What is Motivation?

My client/boss asked me today

In my late teens/twenties, I had a goal. Maybe you could call it a motivation. Because my education got all kinds of fucked up, and then senior year I was able to connect a few dots. That’s a longer story.

At that point, I decided that I would do whatever I could to encourage other kids that if I could do it despite the lack of encouragement around me. I did that. My mid 30’s I realized I had accomplished that goal several times over. Then I decided I’d live my life for myself. I had poured out everything nurturing to boost those kids self esteem.

Then I was okay, still struggling with motivation and C-PTSD. As well as depression, GAD, and being undiagnosed Autistic (that will be changing come Wednesday).

I achieved my goal. I didn’t really find a new one. And now, at 50, I’m just floating on the water. I’ve worked toward my MLIS, but I’m stuck having to pay for my last fuckup. Then I have one semester left to finish it. But for now, I’m going to apply to SNHU (rolling admission) for a MFA in writing.

I was on track to get stuff going and then last weekend happened and my survival mode dial got turned all the way to 10. I’m coming back down from that level. I got past the dramatics of the situation and now I can get back down to a more manageable level.

But I still lack motivation.

9/22: Political Divide Ponderings (and #crowdfunding)

I have always been in the “Bleeding Heart Liberal” category. I knew at 15 that I was going to register Democrat. My parents were both registered Republicans. But from a time when Republicans were more liberal (Dad was an Eisenhower Republican) and Dems were more conservative. My mother was originally a Democrat, from back in the day before parties switched views. She switched to Republican, around when she married my dad. I think because her views were so conservative, he nudged her to change affiliation to match her views. Dad, however, was pro-choice and all the other stuff. He voted Republican, but man, he was liberal through and through.

By the time I was 18, I knew Democrat was where I belonged. Some of my views have a twinge of Libertarian in them, but I’m staunchly a Dem. When I got my voter ID card at 18, I showed it to my dad, who joked, “Where did we go wrong with you?” I knew he was messing with me in a good way. Remember, he was quite liberal and I am such my father’s daughter. He knew, in his own quiet way, that I was in the right spot.

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Flash forward to this past week. A couple days ago, I got into a debate with a conservative woman from this shelter. Here’s where my pondering begins.

How can someone who is homeless/poor/etc and reasonably intelligent stand by politicians who are so vehemently against them? I’m talking about the Liar in Chief. I usually just use ’45’ to refer to him, and will do so the rest of this post.

How does a woman who served in the military and depends on the VA in all its brokenness support a man who cuts spending for the very system she uses?

How can someone who is living in a shelter that depends on federal grant money to help people say that the government shouldn’t be the ones who help the poor and disabled, but that churches should be?

The debate happened while we were waiting for the MAX train back from her first trip to IKEA is several years. When we got on the train, I was so pissed, I just started ignoring her. She turned to a man on the other side of her and started in about “ignorant liberals”

…

*twitch*

…

*twitch*

…

The one thing I got clearly from her was this: she got her advanced education later in life (a Bachelor’s in Science [B.S.] in something) and had dropped a class because the professor made something clear about some sort of view that was decidedly more liberal than conservative. She then went into how she was glad she didn’t pursue her degree when she was younger because she might have been convinced and brainwashed back then to agree with this more liberal view.

As with everything involving the women in this shelter (other than the backstabbing and lies some pull), it all has mostly blown over and she’s all smiles again with me. Meh. I’ll move on and chat again with her. Just not today.

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This is why I ponder these things:

I am innately curious about the human condition and psyche. Always have been. Ever since I was out of diapers, I either had a camera in my hand or was observing people in how they acted, reacted, and interacted. I wanted to understand human behavior from the time I was really little.

I’ve long joked that I’m really an alien from another planet who was dropped off here to observe human behavior. Sometimes, it doesn’t really feel like that much of a joke. I’ve always felt different. Like I wasn’t the same. Not human. My physiology is the same, save for a few oddities, but I am essentially a human being. I just don’t feel like I am one.

I want to understand why people behave how they do, believe things they do, act how they do. I’ve always been the one who asked questions and looked for answers. As a kid, I was always pulling random things from the yard and putting them under our little 3x microscope. I wasn’t big on dissection once we got to that in school, but I wanted to learn about other things.

Why are we seemingly always at war with each other?

Why do we so easily fear and then hate each other because of differences?

I know that second one is partly why I feel so different. I choose not to fear the differences. I’m curious about why the differences are there, and want to examine those differences. I love and embrace my curiosity. I want to absorb and learn and experience those differences. And I’ve never understood why others don’t want the same.

To choose being informed over conformity.

~A

6/13/18: Humans All

I’ve posted in the past about being homeless and being human and all that. The recent story about the jogger (asshole) in Oakland who took a local homeless man’s belongings and tossed them into Lake Merritt. The jogger has been arrested for taking the phone of a guy who spotted him the next day. Hopefully more charges will be filed against him for what he did to the homeless man’s belongings.

This reminded me of recent discussions on our local NextDoor for my old neighborhood. Some people were vehemently complaining about the homeless population while others were doing what they could to calm them down and help them see reason. In one of of these threads, I outed myself as being a former neighbor who is now living in a shelter due to an eviction.

This is the thing: no matter whether we live in a tent, a shelter, a house, apartment, or a high-rise condo, we are ALL human beings who will end up in the proverbial pine box (some will choose burial, others cremation, even others various other methods that have emerged). Where we live and how much we do or don’t have won’t matter in the long run.

If you have all the trappings of success, they could vanish next week. If your belongings fit in a storage unit or a shopping cart, you could have a windfall next month and things could improve.

Or it could all end in an instant without any change.

None of us truly know where our lives will take us. Only where we’ve been. We can have all the grand plans and ideas written down somewhere, but it’s all a matter of chance, with some choice tossed in. I learned long ago to not plan too far ahead. The rug got pulled out from under me and plans changed frequently.

I changed as well. Every instance in my life that made me change direction in some way changed me. I am nowhere near the person I was 25 years ago. Hell, 10 years ago. I’m not the same as I was last week. I learn as I live. Each day holds at least one lesson. Sometimes one I have to keep learning (don’t get me started on foodstuffs).

But back to the topic in general.

No matter where we stand in society, we are all the same. Yes, there are differences. Education, disabilities, income, housed/unhoused, skin color, eye color, career choices, etc… we are each unique in our humanity. But strip away those differences and our human-ness is a common link.

I think some -far too many- tend to forget this. Like the people in my old neighborhood bashing homeless people. The differences are merely on the surface of who we are. They forget that they could easily end up homeless like me in an instant (well, maybe longer, but given a tragic incident and draining of savings and loss of job… you get the idea).

No one is perfect. No one is above another. Money doesn’t make one superior, despite what that person may think of themselves.

I may expand more on this as I go… for now, this is my observation.

2/20/18: Love Letter to my Cat

Dear Portia: We have been through a lot since I adopted you on 10/30/2010. I saw your picture on C.A.T.’s website (Cat Adoption Team in Sherwood, OR) a few days before, visited you at your Petsmart location on 10/29, and knew. I knew you needed me and I needed you. JoJo, although she would be loathe to admit it, needed you as well.

After JoJo died of Congestive Heart Failure a year ago, the two of us have been through even more. Our eviction, bouncing from one friend’s apartment to another’s house and then three different rooms in that house since. You have helped me battle panic attacks, depression, suicidal ideation, the loss of your feline sister, and so much more. Which is why you are my ESA (Emotional Support Animal) and friend.

I wish I could have taken a picture of how we were cuddled up a few minutes ago. I had paid down on my side, with my head at the foot of the bed. You were contemplating jumping up for a moment, but once you did, you plopped down right in front of my face. That’s your style. I put my hand up to rest under your chin, between your front paws… as I gently leaned my own face against your fur. And your jet engine purr began.

You love touch. You are a people cat, even though you’re a little hesitant with some. I rarely hear you purr unless you’re loafing on my chest or touching me somehow. When I first adopted you, you couldn’t get lap time because JoJo insisted on HER laptime, so the bedroom became your place for human time. At first, you curled up near me and reached one paw out to place on my shoulder or face. You gradually got to how you are now with curling up on my chest (granted, the current bed is narrow, so not much room).

You have your ornery times. You have sensitive skin, so being groomed is not a preferred activity, yet your mats buried under that silky soft floofage say it’s much needed. Areas that most cats LOVE having petted are off limits for you (base of the tail mostly, which elicits a claws-extended swat from you). And sometimes your butt fur doesn’t get as clean as either of us would like…

But I love you anyway… stinky butt and all.

You are a goofy, sweet 14 pound lovebug of a cat. I know your needs and you know mine in your own way. Your purr is therapeutic and burying my face in your fur when I need comforting is an extra bonus. We’ve been through a lot of stress. But with you there for me, I believe we will make it through.

Everyone who sees pictures of you is taken aback by your beauty. Your soft dilute tortie fur and the eyes that make everyone gasp. Eyes that can be green, green-gold, blue, blue-gold, or some other combination. Of all the cats I’ve known or lived with in my life, I have never seen a cat with eyes like yours. And everyone who sees your pictures says the same thing. I likely will never see another cat again with eyes like yours.

You are 12 now. I know you can’t live forever. I cherish the time I have with you. You ground me when I need it. And I give you wet food when I can afford it. I am so glad you let me adopt you.

Love,

Your Human, Amanda

11/18: Feeling Broken

Something happened today.
Something that ripped me to pieces.
I want to believe there are humans
Who understand what being
HUMAN
Is like.
What being
HOMELESS
Is like.
My day was okay.
Except one brief moment.
That formed a black cloud
Over my head.
My soul is soaked through.
My heart and mind
Need to be wrung out.
The cloud weighed me down.
I wonder now.
Who among us
Has compassion?
A safe place for a woman and her cat?
When the world buckles underneath you,
Who do you turn to when it makes you fall?
When the help you need the most is not the help family can give you?
Where do you go?
When you scream for help, but there is
None to be found.
~A.
November 2017

9/6: No Soul-Sucking Allowed, Dammit (but #crowdfunding is)

I started this on Facebook, but opted to bring it over here. And yes, still #crowdfunding to get funds to save storage. 

This is only slightly tongue-in-cheek. Slightly.

My ideal work environment: not dealing with random humans. The occasional co-worker might be okay. I’m currently feeling a smidge Dragonish (i.e. anti-social), so occasional contact is okay.

And no cubicle farms. No/few phones. Email is preferred. I don’t stumble over my words as much. Also my foot doesn’t end up in my mouth as much. 

And not soul-sucking work. I’d like to keep my soul intact for a few more years. At least until I turn 50. Five more years is all I ask.

Let me enter data, do creative-ish things like websites or social media, have a variety of tasks/projects. Research. Gimme things to research. I lurv research. Just not medical, as they want bio degrees. I don’t have one of those. Research and write things. 

Pays well enough for me to move into a market rate studio close-in and cram the rest of my stuff into a smaller storage unit again. Also be able to pay for storage, utilities, Netflix and Hulu again, and eat without needing food stamps. Oh, and put money into savings and pay off a few bills.

*   *   *   *   *   *

Yeah… that shit would take a fucking miracle. I’m screwed.

~Dragon 

(Below is what I need to not lose my storage. Before the 15th)

8/20: community #crowdfunding

It’s frustrating to see people talk of building community and espouse Liberal values (I am Liberal myself, in case you didn’t know)… or even what should be Christian values of community and lifting up those who need it… 

And yet, when someone swallows their pride and asks (and yes, I’m aware that this is not a 1st time for me… but I’m trying to get work and it feels like I’m facing headwinds) for help, it falls mostly on “deaf ears” … 

I do what I can to help others, but sometimes my limitations hold me back. I don’t own a vehicle, so I can’t help most friends move… and my injuries prevent me from a lot of other things. 

I keep thinking (and hoping) that each round of shit I face is the last round… 

I need to get storage paid ASAP. I simply ask for folks to share. Spread the word. That’s free. If you can donate, great! Sharing is still helpful.

~A

5/14: This time I’ll remember a title (#crowdfunding)

SHHAAAAARREE MEEEE! Pwease?

So I must have been more tired than I thought when I wrote up last night’s blog post. I didn’t realize until this morning when I checked the stats that I’d forgotten to put anything beyond the date (sometimes I put that after I write). Whoops.

The usual stuff: need help saving storage and all my stuff, etc… yes I’m quickly running out of time here. Thursday is the auction and I need to prove I’ll have funds by the time they close the office at 6pm PST Wednesday. Yeah… only a few more days. 

On to other things… there’s the big elelephant in the room. Mother’s Day. My mom passed away from end stage Alzheimer’s (total organ failure, etc) in 2013. But with her disease, this day hasn’t felt like anything special for a lot longer. Before that, it was ‘meh’ as we constantly fought. The two strongest willed people in the family… yeah, fireworks happened… a lot. I never got that mother-adult daughter relationship. It was stolen from me by a disease that hits the caretakers the hardest. She went to her death never seeing me as a strong adult who can do awesome things. She forever saw the four year old teaching herself to play the melody of the Star Spangled Banner on the piano without knowing how to read music, and yet, once learned, my mother actively discouraged me playing it.

I also have a friend or two who don’t think women like me with pets instead of human children should celebrate it as a ‘mom.’ Even being hostile about it and saying they’ll unfriend anyone who wishes a Happy Mother’s Day to women who only have pets.

[Oh shit… Dragon wants a word…]

Look here, hun, just because I chose to not fertilize my damn eggs and put more dragons out there to devour stupid humans does NOT mean I’m not a mom. I pick up more cat shit from one cat alone in her entire life than you do changing diapers. Don’t even start with me. I step on toys, clean up errant cat poop, take her to the vet, feed her the best damn food I can get for her and her specific needs and issues, make sure she’s healthy and happy and clean and know what that furball gives me in return?

Unconditional LOVE. Laughter at her antics. Purr therapy when I’m stressed out. 

I don’t need to bring more like me into this overcrowded world. It’s fucked up enough without more from my gene pool. So, you go do you, be a parent to human children all you damn well please. Just know that I’m over here saving animals and I don’t have to buy them clothes every six months and worry about how I’m gonna pay for their college. I may adopt a human child one day… when I’m damn well ready to do so.

You do you, and leave us pet lovers alone. 

[shoves Dragon off the chair]

“GO BACK TO YOUR CAVE, DRAGON!”

Sorry about that. She can be a handful at times. Anyway….

Sooo… I’m taking things one nerve-wracking day at a time. Job hunting, etc. Never easy, but that’s life.

Nightly poem to be uploaded later….

~Amanda/Dragon

5/12: Aiming for Optimism (#crowdfunding)

Aiming for a little optimism here..

*thwack*

Damn, I missed. Never been good at archery.

It isn’t easy to be optimistic when you’re technically homeless and still (frustratingly) jobless and you’re trying desperately to round up funds to save all your stuff in storage from auction in less than a week.

Anyone who ever wonders what keeps me sane in all of this mess of my life didn’t see or hear Portia this morning. Something got her ALL wound up and she was on the window ledge on the other side of the [non-working] hot tub that’s in this room. At one point, she lost her balance and landed on the solid hot tub cover. *thud* then running around on the cover. I’ve sworn in the past that when she ran around the apartment, she sounded like a herd of buffalo on the run. The bounding around on the hot tub cover beat that. I was in giggle fits the whole time I’m listening to this. She gives me moments of silliness or utter affection, usually when I need it the most. It’s very therapeutic.

But the concern for my belongings in storage is still there. The concern for getting my life back on track. The two best places are over in the sidebar (on mobile, scroll to the end of this post and you should see them): PayPal and YouCaring. When you look at the YouCaring, you’ll see nearly $700 on there. Most of that is LONG gone. I need to get to roughly 1500-1600 on there to pull it from auction. If I can at least SHOW I’ll have it the day before, they’ll pull it. WePay takes a couple of days to do the transfer.

So, I ask for people to share this… or the YouCaring campaign. Any of it. There’s an 8×20 storage unit with the vast majority of my life belongings in it. My father’s “coffin” flag for being a WWII Vet. My photography. A bit of my father’s photography. My sheet music. My mother’s beat up 100+ year old copy of Handel’s Messiah. My costumes, some of which I designed. My furniture. My clothes. So much stuffed in there. Memories. Collections of silly things I can’t replace. Most of it doesn’t have great value except to me.

These are the things I need to save. Things I need help to save.

In other news, I have revamped my Patreon… maybe a little more friendly and tempting for those interested.

Thank you from Amanda & Portia

5/3: Feline Advocacy (and #crowdfunding, duh)

My whole life, I’ve had or lived with cats. My parents (more than likely primarily my mother for reasons I noticed later in life) didn’t really do the “indoor cat” thing. If we adopted kittens, they were indoors until spayed/neutered and gradually given monitored outside time until they were. We lost a lot of cats this way. There were some, such as Blackie, Prissy (Blackie’s litter sister) and Skunky. Smokey, who was Skunky’s bestest friend in the world, lived a bit longer than average outdoor cats (typically 5-7 years). The cats I just mentioned all lived to somewhere between 10 and 20 years (Skunky the longest. I wrote about it a few days back).

After I moved out of CA in late 2001, I was cat-less for about a year and then decided on adopting early 2003. Enter JoJo, who just passed away (Congestive Heart Failure) at almost 15 years old, 14 years to the month of her adoption in February 2003. Six weeks later, I adopted Jack at 7 months old. He passed away at 8 years in 2010 from Acute Renal Failure. I adopted Portia at the end of October, a few weeks after Jack died, at roughly 4 years old. All three have been indoor cats. I’ve learned a lot having them. After adopting JoJo and Jack, I joined The Cat Site (referred to as TCS from here on out). The forums and people there helped me navigate going from having outdoor cats to having indoor-only cats.

In the last couple of years I’ve also discovered LAPS (Langley Animal Protection Services) up in Canada, and a rescue group that is distantly connected to them, TinyKittens. They help feral colonies in the area with feeding and TNR (Trap-Neuter-Release).

Between TCS, LAPS, and TK, as well as my own volunteering with Multnomah County Animal Shelter here in Portland and Pixie Project, I have become an advocate for cats. I also highly recommend supporting The Pongo Fund. They do awesome work as a pet food bank for the PDX area.

I encourage spaying and neutering. If you insist on having your kids watch “the miracle of birth” via pets, I recommend you start watching TK whenever they get a pregnant feral momma. They livestream the births, nothing blurred out. For one thing, pregnancy of cats and dogs can have a whole host of problems just like with human births/pregnancy.

Also, the longer a female cat goes unspayed, the higher the risk of mammary gland (breast) cancer or uterine cancer. Intact males can also get cancer of their reproductive organs as well. It’s best for cats and dogs to be spayed and neutered as young as possible. And yes, they can be fixed before 6 months. You have to find a vet who will do early spay/neuter. They MUST weigh 2 pounds minimum, for being able to handle anesthesia. When I was at Multco, we adopted out kittens at 12 weeks, already fixed.

I am an advocate for cats mostly, although many of the same rules apply to dogs. I love dogs, just haven’t had one since high school. And Portia hates/is scared of dogs (hates small dogs, scared of big dogs). My cats have gotten me through so much in my life. I could never imagine life without at least one.

That brings me to my current situation. I only have Portia right now and she’s a social, albeit initially shy, cat. She wants to be where I am, or at least the action. I’m sitting on my bed right now (still semi-homeless of course, but it’s a fold-down bed) and she’s a foot away from my leg and this computer. Sleeping. She has been showing signs of wanting a friend again. The resident cat is still hesitant about her, so she’s sequestered in our room/space. I’m in the “spa” room in the house. Non-functioning hot tub and then the sauna room. The glass on the sauna room is slightly reflective, so she sees this “other cat” which is just her reflection. The last few days, she’s even climbed onto my stuff between my pillows and the door and put her nose to the glass, looking for this mystery “other cat.” JoJo tolerated her. But JJ was a bit of a bully/brat. I did find them sleeping touching sometimes… rare, but it did happen. She wants another cat. But right now, being between homes (and jobs… ugh), I can’t take that on. I’d love nothing more than to give her a new buddy to hang with, but not in a temporary living situation. So, it has to wait for now.

I am that person who would go to the ends of the earth to help cats and help other humans understand cats. Whether it’s behavior, food, etc… if I don’t know it, I research it. With TK, I’m learning even more about ferals. They do amazing work there.

Well, I did a lot of rambling in this post. But I provided links and hopefully conveyed my love and passion for helping cats and other pets.

Portia and I still need help getting our stuff in storage paid up. She has some cat tents in there and more toys. And getting back to having a full size bed so there’s plenty of room for both of us and a future friend for Portia. But saving our stuff is super critical right now. Any help is greatly appreciated. Keep spreading the word.

Thank you

~Amanda and Portia