Being productive

I'm trying to work on this painting but it's impossible while my hands are freezing off. Mid-April and it's bitter cold. I found the best way for me to focus on my artwork is to park my character on WoW near an ore spawn point and to alternate tabbing in and looking for the gold marker, then working on my thing some more. I realize why I didn't want to be an artist; it's a profoundly lonely profession and I don't like being by myself all the time. Seems like WoW takes a bit of that edge off.

I've started tanking as a warrior and I thoroughly appreciate my pally so much now. I've tanked a total of 8 instances and it's starting to become repetitive. At least I'm understanding my abilities much more. I've discovered Intervene and I can tell ya, I'm not so great at it. Perhaps I can do a target of target macro that lets me run in...yeah that makes much more sense. AOE tanking is a real chore since my GCD is the only thing that is keeping me from building threat with my hover macro that lets me sunder my offtargets. I wonder if haste is the answer but even that won't be enough.

Okay now back to painting.

Tanking while a hypochrondatic

I love tanking because I have the illusion of controlling the circumstances of the raid's success. However, after an exhaustive day of volunteering at a senior center on Delancey St., a haircut, buying canvases for the wedding, and jabbing away at a bag for an hour and half, I got a little woozy during the raid. I gotta take care of myself more with this new founded drive to box so I'll be prepared with snacks.

Wow, it's snowing in April. Big flakes, little flurry.

So I was definitely woozy during the two boss fights. Our warrior tank was struggling with the drakes in Sarth 3D 25 man but I was proud that he eventually got the hang of it. We're a hard crowd to please.

Dunno

I don't know who reads this because I prefer the anonymity of confession. It might be no one which in case, I wouldn't have to worry about the consequences of saying this. But I have to say that daily crying jags are not the way to live. I'm not sure if it's my new meds but I'm terrified of losing control like this. I'm not the type of person to fall apart under a slight or an inconsiderate action but yet, it's happened several times.

I need a job, even if it's temporary.

Using my imagination as a raiding pally tank

Btw, I realized that I had posted this site onto an all WoW Blog RSS Feed and would like to take it off. If you should happen to read this, I'd appreciate a comment to let me know what the website is.

I realize that I've been really really grumpy while playing due to real life frustration with job searching, figuring out a new career, getting over yet another unrequited person, grad school, depression and anxiety hitting a very new low (I've been taking medication), family, clutter, etc. Plus, libido went kaput. Which is distressing. Not that there's really anyone I'd like to get it on with. I have options but it's like refusing milk chocolate to hold out for some lovely dark chocolate. Sure the milk chocolate will get that textural silkness and roasted flavor but most milk chocolates smell cloyingly and not in a good way. Dark chocolate...yumm, I so went off topic here. In short, holding out for something better is usually a better choice for me.

This article from WowInsider.com has inspired me to dream up a character for my paladin tank. I've been told that she's the closest character I have that resembles me, except for all that white hair. And truly she's probably the most like me personality wise. A champion for others, self-sacrificing to a fault, flexible and decisive when it comes to protecting others. I do feel a kinship to her cause because hell yeah, I'd sign up to be a paladin if it was a real career.

I wonder what she would ask me right now.

Min: Why do you have so much inner turmoil?
Me: I got this discord between wanting to tank and not being taken advantage of.
Min: Ahh so you're feeling taken for granted?
Me: I guess, especially with this arrival of a new pally tank recruit who doesn't put up seals all the time, doesn't use Holy Shield though he needs it, and judges Judgment of Justice. Screw that! Why I gotta show him how to do the moves? Why do I have to be patient with him when no one else really was there to show me the ropes? I did my research, I talked to other pallys, I endured hours of criticism and pain from bad-mouthing compatriots.
Min: You decided to play a paladin. Your profession is to inspire and seek justice and meditate on being patient and kind.
Me: If I wanted to be that, I would have been a priest. Oh wait, I have one, and she kicks ass. And woop, I'm here to kick ass too.
Min: From Wikipedia -

Virtue (Latin virtus; Greek ἀρετή) is moral excellence. Personal virtues are characteristics valued as promoting individual and collective well-being, and thus good by definition. The opposite of virtue is vice.

Me: Alright, I will show my grace and charity by helping. It is the only way with a fellow paladin as discouraging as it is to realize he's half-assed his way through playing.
Min: *Sigh*
Me: Oh...he's gone from the guild. I feel ashamed and weird...I didn't want him to leave really, I wanted him to learn.

Sheer Overload

There's so much to write about:

• tanking as a pally tank,
  
• dpsing as a shadow priest
  
• dpsing as my alts (rogue, mage, druid),
  
• healing and dpsing with the dual specs,
  
• professions,
• the agony of min-maxing and the joy of finding Pawn, an addon that lets me vendor items with impunity and whisper little praises of the ease it gives,
  
• new fishing changes,
  
• winning the weekly Sunday fishing tournament AGAIN for a lark and what it means to be Salty,
  
• how much I hate selling items on the AH.
  

I'll make it my mission to tackle at least a few of these items all week.

Something that I'm not sure that I've shared here is my turnaround in real life issues.

• I've taken up on a boxing gym. I shouldn't enjoy threatening to beat up defenseless guys with nothing to back it up :)
  
• I've decided to dedicate myself to attend graduate school to go into a passion of mine: mental health.
  
• I've also decided to move to a different city at the end of the year at most.
• I'd like to get a federal job.
  
• I've fell for someone but since we agree that we're not interested in long-distance relationships, we won't be exploring anything more than a friendship. I'm saddened but I wouldn't trade anything in the world for feeling those butterflies in my stomach again, something I haven't felt in years. So thank you for giving me that hope that it's possible for me to like someone.

A friend of mine shared this idea about processing information internally: that one doesn't need to dwell on an issue once that person comes to the best conclusion he could and no further information is given to adapt the conclusion. I'm taken by this idea as a worrier and trying to wrap my head around it.

I rarely write down some of the fucked up things I encounter in the game but I encountered one of the notorious drama kings on my server who basically bellowed at me for half an hour to look at some picture of his burnt junk, which became that way after exposing it to an overheated lava lamp which contains oil and antifreeze. He described it as having the appearance of Jupiter, only stretched out along the surface. I was crying with laughter but refused to look.

And if a new friend of mine happens to read this post, thank you for reminding me of how amazing the guildies are, including myself. It's not something I think about, until I get to meet other amazing people who can share of themselves with courage.

Oh, The Places You'll Go!

Much of what I've written has come from despair lately. I was completely aware of it but lost in what direction to take so I took myself out of writing about my woes. There is a very strong part of me that wishes to apologize to you, any reader, all my friends for revealing the thorny bits of my psyche. But I won't.

I do believe I'll move on because I did today. I opened up a gift given to me by a therapist of mine who had moved on and lo behold, it was a Dr. Seuss book. As a small child, I would quickly skim his books and put it down. I was irritated by his nonsensical gibberish and the drawings which were not realistic or pleasing to my eye. The abstractions caught at my imagination...but they were probably too scary for me to handle because of the sheer amount of possibilities.

I first read the note in the back that my therapist left me. I had burst into a retching sob when I was given this gift and held out of opening it out of fear that I would be rend in two by the mere fact that a simple request for clarity had been granted. I didn't not have to compromise my wishes because she granted me one.

Putting aside my quirky dislike of Dr. Seuss, I read, "Oh, the Places You'll go!" as quickly as I did as a child, only this time, I put the effort into tasting the words and enjoying the drawings. I laughed to myself about how familiar/iconic all of these things were and how they seemed to repulse me at the same time. As an adult, I can truly appreciate what he had to write and mourn briefly of my childhood where if it wasn't "productive learning", it wasn't worth my time. I challenge that with remembering hours spent poring over fairy tale illustrations with the colors that would not clash and the linear storylines that my mind can pleasantly soothe over.

I fell in love or I got a crush. Both are true. If you read this, I hope you're not scared but I lied to you about not sleeping on Saturday night. I couldn't sleep because of the pain I felt missing you. I'll write about you in private, where no one will ever read them. I can't read your mind so one day, I'll speak to you and ask you how you feel but I want to become that better person worthy of your affection.

And so I'll move forward with my career and find a job and clean up my room, even without you. Because I want to for myself. I'll stop thinking about hurting myself for more than a few seconds a day because I know my family and friends and you would miss me if I did hurt myself. I'll figure out how to love and forgive myself for all the silly mistakes I've made through my art, my precious art that I fearfully put aside.

I'll read my Dr. Seuss book and know that age 28, my life isn't over.

Everlasting

The sheer horror of the squawking woman berating aloud, cursing the panicked stranger who could have used some help with her overladen burden of junk. That panic tickled and bubbled in me where I could scream from the FEAR that bloomed in my chest, draining my will, my strength, my triumph over the power of life itself where there is nothing to fear but fear itself but instead, it comes my state of being... to choke and hold and breathe in shuddering gulps of near laughter.

I had taken a tumble down slippery wooden stairs, startled in the childlike wonder of bumping my less-than-cushioned butt down in little hops. I come out with bruises and a shallow cut that my metal bracelet stung into the heel of my hand. I could have come out with swallowed teeth and heaping sobs but I laid on the bed of the once adored, now less-pined-for friend, jumped to sober heights and flex the cold shocked parts of my hand into giving reassurance that one) I will not have to pay for an ER visit and two) I reaped the hurt I deserve.

Dear God, you've taken my friend's father away from her after her sister had forced herself onto you. Oh the rage, I sympathize with so much right now. It's blinding hatred and I swallow it whole to reside in my stomach. And it's fear that rolls in after to choke me in the air I breathe and has that PERMANENCE that smells sickeningly like the matted folks spoilt by heroin and welfare checks and that whisper of profit that wafts in rotten sugar. Yet I maintain a semblance of BEING ALL HERE, when I'm really in the place that whispers that once I get my affairs in order, it would be best to give up, go tilt out sideways, pour my mindfulness out of my ear to truly let others have their way, to decide what is the best fate for me.

I do not trust myself. It's how I let go of the responsibility of making an decision and to act on it.

I chat with an acquaintance about the Super Bowl and how fair play made things feel all right is with the world. And I want to wail about the HORROR, the quiet blanket that crawls and smothers my faith in anything good in this world besides the children and the kittens and the right-as-rain sun. I stare, flooded.