monkeygirl

Wow. Take a good look at Jacob's cat tower 'cause I can't top that. You got a LOT of stress for some very good reasons.

Try Ice cream. LOTS of it-the good stuff-with chocolate and nuts.

My BFF and her wife here just got it. I've still not had it

*sigh*

I'm so numb at this point. I just can't even right now with all of this nonsense

a little respect?

Robbie Robertson of the Band

Yeah, I'd love to but it's hard for me to lobby for that since I totally fucked up and missed the latest one

But yeah, I'd love to

On 7/31/2023 at 4:42 PM, Zathras said:

Pee Wee Herman is dead.

I used to have epic, famous Pee Wee parties at my first house in which we'd all get high and drink tequila shots on the word of the day at 9am on Saturdays. Good times.

That's about the time I woke up on the couch. GAT DAMMIT

I FUCKING FELL ASLEEP I AM SO PISSED

5 hours ago, Darth Krawlie said:

No, I created the game to snap the pic but closed it after since we aren’t starting yet. It probably would’ve timed me out if I was idle too long anyway YOU TOLD ME YOU STAY UP LATER NOW AND THAT IT WOULDNT BE A PROBLEM WTF

IT'S NOT A PROBLEM GAWD I'M JUST NOT USED TO BEING LATE

SO it's not there yet cause I don't see it.? That's like 9pm my time. Crap, I'm not

going to like Eastern time.

Owls? No shit!

I like boycats better than girlcats. They just seem to be more chill to me. Girls can get pissy about so many things.

What now?

I am very EXCITE

I feel so vanilla

I miss that Space Needle

I have this written down on  my desk calendar.

I have a smart TV with a camera on it. Should I be able to somehow make this work for this purpose?

I could do a zoom some day soon

I say I won't every time. Jesus and Roy are going to be 15 and 14 this autumn and I think my last permanent cats. I hope-I want to travel. But when having more was an option, I always thought they need us as much as we need them. This helped me adopt again easier and sooner.

Tank, it's good to know you prepared for the strike. Fran Drescher called me today about it (I'm still SAG Aftra). I hope it's short and fruitful. Strikes suck but at least the union is responding.

I worked for Sirius briefly. SERIOUSLY underpaid but I wanted it on my resume

On 12/8/2022 at 5:10 PM, Tank said:

So... my turn?

Things have been interesting since summer. I was noticing my anxiety was getting really bad. I went on meds for it like 12 years ago, when the kid's mother and I split up and I was having a hard time coping with that, even though logically I was happy with us splitting up.

As of late, I have a lot of anxiety around work. While screenwriting is awesome and pays really well and rarely requires me to punch a clock anywhere, it has the downside of always being temporary. Even if I staffed on some stupid procedural doctor or cop show that went on for a decade, odds are I wouldn't be there for the full run of it. Movie work lasts a few months. TV work can last for 2-3 years, and in 3-6 month chunks.

The downtime between jobs has always been hard for me, cause while I may have had a nice pay day, I may not know when the next one is coming. And in the last year, the time between jobs is getting further apart, and the pay stopped going up with experience. The mental toll the downtime takes on me is becoming unsustainable.

The anxiety really wanted this to be my fault-- something is wrong with me, I'm not good enough, etc. After having a lot of frank conversations with other writers, it's clear that it's not me. Hollywood is basically imploding right now, and it's happening on the development side, so writers are getting the worst of it. As briefly as I can say it-- streaming has taken over as being the dominant outlet for both film and TV production. Union agreements for streaming only came about after the last writer's strike in the early 2000s. That was because NBC put The Office on their website and didn't pay residuals. The WGA was able to get an agreement for "new media" that was so-so, but it was a start, and had incremental (but limited) increases. But in the last 15 years, it's become the entire business, and now, streamers can make really crappy deals with writers. I know high level vet writers making half of what they used to. On the studio side, companies are struggling to find ways to make streaming profitable. AMC just announced layoffs today because they can't figure it out. HBOMax had it dialed in, but corporate restructuring is destroying it. Netflix and Amazon basically do whatever they want.

I could talk about this all day, and maybe will in a different thread, but all this means that me making a living got a lot harder. And to combat these work conditions, there is very likely going to be writer's strike this summer, which means I can't work at all. So my anxiety has gotten over thinking I suck, but now is firmly entrenched in HOW WILL I SURVIVE. I've been doing a lot of other things and looking back to design work, and teaching, and have a few schemes... but it all takes time to establish and I am rapidly going broke.

So basically, this has been destroying my self esteem, sense of self worth, sense of being a parent that can provide for my child, and also, I realized I'd been on my meds long enough I've likely lost their efficacy. I've been trying a few different meds, and along the way got assessed and confirmed as being pretty super ADHD. I started meds for that, and upside, I am crazy efficient on them and my creative output has been ridiculous. But it doesn't help with intrusive anxiety thoughts. Tried Zoloft, but it made my junk not work. (And speaking of, all of this has made me scale back on extracurricular dating a LOT). Trying Cymbalta now, and we'll see what happens.

So I don't really have a question for the group... just saying that it's very hard to be a functional human right now.

 

I'm not sure why I didn't type this all out last December, but I can so identify with this.

Radio is the same and it used to be you'd get 2-10 years out of a gig-now you're lucky to get a whole year. The owners are beholden to the tech side so streaming and the websites get their attention-live, on-air presentation takes a back seat. The more they disconnect from their live listeners, the more the business suffers, the more they wonder why.

I've been off the air more than 3 months now and while I know it's no reflection on me or what I do, it's hard to make money in the down time. I'm too old to learn another industry and nothing I could do can pay me as much as voiceover and radio-although radio is paying me less than burger flipping wages right now.

This is us getting trapped in the war between wages-the wealth gap just keep widening and I don't see a cure other than a reset of capitalism.

ALSO: I added Abillify to my meds and it made a really big difference with no side effects

11 hours ago, Zathras said:

I got the sad news today that my kitty, Nygyl, has end stage kidney failure.  He's 17 and my little buddy.  I am going to have to put him to sleep within the next few weeks.    

I'm so sorry

On 5/21/2023 at 7:20 PM, Ms. Spam said:

I felt the same right after I quit the second job. There was a kind of background noise of worry worry worry about money and doing stuff. I still haven't even finished settling all of Tina's estate. There was a tax thing I had to do and I've been waiting ages to get a letter from the IRS. I could spend all day on hold but I have other things I want to do instead. 

I've been asked to garden around the pool! It's super shady so we are limited to what can grow. I found some hostas and someone gave me two turks cap plants.

I think the always hot feeling is why I could never live in Florida.  I get rage-y when it's hot. LOL How the heck did people live without air conditioning? 

I am glad you got a part time job. Giant hugs!

I haven't settled my mom's estate yet, either. Probate=finality and I just can't yet.

Congrats on your promotion to pool gardener! PICS OFTEN PLEASE. The month of May kills me when I don't have places to garden.

The always hot feeling is just gross. I spend way too much time indoors for such a beautiful place. But it is nice to know that when I have to go out-it's likely going to be a gorgeous day. Now, instead of going outside to cool off, I stand under an AC vent. I remember going on some ride at Disney World when I was a kid-in Epcot, it was like living with the dinosaurs for 10 minutes. It feels that primitive and swampy most of the time here. My neighbors don't even use the pool unless it's a low-humidity day.