busybee fluffy rambles

Literal

I seem to finally have a good method of building a fire, which came in handy during this massive cold snap. Unfortunately the method that works best relies on having some compressed-sawdust logs, which I was out of until a couple days ago.

The main thing that needed fixing was the grate; it was sagging in the middle (limiting the airflow), and was also kind of stupidly big (still small for my stupidly huge fireplace though) so I replaced it with this one from McLendon’s which happens to be a differently-labeled version of this one on Amazon. I also bought an ash pan which helps with airflow and makes cleanup a bit easier.

The basic procedure I use is:

1. Put three or four shorter logs (including one or more compressed-sawdust ones) oriented front-to-back between the tines of the fire grate
2. Crumple up some newspaper and place it between each log. Put some sort of firestarter on top (fatwood is okay, Timberlite is better)
3. Lay one or two longer, narrower logs horizontally atop the logs
4. Light the newspaper
5. Stoke the flame with bellows

Throughout the evening it’s helpful to re-stoke with the bellows, and to add progressively larger logs on top as they burn out. You’re also going to want to rearrange the various coals that result to fill in the gaps on the bottom; those are what keep the fire going.

Metaphorical

I’m having a very difficult time staying motivated on any of my projects right now. A lot of it is the bitter cold making my pain way worse; spending any amount of time outside gives me pretty much an instant flareup, and is making me realize just how arthritic I’ve gotten, in my hands especially.

A lot of it is just, ugh, I need extrinsic motivation to do things. Solving my own problems is nice, but I don’t generally have a lot of those to solve, and I have a hard time coming up with things to do that others might appreciate, when everything I do make ends up getting just like… unhelpful not-praise from things that they’d rather I be doing instead.

For example: with my new coffee grinder I quickly identified a need for a 54mm catch cup to make the workflow a bit nicer with Breville brewers. I went through a lot of effort to make it as good as I could, and the overwhelming response was, “Oh, that’s neat, but I’m much more interested in that tamping station.”

So, I refined my tamping station from a prototype into something more generally beneficial, and the overwhelming response I got was, “Oh, that’s neat, but what I really want to see is” and then a thing that I had no interest in making.

It feels like I can never win.

I have sold a total of one catch cup and zero tamping stations, so far.

Or then, like, I worked really hard on my VRChat avatar and specifically went through a lot of extra effort to make it a sellable base, specifically because a lot of people said it was really cute and they’d want to buy it from me, and I’ve sold… one.

One copy. Of a model that I put a month and a half of work into, that I learned Blender for.

I’m glad I made it for myself but like. Meh.

I have so many other ideas for avatar bases to make and a lot of people are like “I’d love to see what you come up with!” but none of my ideas feel like something that’d catch on and like, why would I spend a lot of time to make them with the hope that one or two people might buy it?

It’s the same with my comics. Drawing comics takes a lot out of me, and it feels like I need to do a lot of ramping up to get back to a state where I’d feel happy making them, and even at my peak I had only a few dozen readers and wasn’t getting the sort of engagement that made me feel like telling these stories was worthwhile.

Sometimes I’ll talk to people I’ve known for years and refer to my comics and wanting to get back to them, and then the response is, “Oh, I didn’t know you made comics!”

And then I link them to it, and they don’t want to read it until they know they’ll be “finished,” because they don’t want to get invested in something only to be left hanging.

You and me both!

It fucking sucks being in constant chronic pain and having very little energy to do things and when I do muster the energy to do things, not feeling like it was worth it in the end. And then always being faced with this whole Hustle Culture thing where no matter what I do the response indicates that I’m not doing Enough, and the advice people give me for getting more out of things always starts with the word “just,” like “just keep a consistent schedule” or “just find someone else to do your art” or “just ignore the need for an audience” and like. God fucking damnit, “just” is doing a lot of heavy lifting, there.

I want to get back to my podcast. It’s been almost a year since I’ve done an episode of that and I really enjoyed doing it and the response I got from it. They were also generally lower-effort for me. And, who knows, if I keep at it, maybe I’ll get that lucrative BetterHelp sponsorship money (incidentally, fuck BetterHelp).

A thing I keep asking is for the folks who have enjoyed my podcast to submit ideas for episodes to do, because, as always, I like doing things for others, when I know that those things will be received well. I don’t like putting a lot of effort into things that I think will do well when the reception might just be a resounding “meh.”

I also have so many game ideas and whenever I share them with people (with the hope that they’ll want to work on them with me) they’re always like “Oh wow that sounds great, let me know when you’ve made it!” and I’m like… I literally can’t. I don’t have the energy to do that. I am looking for other people to work on things with me.

I can’t fucking do it alone and I’m so sick of this expectation that I should be able to.

Fifteen years ago, maybe. Today? Fuck no.

Other stuff

Because of the cold weather, I caught a rat trying to burrow into my basement, and found a bunch of ingress points which need to be shored up. For now I filled them in with rocks and soil, and I have a pest control person arriving tomorrow to evaluate things.

I also have a friend I’m hoping to visit in the hospital in Tacoma, at 4 PM tomorrow, and I’d forgotten about the pest control appointment when I set that slot up. Hopefully they don’t conflict.

Also, man I really wish I had a better car right now. The Leaf is fine but its limited range is becoming a bit frustrating. I keep on getting progressively more envious of some of the better EVs coming on the market, like the Volvo EX30. I’m really tempted to upgrade to an Ioniq 5, now that there’s a decent inventory of used ones on the market, but that still requires a chunk of change that I’d rather have set aside for other things right now. But I don’t drive enough to justify going back to a gas vehicle (and I’d rather not having to ever go to a gas station ever again if I can help it).

I wish I had any sort of income right now. Unfortunately my disability application is in limbo again and of the jobs that I’m finding listings that I’m qualified for, none are things I’d be able to do long-term.

If only I could figure out what I can keep doing on my own terms which people actually want to give me money for, as well. Maybe I should start Twitch streaming again. I have a concept for something I could do that might be entertaining for others without being a source of burnout.

In the meantime, I continue to be available for commissions. I can make music and VRChat avatars, and I’m available for doing 3D printing and related small-scale manufacturing for others. I seem to always be doing these things for friends for free, and if I could actually get paid for it, that’d be much better.

I can already hear the people saying, “Just get better at marketing yourself.”