life – Sam Stark

“Everything you see, I owe to spaghetti.” – Sophia Loren

I’m starting Keto today. UPDATE 01-05-22 KETO SUCKS! You can read the rest of the post but the TL:DR version is dayum, Keto is expensive and super annoying! Going back to calorie counting and exercise!

I need to lose a few pounds but I think the main reason I’m getting back on a regulated eating cycle is that it bumps my creativity. Every time I’ve been on some kind of calorie counting kick or low sugar thing or whatever where I’ve had to strictly monitor my food intake, I get a little stricter in my daily living overall. I have a lot of pieces and moving parts in my life and I get through everything more easily if it’s organized. (Bacon twice a day and cheese whenever I want is also kind of cool not going to lie.)

The regiment, or regulation may be a better word, forces me to organize the food in the house and meal plan, which in turn gets me organizing other things. It’s a snowballing effect (wow that actually sounds awful but I swear it’s good). I put things in metaphorical (mostly) boxes so they all fit nicely into a day/week. If everything is in a box, that means writing is in a box, and when it’s time to open that box every day, my brain is ready.

Who knows how it will go? We shall see. I have to be careful sometimes because I get terrible migraines, but so far I don’t think they’ve been effected by what I eat. (Unless I don’t eat, that’s a thing. Low blood sugar is a certain way to migraine hell.) So this should work out? At least I hope? At the very least I know, even if I eventually find I can’t do Keto, I’ll have gotten some writing done and probably cleaned out both fridges and the chest freezer or something.

In other news, I joined the Accidental Renaissance Paintings group on Facebook. It just came up out of nowhere, I’m not even on Facebook that much! But now I’m hooked. The photos are great.

My favorite so far.

I hope everyone is having a wonderful beginning of the week. Say hi to your pets for me.

Venting

life, writing

I need to learn how to not be so hard on myself.

Yeah right.

I am probably the most organized person I know. I’m not crazy anal or anything, and I’m not ODC or whatever, I just have this fairly strict sense of things I need to do in a specific amount of time because I’m a fucking adult and I have things that need to get done. There’s always Something. I’m always doing Something. (Just a side note: this specific amount of time is a week. I don’t know why it’s a week, it’s just the way of things. I live circularly. I write circularly I guess it just makes sense.)

The things (Somethings) that need to get done are all pretty straightforward: Kids have to go to school. That means there’s laundry and lunches to be prepared, which means trips to the grocery store on a schedule (every Sunday and Thursday). That also means doctors appointments, dentist and orthodontist appointments, homework checkups, and the occasional ride to orchestra or home from swim practice. There’s meal planning for the week for the entire family and daily mandatory house cleaning because if I don’t keep up it all goes to hell real fast. Then of course there’s work–real actual day job work, and even though I’m fortunate to have a job that I don’t have to bring home, it’s still nine hours (sometimes ten depending on traffic) that’s being taken up by Something. And then of course there’s the thousand little things, feed the cats, check the litter box, check to make sure there’s litter and food for the cats in the first place–oh and also are there paper towels?

Weekends are family time, bath time, take the kids swimming, D&D with the youth group etc.

Something.

There’s always Something going on, so when I get a few hours to relax or a little “break to write” I’m usually not in the correct headspace to do that. I end up watching anime or binge-watching Midnight Mass (highly recommended btw), or writing a fucking blog post, and I don’t get to that chapter because fuck it’s hard and I don’t want to go back to that scene where I couldn’t figure out why the dialogue isn’t working, and why am I not just focusing on audiobook narrating because it seems to be going better and it’s easier to get jobs that actually pay?

I get really mad at myself if a week goes by and all my time is taken up by Somethings I had to get done and I didn’t have any time to work on my current writing project. Which is a fucking stupid thing to think because there’s always a little extra time. I’m just not always managing it perfectly. There’s always a few hours here and there I could be devoting to placing my ass in my chair and staring at Word. But I’m watching brilliantly written vampire shows and k-pop videos and scrolling through Pinterest for The Raven Cycle fan art because I. Like. It.

And see, that’s what I’m talking about. I spend fifty plus hours a week devoted to work, and then also have to do all this prep for the kids and school, meals, laundry, cleaning, pet care, exercising–Jesus H Christ the list just goes on–and then I expect myself to just be a robot and work some more. Like hours and hours more. No down time needed, writing is fun, we love writing. Writing IS downtime.

Most weeks I do it. Most weeks I’m an exemplary fucking human being, spitting up 12K, sometimes 15K words on top of all this other living and Somethings I do. (Real talk: it’s not all usable. Maybe I keep 8K on average?) And sometimes I get ALL that shit done AND I narrate a fucking audiobook as well. Hell yeah, I’m a machine.

I’m sure this is some kind of trauma. This is probably leftovers from being pressured to be perfect all the time and toss everything that even slightly smells of Second Best.

I really wish I could just chill the fuck out. I want to have a few weeks (months would be nice) of not stressing out over not losing weight, or not writing the best novel ever, or ah fuck I wanted to go to that thing but I’m too tired so I’m a fucking failure of a friend.

I think I actually do a pretty good job. Most of the time.

It’s just once in a while, there’s a lot of Somethings. And I can’t fit in the somethings I want unless I risk burning out. I need to just chill, and think about how many important Somethings I do get done every day. The other somethings will still be around when I have time and the brainpower. I just need to be kinder to myself. I need to be okay with vegging out and watching Squid Game.

I need a fucking vacation.

You Could Fry An Egg On My Face

life, writing

It’s hot.

I know if you’re reading this from somewhere like Florida or Texas or something you’re thinking “haha, no it’s not” but goddamnit. It’s hot for Seattle okay? I’m not a fan of the sun, or the beach, or generally nice weather because again, I am from Seattle. I like rain. I love rain. And overcast. Damp is what flows through the blood of the Seattleite. So anything coming even close to 80 degrees is climbing too far; reaching too high. Slow your roll there, partner.

I’ve made the most of it by staying inside as much as possible, but I have a three and a half year old that also happens to be a sunflower. With my first it was okay, because like me he’s a vampire, but now I’m forced to go outside in the bright and the glare and the colors and bugs and do things. We have a huge umbrella over the patio table and that’s been quite the life-saver, especially when we BBQ. I mean I guess I could sit on the other side of the screen door in the air conditioning while my family plays outside and eats ribs and stuff, but thinking about it, that seems kind of depressing. No, I’ve been trying for real. I bought bird feeders and squirrel feeders and I leave out peanuts for the crows and raccoons. We have jays and woodpeckers and these little fat, round birds that look like the blue guys from Angry Birds. It’s great. Makes it all worth it. Animals are awesome.

A lucky side effect to the sun and the playing outdoors is my youngest gets tuckered out sometimes and has to chill for a bit, giving me some time to work on things. I’ve gotten through all the terrible, soul-crushing, teeth-pulling rewrite edits of the novel’s first few chapters, and now I’m actually getting to write some new stuff. It’s still rough, and I’m going to try and work through some of it with my writer’s group when we meet at the end of the month, but I’m also really happy that there’s an end in sight. Sort of.

Oh, I also sold a story. My short horror-fantasy work will be featured in Flame Tree Press’ Strange Lands Anthology coming out in November. It’s going to be a pretty great compilation of stories so check it out if that kind of thing interests you. Here’s a link so you can check it out.

http://blog.flametreepublishing.com/fantasy-gothic/gothic-fantasy-successful-submissions-strange-lands

The cover is so cool. It’s like a tome, or a Grimoire. I’m super excited to have it on my shelf.

I hope everyone is staying safe and healthy, wearing your masks and observing social distancing. At least you better be because I’m ready for this to be over, please and thank you.

Love your pets, treat people with respect, unless they’re complete assholes that don’t deserve your respect, and have a great week!

“I Became Insane, With Long Intervals of Horrible Sanity.”

life

My dear friends, it has been a rough couple of weeks.

Some of you may know I have a twelve (almost thirteen) year-old daughter. She is wonderful and hilarious and loves horror movies and is basically everything one could want in a daughter.

On February 17th, we had a small kitchen fire that blackened our walls/ceiling, and melted a lot of plastic stuff. It started when a bit of oil splashed out of a pan, caught on the element, and built from there. My daughter was burned pretty badly trying to put it out. She had oil burns from fingertips to elbows on both arms, and second degree patches on her right thumb, wrist, and ring finger. I don’t know if any of you have ever experienced second degree burns, so let me tell you: they are terrible. They are very painful, and take forever to heal. My daughter has been a trooper the past few weeks through pain, open blisters, excruciating anxiety attacks, and a bunch of skin shedding. I’m not exaggerating when I say that her right arm looks like the fiji mermaid from The X-Files.

It’s been a long, slow, agonizing few weeks.

We are very thankful that her injuries are only second degree. They could have been a lot worse. She doesn’t need any kind of surgery, or skin graphs or anything like that, and none of the bad burns are deep enough to worry about movement or motor function. So let me say again, we are very lucky, all things considered, and we are very thankful.

That doesn’t make it any fucking easier to deal with though.

Understandably, this whole event has left my daughter with a little PTSD. It took a little while to manifest but it’s there, and it’s hard to communicate with her sometimes because I have no frame of reference. I’m just doing the best I can by cleaning and dressing the wounds, staying up with her when she needs it, comforting her when she breaks down–just being there.

There’s a lot of anxiety and underlying tension in the house right now. The baby (okay she’s not really a “baby” she’s a toddler) can feel it too so she’s turned into a tantrum monster. No seriously she screams at everything including routine diaper changes.

So, long story short: I am tired. I don’t like to complain about all this because I wasn’t the one that was injured, I’m not the one that’s in pain, but I really am ready to just crawl in a hole and sleep forever.

Hopefully you all are doing better than me and mine. I’m going to go home today and finish the second season of Altered Carbon (Omg Anthony Mackie is fucking great, but you know who’s better? Chris Conner. Seriously, just watch season 2 for Poe).

Image result for altered carbon poe and kovacs

Remember to pet your pets. Hug people you care about and will allow that sort of contact, and drink water. Have a great rest of your week everyone.

Backlog Post #3

life

Originally Posted 07/31/19

I’ve been playing too much Merge Dragons.

What is Merge Dragons? It’s a mobile game where you can merge three eggs and make a cute dragon. Then merge three dragons to make a bigger dragon, and so on and so on. You can actually merge three of anything in the game to make something better or bigger or whatever. The point is, it’s cute, it’s addictive, and it unfortunately makes me want to spend real money.

It also gives me nightmares, apparently.

Last night I dreamed my mother (not my real mother, just a faceless mother in a dream) was dying in a big hospital and I was having difficulty managing my time doing regular life things and spending time with her. The reason I was having difficulty, was because I was apparently an Arrow/Robin Hood type of superhero. My mom would want to talk about things and make sure I was paying all my bills and stuff, but then something terrible would happen and I would have to leave and go be a super hero. It was depressing and sad and a little stressful.

The reason why I think Merge Dragons had a hand in this nightmare, was because the last week or so I’ve been obsessed with merging enough mushrooms to get one of the ultimate level 8 mushrooms – the Alien Shrooms.

If you’ve ever played a mobile game that you really liked, you understand how it sucks you in. You’ll play for hours just doing random silly shit like farming grass or picking corn or catching fairies for nothing more than a reward of 10 jewels so you can get the Blue Cow! Or the Special Butterfly! Or the goddamn Apple Tree! And after too many hours and too many days wasted trying so hard to create or buy this stupid thing, you start to look at the money system in the game and wonder if maybe you should just drop $35 and buy 1000 jewels. Fuck!

So that’s where I was last night right before I went to bed. I want that goddamn, stupid, mushroom. I don’t know why, maybe my dragons will be able to harvest something cool from it like fungus balls I can sell for money. Surly it can’t be just because I want one in my garden, right?

Okay, back to the dream.

I hear something out the window of my mom’s hospital room, and there’s a flash of light and screaming so, of course, super hero time. I kiss my mom, run out, and then I’m outside in my super hero outfit because dream logic.

And there it is. It’s a fucking gigantic alien mushroom monster. It sort of looks like the one in the game, but it’s got another level to it, like it’s taller, and all those little things at the bottom are skulls. Granted, the thing is still kind of cute, but then it manifests a hammer on it’s head and starts smashing buildings. I do my Arrow/Robin Hood thing and fight off all the people that are–I guess–mind controlled by this thing, and then swing into the air like Spiderman for some reason and do cool heart-attack inducing aerial battle for like five seconds, but then it manages to knock me away and smashes the hospital where my mom is staying…

I woke up.

I haven’t played Merge Dragons yet today. I’m not sure I want to. Do I still want the mushroom? I don’t know.