Fuck. What a week. It rained non-stop here which drives me bat shit on a street rat INsane. Living with agoraphobia, I don't usually go many places anyway. I go to the post office and the dollar store which are within my safety zone - but if I have to cross the street to go to the market I freak the fuck out. However, when it's raining and I can't go anywhere, I get stir crazy. No logic. Don't ask. It's like telling a kid they can not do something they don't want to do anyway and suddenly they want to do it.
Friday, it was finally nice enough to go out - and I spent ten and a half hours literally making myself sick trying to leave the house. Panic attack. I actually got up and got dressed. Panic attack. Got my bag ready. Panic attack. Had it all sitting here ready to go. Panic attack. This started at 7:30 a.m. - I still hadn't made it when Ki got home at almost 9 p.m. I just couldn't do it. And I was a physical wreck by the time it was all said and done.
Then today, I get slammed with one of my headaches. I am prone to Occular Migraines and they just come out of nowhere. It begins with little white spots in your vision - like snow - and turns into TV static on the wrong channel - WITH the noise. Eventually you can't see anything or tolerate sound, light, scent - anything. Then there's the vomiting and the aching and all sorts of other fun stuff. I caught this one today, fortunately, before it had a chance to get that bad but it still took me out for most of the day... I just laid on the couch for a good chunk of the day. And, of course, it was gorgeous outside and I missed it... Gofigger.
And then, just for gits and shiggles, all that fabulous creative mojo from last has died has died horribly in the night with its flesh errupting in boils and is laying on the side of the road like John Bobbit's hacked off pecker...
In the course of one job, I have gone completely flat. I'm frustrated and out of ideas. I am on the third incarnation of this thing, and still at square one. I didn't really have any direction or anything to go off out (from the client) to begin with and all I have gotten thus far is what they do not like. So in a job I got paid for once, I have done three - and turned down another one because I was working on this one. You do the math. FRUStrating.
Then, as if my injury weren't insulted enough, I was looking at other blogs, trying to get ideas and inspiration and I began to notice a trend. All these snazzy-ass cookie cutter blog templates that everyone is using of late. You know they kind - they're not dissimilar to these (via JellyPages.com):
I've often admired many of these blogs, and wondered how on earth the "Designers" (hahahhhahahahaha) had the time to build so many for such a large group of people. Tonight, why looking for ideas, I come to find out: They're not. I was looking at the page source for many of these blogs and time and again I find this:
/* ----------------------------------------------- Blogger Template Style Name: Minima Designer: Douglas Bowman URL: www.stopdesign.com Date: 26 Feb 2004 Updated by: Blogger Team ----------------------------------------------- */
Which means, all they are doing is ripping off the original blog template that Mr. Bowman there created and scotch taping pretty pictures to it. And they charge what I do!!! In fact, I brought my prices WAY down so as to compete only to find out that I am competing with something that is far less than competition. So now, the conundrum is 'what do I do?' Do I return my prices to what they were because with me people are actually getting a customized, original design? Or do I follow the sheep and sell ripped off cookie cutter designs to the sheeple so that I can stay in the same price point? I am gob smacked at this. Really. Out of the two dozen or so blogs I have just looked at, there were two "customized designs" that weren't a theft of a Blogger template. So I have been killing myself for bupkis. Arrrgghhh. It just all seems so shady and sneaky and wrong. [To check your own template - just out of the sake of curiousity and to see what you actually paid for - from your blogs home page in your browser, at the top, click "View" then "Page Source" and look to see if the above text is there. If it is, you could have done your design your danged self.]
Anyway - I am just bitching and rambling and annoyed. I'm sure you're as bored with it as I am. Hopefully this next week will improve and all will be well. Last week showed such promise - perhaps this week will follow through.
Fuck it,
P.S. To update on my Valentine's dilemma, I just said the hell with it. I didn't even bother. I am just not in the mood for any more negativity or unappreciative snark. Sosaid friend mentioned in the previous post gets shit from me. It sucks, and it is almost as hurtful (to me) in knowing that I can't even give something to someone. But my joy is in the giving and I am not going to allow them to take that away from me. So I will just keep it to myself. Sucks... But, fuck it. I am really not upset or mad, really - just disheartened and discouraged. This is why I hate holidays.
