Caged Animal

Some days I just don't know what to do with myself. I had job interviews on Monday and Tuesday this week, both of which went very well. One of them really sounds like they're going to hire me once they hear back from my references.

Then I got sick for a couple of days. I think it's the weather. The rising temperatures and random thunderstorms are giving me headaches and allergy attacks.

My sleep schedule is off. I keep waking up with headaches all night, the kind that go away after I drink some water. I've been going through two water bottles a night lately. Which also means getting up for a lot of bathroom trips.

I don't feel I've accomplished enough this week, but I did get some things done that I'd been putting off, like fixing the downstairs toilet. Which reminds me, I keep seeing a weird commercial on YouTube about a procrastination drug, and the haunting jingle keeps getting stuck in my head. But I don't need drugs, I just need a job so I can go back to having a more rigid schedule.

Today I feel really good, but I don't know what I want to do about it. I thought about seeing a movie, but there's nothing I want to see. There's three must-see movies coming out in July (when I'll probably have a job limiting my schedule), but none of the movies currently playing are enough to tempt my wallet.

I should mow the lawn today, but I missed the window. I didn't even think about it until it was already too hot. Now I'll have to wait for sunset or try again tomorrow morning.

There's an anime convention this weekend in Owensboro, which is about 40 minutes from here. I like anime, but I wouldn't say I'm into anime. I've barely watched any of it since Voltron as a kid. There's also going to be video games and tabletop RPGs, though, so I'm tempted.

It's hard to get motivated when your life seems empty, but I've been trying to stick to the following rules: 

1. Anything worth doing is worth doing poorly.

I can't take credit for this one, it's a meme that's been going around Facebook. Basically, for some depressed people, the idea of doing certain activities can be so ponderous that they put it off indefinitely. But if they allow themselves to do a poor job, it at least becomes do-able, which is better than not doing it at all.

2. Accomplish something every day.

Some days I give myself a to-do list, but even looking at the list feels so daunting I just want to hide under the covers. But if I tell myself I only have to do this one thing, I often find the energy for five or six things. Other times it's 9 PM and I find I still haven't accomplished anything, so I stop what I'm doing and make myself do a chore before I get too tired.

3. If you can't think of anything you want to do, do something you don't want to do.

This one has motivated me the most. Sometimes, like today, I find myself wandering around the house looking for something to do. Do I want to watch TV? No, I'm not in the mood. Do I want to play video games? No, I don't see that making me happy right now. Do I want to go out? No, I can't think of anything I'd find interesting.

If nothing sounds fun, then that's the perfect time to do a chore. I mean, you're not going to have fun anyway, right? So might as well accomplish something instead of staring at the walls. I've gotten so much done simply because nothing is giving me much joy right now.

That was more depressing than I wanted to sound. Oh well, things will get better. On Monday I meet with my lawyer to finalize some probate things, so that should give me some closure. And I expect I'll have a job by the end of the month, so that will improve my life as well.

Anyway, that's it for now. I'm off to do... something. Wish me luck.

Happy Pride

Happy Pride, I guess. I'm getting more involved this year. I've entered my books in two giveaways and a book bundle. I attended a Pride festival last weekend, and will be going to another one this weekend. The local libraries are hosting LGBT movie nights, and I plan to attend as many of them as possible.

But the world is really depressing right now. I've been tuning out the news, since I'm already in mourning, but some stories are too big to ignore.

Jonathan Joss, the actor who voiced John Redcorn on King of the Hill, was killed in a hate crime. According to his husband, he was shot by a neighbor who had been shouting homophobic slurs.

Meanwhile, the government is trying to make porn illegal, while simultaneously trying to reclassify anything pro-transgender as porn. Which means all my books could conceivably be declared illegal. Will this pass? Who knows. I'd like to think Amazon, being a huge powerful company, would fight back. After all, they'd lose revenue too if that many books had to be delisted at once.

So when I keep saying, "get them while they're still legal," this is what I mean. If you want to support my work, links to my books are here:

https://books2read.com/ap/8N19Lr/Xine-Fury

The above links will take you to the Kindle store, as well as Smashwords, Nook, and several other e-book retailers. If you prefer a physical copy, you can order them from IngramSpark using these links:

https://xinefury-bloodhunters.blogspot.com/2025/05/paperbacks-by-xine-fury.html

Note, even though the paperbacks are more expensive, I don't personally get more more money from them, so don't let that be a factor in which books you buy, if any.

Dream: Job Hunting

Last night I dreamed I was filling out an online application for a job. The form asked a lot of odd questions you wouldn't normally see on an an application, such as, "Have you ever ridden a giraffe?" But some of the questions were instructions, like a scavenger hunt. For example, at one point it asked me to drive to the grocery store and buy a gallon of milk, then come back home and go to the next question.

I got the job, which involved explaining to ghosts that they were dead. They gave me a deck of cards with words like YES and NO as well as a bunch of common nouns and verbs. I would spread the cards out on the table and the ghosts would point to them, since they couldn't talk. My first ghost client looked like Arnold Schwarzenegger. He'd died a few days earlier, but had been wandering around the house and going about his normal routine, unaware he'd died.

I know that social services aspect sounds a lot like Beetlejuice, but the vibe was more bureaucratic, like Dead Like Me. There was nothing Tim Burtony about the dream. I sat down with Arnold and started talking to him, unsure exactly how to break it to him. Then I started choking on a piece of gum and woke up.

Anyway, I'm probably just nervous because I have a job interview Monday morning. Wish me luck.