off to the chem lab

well, the stuff that had me occupied in the previous entry kept me busy for a while. eventually i expressed myself enough (often in the form of complaining, though there was some observation and confusion as well) and to the right people (this was the key bit, i think) and 'processed' it. i now strongly dislike that term.

my favourite quotes from friends include: "good ruckus turned to dark ruckus and took a number of lights down with it" and "freaking out is not part of your emotional process. it's just freaking out".

now i have an anger hangover.

the queen is back in less than a week. i have a friend coming by with her hypo-allergenic dog for a li'l visit, and we have visits out to the farm for the next couple of days to water the dogs and flowers. when he gets back, we are off to visit the awesomes. it feels like a family reunion, the first one since that time we all got food poisoning :)

it's been interesting to be sans queen for the past couple of weeks. i find myself enlightened to be seeing what has changed in my behaviour, and what has stayed the same. the dumpling has claimed an extra passport photo of his and kisses it. it breaks my heart to see that affection she is maintaining for the queen.

i'm finding myself, both personally and socially, interested now in how to solve common challenging circumstances. i've spent time observing and identifying what usually fucks me/us up, now i want to problem-solve.

how do i/we deal with intrusive shit? what are "friendly barriers" we can build, how can i strengthen my support beams?

- emotionally
- logically
- crisis planning

merlot and the rain

we did our weekend at the farm: in the woods, with hank and the awesomes and chaos (who only broke his own banjo this time). chaos' sister was there too, and i finally have a name for her. she is the river. she calls me the rock, so it really works.

a few other people came through, and there were only minor burns and bruises. the dumpling evolved her techniques of eating and being cute. we saw tiny frogs and one deer. looking all pristine and unsuicidal (this is in relation to deer being large, suicidal rabbits when seen from the road, not about the suicide of my friend a couple of weeks ago). gaia was out in force.

we are planning to be out with hank most weekends this sumer. this coming weekend, we are going to bring the cat! adventure is everywhere! it's important to acclimatize the cat to bus-living for eventual extremist hippie plans. chaos was wishing for a tribal lifestyle; he would be good at it too. flamenco, hatchets and a large beard can take you places.

other than that, it seems there are tiny sprouts in the garden, and another plot is severely overdue to capture all the herbs n stuff i sprouted indoors. i have littered sunflower seeds all over the bare patches of the yard, and hopefully they take pity on us and glow the place up :)

fieldinbloom is working on an album and wants me to throw down some spoken word about liberation and rising from the ashes of tragic consumerism and earth-destruction. it's been a while since i opened that door, but for this friend, it's an opportunity, not a chore. i can embody this phoenix. 

jotting down the feats and fears

my day sounds boring sometimes, but it actually requires a fair amount of creativity. questions i am concerned with include: how do i fit in all these chores while spending quality time with my child, taking care of her physical needs and "being myself"? how can i incorporate learning into play? what is she learning now anyway? (the peanut's new thing is noticing the accessories. she's obsessed with my clothes and jewelry as well as windowsills and doorknobs.) how do i balance my relationship with the queen, my relationship with the peanut, and their relationship with each other? how do i share finances with someone? i truly have no idea and have been avoiding this question.

how do i find the energy to do the same thing every day with no end in sight? how am i going to cope when the government cuts off my maternity benefits?

there are more questions, more thoughts, more worry, more excitement. but that's all for now.

beans

i'm back! my balls, it's been six days at least.

we're still settling in to the new place, but three out of four of us like it better (it's hard to tell how the peanut feels - she likes the new things to look at, but wakes up three times a night again). the queen likes how spacious it is, i like the neighbours and the light wood paneling, and olive likes the windowsill that looks out onto bird café.

the queen went camping for a night and left us in a quiet house with many boxes. the next night, we went camping together. hank looks very lovely in a field made by logging and gas companies. we spent the afternoon at the beach - i had my first swim of the season; shockingly late! it was awesome, and i realise how out of shape i am. things just don't settle back into place after what i've been through. but damn did it feel good to jump in a lake.

anyway, i am enjoying the boost of energy i have from all the forced labour and change that comes with moving. i think i'll go enjoy it.

bourbon, arrows and bikers

ahh, may long weekend. and it didn't even snow.

we went out to mr awesome's sister's place, a few hours east. she and her hubbyman proved the awesome moniker - they were awesome. they have a quarter-section with a couple of houses on it and some good plains n bushes. they have a one-year-old, three dogs and a cat or two (with outdoor cats, you never know for sure). we had a fire, chatted, drank too much bourbon n rum, and generally enjoyed ourselves. so much so that the next day was rather rough. well, we stayed up til the next day actually. jeezus.

two nights with the fine folks of awesome, then we headed out to a night at the farm. we were still in rather rough spirits, and the peanut, having been quite lovely for the duration of trekking around in hank (hank!) was also feeling crabby. most of the family had spent the weekend at the farm and were heading back, but there were still three brothers there; two with families, one with a ladyfriend. we chilled out for the evening, with the queen and his youngest brother shooting arrows (i shot a couple too, from the twenty yard line. i need some practice, but did manage to hit the target - a bale of hay with a bulls-eye spray-painted on it) and some mild refreshments happening.

the queen's brother came up with the idea of adults keeping the emotional motor functions of babies - bursting into tears at the least provocation, then totally fine again a minute later. can you imagine adults randomly freaking out? business meetings, family dinners... i like the mental image of sitting on one's ass in a grocery store aisle with a box of cheerios, just wailing.

now we're back at home - home for the next month or so! we got a new place in the next town over. it has way more room, is more baby-friendly and boasts a mancave for the queen. he really needs one - a place to put his guitars, his wood glue, his extra bottles of whatever vehicle liquid he is currently storing... i'm intrigued by the livingroom. it has a sunken-in area that would be good for new crawlers. there is also an apple tree in the front yard! yay! we move in the first of july. i'm excited to live in a town that doesn't have a dogfood factory, even if there are biker-looking dudes in the mobile home across the street. that just adds character to the neighbourhood, ya know?

anyway, as another parent put it, the long weekend are long when you're a parent. gotta run (trot, stumble, whatever).

girls gone wild

it seems that i blog while things are baking in the oven. today it's a crisp. or a crumble, if it comes out all crumbly. i found some rhubarb in the freezer, and i'm trying to thin out the forest of goods in there, so crumble/crisp it is. don't get the idea that i bake all day. i also complete such mentally stimulating activities as dishes, laundry and saying "what? what is it??" to crying grublets.

today the peanut spit up while i was burping her. she somehow managed to miss all my clothes but puke directly into my slipper. good times.

the queen got a job nearby, so "real life" has begun. we celebrated by sharing some gin and orange juice on his last day off. i managed to come off with only a mild hangover, but then, i was also in bed by ten.

it's interesting, being a stay-at-home mom. a mom, specifically, what with the stereotype and everything. those who know me know i'm not into reinforcing gender stereoptypes. but neither am i sworn off certain activities that i enjoy simply because they are "girly". i remember when i realised that it was okay to shave my legs as long as it was something i didn't feel pressured into doing.

so it's the two of us for most of the day (three if you count the cat, but very few do). we go crazy with all the home-stuff. today we mailed things! i know - sound the alarms. speaking of alarms, i think there should be a car horn that sounds like a crying baby. that would get people out of your way for sure.

whoda thunk not having a life would feel so good.

well, even if i wasn't in nesting mode, the blowing snow warning and blizzardy conditions covering two provinces would probably drive me inside anyway.

it's nice to have a home to retreat into. i organized my sewing (not as good as actually sewing anything, but hey - i reintroduced myself), baked more banana bread, and have plans for chili, cornbread and a bath in my fresh clean bathroom later today. maybe while listening to glenn gould play bach, which the queen has on vinyl, which is yet another reason he is the queen.

the queen's parents popped by today and i think i made quite the impression. "your son? no, he went to saskatchewan for the weekend (to visit the awesomes). i was just out shovelling the walk at eight months pregnant. cup of tea?" he's going to get an earful from his mom about leaving me alone. it's funny, because i want to tell her that as much as i have missed him (daily bouts of moroseness around eight pm have brought me to tears two days in a row. pregnancy or dependency? the polls are open), i quite enjoy time to myself and i was also quite enjoying shovelling the walk. i think time apart is vital for any relationship, but especially one that is under more pressure than usual. baby-in-a-crockpot pressure definitely counts.

my parents are coming down tomorrow, roads permitting, and the queen is returning home as well. tonight is my last chance to do loud things at two in the morning when i cannot sleep. there is something so satisfying about rattling around in the kitchen while the town sleeps.

wow, i am so boring. wanna hear about my turning-the-baby exercises? no? how about my pissed off cat? shocking. you people are clearly far too busy. sit down and listen to me pour on about things that only matter to me, and only for the next month. come on. this is what life is all about.

garbled transmissions:

first, my newest favourite AND a great e.e. cummings bit here. ah, the glory of a new wonderful webcomic.

i came home from work early today; got the dizzies: disturbing. drank lots of water and went to bed. ate salad. drank more water. did a few light things. read more from red mars, which i finally started (after staring at it on my "reading" shelf for months and months). i feel better but still not great. happily, tomorrow is my day off, so i can go for a walk in the river valley, and maybe make those cookies i've been promising myself all week.

the queen is out of town, visiting the family and such. it's been interesting to have him gone and me not be in a state of chaos, for whatever reason. gee, what do i do with my time? as it turns out, get slightly depressed. oh, the freedom.

olive, of course, has been much more affectionate with her major rival in affections and bed space being conveniently absent, although this is still her outside season, so the cuddle sessions are intense, but brief.

i feel a sense of peace having moved into a place i pay rent. i can call it mine like i haven't been able to since i moved out of gnome home 1 to housesit. i can put some things in my own storage basement. i can collect my nerdy old mysteries out of boxes and display them. one roommate has moved in (scarlett is definitely her moniker). she seems friendly, high-spirited, a breath of prairie fresh air. the main roommate of the house is still out of town; part of a building team putting up a strawbale cabin. she came back in and cleaned a bunch of stuff up, which made it feel less like living in a broken museum and more like a place i wanted to help keep clean.

anyway, i really just wanted to share the webcomic, and kind of dredged my brain for useless info to fill out the rest of the post. happy weekend to those of you in the weekend world.

a wandering drum

it's a good day. listening to my "gems" playlist (songs i stumble over while ploughing the field of music that i want to keep track of but am not sure how. once a song reaches ten plays, it gets put on another list (these playlists are exhaustive and based on artists, moods, actions, common themes, genres...) and/or deleted from the gems list. i find this a good way to keep track of needles in the haystack of itunes/my memory. also, it allows me to built intricate trees of playlists (none of which don't quite fit the moment, allowing me to start yet another). in reality, i haven't been very active in my nerdy music-land since i began house-sitting in november. and i don't feel called there now. but i do miss listening to my music. eight hours of music at work has tipped the scales in favour of silence after work.

also. i have an accordion! eee! it's a bass 120 "camillo", which near as i can discover is a kind of acordion made by guerrini for a canadian company in the sixties and maybe seventies. i am learning these keys (as well as the piano ones on the other end) and can haltingly, with long pauses, play "mary had a little lamb". it's very exciting.

i am settling into gnome home three. slowly. i ventured into the kitchen the other day.

it's odd moving into a house where lots has gone down and everyone's gone. it's a weird feeling. not displacement, but something akin to watching a movie where the character stumble blindly toward something you yourself can see, except actually you aren't watching the scene, you're just looking at the empty set afterward. the tipped over glass, the soiled napkin, the open door.

piecing together the story, as we've done for centuries - how we boost our success hunting by being able to "tell the story" of the tracks in the snow; deduce what has happened and where to go next. not just in hunting; forensic science (except forensic science is probably slower. not like the well-funded, lightning-quick labs with sexy, well-dressed scientists on late-night tv).

put humpty dumpty back together again. there is that draw. to solve, resolve.

whoops, forgot i left the blog so long. usually the happier i am, the less often i write. this is something i want to change.

so i've been happy. the queen and i had a deep and meaningful make-up to our deep and epic fight. it was a sad fight, but i think we pulled something good out of it. for me, i am happy that i was able to share my anger and hurt without bailing entirely. usually i'm kind of an all or nothing person, insofar that i accept, accept, accept until i break and then i'm gone. so it was good to rise to the occasion and defend the kind of relationship i want to have, while not tossing away the relationship in front of me. we sorted out the trauma, and then spoke to the underlying causes of the stress that led to the fight. we sorted out what we each needed.

and then the relationship in front of me took definitive steps in a lovely direction.

other tidbits: work has been busy and fulfilling. had supper with my parents and the queen last night and was rewarded with a pretty pleasant evening. currently listening to harry belafonte. moved four houses down, from one side of the gnome complex to the other. my new room has two windows that meet at the corner. they provide a view of a lot of trees, and the cobbled-together shed in the backyard of the frat house, which we have dubbed so because it is usually rented to a bunch of university students who do things like make a snowman in the front yard and give it a coke bottle full of cigarette butts as a nose.

i am listening to the rain. i heard a pigeon's flight today and it sounded beautiful.

roll, roll, roll your boat...

what to say, what to say. the queen and i had a pretty epic disagreement; one spawned by distance, previous troubles not fully laid to rest, a delay in sharing and old-fashioned miscommunication.

it was pretty rocky, explosive. can't say we don't have the passion part.

he took off, cooled down. i, after just having done this whole anger/hurt thing, feel pretty tired.

i still don't really know how i feel about our most recent volatile contact. i am relieved that the queen was able to sort out some things he would like to change about his own behaviour in order to better serve his needs. if he follows through with what he intends, there will likely be more peace both inside and around him. his epiphanies are his own, and i won't go into them here.

it just sapped me. all that emotion, so hard, so fast. it went through me and hit all the tender spots. it feels like a train went through me. someone else's train. but i cared, which made it sort of like my own train. in hindsight, which i desperately need more of, it can probably become one of those turning points.

if we turn. neither of us feel terribly confident about our ability to maintain long-term relationships. we both want to try, but we both have issues with the statistics on long-term relationships. we both have issues with each other's pasts and what we'll each become. there is uncertainty here.

it's strange to feel bred to fail, and experienced in failure, yet drawn to try. drawn to the light. is it the end of the tunnel or a fiery pit of doom? stay tuned and watch me not be able to tell the difference!

in household news, the lovelies return from oregon tonight so i am back at the house of the good witch. who has decided that for emotional health reasons, she needs to live alone unless the person she lives with is closer to her and more committed to a long-term stay. which totally makes sense and i knew i probably wouldn't stay here too long. still, it sucks to go pay rent somewhere. bookstores don't pay, i haven't had a raise since i got there last fall.

so i talked to one of the gnomes who just had some serious house-breaking, and needs new roommates. i can pay come the middle of the month, and olive and i can move into the only remaining gnome home (3) that we haven't lived in yet. so that will be happening in the next couple of weeks. welcome home. again.

this too shall pass, but what shall replace it?

a whole new thing

sitting waiting for gluten-free donuts courtesy of the fine folks at kinnikinnick (possibly with more 'k'). scratch that. just polished off one marvelous gluten-free donut and am gazing fondly at another one.

cat-sitting a very needy cat. i was going to say the neediest cat in the world, but having just read this post, i amend my statement to mere neediness. mr shakespeare got nothin on ramona.

the queen and i had a very lovely post-sleep Fair decompression session, thank you. all is well on that front, except that the feline bard's neediness kept the queen up all night before one of his umpteen-hour work days, and the queen has not been back since. ah well, the wife is always saying we need more space. still, i miss him.

it's weird to be all by myself in an unfamiliar apartment condo unit thingie downtown. my lovely friend and her lovely partner (the lovelies) are off to oregon, and stocked the freezer with gluten-free goodies for me. in return, i lavish affections on my eternal meowing follower and feed 'buddy' the fish. their place was gutted and redone, and now features open rooms, dark wood floors, sleek and spacy appliances and a claw-foot tub in a gorgeous hand-tiled bathroom. it's quite nice but i am used to the proximity of gnomes, and miss being home.

after the fair, i came down with a nasty cold, but it rocketed through my system at an amazing pace, and although i still feel tired, blow my nose and eat lozenges, i feel like i can move again, which is rather pleasant. the weather has been nice and warm, so when i stopped shivering i knew i was feeling better. the queen brought me tea at work and gave me a ride home on the worst night, even though it opened him to the gates of all-night meowing at my pseudo-home.

once again, i am living by myself, though only for two weeksish. i love it. i love leaving piles of things, leaving my few dishes til i feel like doing them, using the space i want to use when i want to use it. i love knowing i'm not cramping anyone's style. it's weird how i find myself relaxing in spaces of solitude. way more enjoyment of my time. i don't think i need to live by myself. i do think i need to recognize that i didn't like living at home, and have carried certain negative assumptions every since. i think i can learn how to live freely.

i am reading this book and this book and they are both unusual and wonderful. oh repertoire expansion, how i love thee. new authors that delight me, oh pleasure pleasure.

i ate too many donuts.

midnight grease

raining tonight. worked the night shift at the bookstore, and melancholy was definitely grabby tonight. listening to this song by peter bjorn and john, illicit texts of longing to the queen. he responded in kind, having watched the time traveler's wife and the road tonight, a mellow movie evening after his six-am-start workday. by the time i read his return text, i was listening to blue valentines. god, the blues.

i find hope kind of melancholy. i suppose i could make all kinds of fatalist statements regarding that, but really, i think the 'reason' is probably body-based. or changes every time i look at it. and i guess i need to group the blues right in with hope and all other emotions as melancholy (kind of). because they're all so transient. and in case anyone wonders if i've "lost my will to live" (without tone, this epiphany might sound alarming) i am more kind of relieved to let go of yet another shard of drama. "oh, that wasn't actually terribly important? it wasn't an epic moment sponsored by (insert preferable source of meaning or order in your life)? oh, okay. i'm fine with that."

i planned to vacuum when i came home, and then go join the queen three doors down. but i find myself desiring a glass of wine and either the year of the flood or tipping the velvet, i'm not sure yet.

i have decided to woo my new roommate with household dynamics. if i cook big enough meals, i can do some serious gnomal wooing. curries can woo crowds. consider adding okra.

time passes. mixed reactions.

wow, it is may. or so they say. i drink some coffee, miss a wedding. the good witch comes home tomorrow, so i clean the bathroom and sweep the floor, gathering my things from around the house; back to two rooms i go. the bedroom is lovely, but it's the back room with the staircase down to the backyard i love the most. spontaneous german typewriters; who wouldn't love that?

i wonder how the good witch and i will get along, living in the same house. i hope we find a respectful rhythm. previously, it seemed nice but odd. nice because we have harmony and mutual likes, odd because i hadn't been expecting to live here as a roommate, only to housesit. the good witch has been roommateless for some time, and appreciates her space. but she mentioned that she liked the freshness i brought in. so maybe this can work.

i long to get some wool and learn how to crochet. my sweet friend in new orleans sent me a crocheted little hen (at least it looks like a hen to me; belated easter, maybe?) and it looks like fun. plus it will encourage me to someday spin my own wool, like another sweet friend in ontario, previously of new brunswick, does. she has a wheel, she spins wool. then she knits things. i want those kinds of skills.

am i getting old? no doubt! but who doesn't, except for the dead? actually, the dead age. it's called fading. last night i missed my dad.

i would like to keep serving my dream as i age. this dream of living kindly, quietly, musically, with my love. sitting. having babies, goats. making things, making do.

and maybe a room with white furniture when i am "very old"; whence i can emerge outside and sit with the young ones. be their grandma. i will be a wonderful grandma.

gallant moment in time

late at night, for some reason, restless. downstairs at the goodwitch house, cat sitting in the dining room at night, the queen upstairs sleeping with the regular housecat, beautiful and black.

a cake in the oven, product of a moment's decision; cupboard cake (cake made with whatever's in the cupboard) with yogurt, cherry butter, eggs, sunflower oil and saskatoon berries, flavoured with cinnamon and maple syrup. a few eggs and some celiac flour, poof. (well, the poof might actually be the baking soda.)

hung out with the wife tonight on the back porch. she's a-glowing, enjoying her own space. we chatted, mostly on her end while i sat, kind of dazed. we talked about future living arrangements, life plans (as long as there is life, there are plans for it).

great day off today; bit of housework, bit of reading, bit of errandry; lot of mild catching up and downtime. i love these days. the cat relaxes, the house gets lived in. moments are savoured, pulled apart and chewed up.

this is a form of richness.

general effusiveness

such busy, busy days. for me (translation: am not sitting at home in front of the computer).

quick story: pigeon got into bookstore's furnace ventilation system through panel left off furnace on roof.* pigeon ended up at the other end of the furnace system, pecking through ceiling grate on the first floor, shitting all over the carpet and worrying an animal-rights-inspired customer browsing. of course, we couldn't get the grate to open, only to bend. eventually, i called the queen, who came riding down in his white steed and accomplished the pigeon rescue by opening the ceiling panel next to the grate and propping the furnace vent itself open by cramming bad romantic suspense books between its bits. for his trouble, he got some free vinyl and the knowledge of one more pigeon out there, free (as a bird?).

now, it has been another day since i started this post. interruptions; queen and i went to pick up stuff we successfully bid on at the book release/punk? show/silent auction for humanitarian efforts in iraq we went to on friday night (after my two meetings; that does not count for a day off). the show was great, and the band we went to see excellent. the show on saturday night was also great; several bands at a local drinking hole. i enjoyed plainclothes and touchitandyouwillsayow.

on sunday, we jammed with our lovely friend, a little bird who lives on the edge of town. he comes in rarely, so it was a special treat for all the gnomes. the occasion also marked the first time the queen and i jammed since we fell in love. i felt sort of euphoric. another friend of the queen and little bird's came by, who likes to play a lot of metal and is amazing on classical guitar. he jammed with us a bit and then "had to thrash" so did so. i went out to the fire in the backyard. there may have been scotch.

the queen and i are moving into different kinds of learning with each other. hesitancy is coming up, viewpoints we differ in are being discovered. i feel very lucky to be with someone who is passionate and intelligent, who is patient and sometimes makes mistakes. who makes me breakfast in bed and then teases me mercilessly about the silly things i am sensitive about, including my inability to tell when i'm being teased (which has led me to plaintively question "is this banter?" whenever he says something i hope isn't true). who loves me and receives my love. i just end up feeling cheesy when i try and talk about it. spout spout. effuse effuse.

i have been invited to continue living with the lovely woman i am housesitting for. this means she gets a nickname. i have known her for years, she has a lovely black cat and this old beautiful home. she works on poverty issues (among others) and strives for a balanced and emotionally authentic life. she plays the fiddle, drinks wine around the fire and has a deceptively innocent face. i will call her the good witch.

emotion: amazingly lucky to live three houses up from the queen and the wife. and to know all the people in between. brewing contentment.

yesterday evening around the fire, the queen and i were conversing about different kinds of scotch and their growing and distillation processes. little bird laughed (i love it when shy people laugh) and said he could see us discussing important things together when we are both ninety.

people keep saying these things. it reminds me to take it one day at a time, even as i want to skydive a message across the sky proclaiming eternal wonder at this amazing connection.

flickering firelight

december! already half past, and i'm not even terribly stressed out. excellent.

working on being present with my sorrow. all the old sorrows especially; the ones that have been buried because they weren't good enough to justify grieving, and i was supposed to have a stiff upper lip. as my friend c-light says, "they were buried, but they're still in the house." can't really compost into a beautiful garden that way, can they? so we dig out the old sorrows - ah, who am i kidding, no need to dig: they're right here, fucking up my present.

every day for the last three days, i sit with my sorrows. sometimes that looks like just sitting, other times it is playing music and talking to myself. having baths, soft encouragement; the kinds of things i always want to do, but end up doing the dishes instead. no more!

other than that, eating gluten-free pizza and yummy deer meat, working at the bookstore (quite happily) and noticing. noticing, noticing, noticing. am off to the gnomes' and the parents' for the holydays, and the precious widdle dogs are visiting one of their aunties.

also! have roommate come january! which means i can go out after work like other people! this is exciting. i have been alone in this house for almost two months; i think i am ready to take on a roommate without being all "this person, why are they here, cramping my style?" hopefully i will be able to relax. this is a challenge of mine - even being able to relax in the same house as someone else, without playing off all possible imaginary expectations they might be trying to thrust upon me. however, this person, friend of a friend, nickname pending, seems quite mellow.

anyway, more time to visit my cat and pubs with the bookstore crowd. simple gatherings, with beings that don't expect me to do anything other than talk about books. how lovely. and visit my wife! ah, wifie. i miss you. the phone calls are wonderful, but they ain't the same as being in your buzz. she's got such a great buzz, people.

wrote a short story recently. it was surprisingly lovely. and it helped me get through something, helped me see a bit more about my self. maybe someday i will share it out here.

turning the corner

i've been sleeping unashamedly. last night the roommates were all out having a fire and i was crashed out in my sweet bed, dreaming of office supplies and men.

i'm letting go of my job, and jobs in general. after a long time out of school and making fun of educational "institutions" (read: businesses), i feel drawn enough to a path that i will be investing thousands into their piece of paper that says i am legitimately organic. oh, the investments we make. because i flaunted my not-for-school attitude for so long, i now have to start at the bottom of the tree. trunks are fun, oh yes. just get me up the damn thing so i can play in the branches. hunker down time.

my roommate and i are also talking of moving our prairie butts back to the mountains, where we had met. but a smaller town this time. she's tired of the snow, and i'm tired of the grey monolith of an environment. since i'm taking distance learning for the first few years, i'm open, but i am already wondering where to take my masters. it's lovely that after a roadtrip, when i'm wondering if i really want to stay here, my 'wife' is also querying the wisdom of this city for our home and family. it's gratifying to feel once again our synergy on such matters.

have checked in with my own sense of naiveté again. it's the thing about me that i have little influence over. the unending trust i supply to strangers who smile at me is kind of incredible, and if it wasn't coupled with a sense of intuition, i'm not sure how long i'd survive in this life. being on the road, meeting people out of my own context of friends and achievements has been interesting. my enthusiasm gets mistaken for something else. my tenderness can be held against me. i was let down that some folks weren't more willing to participate in co-creation. i certainly came back with more appreciation for my friend group. at first, i was disappointed that i didn't peg people's personalities right off the bat, but now i have moved to a place of just learning from it. i'm not psychic, after all. that's a different skill base. the disappointment was not my fault. take that, mean little self-blaming ego.

habits are strong, but my desire to grow is stronger yet. as i edge into the unknown, i am reminded of how tiny i am. tiny spark in the waves, nourish thy self.

tools of the trade

i am having a good day, where the songs in my head are robust and frolicky. walked across the high level bridge today, and the sun was blinding. shared dinner with the gnomes; a household affair plus a friend from next door. continuing to love the way i relate with my roommates. i finally understand how effortlessness works. we're very close. i think two very key parts are that we are all relatively healthy, and willing to do what is required.

found a great set of shields to image, on the occasions where the sheer number of people or feelings i pick up are not very fun. i am learning these empath ways starting to actually take care of myself (which is currently defined as more than the least one can get away with, much to my chagrin). i was resistant and slapdash about self-care not because i was lazy, or even out of low self-esteem (though it is there, it's always present). i neglected myself because i wasn't in crisis, and other people were, so i had best tend to them. or else, i had to be in crisis.

it has taken a while, but i think i can be happy in a world where not everyone is happy. though even typing the phrase brings on an ill feeling in my gut. is it revulsion over the pain or shame for not being completely selfless? does it matter? i've probably already wandered away from the point. anyway. even basic logic comes around eventually: how would my unhappiness help? i don't need to be unhappy in order to motivate myself to help others. rather the reverse.

not to mention (and this one is tougher to swallow for my desperately helpful self) that it's possibly not really necessarily for me to make them happy or even help them be happy. seriously. that road to hell saying ain't just a saying. codependency, anyone? no thanks!

so i sit with my own happiness and enjoy it while it's here. butterflies tend to be fleeting.

darkness and co.

new news, more news, old news.

our lovely household is facing a shuffle in roommates. while we currently have the most amazing coalition of folks, one of our fold is leaving for a 'house in the country'. the garden and the solitude will feed his peaceful soul. meanwhile, a yogic healer with nerdy tendencies is moving in to the orange room. i have lived with this character before. consciousness is brought to the most insignificant actions. i look forward to it.

i have also begun a job this week, after a month of unemployment. i'm enjoying the pace, and have been able to work from home for a few days this week. the job has scored well on three of my job standards (money, geography and people), and neutral on the fourth (the change i want to see in the world). it's hard for a web development company to really echo my values, although i suppose they could be a little closer. but then they wouldn't necessarily be the same people, and i like these people.

this seems like a boring entry, but winter has hit, and i dutifully record the occurrence. today it's freezing rain. yesterday i was out for five minutes and my hands were painfully numb. i'm not sure how they can be both numb and in pain, but it is possible. the increasing darkness is also afoot. ah well, two or three months and then i can breathe freely again. meanwhile, huddle under the full-spectrum bulb. last week i was doing so well with the approaching winter. plans to go snowshoeing, deep breaths into the cold... now i'm all "man the hot chocolate machine!" and grumpy bunny slippers. ah well.

been reading philosophy or poetry in the mornings (though this morning i forgot and read about heinous crimes and terrorism in the guardian while i drank coffee). trying to let that part of my brain breathe. mostly it's been a zen book, though occasionally some rilke. it's nice. i read about some guy in the atlantic monthly or maybe the walrus who maintains this practice and attributes his happiness in part to that. i don't know about that; it seems to be the rule that people don't really know why we're happy, and don't even continue to identify with what makes us happy from one moment to the next. i find that amusing, who knows why.