Nicola Cameron Writes

Time on Treadmill: 30 minutes.
Weariness level: Wake me up after Election Day, November 2020

So, stress. Is it possible to be really exhausted from a panic attack and want to just go to bed and sleep?

Turns out the answer is yes. What am I stressed about, you ask? The usual — finances, work, the hellscape that is US politics, the oncoming destruction of the biosphere, the fact that my right foot is still aching, yadda yadda. Which means it wasn’t a panic attack, it was an anxiety attack because there was a definite trigger.

Still, I feel wrecked, I already took a nap this afternoon, and I need to go to bed early tonight because I’m pretty much useless at the moment. Ramón offered to go out and get a pizza for dinner, so I thought I’d try to put together my sister’s citrine earrings while the pizza was cooking. This was clearly a mistake. Number one, the garage is still broiling hot even with a fan blowing on me. Number two, I managed to crack one oval setting (not the stone, the setting), then melted the connector jump rings off the other one. The second one is fixable, but I’m not doing it now because it’ll probably blow up in my face.

I also may have yelled at Ramón to leave me alone after I screamed “MOTHERFUCKER” and he poked his head in to see what was wrong. I apologized profusely afterwards and he told me not to worry about it, he knows that “MOTHERFUCKER” just means I’m stressed and I’ll scream his name if something’s seriously wrong. I do love him.

In any case, the one earring that I managed to set looks lovely. Now I just have to put the other setting together and keep it together, and maybe I can set the stones in that one as well.

Time on Treadmill: 30 minutes.
Creativity level: Somewhere between L’Engle and Farmer.

So, I was cleaning, as you do, and thinking about jobs and automation and how so far writers are safe but there are neural nets that are learning how to write stories (they’re not good at it, mind you, but the fact that they can do it at all gives one pause). And suddenly the Muse came down and gifted me with an SF short story about an out-of-work screenwriter who is hired to teach an AI how to write movie scripts. Things get a little problematic when the AI winds up writing a beautiful, poignant, emotional story … and the studio that’s funding it wants changes to make its temperamental star happy. Heh, heh, heh…

In the meantime, I appear to have dropped back down to the lowest weight I’ve been in about three years, and that’s with me very clearly retaining water (supposedly Shark Week will start on Wednesday, but I have my doubts about that). I’ll just keep on taking the supplements, using the progesterone cream and Synthroid, and knocking out my daily time on Chuck — it’s really all I can do until the ovaries give up and I don’t have to worry about monthly swelling anymore.

In other news, my God, dinner was good. I made our usual ginger and garlic chicken stir fry, but I’d forgotten to get baby corn so I tossed in the rest of the spinach instead, and made cauliflower rice (cook a head of cauliflower in the microwave for five minutes, chop it into pieces, toss it into a food processor and process manually until it’s in rice-sized pieces, then toss into a frying pan with a big ol’ knob of butter, some sesame oil, salt, pepper, and onion flakes, and cook on high for fifteen minutes with the lid on, stirring every five minutes). We have none left, it was that delicious. and now I think I may well make another batch tomorrow just for snacking.

Time on Treadmill: 30 minutes.
Irritation level: Eyeing bladed weapons in library.

There are times that test a woman’s soul, and the last thirty-six hours have been one of those times. I’m not going to go into detail because there’s no reason to do so, but I’m honestly surprised I still have a tongue in my head, I’ve bitten it so many times to stop myself from verbally or textually filleting various people.

So, yeah, this is not a good time to poke the bear. Haven’t done a damn bit of writing today and I don’t care. I did get some granulation made and a set of earrings done for an Etsy sale, so I’ve got that going for me, and I finished a pendant that wasn’t so much an art project as it was a way to use up a bunch of pretty but really small cabochons I had (citrine, amethyst, peridot, garnet, and white topaz) and some scrap sterling silver that was too nice to toss into the recycling pouch.

Oh hell yes I recycle my sterling — no way I’m tossing those scraps in the garbage when I can send them to Rio Grande for refining and get a nice little store credit for 85% of what I sent in. My last recycling batch wound up buying me a new pair of flat pliers, a burr assortment, a set of German dividers, and an AdvantEdge silicone polisher kit. Booyah.

Anyway, the pendant turned out like something from a Tuscan summer, so I’m calling it Tuscan Summer. Original, I know, but I’m not in a mood to search for evocative names. Someone on a FB metalsmithing group pointed out that this design would be amazing for mother’s pendants where you could put the birthstone cabs of her kids into it. That’s something I may be pursuing in the near future, but I think I’ll use commercial bezel cups for those. Making all of those teeny tiny bezel cups was a royal pain in the ass, and I still can’t feel the tips of my left index finger and thumb from the callus that built up on them from holding all those tiny elements for sawing/filing/polishing/et al.

Time on Treadmill: 30 minutes.
Pain level: Self-inflicted wound.

Jessica (AKA She Who Must Be Obeyed, also the adorable grey tabby at left) has had either a kitty cold or allergies for the last few days. As a result, she has been producing a prodigious quantity of snot and puke.

I don’t mind cleaning up mucus puddles, but unfortunately a good half of the puke puddles has been deposited on our bedroom carpet because that’s her favorite room, so I spent a full hour today spot treating and running the carpet cleaner over the multitudinous stains because they drive me nuts. On the plus side, all the stains are now gone and the bedroom smells lovely. On the minus side, doing this meant I had to carry a vacuum cleaner/carpet cleaner upstairs as Ramón was out of the house, carried the carpet cleaner back down, and still have to carry down the vacuum cleaner. Needless to say, the bad knee and the ouchy foot are not pleased with this or me.

And yes, we have a spot cleaner. But it was actually easier to use the big machine because there were so many spots to clean, hence me hauling it upstairs. At least she hasn’t horked anywhere else as of this afternoon, so I’m hoping she’s feeling better (she’s dozing on my chest at the moment).

After that and a couple of hours in the garage I was once again drenched in sweat, so now that I’ve taken a shower I’m gonna cuddle Miss Silver for a bit and turn in. Until tomorrow, mi amigos.

Time on Treadmill: 0 minutes.
Frustration level: Middling.

My right foot is still really aching, and at the moment the suspect is peroneal tendonitis. Since the only real cure for that is rest, I’m taking the day off from Chuck. Which is annoying, but let’s be real — I’m 53, I don’t heal as fast as I used to, and if I want to be able to get back to Chuck without pain I need to let this irritated tendon rest and heal. In order to do that, ice, ibu, and compression will be the order of the day.

In writing news things continue with Shifter Woods: Growl. Don’t worry, I’m getting back to King of Blades and Uncertainty Principle, but I can knock Growl out fairly quickly as it’s a novella and I’d like to get a new release out toot sweet.

Time on Treadmill: 10 minutes.
Hydration level: Sahara.

Update on the client meeting — went really well, I have a very good feeling about it, I get to learn some cool new software which always makes me happy, I am going to be seriously busy until October 1, and I’m thrilled about it because that money will be going to wipe out at least two bills and half of a third, so yay. Also, my knee and foot are still really hurting so I decided to bail on the walking after ten minutes. Not giving whatever I did a chance to heal is not a good idea, after all.

Now, about yesterday — what I failed to mention in the last post was that it was FANTASTIC. I got compliments from not one, not two, but three jewelry customers, I got 1800 words knocked out on Shifter Woods: Growl, Ramón found out that he has an interview on Friday, and I got the news about the client meeting. The only thing that could make yesterday better is learning that we won the Texas Two Step lottery contest and I get to split $1,675,000 dollars with my editor. Which reminds me, I need to check my ticket.

Oh, the hydration level thing — it was seriously hot here in the clavicle of Texas today, to the point where we were being asked to conserve electricity until 7 PM because the wind farms were just barely keeping up with the demand. The official high for Dallas and Plano was 102°F, but my car’s thermometer was reading 110°F when I was on the toll road and read 107°F when I got out of the meeting (and it was in a parking structure in shade). But we’re supposed to get thunderstorms tonight and the temp is going to drop so what does idiot here do? She goes into the garage to get a start on a really cool pendant concept. Yeah, except that I’d forgotten that the garage was still hot as blazes, even after opening the door to get some air exchange going, and I was drenched and blinking sweat out of my eyes within minutes. So now I’m freshly showered and chugging water and electrolytes.

Pendant’s gonna be SO cool, though.

Time on Treadmill: 30 minutes.
Wish to drink something soothing and alcoholic: Middling.

As it turns out, my contract job has some work for me and I need to go see the client tomorrow and get an idea of what they want me to do for them. Since I haven’t been in an office situation since May 2011, I am perhaps a bit nervous about this. I mean, I can do the work, no problem. But there are certain social cues you need to observe when in an office environment, and I’m gonna have to dredge those up and dust them off. Firm handshake, look the person in the eye, answer questions with the right amount of detail, give the impression that you are the answer to their prayers and can do anything they need, that sort of thing.

I suspect it’s going to be a dodgy night of sleep due to nerves and the fact that I seem to have pulled something in my foot which is making walking difficult. I got my thirty minutes in with Chuck tonight, but if I’m not feeling better tomorrow I may cut down my time or skip altogether.

Time on Treadmill: 30 minutes.
Urge to get back in the garage and burn metal: Increasing hourly.

Unfortunately, what with it being in the triple digits until Wednesday at the earliest and my garage being un-air-conditioned, it’s best for me to stay inside until it drops down to temperatures where I don’t have to worry about heat stroke. In the meantime I’ve been doing a buttload of Viking knit (which I still have to photograph, but wait until you guys get a load of the gold bracelet with pewter end caps — it’s GORGEOUS) and holiday earrings (Jo-Ann had a sale on their Darice beads so I stocked up on peppermint swirl glass beads and these cool resin Jack-o-lanterns) I have ready for sale.

I’ve also been having something of an Amy Adams film fest today, starting with Sunshine Cleaning and proceeding through Julie and Julia to Arrival (which I particularly love because of my linguistics background). Some days you just need to see a big-eyed redhead act her ass off, I guess.

Time on Treadmill: 30 minutes.
Sense of Relief: Surprisingly high.

I genuinely don’t remember much of today. The bulk of it was spent making jewelry to fulfill Etsy orders (remember, I have an Etsy store with all kinds of pretty stuff), running said orders to the PO, promoting jewelry and books online, sitting in on the lovely and talented Siobhan Muir‘s Saturday Soliloquy because she was kind enough to promote my stuff, making a buttload of Halloween and Christmas earrings, and carefully running the math to discover that if I add all the incoming funds from various sales and projects, I’ve successfully covered a major bill for the month and I have a skosh left over for next month’s, which is good.

Living paycheck to paycheck sucks, and having that paycheck disappear sucks even more. But hopefully we can get past that soon and get on a more reliable financial grounding. In the meantime, I work my side hustles as best I can, and feed Ramón gyro meatballs because he loves them and they make him happy.