Call me Lopez La Pesado

Friday 5 for April 15: The Middle

Here I am...stuck in the middle with you...let's see if we can't get some fucking motivation before I go to MMA class for the first time in two weeks.

Oh. I am gonna be hatin' life after. I haven't even done any strength training. I sorta had a...bad brain day, that turned into a bad brain two weeks. I'm trying to get up again and here we go. 

What's something you're in the middle of?


Writing my fiction book that I started last NANO, planning the learn-to-cook cookbook that I'm going to write this NANO (I'm not pantsing it again...too stressful for me), research for my SCA persona (9th or 10th century Norse woman Valdis Skjaldardottir--I really must pick a settlement time and place...I'm leaning towards an Irish one right now) making a basic tunic and pants for SCA heavy weapons fighting practice (because damn it, if I have to wear loaner gear at least I can have the proper garb on underneath), and any one of thirty or so unfinished crossword puzzles in my Sunday New York Times crossword puzzle book. I'm in between pleasure reading materials right now, other than my persona research books.

This list would imply that I'm some sort of busy person. I am not.

What's in the middle of you?

Mostly useless guts and slimy goo. I'm thinking of having them replaced with the no doubt superior guts and oily goo of a mechanized droid. Then I can fix Sheila!

No, it's not nearly that interesting. My breakfast consisted of cooked spelt (because who the hell would eat uncooked spelt?) mixed with dried apple bits and fresh banana and homemade almond milk. Also I had coffee with a packet of Sweet Leaf and more of the aforementioned almond milk.


See? Boring. Just go back to me being a freaky cyborg. It totally works for me.

What is your residence in the middle of?

A small town. It's...picturesque. There's cornfields and beautiful skies. But...I wish we lived closer to one of the two larger towns up the road. I do a lot of driving. A LOT. Nearly everything we do is in the college town up the road or the town right next to it. The two towns sort of run together. All my martial arts classes, my NANO group is there, my SCA group meets up there, the grocery stores, the Walgreens, the different doctors for the whole family, the UU church, the two movie theaters, the big library, all the great restaurants...

What's a great food that features something in its middle?

Chocolate frosted doughnuts with whipped cream filling. NOT BISMARCKS!!!! I hate that pudding glop! That is pudding! Pudding is not a fucking cream!

I haven't had one of those whipped cream filled chocolate frosted doughnuts in soooooooo long. I miss them. That's the first thing I thought of when I read the question, but really, is the whipped cream a feature? It's not like the doughnut is showcasing the whipped cream somehow. It's just there. It's not a surprise. It's not all like, "TA DA! Whipped cream! Bet you weren't expecting that! Like the Spanish Inquisition!"  Unless it's the surprise that you bought a doughnut expecting creme and got pudding glop. 

Okay, the idea of my doughnuts making Python references is making me dizzy. Moving on.

What's the nearest you've been to the middle of nowhere?

Northern Kansas:
Now featuring even more wheat.

Driving through the upper portion of Kansas. Or riding rather, as I was a kid and not participating in the driving. Wheat fields for miles in every direction. The one road with almost no other cars and the very occasional boarded up Stuckey's. As a child I had never seen that much nothing. It was scary. We were driving to Colorado to visit my grandmother. Damn, was I ever glad to be out of that creepy-ass state.

Fuuuuck. I have to get ready for class now. I need more coffee.

Counting my stars...

MMA class this morning was killer. For me at least, it looked like it was for the guys too. Dripping with sweat, so beat you can't talk for about five minutes afterwards, lots of aches tonight.

I fucking love this stuff. I may be the oldest, the slowest, the weakest, and least experienced but I want to do this forever. If I could find a way to do this seven days a week I would do it. Hell, if there was a class tonight I would go.

Everything that kills me makes me feel alive.

I feel younger and stronger and more powerful now than I ever have in my life. I feel about twenty-seven years old. I get really shocked when I look into the mirror and there is not a young woman standing there.

I get anxious thinking about how little time I really have to do this. 

Indispensable Me?

"Write about the last time you felt indispensable." -- The Pocket Muse, Monica Wood.

Eh. Hmmm. Indispensable?

I'm going to have to start with a definition of the word. Because if I'm not absolutely, positively sure what it means, I can't tell you for certain when I have felt such a word that describes a noun or pronoun.

From Merriam-Webster: Indispensable - adjective -  in·dis·pens·able \ˌin-di-ˈspen-sə-bəl\

1: not subject to being set aside or neglected
2: absolutely necessary : essential

Okay, that's certainly an explanation.

Image Credit to ME. I did it.
I made it with my little Paint program.

I don't know that I ever have felt indispensable, not as that definition goes. I have never been in a situation where I felt if I was an absolutely necessary participant. I have had people say, "What would I do without you?" Well, they'd find a different way to do it or they'd do without. But the other person's feelings and opinion of the situation does not make me feel indispensable.

Perhaps I am too pragmatic to feel indispensable. I'm hungry now.  I want to go eat something because I'm riding along on an errand with my husband and the destination is at least 45 minutes away (and because I'm pragmatic I see no reason to buy something to eat along the way if I have perfectly good food in my kitchen). I don't know if I've spent fifteen minutes writing this. I spent a ridiculous amount of time make the above image in Paint, so I've spent over fifteen minutes making this post suitable to...post...but that's not fifteen minutes of writing.

I'm cold. It's cold here. I need to go put on my flannel shirt. Also I have to go to the bathroom and I am seriously hungry. This is, as posts go, mediocre. But practice is practice.

Hey, it's kickboxing cycle again in my martial arts class. I must, must, must develop my blocking and ducking skills this cycle. Learning how to look for openings and setting up combos and not just throw anything out there would be good too, but blocking and ducking are the goals for this cycle. Can't really get my combos in properly if I'm getting slammed around by my opponents. Especially in my Friday applications classes, where the fine young men are far more experienced than me.

I love my new Century Tegu sparring helmet. When we were told we had to start wearing headgear for sparring (both for insurance and safety purposes) I was very annoyed, because the foam headgear we wear in my Karate class makes me very overheated very quickly and reduces my hearing. But this new helmet is sweeeeet. Much more breathable, adjustable, and I can hear much better. Expensive, but worth it. Tegu all the way, baby. It's difficult to grapple in, but we'll get used to it. Now I can wear it for Karate class too. 

My stomach is making those sounds and my husband wants to leave soon, he's warming up the truck. That's definitely my fifteen minutes. Must, must, MUST work on my story today. No excuses, bitch.

A good effort after so much slacking.

But it changed. Now...stuff still aches but it never stops me, it's the good pain. My body is strong now, the strongest I've ever been and I have two genetic hurdles that cause physical and mental difficulty for me to work around.

Over 700 words this morning on my story. Nuance and depth, I love that stuff. Making my characters real, full people. They are transforming.

I cannot deny it. I've been slacking. I had true writer's block for awhile, from the stress of the holidays, but I broke through it. After that it was just fear of the huge task ahead of me, writing my story. Because every time I sit down, it just gets bigger. While I am doing some reshaping of what I have now, it's more of adding nuance to the plot. I guess that's what I mean. The plot is growing and changing and developing much more depth, the true depth of the down to the bone story I want to write.

But damn, there's so many freaking words. How will I ever finish this in a respectable amount of time and this is just the second book! How am I going to write the first damn book, the one that establishes everything? The second book is...the second! I wanted to do this within a year. It's going to take at least two I think. Two years of writing every single day. This brings in zero salary. Then, after it's done, I have to get an agent.

I can do this. I can. Other people have done it. I'm strong. I started martial arts at forty-three after a lifetime of mostly not liking extreme physical expression and competition and now find myself totally changed in mind and body. I only started martial arts as a means to self-defense. I had no idea I would love it this much. So if I can do that thing I didn't know I loved, shouldn't I be able to completely and totally...go...somewhere...somehow...with lots of success (whoa...that sucked) with something I've wanted to do forever?

Yes. I can do this. I can do this. Even when I think I can't do this. When I first started martial arts my whole body would hurt after class. I only took the Monday/Wednesday class back then. There was a rest period of four days, I'd feel almost human again by Sunday, then Monday went right back to "my god, everything, everything, EV-ER-Y THING hurts.


I can do this, I can make this story and share it with people and they will like it and feel transported by it just like good writing should do. I will make this world and it's people and not give way to fear and I will believe in myself even when I don't believe in myself.

God I'm hungry now.

There was some recent stuff. It had to go because I need room for the GOOD stuff.

Self: I've forgotten everything. Almost fucking everything.

Myself: See? This is what you get when you are away from your story for too long. You've forgotten all the proper names and places. Your thinking is all muddled and you can't explain the subtleties of this character and this is very important for the story-line. This wouldn't have happened if you'd kept up a little each day.

Self: (incoherent cursing)

Myself: Just like exercising the body. You like all those pretty new muscles, don't you? You exercise every day in different ways to keep those up.

Self: "I told you so," isn't helping. Fuck off and help me figure out how to explain this.

Myself: I can fuck off or I can help you. Can't do both.

Self: FINE! Will. You. Please. Help. Me. You. Pretentious. Bitch.

Myself: Yes. Let me get the stuff out.

Like this, only it's piles of papers
and notebooks and sketchbooks
and scrolls. Oh, my.

I hate asking for help. I hate admitting I can't do something myself (er...for self? On Self's own?). I have the most awful trouble asking for help. Even from my higher self...my higher...Myself. Bitch.

Release the past. This includes not beating yourself up over the fact that your three months of writers's block and dragging feet because you're afraid of the huge task you have set for yourself has caused you to forget names and ages and dates. Good thing I made maps and timelines and a metric ton of notes. That's 'the stuff'.

My brain is muddled. I have a thing I'm trying to explain enough to give a hints to the plot, carefully woven to the coming story and glimpses of personality and character to two mains and my muddled brain is not saying it right. I'm afraid I'm going to lose the idea. It's a far better opening to this part of the story, just before the catalyst, and I'm not getting it right. I'll have to write it out by hand, for some reason that works better when I'm muddled.

Sometimes a whisper is all you need.

Today a voice whispered "Release the past. Release the past and make way for the changes of the future. Make way for tomorrow."

I don't think it meant the actual tomorrow.

But I did it. I'm doing it. Releasing the past. A little bit at a time. I pick a thing, a thing I've been clinging to because I hold on to bits and bobs and doodads. Scraps of this and that, amassing these bits because my memory is poor. But the bits don't really help my memory, not most of them. The bits don't make me smile. There are certain things I'm keeping. Movie ticket stubs and fortune cookie slips, in a little box. Those still make me smile. They make me think. But a LOT of stuff is going.

I've been holding on to clothes too, clothes that are either worn out or way too big now, or both. Partly because I'm cheap and don't want to buy new clothes if the old ones still work, but also partly because I'm a little afraid of the new me. I'm a medium now, working steadily into a small. Ten year old XL t-shirts do not need to be kept. Except for the purple ones, until I can replace them with purple ones in my size. Because purple.

I've been picking up things in my bedroom now for three hours, looking at them and thinking, "You have no power over me. Not anymore." Yes, I'm well aware of the connection to Labyrinth, thank you. I watched it (for the hundredth time) a few weeks ago. It's probably been percolating in my subconscious, because I've been feeling stuck even though I'm working really hard.

I've been doing some personal spiritual work as well. I had asked (very, very respectfully) for a clear and unmistakable message. And now I've been answered. I didn't ask for miracles. Just a bit of help. Just, "I've lost my way. I can do it myself but I'm so confused I don't know where to begin. Can you show me where to begin?"

It's not any great epiphany. Just a whisper in my head. But it's made me feel better, less stuck, more determined. Sometimes a whisper is all you need. You just have to listen to it.

Links of Interest

These are links of interest to me. You mind find something you like here too, but this page is mostly so I can clear out the 71 tabs I have open on my phone. They're still open because either I don't want to lose them or I haven't read them yet.

The post you are on now was accidental and I don't feel like deleting it. The permanent page, with lots and lots and lots more links is here.

Training/Fitness/Health:

Hollow Body Position Importance - Antranik: Shows why the hollow body hold is important and how to do it correctly. Includes anatomical information and video.

How to Do Pushups Properly - Antranik: Includes video. This guy is super cool. I like him.


Women:

First Female Army Rangers Say They Thought of 'Future Generations of Women' - NPR.org, Brakkton Booker. Capt. Kristen Griest, MP platoon leader, 26, and 1st Lt. Shaye Haver, 25, are the first two women to graduate the U.S, Army's elite Ranger School.


Norse Viking Age - Garb and other links:

Lindisfarne - "In 793, a Viking raid on Lindisfarne^[31] [d] caused much consternation throughout the Christian west and is now often taken as the beginning of the Viking Age." - Wikipedia

Viking Age Clothing: Taking measurements - Clear information on taking measurements specific to making Viking age clothing.

Viking Women: Aprondress - A long, scholarly article by Hilde Thunem. Discusses archaeological finds in-depth.

"This article focuses on the garment that was worn by Viking women together with the characteristic oval brooches. The garment has often been referred to as an aprondress (hängerock) by the archaeologists, but Thor Ewing points out that the term "smokkr" used in the Viking poem Rígsþula may be the contemporary name (Viking clothing p. 37).

Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA): 

Miscellaneous:
Rules To Period Games - SCA period (6th to 16th centuries) games. Helps round out your persona. Good times.


Archaeological Interest: 

Prosthetic Leg with Hoofed Foot Discovered in Ancient Chinese Tomb - Livescience, Owen Jarus

The Haunting Origins of Horse Culture - National Geographic, William Taylor

Casting Light on the Darkening Colors in Historical Paintings - Medievalists.net, F. Da Pieve, C. Hogan, D. Lamoen et al.

Space/Science:

How We'll Live On Mars: Q&A with author Stephen Petranek - Space.com, Sarah Lewin. Discusses
Petranek's book, How We'll Live On Mars
A Manned Mission to Mars Is Closer To Reality Than Ever: NASA Chief - Space.com, Mike Wall

Private Moon Landing Set for 2017 - Space.com, Mike Wall

Home On the Moon: How to Build a Lunar Colony (Infographic) - Space.com, Karl Tate

Parallel worlds exist and interact with our world, say physicists - Mother Nature Network. Bryan Nelson


Writing:

Internet's largest free database of literary agents - AgentQuery.com