I haven't meant to be gone so much. Writing to you is helpful and healthy, and has helped me for almost a decade now. (This year will be my decade blogiversary on here.)
I am consumed with creeping horror constantly, because I am, as usual, overcommitted. Things are slow at work, but there, in order to distract myself from being horribly depressed that I'm 31 and a goddamn retail clerk (making less than I did at my first job ten years ago), I decided to volunteer to maintain the Facebook and blogspot and Twitter. Which of course, I don't want to do. (I also am the eBay guy's sole assistant. Yeah. How do I keep getting myself into this shit? Of course there's no raise accompanying these things. This isn't new, though; all of this dates to November or December or so.)
Which is all fine and good, except for remember how I have a second, unpaid job? Yes. Roller derby. I fell into the position of Photography Coordinator, and that's going well and is finally mostly self-running, though not quite. But somehow in addition to that I got volunteered to take all the photographs for a league-sponsored art exhibition. Featuring the tattoo art adorning the bodies of the members of my roller derby league. Great.
That exhibit is getting hung the week of May 12th. Before then, I have to take pro-quality, clear, representative photos of the bodies of nearly three dozen women. And organize about a dozen other things. And the other people involved in this keep talking like the photography will basically do itself.
(As a bonus? The exhibit opening is on a night I'd previously arranged to be leaving the state. So I have to delay that if I can, and yet still make the preparations for the trip and just leave a little later. And? It's a week Z will be out of town at some *other* out-of-state event.)
I'm having trouble sleeping because I'm so freaked out at this. I've spent about $800, all told, on equipment expressly for this-- I bought the camera already, but I got the off-camera flash in December, and a (cheap) macro lens last month, and over the weekend I picked up a whole pile of shit like a memory card, spare battery, flash diffuser, pop-up reflector/backdrop, bigger bag for camera equipment, scarves to use as drapes on photographic subjects, etc. I need a new tripod too. And the single off-camera flash isn't cutting it so I'm really thinking about a second flash.
Which is making it apparent to me that I really do need to put together a website and at least pretend to sell my services as a photographer. Everyone and their mother thinks they can be a pro photographer, and I'm not interested in leaping into a crowded market with my aspirations waving wildly like so many do, but I am not going to get compensated in any way for doing this exhibit-- of course I'm not!-- and all the other photographic stuff I'm getting increasingly wrangled into doing-- so I should at least put out there that this sort of thing is worth money, and pretend I'm willing to do it for money. I can't really articulate my thoughts on this, but I just feel like it's important at this juncture. (I know what my thoughts are, I'm just too incoherent with stress to explain.)
Right now, sort of to calm myself, I'm making a quilted padded form-fitting case for my camera body, which will have a draw-string opening at the lens; I'll then make little pouches to hold my lenses too. Then I can put them into my newer, bigger, less-structured camera bag (a quilted thing I got at TJMaxx for $15-- I hate purpose-made camera bags, they scream "steal me!") and not have anything scratch anything else.
I also have to make a dress for a wedding I'm in. I also have been trying to make bras. It's not working. It takes too much time for no results, and I can't make myself spend the money on proper materials when I don't have faith I'll be able to make something workable. I have to buy new ones. They are not available in this country, so I'll have to order online and steel myself for the inevitable try-on-and-exchange process, which I'll fuck up; it will cost hundreds of dollars and I'll wind up with maybe two good ones, and feel sick about how much I spent on them. But the three I bought in 2008 are pretty much worn out-- my Freya Millie has a rip in the lace cup, the Polyanna's band has stretched out to the point that it's nearly unwearable (it leaves welts), and the other one whose name I forget has little holes all through the cup, just from wear. And the Cacique ones I spent almost as much on, intending to alter, proved to be to be too hard to alter, and are like fucking torture devices-- and also make me look frumpy. So screw that. There is no US manufacturer I can make work for me.
And oh yeah Pennsic prep. Eh, whatever.
I don't deal well with looming commitments. I couldn't sleep last night so this evening after work I took a nap. I drowsed for 30 minutes, then woke suffused with the horrified certainty that I was missing some vital obligation, or had offended someone gravely and undeservedly. I don't really need that in my life, thanks.
The seasonal depression seems better, though. At least I mostly don't feel worthless, most of the time. I still didn't get to the doctor, though, because when do I have time for that sort of thing? Not since about '08... Huh, that seems to be the last time I did a lot of things. Wonder what's up with that.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
