#negababble

[flamingo-bubbles]

Someone out here on this internet slandering both my girls in the same post. For shame.

(Really though, it's nothing new. Those who touched these fandoms back when the games first came out remember all the vitriol that was swung these girls ways...)

[flamingo-bubbles]

Money can't buy happiness, but boy can it buy stability, which allows room for happiness.

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People leave lovely, nice reviews on AO3! And I want to respond and thank them for their kindness and excitement!

But when you reply to someone's comment, it counts as another comment on the fic, and I feel guilty??? For artificially inflating the comment count on my fic???? Is that silly????? It feels silly, but also, very much stops me from responding even though everyone's comments mean so much to me!

Ah. The brain is so dumb sometimes.

[flamingo-bubbles]

We gonna ramble?

Yeah man, we gonna ramble! ‘Cause sometimes it’s healthy and necessary to put your feelings into words!

I feel like I can’t talk properly any more.

Like...there’s a weird block that exists between me and my personality. Conversations that should be easy or natural feel stilted and difficult. None of it feels like it “comes naturally” any more. I have to force myself to be myself and yet I’m somehow doing it wrong. It’s weird.

I guess more than being weird it’s frustrating ‘cause yeah I’ve never been particularly socially graceful, but I’ve at least been able to carry conversations. Now I feel like there’s a constant...delay? between me and the conversations I’m engaging in. I already know I’m in a low lull of social energy, but even when I’ve been in that position in the past, I’ve been able to at least feel “natural” when I talk with my friends. Now I feel like I have to force my personality to be present and even then I’m...not being me?

And it feels different compared to other times I’ve “lost” my personality due to depression/anxiety. I mean, I guess it could still stem from that just in a different form this time. But it’s more like...I feel like I’m still in touch with my personality when I’m in my own thoughts or left to my own devices, but as soon as I have to actualize it and give it form via a conversation for someone else to process, it feels super out of whack?

Maybe I’m going through a growing pain phase and that’s why my personality doesn’t seem to fit right, haha. Casey is busy sorting herself out, please hang up and try your conversation again! Growing pain phase! No one likes you! Sort yourself out faster! -shakes fist-

[flamingo-bubbles]

I find myself in a very odd position when it comes to work.

I’ve been working as a temp at this position for over a year now. When I started it was very typical temp stuff (read here as: a bunch of odd jobs/busy work/phone answering that no one else wanted to do) while only working 3 days a week. 

However, in the summer of last year, our FOA was suddenly let go and essentially I had to step in to temporarily fill the position as best I could for a few months until we found a new FOA. We found one eventually, but by that time I had kinda already taken over a number of “FOA duties” and when the new FOA arrived, I just kinda...ended up still taking care of them.

So recently I was selected to be one of the two people in the office to implement a new system and I’ve been asked to speak about it at our district meeting (something I was explicitly told temps don’t usually do) and the person who trained our new FOA told me she’s coming to visit the office to answer questions and whatnot.

And I’m just...are they going to offer me a full-time position? ‘Cause I know I’m slow to pick up on this stuff, but I feel like that’s the punchline this whole thing is building to. Or maybe I’m just full of myself and that’s not what they’re thinking at all, who can really say.

Normally I would be super ecstatic about the possibility! But, I’ve already decided that I’m going to accept the JET position (because for once instead of doing the sensible, safe thing, I’m going to do the thing I really want to do) but I haven’t told anyone at the office that yet. I don’t want them to offer me a position or get too deep into this project expecting me to stay on when I’ve already decided to leave the position at the end of June, regardless of if they offer it to me as a full-time position or not.

Technically, since I’m a temp I can leave with no notice, but that’s unnecessarily burning a bridge and I like the people that I’ve worked with - I would rather leave on good terms. So I decided that Monday I’m going to sit down with my boss and tell him that I’ll be leaving...but if you haven’t gathered from all of this pointless rambling yet I’m incredibly nervous and anxious about it and staring at the ceiling trying to sleep but instead mulling this over and GAH!

I don’t think my boss is going to explode on me or anything and really, the worst case scenario is that he fires me on the spot. But that certainly doesn’t stop me from being a nervous wreck about it. I’ll be so glad when Monday’s over and my mind won’t be able to play a perpetual game of ‘how much worse can we imagine this?’.

Phew. Okay. Now that I’ve typed that all out and gotten it out of my system for the time being, it’s time to make another attempt at sleep!

[flamingo-bubbles]

These next two weeks are gonna be an absolute stress fest, but the light at the end of the tunnel is that once they’re done, the two biggest stressors in my life will be largely over and dealt with. 

I can do this. Two weeks is nothing.

[flamingo-bubbles]

As someone who works at a pharmacy and is currently struggling through getting a prior authorization personally, the biggest lesson I've learned is to stay on everyone's ass. Any time you're TOLD there's a development on your PA, call and check. Several times now, I've been told something had been submitted. Called to check and was told no. It's frustrating as all hell, but it will get it taken care of a lot faster rather than just trusting it's happening.

If there's the wiggle room for them to say there's some sort of issue or problem that stopped them from doing it even though you requested it previously and were told it's all good, they will wiggle. Don't let them.

[flamingo-bubbles]

I'll always be a little bit baffled by free, digital-only zines that have applications rather than open sign-ups.

I could see the argument that the more people in a zine, the more difficult it is to manage. Which, honestly, that's fair. It's difficult to manage a large group of people and if a zine is general enough or has a large enough fandom, the number of people signing up could be HUGE.

But the beauty of a digital-only zine is that there's no benchmarks to meet - you can have as many or as few pages as you want. If someone doesn't submit something, it's not a big deal; you don't need to chase them down. You don't have to worry about there being too many pages that'll make the zine prohibitively expensive to print/sell. You don't need big fandom names or people with a large following to get the zine in front of people because there's no order minimum that needs to be met.

I dunno, I think the joy of free, digital-only zines is that they're boundless. Regardless of your skill level, art form, following, or fandom recognition, it's a chance to come together and create something with other people who love what you love. It's always a bit disheartening to see that limited.