Still beating. Still fighting. Wasn't it glorious?

Each day is a fight. Each day is a glorious fight. If I can make each day a fight (the kind I like, the kind I love) I can make make each day something glorious.

I'm not trying to make sense here. I'm just trying to be me.

I present a collage of words and ideas.

It's Saturday and my fingers are cold. It's October. Nearly November. Yay, NANO is almost here! I sort of tear up thinking about it. Last year was nail-biting, gut wrenching, hair-pulling awesomeness and I can barely wait for this year to start.

I'm going to a Halloween costume party this year! I haven't been to a costume party in...ever. I haven't ever been to a Halloween party, or a costume party -- unless I want to count ren faires in gear and SCA events in kit, which I don't want to count them. Because random pendanticness is my thing. Those two things are not costume parties as defined by ME.

ANYWAY -- shhhhh. Don't tell anyone. I'm going as the Mad Hatter. My version of the Mad Hatter. I found really awesome separate pieces at several thrift stores and decorated a hat myself and my husband has made real leather holsters for my...

I'm not telling what the holsters are for.

(No one is reading this. For gods' sake, you can tell. You can even post a picture, none of your friends...check that, NO ONE is going to see this. Now or ever. Stop thinking anyone is reading your rambling nonesense.)

Fuck you, BotBB*. You're not the boss of me. I'll do as I like. Stop pissing on my delusions. I'm trying to have fun. I'm whistling in the dark. SHUT IT!

Jai Courtney
I don't like his beard in this one.

Okay, CinemaSins guy, what is your deal with Jai Courtney? I like him.

Hm. Upon searching for an image Mr. Courtney does seem to have a limited range of facial expression. He's Australian. Russell Crowe, another stone faced actor I like rather well, is from New Zealand.

Ooh, I haven't seen The Nice Guys yet. Let's put that on the list of stuff I want to do.

(which should really be titled Stuff I Will Never Get Around to Doing Because I Can't Stay Off Facebook.)

Just ignore her. She's not in charge here. She may possibly be correct, but she's not in charge.

So that's my five minutes for today. I want to write more but I'm actually leaving the house today to do several things that will be lots of fun. Tai chi and karate classes, lunch, Intro to SCA archery, going to see a friend's first competition MMA fight (modified, no head shots).

It will be fun to see my friend compete, he lacks confidence in himself. I hope, even if the fight does not go his way, that the accomplishment of going through with it will help him. Also, I get to see what I'll be going through next spring. Then after the fight we're all going for pizza. I will have to be careful there. I'm trying to get down to at least five pounds below allowed fight weight -- which is 135 -- so I can put on a bit more muscle and have some leeway if the fight happens to fall during a time of the month I don't want to say out loud, or even in print, because let's not jinx it, 'kay?

________________________________________

*Back of the Brain Bitch - that mean, hurtful, hateful voice of my own anxiety, fear, and self-loathing. But she is also very strong and will say just about anything. I draw from her strength and use it fuel my bravery. I've tried getting rid of her, but that took more energy than it did to figure out this other solution.

NANO is coming...Holy November, Batman.

National Novel Writing Month 2016

Today: 

• MA Class: applications and advanced techniques
• Lunch with Dexter

Tomorrow:

• Tai chi class
• Karate class
• beginners SCA archery with barony friends
• fight night for my classmate, his first fight and my first time going to a fight -- seeing what I'm in for next spring

Sunday

• Grocery shopping?
• Meal planning for the week and ideas for November (training for a fight AND working AND doing NANO...I may need my head examined)
• Meal prep for at least a week

...of dumbbells, of course. Totally means dumbbells and
not referring to primary sexual characteristics at all.
Which women have by the way...we simply keep ours INSIDE our bodies.

Drops of Silver

I have figured out how to set up the perfect set of nested playlists on this randomly acquired, totally free, second hand iPod. I am a fucking genius. At least I think I have figured out the playlist setting up of.  I haven't transferred the music to the iPod yet so I can test it.

I only figured out with much frustration after several hours how to delete the music from the previous owner. I'm still getting all the importing the music from the stack of CDs I have, which were also randomly acquired second hand and free. Cheap at twice the price.

First, there is the master "Massage Music" playlist. Which you can put on shuffle and get all the different styles of relaxing music. Then from that playlist there will be the option to choose differently sub-genres such as classical, nature sounds, Native American, Enya, guitar, piano, and so on. Each of those can be put on shuffle. And lastly there is the option from each playlist to put a specific album on shuffle.

I rule. Though I have no Nelly Furtado music.
That makes me sad. But not too sad. Just a bit sad.

Also...

HOLY BALLS! This iPod nano is still going for forty bucks on Amazon. And that's the cheapest price! I'm glad I didn't know that before now or I might have sold it and not had a nifty little 4GB music maker for my massage music at my awesome new job. Though I doubt I could really get $40 for it, it's all scratched up. 

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.