Morning Pages

10.9.23 struggling today

Posted on by lionwolfbird

Honestly, I’ve been struggling for a little while now, but it just feels more acute today. At the core of it all is the belief that I’m just not my best self.

The challenges I face, some of which i know are common for a lot of people today.

My physical health is not where I want it. I have been there before and then somehow I lost it. I know the changing then loss of a pt was partly the cause. The changing of the environment at home was another major factor

My finances are not doing well. I took out a debt consolidation loan early this year to clear out my cc debt and now I’m nearly back where i started 6 months later. This is not sustainable. There were house emergencies that played a big role true, but those will always be a problem with home ownership. I should be able to have a good enough overall net income to save for these inevitable events…but I don’t. Even if my wife made more and was able to contribute an equal amount, I don’t think we’d make enough. I need to force the financial review asap. Comparing a mortgage cost to rent is not enough. The comparison does not account for those maintenance costs. I’m not sure how to get ahead. And with N possibly moving in soon with her cats, an apartment setup can’t work…we could never get away with 5 cats. While N is still here I should chat and present our financial challenge in the future, at least so they are clear on what they might be coming into.

Relationship-wise, I’m definitely feeling the loneliness…the incompleteness. Trying to put effort into poly dating right now feels pointless. How can I give live if I have trouble loving myself? I know my health and financial security are big parts of that. I don’t ever expect to become jacked (though that would be nice to experience once) and I know I’ll never be rich…but I’d like to know that I can focus on building savings rather than struggling just to get cc debt down. There was a time before the house that I wasn’t struggling just to keep up. I weathered several storms as a result. I’d like to get back there. I’m just not sure how yet.

Something I’m seriously considering doing is pausing my dnd games. At least for a few months. I can’t provide a good experience if I’m so worried about the near future. I need to put that time into righting the ship, as it were.

Asidd from the gym stuff, I need to put focus on cutting costs and selling off things we don’t use. A big thing is to kill the storage unit, which is costing us way too much now. I also think i should get back into dance as a supplement to my gym and boxing stuff. I know I’m happiest when I keep moving.

It’s kinda like playing a pvp game against my depression. I have to keep moving, or it will get me.

8.2.23 Morning Pages

Posted on by lionwolfbird

I could not do my Morning Pages yesterday. Between boxing, cooking breakfast, and cleaning the kitchen I had no time. I was even late to work (not that my current boss really cares, which is one of the reasons I keep working there). I hate the idea of rushing to work. The idea of getting hurt in a car accident (not that I drive to the office, I metro) just seems so fucked up. Of all the things to risk life and limb for, doing that for a place you don’t truly love being at just makes no sense. That is why people to honk in the morning to get somewhere baffle me. There are just so many better things in these short lives we get to put our energy into.

In other news, I finally got the base for my Foundryvtt landing page setup. Now I just need to upload it into Foundry. I decided to make a more general page instead of tying it deeper to a given campaign. Not that the setup was that hard, but I still have limited time. I think I’ll build walls around the cards for where I plan to put player tokens. I know some of my players love to move their tokens everywhere they can, so I need to contain them. Reminder to self, I need to get those tile pause traps going again. I think the Hey! Wait! mod is supposed to work now…but I’ll need to test it.

I have a few more things I need to finish before I feel comfortable setting up doodles for the next game dates, at least for TCBG. I found a background image somewhere that looks like an empty tiled boardmap. I just don’t remember what folder I put it in. I’m like a digital pack rat when it comes to acquiring assets for my D&D games. I can’t rely on finding stuff online more than once. Stuff tends to fall offline after a while. Like certain streaming services…

Anyhow, back to the next steps. I’ll upload that battlemat map. Maybe consider making a backup copy and archiving it to a compendium for performance reasons. Then I need to get to serious work on organizing my WorldAnvil site. In particular, I need to write up all of the characters that have come up so far. I’m doing this not just for myself, but for an easy way for players to reference everything. I’m thinking for each character page, I’ll include a field for something like “disposition to party”, then use hostile/neutral/friendly. Or maybe take a page from most mmos and add more layers to their disposition. I wonder what disposition the cats here have. Quercus certainly seems friendly, though he has no qualms about walking in front of my monitor as a I type

So yes, working on character references for WA. I just thought about how I need to organize the “journal” link I’ll have in the landing page. Aside from the episode summaries (and perhaps prologues?), I want to have “places” and other “quest leads”. I hate using quest leads as a term though. It feels too video gamey now. Story hooks? Story leads? I don’t want to use just leads…that implies an investigation or link to the main story. Maybe side stories? I’m not a huge fan of completely containerized side stories though. I feel there should always be some kind of connection to the main plot. But maybe there shouldn’t be? Maybe I should focus more on how these side paths develop main character stories instead. Or maybe I should think of it as main characters’ development? I’m still drawing a blank on the name. UNEXPLORED POINTS OF INTEREST! This does mean I need to frame things in terms of places first. Which might be best anyway. Then layer story into it. So if I setup the journal as a type of bullet list, maybe it’ll look like this (as I went through this, I ended up adopting the Codex format from Dragon Age):

  • Campaigns
    • Episodes
      • Prologue
      • Summary of events
  • Places
    • Settlements
    • Geographic Locations
    • Unexplored Points of Interest
    • Planes
  • Maps
  • Characters
    • Main Characters
    • Supporting Characters
    • Antagonists
  • Groups
  • Creatures
  • History
  • Magic Items
  • Materials
  • Letters & Notes
  • Short Stories
  • House Rules

7.31.23 Morning Pages

Posted on by lionwolfbird

How do I track 3 pages here? Maybe I should start in Word first? Google suggests it should be in the bottom left but that doesn’t seem to be true. Quercus is starting to chew on the bench again. And I really need to change the cat litter here ASAP. I’m going to make a real effort to get it done tonight when I get home from work. As I get older I understand the hate for tech more and more. Nothing just works straight through. There’s always an interruption to fix something that didn’t work the way it went.

This is frustrating. I still don’t see the count. I could guess by screen size or scroll bar I guess. But I’m also using a large monitor so that seems a little unfair. It isn’t a clear measurement. I tried distraction free mode as one search suggested…still nothing.

Ok finally found it. Apparently, I needed to click on the triple bar thing, then click on Outline. So how many words is 3 pages on average? A quick google search on using standard times new roman 12 pt with double spacing suggests 1000 words is equal to 4 pages…roughly. So my goal here will be 750 words. I think that is a reasonable start.

Anyway, for those random internet strangers that are wondering what the F is going on, here’s the thing. After my little journey into the infinite underneath, I decided to take another shot as reading “The Artist’s Way”. Part of my reasoning was the understanding that after the experience, brains are supposed to be a little more neuroplastic again. It seems to me it would be a great time to focus on the hobbies/personal projects I had intended to. I had the book from H for a while. I started on it, but once it started talking about having to commit to 12 weeks, with at minimum of an hour a day…I backed off as I knew I didn’t have that time. I still don’t know, which is why I’m typing this instead of writing it by hand. I tried writing by hand yesterday, and not only did it hurt my hand…it took quite a bit longer than an hour. I need to remember to check the original publish date of that much. I’m not sure there is a good reason to write that much by hand. It might have just been a product of the time. Nothing about the book so far suggests it is particularly modern. It does make mention of movies/shows in general, so it can’t be that old.

I want to make myself some food. I was thinking about doing IF today…but I’m not sure if I really want to do that. If I do IF and only eat 3 times in the day…then if I’m going to meet 180g of protein that’s like 60g per meal. While for lunch and dinner that’s fine, but I don’t want to do 60g of protein in protein whey format. Especially when I use the blend with creatine in it. That much creatine makes my stomach feel bad. So yes, right after I hit 750 words I’ll make a relatively quick breakfast.

Anyhow, back to the reason behind the madness. The Morning Pages is the idea that in order to continue working on my writing, I should write 3 pages *everyday*, first thing in the morning. I can’t exactly do the first thing in the morning since I’m doing my bootcamp/boxing sessions. So I am opting for after shower after getting home. The idea is to get over “The Censor” telling me my stuff sucks and to focus on the logical. I mean, if I were all work then I probably could focus on coding stuff (he says on WordPress, which has options for that). I might sound like a child saying this…but I don’t wanna. I spend enough time at work that I don’t like the idea of taking my personal time for it. That work/life balance is extremely important for me.

I just remembered I need to check for those Heilung tickets. I believe they are doing a north american tour again. I was thinking about getting 3 tickets. 2 for myself and my wife. The 3rd will be a floater for someone. Not sure who yet. If H were still a thing I’d invite them. I’m not sure where that’ll go. I still care about them. I just don’t understand where they are at. I know the work they do now is eating at their body and soul. I think that fellowship is a 2 year process. I’m still sad that they aren’t a presence in my life anymore. That presence kept the depression away. I know I shouldn’t put any dependencies on anyone…but it sure was nice. Okay, time to make some quick food and figure out the lunch situation. I thought about a salad, but that is a more complicated storage setup. I’ll just do some protein and frozen veggies. I can do the salad tonight when it is easier to put together. And now this doc has a greyed out “Saving” and greyed out Publish. Maybe I should stick to word.

Good thing I copied this into my clipboard. Nearly lost all of this.