Blowing Hot Air on Election Day

In the state of Washington, voting is done by mail, which I did a few weeks ago, so instead of going to the polls this election day, I decided to blow some hot air myself . . . in the backyard . . . . at the dead leaves.

First Time with a Leaf Blower

Despite living in places where leaf blowers would have been handy, moving up to the Pacific Northwest has been the first time in which I have actually bought and used one. The one I got is an electric, lightweight Worx. Small, but surprisingly powerful and majorly easy-to-use.

Please forgive me for not taking before and after pictures. I started this project early in the morning, I had no idea that it would inspire me to write a blog, and I didn’t start taking pictures till halfway through.

The moment I turned on the leaf blower for the first time, I started to evil-giggle, because everything in front of me blew away in all directions.

After getting over the giggles, I went to work.

Techniques on How to Blow

When I took my leaf blower out of the box, I followed the instructions to snap it together – piece of cake. I then looked through the instructions to see if there were tips on the best ways to blow leaves. Instead, there were pictures. I figured if they could explain everything in six pictures, most of which were about assembling the device, then it couldn’t be that difficult to figure out.

Here is what I learned about blowing leaves today:

Dry Leaves Are Awesome

These buggers move quickly, and mostly they do what you want them to do. With gentle, back and forth strokes, you can roughly herd the dry, dead leaves in the vague direction that you want them to go.

Mother Nature’s Kindergarten Paste Project from Hell (I.E., Wet Leaves)

Living up here now in the Pacific Northwest, you have to plan out your yard work based on what the weather psychics tell you. The only reason I did anything today was because we had two actual dry days together. I figured it would be enough time for the leaves to mostly dry out. Sadly, I was wrong.

If you have to deal with wet or damp leaves, I recommend trying these three techniques:

Top-Down Method
The leaves on the top are generally looser, so if you start blowing those ones off of the mass of leaves, it lightens the load a bit and makes it easier to get the leaves moving.

Edge Method
Focus the blast on the edge of where the leaves are located. Slowly chip away the sticky layers of leaves. Then you can get them going where you want them to go.

Destroy the Structural Integrity Method
Unlike the top-down method, aim your blast at the bottom of the pile. Keep your blast targeted on one place and soon you will see the leaves start to rise and ripple like a wave. Slowly move your targeted blast upward, watching the cave-like ripple that you have created move. If you do this to a few places, it loosens up the structure and lets you blow the leaves away.

No Matter What, Corners Suck!

With the leaf blower, you can actually move the leaves far faster than you may have anticipated. If you move them away from you, it’s great, but when you come to a corner, it’s difficult to get the blast from the leaf blower to move the leaves, because the corner deflects your blast and causes the leaves to go crazy everywhere.

I realized that if I aimed the blast low in one place, the leaves would start going crazy, but if I slowly moved the blast away from the corner, I could get most of the leaves rolling in that direction. It’s not a foolproof method, as the pics show, but it gets the bulk.

A Blower, a Hoe, and a Can Lying down on Its Back

When we moved here, even though I know we had several shovels and a rake at our old house, those tools somehow did not seem to make it up here with us. I did not realize this when I planned my leaf blowing excursion today. Nevertheless, I MacGyvered myself a plan.

Of the yard tools we do have, (a leaf blower, a gardening hoe, and a broom), I decided I would turn the yard waste can on its back with the lid out like a makeshift dustpan. I blew the leaves toward the upturned can as best I could. In my mind, I thought perhaps I could blow all of the leaves in there without the use of other tools, but leaf blowers are not that precise. Luckily, I was able to get the bulk of the leaves in one place in front of the can, and with the help of the gardening hoe, I moved most of the pile into the can.

Of what was left, my partner helped me lift the yard waste can upright, push down the leaves, and gather up the small remaining pile of leaves by hand. He was also kind enough to wheel the can to the curb.

The Undeniable Truth of Trees

As I stood there looking over what I had done, proud of my ability to use a leaf blower and accomplish my goal, I was reminded of the undeniable truth about trees:

Trees are littering bastards!

No sooner had I finished leaf blowing and getting all the leaves gathered into the can when leaves started to fall from one of the nearby trees. Not only did the leaves start to fall, but one fell and landed right in my face!

The leaf blower may be put away for today, but the ongoing war with our neighborhood trees will last till the thaw of spring. Then the trees go to a more insidious type of warfare: POLLEN!!!

Helping Refugees: Advice From One Poor Person to Another

While scrolling through my Facebook feed, I came across Neil Gaiman’s post about his poem, “What They Took with Them,” which promotes standing with the refugees. This jarring and moving poem can be found –>here<– , as read aloud by Neil Gaiman, along with Cate Blanchett, Keira Knightley, Juliet Stevenson, Peter Capaldi, Stanley Tucci, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Kit Harington, Douglas Booth, and Jesse Eisenberg, as part of the #WithRefugees campaign, hosted by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the UN Refugee Agency.

As I listened to Neil Gaiman’s poetry spoken through his own mouth and through the mouths of so many actors I respect, I began to think about the refugees, their plight, and what I would do in their place. Having recently moved, I’ve become profoundly aware of the belongings I store, the ones I use, and the ones I keep with me for no other reason than to keep them. Yes, these are merely things, but they are the things I’ve carefully wrapped, packaged, and dragged with me from move to move throughout my adult life. The thought of being forced out of my home in a matter of minutes, if not seconds, with little else than my life and, hopefully, my family, scares me to the core.

Please do not misunderstand me.

Logically, I know I do not need all of the belongings I carry with me. That said, if having pared down and downsized three times in the past three years has taught me anything, it’s that the things we carry are the same things we use to keep connected to our past and to our identity. Even though I am still me without these things I have lost or left behind, I feel disjointed in the here and now, because the handful of broken pieces I have should fit together, but, more often than not, the pieces refuse to come together.

This must be how the refugees feel all the time, I imagine.

In time you can rebuild yourself, but the self you build is new. The shadows of your past haunt you like ghosts or half-forgotten dreams, and they influence how you rebuild the new you. The physical things you lose or leave behind were your connection with who you once were, and without them you are left always grasping for that part of you that was once here but will never be now.

What Can a Poor Person like Me Do to Help?

When I see celebrities promoting awareness and encouraging citizens to act, I commend them for being good examples to the rest of us, but a part of me struggles and feels unable to help. I live paycheck-to-paycheck. My family and I are barely getting by, and we are currently seeking better employment options to improve our situation. Even when we do improve our situation, it may only be by so much, making any financial contribution we could offer to charities minimal at best.

I know of the analogy that even if everyone gave only a dollar, those dollars would add up to lots of funding, but to whom do I trust my dollar?

There are many organizations that do help social causes, like the refugees, but a large number of these “non-profit” organizations only deliver a percentage of my dollar to the people they claim to be helping. The rest of my donation goes to pay for the organization to keep itself running. While I agree that the people working in the organizations should receive compensation for their efforts, and I know it takes an infrastructure to solve world problems, I still feel uncertain of who to trust. After all, when you have so little free capital to give away, you want to make sure you’re giving it to someone who will do the most good.

Since I do have so little free capital, I figure that the next best thing I can do is to provide you with some insight about who provides the most help, so that even a poor person like me can reach out to do the most good somewhere else.

For this post, I’m only going to look at organizations helping the refugees worldwide. If I miss any organization, please feel free to add them in the comments.

Which Charities Do the Most Good?

Charity Navigator  is a non-profit organization that reviews different charities and verifies each organization’s level of transparency and legitimacy. It also gathers data to prove how much of the money goes out to the causes each charity supports. You can go to their site and look up any charity for a full free report.

Below I have included a list of the charities that help refugees. Some of these charities focus exclusively on refugees, but other charities may have a wider area of focus. This list also indicates the percentage of donations that go directly to the refugees and supporting programs, according to Charity Navigator records published in June 2016.

United States Fund for UNICEF = 90.3%
International Rescue Committee = 91.9%
Catholic Relief Services = 92.7%
Hias  = 87.8%
Islamic Relief USA  = 87.2%
USA for UNHCR = 54.8%
Oxfam = 77.8%
Save the Children  = 90.2%
Refugees International = 80.7%
Friends of Refugees of Eastern Europe = 76.6%
American Refugee Committee = 90.1%
Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition = 83.2%

Things to Consider Before you Give Money

If you can donate money, there are a few factors you should consider. As Tara Siegel Bernard explains in her article, “How to Help in a Global Refugee Crisis” , providing money for a refugee’s immediate necessities is good, but it doesn’t solve the overall problem. Refugees need help with relocating, education, training, and rebuilding. Finding organizations that have programs geared for these purposes will make whatever money you can donate go a little further.

Siegel Bernard also recommends being selective when you choose any charitable organization. In terms of refugees, if you want to do the most good, you need to choose organizations that are situated in places where refugees are in the most need. For instance, if you choose an organization that has offices here in the states, but has no one on the ground in countries that are overrun with refugees, you have to wonder how much good that organization will do. Therefore, you want to choose organizations that can accomplish their goals and provide direct help to the people in need.

How to Avoid Being Scammed

Sadly, there are horrible people in this world who would lie to you simply so they can pocket your money. Many organizations have a list of recommendations to help you steer clear of any scandals. For example, UNICEF warns against organizations who ask for funds sent by Western Union. They also state to be wary of emails claiming that funds are needed to help charity employees get back home, to pay for medical bills, or for third-party companies supposedly arranging travel accommodations for charity workers. In addition, UNICEF points out that fraudulent charities may try to trick you by promising a commission, a reward, or something else in exchange for your donation.

The Center for High Impact Philanthropy,  as run at the University of Pennsylvania, offers a significant amount of education materials about the entire philanthropic process, including a discussion on how to create greater social change through identifying which philanthropic causes are best situated to produce the highest level of change. The organization also participates in researching charities, and it produces reports that help people determine which organizations to support. The Center for High Impact Philanthropy also makes the following recommendations on how to avoid being scammed:

• Do some rudimentary research online to see if a charity is legit
• Make use of organizations that provide free and unbiased reviews of non-profit organizations
• Before you donate money, see if you can volunteer your time as a way to get involved and make sure the organization is real

If Dante Wrote His ‘Inferno’ Today, Packing and Moving Would Be One of the Circles of Hell

First of all, I must apologize for my lack of blogging over the past seven weeks. As you may have guessed by the title, I have quite a legitimate excuse for not writing.

If you are not a subscriber to my newsletter, (go ->here<- and subscribe today!), you may not be aware that I have spent the past almost two months moving from the San Francisco Bay area to Vancouver, Washington, a total journey of almost 700 miles.

I won’t drone on about the details of our caravan, including a 26 foot moving truck followed by our three cars. Nor will I discuss how we left our old house over seven hours later than we’d originally planned. And I won’t even go into how I got mild food poisoning during the last 2 hours before we FINALLY got here in Vancouver, or how I had to stop at several gas stations as the rest of the caravan continued on without me. Yes – the adventure of moving is nothing but stress, chaos, uncertainty, and mild bouts of sheer madness.

Through it all, we’ve now been here at our new house for just shy of three weeks, and legitimately we are more than half-way unpacked and set up, more or less. Since we have a five-year-old, two cats, two adults working or starting their new jobs, and one adult desperately job-hunting, I would say we are doing better than most.

As I’m getting back on my normal writing and client-work schedule, I thought I should quickly write a blog, and for my blog I shall share with you some of the lessons this move has taught me. It is my hope that these lessons will help you, should you ever endeavor a move such as ours.

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Hearsay and Moving Logistics

While the Internet is a wonderful device, it has its failings. For instance, you can look up a lot of information online concerning the price of moving trucks, packing equipment, rental properties, etc., but many of the details that will screw you in the end are never posted.

Solution – Do your Internet research first, but ALWAYS CALL AND TALK TO A REAL PERSON!!!!

If you’re already on a tight budget, and who isn’t these days, you want to avoid as many expensive surprises as possible. Therefore, even if you have triple-checked a website concerning their price on whatever, call a real person, get them to run through the quote, and get confirmation of that quote.

As an example, when I was originally looking for moving trucks, I looked up stuff online and made only a few calls. I finally came across Enterprise, and by the numbers, they do literally have the best price. For a 26 foot moving truck, they charged $480 for a week and then a small per mileage fee. On paper, that beat out the competition by hundreds if not thousands of dollars. I even went through their online registration form to make sure the prices were accurate. When our moving dates became finalized, I finally called in to reserve our truck. Unfortunately, even though Enterprise offers an amazing deal, you have to return the truck to the same location from which you rented it.

Our amazing deal totally fell through, and we were left scrambling for the next best viable option.

To make matters worse, this was literally weeks before our move. Normally, at least I assume normally, people know where they are moving to weeks if not months in advance. We didn’t have a place established until less than 12 days before our agreed-upon move-out-of-date, which brings us to my next point.

Lock in the Price before They Gouge You

Many people move in the summer, because our traditional school schedules make that the best time to transition children from one place to another. Moving companies take full advantage of your situation, and hike the prices up like you wouldn’t believe during the summer.

For instance – back in April when I originally looked up the prices of trucks, I think the cheapest trucks I found besides Enterprise were 24 footers for somewhere around $1,200-$1,500. All of the places I called at that time told me to reserve my truck early, because then I could lock the price before the prices went up in summer. Of course, given our circumstances, we didn’t have guaranteed jobs or a place at that point, so I didn’t feel comfortable reserving the truck with that much uncertainty.

After we were left scrambling from the Enterprise debacle, I called around and found a 16 foot truck for all-in at around $1,200. We wanted (needed) something bigger, but the next size up, at that time, was another $500 that we simply didn’t have. Less than a week went by, and thanks to our wonderful family and friends, we got extra money for the move. I called to upgrade our truck to the next size, thinking it would only be another $500. From one week to the next, the price of our truck for the next size up, which would’ve been a 24 footer, was no longer an extra $500, but was now $1,000 more! We needed the bigger truck, so we bit the bullet.

The lesson here – either don’t move during the summer, or reserve as early as possible and deal with cancellation fees.

Changing over When You Get There Can Cost a Pretty Penny

No matter where you move, there’s a lot of things you have to change over or update. It’s easy to deal with your address and mail forwarding, but dealing with car insurance becomes problematic when you move from state to state.

In case you didn’t know – and I certainly didn’t know – California and Florida have the lowest car insurance requirements in the nation. Since I moved from California to Washington, I discovered that my California insurance plan would not be acceptable, and that my rates would go up from $70 a month to about $120.

Not a great way to start living in a new state.

On top of that, because Washington doesn’t see California as “equal insurance”, my fees are even higher, because for six months I will appear to be a previously uninsured driver. Absolute BS, but that’s how the state operates. Adding even more drama to the situation, one of my two cars has a salvaged title. I never thought it was a big issue, because in California there was no issue with my insurance. Anywhere else apparently has major issues, and a lot of insurance carriers, including Esurance, whom I’d been with for over three years, could not ensure a salvaged title car in Washington.

There was a bright side, though. Esurance deals with this sort of thing all the time, so they directed me to one of their recommended brokers who hooked me up with an insurance company who would ensure a salvaged title. As an added bonus, Esurance even refunded me, since the reason they could no longer cover me was no fault of my own. In my eyes, Esurance still rocks, and their refund just about covered the cost of switching insurance plans.

If there is a lesson here, it’s to call your insurance and figure out ahead of time what the cost changes will be. You can’t do much about it, since the costs are dictated by the state, but at least you can prepare your budget.

Final Thoughts on Surviving a Move

Stress will happen. Chaos will happen. Being unable to find stuff for weeks will happen. You can’t stop it, you can’t control it 24/7, (I’ve tried), and that is simply the way it is. If you can accept that the chaos will continue for a while, you’re doing better than I am.

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P.S. I realize this is more of a rant than a blog, but I hope you still enjoyed it. Expect more regular blogs within the next week or so. I’m still keeping true to my pay it forward challenge, which you can read up about ->here<-. I have many other blog topics brewing in my mind, so stay tuned =0)

When the Lights Flicker Out

In the movies, we all know that when the lights start to flicker and go out, some seriously spooky stuff is about to happen. But what are you supposed to do when the lights flicker out on you?

I’ve been facing this problem for weeks now.

Let me catch you up on the situation – since November, I have been trying to kick my fitness routine up to 11. Instead of only working out 2-3 times a week, I work out Monday-Friday, every morning, in the super-early hours before the start of my busy morning schedule. None of the gyms nearby me are convenient, and their rates are high, so I’ve decided to use the walking path across from my street as my make-shift gym. In other words, I have no excuses NOT to work out.

Normally, I cross the street, walk around a parking lot, and then walk through a gate to go down the walking path. The parking lot and the gate are part of the elementary school across from me, and the walking path goes through a semi-posh, upper-class neighborhood.

While I’m sure my path is perfectly safe, and while I have walked it numerous times, sometime back in December the lights right by the gate to the walking path began to flicker out.

!!!HELLO PARANOIA!!!

The first time it happened just as I was walking up to the gate. The light, which probably goes on and off on a timer, flickered and went out.

I stopped dead in my tracks.

Now remember, it’s early morning in the winter. The sun has not come up over the hills, so it’s pre-dawn dark. When one light goes out, all the shadows look a billion times more menacing.

So what did I do?

I took it as a sign. I’ve seen way too many movies and read too many books where people ignore stuff like this, and they get horribly murdered. I will not be a statistic!

Instead, I now cross the street, walk around the parking lot to where the gate is, and I pass by the gate to walk back and forth up and down the sidewalk from where the school begins to the end of the property about two blocks away. I still work out for the same amount of time, but instead of the serenely quiet walk through a slumbering neighborhood, I walk back and forth on a busy street with lots of lights.
The weird thing – the light still flickers, but only when I get close. It doesn’t flicker every morning, so I know it’s not motion sensors. In walking back and forth on my new path, the light sometimes flickers its supernatural warning, as if something or someone wants me to know that dangers still lie in wait.

I accept that it could just be a problem with the wiring. Of course, that is always what they say right before the ax murderer sneaks into your house and kills you.

Glittersin: A Fun New Word

 

During the holidays, glitter gets around faster than Santa!

Of course, glitter isn’t just for the holidays. It stays around all year long, no matter how much you try to wash it out. As a result of all the glitter, I have decided that there should be a word that describes the mess and the madness, and that word is:

Glittersin

What Does It Mean and How Do I Use It in a Sentence?

First of all, glitter in moderation is okay. It adds a dash of sparkle to everything, and in some instances you need a little extra shimmer.

Unfortunately, most people go overboard when it comes to glitter, and by doing so they have stumbled into the territory of glittersin.

In simplest terms, you use the word “glittersin” to describe a person, item, or décor that has gone overboard with glitter. I understand that this glitter assessment is subjective, but as you’ll see from the examples below, there are clear instances of glittersin.

You can throw this new word into any conversation. Here are some examples:

“Did you see that glittersin of a dress over there?”
“Let’s glittersin it up!”
“What sweet glittersin is this?”
“Hello, my little glittersin.”
“Touch me with that glittersin and you will lose an eye!”

As you’ll notice, there is no space between the word “glitter” and “sin.” Combining these two words into one word further underscores the level of atrocity with true glittersins.

Examples of Glittersins from Around the Web

 

When I see this picture, I shudder to think that people are taking pills to poop glitter. Talk about the epitome of going too far! According to this article on Vocativ.com, these pills are meant as a novelty item and are sold through many outlets, predominantly Etsy.com. Besides the novelty, according to this article, even the makers of glitter pills don’t understand exactly why people are buying them. Some people give the pills as humorous gifts, others open the pills and use the glitter for makeup or crafting. All in all, when you could just buy glitter in bottles, this seems excessive and silly. Thus, GLITTERSIN!

 

A sparkly vampire!?!? Because a humanized monster has to be covered in glitter (?). Is the glitter supposed to make vampires look like gods or something? If anything, the idea of something murderous being shiny is even more evil, since everyone knows that shiny things attract people. In this world of fiction, glittery skin might be an evolutionary thing to attract prey, but in my world of reality – GLITTERSIN!

When I first saw the glitter beard images online and on social media, I had my WTF moment. I thought maybe it was a pro-LGBT statement, which I would totally support. Then I wondered if the pictures had been doctored for the season, because who would be crazy enough to cover their beards in glitter? Apparently these guys: The Gay Beards. As entertaining as their video is, glitter beard = glittersin.

Even though the word “glittersin” may not yet be in anyone’s lexicon, the idea of glittersin has been around for a while, as proven by the company that started weaponizing glitter. Dave McGinn, a reporter for The Globe and Mail, discovered that the company that sends your enemies glitter originated in Australia. The person who started the company had to shut down the site due to an excessive amount of orders that could not be filled. The company was sold, and per McGinn’s research, currently there are two companies in Canada providing the glitter bomb service.

Unfortunately, McGinn discovered the expectation of glitter bombing your enemies is fairly different from the reality of sending glitter in the mail.

Yep, that’s it. A mean letter with like maybe a few tablespoons of glitter. Talk about a failed attempt at vengeance!

Can you describe sending glitter to your enemies as a glittersin? As it is not a bomb of glitter and more of a vague inconvenience, I would say no. You could describe the idea of using glitter for vengeance as glittersin, since it is going one step too far with glitter, much like this idea:

Anger Addiction: My Failure to Communicate

I can’t tell you how many times a day I sit there thinking something like this:

If so-and-so would just do “this,” they’d have no more problems.

Maybe you have similar thoughts. My problem is that my thought doesn’t stop there. I will spend hours in this thought cycle thinking about what so-and-so should be doing. I will go over every detail in my mind of all the things so-and-so needs to be doing, should be doing, or could be doing better. As if that weren’t crazy enough, I will obsess over how I would do things if I were that person, and I think how I would do everything better.

Then I start to get angry.

In my mind, I start to complain about why so-and-so isn’t doing all these things that I have thought about. Why aren’t they taking better control of their lives? Why aren’t they doing things more effectively? Why aren’t they doing everything I have thought for them to do?

I let this thought process stir me up into such a frenzy of rage that by the next time I’m around so-and-so, the moment they do the slightest thing wrong – and I do mean the slightest –all of my anger unloads on them. I start to go off about what I think they should be doing with their lives. Realize that all of this comes out in a burst of degrading belittlement that so-and-so DOES NOT even remotely deserve.

After recognizing that I do all of this madness, I’ve started looking at my life and my relationships. Obviously, I have an anger management problem.

When you admit to having this problem, you will most likely do what I did. You start Googling how to get over it. I came across the following term:

Anger addiction

I reviewed the definition on several websites. Most sites argue that people prone to repeated outbursts of anger suffer from some form of anger or rage addiction. Many sites also describe the cycle of anger addiction, and I’ve included a graphic below:

From this graphic, the implication is that people let their anger build up instead of talking about it. Eventually it comes to a breaking point, which is when people burst out with moments of yelling and rage. Letting everything out feels good, but that feeling is only temporary. Anger addicts will then supposedly apologize and start to act differently to show remorse for hurting the ones around them. Unfortunately, they haven’t really dealt with the problem, and once again they let all the anger inside of them build up until it bursts out again, and the cycle repeats itself .

When I look at this cycle, to me it doesn’t seem like addiction in the classic sense. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, addiction means “dependent upon; unable to do without; devoted.” For myself, I’m not addicted to being angry.  I don’t like how I feel when I’m angry. I don’t enjoy screeching at my loved ones and then watching them turn away. I’m not devoted to anger. In my opinion, I’m addicted to the need to be in control and this addiction is significantly affecting my communication skills and causing me to act out in anger.

Control Obsession

The definition of obsession is as follows, “preoccupy; fill the mind continually; a persistent idea or thought dominating a person’s mind.”

Before we can move on with the idea of obsession in relation to anger management, let me tell you about myself. I am a planner. I deal with the problems directly in front of me and I foresee the problems down the road as well. As a writer, I have developed this skill fairly well. Many aspects of my life have contributed to my ability to forecast, predict, and plan future events. The downside to being a planner, at least for me, is that you become hyper dependent upon always having a plan. It gives you control in a world of chaos. As I try to maintain control, I plan out my life, but I can’t have true control if I don’t take into account all the variables.

What are the variables?

Everyone in my life is a variable – I don’t mean to come off cold or calculative, but for a control addict like myself, this is how we see the world. We know our loved ones very well, and we know the choices they will most likely make. In this knowledge, we can plan out how things will happen, what to expect, and what obstacles will most likely occur. Realize that when control addicts do all of this planning that it’s not necessarily overtly methodical or well detailed. Planning is what we do and how we live. We do this all the time, so it becomes almost subconscious. In fact, you may not know you have the addiction until things fall out of your control.

When you review anger management psychology articles, you come across the following phrase repeatedly:

People become angry because their needs are not being met.

My obsession with over-planning and controlling the situation is directly stopping my needs from being met; in many ways, my obsession is a self-sabotaging road to anger town. I have noticed that I let myself get angry when the people I love act in a way that does not go according to the plan I obsessively laid out in my mind. My need to be in control is not being met, which sets off my anger, at least in the cycle of anger as described above.

When I say all of this out loud, I realize the bigger issue here:

My need to be in control of others is not reasonable for myself nor is it fair to the people around me.

Most of the people in my life are fully capable adults able to make their own choices. My need to micromanage others is an obsessive behavior that stems from many other issues.

Which other issues am I talking about? Well, during the past two years, my life has been in a constant state of transition. I’ve gone through a divorce, moved twice, job hunted for over a year, gained and lost several clients, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg! All of my normal planning strategies can only work to a point these days, because there are so many variables I cannot affect let alone control within my life right now. It is not surprising that most of my rage problems have manifested during all these transitional moments in my life.

How to Move Forward

Through my research and writing out my thoughts, I can admit to myself and to all of you that my addiction to control and my obsession with controlling others has created an unrealistic lifestyle. Rationally, I know that I’m wasting precious time with obsessing about how others should live their lives. Furthermore, letting the anger build up inside of me is taking all my focus away from more deserving projects. Obsessing about others and getting angry at them shows that the real issue is that I’m upset with my own lack of control.

There are many factors out of my control right now. Adding more problems to my list, I also have MAJOR issues reaching out for help or admitting I have been hurt. All of this has led to less communication and more outbursts of anger.

For me, my anger builds, because I don’t tell people when something upsets me. I’m failing to communicate my actual emotions, since I’m afraid of hurting their feelings or because I don’t want to admit vulnerability. It’s a stupid show of pride, perhaps, or it’s an unreasonable obligation of having to be nice ALL the time. Either way, it’s a habit I have had for probably over a decade. Kicking the habit and facing it every day will prove the greatest challenge.

As I’ve been researching all of this, I’ve tried to talk to those people around me who are doing things that upset me. I have had to be very careful of my tones, because I know I can sound callous or demeaning if I’m not careful. During these recent experiments, for lack of a better word, I’ve expressed why the other person’s actions were upsetting me and why I felt my needs were not being met. In both cases, the other person had no idea about how I was feeling, and for the most part they responded positively and we found an arrangement that was beneficial for both of us. I was also able to let go of the upset feelings (anger seeds) that normally I would just bottle up. It made me feel a little lighter.

It hasn’t all been a productive experience, though. My obsessive thought cycles happen sometimes without me even realizing it for several minutes. I’m trying to catch myself when these cycles happen and redirect my thoughts somewhere else. If I can’t redirect my thoughts and my mind wanders back to the obsessive cycle, I’ve been loudly singing a song in my head. While traveling on public transit today, I was singing and bobbing my head together as a way to try to move myself away from that negative thought cycle. I had to do this repeatedly, and I probably looked ridiculous, but it worked.

My fight with addiction will be a two-front battle. Part of it will involve stopping myself from the obsessive thought cycles, and the other part will be learning how to deal with my need for control. I do not think being a planner is a bad thing, but I know I have taken it to an extreme that is causing major issues in my life. During this past week, I have had several moments where I started down the control freak path. I managed to stop myself with the following thought: “It’s their life. Plan your own moves, and get focused on your work. You have plenty to do without worrying about their crap.” It’s a long mantra – true – but for the moment it is helping me deal with my addiction.

I know I have a long way to go, and I know I’m going to slip up in the future, but I feel calmer today, and right now that’s what I really want.

Catch up on My Page Updates

Today I spent a good amount of time updating information about my Blog (life) Journey. Follow the link to read up on where my career is currently going, and learn about the obstacles that tried to get in my way . . . as if they stood a chance!!!

For all you fellow writers, I have also updated my Goodies and Tips for Bloggers and Freelancers page. Over the past six weeks, I have been doing MAJOR research on current trends in the freelance industry. Find out all the tidbits I’ve learned, follow some of the great links I have found, and learn some new strategies.

Thanks for staying with me, everyone!

Sound Susceptibility: It’s Stuck in My Head!

Most people hear familiar songs and then get those tunes stuck in their heads for the rest of the day. It’s annoying, but it happens. For me, though, I’ve had moment when someone just mentioned the name of a song or barely hummed a few notes from the chorus, and BAM!!! I’m singing the song for days on end!!!

I keep wondering why this happens to me. Why am I so susceptible to this phenomenon? Others must have the same problem, so I decided to do a little digging and find out why songs get stuck in our heads.

Many Names, Same Issue

All around the world, people call the phenomenon by different names. In her article, “Why Songs Get Stuck in Your Head,” Elizabeth Hellmuth Margulis points out that the American term, “earworm,” is by no means original. In fact, it’s a straight translation from the German “Ohrwurm.” In Italian, Margulis explains that they refer to it as “tormenting songs,” (canzone tormentone), and that the French call it “stubborn music” (musique entêtante).

The phenomenon has even made its way from pop-culture slang into academic circles. According to Margulis research, scientists have coined such phrases as “stuck song syndrome,” “brain itch,” “cognitive itch,” “brain idling,” and “sticky music.”

Academic research into this area has not been very extensive, and scientists such as Lassi Liikkanen have advocated for more serious research into the field. Liikkanen refers to the earworm concept as involuntary musical imagery (INMI), and he has published several papers and conducted various studies into what causes INMI.

Although he himself has performed significant research, Liikkanen (2011) has pointed out some of the problems with obtaining usable data. Namely, there is a large margin of difficulty in causing INMI repeatedly enough among subjects to get consistent, comparable, and accurate results.

When and (Possibly) Why it Happens

To determine the when and the why, Elizabeth Hellmuth Margulis compares research gathered by Liikkanen as well as from Freya Bailes, a known musicologist. Although Bailes uses a different method for gathering data from her subjects, as compared to Liikkanen, her findings point to some interesting factors.

First of all, her research indicates that a higher majority of participants experience earworms, or what she calls “musical imagery,” during downtime in between tasks. These “filler” moments, as she calls them, occur between tasks or sometimes during repetitive tasks, such as cleaning or driving. Bailes proposes that the brain may be subject to musical imagery during these moments as a way to fill in the gaps and to go into a sort of motorized idle before switching gears to the next task.

More often than not, participants in Bailes study reported that their musical imagery moments typically included repeating a song’s chorus or main melody. Since these parts of the song were the most repeated, Bailes theorizes that the effect of repetitive melodies creates the result of “music on the brain.”

In Liikkanen’s (2011) research, he discusses that one of the leading hypotheses about the causes of INMI/musical imagery is that it occurs most often after individuals have recently heard music. While he does not deny that hearing familiar music may proceed instances of INMI, Liikkanen does not imply that it is a required precondition to experience the phenomenon. If anything, controlled testing situations make the finding more prevalent, since researchers must play the music to see if they can trigger INMI episodes.

Liikkanen’s research did determine that participants were more likely to experience INMI after listening to familiar songs versus new songs. Although, songs with unique rhythm patterns, new or familiar, also had a greater likelihood of triggering INMI. Familiarity with the song was not necessarily a requirement to achieve INMI, per Liikkanen, although it certainly made some participants more susceptible.

Examining the results of previous studies, Liikkanen postulates that one of the reasons why we get songs stuck in our heads could be related to how we learn new information.

Most teaching methodologies promote repetition. Therefore, we’ve been conditioned to go into learning-mode the moment that we hear any repetitive data. Once we achieve learning-mode, whether consciously or otherwise, we keep repeating the information on what feels like an endless loop until one of two things occur:

1. Our brains determine that we have sufficiently learned the new data, and our brains stop repeating the loop.
2. We deliberately terminate learning-mode by distracting our brains with something completely different.

Are You More Susceptible?

Are people with obsessive or neurotic tendencies more susceptible to earworms?

According to Liikkanen (2008), of the subjects examined in previous INMI studies, it seems that individuals who also had a higher degree of neuroticism were more than likely to be susceptible to INMI. He argues that the brain needs to complete specific patterns, and does so through repetition of the song melodies or rhythms. Neurotic tendencies could explain the need to repeat certain patterns, but since Liikkanen’s research did not focus on neurotic individuals, and nor did he do a comparison of people with high neuroticism versus low neuroticism, it has yet to be definitively proven if neurotic individuals are any more or less susceptible to INMI.

What about musicians? Does years of music training make people more likely to get music stuck in their heads?

Liikkanen’s research shows that musical and nonmusical individuals are equally as susceptible to getting familiar sounding song lyrics stuck in their minds; however, people with a background in music are twice as likely to have familiar sounding instrumental pieces trigger moments of INMI. While participants from both groups are susceptible to experiencing INMI after listening to unfamiliar music, Liikkanen’s findings show that musically-inclined people were more susceptible to this stimuli.

 

Hunt . . . Apply . . .WAIT . . .Get Depressed . . . Repeat

For some time now, I have been in a state of transition for many personal and professional reasons, but right now I’d like to talk about something many of us can relate to:

depression caused by all the waiting around during the job hunt.

It’s bad enough to wait for potential employers to call back and set up the first steps of the interview process. Waiting for the first call no longer bothers me, though. Now I dread the time after the interview.

As you wait to find out if you have been chosen for the position, time drags by at a snail’s pace. For the first few days after the interview, every time the phone rings, you leap to answer it only to discover it’s just your friend or family member calling. You check your email every 10 minutes, just in case. You torment yourself by replaying the interview in your head again, and again, and again, just to see if you may have said something idiotic or insensitive.

Eventually, someone might be kind enough to end your suffering by sending you some sort of rejection letter. More often than not, though, you hear nothing about the job for close to a week, stress over whether emailing them about the position makes you sound needy, finally email the employer anyway, and then find out that the company has selected someone else or that the position has been put on hold.

Or – if the stars align and the time is right – you might actually get offered the position!

NEVERTHELESS . . . before you get any answers, there is still the matter of what to do while you are waiting for your professional life to move forward.

Sure – you could do nothing and just sit there waiting. After all – you totally nailed the interview, you have a solid resume, and your references can’t say enough good things about you. Why do anything else BUT wait for the good news?

First of all, while there is nothing wrong with overconfidence, it’s easy to let your hubris blind you.

REALITY CHECK: most employers don’t have time to waste, so they only speak to the people with the best credentials, experience, and references. That means that no matter how good you are, chances are you are up against people who are equally as talented.

Of course, knowing the reality of the situation doesn’t make the waiting process any easier. The dark voices of your job hunt-induced depression will make you obsess about all your negative attributes, your insufficient training in one area, or your lack of experience in another.

Waiting makes us down spiral because it’s the place in which we have no control over our destiny.

We can’t make employers read our resumes, and we can’t make interviewers choose us over the others. When you’re waiting, everything is out of your hands, making you feel vulnerable, miserable, and easily agitated.

Luckily – you can fight back against waiting-game depression!

The following recommendations WILL NOT cure you of your depression, but these suggestions will help you keep your energy up, so you can remain vigilant on the job hunt.

Post-Interview R&R

You just had your big interview, and you feel amazing. Granted, you’ve gone through the interview dance before, but don’t let that get you down! Remember that statistically only 1 out of every 100 applicants get interviewed. You deserve a pat on the back just for getting selected, so feel free to celebrate a little. More importantly, give yourself a break.

If you have been on the job hunt for long, you have spent weeks, if not months, meticulously reading through job advertisements, and you have no doubt spent just as much time crafting the perfect cover letter and resume. After finally getting an interview, going back to the grind of the job hunt is the last thing you want to do – so don’t stress yourself out over it.

Give yourself at least one day away from the job hunt. Watch movies, play video games, read a book, leave the house – whatever you want, as long as you give yourself that time to relax as a reward for your hard work.

Maintain Productivity

After some well-deserved R&R, you have to get right back into the swing of job hunting. It might be the last thing you want to do, especially while you’re waiting to hear back from an employer, but until you receive an actual offer of employment, the fact is you DON’T have the job.

Besides, in today’s job market, timing is everything! Consider the following:

• Most employers respond to applicants and set up interview appointments within 3-7 days of the original job advertisement posting.
• The majority of employers take 5-10 business days to choose who they want to hire after the final interviews have taken place. (That means you’re waiting up to two weeks for a decision.)
• If you wait to start sending out job applications until you receive a formal rejection, you will be set back 1-3 weeks on your job hunt.
• If you start job hunting 1 business day after your big interview, you could possibly set up another interview with a different company before you even get the results from your first interview.

To put it more simply, regardless of how many interviews you get, you have to keep moving forward with your plan to get a new job. That means if your goal is to apply to 10 different positions every week, STICK TO YOUR PLAN! Until you get that offer, treat it like business as usual.

Remember that every time you take a break from sending out applications, you set yourself back by days or weeks, which will only make the depression worse. It’s difficult to stay committed, especially while you’re waiting, but if you think about it as something to do WHILE you’re waiting, it may help take the edge off.

Healthy Distractions

Although staying productive is key, there are only so many job applications you can send out. If you are currently working while job hunting, you can use your job as a distraction. If you’re not working, or only working part-time/freelance, you have a lot more time to kill, so you’ll have to determine which healthy distractions work best for you.

Realize that by healthy I don’t necessarily mean things that can improve your health. I mean tasks they keep you mentally healthy and away from the down falls of depression.

If improving your health does distract you, studies have shown that exercise can improve your moods, which can help fight depression and anxiety.

When choosing other distractions, remember to choose activities that will minimize further frustrations. While trying to learn a new skill may improve your resume, the stress of job hunting can make you more irritable than usual. Angry people typically don’t make the best learners, so if you’re too frustrated to focus, you may want to try something else.

Another factor to consider when choosing your distractions includes choosing something that gets you out of your house. It’s easy when you’re job hunting to become reclusive, which only makes you more depressed. Try to get out of the house and visit with friends. Even if you’re low on funds, there are some free and inexpensive activities you can do with other people, such as meeting up to window shop, hanging out in the park, etc.

As an added bonus, by leaving your house on a regular basis, it’s easier to ignore your email inboxes, since you’re keeping yourself busy with other activities. If you check your email by phone, however, it might be harder to keep yourself distracted. Some therapists recommend turning your phone off for at least one hour every day. Let people know when you’re turning your phone off, just in case an emergency happens, though. Many people have reported that turning off their phones makes them feel lighter. Some people even experience a sense of relief when they don’t have to deal with the constant chiming and vibrating of their phones every five seconds.

Retweets, Shares, and Repins: Rediscover Social Media Joy

At any moment in time, one of my clients could hire me to write content for their social media accounts. As a result, I spend an ample amount of time during my off hours researching social media trends. I also try to stay up-to-date with all the tricks for using the major platforms (Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest, Reddit, Tumblr, and so forth.).

The other day I had an epiphany: I know how to use all of these sites, but I only use two of them on a regular basis.

It’s not to say that the other sites aren’t fantastic, because each platform has its own bells and whistles that the other sites just don’t possess. Nevertheless, most of my working hours are spent online or on my computer, so I don’t really find it that “relaxing” to spend a lot of time on these sites.

There are other issues that suck the joy out of my social media surfing.

First and foremost – I have way too many friends who need to go to    re-posters anonymous!!!

They totally spam up my feeds with an endless barrage of memes, images, and gaming scores. Sure, some of the images are cute, and a few of the memes make me laugh, but that’s pretty much all these people post. They don’t post thoughtful, real life updates. And, although they may like EVERY-FREAKIN-THING I post, they almost never provide real comments.

Second – Obligatory friendship.

Look through your list of friends, people you’re following, etc. How many of them are your friends’ significant others, friends of friends you barely see at parties, or people from your past who you haven’t spoken with IN PERSON in over a decade? I’d wager to guess that a lot of your “friends” fall into this category. I’m the same way, so no stone-throwing here. Regardless, it’s the social convention that drives me crazy. These are people who I don’t have time for in real life or who I don’t care about, yet heaven forbid I be rude by not befriending them!

Third – Clicking your way down the virtual rabbit hole.

If I should be working, I try to tell myself “Stay off social media. You can play later.” I’m disciplined enough where that works 90% of the time, but I’m REALLY good at telling myself, “Okay – you can play for five minutes.” Fast-forward 30+++ minutes later, and I find myself down-spiraling in distraction.

Fourth – ZOMBIE MODE.

Sometimes I’ll go on social media for no real reason. I just scroll down the page, click things at random, and sit there zombified for God knows how long. Every time I come out of the haze I ask, “What the hell am I doing!?” I then have the overwhelming urge to run from my computer before the bright colors lull me back into zombie mode.

As you can see, there are multiple factors making it a living nightmare to keep up with social media. However, it will only be a bad experience if you let it. So—make your experience a good one.

The first thing you have to do is accept that if you want to play with the awesomeness that is social media, you have to put up with the problems. Verbalizing your issues and/or complaints, like how I did above, really can help get out your frustrations. In addition, most people have the same complaints, so you can band together among your fellow social media soldiers and support one another through the madness.

Another trick that I’m trying to do involves replacing the angry thoughts with happier and more grateful thoughts. In a nutshell, get over your burnout by remembering why you like social media. Try to think of it this way:

What can social media can do for me?

If you can’t think of anything that makes you happy about social media, or anything social media can do for you, then maybe you should consider getting off for a while.

To stay happy on the social media bandwagon, I’ve discovered two ways to make myself enjoy my social media time once again. These tricks may not work for you, but they may help you find your own way back to online joy.

#1 Mobile Apps

Every major site allows you to access your information through your phone. For me, the phone is enough of a disconnect to take me out of computer-work-mode and into happy-go-lucky-mode. Granted, I do my business calls exclusively through my Bluetooth headset, so since I don’t hold my phone during business, I can still see my phone as a toy versus a tool, even though I know it serves both purposes.

#2 Platform Building

I’m getting closer to having everything in place to launch my platform as a fiction writer. And, as explained thoroughly in one of my previous blogs, you can only build your platform if you simultaneously build your fan base, which means networking, networking, networking. In other words, the hours I will spend on social media sites will be time well spent developing my legion of followers.

Please feel free to post below with how you have rediscovered your social media joy.

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