out and stopped taking care of him after he ceased to be tiny and easy/cheap to care for. Those people are right up there on my list with the people who abandoned Fizzgigg. But that's a rant for some other time.
Jake loved everybody, and everybody loved Jake; but he was a total mama's boy when it came down to it. When mom left, even for just an hour, he would mope around like nobody's business, and when he heard the garage door opening and signalling that she was home, he would stand at the door and howl and whine until she finally came inside, and then he would instantly be happy again. A couple of years after he adopted her, when she brought home a puppy named Bonnie, he taught her the same behavior; although, if it's possible, Bonnie adored Jake even more than she adored my mom. And now, I think, she misses him more than anybody else. He'd been around her entire life, and he was her best bud, and now, according to Mom, she is baffled, and keeps searching the house for him, and I just hope she gets to be okay, and this doesn't turn into a whole Where the Red Fern Grows tragedy.
But Jake had an excellent, entirely too spoiled and pampered life. He'd been going downhill for a while now, and it was getting hard to watch him try to get around on arthritic legs, obviously in pain but still determined to get up and come over to you for cuddles and ear scratches. It was his time, and I'm so thankful that it came before Mom had to have any part in that decision. Even so, I'm going to miss the hell out of that dog.
***
So, a little worn out from a day of crying and being sad, I got to bed at a decent hour last night. And then I proceeded to think up an entire plot for a mainstream romance novel. I don't remember all of it today, but I guess I should write down what I do remember, so I can flesh it out when I need something to work on down the road. One thing I remember is that the female protagonist's name is Rose, which seems all wrong for mainstream romance, where the heroines usually have masculine, or at least gender-neutral, names. But last night this character most definitely wanted to be called Rose, so we'll just go with that for the time being.
***
I slept too late this morning. I've been sleeping too late most mornings, lately, and that needs to stop, I think. I need to break it to my husband that I'm going to have to start setting an alarm for myself, which he hates, because it always wakes him up too, and then he has a hard time getting back to sleep. I've always been a proponent of getting as much sleep as your body needs, but my body tends to get greedy and can easily sleep for twelve to fourteen hours if something external doesn't wake it up. It might be fine to sleep till 11:30 if you tend to wake up at 2AM and stay up for several hours and get a lot of crap done before going back to bed, like Husband tends to do; but if you're me, and you just go to sleep and then stay that way until something wakes you up, and you realize you've slept for twelve hours and there goes half of your day, and now your entire schedule is thrown off and you don't know how you're going to get everything done, then that sort of thing just doesn't work.
And I'm still trying to figure out what does work. I've been out of a job for three months now. You'd think I'd have figured out a routine by now. But I haven't, in no small part because of my erratic circadian rhythms. Maybe I shouldn't stress out about it. Maybe I should just learn to go with it, and sleep when I'm sleepy and work when I'm awake and play and relax in the in-between times, and remember that it's not like I have to be anywhere at a certain time, anyway, and isn't this exactly why I've always wanted to be my own boss and set my own schedule? It is, in fact; and yet I can't get over years of social conditioning that make me feel like a loser if I'm not up and online, ready to work, by 9AM.
Also, there is a rep from a new temp agency trading voicemails with me, trying to set up a preliminary interview. I'm not optimistic; this is the fourth agency I've signed up with, and so far none of the others have had any work for me. But knowing that I'm on their roster, that they could call at eight in the morning with an assignment, makes me want to keep normal hours so I can be ready if they call.
I think it all boils down to that I'm still too hung up on other peoples' expectations to just relax and let myself be myself, with the quirky sleep schedule and the too many ideas and all of the other baggage that goes along with that.
And now I'm going to lay all of that aside, and go to the store. And then I'll come home, and maybe workout, or mow my lawn if the sun decides to come out for an hour or two; then I'll settle down to write, and remember that my sole client doesn't care what time of day I do my work, so long as I meet their deadlines. And I seriously doubt that anybody else really gives a damn, either, so maybe I should just cut myself a break and stop worrying about it all the time, and stop trying to be normal people, because I am not now, and I never have been.
***
Oh, and the other thing I was going to say is that soon--defined as "after I finish my assigned articles and my second draft and my sister's web site," which is probably not really that soon, so let's instead say soonish--I'm going to redo my site and move it all over to Wordpress, so I can dump my web server and stop paying their monthly fee. There are too many free options for hosting a pretty slam-bang personal site these days for me to keep paying for it. Instead of moving stuff, though, since that's always a PITA, I'll probably just scrap the whole shebang and start over. Whether that includes this blog, I haven't decided yet. It doesn't include my Livejournal, since that's mainly functioning as my beta-reader forum more than anything else. Everything else, though, it seems like it would be good to have all in one place, instead of scattered over several different platforms.
And that conclude's today's brain dump. Thank you for reading.
Jake loved everybody, and everybody loved Jake; but he was a total mama's boy when it came down to it. When mom left, even for just an hour, he would mope around like nobody's business, and when he heard the garage door opening and signalling that she was home, he would stand at the door and howl and whine until she finally came inside, and then he would instantly be happy again. A couple of years after he adopted her, when she brought home a puppy named Bonnie, he taught her the same behavior; although, if it's possible, Bonnie adored Jake even more than she adored my mom. And now, I think, she misses him more than anybody else. He'd been around her entire life, and he was her best bud, and now, according to Mom, she is baffled, and keeps searching the house for him, and I just hope she gets to be okay, and this doesn't turn into a whole Where the Red Fern Grows tragedy.
But Jake had an excellent, entirely too spoiled and pampered life. He'd been going downhill for a while now, and it was getting hard to watch him try to get around on arthritic legs, obviously in pain but still determined to get up and come over to you for cuddles and ear scratches. It was his time, and I'm so thankful that it came before Mom had to have any part in that decision. Even so, I'm going to miss the hell out of that dog.
***
So, a little worn out from a day of crying and being sad, I got to bed at a decent hour last night. And then I proceeded to think up an entire plot for a mainstream romance novel. I don't remember all of it today, but I guess I should write down what I do remember, so I can flesh it out when I need something to work on down the road. One thing I remember is that the female protagonist's name is Rose, which seems all wrong for mainstream romance, where the heroines usually have masculine, or at least gender-neutral, names. But last night this character most definitely wanted to be called Rose, so we'll just go with that for the time being.
***
I slept too late this morning. I've been sleeping too late most mornings, lately, and that needs to stop, I think. I need to break it to my husband that I'm going to have to start setting an alarm for myself, which he hates, because it always wakes him up too, and then he has a hard time getting back to sleep. I've always been a proponent of getting as much sleep as your body needs, but my body tends to get greedy and can easily sleep for twelve to fourteen hours if something external doesn't wake it up. It might be fine to sleep till 11:30 if you tend to wake up at 2AM and stay up for several hours and get a lot of crap done before going back to bed, like Husband tends to do; but if you're me, and you just go to sleep and then stay that way until something wakes you up, and you realize you've slept for twelve hours and there goes half of your day, and now your entire schedule is thrown off and you don't know how you're going to get everything done, then that sort of thing just doesn't work.
And I'm still trying to figure out what does work. I've been out of a job for three months now. You'd think I'd have figured out a routine by now. But I haven't, in no small part because of my erratic circadian rhythms. Maybe I shouldn't stress out about it. Maybe I should just learn to go with it, and sleep when I'm sleepy and work when I'm awake and play and relax in the in-between times, and remember that it's not like I have to be anywhere at a certain time, anyway, and isn't this exactly why I've always wanted to be my own boss and set my own schedule? It is, in fact; and yet I can't get over years of social conditioning that make me feel like a loser if I'm not up and online, ready to work, by 9AM.
Also, there is a rep from a new temp agency trading voicemails with me, trying to set up a preliminary interview. I'm not optimistic; this is the fourth agency I've signed up with, and so far none of the others have had any work for me. But knowing that I'm on their roster, that they could call at eight in the morning with an assignment, makes me want to keep normal hours so I can be ready if they call.
I think it all boils down to that I'm still too hung up on other peoples' expectations to just relax and let myself be myself, with the quirky sleep schedule and the too many ideas and all of the other baggage that goes along with that.
And now I'm going to lay all of that aside, and go to the store. And then I'll come home, and maybe workout, or mow my lawn if the sun decides to come out for an hour or two; then I'll settle down to write, and remember that my sole client doesn't care what time of day I do my work, so long as I meet their deadlines. And I seriously doubt that anybody else really gives a damn, either, so maybe I should just cut myself a break and stop worrying about it all the time, and stop trying to be normal people, because I am not now, and I never have been.
***
Oh, and the other thing I was going to say is that soon--defined as "after I finish my assigned articles and my second draft and my sister's web site," which is probably not really that soon, so let's instead say soonish--I'm going to redo my site and move it all over to Wordpress, so I can dump my web server and stop paying their monthly fee. There are too many free options for hosting a pretty slam-bang personal site these days for me to keep paying for it. Instead of moving stuff, though, since that's always a PITA, I'll probably just scrap the whole shebang and start over. Whether that includes this blog, I haven't decided yet. It doesn't include my Livejournal, since that's mainly functioning as my beta-reader forum more than anything else. Everything else, though, it seems like it would be good to have all in one place, instead of scattered over several different platforms.
And that conclude's today's brain dump. Thank you for reading.
1 comment:
Sorry about your Mom's dog.
Are you lightheaded after the brain dump?
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