In Which Amazon Gives Away my Book

After several years (fifteen or so) of writing, rewriting, refusing to look at prior drafts and making a hundred files in my Rivermist folder, my first book, Rivermist:  The Book of the Elders is available on Amazon for Kindle.

FOR FREE.  Well, only for the next two days.  Seven whole sales and almost two hundred promo units distributed so far, all over the world (surprising many in Germany).

Next week, the period of Kindle exclusivity is up, so we'll be on Barnes & Noble and other retailers as well.

And I have no idea how to promote it without feeling slimy.  I think of being all like, "hey, @wilw, @neilhimself @populartweeter you're a writer! I'm a writer! RT link to my book plz?" but it feels awful.  So I don't.  I think I'd just like to write, publish, and not really think about it, but if I'm ever going to be able to write full time, I need to think about it and do stuff!  Doing stuff! Yeah!

In Which I Experience Anger

An interesting conundrum:  this year I've experienced and understood anger as I never have before in my life.

I was told yesterday that the registers would cut off at 8, which I thought un-retail-giant-like, but since it was a co-manager who stated such, I thought he spoke truth.  There was a woman with many items in her cart in electronics 9 minutes before 8, and I didn't want her to have shopped for so long for nothing.

I approached her to ask if she was finding everything all right, and first she was angry because someone hadn't given her good directions to find what she was looking for, and since she'd found it, I apologized and began to tell her the store was closing.

I was trying to get to the part about the registers and that I could ring her up back in electronics, but instead, she launched into a tirade about understanding, and how she worked in retail. I tried, once more, to speak so I could offer to ring her up at my goddamned register and she got irate and snapped at me for "harassing her." "Okay," I replied, turning away as my throat constricted and heat came to my face.

I was trying to help out of concern for her, and now, when I think about it, I either want to forgive her (she interpreted me as a threat, after all, when clearly (at least to me), I am not) or knock her entire cart over and scream in her face just to finish my sentence.  I would never speak to another human being the way she spoke to me, no matter how awful a day I was having.

A woman told me yesterday that I wasn't sorry that we didn't have what she was looking for, when I actually was, and I took offense to that too.  Why would you even say that?  I couldn't tolerate this job if I didn't like helping people, especially when they're buying gifts.

Then I went to leave. I was scheduled until 8:30, had missed Christmas dinner and an evening with my family (we celebrate on Christmas Eve), and the co-manager was at the door giving my fellow other two out-at-8:30 associates a talking to for leaving when they were scheduled to. After a minute or so of listening to his misplaced speech, including his plans to have everyone scheduled next year until 9:30, I said, "Well, my mom is right there, so can I please leave now?" "Open the door," he replied immediately, and let us go.

I absolutely hate that I'm angry about any of it. I hate that I'm upset about anything, least of all how I'm treated.  I believe I can handle a great deal of mistreatment. I've been able to handle emotionally controlling and demanding people in my personal life for years and years on end, after all.  I have to steel myself and dull my heart to disappoint anyone I cared for and who I knew cared for me.

I've dealt with being insulted by people I loved, words that attacked the core of what I value as a person and forgiven even that.  What is it? Am I worn down? Is it too high a concentration for me to process healthily?

And It would be so much worse if it was someone I cared about or worked with being mistreated, because then I have a much harder time keeping my mouth shut and I am far less caring about what the offending party feels.  I often try to take over for someone when a customer is being difficult or if I notice a coworker is getting frazzled. 

I apologize to everyone for everything.  I really wish the world was instantly thought responsive and things could come easily to us.  Yes, I really did wish we had those 60 dollar tablets so you didn't have to go away unsatisfied, ma'am.  I don't think there's need for or value in difficulty and struggling.  We can help each other out and do so pleasantly.  We can value one another more than the stuff we accumulate.

I mean, really, are we so terrified by each other that we are horrible just to reinforce distance and separation?  I must feel threatened too to get angry or sad about it, and it's absolutely ridiculous.  All of this is meaningless. Do I really believe myself to be so small as to be subject to the interpretations and beliefs of an individual perceiving me through their own subjective filter for a flicker of time? 

If so, that can change at this moment and I will never mourn its passing.

Wishing everyone peaceful, open hearts and minds.  Everyone I've ever met is much grander and magnificent a being than they dare to believe themselves to be.  That means you, and me too.

In Which I Consider a Few Things

Okay, so I have been in a total state of "nope, just don't care" about... well, everything.  Except writing, and I sort of need to get over that. 

There are a lot of things I'd like to address, especially if I still have to live for another thirty years or so:

1. Not sitting or lying on the floor all the time has stiffened my limbs.  I might get a rug and move my main spot to the floor rather than the futon.  It's ridiculous how much less flexible my back and legs are.

2. Not having constant access to a kitchen sink impacts my eating habits tremendously.  I don't want to use a blender or my juicer at all if I can't immediately rinse them out, and I don't want to wash them in the bathtub or in a mysteriously full sink, no matter how many dishes are done and put away. Understandable, but I need to not be a lazy ass and be mindful about foodstuffs again.

3. Cigarette smoke bothers me more than I realized.  I thought I'd be visiting my aunt all the time when I moved back, but sometimes two weeks will go by without me going over there, and she only lives right next door.

4. I need a lot of alone time.  A lot.  Every day.

5. I have a rougher time interacting with people who are expecting something from me personally, be it attention, affirmation or assurance.  I feel like I just don't have it to give, and the demands feel draining. Part of this could be depression too.  People who just enjoy me who I also just enjoy are different. It's just giving happily rather than being drawn from.

6. I don't think I should be in a romantic relationship. Like, at all.  I have warm affection for people, but I don't really feel anything.  I notice that I smile more around some and I seem to be in a better mood, but as far as feelings? 

I can only look to thought patterns to determine how a person is important, because I only seem to experience three modes: glum, not-dancing, and dancing.  I think I love people because I enjoy them and wish for their well-being, but since that all seems ultimately assured, there's nothing to get worked up over.

7. My room is pretty. I'd much prefer to have my own space to do whatever I wished in, no matter who I live with in the future.

8. I have mounting anger issues. I could count on two fingers how many times I'd been angry in my life when I graduated high school.  In the last year, I couldn't count how many times my vision went white and I felt lightheaded because someone was rude, inconsiderate or just plain awful for no sensible reason. 

Retail is burning me out like an ember on my forehead, and I have to remind myself of what people are so I can get over it and not take myself so seriously.

Approaching six months

In the last thirty days, I've written my final first draft of Book 1 in the Rivermist series.  It looks like it will be four or five books, though it could end up being more, depending on word count.  We'll see.  The fact that I'm writing again is life changing down to the very core.

I'm not saving any money whatsoever because I'm a self-indulgent child.  Also, buying gas for a sizable pickup is pretty draining.  The job is devoid of any lasting satisfaction beyond helping people solve momentary troubles and enjoying my coworkers.

In the last few months, though, I'm finding myself in a precarious position.  Mostly self-reflection--I'm getting worse at it, I think--and the issues surrounding my uninterpretable heart.  I don't know if I've never recovered or if the belief of perfect love between two who believe themselves to be humans is just gone.

I don't know how other people live. I don't understand attraction and what brings people together.  I don't want to hurt anyone, and I don't want to reject anyone either. I genuinely love many people, and over time, I've developed deep affection for people, but romance? It's become a foreign concept.  It seems like Platonic love is purer; romance too often seems like desperate wanting/demanding something from someone else.  It doesn't have to be.  I don't want it to be.

My heart and nerves are worryingly numb.  I just don't feel things and physically, nothing seems to touch me. 

I've been wondering for many years if I'll ever fall again, and I wonder if that sort of love can grow without that instant fated feeling.  I don't want to be a fraud.  No one deserves that.  Disappointing someone deeply just seems inevitable, and I'm sorry.  I don't know how to make it okay.

My thoughts seem to point in one direction, but I don't feel the things I think.  It's probably ultimately for the best that I remain empty.  I wish I could genuinely be what people want me to be, but I know there's no one I can really help or fulfill.  I can share.  I can enjoy.  I cannot save.  And I still want to.

In Which I Hallucinate a Mental Lava Lamp: Ganzfeld 2

Turns out, extended phone calls are perfect for Ganzfeld experiments (cut ping pong balls in twain, shape them to fit over the eyes, and voila--unified field of vision).  

Within a minute, the visual field disappeared from perception, and because I was paying more attention to the conversation than to what my eyes weren't seeing, slow pulses of blue-violet began to well up through the otherwise colorless field. 

A spectrum of green, blue and violet shifted constantly through the visual field. Occasional patterns emerged--a few times a sphere of the prettiest electric violet seemed to float up through an opening where the underside of an umbrella was perceptible. 

The visuals resisted my attempt to control them, and a few other attempts brought on a quick-pulse phase, where everything was in a state of fast vibration and I knew I was only seeing the "on" moments of vision. 

It's quite hard to explain a colorless field, but it is not an experience I'm likely to forget.  Seeing but having the brain shut off vision and then replace the visual field with its own construction is as equally fascinating, and I'm wondering if I can, with practice, convince the brain to expand the visual field beyond the angle usually afforded by the eyes. 

Having seen a 180 degree field in lucid dreams makes me very interested in attaining that state in a more easily accessible way.

Other things I noticed:  moving my hand and seeing an imperfectly placed phantom of it where it would be if my vision wasn't obscured, the physical experience of the visual pulsing effects, and the ease of returning to the state after a brief interruption.

Just what can the brain do when it becomes accustomed to the Ganzfeld?

In Which I Mutilate Ping Pong Balls

The What: The Ganzfeld effect occurs when a person stares into an undifferentiated visual field for a bit.  The brain starts to “fill in the blanks” and hallucinations tend to occur. 

The Why:  Sounds like my kind of thing.  Hallucinations while sober?  Sign me up.  I experience hypnagogic hallucinations regularly, and if I lay awake for a long time in the dark, shapes arise, usually layers of intricate designs that remind me of the artwork on playing cards.  If I'm really focused, I can bring color into it.  If I'm extremely tired, usually from a long bus trip, I can close my eyes and see a scene as clearly as I can with my eyes open.  I already see plenty of things that I know aren't physically external, so this simply seems like an opportunity to experience it at will.

The How:  Procedure!  Ping pong balls, when cut and shaped to fit over the eyes, provide a featureless field of uniform vision.  So I did that.  I also downloaded a white noise app with a setting for a static sound and used plug-type headphones to block external noise.  A light is supposed to shine into the experimenter's face, but I simply looked toward my lamp to prevent shadows.  Next time, brighter lamp.

I just realized wandering about whimpering “my eyes, my eyes” while wearing Ganzfeld goggles would be cruel to anyone who cares for me. 

Observations:  It took awhile, but eventually I realized I was no longer seeing white.  There was no more experience of color.  In one of my stories, a character is in a completely featureless place, and this was exactly what I was imagining it to be like.  It was as equally white as black, or as red as yellow or purple.  Total neutrality.  That was the only out of the ordinary experience on the visual side. 

The strangest thing was that whatever I paid attention to in my body started to happen.  I could feel my heartbeat against the edge of one of the ping pong balls, and with attention, I moved the pulse across my face and down into my hand or foot.  I could extend it to occupy my entire head.  I imagined pain, and experienced it wherever I directed it.  Also successfully experienced at will:  warmth, coldness, and tingling.

My eyes got pretty tired, so I ended up shutting them only to see a black field alight with pinpricks of various hues.  The particles of light shaped what looked like a shed.  My response was, “really?  All that and I should have just laid here with my eyes closed?” 

Blocking external sound was important—but I'll be experimenting with instrumental music as well as other forms of noise.  If you've ever experienced riding a song emotionally, you'll understand why.

In Which I Use Retail Experience in the Real World

We have a neighbor who is... honestly, uncomfortable to live next to.  There's a wooden fence between our yards, and it was no longer there, big chunks suddenly missing.

And then he decided to cut stuff down on our side.  Lilies, Jerusalem artichokes, things that were purposefully planted.  About four feet of ground on our side had been cut down.

So tonight, Moma brought home fencing and stakes. You may not know this about me, but I can get pretty avoidant.  Default settings have me hiding from situations.  I really didn't want to go over there while they were home, but the Moma is fierce when she's angry, so we started putting up the fence.

There's a build up of dirt demarking the line where the fence used to be. We stayed about four or five inches in,  mostly because the fence was built on the property line, although permanent structures like wooden fences are supposed to be four inches inside property lines.

I had to hammer stakes in by standing on my tiptoes and holding the sledge at an awkward angle. The pounding brought the sister outside. 

"You line that up," she said. "Line it up."
"Yep," I replied, my small, acknowledging smile reflexively on my face.  "That's what we're working on."
"Just make sure you line it up," she gestured.  I realized she was acting exactly like a flustered manager.  Holy damn, she was acting JUST like a manager.
"Doug, you better get out here," she called for her brother.  "Doug!"
Wow, I thought.  A lot of crazy comes right from fear.

Doug is the guy who wrote a nearly incomprehensible letter about a month or so ago, going on about how he was going to pester the cops about my aunt's dude.  He makes me nervous, straight up.  He peeked out and disappeared again. 

Goodness, I thought, getting bolder with my attitude, they're just bullies who talk and talk behind the walls of their high security compound, but when it comes down to it, they won't do anything.  Though apparently he may have actually hit my aunt with a lawn mower and may have actually punched Norm?

Putting in the next stake, I was committed to being steel. I ignored the motion off to my side and tried getting that damned stake into the ground, when I see good ol Doug walking up with a massive sledgehammer.

He hammered the stake, being none too careful about knocking it off course or avoiding hitting my hand (managed to avoid it though).  "Thank you very much," I said, hearing my customer service voice come out of my mouth.

He stood and watched, as I knew he would, as we wired the fence and commented on how well I'd wrapped the wires.  He stood, of course, as close as he could.  Space encroacher.  Big time.  I pretend I'm oblivious to these things by not reacting. A surprising lot of human interactions are immediate attempts at getting attention or energy.  Cats and children are more obvious with their attempts. Adults just manipulate each other for it.

I kept wondering if he had a motive for his comments, whether he was attempting to be flirtatious or if he was planning sabotage.  But this was lonely person ramble.  This was "I only have my sister to talk to and I'm going to be fifty in a few years" ramble.  I know this sort of thing and know how to deal with it without being truly uncomfortable.  He pointed out that his sledgehammer had been burned when his "garage burned down." 

The garage certainly didn't burn down. It caught fire, sure.  Burn down? No.

We ran out of fence but the Moma was just trying to get the back where the chickens sometimes get loose closed off. One of her hens vanished yesterday, probably prompting the fencing ordeal. 

"Thanks again," I said, as we retreated back inside, picking up our movie where we paused it. And then he was at the window.  The fucking living room window, not the door at the front or back, but at the window.  Where we sleep.  Well, where my moma sleeps. I've been sleeping in my room.  Still!

"Moma," I said, trying to warn her somehow.  I blocked the window with cats and my shoulders so he couldn't see in.

He stood there with maybe three whole feet of fencing. "I found this that you could use," he held up a bit, green bindweed still hanging onto the wires.

"Oh, no thanks," I answered.  "We have some. But thank you."
And then I noticed how far down his shorts were. Like, I could see the crease between belly and thigh, but his shirt was low enough (thankfully) that I was spared any of the front view.  I'm not accusing anyone of froward intentions, just saying that it bothered me. It could have just been that he was having trouble keeping his shorts up.  He toddled down the driveway with his bit of fencing, and I was then paranoid for the rest of the evening.

I'm mowing the front yard tomorrow morning.  Wish me luck.