Sitting in Starbucks

How do I sum up what I haven't been keeping this blog updated on for months...

...First I think I'm gonna go to the starbucks bathroom real quick because my fingernails are too long to type fast. Brb.

Okay. I'm done clipping.

Well, there is one thing. I got my first set of tattoos for my birthday last month.

Eating at a local pizza place afterwards!

A couple days afterwards, when they had healed a bit

That was really fun, and for anyone wondering, the font type was Bodoni Book. Just because it was close enough to the complex serif-fonts that I was looking at, but simple enough to show up in a tattoo that small (according to the artists at the shop, Moon Light Tattoos in Loveland).

Other than that, well, the job that I started back in September (just a few weeks after the Aug 31st wedding), it's coming to an end, as I put in my two-week's notice on Monday.

Makes me think of that Michael Jr. standup clip where he talks about how he was just gonna leave his job, and didn't care about waiting two weeks, saying something like, "Two weeks from now, you're gonna notice, I ain't been here for two weeks." I can identify with that. I've had a couple bad days since Monday when the combination of 1) the weather being too gloomy to feel like the sun would ever come back, 2) the way my sleep schedule and breakfast habits had gotten backed up and tangled up, and 3) the simple knowledge that all my work duties had been completed in advance and I wouldn't have anything pressing to keep me occupied during the day if I went in, was all so much weight pulling against any desire to get up and drive to work just to not be needed that I called off early in the morning.

...It's times like this that I look at a sentence I've just pieced together and edited a couple times and wonder, "will anybody actually understand that, even if grammatically I've not made any real mistakes?" Makes me kick myself and then think about how it would have come out even worse if I was just rambling in your ear trying to make sense without editing any of it first.

Whatever. If someone cares to understand it, they can read it again, and that's what I like about written communication. Sure, you can try to remember what someone said afterwards, but man, if they say a lot for a long time, how much of it will you actually be able to remember verbatim? There's also just the human capability to misinterpret a phrase, and then reiterate it in their own words as if quoting that person, which can seem like they're purposefully twisting their words if the original speaker heard their account. God knows I've seen that happen way too much at my job in the kitchen. Sure, none of it came from my boss who hired me and holds my utmost respect for being both a hard worker, a good leader, and a kind, understanding individual with an incredible amount of patience. He doesn't try to get into the details of whose fault it was, but just tells them to quit acting like kids. I mean, he doesn't phrase it that way, I don't think. I can't remember his exact words x) anyway.

So while I'm sitting here...what are some things I need to get off my chest, things that I've put off posting about, that I have the time and presence of mind to attempt a record of?

Then that makes me wonder, what is really worth writing? Is it to help me, to let people know how I am, or just to occupy my mind this morning as I try not to think about the fact that I don't have a job after this one and I just need to get in with a psychiatrist so I can start going to therapy again and also have more insight into the medicinal side of my treatment? I did look up the people on the list of psychologists that our insurance covers, and I found one that's also a psychiatrist. That's been something I've needed to do for over a year, it's what my doctor keeps saying that I'll need to do "if this next addition to my meds isn't working" because she won't have any other go-to's with her general practice's experience and training.

Okay so the thing with my sentences being so long and convoluted: there's two possibilities that I'm considering. One is the possibility that I've been away from school for too long, and I've just been in a working environment where being a wordsmith or even grammatically correct was nowhere on the radar of my coworkers; another is the possibility that I've always been kind of rambly with my speech and writing, but I used to have the attention span to re-read what I'd written and then change it, while now I instead just give up and leave with a sense of having lost my capacity for meaningful and succinct communication. I think it's a combination of both. But still, I don't think I'd fix the problem just by reading books more and conversing with people whose vocabulary and patterns of speech are richer and more "bookish" the way I want to be able to think and therefore write... Maybe I'm just going through a crisis of voice. What do I want my voice to be as a writer? How do I want to come across to readers, and do I really need to try to "be something I'm not" by using bigger words or better phrases? I don't know. I do know that I do want to be able to convey deeper messages than can generally be conveyed through casual, conversational language. I want to talk about life and death, aspirations and disappointments, and all the things I try to solve in my thoughts. I want to put it in writing so that I don't just keep turning it over and over in my mind, which, while my meds have helped with that "circular, non-stop jumping from one thought to another" feeling that was overwhelming back in 2016, isn't neurotypical quite yet, I can say. There's still some imbalances of serotonin and whatever else is missing up there. The obsessive compulsion to always write in full, non-fragmented sentences is a trait of one of those imbalances, I'm sure. Or it's a result of the imbalance having been part of my growing up for those developmental years, and has now made a permanent mark on my perception of myself and the world around me.

I also use passive voice a lot, and I remember that back in 2011 and before, my MS Word grammar correction would underline sentences with passive voice as if it were incorrect. It's not only a reflection of my "passive" nature of not wanting to attribute blame to anyone in particular when speaking about a problem, but it's an aspect of the Indonesian language that I was introduced to when my parents were recounting their language learning lessons during our first year in the country. I didn't really have my own lens to look at that world through, but I knew what my parents thought of all the cultural differences. Sometimes I sided with them in their first-world bias, and other times I rejected their aversion to the culture I lived in from age 8 to 16.... Did I just jump from the subject of my speech patterns, to my mental health, to my speech patterns, to my childhood and thoughts of my parents' influence on my perception of the world?

I think that this is exactly the type of thing I've needed to put into writing. I don't know if it will offend anyone reading, or if this instance of vulnerability will come back to haunt me. Not like many people read my blog. I did that on purpose. But hey... If that dream of becoming an author did come true, I think the kind of people who would be fans of my fiction or poetry would be the kinds of people who would read my old blog posts and discuss them in ways that might make me regret how open I'd been.

But maybe I could just get over it and not worry about how one future version of me might think I'd been too brave. I've heard that people regret the things that they didn't do more than the things they did. One of those deathbed revelation things, like "go for it while you're alive, because there's going to come a time where you'll wish you had taken that chance while you had it."

Or maybe I just have a bloated sense of self, and I should think of myself less, and instead figure out what to focus on.... But then I think, if I don't know myself, both in my strengths and my weaknesses, how will I make good decisions in situations where knowing if I would be a help or a hindrance by offering advice or assistance? One feeling that I hate is that of realizing that I made things worse by trying to insert myself into the situation, because I really didn't know the background of the issue and the root of the conflict. When I try to mediate an argument, I don't want to make it worse by interfering, of course! And I would know if I was going to be halting progress if I knew myself and my limitations. And solving arguments is just one example of things you need experience and knowledge of yourself in order to succeed....succeed in...no, that's a prepositional....what's-it-called... Split prepositions? No, that's split imperatives that I'm thinking of. It's a rule that prepositions need to have their object coming after them, but is that a preposition?

Solving arguments is just one example (of things (that you need experience and knowledge of yourself) (in order) (to succeed in)). 

Prepositions that have that many words inside them are clauses, right?

In a way, I want to go back to school to brush up on my memorized knowledge of grammar. But man, thinking about going back to school just makes my bones shake. Some of the worst moments of frozen panic that I've ever experienced were brought on by the multitude of anxieties that being a student can produce. Do I really want to do that to myself again? Or, rather, have I really grown and healed enough from that point that I could do any better a second time around? I hate making the same mistake twice. I really don't want to make an expensive mistake like that twice, either, especially since so many people's expectations would be upon me. I almost want to secretly get an online degree and not bother to tell people who wouldn't need to know.

Do I really care that much about what people think of me?

Yes. Parents and in-laws want me to succeed, to be happy, and to have a good job and a chance to move up in life, and I don't want to make them wonder if I'm really happy when I fail out of college a second time. If I do. I don't know.

This is how my thoughts unfold...hard to follow, maybe, but probably just hard to understand the logic and reasoning in the leaps of conclusions. I have trouble getting to the root of why I think one thing about a way I feel. Like, there's so much history and cultural association and learned bias that goes into one's worldview and just general interpretation of the events of one's life. It's something that a therapist dives into and brings a fresh, structured perspective to in order to solve the barriers that their client has in front of them holding them back from a normal life. That's something I'll be really benefiting from as soon as I can get in with a psychologist/psychiatrist. I was seeing Neila last year, but things got busy and I was working almost full time and things seemed to be going pretty great every time I visited, so I came less often. Then I got married and things were wonderful and I had that extra boost to get me off of one dark thought and back to reality. But winter changes those things, and I need to get back in with a therapist so that I can regain the stability that I need.

I think this has been a pretty good summary of the contents of my thoughts. I should get some solid food in me so that all this coffee doesn't just throw me into a jittery, obsessive track that ends up dumping me into an exhausted heap on the couch in a few hours... It might already be on that track, seeing as I've been writing pretty obsessively for about an hour and 45 minutes, but eh. I'll work it out. Food.

I could make some pigs-in-a-blanket and clean up the kitchen while they're in the oven, that would be good. It would get me back home, too. I don't really want to run errands until I get worn out. I think this is a good plan. :) I should post more pictures of me and Lily, too. I have a cat! taken in from my cousin whose other two boy cats were harassing it into a paranoid behavior that wasn't going away no matter what she tried. She's completely changed, has a brand new personality, actually wants to be out and around people, and gives love and attention in a way she never did before. It's beautiful.

Lily curled up in this space beside me on the couch and fell asleep like that. This was exactly the comfort I needed.

Okay, I'll close this off and start packing up to go home. Thanks to anyone who read or skimmed any of this, and I hope your day is filled with uplifting thoughts and that you are able to spread joy to someone else during your interactions with people.

God bless,

—ACS 1.31.2020
(still haven't gone to social security offices to change my last name yet)

oh yeah, and coronavirus. we're worried it'll become a panicky thing. so we got shelf-stable foods and water bottles just in case nationwide panic ensues. I feel like it's a kind of "prepper" sort of action to take, but at least I'll use all this stuff anyway, even if we don't lose power or need to stop using the tap water. Just in case. :/ Okay. Bye!

poem of a winter morning

1/10/20

Even though the sky is dreary 

 And of my own thoughts I'm leery 

 I must not give in to them 

 Somehow I must think more clearly. 

 

I turned on the living room light 

 And thoughts of sleeping all set flight 

 Why I sat in the dark alone 

 I don't know, but this feels right. 

I've taken the dose of vitamin D 

 I've listened to my stomach's plea 

 To give it healthy, complex carbs 

 So I hope today is better for me. 

Starbucks and me just being relaxed

Location: Starbucks, I've stopped on my way home to redeem my birthday drink :)

Time: 2:30 PM, after seeing Neila and painting for a really nice therapy session

Mood (1 to 10, 10 = fantastic, 1 = absolutely horrible): 6, better than 3 hrs ago because I am making decisions and deciding to live my life and not care that I'm walking into a Starbucks (with maybe 2 people even sitting inside) in my house slippers, and not caring :P

Last Meal: I ate cereal this morning

Coffee: I had one small cup at like 11, and I'm at Starbucks drinking a grande peppermint mocha. :) I can tell that I needed more coffee. xP

General schedule of the day: Tonight, Alex and I are going to hang out, whether we go out to dinner or hang out at his place, I'm not sure. We're going out either tonight or tomorrow night.

Objective: I'm writing here so that I can figure out where I am at the moment, and what I feel like I want to do with the rest of my day. I want to get into a headspace where I can decide what will be helpful for me when I feel "meh" and "ugh" like this morning and so many other mornings. Like knowing that coffee really helps.

Dump Zone:

Photo Prompts: The top 20, Photo #4

~For all freewriting-based blog posts, see the tag #Wells Of Thought: Notions and Expositions. 

*cough* So.....This one is really, really long. Instead of ≈1,000 words, I peaked at 3, no...4,312 words today. o_o WAIT NO let me add 9 so it's 4,321. 😁

I go off on tangents about the following topics: Grandma's earliest memory, why I don't use foul language, how sheltered I was, what it was like going to public high school, why French horn is hard to learn, a teacher who was a mentor to me in that time, the difference between an optimist and pessimist and why I'm an idealist, how I feel about my parents arriving this evening to visit for the weekend, and finally, a list of 10 things I'm proud of myself for achieving (which you might think are kind of lame or sad, but no!!! I take pride in the battles I've won. No more depression, worthlessness, and self-pity for me.)

Here's prompt #4: 2014-B

2014

     Haha... there's quite a story behind this one. 

     But right now, it's making me think about Grandma Spence's earliest memory that she shared with us at their 50th wedding anniversary celebration, where she begged her older brother Kenny to let her ride on his horse...I can't remember what his name was, and I googled 'names for horses' and none of the names on the first article sounded close enough to jog my memory. It was just a week ago, no, 6 days ago, and I can't remember her horse's name. :( 

     Anyway, Grandma tells this story about when she was three years old, and her brother, who's my great uncle Kenny, had a horse of his own out there in the country. She always wanted to ride the horse, and not with her brother, on her own. I don't blame her, I wanted to be a big girl when I was three, too! Haha. My uncle Kenny was about 10 years older than her, and he always said no because she was so little, but this time he said yes. 

     When she tells the story, she says that when he got home and was inside the gate, usually the horse would just trot back up to the stable, without having to be told where to go. So her brother decided that would be a relatively safe solo ride for his sister Donna. He hoisted her up on the saddle and told her to hold on to the saddle horn and don't let go no matter what. 

     But as these stories wouldn't be such well-remembered if everything went the way it was supposed to, that's not what happened. 

     I can imagine her at three years old, I don't know if she had blonde hair when she was born, or if it was always brown, but pictures from her childhood are so cute. I bet she had a determined look on her face as she sat there, holding on as tight as she could. And then when big brother let go, and...the horse...shot off for the pasture instead.......I bet she looked pretty heroic as she held on tight to that saddle horn. My uncle Kenny ran after the horse, yelling, "Just let go, I'll catch you!" But of course, she was determined not to let go! 

     He didn't catch up until it had run all the way down the hill through the trees and to the meadow (if I'm remembering her story right.) He stopped at the fence, and brother Kenny finally reached her and helped her down. 

     When Grandma told us this story last week, one of my dad's cousins asked if she "got back on the horse," or if she was afraid to ride after that. She shrugged and said that she had her own horse once she was big enough, and she rode all the time, but she didn't get back on her brother's horse for a while. 

     This picture makes me think of that story not only because of the horse, but because it was a time when someone else also told me it would be an easy ride, and that it would be fine for me to get up on a horse, untrained, and also bareback... We weren't thinking at all, and my friend said her dad could saddle the horse up as soon as he got home, but I wanted to sit on a horse now, and I didn't care if there was a saddle or not. Riding bareback was...how would you say it without the a-word.... It was something impressive and cool and dramatic if you rode without a saddle. 

     ...I keep thinking one of these days I'll be able to just say the "language words" that already come to mind that express certain situations perfectly, but my social qualms still keep me from uttering them, for fear that if my mouth were to become used to forming the words, that they would slip out unbidden at inopportune moments. But then... You know, I'm just going to go off on a tangent to talk about foul language. 

     I grew up super sheltered, like, the first time I heard the F-word was when my mom was having "the talk" with me when I started puberty, and she told me it so that I wouldn't, I don't know, hear it somewhere and repeat it? I don't know. But it was like, Dad was out of town and she and I had a slumber party and we talked about maturity and modesty and chastity and chaperones and dating, all on a level that an 11 year-old could pretty much understand. But yeah, she might have asked me if I knew what the F-word was, and I'd barely even heard that there was such a thing, and I said no. So she started to spell it--and then backed out at the first two letters--and said it rhymed with "duck." And then I whispered the word that rhymes with "duck" that starts with 'f', like, "...F...uck?" And Mom freaked and hushed me like "Yeah yeah, don't SAY it, it's a very, very bad word!!" She told me that it was a crude term for sex, and that was her segue into explaining in simple terms the way that God's perfect creation of love had been tainted and corrupted by mankind. A beautiful thing between man and wife was now used as a curse and "intensifier" (my dictionary app, WordWeb, that I've been using since I got my first iPod Touch when I was 13, used this term in the definition of any bad word I'd casually look up. I see a bad word and I think "intensifier," and that kind of describes my feelings about bad language. It intensifies what you're saying. Whether you should intensify it or not is what the issue is about. 

     So yeah, there was that first encounter, and then I didn't think about it again until I started getting on the internet and would see uncensored memes and text posts. It shocked and repulsed me at that age, but then, after we came back to the States and I went to public frikin high school, man. Those first two weeks, as anyone will tell you who knew me then, I was just in shock. One thing that shocked me was the way the teachers were accustomed to the students' propensity for foul language and, while they wouldn't just let it slide, there was definitely not a strong consequence or reparation. 

     (I'm really breaking out the thesaurus here, I love when I get to do this. It's half of why I love blogging. But I'm using Thesaurus.com instead of my hard copy...why?? I have it sitting on the shelf...Oh well. No time to grab it now, I need to finish this up so that I can start doing the dishes and cleaning up for when Mom and Dad arrive this evening; they're going to be staying at my apartment for a few days while they're passing through. I'm really excited but I've been busy helping Alex pack his stuff and move to his new place, so I haven't done any dishes since my brothers left from their visit on Tuesday morning. Rickey and Noah and Alex helped me wash everything Monday night, and I absolutely adore them for it. I think that if washing dishes could always be a social event, I'd be less biased against it in my mental motivational processes.)

     Anyway. The first two weeks of school in the US back in August 2013 were crazy...Not the craziest since, but definitely the most stressful in their unexpected nature that I had experienced up to that point. In that first week, at age 16, I started learning to drive standard with my Dad, because he wanted us kids to learn stick first before driving an automatic, and he'd bought the sedan just for that purpose. Also in that week, I jumped into picking a class schedule (thankfully we were there to start the year and I wasn't completely jumping in at the middle of the semester or anything), learning my teachers' names, and locating the classes, bathrooms, gym, and most important--the cafeteria. Haha. 

     I also started learning French horn, because I'd always wanted to play as many instruments as I could have a chance to learn, and now that we were in the States where we had a school to attend that had a high school band, I could finally have lessons on something and play with other people! I'd had piano lessons since I was 5...I talked about that a couple posts ago, I believe...and I taught myself basic guitar when I was 14 and one of our family friends lent me her guitar while they were away for a year...My brother gave me his old recorder from kindergarten, and I sort of played around on that... And now I was getting to have real lessons on a brass instrument. It was really difficult, and not in the way that learning an instrument is difficult when it's the first one you've ever had lessons on. I knew how to read notes, and I was even reading in the treble clef (lower instruments were in bass clef, and I can read that but it wasn't as natural to me at that point). What was hard about it was the ambresure...embrechure... Ugh. (Google is one of my best friends, it understands me and magnifies my thoughts into cohesive language. Ahem.) 

Embouchure: the use of the lips, facial muscles, tongue, and teeth in playing a wind instrument.

     So yeah. The hard part was the embouchure, having to learn how to make that buzz with tight lips, AND steady airflow that was ALSO angled in the correct direction for the note I was playing, WHILE pressing the right valves for the fingering of that note. And...You know what, I'm going to go off on another tangent. Miss Sarah Graham, you don't read this blog (because barely anybody knows about it anyway), but you are an amazing woman. Your encouragement to me, both in my 20-minute lessons during this first week and in your involvement with my learning during the rest of my two years of high school there, it's stuck with me. I know that my self-esteem, personal worth, and confidence in my ability to succeed, in time and with practice, were strengthened greatly in that short time you had with me. Of the people who've impacted my life, you've been one of my greatest mentors. You watched me toil through that first semester of lessons before I was ready to join the rest of the band, and you encouraged me with both advice and stories of your own struggles. Your transparency and your support made me who I am today. I'm not sure exactly what that is yet, haha, but discovering who God made me to be has been easier because of the time you invested in me. 
     The embouchure was hard, and it was kind of discouraging that I didn't pick it up right away. Driving stick was hard, I stalled A LOT and was hesitant to slam on the brakes because I wanted to be a "smooth driver" and create a comfortable riding experience for any passengers. Finding my classes was kind of hard, too. French horn lessons, driving lessons, and my class schedule which was constantly folded up in my pocket: these concrete routines helped me to cope with those abstract variables, such as: making friends, when I only knew one girl who was a senior and had very different interests (cough, sports, ahem), deciding what to wear for the ever-shifting Arizona temperatures, and talking to literally anybody.

My gosh, I'm almost at 2,000 words, and these were supposed to be "a picture's worth 1,000 words" types of deals. I guess I'd better attach a couple more pictures so I can keep going. ;)

2013

     Talking was hard, because the talking I'd done previously had been in relationships with people who I knew through my parents who were, for the majority, in the same tiny minority as I was. I did talk with other people, such as the college-age girls who came to practice their English with us and became great friends. But that was also a relationship with someone who I knew through my parents. Learning to establish a relationship based on simply the commonality of peers was brand new to me. In person, that is. I attended an online high school and chatted it up with all the other chatty kids from around the world that attended the online academy. We even Skype called sometimes, but most of us had pretty scrappy internet, and we were also in numerous timezones, so those group calls were rare. I keep up with those online friends from time to time, and I've met a few of them in person as well.

     Peers. Interacting with peers in person. Interacting with peers, in person, whose backgrounds didn't resemble mine in the slightest. I didn't think it was going to be 'scary', the way kids think the first day of kindergarten will be scary. 

     I remember crying during math in 1st grade at a new school, and also crying (in math class, too, actually) in 7th grade at a new school when a boy wouldn't stop whispering, during class, trying to force to me thank him for saying "God bless you" when I sneezed, but I was shy and hadn't been able to get the phrase out because I was awkward and didn't know how to interact with boys because I had an irrational fear, a phobia, of what might happen if I did talk to a boy...my gosh, that one was embarrassing...ha. 

     I started crying, and I couldn't keep the tears from welling up in my eyes, and I actually raised my hand and the teacher (who was kind of eccentric but was the best teacher for that rowdy group, and who threw me a farewell party three months later when I left) asked me what was wrong, and I honestly don't remember what happened but whew. I was so glad when that panic of a moment was over. He did get in trouble to some degree, idk if he was like, sent to the office (I feel like it wasn't that severe), or if the teacher just gave him some sort of "What the heck, man? Stop distressing this young lady, she's new and she's an MK!" That was a common phrase at that school about me, since it was the private school affiliated with our church there. 

Video from 2014, Google Drive file

     Anyway. I didn't think it was going to be scary this time, because I wanted to keep my chin up, stay positive, be optimistic. But I'd experienced lapses of emotional control on stressful occasions at a new school (besides the fact that I am an emotional human being and feel things very deeply anyway), so I should have known. But I'm also an idealist, and I tend to like believing that the best and easiest sequence of events will occur (also known as naiveté...I tried to spell it "naivety" and spell check allowed that, too, but the spelling I googled looks more grandiose. ha.) More than an optimist, who, in my book, looks for good things, notices the positive outcomes, and uses that to frame their expectations and their perception of reality, and very far from my definition of a pessimist, who looks for bad things, notices the negative outcomes, and frames their expectations, their perception of reality, and their impression of how life is treating them with these unfortunate circumstances. I guess I do 'look for good things and notice positive outcomes,' but I don't do as much looking, as I'm caught up in my daydreams and well-wishes, and am not overly concerned with whether this or that was good or bad. If I'm going to talk about something coming up, like my parents visiting, for example, I first consult my impression of what I hope it will be like, not what good or bad things I think can happen. I think about how I feel, and I feel excited to see my mom and dad, proud of my own little apartment here, a little anxious about letting them into my sanctum, the "physical manifestation of who I am", as Jordan Peterson says about one's bedroom...and I'm dreading having to do all those dishes and pick up all the clothes off the floor and clean up the clutter...well, no, that's actually enjoyable, because it's organizational and there's "instant gratification" that Mom talks about, haha. But there's a time constraint! That makes me feel anxious. And I perceive an expectation--which my parents may or may not have--of a clean environment and signs of my good mental health, manifested in the way I conduct myself (and I'd better be conducting myself in a manner which looks a lot like Mom's manner of conduct, at least in the areas of food prep, household cleaning, hygiene, and yeah..... I feel like Mom expects everything to look great, and like if my apartment doesn't meet her expectation, she is going to think that I'm as healthy of an adult as she'd hoped for me. And I don't want Dad to be disappointed with the way I don't keep it neat and organized all the time...) 

     But you know what? As an idealist who can slip into anxiety when her ideals seem unattainable, I'm going to flip those thoughts around. There's a time constraint? Well, I'd have time for all the cleaning I want to do if I'd just close up this blog post, or get to a good stopping point and return to it later. I'm perceiving expectations? Well, I can just text Mom and tell her I'm doing okay even though I'm not keeping up with laundry or dishes or picking up blankets and folding them. I'm doing a lot better at some things that were stressful before. I'll make a good list I can be proud of, and then that'll be a nice positive ending to this blog post. Haha, and maybe later I'll add the story that goes with the original picture, lol. 

Little Successes

The battles fought and mostly won in the war of mental health.

1. I'm keeping up with taking out the trash when it gets full or smelly or before I leave on a trip.
2. I'm rinsing and scraping food off of dishes and not leaving the crumbs around on the table or counter to attract ants anymore.
3. I'm putting food back in the fridge and not forgetting it out on the counter like I've done with creamer or something I just cooked that needs to be put into a container.
4. I take my evening meds every single night, and I mostly have a handle on getting refills on time instead of procrastinating and then panicking when they run out...
5. I know how caffeine and sugar affect me, and I monitor my caffeine when I'm on my Adderall so that I don't get that horrible antsy, fidgety, agitated feeling.
6. I keep creamer or milk in stock.
7. I haven't run out of gas or kept myself from going somewhere because I didn't want to refill (for either the anxiety of how much money I'd have to spend, or the social anxiety of the getting out of the car in a dirty, smelly, wide open place, and being in close proximity to strangers who might be weird and who might stare...social anxiety or anthropophobia, fear of open spaces or agoraphobia, fear of germs or bacteriophobia, fear of smells or olfactophobia... I can list fears that used to keep me from stopping for gas until the last possible second. I guess the fear of failure that running out of gas and having to call for help would imply is worse than the sum of those other fears. Anyway. I overcome that by being OCD about where I get gas and trying to make sure I always get the cheapest price that I can. It helps me cope with the other stuff I think.)
8. I don't beat myself up about maybe saying something kind of stupid in a group that nobody gets and doesn't make anybody laugh. I've learned to reverse those thought patterns, and a year of therapy has helped teach me to fight back with "these people love me; they don't wish I wasn't here; nobody notices my 'failures' or thinks of me as 'a failure' if I say something kind of stupid; I'm going to keep contributing to conversations today and I know that I will be glad I didn't shrink back because of a little thing like that that doesn't matter."
9. I am working at standing up for myself when I have an opinion that matters to me, instead of never wanting to share opinions that I feel strongly about so that nobody can hurt my feelings. I still don't speak out a whole lot, but generally that's because there aren't many occasions for debates or serious, critical, relevant moral discussions. Usually, I'm just defending my rules as a babysitter when I'm with the kids that I've been nannying on and off during this summer, and that's the closest I get to standing up for my "opinions." I don't even call them opinions there, because it's stuff like "do your homework" "because your mom put it on your chore list" "because if you don't keep up with studies and learn things, your brain won't be ready to absorb things when school starts back up" "just do your homework" "do you want to get in trouble when your mom comes home and sees you didn't do your homework all day", etc. Heavy sigh. I just prefer harmony when I'm with friends, and the most arguing I find myself engaging in is usually just the general joking type, where I lay aside the rules I generally follow that keep me from making outrageous statements or drawing faulty conclusions from flawed data..... What am I even talking about anymore? I don't shrink back for fear of rejection or disagreement when there's something important to say, I guess. Not as much as I used to. On to the last thing on the list of things I'm proud of getting better at, lol.
10. I accept the responsibilities that come with living on my own. Paying bills and rent, maintaining quiet hours for the sake of my neighbors, keeping myself from lying in bed all day, knowing that no one will get me out of the house except me, and cooking relatively nutritious and varied meals for myself... These are the things I was working to accomplish so that I could be ready to move out, and I've done so well. I mean, sure I haven't eaten anything today except my coffee, and I'm procrastinating terribly as I've been on my blog since 10:49 AM and it's 2:04 PM now, but hey, I got out of bed. I took a shower! I updated my hair color, too, as touching it up often is important to keep it looking sharp. I made coffee and drank it before it was too late in the day. I took my Adderall (sure, it was later than it should have been because I turned off my alarm at 9:30 when it went off and then got distracted and forgot until 11). I've been drinking water, too! I've got a water bottle here and I'm taking good sips. 

If this sounds depressing or sad to you that these are the things I'm proud of, I'm sorry but that is not my intention... Celebrate the little things with me, and be happy for the good instead of dwelling on the negative side (which I avoid like stepping on fallen ice cubes in the kitchen while wearing socks!) And thank you, by the way, for reading my rambling updates and freewrites about these old pictures. 

     There's a lot more things I could list that I'm proud of, too, like how well I've learned how to drive in a big city by myself, and how I'm making friends and putting in the effort to plan times to hang out with them... But 10 is a good number, and those are the things that I interact with on a daily level. And also I have a maximum of 4 hours now to wash the dishes, organize my dirty clothes to put them in the wash once my parents get here with more quarters, and plan a dinner that my mom can eat (she can't have carbs!). 

     So I'm gonna close this off, close my windows so I can blast some music through the speakers, and open my motivational reserves to get this stuff DONE. :)

YOU'RE
AWESOME.

Here's a potato.

--ACS, July 27, 2018

Photo Prompts: The top 20, Photo #2

~For all freewriting-based blog posts, see the tag #Wells Of Thought: Notions and Expositions. 

Here's prompt #2: 2013-B

2013

     Some of our friends were moving to a nearby town and decided they couldn't bring their piano. If I remember right, their new house had a baby grand, and this piano was an upright. It needed to be tuned, though, so we called a piano tuner who came to our house. I remember asking if I could watch him, and he actually turned it into a little lesson in acoustics and tuning. He showed me "A440" which is 440 Hertz that they tune the A4 to (I think it's A4) and then base the rest of the piano off of that note. 

     My parents still have that piano, and I make good use of it when I'm there. :) When I was five, I started piano lessons and continued them with different teachers as we moved, until 10th grade when there wasn't a piano for me to practice on. I could have gotten a teacher, and I could have practiced on the keyboard that was in the house we lived in for those 8 months, but I couldn't bring myself to play a keyboard without weighted keys. Thinking back, I wish I'd had lessons anyway. Ten years of lessons prepared me to continue through college, but I stopped practicing at 16; since then, I haven't been able to regain that level of proficiency that I'd reached. Now, I don't have my parents paying for music lessons, and lessons these days are more than the $5-10 we paid for an hour back in the day. 

     I just checked the local music store's lesson availability, and a 30-minute piano lesson costs $25. One gives hour lessons for $45, but still... $10 for an hour is nothing compared to $45, and I'd need a way to practice every day, which would either mean paying for practice room space in the studio, buying my own keyboard, or driving up to Alex's parents' house to play their piano (if it worked out for them). 

     And now I've lost the opportunity. I had a semester of piano lessons while I was at school because I knew I wanted to get back to the level of proficiency I'd reached, but it wasn't helpful. At that time, it only served to increase my anxiety, and I failed my lessons because I was so overwhelmed with the pressure and high expectations from my teacher that I shut down if I tried to find motivation to do my hours of practice. I know now that it was ADD that was preventing me from reaching my potential and taking advantage of the opportunities I had at the time. 

     Why does everything cost money? Sometimes, I wish we still lived in a trade economy, where I could provide a good or service in exchange for piano lessons. :P I really don't know enough about economics to make any kind of statement like that, though, so I guess I just wish that my existence, my efforts to make my life livable, and my desire to make the world a better place by helping others were sufficient to compensate the service of furthering my education and musical talents. But the world doesn't work that simply. I could apply for a scholarship, and that's the best I can really do if I'm going that route. 

     But that's the kind of mindset I inherited when I grew up as an MK with parents who were financially supported solely by friends and churches. I never knew the concept of working a job that I would only do if I were being paid to do it. I thought that I would grow up to do something that I believed was worthy of my attention, focus, and dedication, to such a degree that I would do it for free, simply because it enriched my life and gave me satisfaction to know that I enriched the lives of others. But there's literally nothing besides church ministry that works that way. 

     Was I made to have a career in the church? What kinds of talents could I employ, and what job could I make myself the best candidate for? These are the kinds of questions I catch blowing by in the wind every once in a while, and if I chase them, I find myself wondering what I have to offer besides serving in the childcare department, helping with the audio/visual tech booth, and, if I practiced, maybe joining the worship team as a guitarist (which is what they need right now). I've already followed that thought through: I serve weekly in our church's childcare, I volunteer monthly for the A/V team, and I tried out for the worship team last year, only to hear that I needed lots of practice, not only in guitar but in voice. 

     I'm unable to make a career out of the things I've naturally gravitated toward, and, while I'm grateful for the nanny job that I've had this year, it's barely paying enough for me to make it on my own, and it also leaves me wishing I could do more. I feel like I could be so much more, and that while I still have so many things to learn about being a nanny, I wish I could develop my skills in other areas, too, that don't appear in that job description. Watching kids all day rarely gives me a chance to do other things I want to get better at: music or writing or editing or cooking or encouraging peers... I'm left feeling like my body is wasting away because the only part of it that I'm using daily is my left arm. 

     A few days ago, I got into looking at the Free ads on Craigslist. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to personally pick up any of the furniture items I was interested in since I just have my little Camry. There was a piano that looked beautiful, but it was so heavy that I had no chance of finding anyone able to pick up and deliver it to my apartment. 

     While I know that a lot of my hopes seem to fade when it comes to the realization part, I also know that just because I can't get what I think I need or do what I want to do, doesn't mean I'm not going to have joy or fulfillment in this life. God knows what I need, and God has a plan for what I'm meant to do, and He's in control and is allowing these dreams of mine to fade so that His plan can form a new dream inside my heart.

—ACS July 16, 2018

(this is over 1,000 words by 103 but I don't care. It reached completion, yay!)

It's been forever

I'm currently trying to translate something into Elvish, for a potential tattoo (just idea stage right now, don't freak out) and finding the correct translation is getting complicated. Anyone keeping up with me might find the issue interesting, so I thought I'd post my findings here.

This is the website I started with, it's called Parf Edhellen and has lots of resources on Tolkien's languages. It doesn't specify in the Elvish scripts, just English spelling of Elvish words.

In order to figure out what the Elvish word would look like in the Elvish script, I did a Google search and ended up on this website, called Tecendil.com. It actually had an English-to-Elvish translation option built into it, which was cool, but it ended up translating the word differently than Parf Edhellen did. I got really mixed up! Here are my posts in chronological order of me trying to figure out the best translation of "breathe!" into Elvish, and then how to spell it in Elvish script.

The rule for making something imperative (a command) is to add the prefix á to the infinitive form of your verb. I got different translations for "to breathe" from different websites, but they were all pretty similar. This post is about me trying to figure out if it was:

súya-
verb. to breathe

or

þúya-
QUENYA v. to breathe

BTW: My username on the site is "Yúlaldië", which is basically a translation of Ashley, which means "a meadow of ash trees". https://quenya101.com/names/a-names/3/#Ashley

Parf Edhellen | Discussion:
Is this translation correct?

Yúlaldië · 0 #266
Hey, I've been wanting to get a tattoo, for the purpose of reminding myself to breathe. Panic disorder, energy conservation, anxiety, ADD, whatever it is at the moment, I find myself not taking enough deep breaths. I want to have a reminder to breathe, and I figure a tattoo will do as good a job of reminding me as anything.

I have delved deep into Parf Edhellen to find as many ways to translate this idea, and these are the phrases (Quenya) that I have created.

Breathe with more breaths! (essentially, breathe more, breathe better, do better at breathing)
á súyanë assúyanië

I breathe
súyan

Do breathe!
alye súya

Breathe!
á súya

I really should educate myself and just sit down and learn Elvish. I just wish I could learn it in a classroom. Language learning is an interactive process for me, and without connecting everything I learn with something else in my brain, the information has no roots and simply gets washed away by the tide of stimuli.

I think "á súya" is going to be my go-to for this. I'll use the Tengwar from the Lord of the Rings appendix to put it into Elvish script, and I'll be all set, right?

7/6/2018, 10:35:26 AM

But then I looked for how to put it into Elvish script by going to the Tecendil.com website, and I was further confused. Here was my reply to the thread I'd started, and no one had commented yet...

Parf Edhellen | Discussion:
Is this translation correct?

Yúlaldië · 0 #267
Now I'm trying to figure out the best spelling/script to use. Online translators are so jenk.

www.tecendil.com This link is what is throwing me off. It shows þúya as the Quenya translation of "breathe", and it's using the 'thorn' symbol instead of an 's'. Why? What's the source? It does look cool like that, but then, I can't find þ translated into Tengwar anywhere else that I've looked. I do think that glyph looks cooler (the red text on the page linked above).

Okay, so.....I found some fine print that says why they use the thorn:
"To indicate that a 's' should be transcribed with súlë 3 instead of silmë 8, use the letter thorn, Þ. For example: Þauron (Sauron, The Abhorred)"

So what's the difference between súlë and silmë? Two kinds of s's. I found an image showing names of letters here: goo.gl

That one shows súlë and not silmë. I'm more familiar with silmë, it's the version of 's' that my friends and I use when writing in Elvish. It's the one we wrote down for 's' on our cheat sheet.

What is the difference between súlë and silmë? Thanks!

7/6/2018, 11:22:27 AM

And then it gets complicated still, but makes more sense. I just started a new thread.

Parf Edhellen | Discussion:
What is the difference between súlë and silmë?

Yúlaldië · 0 #269
I don't know why there are two kinds of s's! What's the difference?

Original post: www.elfdict.com

Súlë and Silmë

www.tecendil.com This website is where I got the súlë from, (represented in English with the letter thorn 'þ').

I am trying to make a tattoo saying "breathe" in Quenya. That website is giving me multiple translations of 'breathe' and 'breath', and it has become even more confusing because its translation of the word "sule" (what I thought was just the name for their 's' character) is actually "breath". So the name for their letter 's' translates to "breath" or "spirit". Like, look at this: www.tecendil.com

Breath

Here's a copy and paste of that page:

"súle": QUENYA n. column, pillar

"þúle": QUENYA n. breath; spirit [stem: súli-]

"þúlë": QUENYA n. spirit [as exertion of will]; breath [stem: súli-]

So there's so much of a difference between the word "súle" and the word "þúle" that they are pronounced differently and need a separate character to differentiate between them so that they're not homophones?

But that's not the word that means just "breathe". It's a word I accidentally found by typing "sule" (the word for that 's') instead of "suya" (the word I found for "breathe"). That's getting off-topic.

To Breathe

Parf Edhellen translates "breathe" as súya. www.elfdict.com

However, this Tecendil website uses the súle form of 's' (represented by 'þ') to translate the word "to breathe" as "þúya". www.tecendil.com

So is it súya or þúya?

According to www.elfdict.com: "þúya", when entered into the search bar, doesn't match anything on Parf Edhellen.

According to www.tecendil.com: "suya", when entered into the search bar on Tecendil, is recognized and changed to "þúya", as if to say that the only way to write the sound "suya", meaning breathe, is to use the thorn (þ) representing the súle form of 's'.

What Now?

This is getting deep into phonetics and linguistics, and it's making me wish I could go back to school to get a linguistics degree, the way I wanted to when I was 14 and wanted to develop writing systems for unwritten tribal languages so that the Bible could be translated into their mother tongue...

I just want to know how the word "to breathe" is translated (I know it's "suya") and then how it is to be spelled, in Quenya script, so that I can tattoo it on my wrist to help me remember to breathe when I'm obsessing over details so much that I forget to take good, deep breaths.
7/6/2018, 11:50:11 AM

In The End

All my sources show "suya" pronounced "thuya" as a viable translation for "breathe". This is what they look like in the Elvish script (called Tengwar). These images came from https://www.tecendil.com/, and I don't know if it's really the best site to trust... I want it to be accurate! 

Breathe: "suya"

Breathe: þúya

Breathe: thuya

I feel like it's settled, but then there's the issue of the letters: the 's' versus 'þ' versus 'th'.
I'm ruling out 's', so 'suya' which is visually:

So that leaves me with either this or this:

or

Note: You can skip to the red line if it's getting too long. 

I can't find the symbol that Tecendil.com says represents the thorn letter (þ). This image shows what the appendix in the back of The Return of the King shows as the Quenya tengwar, and it's an original Tolkien drawing.

https://pin.it/odxksbqbdczlmm

https://goo.gl/images/B4XsqF 

There's two versions of 's' in this image! Then there's two ways to write 'ss'. I wish I had my copy of The Return of the King, because I want to see the page from the book for myself...

Here's another one:

https://pin.it/vumvakayobp2sk (full image)

The original image had a bunch of extra stuff. THIS one actually tells you the names of the letters--and ooh, what's that up there under Additional letters, first one on the second row? Silme. Oh, and there's silme reversed, and ss and ss again... So I'm guessing it shares its source with that previous image with 4 s's. 

There's also the th/s translated as "thule/sule" up there, first one on the third row. Either one is correct, I'm guessing, but man... How do I know which one to use? Which is correct? Aggghhhh why is this so hard?!

Back to the Basics

I need to remind myself of what I really need right now. I'll start with listing the points I've established:

Things I know for sure: 

1. To make a word imperative (a command), you use the infinitive form of the verb ("to breathe") and add the imperative prefix.
   
   á þúya
2. That looks like this, according to Tecendil.com:

3. 

   
   

   á þúya 

   So, what's the difference between that and what my best sources say is the way to write it? 
4. 
   

————————————————————

I got mixed up. The reason that it looked weird, and that I couldn't find the symbol that it looked like they were using for þ, called súle/thúle, is that it depended on whether I was translating the text using a 'ú' or just a normal 'u'. I can type "þuya" or "thuya", and it comes out the same. This is it with just 'u':

Then, with the 'ú':

So here we have another mystery... Why does the pronunciation dash (actually, Wikipedia says it's called an Acute Accent...) Why does the acute accent above the 'u' add that extra placeholder (the vertical stroke connected to the súle/thúle letter)?

Somewhere, someone decided to make it look that way... Would it be spelled that way in Elvish? I feel like, if pronouncing it "þuya" rather than "þúya" gave it a different meaning, that would mean that "þuya" would have a definition of its own that differed from "þúya". Let's test this. 

Is "þúya" different from "þuya"?

I don't know. I'm asking a question now in the thread.

Someone replied!!! Here's what they said to my second thread.

Parf Edhellen | Discussion:
What is the difference between súlë and silmë?

Elaran · 0 #271

I recommend reading this Tolkien Gateway article: The case of the Quenya change of þ > s.

In short, the Ñoldor, or at least those who disliked Fëanáro, changed the sound "þ" to "s" in their speech, although they still used the tengwa for "þ" in writing (but not for the words that always had "s"). Apart from Fëanáro and his supporters, Ñoldorin linguists continued to use "þ" as well, regardless of their feelings about Fëanáro. This should help with your decision on how to pronounce "þ/s", but remember the distinction while writing in Tengwar.
7/6/2018, 1:43:18 PM

So this is what I said:

Yúlaldië · 0 #272

Thank you for your reply!

How interesting. So it's a colloquialism, kind of like how some Spanish speakers change 'y' to 'j' (calling the color yellow "jello") because of that one king with a lisp way back in the day. That might be a myth, or I'm remembering the story wrong. Anyway.

So what you're saying is, some people would pronounce the translation of "breathe" as "thuya", if they were supporters of Fëanor, and some would pronounce it as "suya" if they disliked Fëanor. So I have to decide if I like Fëanor or not, and then decide how to pronounce the word when I tell people about my tattoo?

You say they changed "þ" to "s", but not for words that always had "s". How can I tell if this word súya/þúya always had "s" or if it was originally "þ"? One website (Tecendil.com) says it's definitely "þ", but Parf Edhellen uses "s" saying it is pronounced "th".

Another spelling question now, pertaining to Tengwar that I got from Tecendil.com. Visually, that website spells "þúya" differently if I use the acute accent over the 'u' or not (þúya v. þuya). It places the 'ú' over a placeholder stroke (like you do for a freestanding vowel with no consonants to hang onto), instead of putting the 'u' over the "þ".

I just need to know 1) if it's the súlë or silmë character, for when I get the tattoo, 2) if it's pronounced "s" or "th", for when I tell people what my tattoo says, and 3) whether the 'ú' creating a placeholder within the spelling, for an accent, is correct or not.

Thank you!
7/6/2018, 2:29:55 PM

I haven't gotten any replies yet at this point. So far, I don't think it would be such a bad idea to just decide on whether I like it best, visually, as þúya or þuya.

þuya

þúya

As I am mainly wanting to pair a tattoo of 'breathe' with a matching tattoo of 'pray', I should consider what 'pray' will look like. The phrase would be á arca, matched with á þúya. Here is 'pray':

á arca

So that, next to á þúya, looks like this: 

á arca, á þúya

If it was á arca, á þuya, where there was no acute accent over the u in 'þúya', it would look like this:

á arca, á þuya

Although there isn't too much difference, it does change the way the letters look. Balance would be cool, symmetry would be neat.

There are a lot of options here...I could say 'breathe' on one hand and 'pray' on the other, or I could say 'breathe' on one and 'and pray' on the other.

Apparently, the word for 'and' in Quenya is 'a' (different from the word making it imperative, which is 'á'. So that makes 'breathe and pray' look like this:

á arca a þúya

Or like this:

á arca a þuya

So, do I want to have two long downward strokes on my left hand, and no long downward strokes on my right, as in this last image? Or would I prefer á arca, á þúya, which has two long downward strokes on the left and the right hand, from á and ú?

It's finally come down to making pictures of what it would look like on my hands. I'm going to make a new post, and I'll ask you to vote on which one you prefer.