The Raven's Song

  From Monday, July 17, 2017 To, but not including, Thursday, November 1, 2018 Result: 472 days Or 1 year, 3 months, 15 days  Or 15 months, 15 days  -- Alternative time units -- 472 days can be converted to one of these units: 40,780,800 seconds 679,680 minutes 11,328 hours 472 days 67 weeks and 3 days That's how long my family and I spent in the Hell known as Haven House, a homeless shelter that serves approximately 14 counties in southern Indiana. To this day I'm still working through the trauma from that place.  Where do I even begin? The whole experience was so traumatic to me. I was an only child and was never around this many people. On any given night there were over 100 people there. Some were alcoholics. Some were on drugs. There were families. Some of the children were okay but the vast majority were horribly undisciplined. I was separated from my husband and son because, for safety reasons, the men were on a different floor th...

I used to have arachnophobia really, REALLY bad. However, I did have a morbid fascination with tarantulas. I have no idea why. Then one day I was at a certain pet shop that happened to sell tarantulas. I stood there for awhile watching this beautiful female rosehair. (The clerk had told me what she was.) I told the clerk about my arachnophobia and morbid fascination with tarantulas. He asked me if I wanted to hold her. He said that the female rosehairs were very gentle. I don't know what possessed me but I ended up saying yes. He placed the tarantula on the back of my hand and she started to walk around. She was so so soft! I don't know why that surprised me. I mean, you can look at a tarantula and see the fur. After the clerk put the tarantula away he asked me if I wanted to hold a black scorpion. Nope! I wasn't that brave. I just did not have to same courage with the scorpion as I did with the tarantula. I don't know why. I think looking at its tail really intimidated...

 It hurts me to admit that my family was in a homeless shelter, aka Hell, from July 17, 2017 to November 1, 2018, but there we were due to some unscrupulous slumlord whom I will never forgive. But that's a different story. At the time we were in the shelter it was owned by a woman that I'll call Bev. It has since changed ownership and has hopefully improved. Bev had to sell the place because she and one of her employees were both embezzling and Bev couldn't pay a sewer bill that had risen to over $20,000. Bev had 2 employees who worked at the shelter during the day, throughout the week. One was the aforementioned embezzler. The other one was apparently cooking the books as well. But I digress. There was also staff chosen from among the residents. Some of these staff members left something to be desired, but that's just my own personal opinion of them. When we got to the shelter we went through an intake process, which was to be expected. Then we were separated. For safe...

Just a little train-of-thought exercise, trying to get over this damn writer's block that I've had for far too long. I used to write a lot. I wrote articles for a newsletter. I wrote poetry. I never have written a story though. I started one once but it never went anywhere. I'd love to publish something someday... if I can get over this damn writer's block. I can't even keep my blog going on a regular basis. This honestly hurts me. I want to write. I really do. I want to play DnD. I want to have a long term campaign but something always stops us. (My gaming group is my family.)  We have an opportunity to play with another family online. It should be a lot of fun. I just hope my family can get the right characters. Some of us *cough* have trouble sticking with an idea. I already know what I want to play. I want to play a High Elf who is either a Necromancer (Philosopher kit) or a Wizard (Witch kit). I hope our DM allows the Philosopher. It's *supposed* to be for ...

So it's been awhile since I've written to this blog and so much has happened. There's a global pandemic (Is that redundant?) called COVID-19, aka coronavirus.  And I am very scared. My health is getting worse. My doctor (actually a nurse practitioner) is referring me to a renal specialist. Just one more thing to add to my growing list of diagnoses. Between that, coronary artery disease, congestive heart failure and asthma, among other things, I am definitely at high risk for the coronavirus. I'm now self-isolating for my own protection. That's not difficult for my family as we're mostly introverts anyway. Well, except for my husband. I mean, he's an introvert too but he has to go to the store etc when necessary, for all the good it does. Hoarders and panic buyers are wiping out toilet paper, hand sanitizer and other supplies. On the plus side he won't have to go to my pharmacy very often because they have a delivery service on most of my prescripti...

If truth be told, we haven't gotten a good tabletop RPG going in quite a very long time. ("We" being myself and my family.) Something always happens to cause us problems. Usually it's someone not really liking their character or coming up with a new character idea. The last problem we had involved my character being broken and out of balance. I should back up and explain. Many years ago I created an NPC named Sytch. She was a somewhat ungoblin-like goblin inspired by Squee from Magic: The Gathering. Sytch was smarter than other goblins and she was actually cute. I never played Sytch as my character. She was always an NPC, though she made her appearance in many of our games. I had grown quite fond of the little goblin girl and didn't think I could do her justice if I tried to play her. I actually did try to play her before, unsuccessfully.  I thought I had found a solution. Our games are a mix of D&D and Pathfinder, with a few other sources as necessary. It was...

I am going to try experimenting with "train of thought" writing. It's supposed to be a good exercise for writers. It may come across as babbling incoherencies at times, but at least I'm putting words into written form. And that's all I can hope to do at this point. Yes? Where to start? My depression has been getting worse, usually at night. Could quite possibly be Seasonal Affective Disorder. Yes, I talked to my psychiatrist and he increased the dosage of my antidepressant. But until that kicks in, I just want to cry.  Life feels like it's so full of "NEVER" right now. I'll never be an actress like I had wanted. I'll never be a dancer like I had wanted. I'll never be a writer and/or poet like I had wanted. I've had Writer's Block for probably 10 years now? I don't think I've written anything worthwhile since I had my heart attack in February, 2009. And I don't know how to break out of this, or if I even can. I c...