Thoughtnami

If you died tomorrow (or tonight), how would you want to be remembered? 

What kind of impact did you make on this world? Was it a positive one, or were you just taking up space? Did you live the life you wanted to live or are you confined to being the non-playable character in the game you call “life?”

What kind of person are you? Are you loved? Liked? Tolerated? Disliked? Hated? Do people see you in a positive light or a negative light, or are you just perpetually in eternal darkness.

Have you ever connected with somebody that’ll miss you if you weren’t there? Do people ever think of you (and actually tell you they think of you)?

Have you ever been in love? Have you been loved back by that person? Truly, truly loved back?

Do you think this is all there is? Do you want more?

Now I have you wondering about yourself. 

This is a cathartic exercise. Think about the answers carefully for now.

There are good days.

There are bad days.

There are days that you look back on and smile. You remember it with fondness and enjoyment. The memory of it will last with you forever. 

There are days that you don’t want to ever have to repeat ever in your life or any life you may be reincarnated in throughout infinity. It’s a day that you wish on no one, not even your worse enemy (or that person you just don’t like).

Today, rather, tonight, my apartment’s bathroom is constantly flooding “thanks” to something beyond our control, and it’s going to take a couple of days to get it back right. The maintenance man found out some bastard kids broke a cap on the outside and filled it with something, but the backup came from the other connecting apartments. The plumber (who came three hours later than he should have) couldn’t do anything today and will have to try to fix it tomorrow by checking out the other apartments too.  So, I have to wear shoes to go to the bathroom, not to mention bleaching the tub until the smell of it permeates across the Seven Cities,  and I’ll probably be doing that for … ever. 

Care to guess what kind of day THIS has been?

Here’s hoping for a better tomorrow because today has been a wash.

Today was one of those days that I was just frustrated at myself and the situation I’m in.

A month ago, I had this design job this client wanted me to do. I did it within a week and charged him the usual fee. Half of which had to be paid up front. When he approved the designs, he was going to pay me the remaining fee. I finished up the projects, asked for his okay, and was preparing the final, usable copy afterwards (the four samples I had was on a small JPEG image that would look jagged if used elsewhere). Never got a response back. 

This was about a month ago.

He paid me the half upfront with a check. The check bounced. I e-mailed the guy. No response. Keep in mind  this was another two weeks. 

I had been counting on those funds to help my mother with the bills for the utilities and such. She hasn’t worked since she spent two and a half weeks in the hospital for heart failure and low oxygen levels back in April. I used up the savings I had from the March job I had and did little jobs here and there, but these bills are just putting a strain on her. She’s upset with herself that she can’t work and that she has to borrow what little I have .

And before you ask, she is still employed, but is classified as “on medical leave.” What that means is that they pay no benefits and she’s still an employee of the company and not qualified to get unemployment (they don’t want to do that at all). The doctors recommended that she apply for disability, and the process has been going on since April, and they keep coming up with excuses and pointless paperwork that she thinks is only there to discourage her from applying, and there’s no guarantee she’ll even be approved. Six months now.   

It was bad enough that I couldn’t substitute teach for classes because a lot of teachers around here don’t want to lose their jobs for staying out of work. Needless to say, I’m frustrated at myself at this point. I got cheated out of a pretty good payday, did a lot of work for nothing, and just had a bad couple of weeks.

But I’m not broken. 

Considering where I was a year ago … hell, considering where I was four years ago, I’m much better off. I still have a house over my head, and I did manage to save some money to help with the bills and still do small jobs to help even more. I know a better day’s coming. I just wish I knew when that day would be.

Life is a lesson. 

kateordie:

THIS

and

THIS

There’s a heart button on Tumblr.

It’s there to “favorite” an article, and under the original poster’s name, your name will come up saying that you “liked” this.

Which is why I reblogged it rather than push the heart.

I don’t like this.

I don’t like the fact that women are being threatened with with real world violence for having an opinion about something they love.

I don’t like the fact that they’re being scared off and forcing people to leave the internet because idiots feel like they’re a big man for picking on a girl and, more or less, get away with it because the law is so jacked up when it comes to things like this.

I don’t like the fact that people, regardless of sex, race, orientation, where they fit on a gender binary, what religion they have or refuse to believe in are being scared off doing what they love to do because some childish, amoral asshats who hide behind screen names because … they feel threatened by a differing opinion than theirs?

We get all protective over freedom of speech, which give us the right to say whatever we want to a point, but when you use that right to deny others the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, you should lose that freedom as well.

It’s disturbing, childish, disgusting, and (please forgive my language), fucked up that people would do that.

There’s nothing cool about me. I’m just a nerd not nerdy about the right things.

While superheroes entertain me, I rarely pick up comic books. I’m a fan of very few cartoons  from Japan (and the fact I rarely use the word anime points a bull’s eye on my head to a lot of folks who think I’m just an a-hole you shouldn’t trust [some anonymous jackenfool said that on some site, so it must be true]). I write more than I draw some days. Other days, I draw more than I write.

Most days, I’m just doing both. Thinking with words and pictures.

My life is pretty humdrum. Have way too many responsibilities on the other end of the screen (mostly taking care of my mother after years of taking care of my grandfather).

I’m not a loud person. I don’t crave attention. I don’t want it. I don’t have many friends, but the few I have (mostly online) are the best folks I know. In one, I found real love. You know, the kind of love you read about in books. Just sucks we’re in two different states.

But no, I’m not cool by any stretch. I have a strange brain that lets me retain so many things. I’m always creating and thinking, putting aside one idea after another. Sadly, lots of ideas that are cluttered around on paper and files that I’m just now putting together.

That Centauri story has been in my head since 2000 and I’m just now putting all the pieces in one story.

I worry way more than I should. I wish I could be cool. I wish I had the power to make things happen, but right now, I’m trying to keep myself going in this world.

It’s rough. So many things are against me, but I’m not blaming anybody else for my shortcomings. Just have to do what I have to do.

What that is will probably be cooler than what I’m doing and how I’m living now.

And now, a bit of doubt creeps in a pretty great week again.

*sigh*

Fruitless work.

Felt like I accomplished nothing.

Thankless efforts.

The work I did do, and all that planning, just went rwoepiu[itquoiwerlkj on me Literally back to the drawing board.

Blah.

I think that’s why I feel like I need to be a machine.

Shut it down for a night … or a hundred.

I get letters now and then, but this kid named Liam. At least his mom tells me he’s just a kid, at least this was the case in 2010. It’s 2012 now, and I’d think he’d mature over the years.

I told him to leave me alone after writing this letter to me:

Dear Jeff,

Forgive me for being an otaku but I have to show you a JP domain name whois for a “Ben 10 Ominverse”:

It’s an online game that remakes the first series for the Asian market:
But that’s not all from the “Omniverse”brand that’s coming:

It’s also a TV series according to the USPTO TM above.

Comparison to Adventure Time TM:

Same purpose.

The Fusionfall thing does not list a multimedia program series though:
I think this may be that aforementioned new Ben 10 series and the Ben 10 anime that I talked about in a previous email judging by the fact that the game is meant for the Asian market and the whois because I have proof that Ben 10 is popular in Japan:

If you look at Bandai-owned b-boys.jp, it’ll have an icon for Ben 10 toys that links to Cartoon Network’s Japanese site.

After all, Alien Force/Ultimate Alien co-creator Dwayne McDuffie is indeed dead.

Sincerely,
Liam

PS Sorry my email took so long.

That part I put in bold pissed me off. It was insensitive and just unwarranted, and I e-mailed him back: And considering Mr. McDuffie’s death was still fresh and I was still emotionally affected by his passing (I still am), I probably said some things I shouldn’t have.

“After all, Alien Force/Ultimate Alien co-creator Dwayne McDuffie is indeed
dead.”

Go to hell.

That comment was uncalled for, callus, and unnecessary. I talked to Maestro a couple of times. Great guy. More talent in his pinky nail than you have in your
entire body. He was a friend to many, and his death, still fresh in the minds
and hearts of his colleagues, friends, and fans, has left a void in all he
touched.

To say something like what you did is just cold and uncaring. I don’t care if
you are just a punk kid, whatever interest I had in whatever you say is gone.

Don’t e-mail me again. Stop harassing me. This will be my last correspondence
you’ll get from me. I don’t want to hear from you again.

Liam didn’t listen. He didn’t care. Over the course of a year, I kept getting e-mail after e-mail from this guy, acting like he said or did anything at all. I ignored them all until today’s e-mail.

I was hoping this guy would actually mature and act his age.

Nope.

Dear Jeff,
I finally have my revenge on you.
I have proof that the Cartoon Network’s non-DC primetime action legacy is dead:
http://www.cartoonnetwork.com/schedule/index.html?atclk=gn_link_tvschedule

As you can see, the only action shows will be left next Friday night will be Ninjago and an hour of Generator Rex.

This could mean that Ben 10 Omniverse, which will NOT be anime like I predicted, will move to a morning slot. Mwahahaha!
Sincerely,
Liam

What lesson have we learned here? That I’m petty as hell? Probably. That I give too many people a second, maybe a third chance? Perhaps. I think the lesson learned here is that you can’t cure stupidity. People are always going to be ignorant, and even if they beg and plead for forgiveness, in the end, more often than not, they’re still going to be the southern end of a northern-bound donkey. Shame really.

He was a good kid long ago.