Hi, We’re Moving

To talulahmankiller.com.

The Boyfriend and I bought the URL a couple of months ago, but then he got distracted by school and I got distracted by my complete technological ineptitude and nothing came of it.  With me going freelance soon, though, it doesn’t make any sense to just let it sit there, eating all the food in the fridge, not picking up after itself, and refusing to pay rent.  So the Boyfriend graciously set things up, and I’ve begun blogging over there.  It’s pretty much exactly the same as it is over here, except now I have a “Professional Services” page and I FINALLY REVEAL MY REAL NAME.

I know you’re excited.

Yes, there will be ads on the new site.  I hope that doesn’t bother anyone unduly and I will strive to make them as not-tacky as possible, but let’s face it:  it would be silly for me to pass up the opportunity for a source of income when I’m about to quit my job.  I’m also toying with the idea of becoming an Amazon Associate (meaning that if you click on a link to Amazon from my site and then go on to purchase that item, I get a veeeeeeeeeery small cut), but I haven’t decided.  If a not-balls company has a similar deal going on, I’d love to hear about it.

When you make it over to the new site, you’ll notice that it’s painfully empty because, ahem, all the archives are still here.  Hopefully at some point we’ll be able to shift all of the content from this blog over to the new website, but the Boyfriend is having some problems with that and since I pay him in nothing but love and affection, I can’t exactly demand that he do it RIGHT NOW…or even next month.  I mean, you guys have been reading me for awhile–you know I don’t have much love and affection to offer.  It’s going to take me a long, looooong time to build up credit with him, especially after last night’s picture-editing fiasco…

Last bit of housekeeping:  if you follow me on twitter, this should be the last post from this location that shows up.  I’ll be changing the twitterfeed TOMORROW.

So, um, please update your links, please keep reading, and I love you all.  Even those of you with creepy earwax stories.  Okay, ESPECIALLY those of you with creepy earwax stories.

xoxo,

Talulah

The View From My Desk Right Now

Snuggles

Stock Hooker Photo

Methinks they need to start springing for new cover art, cause seriously.  SERIOUSLY.

Snow Bunny Part VIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII…

E-book

I know most of you are like, “Talulah, I don’t want to see more pictures of your fucking cat in the fucking snow, okay?”  But frankly, I don’t care.  I AM OWED, GUYS.

My mother tells this story about how when I was a toddler, my entire immediate family went down to Virginia Beach for the day and she tossed me in the ocean to be raised by squids.  Okay, not that last part.  She put me in the ocean and we were playing and then all of a sudden, this black gunk started dripping out of my ears.  She and my dad fah-reaked, because they thought it was blood and that their precious, most perfect and wonderful youngest child was hemorrhaging out her ears.

It was earwax, y’all.  Although on a related note, a couple of years later momma was using a Q-tip a little too vigorously and it slipped and she stabbed me, possibly in the brain.  I bled out of my ear a WHOLE LOT.  And now I get to hold that over her for the REST OF OUR LIVES.

Isn’t parenthood awesome?  Don’t you want to go have a kid RIGHT NOW?

Time for a Little Brutal Honesty

E-book is here.

First off, thank you to everyone who’s written in or emailed with suggestions about what to do with my liiiiiiiiiiife.  I haven’t given you guys nearly the attention and credit you deserve, and I’m sorry about that.  I really do appreciate the time, the effort, and the advice—especially the stuff that’s not all, “Rah rah, quit your job!” because I know that wasn’t easy to write.

And now, on to the part where I more fully explain my reasons for quitting said job.

Being bored with my job is not what’s driving me out of it.

Knowing that I need to leave this job if I’m ever going to do what I want with my life?  Also not what’s driving me out of it.

Don’t get me wrong:  those are factors, and they are important to me, but at the end of the day?  My full name is actually Talulah Inertia Mankiller.  I hate change, absolutely hate it, and fear of the unknown has kept me from taking a risk or making a switch that almost certainly would have benefited me more times than I can count.  I.  Don’t.  Like.  Change.

But the truth is, I am mentally ill, and that trumps everything:  my hatred of change, my job security, my desire to succeed as a “normal person,” everything.

For a long time after I began drug therapy, I honestly thought that I was a success story.  In many ways, I was.  For a good nine months or so, the medications I’m currently taking eradicated my symptoms.  I slept fine, my nervous tics toned way down, and my social anxiety was pretty much nil.  I experienced a hiccup in late July, but that eventually calmed down.

And then last month, everything went to shit.

I don’t want to get into the why or how, but yeah:  I was presented with a situation, and my brain overloaded and could not handle it.  Which means that I stopped sleeping unless I took a metric fuckton of Klonopin or busted out one of the Lunesta samples my quack GP gave me a few months ago.  Last Friday, I experienced what I am pretty sure was a wee bit of a panic attack (there was hyperventilating over a cat toy.  A CAT TOY.).  I have been fighting with my insurance company for over a month—I’ve been trying to get a new doctor, they’ve been feeding me misinformation and the occasional outright lie.  You know the deal.  And in all honesty?  This is just not fucking worth it anymore.

I know that there are a lot of people who are sitting there thinking that I’m a weenie, that I should suck it up and deal because so many people are out of jobs right now and I’m damn lucky to have health insurance, even if it’s total shit.  And I largely agree with those people, which is what has made this decision and what is making this process so difficult.  But at the end of the day?  I would rather not drug myself into a stupor to keep a job.  I would rather not live in misery and pain—yes, physical pain, I claw the holy hell out of myself when I’m nervous—because I’m too afraid to take a chance on something that might be more my speed.

If I fail, then I fail.  I’ll find a new job (and no, I don’t expect that to be easy, either), and go back to working 8-5 (because no one works 9-5 anymore, trust).  In the meantime, I’ve got savings and a support network.  I don’t have as much in savings as I’d like and I don’t like asking for help, but life is what it is.  Right now, today, this is a move that I need to make for the sake of my mental health.  And also so that I can spend all day staring into Oliver’s beautiful, terrible eyes.

Hanging out Underneath the Table, Waiting for a Treat