life

Back in 2011, I worked for a company that required continuing education as part of their employment. The cool thing was they provided the classes and some of them were awesome.

I think I’ve talked about this before on the blog, but I can’t recall. I took the Dave Ramsey Financial Peace University. It was a huge wake up call for me. I discovered, at the time, I was spending approximately $750 a month on credit card minimums. It was a shock.

I was determined to get myself out of debt. I did so great for so long. I was paying off credit cards and starting to feel so much better financially.

And then life happened and I fell off the wagon.

And then I decided to launch a new book and invested a lot of money I didn’t have. Since I didn’t have a good idea of how to launch a book, that failed miserably.

I suddenly found myself in debt again.

The thing about that is, though, you can’t let it get you down. Being depressed about credit card bills doesn’t get them paid off. And I was for a couple of months as I paid minimums because I was scraping together a large sum money for something else I needed. I was essentially right back where I started and it was no fun.

Life is hard. It sucks. Being an adult sucks even more but I did it to myself and I had no one else to blame. I couldn’t blame lack of book sales or anything else. It was all me. I hated myself for a long time because of it.

But then I sucked it up and started making goals to pay them off. Things happened in such a way that allowed me to pay off two major balances with a comma in a short amount of time. It’s hard when you see large sums of cash depart the bank account. I had nothing to show for those balances. Oh, I had a published book that was getting pretty good reviews, so perhaps the editing was worth it. And cover art is always worth the money, in my opinion. But everything else? Nope.

But the relief of having those balances completely wiped out was palpable. I’m starting to see a pinprick of light at the end of a very long, dark tunnel. It’s a long, painful process. It never happens fast enough for my liking. If I could wave a magic wand and make them disappear forever with no penalties, I would.

The day I have those cards paid off, I intend to dance a little jig and sing a merry dance. I look forward to having a zero balance on all of them.

You probably know most writers are introverted. It’s why we picked that profession—because we can do it alone, in our homes without having to put on real clothes and no one tells us what to do (except our characters but that’s another blog post for another day).

When I was a kid, I was painfully shy. I know that might be hard for people who know me well to grasp, but it’s totally true. I would rather miss out on opportunities than face people or interact with them. I was never popular and I sure as hell wasn’t the kid who would be in charge on the playground.

I was a doormat for a lot of years. From elementary school through high school. I was naturally drawn to people who were more outgoing than me. These were the smart kids. The ones who were in theater. Me? I’m just the one lurking in the back of the classroom trying to get through the day without really talking to anyone.

As I’ve matured (have I?) into adulthood, I’ve realized that life will pass you by if you don’t interact with people. Also, they think you’re an asshole. Or because you’re the quiet one, you’re silently plotting someone’s demise. “It’s the quiet ones you have to be wary of,” they say.

Well, YEAH. That’s true. The quite ones are the ones you never know about. And if we’re a writer, we likely ARE plotting someone’s demise that pissed us off—by putting them in a book and killing them off.

Also, I don’t accept social invitations. Or if I do, it’s because there has been some amount of peer pressure. It’s not that I *don’t* want to go. I love you and I appreciate that you thought of me enough to invite me. It really means a lot. It’s just that…well, if it’s a party and there are going to be people there I don’t know except for maybe one or two people, then I know I’m going to feel uncomfortable, look at my phone a lot, and glance longingly toward the door to try to figure out my exit strategy.

Even in situations where I DO know everyone, I feel this way. I think it’s just part of my DNA. I constantly wonder when I can leave without being the first one to go or looking like a jerk. I don’t participate much in the conversations because I feel rude trying to butt in and also, I’m wondering how to get out of there.

And office parties. OY. I really hate these the most. Be it baby showers, birthdays or retirement parties. DUDE. I so do not want to go to these things even if means I get to be unchained from my desk for a half hour to an hour. You have to sit/stand there with a fake smile plastered on your face and pretend this is the best part of your day. Really I only show up for the cake/cookies/cupcakes.

And potlucks are just a no. My husband ruined me on this because his philosophy is YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT THEIR KITCHEN LOOKS LIKE. And he’s right. All I can think about now is how that food was prepared and if they washed their hands.

Also, I hate to plan work events. My husband will say, “But you’re good at it.” Yeah. I know how to plan a party but it’s just such a giant pain in the ass and someone always, without fail, complains or wants to know why I didn’t offer gluten-free/grain-free/paleo/vegan whatever dishes for the one person who wanted it. (Like, I am not a miracle worker, okay? I can only pick what the caterer offers.)

RWA Conferences are very hard on me, too. While I love going to the workshops, I am not the type of person who will march up to you, say hi and introduce myself. I stick close to the circle of people I know best. So please don’t be offended if I don’t accept your invitation to get together. There is no real downtime during conference and I feel like I have to be “on” from the time I get on the plane to the time I step foot back Texas soil. It takes a lot of mental energy and I’m just drained by the time conference is over.

I have to give myself an internal pep talk and mentally prepare for these types of situations. I have a very low threshold for jackassery in public situations. And then afterward, I really need to decompress. Sometimes that involves a nap. Mostly it involves wine.

Are you an introvert? If so, how do you handle social situations?

I’m not a girly-girl. It took me a long time to be at peace with that. No matter how hard I tried to be “girly,” it just never worked out.

I hate spending time getting ready for work in the mornings. It takes me about 10 minutes to put on my make-up and maybe another 10 minutes to dry my hair. I don’t have a super fancy hair-do because, let’s face it, I’m super lazy. I want to blow and go. My hair is straight. Spending time with a curling iron is generally a waste of time because the waves never, ever hold. And I dislike hairspray, mousse, gel and any other hair product that leaves my hair feeling icky. And as far as make-up is concerned? I have no desire to stand in front of the mirror and paint my face in various stages of application (base, powder, concealer).

I don’t spend a small fortune every month at the Clinique or Lancôme counter, though I can drop some serious cash at Sephora for Urban Decay eyeshadows. THEY are totally worth it. I pretty much hate shopping for clothes, even though my current wardrobe is super boring and mostly the same color. Yeah, I’m boring. The only thing I really do love are designer handbags and, well, my bank account doesn’t allow me to spend frivolous amounts of cash on them. Neither does my husband.

There are a couple of women in my office who do their hair in these exotic updos and their make-up is perfect and they wear these really cute outfits and super cute shoes and I just think how much trouble that must be. I wonder how much time they spend in the morning getting ready. I’m lucky to get myself dressed and out the door. Plus, my feet are not what they used to be. I ruined them in my 30s wearing 4-inch stilettos every day so now I’m all about comfort. I used to be really, really into shoes but when you can’t wear the heels anymore, it sort of puts a damper on that habit.

I don’t think I’ve ever been girly enough to actually want to wear dresses. I do, on occasion but then my legs never see the light of day and they’re more like neon white than anything. It’s embarrassing. Oh, I guess I could do the spray tan thing or go to a tanning bed but I don’t exactly have the skin tone for that. I’d come out looking more like a lobster than a goddess of summer. Also, I hate to shave my legs.

If you had to stoop over in the shower or prop your foot on the wall, you’d hate it too. It’s just generally annoying.

I’m not a tomboy, either. I am fond of jeans and t-shirts but you won’t catch me doing things that require me to get dirty. Except for maybe planting in the garden. I will do that. But I won’t kill bugs, snakes or anything that crawls, slithers and generally has more legs than me or the cat.

I do, however, enjoy cussing. A lot. And I drive a muscle car. I only put pink vanity plates on it to make sure the world knew the car belonged to me. LOL

I guess I’m somewhere in the middle of the Girly-Tomboy spectrum. And that is totally fine with me.

A while ago, I found two boxes in the garage that was full of old bills and bank statements. It took me about a week or so to shred it all. In fact, it was in this post back in January that I blogged about saying goodbye to the 90s.

HA!

This weekend, while husband was in the garage repairing some sheetrock, I found yet another box full of bank statements and bills from 1995. I couldn’t believe it. Why won’t this crap go away? I thought for sure I had gotten rid of it all but now I have to shred another bag full of this stuff. It’s annoying. I’m annoyed with myself for keeping it all these years. What was the going in that? Why didn’t I get rid of it way back then? I don’t get it.

And the worst part is, I dislike revisiting these years. They weren’t exactly stellar. There were very few things in my life that were going right. Mostly, I was a train wreck. About the only good thing that DID come out of this decade was… well, it ended. And I met Voodoo, who eventually became my sister-in-law. Way back then, before the Interwebs, there were local BBSs. If you don’t know what that is, go look it up. If you do, read on. On this BBS, they had weekly get togethers (GTGs) every Thursday night. At that time, Voodoo was dating my brother, aka Gaffer. And I was Tankaray. We didn’t really know people by their real names. We were our handles. And then there were a group of us who played MajorMUD and we had a different name in the game (Velocity, Roderick and Poison, respectively). ANYWAY, back then, we’d stay up all night playing MUD. On Thursday nights, we’d hang at the bar. Voodoo and I would do shots (her drink of choice was Jagermeister and mine was tequila). We’d stay out super later, get smashed, and then go to work the next morning. On time.

How did we manage this? I have no idea. The thought of staying up past 11 pm makes me tired. Geeze, I’m old.

So that was my one bright spot in the dismal decade known as the 90s.

I’m mad I have to shred more of that stuff but I’m happy that it is, in fact, the final box. And once it’s done I will never have to see them again.

I also found a box full of Writer’s Digest Magazines dated from 2003 to 2006. I have every stinking issue. EVERY ONE! Since they’ve been in a box for seven years, it’s clear I have no use for them. I suppose I’ll be recycling them. It’s better than tossing them in the trash and letting them rot in some landfill. Maybe they’ll become toilet paper or something. I don’t know.

So how about you? Do you find things buried in the garage decades later?