(no subject)

I had someone contact me this morning about the concept of the Dead Year, which got me to thinking I really should talk about it again.

I don't know how many of you remember the Dead Year -- a lot of you have been reading this blog a looooong time, so probably a few at least -- but it was something I came up with to kind of offset the terrible place I found myself in after grad school.

After I graduated, I basically had no money, so I came home to live with my folks, which was really my only option but which was also kind of a bad situation in sheer geographic terms. I was living with my parents in the suburbs of a city I disliked, in a hot climate I hated; I had no job and no realistic prospects of getting one. Even if I wanted a job outside my field, I had no way to get to it, because I hated cars and driving and there was no good public transit in the area. I was applying for jobs and getting absolute silence in reply, and realising that while I had the education for my field, I didn't have the experience people were going to want.

I was stressed and I saw no way out and I thought, is this going to be the rest of my life?

So I declared a Dead Year. I decided, just for one year, that what I did wasn't going to matter. It wasn't going to affect my entire future existence if I didn't get a job that year or produce anything of worth creatively or have a girlfriend or whatever people in their mid-twenties were supposed to be doing. A year out of existence.

Even when I was in it I thought, wow, this is some pretty dramatic bullshit, and sometimes looking back I still feel that way, but it gave me time without the weight of my future on my shoulders to assess my life and rethink my battle plan. Everything started to seem possible because nothing mattered. And it got me to where I am today in a fairly direct way, because I came to realise that as long as I stayed in a place that made progress impossible, I wouldn't make any progress.

So I came out of the Dead Year and I moved to a city which made it possible for me to travel around and get work. I got a job inside of a month, and then a better job, and then one that wasn't in my chosen profession but was really good and got me to where I am now, with a job that both provides the stability theatre wouldn't have and allows me to draw on my theatrical training as I work.

I had some luck on my side, admittedly; my parents were willing to help me financially with the move, and I was able to get a job in a really rather bad market for it. But the plan I made to get to that point came out of the Dead Year, as, I believe, did the initial draft of Nameless, my first novel.

So looking back, eight or nine years on, I am desperately glad I did it. When people are in pain it's difficult for them to think straight, and the Dead Year took a lot of emotional pain out of the equation for me.

My mum has started calling 2013 my Year of Change, which is not untrue. I knew I would be forced into at least one major life change (with work moving to an annoyingly inaccessible location) and I thought I might as well throw everything at the wall at once. I'm in the process of getting some health concerns squared away, I'm slowly cleaning out my flat, I'm looking around at new jobs or possibly a new apartment, and while it is exhausting it's also been both enjoyable and educational.

That said, oh boy am I glad April is over. Another month like that and Change can get itself bent.

(no subject)

So, I have ALL THESE BAY LEAVES.

I know I'm going to be moving this year, either out of town or further south to follow my job, so I'm trying to use up dry goods like spices and various mixes and the random bottle of karo syrup I happen to have. And I have way more bay leaves than I will EVER USE.

And I thought, well, they're a deodorizer, and they supposedly keep some bugs away. I'll grind some up in my mini-cuisinart, toss them in loose-leaf tea bags as sachets, and drop them in various locations in my home.

Have you ever ground up bay leaves in a mini cuisinart blender?

Because grinding them ten at a time, just adding ten more when the last batch was chopped enough, went fine. I added some really crusty old salt, to weigh down the leaves and make them more grindable. And then I started spooning them into the tea bags, at which point the smell hit me.

I say hit me, but really it was more like it attacked me and chewed on my head.

First my sinuses started going "oh hey look we're cleaning out!" which was fine, I sometimes need that. But then my eyes started watering. And I'm pretty sure at the end there my earwax started to melt.

I'm leaking from every orifice in my head. I swear I can hear better now.

Salt and bay leaf are supposedly cleansing and protective, in some magical belief systems. If this is the case I am the most fucking cleansed and protected individual in all of Chicago tonight. I've put the little sachets in a plastic bag because otherwise I'm worried the level of protection on this place would start attracting evil.

And also because I don't want the fumes to reach my brain.