life can be magnificent and overwhelming--that is the whole tragedy

    I'm going to try all this again. I doubt that I need to explain too much--life got in the way, overall. I've been sick. One morning about midway through June, I woke with vertigo symptoms that gradually got worse. I missed work a few days and have generally felt pretty lousy even when I was able to be there. It's like having all the anguish of a really nauseating hangover, with none of the dubious delights that come before. I'm dizzy, obviously, and sort of thick-headed. Either voraciously hungry or off my feed a little. Headachy. Sore neck, from holding my head still. Sleeping pretty well, but strange, deep, melancholy dreams that are clearly resulting at least in part from the vertigo itself (I'm holding on tight to something in practically every scene). Various treatments provided no relief until physical therapy started making a dent in it. I'm going in once a week now. With any luck it'll only take a couple more visits and I'll be all cleared up. This has really, really sucked. I've gained a whole new appreciation for serious illness--mine isn't even that severe.  And I'm starting to get the medical bills, which are shockingly quick to arrive and comprehensive in their "this is not covered by insurance" elements. 

    And a tiny little part (a fuse) on my furnace stopped working, inside of a slightly larger part (a module), inside of a slightly larger part (the blower motor). Unfortunately, in this world of integrated parts, the fuse and the module are not interchangeable parts, so the whole motor had to be replaced. That was a pretty big outlay of money.     

     And then my washing machine ate a pair of my work pants. Didn't chew them up so much as moosh them into a big chunky blob of grease from the gearbox. It will cost almost as much to repair the machine as it would to buy a new one, so that will be replaced. That wasn't in the budget, either.

    There is a tiny light at the end of the tunnel: another job. As in, an additional job. I am now a freelance writer for a group that contracts to a web company. I write short articles (between 375 and 750 words) every week or two on a variety of subjects as assigned by my project manager. She edits them if needed, and then they are passed along the pipeline and eventually published. There are three down, and three more in my queue before this quarter is through. When there is something to share, I will be glad to! For now, it's mostly an activity that obsessively sucks the life out of a few evenings a week every now and then.      

     And yet I don't know, honestly, how I'm going to afford all of this. I mean, I'll do it; I'll figure it out somehow. But it seems like the little gap I had between "comfortable" and "the wheels coming totally off" is getting more slim every day. The writing job isn't overwhelmingly lucrative. If it doesn't turn into something bigger--and if the vague implication that my patience at the regular job might be rewarded does not pan out--I will need to move onto something else entirely. Or, even, look at downsizing my life. And that would seriously suck, but I can't let anything stupid happen while I pretend that it's all fine.

    So. Anyway. For now, I'm going to try to keep my head on straight with the blogging thing. Here's to a new 31-day challenge.  Below are the prompts, and the first submission!

31 Day Photo Challenge: prompts

Day 1: "Yellow": flowers at Smithsonian Castle
c.2003

[the title quotation is by Albert Camus, and reads in its entirety: "Life can be magnificent and overwhelming--that is the whole tragedy. Without beauty, love, or danger, it would almost be easy to live."]