The right tools

My project for this weekend arrived yesterday: a nice flat workspace with no hutch and no drawers. Once it’s assembled I’ll have a great place to work on projects, on my laptop or otherwise.

I haven’t been happy with my current computer setup for awhile now. Sitting in the living room on the couch or floor is not conducive to doing serious work. I typically end up goofing off online or watching anime. The point was driven home for me recently when I went to visit Sam in Huntsville. The purpose of the visit was to get some headway on a webcomic we’ve been working on. At first I was sitting on his couch with my laptop; it wasn’t until the next day, when I created a work area for myself at his roleplaying table, that I started getting things done.

I’m very excited about that project. I’m also amped up about an online venture I devised and will be pursuing with the help of a new friend, Mike. It’s important to me that I have a space where I can sit and focus, so these projects don’t end up in the “I wonder if…” bin.

The new desk won’t magically transform me into a workhorse, but having the right tools is essential for success. I can’t wait to get started.

7 Random or Weird Facts

I have been tagged by Chuck…and you all know how much I love being tagged :D It’s taken me a month to get around to it. I may be slow, but I do get things done eventually!

Here are the rules:

1. Link to your tagger and post these rules on your blog.

2. Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog; some random, some weird.

3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs.

4. Let them know they are tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

It gets harder and harder over the years to come up with unique things. But I’ll do my best!

FACT 1: I used to have a lot of trouble forming social relationships. I rarely looked people in the eye. I was so afraid of looking stupid that I never reached out to anyone. If a person latched on to me, I latched back, regardless of whether or not the relationship was healthy. It took a long time for me to break the cycle. I still have trouble with either being too aloof or too involved. But now I’m outgoing and even snarky. The internet really helped–being able to have real conversations with people without all the face-to-face distractions made me crave that kind of connection in all my relationships. My current job has also been a blessing. I meet so many new people each year that I just about have to be sociable. All in all, I’m really happy with where I am now.

FACT 2: I suffer from a completely illogical guilt complex. When I got cancer, I felt guilty that my parents had to pay for my treatment and make my car payment while I couldn’t work. When our apartment burned down, I felt guilty that I had ever married Sean in the first place, because after all, if he’d never met me, he wouldn’t have been living there, so he would still have all his stuff. And I felt guilty that family members had given me hand-me-downs and they’d all been destroyed. When I discovered Magazine Man’s identity, I felt guilty for the way I’d done it, even though dozens of people figured it out that way…and that guilt has made it hard for me to relate to him, to this day.

You may not believe this, but I’m better–at least a little bit–than I used to be. When I have to give up on something, when I don’t have time or circumstances change, I don’t beat myself up about it nearly as much as I used to. But it’s still a problem for me.

FACT 3: I only have one mole. It’s on my stomach. And it doesn’t stick out or anything, so it may as well be a huge freckle. I have lots of freckles.

FACT 4: The big toe on my right foot sticks out more than the one on my left. It’s hard for me to move it inwards. The other one moves back and forth just fine.

FACT 5: I am always having ideas, often for websites, for things that I think would be cool to design–not just graphically, but organizationally. But the thought of maintaining those things usually deters me. I think my strength lies in setting things up, and then letting other people use them.

FACT 6: I can, and do, pop almost every joint on my body.

FACT 7: I love rotenburos. A rotenburo is an outdoor Japanese bath. Yes, you go into it naked, with other people around. I’ve never gone to a co-ed onsen, but I honestly think I would try it. I think this is due to a random fact we’ll call 7A: when I’m not wearing my glasses, I’m less self-conscious about how I look.

There you go, Chuck! Sorry it took so long!

Update: I realized after posting that I totally forgot to tag others. I tag: Brooke, Mari, Charles, and Kayo. I realize that’s not seven, but I don’t read a lot of blogs, and of the ones I do read most have already done this questionnaire recently. So if there’s someone out there I didn’t name who wants to do this, let me know in the comments :)

Look, I’m on the new Blogger!

And you can’t tell!

That’s because I have a custom template that doesn’t include any of the new Blogger stuff.

At some point I’ll have to fix that…

Edit: Oh dear god look what they do with the post labels! Yes, definitely need to do something about that…