"I shut up that part of my brain and just started writing it."

It's been a while since I talked about Who Killed Hermes?, my Greek mythology novel. That's not just because I haven't been blogging, it's also because I had a little bit of a block.
The downside of spending over a month researching and another month world-building with all of the little details, and my plotting wall with string and post-it notes, is this: There is so much stuff. For a little while, it was a bit overwhelming trying to figure out how I wanted it all to connect together -- things with the Greek gods themselves, things with the mortals and how the world developed with the pantheon being the real deal.
I broke out of my block a few days ago, and that quote is from a post that I made in /r/writing whem someone was having a similar problem to mine. Just shut up that part of your brain and start writing. I'd forgotten how it felt to write that way, having tried outlining and planning everything first with WKH?, and that was where my block came from. My writing has never really been the whole "outline everything, write to the outline". For me, it's a discovery.
So, now I'm going to go write some more. Over the last few days, I've written 1000+ words. It's a start!

WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN ALL MY LIFE?

You guys, I have a confession to make.

I'm a smoothie addict.

Lately, my freezer has been filled with those bags of frozen mixed berries, and my fridge full of juices, bananas, and carrots. I've been trying to eat healthier, but carrots are so boring. My solution? Toss them into a smoothie with stronger-flavored things, and get that Vitamin A the delicious way.

Today is something new. Today is the day my smoothies are enhanced by my new favorite source of non-coffee caffeine: V8 V-FUSION +ENERGY drinks! 8 glorious ounces of peach and mango flavored awesome, with 50% juice and almost as much caffeine as a cup of coffee. Allow me to present my newest smoothie, jam-packed with awesome stuff:

Justin's Get-Up-and-Mango Smoothie

--7 oz. V8 V-Fusion +Energy peach mango
--1 medium carrot, broken into pieces
--1 medium banana, cut into slices
--5 strawberries, frozen
--2 handfuls of frozen blueberries, raspberries and blackberries
--2 spoonfuls honey-flavored Greek yogurt (I used Oikos brand)

I have one of those Magic Bullet single-serve blenders, so adjust accordingly if you're using a bigger blender. Just toss it all in and blend until it's all smoothified, and enjoy the hell out of the awesome flavor. There is a lot of good stuff in here to boost it: Vitamin A from the carrot, potassium from the banana, protein from the Greek yogurt, lots of B vitamins, and a lot more.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go whisper sweet nothings to my smoothie until I devour it. I would expect you all to do the same.

The Elephant In The Room

Maybe it's because I work at a convenience store with firearm keychains, and also because of some of the people in my life (both digital and real), but the gun issue still hasn't really gotten dropped from my sphere of influence. Now, I figure I might as well put my attitude about artillery out there for the world to see -- address the gun-shaped elephant in the room, I guess.

A quick browse shows that this probably isn't a site I'd be interested in,
but here is the source anyway....

I don't want a gun. As far as I'm concerned, the only purpose for a gun is to hurt or kill something, and I have no desire to own one.

That being said, I also don't give a shit if you want to own one. More power to you, own a hunting rifle or handgun. My attitude, though, is that there is no need for a civilian to own a semi-automatic or fully-automatic weapon. People will bring up the Second Amendment, but the gun-crazy folks don't think about part of the problem with that: the Constitution was written in the time of muskets, bayonets, hunting knives and the like. By all means, I support your right to a musket.

When the Second Amendment was written, our war for independence was still fresh in the minds of lawmakers who had either experienced it, or had family who did. The Second Amendment was written when the weapons with which we killed each other were far less efficient.

Really, I just wanted to get that off of my chest. The rare customers that agree with me and thinks our keychains are ridiculous makes me feel a little bit better.

Do any of you want to own guns? I've got no problem with it, I'm just curious to hear other peoples' reasons why they do or don't want to own one (or more). :)

Would you change things?

I know it's been a while since I was able to blog, and I'll get in to that in another post. Today's post is about the dream I woke from this morning, which is still pretty clear in my mind. It's sort of a dream with time travel -- big surprise there, right?

One of the things that I don't remember is how I time-traveled. It was some wholly ridiculous thing, I'm sure, and I don't remember the TARDIS being involved. I guess dream-Justin isn't Gallifreyan?

This was not involved. Sadface.
(source)

What I do remember is that, somehow, I time-traveled to the early 2000s. Or my mind traveled. Something like that. It was kind of like getting a "Game Over" screen and starting from a way-earlier point. You know what's going to happen, but you're otherwise the same as you were then. I was the physically-awkward teenager that didn't weigh nearly as much as I do now, and was still of the mind that I was too big. The only thing that was different was my mind.

Some parts of the dream were a lot harder than the others. I still feel the emotion that dream-me felt on seeing my Grandpa alive again, and my mom and step-dad happy again. The determination to change some things, but keep some things the same. In the dream, I had resolved to still work at the hotel, so I could meet Jim and eventually Jynni, but I also decided that I wanted to try and get my grandpa and step-dad to quit smoking in hopes of preventing their deaths.

I also remember wanting to fix my education fuck-ups, and actually graduate with my class instead of getting my diploma a year later. Some of the stuff that I wanted to do in the dream is unimportant in the grand scheme of things, and some of it could possibly change my life so much.

The part that really got me thinking was dream-Justin's insistence on working at the hotel so that I could befriend Jim, and eventually meet Jynni. I'm very happy being with her, and even if I could go back and change these things, unimportant and important both, I don't know if things would have worked the same way. Maybe I wouldn't have gotten hired at the hotel, and would've ended up never meeting Jynni, but still having the knowledge of how happy I am with her.

I guess the point of this post is a question: if you could go back and relive your life with knowledge of how events had gone, would you change things? Or would you suffer through the same issues that made you want to change things in the first place?

As for me, I think I'm good with how things are. Sure, I'd love for Jynni and her daughter to be able to meet my grandpa, and for my mom and step-dad to have been able to be together still. But the potential cost is too much. It's not worth maybe sacrificing the love I have now, even if the life I have now isn't my ideal life.

Grays Harbor Transit, you never disappoint...

I'm on the bus to Olympia to have lunch with Wendy, because Jim's new job doesn't give him a long enough lunch to join us. Afterwards, I'm off to Danger Room to pick up my too-long-neglected pull list (a month and a half).

Currently, I'm listening to a woman with facial injuries that is apparently in need of mental help or something. She is claiming police brutality from Hoquiam PD, and is on her way to Montesano to press charges against HPD. She also claims to be an American citizen from Canada, who has $10million that she is going to get from Canada, and bring to the US to help our economy.

Oh, and she says she's blind, but is also talking about having seen someone at the Aberdeen bus station with facial boils all over.

...

I feel odd, hearing all of this. This woman isn't the only person on the Harbor with a variety of issues, whether any of them are genuine, or a delusion brought on by mental illness. Often, experiences like this make me wish that I could help those that need it, in some way.

But, for now, I'm going to conserve phone battery and quit using it. If you need me, I'll be reading on my Kindle and trying to tune out the rest of this crowded, crowded bus.

#firstworldproblems

I think that my foot should start paying rent to my mouth. Sometimes, I make such an ass out of myself that I think my attempts to learn languages will just mean I can do it with more people, more often. On another note, though....

It's been over a month since I blogged, either here or at Sympathy For The Devil, but that's not entirely for lack of effort. 2013 has not been a good year for my devices. Just in the seven weeks that it's been around, this year has killed (or tried to kill) most of the technology I own. Let's go for a rundown:

While taking pictures at Jim and Wendy's wedding last month, the screen on my camera decided to shit on itself. The camera itself still works and takes pictures, but because I don't have a working screen, I can't preview the images or switch it to video capture. The only good thing is that, if I keep using it, it might improve my "eye for pictures". Sure, it's stuck on the current settings from the last time I changed them, but being unable to rely on the screen to check the picture before taking it means relying on myself.

Then, my laptop decided that it has taken enough abuse. It's been my primary computer for... three years now? Sounds right. It's an Acer netbook with a 250 GB hard drive and 2 GB of RAM (1 GB that I bought and was shown how to install by Ralph). When I tell people that an Acer netbook has been my mostly-reliable primary computer for that long, they're usually surprised. Nowadays, the zero key is missing and both Shift keys are unreliable. Moving it too abruptly sometimes causes the screen to go ass-up, and the WLAN is going out -- sometimes it'll lose connection after an hour or two, other times after five minutes. Restarting it fixes it, but only temporarily.

Lastly, the Kindle. It got knocked out of my hand (by accident) because someone on the bus bumped into me while I was reading it. Half of the screen doesn't work anymore, but because it was only barely out of warranty, the customer support guy gave me a discount toward my next one. All in all, it cost me half of what I paid for my first Kindle to replace it.

The only regularly-used piece of tech that hasn't really had issues is my phone. So, that's why you're getting a 3AM blog from the phone. And if it has shitty formatting, I'll fix it when I can get on a real computer. :-)