I have been trying out this facebook thing. I find I have a hard time limiting my statements to just short things. An idea comes to me that I want to share. Then it grows. So I am trying to take the expansion here.

Well, I have done it again. I am getting major kudos for something I feel I have done extremely poorly with. Not that I think I have done a bad job, I am good. Just the level of effort I have put in is sub-standard and would have gotten me fired somewhere else. Somehow I have gotten away with crap and smell like a rose, again. :/

I have fought with myself for over a month to do the program book for Loscon. Literally fighting and hiding my head under a pillow and not getting out of bed because there are things I should do to meet this commitment and I don’t feel I can face it. I have stayed off the internet for a complete day just because I didn’t want to have an email related to this project that I would feel I needed to do something about. I have flaked in a major way on some things. This is the thing that drives me nuts when other people do it to me so it really rubs me raw.

I don’t feel I have put it off because I have something else to do that is more important. I have just blown it off because I have felt like it and because of my issues with personal authority (telling myself to get up and get to work, to eat, to go walking, etc) I have avoided following through on some easy tasks. I do really believe if a supervisor/boss was aware of how I handled this, I would be fired without question.

This has really made me question if I would be able to hold down a job while I am pulling this shit. And I don’t feel I can control how I am handling this. Something inside me is messing with me and I don’t know what it is or how to work with it or how to get around it. In the past when my personal interest wasn’t enough to motivate me, I would set things up so I was doing it for someone else. Where as I can easily undermine myself, responsibility to extremal projects seems to automatically kick me into motion. This time it didn’t. And this really bothers me. My old systems aren’t working and I don’t know what to do about replacing them.

I got a kick in the butt this last weekend, sort of, when visiting my dad and the stuff that happened there. I have been more together in getting things done which is good. I am not sure if it is because of the events that happened when I was or away or because we have hit the edge of the deadline and that kicked me into motion. I sometimes do really really well when up against a deadline/under pressure.

I am still doing the stupid eating/not eating thing and sleeping at odd times. I was hoping the time away would help me reset my eating and sleeping schedule and build reserves again. Instead it showed me how poorly I do around people when in my current state, I used up more of the dregs of what reserves I had less and was no good for eating and sleeping habits.

I am glad that the people I am working with/for are happy with my work on the program book. It has come put better than I expected. I figure that it came together well because I am a professional and the way I do things has a certain quality to the process and this is where it is showing up. I can see the difference between what I would like it to look like and how it is and realize that others that aren’t trained the way I am wouldn’t see the differences. I am completely fine with it not being all it could have been. It is a choice I made and am comfortable with, if just a little disappointed that it isn’t my best work. (best work: hmmmm I never do my best work. I do really good work or poor work but I tend to not push to my best because I like having room to do it better if needed. I set my goals lower for this very reason. So in reality, for me Best Work = pretty good while playing it easy work.) I expected this program book to be good for a not-professional. I am surprised by how well it came together. There are always last minute problems and this one has surprisingly few issues at the point it has gotten. I feel some of this is because of the prep-work I put in and some of it is me being lucky.

The problem I have had is that my approach to doing the project has not been professional at all. And I have no reason for it not to be professional other than the depression and the stuff I am trying to figure out. I don’t see a way out of the depression and stuff at this time so I don’t know what I can count on and what I can’t. I have always been able to count on living up to the expectations of others when I have chosen to accept them. This time it didn’t work.

I was able to do some of the Hotel job for Silicon. As much as most people would expect for a volunteer. But it wasn’t what I wanted to do and what I wanted to get out of it. I am very glad that it was enough to make it worthwhile to have me as Hotel second. I am very sad I couldn’t managed to make myself do the level I know I am capable of and wanted to experience.

I am guessing it ties into my reserves. I know I rise to the level needed and then go back down again. I have realized that I am not mostly working under my capacity and I could be so much more. I could do an awesome job at many things but I can’t sustain that level. Little disappointing considering how great I thought I would be when I was a little girl but also reassuring that I haven’t been just wasting time for most of my life not accomplishing what I could. I have created the life I live to match this pattern for the most part. Adjusting it to fit even better will bring about good results.

Since my reserves are so low, maybe that is the reason I can’t rise to the level I think should be available to me. My biggest problem is that I can do fine with no reserves. In the past 48 hours (or so), I have eaten 3 glucernal shakes, 1 candy bar, 1 tv dinner, 1 piece of cake. I shake but I feel fine. I have another dinner waiting (it has been reheated 3 times since yesterday. I think I have slept 10 hours in two days. Doing what I need to take a proper care of myself doesn’t have direct results. It is only a knowledge thing, not a physical feeling thing. I stopped eating sugar because I got migraines from it. I know I should get out of the house, I know I should eat real food, I know I need to move around, I know I should be doing a lot of things that I am not doing. Everything feels so hard to do and any benefit from it is off in the future and not directly related. Even for things I want to do instead of need to do. I don’t know how to disconnect this problem I have created.

I am even sleeping in a pile. Since getting back from Clearlake, the couch has a jacket, some other clothes, three books, my computer bag, some misc bills, my phone and a set of headphones on it. This is where I am sleeping. I just pull parts of the covers over me and tuck myself into or under the other stuff and wait for sleep. The pillow was on the hard edge of the computer bag Wed night and last night I flipped around so my feet were uncovered up the back of the couch to the side. I should not be ok living like this. But it is easier to deal with than doing anything else.

I am owning up to my crap here. And documenting it so I have to face it and in the future I can look back and see where I was. I am hoping I will be going up from here and not farther down.

I feel like I need an entirely new set of habits built up over years and have no motivation to build them now and no knowledge on exactly what they should be. I have let go a lot of what used to define me and I don’t want that stuff back but I don’t have replacements for it either. I am just not all that interested.

I hold on to anything that interests me because it is getting so rare these days. Things don’t go very deep into me anymore and feel like water off a duck’s back. I can have a good time but the next moment there is nothing left of it. I am guessing that I probably am prone to being desperate when I find something that does capture my attention and thereby drive it away while trying to hold on to it. It is hard enough to put up with me when I am in my normal state, this state is probably even harder.

As a friend put it, I am stewing in my own juices. I wish I would get off the damn stove already. I have a strong will and can make things happen. what is missing is not the ability to change my life but the motivation, attention and direction to change it. Instead of pushing against a rock, I am pushing against fog. Every now and then things clear up and I can do whatever normally. It isn’t a fight, it isn’t an uphill battle, it is practically without thought. It is just do. I keep hoping that will show up again in my life because that is the way I think things should be. That is what I don’t know how to create.

I probably am shooting myself in the foot by telling all this in a public forum (or at least a semi-public). Well, this is me and here it is.