Get your dead birds off my lawn

My entire life is enshrouded in dead birds, mice, and other small game. I’m here to make a stand and inform you all as nicely as possible I am no longer accepting new corpses at this time but I appreciate the thought behind the decaying flesh.

You are probably asking yourself a lot of questions right now so I’ll address the most important one first. I got that black tunic with an over-sized hood on Wish. I know! Hard to believe it looks better than the picture coming from fast fashion online sellers, but that’s why you have to take a chance sometimes. It could turn out amazing and add a lot of joy and value to your life like this tunic did to mine.

Oh? That wasn’t the most pressing question? Fine. I’ll address the dead birds in the room.

You should already know that domesticated cats hunt small prey and leave them as gifts for us because they think we are too clumsy and slow to know proper hunting techniques. They are attempting to train us in the ways of the hunt so we do not starve. Their little cat brains are hardwired to help in this way and domestication cannot undo this thought process. If you didn’t already know this, read about it here. When I say I’m full up on dead birds, I mean I am full up on other people forcing their worry onto me. If I get hungry, I’ll hunt my own meat from the supermarket or outsource to a pizza delivery person. Either way, I’m not going to ever be so hard up that I need to resort to choking back chipmunk from the yard. I hope. Unless we’re in apocalypse mode and that’s a whole other ballgame.

Presuming the world is not ending, I am moving to Seattle in 2020. I do not have a job lined up, but I have employment ideas I feel secure about. I do not have a living arrangement yet, but I have an Airbnb to start. I won’t have health insurance beginning in March, but I’ll sort that out when I need to sort that out. I am not leaving my full time job with benefits until mid-February. My boss is on board and supports my plan so I don’t have to worry about losing my job before then because they find out I’m moving. It seems foolish to worry about these things at this juncture when they are so far out and I have more pressing topics to attend to. I spent a lot of my recovery time this year training my brain to RELEASE anxieties about things not happening for a while so being served course after course of regurgitated rodents from others is counter intuitive to the extensive brain training I’ve undergone this year.

The TL;DR version of my employment plan is to become a muse for a living.

If you need a little more info than that to put down the carrion, I’ll explain what that entails. I’ve studied creativity coaching informally for the past five years of my career and incorporated my findings heavily into my library programming. To start I will market similar programs that I’ve completed in the past to the libraries and other community agencies in my new neighborhood. This is something I’m familiar with as I know what myself and other Teen Librarians seek out in their programming and the best practices for marketing to libraries. It’s common ground and I’m quite experienced in my field. I do not have it in me to continue to work a public information desk as the majority of my day to day, so I would rather focus on the aspects of my job I am good at that also come effortlessly. Especially since a programmer would earn more per hour than a salaried librarian freeing up my time to work on other creative projects.

From there, I will expand what I offer as I collect certifications like Halloween candy. Since I do not have these additional certifications at this moment, I cannot speak to how I will enhance my services yet. This is roughly where people pelt me with dead birds, so I ask you to please refrain from unloading your worry about my uncertain future and know that I am more than comfortable with this. I know this part sounds scary to some, but it is merely because I am setting off on a path of my own invention. I can’t point to how this will play out because I do not know anyone who has combined the exact skill sets and know-how that I am attempting before. It’s going to be an adventure, for sure. What kind of adventure depends on events that have not unfolded yet so let’s just enjoy the present moment free from having to kill a half-dead mouse on my porch just to put it out of it’s tiny misery, ok?

As I collect certifications, you’ll be able to view them here. I’m not getting my creativity coach certification first, but do plan on working towards that. I will most likely begin with my Peer Support Specialist certification as that is free to do in Washington and we need more qualified people at all levels in providing care to those dealing with mental health issues. While many of my goals are quite lofty and artsy (read: worrisome) to others, this is a stable career option I am starting in the spring or early summer.

If you’re still holding out with a last sparrow or bluejay to toss my way, please know I had to stop doing tarot readings for myself because literally every single reading brought back similar symbols and messages that roughly translates to, “Your plan will only succeed if you do not let others’ doubts and worries creep into your skull to fester and rot.” I actually have a pending blog post about how ridiculous these tarot spreads have gotten, but haven’t finished it. Soon my pretties. I know tarot and other forms of divination are more fun than fact, but no matter how many times I shuffled the same message still shone through so I’m going to listen to the cards and not the worrywarts at this point.

Assuming there’s a Nervous Nelly or two out there will not heed my pleas and will instead pass on their worries, I have a plan. An awkward and weird plan. No one but me will like this plan, but I’ve ensured I will have fun at the very least. The factor everyone forgets about passing their worries on to me out of love and/or concern is that I’m exhausted by having the same conversation with every human interested in my life and goals. Every. Single. One. So if you’re going to engage with this dialogue I’ve repeatedly requested to stop participating in, just know it’s gonna get weird and that’s entirely your fault.