LBnuke

Maybe that is an unfair title. I think that most of the time, I am not an idiot. But there are a few things that I am repeatedly stupid about and no matter how many identically bad experiences I have, I do the same thing over and over again.

The first thing is having too many things going on at once. It does very bad things to me, but I think it is unavoidable. To stop it, I would need to stop working and learn how to be happy being even more broke than I already am. I am lucky to have help from people and be able to live a good life, but I want to be able to contribute my fair share. Plus, I am a geek and geeking costs money.

The second thing is insanely undercharging for my work. I learn things from one time to the next and try to avoid past mistakes, but it still happens almost every time. I am working on a project now that has easily taken 10x as long as I thought it would, and I was already providing a huge discount. I love the site and I really enjoy working with the client, but I am making about $2/hr. again. It is my own fault too. I was happy to provide the discount. In a short amount of time, the site was created and most of the content entered.

The organization had wanted a lot of features but did not have the budget for them. I provided a list of things that could be done for their budget and all was good.

Right around that same time, I started working on another site for an organization of a similar size and with similar needs. This organization had found a great online solution that would do everything my client wanted for a relatively small monthly fee. I told him about it and we switched the project over to the new system. My job was to design the site, build the template, and add content from the old site.

This is where I become an idiot.

I did not charge extra for this even though the site was practically finished in the original system. Why not? Because I thought that it was my “fault” that we switched systems because I suggested it. I am pretty sure that does not make any sense.

As I look at the itemized estimate that I sent, I realize that I had completely forgotten about it. The estimate was great. Stated exactly what was included and what was not and how much it would cost for things that were not included.

Since the price was so low, template customization was not included beyond the very basics. This was reinforced under the ‘Assumptions’ part of the estimate which states that the design is not custom. Since then, I have customized several templates heavily and built the final one from scratch, including custom images. I also threw in a flash slideshow.

I am very happy with the site and so is my client. There is still more work to be done, but it is near the end. I did not charge him extra for anything. I had told him that I would let him know if something would cost extra. Somehow, it never occurred to me to do this.

I like my client and his organization and knew they were on a budget. There is a part of me that really wants the site to be as good as possible with whatever system we are using, and that part of me took over the job. I could have stayed with the first system and never even mentioned the new one. The site would have been exactly what he contracted for. I also could have suggested converting to the new system as a separate project with a new estimate. I did not do either of those things.

I am confused. At this point, I am sure that the only chance I have of working is to work for myself. I am lucky to love what I do and to be good at it, but how long will I keep working for $2/hr.? All of my clients make way more money than I do and I doubt any would consider working for that price. I don’t know what to do. Everybody I talk to has tons of “Why don’t you just…” solutions. They make it sound so easy, but it is not. If I could just… I would!

Rehab might pay for me to take a 10 week business course with a “tutor” to come with me and translate afterwards. I wonder if that will help. I can barely imagine being in a class for 3 hrs. twice a week plus time with the tutor, but I feel like I have to try if given the opportunity.

K is very busy at work too. We have 4 sets of houseguests coming in the next 4 months. More things, but it will be nice to see everyone. I hope I can get all of my work done by then. Not likely since my folks are coming on Friday. Oy. I better get back to work now.

It is so hard to do things lately. Too hard. Hard to think. Hard to work. Hard to play. There are very few people that I can stand to be around. The rest make my skin crawl.

It is loud in my head. Too loud. Sometimes it is background noise. Now it is very loud. I hate it. Sometimes it gets so loud it hurts. Hurts like an ice-pick being jammed into my head repeatedly. That keeps happening lately. I don’t know why. Emergency meds help, but knock me out. Sometimes K can help. Not really sure how she does it. Thanks K.

When it is bad like that, it makes me cry. I hate that. I try to avoid it for as long as possible. Still, it almost always happens anyway. I know that crying isn’t bad but I hate it. Brings back bad memories. Crying is not bad now but it used to be. It can make everything worse if people are messing with you. Nobody messes with me now. Just my own brain. Ridiculous.

I say that I am an autistic person who does not want to be cured, but when things are so bad, I am not sure if that is true. When I woke up this morning, I was confused and disoriented and it was very loud in my head. I didn’t have enough energy to deal with it. I just wanted to wake up like a normal person does. Sometimes I want to be ‘normal’ so bad. I want to be able to work. I want to be able to play video games. I want to read. I want to be around people easily. I want to be able to make plans ahead of time. I can’t do that now. I never know what life will be like from one minute to the next. I hate that.

I am whining and complaining. I am very lucky in about a million ways but sometimes I have to get bad things out of my head. This morning when I woke up, the only way I could think of was to pound on my head with my fist. I know that is not a good way to do it. But it helps. Like cutting and burning do. I don’t do those things anymore. I think that writing is better than those other ways but you have to be able to think to be able to write. At least enough to get paper, pen, computer, whatever.

Lately it is hard to remember things for more than a second. Worse than usual. Not sure why things are like this now. Probably because there are too many things going on. It happens every time but still I choose to believe that it will be different the next time. It never is. But I can’t give up hope. Things always get better. Then there are too many things again. Then things get bad again. circle circle circle circle circle. 41 years going around that circle. It is all I know. It is not all bad. Lots of good parts too. I am rambling.

Went to the water. It helped a little. Nice day out. If there was a magic pill that would make me better, would I take it? I don’t really know. Anybody reading this who thinks about these kinds of things, would you take it? I am confused.

I am too busy. I suck at being busy. It is my worst thing and it always ends badly. I am not sure how to not be busy. It is a vicious cycle. As soon as I start feeling better, I want to do things. All the things that I can’t do when I am sick. I want to work. I want to play. Sometimes, I even want to see people.

I was sick for so long. First a year of bad meds and then cat scratch fever. I was lucky that the meds thing got straightened out before the CSF, but it is only very recently that I can enjoy it. Suddenly, I find myself feeling great! I still get tired and confused, but that is ok. It is part of how I am. After such a long time of not being able to do things that I wanted to, I feel like it is a race for time to do them now that I am feeling good. I would love to think it will always be like this, but the truth is that it is not and never has been.

The thing is, I think it could be like this most of the time if I didn’t have stress. I know that is impossible, but it would be possible to have much less stress. Only problem with that is I would be stuck not doing anything I want to do again. I am stressed by working. I am stressed by traveling. I am stressed by being around people. My brain gets overloaded and bad things happen. I get sick. The screaming in my head that is kept in the background by the meds gets louder. My brain shuts down. I twitch like crazy. I become miserable and useless.

I have no idea what to do about this. I want to work so badly. I love what I do. It is like being paid for doing puzzles and arts and crafts. When I code, my brain is in a happy place. Everything makes sense. It has to. As an added bonus, I get to take that code and turn it into a (hopefully) beautiful thing to look at. I am not a graphic artist by any means, so even the art part is like a puzzle. I combine graphic art made by actual artists, with photoshop skills and an eye for detail, and create an entirely new thing that never existed before. What’s not to love?

I was wanting to go to Florida to see my niece Hannah and the rest of my family for a whole year, but couldn’t because of being too sick. Then all of a sudden, I was okay to travel. It is a rare and beautiful thing. There was no way I wasn’t going to Florida. The trip (airplane, etc.) went pretty well thanks to Dramamine and, as always, being with Karen made everything better and more fun. Being in Florida was even okay. I love my family, but I hate Florida. I can’t deal with the hot and humid weather. We completely lucked out with that. Not insanely hot or humid. Last time I was there, I couldn’t even stand to be outside for more than a minute. Got instantly exhausted and dizzy.

It was really great to see my family. Hannah is beyond the legal limits of cute. It was so nice to get to know her better and see her sweet smile. I really loved getting to see her with my brother, sister-in-law, and parents too. They are a family. I am so glad they live so close to each other. Sometimes it is hard living so far away. Sometimes I wish Florida was in Nevada. My cousin Eric was there too. It is always nice to see him and my aunt Wilma and uncle Pat too. Sarah’s (sister-in-law) family was there too. It was nice to see them too. So nice, that we brought her sister Sam back with us. She will be going to acupuncture school in Berkeley starting in January and has been staying with us this past week. She magically found a great place to live in Berkeley on her fist try and will be moving in today.

Bad Apples

Haven’t had enough rambling yet? Then on to the saga of the bad imacs. Me, my dad, and my brother all got new aluminum imacs last month. 2 out of 3 of them were duds. There was a problem with the ATI graphics cards. The whole computer was unstable because of it. Black screens, blue screens, strange graphics, freezing, etc. Windows X 10.5? There has been a firmware update for the graphics cards released that appears to fix the problem for most, if not all, people. Thankfully, my brother’s was fine from the start. Both me and my dad returned our computers and got brand new replacements. All is good now.

The new imac came with Leopard and now that it works, I have been loving it! The screen is huge! Not only is it 24″, but I have been using Spaces, a new feature of Leopard where you can have several “desktops” and easily switch between them. For example I can have photoshop open in one desktop, giving it the entire screen to itself, mail and safari open in another, Firefox and BBedit in another, etc.

Time Machine is totally cool too. I can’t even believe how easy it is to back up. You plug in the external drive and the mac asks if you want to use it for Time Machine. You click ‘yes’. That is it. Your hard drive is being backed up every hour and saving daily, weekly, and monthly backups for as far back in time as the drive will allow. When it gets full, it asks if you would like it to delete the oldest backups to make room. Unbelievable! I will still make daily clones as soon as super duper is Leopard ready, but Time Machine offers a different kind of backup that is easier to use, automatic, and frequent.

Just a few more things to ramble about before I go…

K - I am so very proud of K! She has been saving the world as always. In recognition of her hard work, she has gotten a promotion at work and is now a supervisor, which is the direction she has been wanting to go. Congratulations K! It makes me happy to know that people will have an opportunity to learn from her and benefit from her years of experience.

Warcrack - Shikibee has joined a new guild and is about to ding level 50.

Rehab - I am meeting with someone once a week who will help me research if there are jobs available where I can do contract work from home or with a very flexible schedule. I would really like that. Freelancing is great because I set my own hours and don’t have to answer to anyone except my clients, but I work all the time and barely make any money.

If I did contracted work instead, someone else would be dealing with the clients, setting the prices, and all of the other business related things that I can not do. Even splitting the money with an agency or other company, it is very likely that I would make more money than I do now. I hope something like that could work out. I was hoping that I could keep my current clients and stop taking new freelance jobs if there were contract jobs available instead.

Wordpress 2.3 Update - This one went much more smoothly than the last two. I wish there was a way to manage tags, but from what I understand, the dev team is waiting to find out what people want rather than starting with a ton of features that people may or may not use and then having to change them later. I am looking forward to 2.4 and the new admin changes.

Joomla 1.5 - I am working on a new client site with Joomla 1.5 RC3. It has been very stable and the code is MUCH cleaner than before. I love the new templating system and look forward to its final release and the updated extensions that will follow. If you are planning to integrate any kind of forums into your site, stay with 1.0.x for now.

phpBB3 - Love it! Tons of improvements over phpBB2. Current release is RC8. This update has been a long time in the making. I am hoping that converting from older version will not be total hell.

I have finally run out of things to ramble about for now

Things have been slowly getting back to normal (whatever that is). Both lumps are a lot smaller and I am not so tired anymore. I have even been able to work some.

A nightmare has come and gone. My body and brain have been to all sorts of new places. Most of them sucked.

I don’t have cancer.

I feel a need to make a bulleted list. I love bulleted lists.

Timeline

• Beginning of September - Start having bad pain in my right shoulder and arm.
• Notice a lump about the size of a pea above my collarbone.
• Go to the clinic the next day. Get chest x-rays and blood tests. Doc thinks he feels another lump in my breast and tells me to schedule a mammogram and ultrasound. It is my first mammogram. I am 40. Good timing.
• Start having fever and night sweats. Very weak. Can’t stay awake. Pain everywhere. Lump is the size of a marble. There is another lump in my armpit.
• Fever gets higher. Call clinic. They tell me to go to emergency room. Get more blood tests and IV fluids.
• Me and K go back to clinic to get test results. Doc is grim. Lump is the size of a 25¢ gumball. Looks like lymphoma. WTF?
• Schedule a biopsy. Doc marks priority as urgent. I am panicked. K is in hell. My folks come to visit from Florida.
• I am completely terrified of surgery. Biopsy is my first time in an operating room since I was born. I choose the option for local anesthetic. I am way too freaked out to be totally put under with a breathing tube. I would rather feel the knife.
• Turns out I don’t feel anything. Surgery goes fine. Pain comes later. Still, not so bad.
• Doc finds a second lump in my armpit during surgery. Receive a letter from Summit saying they want to do a second mammogram.
• My folks come. K does everything. We wait for results. They are late. I am on the edge of panic for a whole week. Breathing takes effort.
• The doc finally calls.
  

  “Do you want good news or good news?”, “Good news please.”, “It’s cat scratch disease!”, “No way!”, “Yes. That’s why the test results took so long. We did extra tests to be sure.”, “Thank you. Thank you very much!”.

• Me, K, my mom, and my dad all cry. It is the best thing ever.

It was a crazy roller coaster for all of us. For the rest of my family and some other close people too. I learn things. Some things I already know are reinforced. Some things I think I know… I don’t know them at all.

Things

• Karen is the best partner in the whole world. I can count on her always. She will take care of me. I will take care of her. We are a team.
• My family is there for me too. When I can only think the worst, I realize that I want to be with them. If my life was to end too soon, I don’t want to travel the world. I want to be with K. I want to be with the rest of my family. It is primal.
• My friends are there for me. Sometimes, I have no idea why. I am more thankful for this than I can ever tell them. Thank you TC, D, Nancy, Susan, and everyone else who babysat me, sent emails, left comments, thought good thoughts, prayed, sent good energy, distracted me, etc.
• I want to believe there is a god. Even though I strongly identify as Jewish, I lean towards agnosticism. How can anyone know something like that? But I find myself praying and being thankful that other people are praying too. I still wonder, but it doesn’t matter. I don’t think I can ever believe that god is some giant old white guy wearing a dress and living in the clouds, but I feel something. God? Energy of the universe? Something my brain is creating to keep me sane? I don’t know, but it feels like a miracle. The odds of cat scratch fever were low. It is finally a good time to fall into that small percentage of people who are different.

I am tired and weak and and I’ve never been happier

K took this picture yesterday at the Greek Theater where we were seeing Phil Lesh and Friends. I was too tired to even sit up for most of the show, but I had a great time anyway laying on the grass and listening.