Despite how it may seem here and on my FB (and the scads of unanswered emails), I reassure you that I’m still alive and fighting the good fight. The last several months have carried me along the cycle of disruption and rebuilding, so I’ve been a bit distracted as of late. All good things, I assure you, just wiping me out as I adjust to new schedules and new normals.

I’ve often written of the benefits of chaos and the ensuing opportunities to start over. My adult life is heavily and quite obviously shaped by my Army brat upbringing. Just as I bounced around from base to base and from school to school, I continue to switch things up on a regular basis. I’m not a job hopper, but I’m also not one to settle into a groove of complacency, either. Sometimes (most times) I change my entire career due to medical reasons (see: Army, mortician. Both involuntary departures from the field, but as they say, “the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.”). Sometimes, like this latest switch, I spy an opportunity I simply can’t refuse.

The Decline of Respectability (or why I now have purple hair)

I rarely refuse opportunities. Sometimes that means I can’t keep up with that which brings me joy, such as writing and being active in my community. But at least this is a temporary hiatus. I’m starting to settle in and figure out how to balance it all. For the first time in my 20-odd year work history, I’m working an internal desk job that has ZERO customer/public interaction. AND THEY’RE PAYING ME MORE FOR THE PRIVILEGE! Yay for finally being able to pay my utility bills! I’m with the same company I’ve worked for since crawling out of the morgue life, but I was getting bored and tired of, you know, front-line work. It’s been over a month of cushy new corporate life, and I’ve gotta say, I can get used to this. I’m happily hermited away in a corner desk, crunching numbers and doing paperwork. 

Alas, such luxuries have contributed to my declining professionalism. I more or less had that shit on lock as a funeral director, but the further I stray from that life, the more feral I become. After a decade of “natural” hair color, my mane is now purple. Granted, I dyed it purple before actually moving out of the customer-facing role and it’s not a big deal anyway because I veil, but whatever. I’ve always wanted purple hair, and now I have it. Suck it, dress codes!). The profile pic on my work email has morphed from a nice portrait of yours truly to a close-up of an irritated ferret face. Instead of exuding competence and trustworthiness, my profile pic is now designed to make the email recipient wither under the judgmental glare of an impatient little chaos demon. It’s simply the latest step in my personal de-evolution of civility and respectability.

However, while I love my new job, it’s definitely an adjustment. I have to, like, use my brain all day now. No down time to work on personal projects and writing any more while I’m at work, and the brain thing leaves me a little more wiped out than I’m used to in the evenings. Again, this is hopefully a temporary thing. Hopefully I’ll adjust to this whole thing of actually having to focus and think so that I can get back to writing and blogging on the reg. 

Even my home life isn’t safe from being turned upside down

K, my beloved partner in crime and chaos, has settled in as a permanent resident, which is awesome despite cutting into my sitting around time. Ha, just kidding, nothing cuts into my sitting around time. Post-funeral director life has me trying to make up for all of the naps and couch potato nonsense I missed out on while being on call around the clock. He’s incredibly good at being productive and writing every day, so here’s hoping he’ll be a better influence on me than I am on him. 

K’s not the only addition to the household, but I’ll share that excitement in a follow up post. Suffice it to say that the new chaos demon rounds out the family dynamics and makes for a happy distraction from being productive and/or useful. Once again, I hope that I’ll soon be able to adapt to all of these changes now that new routines are being established. I don’t know if you’ve picked up on my wistful tone yet, but I miss writing regularly. The last several months have been busy and crazy and wonderful, but I’m absolutely feeling the strain of not hammering the keys as often as I did before. 

Soon-to-be Under Construction

I also intend to incorporate some changes around here. I’ve stepped away from Patheos for a few reasons, but I really enjoyed writing more general heathen guides and responses to stuff. In the next month, I would love to get this blog overhauled so that I have a page for my regular Loki-babble personal nonsense as well as a page for more generalized and (hopefully) educational material in the vein of what I wrote for Patheos. I even have some guest blogs plotted out because I know so many brilliant people with a lot to say that should be heard. 

Meanwhile, The Book will be unleashed into the world in a scant few weeks. I’ve done just about nothing in the way of promoting it because of travels to Iceland, having a partner move into my house (after I’ve lived alone for 12 years), ferrets, new job, and naps. And stuff. In a chat with one of Llewellyn’s publicists last week, she very kindly asked if I could start “updating my social media a little more,” to which I snorted and said, “or at all! It’s okay to call me out on the fact I haven’t updated anything in months.” 

So, goals for 2022: 

• Write
• Survive the book launch
• Redo this blog site to include resources that’ll be useful to the general heathen population trying to ferret out good information (as well as Lokeans looking for the same)
• Ferret out a way to adapt to all of these amazing changes in my life over the last few months so that I’m more consistent in, well, everything
• Start researching and outlining the ideas I have for a second book
• Ferret out the personal emails awaiting replies from the scads of emails from Llewellyn publicists begging me to follow up with them. Y’all are fantastic and I’m really excited to reply to you, I’m just failing at time management lately
• Finish the scads of drafts I have for blog posts and actually get them online (is it too late to publish my reaction piece to Midnight Mass? What a shame – the first line of it expresses amazement that I was writing about something that was current and timely. That was. . . .4 months ago? It’s been languishing in the drafts folder ever since)
• Ferret

I think a lot of those intentions are reasonable. Here’s hoping that you’re as eager for this stuff as I am, and thank you so very, very much for putting up with me and my long stretch of radio silence. It’s been a wild few months and I’m super happy about everything that’s been happening. Chaos can be a wonderful gift, but good grief does it cut into one’s regularly scheduled nap time. As always, bigger, better things are being built up in the wake of the shake-up, and I’m reminded again of the myriad of blessings that come when one refuses to settle for complacency. 

Change is good. Change is necessary. But so is writing on a more consistent basis. Gotta try to rein in my ferret brain and get back on track.