Big Red Button

Wren Leave a comment

Sally like pressing the button. It didn’t do much, just send a few electrical impulses along to a machine that raised an arm and then lowered it. The arm held a little iron heated by an internal mechanism so that every time the arm was lowered, it pressed the white-hot foundry stamp into a metal ingot. The gears that raised the arm also moved a conveyor belt, so a fresh ingot was waiting as the arm came down.

She only got to press the button when the computer system was down, because the computer handled it without involving the button at all. Sally thought this was unfair, so she used her position as the floater to occasionally cause the computer system to reboot. Then she got to press the button for fifteen minutes so the company wouldn’t lose out on production while the computer restarted all essential tasks first.

No one knew it was her, messing with the computer. They’d set up security cameras because the managers and IT staff were suspicious, but she had plenty of time to study the cameras when she wasn’t pressing the button. When she was pressing the button, though, there was room for nothing but the satisfaction of hearing it thunk and click into place with every press of its bright red surface.

That was why, today, when the computer system failed to restart and the managers had assured everyone that they’d get it working again before the asteroid base ran out of air, Sally went to press the button. As the air thinned and everyone began to panic, she pressed the button. As the managers and administrators took the only shuttle, she pressed the button. The last thing she did before she faded away was to press the button. It was worth it.

Saturday Morning Musing

Wren Leave a comment

I enjoy arts and crafts. Always have. As a child, I enjoyed gluing stuff to other stuff and cutting up things (many of which I was not supposed to). While I didn’t make much of note prior to college, I really found myself enjoying theater carpentry. It was so much fun to build sets or props! I may not have loved every single second of my job working at the theater, but it is the only job I miss having so far. I learned a lot of great skills there and went from someone who couldn’t cut a straight line even with a straight line to follow to someone who could take a picture a set designer gave me and turn it, plus a few hundred dollars, into a set for a musical. I really wish my college laptop hadn’t died, because then I’d have some pictures to share along with today’s post.

After college, my opportunity to build things has been somewhat lessened. I don’t have easy access to all of the tools, work space, and scrap lumber that I used to, so assembling a pantry and bookshelf out of scrap wood and set pieces that were destined for the trash is no longer possible. Neither is easily building a coffee table you can dance on. Over the past almost 5 years, I’ve been collecting power tools and presents and finances allow, so I’m finally ready to start making stuff again! Or, rather, I will be once I’ve got an air-compressor and air-powered nail/staple guns. Well, actually, I suppose I could just screw everything together. Staples and glue makes for easy destruction, which is probably a bit more important for theater than if I’m making a nifty gaming table.

Outside of theater carpentry, I haven’t done much crafting. Pottery would be fun to learn, as would anything to do with metal. Metal is a bit expensive, though, and the resources it requires are a bit more than an extension cord and a garage. I’d need a real workshop and proper protective gear if I wanted to learn to weld anything. Interestingly, though, there’s apparently a workshop around where I live that I can use if I’m willing to pay $100 a month to become a member. It’d include training on all of the equipment they have, access to a work space (or “maker space” as they called it), and a ton of like-minded peers who’d be happy to give me pointers if I was attempting something beyond my skill. I’d love to sign up, but $100 a month is most-certainly not in my budget.

Honestly, after budgeting and doing taxes last week, I feel like I’ve got less money than before. That doesn’t really make sense because now I actually have a full understanding of my financial situation. It is actually better than I thought it was, though not by much, and that joy was mitigated by the fact that I, for the first time in my life, owed taxes. I’m not sure how, since I haven’t compared this year’s filing to last year’s yet, but I’ll hopefully figure it out soon and be able to prevent it in the future. In the mean time, I just need to tighten my financial belt a little more and see what room I can make between my expenses and my income for extra loan payments on my car.

Which, you know, is going to make it hard to buy things I don’t actually need like a bunch of lumber or an air compressor and nail/staple gun. It is hard to justify building a fancy and extravagant gaming table when my “fun stuff just for me” budget is $30 a month. At least there’s other stuff I can do, like create a sand mold with my girlfriend as a date last weekend and then, this week, go watch a bunch of molten iron get poured into it. Having never seen anything like this before, I’m super interested to see it happen. The biggest question on my mind is how viscous the liquid metal is. The thing I made has a lot of small details and I’m concerned they won’t come out. And that I did a shit job of making sure it was all level and neat once I was done. I’m probably going to need to get an angle grinder or a dremel to clean it up. That’ll be tons of fun, though!

Tending a Garden

Wren Leave a comment

I have planted countless thoughts in my garden.
Though many took root on their own,
Unminded and without attention,
More still are those I set in place
With all the tenderness of a mother
Caring for her first-born child.

I have tread the paths of my garden without end,
Watching the ideas shoot through the ground
Even as I continue to sow more.
Some shoots are plucked quickly,
“For the sake of the others” I explain,
And the remainder now flourish

Mighty now are the results of my labor,
Dappled shadow and bursts of color
Leave me in awe even as I know
That they will become greater still.
My life and path lie in their shadow
As I wait to see what they will become.

My 100th Daily Post!

Wren Leave a comment

By my math, and I’m fairly decent at most math (plus this math is super simple), today’s post marks the 100th post since I started doing daily posts! You can’t see it here since I didn’t think to record myself doing it until I started writing this post, but I took a moment to celebrate by blowing a kazoo and setting off a couple of those “Party Popper” things people buy for New Year’s Eve. This is 100 posts down! only 295 more to go! November 1st, 2017 to November 30th, 2018.  I’ve made it through three months, and they were the hardest months! I am least productive during December and January on account of the holidays and the start of my yearly battle with worsening depression due to little sunlight, the cold, and winter in the northern Midwest of the US. After the end of February, everything will be so easy by comparison! Even February is easier than January was.

First off, I’d like to thank myself for not letting me get away with any bullshit excuses or stupid “one day off won’t hurt” crap. I’d also like to thank two of my friends–who’d probably rather be go unnamed–for reading stuff before I posted it. I’d like to thank my French friend for reading my blog and being easily identifiable when reviewing my view stats. I’d like to thank everyone who shared my blog and then everyone who read it because seeing that people are reading my blog is a huge encouragement.

This has been a trial at times, to make sure to post everyday, but it has been very rewarding. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so productive as I have these last few months. Nor have I ever felt quite so hopeful when thinking about all of the stuff I still want to do. This project, a year of daily posts, has had a huge impact on my self-confidence and belongs right up there with one of the biggest moments of my life as a writer. Receiving an award in college was the moment that made me realize that I could be good at this if I really worked at it (and that other people felt the same) and daily blog posts has made me realize that I can work hard enough to achieve my writing goals. While I’ve still got another 295 blog posts to go before I’ve really achieved my goal, I can definitely say that it has moved from “Shoot for the moon! Might as well go down swinging!” to “This is totally doable.” in terms of my own internal evaluation.

I know I’m a lot better at pursuing an extreme goal with no room for compromise than doing any kind of half-measure or slower-paced thing. Cutting myself slack is an easy way to get me to stop working on a goal or a project, which probably isn’t the best character trait to have. Being able to take it easy for a bit should be what I work on next, really. Ha! As if.

For my next trick, I’m going to start working on a story idea I had set aside last fall, while getting ready for NaNoWriMo. I’m going to write 7 posts a week, post every day, work on this other story every day, and maybe I’ll even find some time somewhere in there to sleep! That’s the dream. Thanks for reading and I hope you’re enjoying what I’m posting!

 

Oathbringer is Breaking the Pattern.

Wren Leave a comment

I really enjoy Brandon Sanderson’s writing. I haven’t yet read even half of what he’s written, but I discovered him through his completion of the Wheel of Time series and have been a fan ever since. While my enjoyment of his writing hasn’t quite reached the level of my love for Terry Pratchett or Patrick Rothfuss, I would still rank him among my favorite authors. My love of Pratchett and Rothfuss comes as a result of their craft and their characters while my love of Sanderson’s writing comes from the interesting and different worlds he has created. When I first started reading his Stormlight Archive series, I was instantly hooked on the way his world differed from our own. All of the creatures and the lands were different because of the enormous storms that visited most of the world, so everything either had some kind of rocky shell or carapace to protect it from the storms and weather.

While he doesn’t do as much world-building as he did in the first book, I’m still enjoying his series. The latest, Oathbringer, was just as exciting as the previous two, following a few main characters as they try to deal with the horrible storm that sprang up at the end of the previous book. Despite the early warnings coming from the protagonists’ group, most of the world doesn’t believe them and is thus caught unaware when all the shelters they have built to protect them from the normal storms fail to protect them from a storm coming from the opposite direction. While a lot of the previous novels was a mixture of action, character development, and political intrigue, this novel saves a lot of the action and character development for the end. Instead, most of the novel is a little on the dryer side, covering lots of history, some new perspectives and characters, some character development focused on one person in particular, and tons of politics.

Initially, I was surprised by the amount of people in my various social media feeds commenting that Oathbringer was rather slow and not as fun as the previous two books. After reading the book, I can kind of understand. I don’t agree, but I recognize that this book is a bit of a departure from his usual constant world-building with action to move the scenes along. I think that this book is important proof that Sanderson is going to be able make this potentially ten-book series a success. Plus, he’s managed to do it very well, mixing in plenty of interesting information that, while somewhat predictable in terms of plot and outcomes, does an amazing job of fleshing out people and the world. I really enjoy the sense of history this book has added to the series. It answered so many questions that I’d had since the start of the series and even threw in a couple twists I did not see coming at all. They caught me entirely off-guard and that was wonderful.

While the book’s major plot twist was unexpected, it was also kind of expectedly unexpected. Sanderson intentionally paints the characters into the corner, making it seem like they have no choice but to give in or surrender to the bad guys, because making something happen. Most of the time, it is only unexpected because it adds some new world mechanic or gives us some rule or information we didn’t have previously. There’s always some foreshadowing to pick out in retrospect and he always does a good job of laying the groundwork so whatever happens never feels entirely like a Deus Ex Machina, but there are a few close calls during some of the big moments (and that’s not just restricted to this book). I don’t mind it too much, but it can feel a bit annoying to have all this build up of a dramatic moment happening while you’re just reading along calmly because you know they’re going to magically get out of the tight spot using some brand new power or mechanic that develops right then. The best thing I can say in Sanderson’s defense is that he literally built that mechanic, the spontaneous power-up and new power moments, into this series.

I definitely recommend the book and the series as a whole because they’re honestly just so much fun to read. They move along well, are easy to read, and there’s just so much interesting stuff happening that they’re hard to put down.

 

Coldheart and Iron: Part 3

Wren Leave a comment

READ FROM THE BEGINNING

The next morning brought a late dawn, grey skies, light snow, and allegations of infidelity. I’d had a nice night sharing the tent with only Natalie, since Camille was on guard duty and Lucas was still out on his rearguard mission. We’d had a quiet night in while I made dinner and we just chatted about the lives we used to live and some of the better times from the more recent years. Normally, I enjoy waking up on mornings after the nights Natalie and I are in the tent alone, but my pleasant warmth was interrupted by a muffled voice calling my name from outside.

After a quick ten-count to keep my temper, I hollered that I would be out in a few minutes and dressed quickly. Natalie watched me, still hidden in her warm cocoon, and I told her to enjoy the warmth while it lasted before I stepped into the cold. Outside, Camille stood with her rifle in her hands and her face set in the professional stony frown she wore when on duty. Once I was outside the tent and finished zipping the layered fabric up, she saluted.

“I have to report a small scuffle between the nomads and the laborers, sir.”

I saluted back and gestured for her to lead. “What about?”

“One of the married couples.” Camille strode off toward the middle of the camp, eyes darting around as we walked past people. I followed behind her, already seeing the tension sitting in the shoulders of everyone gathered around the supply tent. “One of nomadic men alleges his wife was seduced by one of the laborers and he looks mean enough to cause some damage. The woman doesn’t deny it happened, but insists her husband was fine with it the night before. The laborer doesn’t remember anything and is too hungover from last night’s festivities to follow what is going on.”

“Ah. I assume, then, that the laborers are now out of their smuggled alcohol?”

Camille nodded, her eyes now fixed on the angry-looking men gathered on the edge of the crowd. “And the nomads are through most of their stores of moonshine.”

“Oh.” I cracked my knuckles through my gloves and rolled my neck, trying to keep my muscles from tightening up in the cold. “Well, shit.”

“You said it, sir. Best of luck.” Camille stepped to the side, a dozen paces away from the group of nomads and laborers, and stood at attention with her rifle ready to jump to her shoulder at a moment’s notice. I walked past her and joined the group huddled in the lee of the supply tent, taking shelter from the wind and falling snow.

I set my shoulders and clasped my hands behind my back, going for the same dramatic look I’d established with the nomads the day before. “I want everyone who wasn’t directly involved in what happened last night to return to their tents. Once I have spoken with the involved parties, I will let you all know what is going to happen and we can proceed from there.” I glared at anyone who would meet my eyes and most of them walked away.

At the end, four people remained. Two laborers and two nomads I assumed were the married couple. “I hear from my lieutenant that there is a matter of marital infidelity and that it has almost come to violence. Is that accurate?”

The male nomad lurched forward. “That’s right! This man here slept with my-”

I stepped forward and pushed him back to stand next to his wife. “Shut up.”

The man spluttered, but the firm push and my renewed glare kept him still. After making sure he wasn’t going to say anything, I stepped back and looked at the whole group. “I don’t give a shit about this. You’re adults. Solve the problem between the three or four of you without using violence or I’ll leave you all to wander the tundra on your own. I’m sure the bandits now trailing us wouldn’t mind picking off a few stragglers who were sent their own way. If you make this a problem again, by getting the camp riled up or actually fighting, I’ll just leave you all behind. Now go tell everyone that the problem is resolved and that the group of you is going to discuss things quietly.”

The nomad stepped forward again, his face now redder than the cold could account for. “But she’s my wife and I-”

“Will resolve this problem quietly and efficiently between the two of you.” I stepped up to him and placed a hand on his chest, forcing him to take a half step back. “Split up or don’t. I don’t care. Just don’t make this my problem again or you will regret having opened your mouth.” I looked each of them in the eyes and got a nod from each of them, except the nomad husband. When I turned my attention back to him, he grimaced and then tried to grab my wrist.

I slapped his hand away and swept one of his legs out and to the side. He managed to stay up, but I pushed his shoulder and tipped him over. As he wiped snow from his face, I stepped over to him and looked down, face neutral. “Am I clear?”

He nodded and slowly pulled himself to his feet. As he wiped himself off, the sober laborer led the clearly still drunk laborer toward a tent a hundred feet away and the female nomad stalked off back to the nomad’s side of the camp. The other man followed shortly after her, shooting a couple looks over his shoulder at the drunk laborer. I took a deep breath and let the tension drain out of me.

“Well done, as always, Captain.”

“You know, you could do this yourself, Camille.” I rubbed my face with a glove and turned to look at my lieutenant and friend. “You have the same authority that I do.”

“Sure, but I don’t really get these kinds of squabbles. I’m not terribly interested in sex and I can’t really understand why people get super agitated about it.” Camille snorted and shook her head. “I tried to sort out such squabble out once, remember? At that bar just after the snows started?”

“I remember.” I sighed and trudged back toward my tent. “This is different though. Now, your approach would work just fine. You’ve seen me do it enough times at this point that you can probably quote me, word for word.”

“And when one of these inevitably goes sideways, I’m not going to have an appropriate response. Better for everyone to let you sort it out. You are the people person, after all. You’ve made it clear several times that people stuff is your job and fighting stuff is my job. I wouldn’t want to infringe on your area of expertise, of course.”

I rolled my eyes and sighed again. “I don’t think this was better for me at all” I muttered as I got back to my tent.

As I bent over to grab the zipper, Camille spoke over her shoulder as she continued on back to her post. “Tell Natalie I am sorry for interrupting you two.”

I felt my face heat a little bit, but I was able to make it inside the tent before anyone else came to talk to me. Inside, Natalie was sitting by the little cook fire, still wrapped in her sleeping bag. She looked up at me when I turned around after closing the tent and taking my boots off. “I made breakfast.”

“I think Camille knows.”

“Mar, she’s asexual, not stupid.”

“I know!” I sat down next to Natalie and took the oatmeal and kiss she offered. “I just thought we did a better job hiding it.”

“Millie has known both of us for at least two decades, Mar. I’m sure she and Lucas both know.”

I ate my oatmeal in silence as Natalie scooped herself a bowl. “Do you think anyone else does?”

Natalie shook her head. “No. No one else shares a tent with us. If anything, they probably think I’m sleeping with Lucas because of how flirty he is with Millie and I. He’s sleeping with a trainee, though, so I’m sure no one thinks it seriously.”

“Damn, now I’ve got to write him up twice.” I spooned the rest of my oatmeal into my mouth and licked my bowl clean. “Anything else I should know about, before I go back out there to lead?”

Natalie leaned over and kissed me on the nose. “Nope. I just hope Lucas is out on rear guard for another few days. And not just because I’d like another night to the two of us.” She kissed me on the mouth and then smiled at me. I smiled back at her as she sat upright and started eating her oatmeal. “I wouldn’t mind knowing there’s more space between us and the bandits than the nomads thought.”

“Me too.” I stood up, grabbed my water, and cleaned my bowl out. I put my boats back on and fixed my coat. “Hopefully we’ll have those nights and the safety they imply.” I unzipped the tent flap and dumped my bowl outside. I tossed it back into the tent to dry near the fire and stepped outside, giving Natalie a wink. “Don’t lay in bed too long. I’d hate to have to come back inside to get you.”

Natalie smiled around a mouthful of food as I stepped away to zip the tent up. When I turned around, broad smile replacing my usual glare, I scanned a morning that seemed brighter than it had the first time I left the tent. I started my morning patrol around the camp, watching everyone wake up and begin the process of packing to leave, and my good mood lasted until I went around the back. There, as I looked for the guard post, I noticed a few figures trailing down out of the hills away to the east. As the dread settled in my stomach like a rock thrown in a pond, I pulled my binoculars out of their pouch and examined the figures.

It was Lucas, returning from his post, and moving fast judging by their complete disregard for the trail they were leaving. I lowered the binoculars and whistled the Wayfinders to alert status. For a couple heartbeats, the camp fell silent. Then, intelligible over the sudden noise of people rushing about, was Camille’s voice.

“I want two squads with rifles up front, all snipers to your designated flanks, and someone get all these noncoms to the supply tent. I want only one person on babysitting duty and then everyone else to grab five armed travellers. Move, move, move!”

Camille came dashing up, still trailing a bit of snow from where she’d been hiding. As she ran up, I handed off the binoculars to here. “Looks like Lucas and the rest of the Wayfinders I sent with him.”

“Thank you for your opinion, Captain. Kindly get your ass back to the supply tent and send the babysitter up here. We’re down four Wayfinders thanks to Lucas’ rearguard and I need every combatant I can get in case they’re being following.”

“Yes, sir.” I saluted Camille and dashed back through the camp, waving to Natalie as I passed her. She was leading a group of the laborers as they struggled to move one of our portable barriers into place. She nodded at me as I passed. Once I got to the supply tent, I sent Lauren up to Camille and started calming everyone who was too young or too inexperienced to fight.

The camp went from busy to quiet a few seconds later. In only two minutes, every Wayfinder was in position and ready for trouble. The only question left was just how much trouble that would be.

Tabletop Highlight: Interrogating Prisoners in D&D

Wren 1 Comment

Now that my campaign has reached what I would call “mid-level” and the players have gotten a handle on how to play the game, I’m starting to see them use new approaches to delicate situations. Previously, they’d just kill everything and figure out what to do afterwards (though that still happens sometimes). Now, they’ll actually plan how to kill everything and sometimes actually stop one step short of killing everything by just knocking everything out. This means they sometimes have prisoners and now need to practice interrogating prisoners. They’ve had a few instances of interrogation previously, but there’s a big difference between interrogating a grunt and interrogating a commander.

The time they interrogated a commander, a politician who had been working with their enemies, they had a lot of trouble. I, however, had a lot of fun. He was a sorcerer with a high intelligence, so he was able to use a combination of his charming personality, people/manipulation skills, and specific wordings that were always technically correct to avoid the truth compulsions they had set up. Eventually, they figured out how to trap him enough that he’d admit to something. Except they forgot about teleportation magic so he just ran away and went into hiding. Since he was a priority target who had a lot of information they wanted, it was easy to justify expending the resources they did.

During a much more recent session, they captured a few mooks and their mook leader. They managed to keep everyone alive and accepted the surrender of one of the less-combative troglodytes. After getting them out of the dungeon entry way and back to their camp, they set about doing a basic verbal interrogation of their prisoner, relying on Sense Motive skill checks (thanks to the addition of a DM PC support-only Bard to balance their party) to ascertain truth. It worked well for them because what they overheard prior to attacking this troglodyte and his companions led them to believe he was an unwilling stooge to a much bigger threat. They were eventually able to win him over with kindness, gentle words, and a good Diplomacy check from the party’s rogue.

Thankfully, they were able to keep the second interrogation tasteful. Though it’s not like the rogue had much choice, given that the paladin was looking over his shoulder. Still, they managed to solve their first problem without violence and learned enough to be able to prioritize their actions once they went through the door into dungeon proper. Unfortunately, they immediately used that information to plan violence and a hostile exchange with the other troglodytes and kobolds. It worked out alright for them in the end, since they were up against a bunch of low-CR (challenge rating: the difficulty of a particular monster or encounter to be used in comparison to a party’s equivalent number) monsters and only a couple of higher-CR monsters. Using the narrow hallways and a pit trap, they manage to isolate the various bits of combat and deal with the situation in such a way that most of the mooks got to live. Which they were then able to interrogate, much more easily this time since they’d already shown them all the spectre of violent death when the paladin obliterated the kobold captain in a single round.

Personally, I dislike violent interrogation. I would have a hard time walking my players through any kind of torture scenario because I have a hard time dealing with violence against helpless people. I don’t mind inventive torture, like the time one of my players invented taco bell and used the resulting–and revolting–mish-mash of rats, field grass, orc “cheese,” and acid splash (the 0th level spell) slathered between hardtack biscuits to successfully convince a captured orc to spill the beans. The character truly believed he was giving the orc a tasty snack. It was too back the rogue (who was the only who spoke orcish) had a bit of a sadistic streak, letting the poor addled wizard believe the orc was begging for additional tacos. Heck, if you can make a good intimidate check and are a convincing role-player, you can make a pile of wood shavings look like a terrible torture. You don’t need to skin someone while they’re still alive, using a cleric to continuously restore their hit points, in order to get answers.

Even outside of the disgust I feel at that stuff, there’s plenty of real-world examples, especially in modernity, of violent interrogation being not only useless but actively unhelpful. Better to befriend a prisoner and get them on your side than to make them beg for mercy and make up whatever they think you want to hear. Most D&D doesn’t go that in-depth, but I don’t mind putting in the extra work since it discourages unscrupulous behavior and creative thinking. Better a creative, challenging player than a blunt, simple one.

Falling

Wren Leave a comment

He twisted, trying to get his feet underneath him. The air felt thick as he struggled to control his decent. He knew was going to hit water soon, but he couldn’t see. Every time he opened his eyes, they filled with tears and might as well have been closed. If he wasn’t prepared soon, the shock would kill him.

Finally, he felt his hair whip up around him and away from his face. He turned a bit and stuck out his legs, feet angled so his heels would hit first. As he wrapped his arms around his head, he felt the impact on his legs and the pain nearly caused him to lose consciousness. The cold slap of the water on the his body was the only thing that kept him awake as he shot into the depths.

Once his movement slowed, he opened his eyes. He was lost in a murky blue-green world with nothing around him but the weight of the water about him. He exhaled and watched the bubbles rise. Using only his arms, he pulled himself back up to the surface and crawled onto dry land. He closed his eyes again and lay back, just grateful to have made it out.

“Did you hear me, Martin?”

Marten opened his eyes, his visualization gone. He was in the quiet corner of a coffee shop he and Alice liked. Alice was sitting across from him, expression neutral. “What?”

“Martin, I said I don’t want to be with you anymore. I’m moving out tomorrow and staying at my mother’s tonight.”

“Oh.” Martin looked down at his hands. “You don’t want to try to work this out?”

Alice shook her head and grabbed her purse and left, giving him last glance that Martin didn’t see. He was busy falling again.

 

Saturday Morning Musing

Wren Leave a comment

Being broke sucks. After the Christmas season and its associated commercialism has ended, I am forced to take stock of my financial state in preparation for filing my taxes. This year, as a result of a higher-than-average monthly expense accounting, I’ve been forced to make a strict budget. Having a girlfriend is great, for sure, but it makes me significantly more inclined to spend money on things I otherwise wouldn’t such as trips to other cities to meet new people or a bouquet of cooking utensils my significant other wants but doesn’t have. Which is a great gift idea, by the way. Flowers aren’t the only thing you can wrap in tissue paper and present to your significant other on special occasions.

I’ve stuck to a budget before and I keep pretty good track of my finances, so this is nothing new. It is an added layer of stress and anxiety, though, to have to update and track every single number to the cent rather than going with my “soft budget” that I’ve been using since I changed jobs. My student debt (and the credit card debt I occasionally accrue because I’ve got no answer to sudden expenses that aren’t covered by insurance) gets me wound up when I start thinking about how much I still owe after having paid as much as I have, so I try to avoid thinking about my finances in any kind of exact terms when I can. Even though I know my debt total has gone down since last year, it is still easier for me to think about last year’s inaccurate number than about what today’s accurate number would be.  I know it isn’t a very good idea to ignore financial situations like this, but I’ve got my finances set up so I only need to review the hard numbers of my debt once a year, when I do my taxes. When I do, I spend some time looking into solutions to better my financial footing like refinancing options and consolidation, so it isn’t like I’m ignoring my problems entirely.

My dreams for the future, in financial terms, are pretty simple. I just want to be able to live modestly without needing to worry about money like I do now. I want to have enough set aside to absorb sudden expenses without needing to rely on credit cards. I want to be able afford a nice place to live and to have enough space to welcome people into my home semi-frequently. I like to host my friends and our gatherings, and I love to feed people, so being able to afford that on a regular basis would be amazing. If I’m really aiming for the stars, I’d like to be able to put any potential progeny through college (assuming the current system is still in place) and have some money left over every year to travel somewhere new.

Ideally, I’d be able to live this lifestyle as a result of being a writer. I know it is possible, even if it does seem unlikely most days. One of my biggest barriers to writing consistently is how upset I can get when I spend a weekend writing and then have to go back to work on Monday morning. I’d be so happy writing full-time. I’d be willing to sacrifice a certain amount of my financial dreams to achieve that, but not much. Writing is fun, but I can still do that even if I’m working a day job to provide myself with financial stability.

Budgeting, though stressful, can make your financial life a lot easier. I may not enjoy thinking about it, but having concrete terms for my spending makes it easier to see the impact a change in my spending habits can have on my bank account. While paying off my car loan by the end of the summer seemed like a bit of a pipe dream when I thought of it last month, my budgeting has told me that it is possible as long as I toss my whole tax return in as well. As much as I’d like a new mattress, I’m pretty sure that I’ll sleep better with all that extra money in my budget. For paying off other loans, of course. The best loan repayment plans depend on that snowball effect.

Though I might just let it hang out for a little bit, make a few friends in my bank account, and then get blow it all on something to replace my 4.5-year-old, $300 queen mattress that has a giant sag down the middle. Springs, I tell ya… Not so springy anymore.

Moments of Quiet

Wren 2 Comments

It is these moments of quiet,
As my brain creeps toward sleep,
That keep me up at night.

The time before is calm and soft:
Full of lingering traces of all
I have accomplished that day
And everything I desire to do
When I wake on a brand new day.

The time after is strange and quick:
Full of half dreams lost to me
As soon as their story has ended
And small movements that feel fast
As my body begins to slumber.

During, though, there is only silence.
I am left with the darkness of my room
Mirroring a darkness inside of me
I can only manage to drive away
With things that would keep me from sleeping.

During these moments of quiet,
I am the captive audience of my fears
And every single thing that went wrong
During any day I can remember
Plus a few more I had once forgotten.

It is no wonder I do not sleep well
When I cannot bypass these moments
Without crashing from awake to asleep.