But the real purpose of this post is to share the news that my Etsy shop is now open and I’ve sold 9 buttons to 4 different people. Whee!

I’m still in the process of uploading more and more buttons (I have hundreds, and the Etsy listing process is quite a chore). So keep checking back to see what gets added. Plus, my prices will go up once I figure out how much to charge, so take advantage of my cluelessness while it lasts.

Oh! And check out the new look of my blog. This may change from time to time as I try out different looks, or when I get sick of a particular look.

I’m also looking into migrating to a new host (Doodlekit), which seems very friendly to me and has all the features I’ll be wanting (shopping cart, etc.). I’m not sure if that means my Wordpress blog (which you see right now) will go away or not. I’m still an idiot about all this stuff and don’t know if I can just move Wordpress over or what, but that’ll get sorted out in time. I’d like to keep the functionality of Wordpress where my blog is concerned, but I’m not sure about all the technical stuff it would entail.

I wonder why I resist writing blog entries so much. Once I’m here, I just can’t seem to shut myself up. It’s just the idea of logging in and finding something worthwhile to write about that’s daunting. I’m still hung up on the idea that every post has to be a work of art with a theme, motif, plot, and fascinating characterization. But it’s not like I’m getting paid to do this, so I can write whatever I feel like writing.

I guess I should get back to work. It’s crushing me, along with my Zonta responsibilities, because I don’t want to do either of those. All I want to do is work on my Empire, but there’s so little time, and when I do have time, I don’t have the tools I need (Photoshop, etc.).

Only 118 days until I get my laptop, and then there’ll be no stopping me. Until then, I’ll have to focus on doing the things I can do now and stop dwelling on what I wish I could be doing now.

It feels like I need to catch up, to get doing stuff Right Now, to make my mark on the world as soon as possible, but it also feels like it might be too late already.

Sometimes I get this feeling when I’m working at a show where the exhibitors have creative or crafty items. I see all the things they’re selling, and I see how they’ve done it — they’ve taken the plunge and are making and selling their Stuff. They had enough confidence to actually go out on a limb and make it happen. And I see things that I could have done myself, and things I wish I could do, and things I can’t believe people pay money for. And it makes me sad, because I don’t know if I’ll have the courage to ever make that leap.

Sometimes this feeling comes when I’m surfing the web, reading blogs, browsing on Etsy, and it’s pretty much the same. People are actually out there making a living from their writing, or from their crafting. And even if they’re not making tons of money, they’re still doing it. They’re not making excuses, waiting for the time to be right, or dwelling on their own inner demons. They’re just doing it.

Along with the sadness that accompanies the fear that I’ll never do any of this is a sense of total overwhelmedness (if that’s not a word, it should be). There are too many options. Everyone says you have to find a niche, but how do you decide? How do you write about photography and exclude pet care and craft ideas and personal experiences and education and shopping and Shakespeare? How do you make jewelry out of soldered glass and just stay away from shrinky dinks and recycled items, and sewing and shadowboxes and calligraphy and the nine billion other things I want to make?

I am not made to be niched. If I were to have a ‘focused’ blog, that would mean I’d have to have a dozen blogs, or maybe more. One on every topic.

Short Attention Span Girl isn’t just a semi-clever title that happened to be available as a domain name. It’s me. My brain is a-swirl with possibilities and ideas and  regrets about how much of my life I’ve already wasted not doing the millions of things I want to do.

So I guess I’ll just have to do one thing at a time and try not to let it make me crazy.

It’s not like my life is any worse than it’s been for the last year and a half. I still live with my mom. I’m still adjusting to losing most of my friends in the divorce. I still hate my job. I’m still unable to get even an interview for the most menial jobs that only require a high school diploma. My house still won’t sell, which means I still have no money. I’m still fat and incapable of bringing myself to do anything about it.

Maybe what’s bothering me so much is the fact that all of these things were only supposed to be temporary, but they’re looking to be permanent now. This life was tolerable when I thought it was temporary. But now I don’t see that it’s ever going to change.

Or maybe I just need to get back on my happy pills. Or maybe I’ll feel better later. Or maybe I’ll drop dead tomorrow and none of this will have mattered.

Right now, I have a hard time even caring about that. There are jobs to apply for, but I don’t see the point in bothering with it, so I probably won’t even apply. It’s just wasted time and energy. Not that I’m using my time or energy for anything else worthwhile. I’m completely disinterested in kickboxing or anything else that might help me lose weight. The good thing is that I don’t feel like eating either. I only eat either when it’s socially dicated or when my headache gets so bad I can’t avoid it anymore. I don’t even want to watch TV or read. I just want to go to bed and sleep. Sleep is where I don’t have to think about anything.

I keep thinking I need a vacation, but that won’t change anything. After vacations, things are always even worse when I have to re-enter the real world.

And now I’m annoying myself with all this Poor Me crap. I have a job. I have a place to live. I have a couple good friends. And my health is fine. I should just shut up and be glad for what I have.

I’ve had a headache for two or three days now. I’ve lost count. I should eat something, but my only choices right now are a nasty Weight Watchers TV dinner or fast food. I’m sure there are other choices, like going to the grocery store and buying stuff to make a healthy lunch, or some crap like that, but those aren’t really options to me right now.

My job is really depressing me lately. I know that’s not really anything new, and I should stop complaining about it. I sent out some more applications this week, but I know I won’t hear back. I never do anymore.

It’s clear I’ll be here until the end of time. Which is very depressing, since I really don’t like anyone who works here anymore. Especially the new guy. He’s just way too in my face all the time. I can’t even sit here and cry, pretending I have allergies. And I can’t give him stuff to do, because I can’t trust him to do it even partially correctly. And I have to go sometime soon and talk to my manager about my review. I’m sure everyone said that I have no personality, that I obviously don’t care about my job, and that I don’t participate in things like holiday parties. All true.

And now I’ve pretty much convinced myself that I’ll never be my own boss, under any circumstances. I don’t have enough talent or motivation to  make any money at crafts. And I obviously don’t have enough self-discipline or confidence to make any money at writing. And since nobody in the free world wants to hire me for anything involving an actual paycheck, I guess I’m stuck here. It’s frustrating, because even when I apply for a job when I exactly fit all of their requirements, I hear nothing. It seems like they’d at least want to meet me in person before deciding that I totally suck and can’t possibly do the job. On paper, I can totally do it.

Sometimes, the realization that I’m stuck in my current job isn’t so bad. Sometimes, I’m able to appreciate the advantages of working here, and I’m able to retain some shred of hope that it will get better eventually. But this week, it’s bad. The advantages are heartily crushed by the disadvantages, even by just the overall feeling of crap I have when I’m here. The hope is gone, withered under the unkind glare of self-knowledge. And then, to make it all worse, I write pathetic half-metaphors that make no sense and only make me sound like I’m trying to appear smarter than I am.

I have plenty of free time in the evenings this week, alone in my house with the dogs, but all I end up wanting to do is watch TV or go to bed at 7:00. So, this week I get to come to terms with a bunch of ugly facts about myself. I’m fat, lazy, and unemployable.

I know this feeling of total despair will lessen at some point, but that doesn’t make it any less painful and miserable right now.

(If you have no idea what I’m talking about and think I’ve lost my mind, you might be right. But first read yesterday’s blog entry, as it might clear up at least the first part.)

The enneagram types are placed around a circle in a particular order, with lines and arrows going every which way. If you want to know the details, read the book or look online or something (if you do look online, you’ll notice that some of the type names are different — Mediator is called Peacemaker, for example).

The two types next to yours are the wings, and they share significant similarities. As a Mediator, my two wings are the Perfectionist and the Protector.

Mediators and Perfectionists both easily forget or suppress their own needs, and they both value steadiness, organization, and harmony. However, Perfectionists hold to their positions rigidly, expecting others to change, while Mediators readily adapt to accommodate others’ positions, often losing sight of their own.

The other wing, the Protector, is like the Mediator in that both respond with gut reactions, seek comfort, and get diverted from essential priorities. The key difference is that Protectors welcome conflict and even anger, while Mediators avoid these. Protectors are decisive, but Mediators defer to others.

On the circle, the two types with the crazy pointing arrows are the security and stress types. That is, one is the way you act when secure, and the other is the way you act when you’re stressed. The Mediator’s security type is the Performer. This means that Mediators, when feeling secure, act more like Performers (more singularly focused on their own goals, more efficient, and more image-oriented).

The Mediator’s stress type is the Loyal Skeptic. So, when Mediators are feeling stress, they become fearful, questioning, and wary, like Loyal Skeptics. But Mediators go along with others before testing and questioning, while Loyal Skeptics test and question before going along with others.

So, as you can see, I’m a doormat. But I’m working on it and getting better.

Here are some highlights from my other major types, just because I can’t stop talking about myself.

The Epicure:

• I learned to protect myself from limitations and pain by imagining many fascinating possibilities for the future. I became a glutton for interesting ideas and experiences.
• My attention is on fascinating ideas, plans, options, projects. Interconnections and interrelationships among diverse areas of information and knowledge.
• I’m stressed by the overload that results from trying to sample all that life has to offer.
• I’m angered by constraints or limits that prevent me from getting what I want.
• I need to practice working on one thing at a time until it’s completed. Live life more fully in the present moment and less in the future.

The Observer:

• I learned to protect myself from intrusive demands and being drained of my resources by becoming private and self-sufficient. I do this by accumulating a lot of knowledge.
• I put my energy into learning all there is to know about a subject. Maintaining sufficient privacy, boundaries, and limits.
• I do everything I can to avoid feelings of inadequacy and emptiness.
• I am stressed out by trying to learn everything there is to know before taking action.
• I am upset when I don’t have enough private time to restore my energy.

So, in conclusion, I’m a reclusive doormat with a short attention span. Aren’t you glad you’re my friend?

First is the way it explains how the different personality types are related to each other, which I’ll get to later.

The other thing is the basic proposition of the whole thing. Each of the types is defined by the fundamental principle this person has lost sight of, what she came to believe instead, and the strategy she developed to cope with this belief. Again, I’ll explain more later.

First, a little overview.

According to this particular system, there are nine personality types: Perfectionist, Giver, Performer, Romantic, Observer, Loyal Skeptic, Epicure, Protector, and Mediator. I’m not going to go into detail on all of them, because that’s what the book is for, and I really don’t want my post to be 109 pages long, and I suspect you don’t want that either.

Instead, I’ll talk about my dominant type and explain all the cool things I learned about myself, and if you want to know more you can go check out the book. Because seriously, this blog is all about me.

My top three types came out to be Mediator, Epicure, and Observer, and as I read the descriptions of them, it’s really hard for me to nail one down as dominant, because I’m such a complex and beautiful creature. I see myself in all three to a great extent.

But for the purposes of this little lesson in enneagrammatics, I’ll go with Mediator, because it ranked slightly above the other two.

According to the little book, as a Mediator, I have lost sight of the fact that “everyone belongs equally in a state of unconditional love and union,” which sounds like sappy gibberish to me, but I’ll go with it. It gets better in a bit.

What I came to believe instead was that “the world makes people unimportant and requires them to blend in, which provides them with a sense of comfort and belonging.” Hmm. Getting better, but not quite how I’d sum up my life.

The strategy I developed to cope with this belief: “I learned to forget myself and merge with others. I substituted inessentials and small comforts for real priorities.” Now we’re getting somewhere. Of course, it’s kinda painful to see some of my major shortcomings laid out like that, but this is for science.

And here’s where it gets really eerie. Because of this strategy, my attention is on “other’s agendas, requests, and demands” and “all the things in the environment that beckon.” I put my energy into “being sensitive to others and trying to please them,” “containing anger,” “maintaining peace and quiet,” and “doing the less essential and comforting activities rather than the more important and more disturbing ones.”

I do everything I can to avoid conflict, confrontation, and feeling uncomfortable. My strengths are supportiveness, accountability, and being adaptive, accepting, and receptive.

Stress is caused by taking a position, or saying no to someone and having that person get angry. I’m angered when I’m treated as not important or forced to face conflict. My anger manifests itself as stubbornness or resistance, occasionally boiling over and exploding.

(If you know me at all, you should be nodding right now.)

And then it goes on to tell me how to further my personal development, which basically entails paying attention to my own needs and accepting discomfort as a natural part of life. Oh, and I need to pay attention to my real priorities, rather than giving everything equal importance.

And here’s the definition of my real friends, the people I’ve been surrounding myself with lately (it’s disguised as “how others can support my development,” but I know it’s just a description of my few wonderful friends — probably the only people who read this thing): “Encourage me to express my own position. Ask me what I want and what is good for me, and give me time to figure out the answer. Support me when I act responsibly toward myself. Allow me to acknowledge my anger. Encourage me to set and keep my own boundaries, limits, and priorities.”

Apparently, I’m not a lost cause yet!

Okay, I think I’ve written enough on this topic for now. I’ll get into the rest of the enneagram stuff next time, in the greatly anticipated sequel.

When that book ran out of entertainment value, we started reading some of the 1001 Dumbest Things Ever Said. And I even read aloud some anecdotes from a book I was inexplicably reading about coming up with ideas for advertising.

But all that was Day One. And there was a whole lot more boredom stretching out before us. Despite the abundance or rude and/or stupid people to make fun of (behind their backs, of course — we are in the customer service industry, you know), and despite the fun rubber yoyo toy that looked like a jellyfish, we needed more distraction.

Yesterday, our desperation reached junior high levels, and we made cootie catchers and played MASH.

I threw away the cootie catcher, so I can’t remember exactly what the outcomes were, but I do recall something about Mckenzie’s future involving an unfortunate rash. But I saved my MASH sheet. It’s nice to know what the future holds, even if it holds crap.

So here’s the rundown.

I’m going to marry the cute Australian exhibitor at Coffee Fest, and we shall honeymoon in Australia. Quite fitting, I think. Have to meet his family and all that. Then we’ll be back to live in an apartment in Canada, where I’ll have the exact same job as I have now (oh joy), except that my new salary will be one billion dollars a year. Canadian dollars, I suppose. My car will be a limo (I hope I get a driver, too), which is good, because I’ll have seven kids and a pet lion, so it’ll be important to have a large vehicle.

This isn’t exactly ideal. I mean, I was really hoping to snag Johnny Depp or Christian Bale, and earn my billion dollars a year as a best-selling author, but it could be worse. I could be earning minimum wage, honeymooning in Beirut, driving a Segway, or taking care of a colony of spiders.

It’s nice how MASH can really give you some perspective. Yes, things could be better in my life. But they could also be far worse. Segway worse.

Thank you, inventor of junior high boredom relievers. I salute you.

When I type in my first and last name, I discover things I didn’t realize or remember, and I’m a little surprised that I have more than one page of goodies. Evidently I have a ScrapBlog and a ScrapBio, probably created back when I actually made scrapbook pages and labored under the cruel delusion that someday the world might want to share in the awesomeness that is my craftiness.

My LinkedIn thing also pops up. There’s some Zonta deal that lists me as a member, and a few things from the school district and high school where I taught. Newsletters and board meeting minutes and junk like that.

I’m reminded that I submitted ideas to a site called Writing Fix, because that shows up as the fourth item in the list. And I have some kind of freelance writer/editor portfolio that I must have created recently, given the address attached to it, but I don’t recall creating such a thing even vaguely.

Page 2 of the Google listings shows an interesting bit from the German version of Amazon.com. My name is clearly mentioned, but I’m not sure why, as I can’t read German. Some kind of profile (or profil) of me, it seems. And I guess I’m a Top Reviewer on Amazon because I submitted two reviews, one for a book that I don’t even remember reading. I appallingly used way too many exclamation points, which might be why I don’t write Amazon reviews anymore.

Oh, and then somewhere down the list is my infant vision article. Well, not actually the article. My article is referenced on some website written in Spanish. I’m sure if I continued to scroll through the pages, or searched by my initials instead of full first name, I’d find the actual article, or at least an abstract of it. Exciting stuff.

Then, for some reason, the section of my photo gallery that has pictures of my pets pops up.

Well, all this excitement has worn me out. It seems like seeing myself in lights for all these inane “accomplishments” should spur me into writing an ebook, finishing my mystery novel, or at least becoming a spectacular celebrity stalker, but no. It makes me want to curl up in anonymity and hope none of the hiring managers I’m pimping myself out to actually try Googling my name.

But I’ve gotten past that, and I feel great. I still have mood swings, crying jags, and fits of agitation that leave a mile-wide swatch of burnt foliage and startled glances.

But I feel things. The anti-depressants do a great job of making the lows not quite so low, bt the highs feel a little artificial, and not quite so high. They narrow the range of emotions, which is exactly what you need when your lows are so low it feels impossible to see any light ever again.

But I guess my problems aren’t entirely chemical. I guess it was situation to a larger extent than I’d realized. It’s strange though, because my life right now is full of turmoil and uncertainty and frustration. Maybe, somewhere deep inside my brain, I can see a light at the end of the tunnel. There is a better future ahead of me. All is not hopeless.

It feels good to have that glimmer of hope, and to know it’s not artificially caused by a pill.

Of course, I still have a supply of happy pills at the ready, just in case the world kicks me in the teeth a few more times and I need a boost of Stepford.

But maybe I should try to put a more positive, hopeful spin on things. Write about what I want to be able to do, write about what I’d like to get sorted out and cleared up. That’s probably a better idea than just listing my complaints. It has an illusion of forward motion, anyway.

So here I am, thinking about all the things that are knotted up in my stomach and my mind, trying to figure out a way to sort them out and give them some sort of direction.

I’m just going to have to whine about everything for a while, to get it off my chest. Then maybe I’ll be able to go back and talk about solutions and plans and all that optimistic crap.

First of all, it doesn’t seem like my house will ever sell. The last house had four offers the first weekend, some even over our list price. Not this time. It’s been on the market for three weeks with nary a nibble. It looks great, and the price is reasonable for the neighborhood and all that. I guess it just takes time. But the longer it takes to sell, the longer I have to contribute to paying the mortgage, and the longer I have to keep living with my mom, because I can’t afford an apartment on top of what I’m already paying for a home I don’t even live in.

The worst part is that my paycheck is so crappy that I only have left about $400 a month to spend on food, gifts, cat supplies, kickboxing dues, cell phone bills, gas, car maintenance, and actually buying anything for myself. And saving money is out of the question. As is slowly buying things I’ll need when I move into an apartment.

So I’m applying for jobs like crazy, but nobody seems to want to hire me. A couple months back when I decided that my current job was not for me, I got a few interviews, but then I was promised a job here that’s apparently not going to exist, and now the job market has forsaken me.

And I don’t even want to talk about my current job. There’s just too much that annoys and angers me here.

Back to a previous topic, there’s nothing horribly wrong with living with my mom. We get along fine, and I get some free food out of the deal. I just need to live on my own. I never have, in my entire life, and it’s time. When I have a bad day, I want the luxury of buying a bag of Oreos and sobbing in front of the TV. Or take a long hot bath with a book. I need to be able to come and go as I please, not checking in with anyone.

Not that I want to do anything particularly shady, but I just need to not worry about worrying anyone by not coming home at a particular time. I don’t want to always explain where I was. Maybe I just want to drive around, or sit in my car in a parking lot and read, or lurk at the library or bookstore for hours. I need that kind of freedom to just do whatever I want to do.

So it’s nothing against my mom or Ed. They’ve been more wonderful than I could have imagined, letting me live with them so long and even letting me bring my cat. But I need a change, and that can’t happen until the house sells. Having an income of $400 a month, when I have a master’s degree and two bachelor’s degrees, is decidedly uncool.

There are all kinds of other things contributing to the feeling of an elephant sitting on my chest, but I’ve probably whined enough for one day. I’ll get back to the getting-in-shape, extra-long-commute, behind-on-charity-auction-helping, stifled-creativity, frustrated-writer-and-crafter, stalled-business-owner, can’t-seem-to-get-enough-sleep issues another time.

And if you actually read this all the way to this point, thank you. I’ll post something positive one of these days, I promise!