Tag: personal

The Fear of Writing or Holding onto Dreams

I’m much more in love with the idea of being a writer than the work required to be one.

So here I am. I don’t have a job. I have very few prospects. I’m afraid of failing. I’m afraid of even the appearance of failing. But. But. But, I’m not so scared of failure that I’m willing to try something I desperately want to try. I’m only scared right now of not being able of finding a job. I’m only worried of not being able to provide the kind of life for my wife that I know she deserves.

And I don’t think that’s enough.

It’s just not enough to get me to take the risk and sit down and write.

Why? I’ve been thinking about this for sometime now. I know I’m not the only one. Lots of people have been quite successful making a career out of thinking about our fears. And lots of people are trying to make a living off of it. I don’t know if I have an answer, yet, but I think I’m approaching one. It has to do with dreams.

Right now, while I’m excreting out the 10,000th cover letter or résumé I can tell myself it’s just a temporary gig, that there are other options available to me whenever I want to take them. I still have the dream of getting paid to be a writer. No one can take that away from me.

But myself.

All I’ve got to do is sit down and write. Poof, now it’s not a dream. Now it’s reality. Now I have to make good. What if I fail? When it turns out I can’t write what dream do I have to cling to then? For what purpose then will I be grinding through the minutiae and bullshit of daily life?

I don’t know. And, I don’t think I want to know. It’s a lot safer to sit here and not write.

So, I don’t…

The New Place

The South end of the Living Room

Seeing as we’re all settled now I suppose I could share with my few readers some pictures of our new place in sunny San Diego! The place we got is a small cottage (550 sqft) and living in such a small space has been an adjustment.

The Northern end of the Living room with boardgame fireplace, bookshelf mantle, and computer cubby

But, we’ve been here for about a month and I’ve already come to find the smaller space superior to a larger house in many ways: its cozy, easy to clean, I have less stuff, it doesn’t feel cluttered, etc. There are some downsides as well; we don’t have a dining room and entertaining guests would be difficult but these aren’t deal breakers and over-all I think there are more positives than negatives with the place.

Our bedroom with south facing windows

The cottage, I think I should come up with a name for it has a simple floor plan the front door faces east and opens in on the living room which is connected to the kitchen by a long narrow hall that terminates in a full bathroom.

The kitchen with Jake

The bedroom is shares its eastern wall with the living room and its western with the kitchen. Another nice thing? The cottage seems centrally located and, so far, I haven’t had a need to spend more than ten or fifteen minutes in the car driving anywhere.

 

Now I just need to find a job!

Spring Garden 2012: Summer Heat

It’s like my own patch of jungle

It’s getting hot and between the heat and the tomatoes and zucchinis vigor some of the other plants are being overwhelmed. The edamame plants are dead, having been overgrown by the zucchinis. The green beans and eggplant are in the process of being overwhelmed by the cucumbers and the tomatoes have encroached on the basil.

The sad remains of my last edamame plant…

D and I don’t use any pesticides, herbicides or anything else on the garden. This usually isn’t a problem the only pest we ever seem to have are slugs. But, this year this year we seem to have a lot of white flies and aphids. I’m not quite sure what, if anything, I need to do about this. As long as the plants produce do I care? I can just wash the bugs off…

a tiny zucchini covered in bugs…. YUCK

See how during the heat of the day all the leaves wilt? See how the cucumber is climbing the netting? See how there are a ton of flowers on this thing and yet I still don’t have a single cucumber?! Also you can’t even see the eggplant there, can you? it’s in the yellow cage, but the cucumbers have taken over!

Don’t worry during the hottest part of the summer the garden gets watered twice a day.

SPOILS!

For size comparison purposes these are almost the length of my forearm.
These are cherry tomatoes

 

HARVEST TOTALS

Zucchini: 10

Tomatoes: 12

Edamame: 0

Bush Beans: 16

Cucumbers: 0

Eggplant: 1

Basil: 6 leaves

The End of my First Roleplaying Campaign

Admiral Kynekos Leipsanos retires

Just three years ago I started playing my first role playing game with three strangers as the other players and an acquaintance as the GM. The game was Fading Suns: a hodge podge sci-fi setting that reminds me of the Frank Herbert’s Dune universe except with magic, psychic, ancient aliens, and demons to boot! I’d never played before but Kynekos drew me out and helped me to get into not just gaming but role playplaying. I was kinda shocked when the campaign ended, when Kynekos, his crew, and friends flew off into the sunset to an Eden-like planet with which they could safely wait-out the universe wide apocalypse.  One minute you’re learning how to fill out a character sheet, you blink, look up, and find three years have gone by…

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