ach, I give up, I need to make some words

My hours at work have been cut down during the summer slow period. Which, in addition to making me cut into my insurance money for bills, means I have less work time to do the same work. Oy. On a similar note, we sat down and did a monthly expenses thing last week. And yeah, our monthly expenses are more than I make at the moment, by a couple hundred at least. So when insurance money runs out, situation could be bad indeed. No cable and no internet bad.

However, there is in this nothing new or scarier than I already knew it was.
I have been practicing not panicking. I want to get a "DON'T PANIC" tattoo on the part of my right thumb that connects with my wrist. For now if I just mentally picture it in letters of fire and stare at the spot until my mind goes blank, it will if nothing else become a reasonably effective prayer/spell/whatever.

Responsibility doesn't have to drive you crazy or make you less of a fun person. I've spent days, months, weeks at a time being frustrated at various responsible people (Dad notable among them) for allowing the panic brought on by responsibility to rule them and make them miserable. Which means it would be hypocritical of me not to try and overcome the same panicky urges in myself, be they howsoever...persistent.

Dave has been great about getting me calmed down when possible, and not egging me on when calming down is impossible. In fact it was him that pointed out how much I'd been letting myself panic and how much unnecessary unhappiness it was causing me. Have I told everyone lately how I admire his singleminded pursuit of happiness?

But I should stop talking about this. Thinking about the panic makes it more likely to resurface, especially considering I'm at work right now.

I re-read Paladin of Souls yesterday. It was wonderful and uplifting and all the awesome stuff we always say about Bujold. Among the many other life lessons of which the book reminded me, I've been turning this one over in my mind a great deal. In order to be a proper mage of whatever type I turn out to be, I have to maintain my psyche demon-free. This is not to say I can't be friends with elemental creatures or people. Friends, however, just stop by when you have a reason to chill or work with them. It takes a very special circumstance for a genuine ally type invisible friend to take up long term residence in your psyche. Whereas with demons (parasitic elementals, predatory emotiforms, whatever you wanna call 'em) taking up residence is half of their raison d'etre.

Yesterday was a very calm, happy, meditative day for me. It occurred to me that maintaining a completely demon-free psyche is a most pleasant way to live. Takes a lot of effort and bandwidth, but I'm already spending that in pretty much that direction anyway. I am just at the point where the self-maintenance energy I've accustomed myself to always exerting can be distributed in a more efficient manner.

Enough for now. I have the usual shitload to do and pitiful little time to do it in.