Rae Roy

It's hurricane season. Thankfully, where I live I don't get much more than heavy rains. I find it interesting that the US elections are held near the end of hurricane season. I suppose if they can make it through the elections, they can handle anything. I do sometimes feel like my life is one storm followed by another. I'm not saying that in search of some pity. It's just an observation. Outside of the challenges I face from allergies and such, I get very busy during the year from April through to December. It makes it hard to feel like I have my shit together in the slightest. Someday, I may have a clean home, but that's going to take a partner that can work with me on keeping it clean. I'm hesitant to bring someone else into the hot mess that is my life. I know the right one will help rather than compound the hard things, but there has been far more of the wrong. Largely, I feel like living life is far more important than my dishes and laundry always being cle...

My life is filled with uncertainty lately.  I'm struggling to get the fiction writing in while learning French and doing my job. I think it's mainly because I'm losing so much sleep from being chronically itchy.  No idea what is causing that. And it's one of those things where you hope the blood tests uncover it but also hope they don't find anything and it just goes back to normal on its own. On top of this, something happened to the woman across the hall Thursday night and I don't even know if she is alive. I didn't hear anything but the barking dog, but I saw a man while doing my laundry. Now, I'm wondering if I could be a target next as the police spoke to me quite a bit. What if I had started my laundry a minute sooner or a minute later? I wouldn't have seen anything at all. And there's still nothing in the news about it. Dating is largely fraught with uncertainty. I seem to be a magnet for the wrong ones or there's just a lot of the wro...

Dating is what is on my mind tonight. Why? I suppose that's the newest thing in my life. I'm really hoping it will get better. I really don't like wasting time with men who obviously don't care about anything but getting naked. I'm looking for someone who can be a friend too. That means we need more things in common than being close in height and a decent vocabulary. I need someone who has a good heart. What I've experienced most recently was someone who is very judgemental about the sex lives of women. Someone who thinks it's wrong for women to have "special friends" and to be with one man this week and a different one the following week all while expecting a woman to put out on the first date. Also while declaring what birth control methods will be used going forward. When I was safe in my own home, I told him there was no forward. Then he sent a barrage of messages and phone calls my way. He said there must be miscommunication somewhere because ...

Sorry. I really thought I had posted on Monday. The seminar went well. It was an informal and intimate group and we learned a lot because there was no need for translation. We also didn't need to discuss a single movement for 30 minutes. We covered setei (zen ken ren) and went through Omori-Ryu before closing the day with a nice set most of us hadn't seen called Keshi-Ryu. I have pictures I need to get posting soon, but life has been busy. Also on Saturday, the Shifting Shards anthology became available, so there is a book with my name on it in the world! You can get your very own copy from any of the links on my Books page:  https://raeannegroy.com/the-books/ We went to a pub before dinner. Doubles were on special so I celebrated the completion on the seminar and the publishing of the book. Then dinner brought sake and eventually my dojo friends decided to revamp my dating profile. This may have brought me one man with potential. Time will tell on that. After dinner, we return...

I have a lot of cleaning to do. Laundry, dishes, the kitchen, the bathroom, etc. I'm itchy. I'm tired. I'm frustrated. But it has to get done. You see, tomorrow my dojo is hosting an all day seminar. We've been planning it for a while. And some people may be at my place. We're also meeting at a bar tonight because that's how it's done. The truth is that I've been wanting to get my main living areas cleaned up for a while now. Months really. I'm always more motivated to when I might have people coming over for some reason.  Maybe someday I'll just want it clean for me.  I suppose it's partly because I spend so much time in a world of my own making that the house gets neglected. I could be cleaning OR I could be battling dragons and wizards! I could be cleaning OR I could practice my guitar. I could also be learning French, practicing martial arts, watching TV, reading a book, or literally anything is better than cleaning. Yes, I'm stalling...

Sometimes, when I have a bad day, I think I'm the target of some cruel joke. My life hasn't turned out the way I planned. Some things are going well. I've gotten some short stories published and will have books in my hands very soon that I can sell to fund my novel. That's surreal. I need someone to pinch me so I know I'm not just having a good dream. My health is an area that makes me really sad at times. It's where I keep taking the most hits. I started having symptoms at age 14. My parotid salivary glands would swell up. It's always painful when that happens. In my twenties, I experienced an episode of sleep paralysis while hallucinating. It wasn't until about 5 years after that, they said I had narcolepsy. I lived with that for 3 years until no stimulant medication helped and I had the symptoms of stroke so took myself off the meds. My body had decided it wasn't narcoleptic anymore. This was all proven both times by the tests. After that it was d...

Well, I've come to think my rash is a milk reaction as it's exacerbated by dairy intake. Even goat dairy.  And guess what? One of the moisturizers I've been using is oatmeal-based. I react to regular oatmeal when I eat it. Oats are not automatically gluten free. They are often processed in places with wheat and are cross contaminated. But not everyone is skin allergic to the foods they are allergic to.  Of course, I am. Apparently. I've been trying to treat an allergic reaction with another allergic reaction. Talk about a nightmare! No wonder it wasn't getting better. Thanks, Murphy. You always got my back.  I got new moisturizer today as all I had was one tiny hotel bottle. I'm keep using the antifungal cream just in case, though. As you might have guessed, I have been sleeping terribly with all the itchy rash business. I've also had some pretty terrible dreams. Despite the sleeping difficulties, I've come up with a plan for getting my novel, The Page ...