Zombies. And line breaking. And Asparagus.

In the weirder than normal department of my dreamscape, I woke up, heart pounding & pulse racing in the middle of the night the other night from a dream/nightmare about, well, zombies. And vampires. And a few other crazy horror movie leftovers just for kicks. It was odd. To say the least. (Odder still that I turned on the tv today to find "Shaun of the Dead", and then moving on from that put in a dvd to watch and one of the pre-view trailers was for some cowboy western 'undead' movie. Three references. Means: pay attention!)

It involved running, lots of it. It involved looking for my cellphone, finding a mini-flashlight, because you know, those do come in handy in the dark and all that, but they do not come in so handy with the fending off the undead the same way those huge hefty maglights do.

It also involved me fairly actively searching for solutions, answers, ways out, as I was aware enough it was a dream & I was trying to figure things out while in the middle of it. Doesn't mean it didn't freak me out though - I woke up and called Rob just trying to calm down. While walking back through it, going over all the parts I could remember - what I was doing, why, where, what I was wearing, etc... it posed that I've got some issues I need to get fixed pretty damn quick. For my own sanity. And apparently for my own health, with wanting to not have the life sucked out of me and all. I totally know what it represents. I totally understand that I think finding my cellphone is important, because it's like a life line. I am totally thankful that zombies don't move all that swift so that I can run off. And I'm totally wearing running shoes a helluva lot more often.

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If you haven't clicked away by now, well, then you really need to go find better reading material. Seriously. There are way better bloggers and writers out here. Some even get paid for it, so you know they're good. I just yammer a bit here and there, and even this is falling to the wayside sometimes. The writing I do for work is taking all my good words and decent thinking away, I haven't even written any good short stories in months. Oh, wait. I haven't written any short stories in months.

I'm striving for something better. I really am. I've rearranged furniture and cleared working space (sort of. it's amazing how fast it fills up again) in an effort to stir up the creative energy. I'm waiting to see how much of it works.

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This is a shout out of love for blogspot / blogger, because I've been using them for years and it works so smoothly every time. Editing is a breeze and html is fairly easy to code. AND WHEN I HIT 'ENTER' FOR A LINE BREAK, IT EFFING WORKS! That last part, the yelling there, is because I write for another blog twice a week, that is unfortunately hosted on word press, and well, word press sucks when it comes to things like line breaks and simple coding (which, admittedly, is all I can do without accidentally making the web page go in reverse or something...).

See that! Right there!^ That is a line break! One that works!

And this - is a quick screen shot of the page I just spent the last THREE EFFING HOURS trying to get to work. There really are supposed to be separate lines there. Really. It makes me want to cry. What makes me want to cry even more? The IT people who actually do the hosting talk to me like I'm an idiot, like I've never used a computer before, like "Have you tried hitting shift + enter?" Sigh. I wonder why I bother sometimes.

No wonder I'm tired. I keep trying to do things that really don't matter to make things work for someone else. I need to be doing things that matter. And I need to be doing things that work for me.

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Which gets me onto what matters. There is some story that has been passed around, somewhere, I don't know where, but I swear I heard it before - the PR or marketing sites, I dunno. Anyway, Rob & I were chatting about the things we sign up for or get signed up for, and what we believe in. Here's what I remember of the story:

There's a guy, a very busy, dedicated guy, head of a big, fancy, money making company. Who cares what company, it doesn't matter. But he was a huge, I mean a mega-huge, supporter of "Save the Whales!" He donated time and money, did volunteer work, did what he could. Soon other organizations approached him to help them "Save the Chickens!" and "Save the Asparagus!", asking for donations and volunteer hours.

Next door is a gal, a very busy, dedicated gal, head of a different big, fancy, money making company. She volunteered and donated her time and money and resources to "Save the Whales!" as well. And soon "Save the Chickens!" and "Save the Asparagus!" came asking her for donations and volunteer hours as well.

Here's what happened. The guy said "No, thanks." The gal said "Sure." He volunteered his time to paint signs and push whales back into the ocean, he donated huge checks for nice whale watching things, and he enjoyed it. She volunteered her time to paint signs for whales and chickens and asparagus watch groups, she went to the rallies and made out checks for special feed for the chickens and rehabilitation for the asparagus and never had any time to do anything else. Her work suffered, but that's not the point. We'll pretend that her company could continue without her. But if it couldn't, it would have already failed.

She was burned out. She was tired. She was very cranky. (huh. no comment needed on this, 'kthanx.) She went next door to ask the guy how he did it.

"How do you do it?"

"Do what?"

"Volunteer and give without losing yourself?"

"I only volunteer and give to those things I believe in. I believe in saving whales."

"But what about the chickens and asparagus?"

"There is someone else out there to believe in those other things. It doesn't make you a bad person to only believe in one project/thing/idea, you know."

Ok. That was a really long and drawn out way of saying there are some things I do believe in ("Save the Fairies!", "Save the ice cream!", & "Save the graffiti!" have my vote) and some things I don't. There is someone else out there to believe in those things I don't. (i.e. jury duty. ugh.)

I have things I'd rather be doing and working on, but right now, I need a paycheck to live off of, so I am kinda stuck doing a few things I don't believe in. And it's in danger of sucking the life out of me. Thus the zombie reference. Duh. (Oh, as if you already hadn't figured out I was talking about work.)

So. I'm trying to bring in good creative energy. I'm trying to work on things I like. I'm trying not to throw my computer against the hearth because it's not her fault the program won't work, as is evidenced by the fact that this program DOES work. And I'm trying not to go crazy while saving the asparagus from the chickens that the whales are eating. Or some such nonsense. And I'm buying a heavy-duty, head-bashing worthy maglight to keep by my bed.