Eventualities Cordon Index

Eventualities Cordon is was a work of collaborative fiction in which a set of people discover one day in February 2023, that they have suddenly developed incredible magic powers. What will they choose to do with these powers? How will they relate to world events? Their previous lives? Each other? These are themes the story will sought to explore.

I intend intended to post various excerpts of my own part of the story to my blog under its own tag.

edit, Nov 2023: However, while I was procrastinating on retrieving the pieces I had already written from the Discord server where they were composed and polishing them up for this blog... That channel was deleted. My compositions were lost. This is part of the reason that my blog has been deserted for such a long time after this post. The things I had really wanted to post next where these things, the names of which are listed below in sections 2-5. First I was distracted and procrastinating because it was a big task... And then they were gone.

If you have canon or fan fiction about the Eventualities Cordon story-line and universe you would like to share, you are welcome to write or link to it in comments to this or other Eventualities Cordon blog posts to which your fiction relates.

edit, Nov 2023: Ah, such beautiful optimism...

Readers are encouraged to comment about how they might interact with the story as people without magic powers; if you do, your participation may at the discretion of the authors (including myself) be incorporated as canonical details.

Counting My Blessings

I'm having a count-my-blessings sort of day, I think. Last night I spoke with a lover I'd been angrily, stubbornly hoping I could improve things with, and told them that I thought I was starting to give up on them. They said they weren't surprised. Somewhat sad, but didn't feel they had the resources to do anything about it and it was somewhat predictable.

I felt restless for a while, but waking up today, I find myself at a turning of chapters. Bittersweet and refreshing. I don't like letting go of the past, but the idea that I really don't know what the future will be and have a fair amount of choice in the matter is... A good thing to come back to like this.

I am being still, so far today. I have spent some time appreciating that my bed is very comfortable and my blankets, when I use all of them, comfortably weighty to snuggle up under. I like this cozy little room in this cozy little house, with queer roommates who, even if I am in conflict with them, do to an appreciable amount of effort not to unduly take it out on me. They aren't perfect of course, but have done a magnificent job of being reasonable roommates who although they're somewhat messy don't make my life needlessly difficult.

I'm grateful for my friends, and the food banks and free meal systems in my city. I know this feeling isn't going to last, I'll come back around to thinking the world sees me as scum and only ever takes care of me out of a sense of reluctant obligation, but right now it seems like quite a few people really are putting some effort into making sure that poor folks like me have good food to eat, even if they don't see how they could ensure anything else for us.

How Things Have Been

I meant to come post a bloody story I wrote here. I'm not sure whether I thought better of it or whether I just forgot. For all that I post raw and intensely here, I don't typically post gruesome, and perhaps I should keep it that way.

The situation with another nasty roommate continues to deteriorate. I actually shouted at him last night, then cried and felt sick and tasted and smelled acrid for the rest of the night. There is a potential new tenant coming to see my room today. If she takes it, I will move downstairs and not be next to him anymore.

Friendly roommate continues to be friendly and supportive; friends have been accessible, and I have been doing better for the last couple of weeks at accessing them.

I've pushed some regularity into my medication schedule, taking my pills at 10 each morning. I think I might shift that to 8 now that I've been regularly sleeping nights for a few days. Waiting until 11 to eat in order not to interfere with their absorption is annoying. Waiting until 9 would not be so bad I think.

The new stability feels weird sometimes. Like the world is flatter. Not grey and dull and uninteresting, just more level and approachable. Less shaking around, less steep slopes to climb. It's like every footstep takes a little less effort and is a lot less scary. I didn't realize the schedule would make such a big difference, and regardless I don't think I was ready for it before.

I'm paused in the middle of reading documentation for a programming tool so I can try to rewrite parts of it better and clearer, and work on a portfolio to pursue technical writing work remotely online. In light of the pandemic it seems like a decent move, but actually... I took some time to reflect a short time ago and recognize that I don't want anything to tie me to Kitchener.

I want to go back to my friends in the states. I don't want a job that would keep me here any longer than a few months, and even temporary jobs may be... "sticky" that way, tempting to stay on longer. So it's more about that than COVID, really. It's more that once it's safe, I want to go and be with the family of people who support me, give cohabitation another chance. Give dealing with each other another, better chance, more carefully this time.

It's lonely staying alone inside, far from my intimate companions and uncertain of the future. But then, it always has been, really. Not much has changed for my day to day life personally in the light of pandemic except that I feel like I'm not supposed to go out for walks - and when I go to buy groceries and household essentials, there are long discouraging lines a lot of the time.

In a certain tongue in cheek way, I've been occasionally remembering a Daft Punk song which has never seemed more appropriate. I Remember Touch...

Silent in the Face of Panic and Heartbreak

I attended Unitarian Universalist service today for the first time. I rode in early with a choir member so she could attend rehearsal.

Sitting nervously in the corridor-side edge of a pew, unwilling to trap myself in the middle of one of the long benches, I curled quietly. In waves, I felt exposed. As the people gradually filtered in, the edge of panic at the potential for judgement and the eyes of strangers flickered up, threatening, and ebbing down, and rising up again. I tied part of a macrame bracelet, pinned to my backpack, set on my knee, and turned my eyes down and set my fingers working in their fidgeting work when the anxiety rose, as a way to curl in.

Fearing that others may try to ask me questions I felt I would not be able to answer, but only burst into tears at my own inability, I had the forethought to take my pocket notebook out shortly before service ended and write clearly: "I'M SORRY - I'M NOT FEELING ABLE TO TALK RIGHT NOW."

The one person I handed this notebook to as answer to their greeting questions about whether I had enjoyed the service nodded and took a half-step back immediately on comprehending the words. I did have a bit of trouble finding routes to move around people engaged in conversation, scattered here and there in aisles and in the party area downstairs.

Downstairs for tea and coffee, at the table for writing nametags, I wrote my chosen name, and stood for a long indecisive time with a marker of a second color in my hand, trying to find a way to express succinctly enough for a nametag what I wished be known. I settled for "MAY MIGHT NOT SPEAK", which seemed to serve well enough. Those people speaking to me caught sight of it if I just angled a bit, and then spoke without expecting me to answer in words. One kind lady for instance first asked if I was looking for something, and then upon seeing it, told me where the coffee and tea was. Coffee was, indeed, what I had been looking for, and I was at first looking at the wrong table.

I summoned my nerve to speak when the lady who had led most of the service stepped near. I thought I had already missed my opportunity, or perhaps ought to wait and see more of her manner on another visit first. But being brought so close by chance, I attracted her attention, speaking softly and shy, and asked, given her mentioning a love of collecting all sorts of Christmas music, whether she'd added the H. P. Lovecraft Historical Society versions to her collection yet. It seems my recommendation was welcomed with some delight. It brings a smile to my face to remember in order to relate it.

Throughout the service, while panic flickered and was soothed in waves like a tide, as my developed instinct to be averse to ritualized group ceremonies (as they strengthen ties that often lead to groupthink) rose and railed as the people chanted their sacrament, rose and sat, sang, held hands to sway together, and made arches with arms for young ones to pass under. I might have wished to join in better, but the rhythm of the service was unfamiliar to me; still deeply associated with traditions that rankle my thoughts; some of the songs unknown; and as well, had I wished to sing, my voice, I feared, would have croaked and shrilled with sobbing.

I joined in singing "It Came Upon a Midnight Clear" in a deep register and some softness, though tears streamed from my eyes. I stood to go and light two candles when the time was called to do so, although with a fear in me that this was something meant to be arranged beforehand or paid for. It seems it was not, though.

Sometimes, it was not really fear that insulated me from the warmth and welcome of the friendly people at the chapel, nor perhaps even my old accustomed sense of distance and barrier from people who are being happy, relaxed people together. It was heartbreak, still thick upon me like dust or fiberglass. Heartbreak, which renders its host profoundly alone although they may be in a crowd of recognized friends.

And so I lived for a time on the edge of panic and in the thickness of heartbreak, and sat crying. And I wished I could have told someone, through my silence, through my sense of isolation, and the intent of the assembled congregation, I know. I know and I need, for this time, to live on the edge of panic and in the thick of heartbreak, and to cry and endure and sit with my tears on my breast.

And so I have, and so I do. I will cry until my crying runs out and is not replenished by water and salt and sleep.

I have been struggling with the question of how much to let go.

A Simple Story

On my way home on Tuesday evening, the pony at the corner of my block was hanging out by the gate, and I noticed the water bin in the paddock was empty. I stopped and held out my hand to be smelled, and managed to get away with petting and neck-scratching the pony for a good long while. I felt kind of bad about seeing it so thirsty, and said "Sorry" as I walked away.
On the short rest of the way to my house, though, I realized there was something I could do.

I checked the backyard and found an old bucket in a stack of things, with mud caked around the bottom, and when I took off the lid, it had mossy water in it - Good; It's water tight, then, and not being used for anything else. Dumped the dirty water, left it there for the moment, and came inside to use the bathroom. Noticed a bucket in the laundry room too, which was much cleaner. Open it - empty! Alright. This gives me more to work with. So I carried the dirty bucket empty through the house and set it on the front lawn without putting it down anywhere, so as to avoid making a mess. Filled the clean bucket at the sink, filled the dirty bucket with it, and filled it again. Somewhere between 1/3 and 1/2 full, the both of them. Put on my puffy gloves in order to avoid hurting my hands on the thin handles, and carried them to the paddock, taking several breaks to rest and stretch my arms.

But when I got there, a big farm truck was pulled up and a fellow was climbing over the gate. I put down my buckets and looked closer - the water bin and feed area had already been filled. Well. Alright. Pony's master has got things under control.

I said nothing to the man, didn't even wave. I suspect he never saw me, being too busy. I dumped out the buckets and brought them back home.

On net, I got in some 'farmer's walk' exercise and both had and executed on a resourceful idea that turned out to have been completely unnecessary.

I figure I'm quite alright with that.

Dear Memory: As Seasons Change and The Time Draws Near

My upcoming trip back to Ireland becomes more real week by week. It is less than a month away now, and begins to solidify, develop the practical gentle urgency of something I need to prepare for. I went out today, and bought a luggage to fit close to the maximum dimensions for an allowed carry-on luggage as permitted for my flight. The one I found at Talize that I decided to buy was missing a handle, but seems roomy and adaptible. Part of its length is collapsible with an extension zipper. It also has little wheels on the bottom, and I know well the value of being able to pull, not carry, wherever the ground permits. I have begun to sew on a new handle, made of a synthetic strap that I have among my collection of various potentially useful objects and materials.

It has been a while since I've done any sewing, although I had a stint of it a while back, before I got this summer job, and I look forward to finishing my backpack as well, before I finally go.

The job... The first genuine interview I got this summer led to a hire. I must have been doing something right, and that brings a little soft smile to my face, although I know it also took me some effort and stress before I got to that interview. I have been working in maintenance at the Boys & Girls Club of London, and my direct supervisor is often impressed with the thoroughness and care of the work I and my co-workers who are also summer student hires do. Even, sometimes, with the speed, although this is far less one of my strengths. I have had sore muscles and joints in at least one place almost constantly since I started - it is physical work, which I have not been used to in recent years; and involves a lot of crouching and bending, which is hard on my feet, and thighs, and knees. However, the staff there are friendly and diverse, encouraging and gentle. They remind me insistently to take breaks and I think they want to make sure I take care of myself, which it is hard to remember to do when I am focused on proving my worth - at work, I always am.

For the first week of July, distant memory, I went into the United States to visit with another friend from the internet, who has seemed to be quite smitten with me for some time, and has been a great source of comfort and companionship. It was a very pleasant week of luxury and relaxation. I was treated to a hotel and swimming and I suspect I would have been bought restaurant food every day I was there had I not pretty much insisted on showing my cooking chops - so one night, I made us sandwiches and then my host bought us a hotplate so that I could cook a jambalaya (a boxed meal that caught his eye when we were shopping) and a soup and a good meal of pasta.

My dear host also offered me the opportunity to take a new laptop with me when I left, which caught me thoroughly off-guard. He had bought it just to have for our time together, he explained to me, and would have returned it otherwise. Although it baffles my awkwardness about money and worthiness, and jarred against my pride clamorously, I accepted; my budget for the coming year is likely to be stretched as it is, and my old laptop is in awful shape, just kind of waiting for one last problem to make it actually unusable. It already has no useable battery (and cannot run at all without being constantly plugged in) and often stalls and threatens to crash when dealing with anything complicated.

My trip in July was romantic, and my relationship with the one who invited me there as well. It continues to be a strong and fond connection. I wish for you to understand that although it took me some time to be ready to open my heart again after losing you last summer, and losing you much more thoroughly in October... I have been able to. I want you to understand that this is not an indication that I do not care about you or am no longer fond of you. It is, however, part of the plan. I needed to let you go, in order to come back to you freely, and with the strength of independence. Forging new romantic connections again, once I was able, has been part of that, a small and vital part of letting you go. But they do not displace my promises, or my hopes. There is a throne somewhere in my heart, now perhaps a little dusty, for I have left it mostly alone for some time... that sits reserved for you, should you want it. I have set up my other relationships to be secondary, to give primacy to the potential of you. If the primacy of you does not come about, I will adjust. If you make clear that you do not want the throne, I will adjust. Offer that place to someone else, or destroy it and build something else.

I think of you only occasionally now, and I think of you as a feature of the future more than a feature of the past. I do not have much to think about you that I have not already covered, and I think I have settled into a reasonable comfort in waiting. I went very thoroughly over all this, emotionally and practically, earlier. I chose my strategy, now it only remains to carry it through, and this I can do quite simply.

It occured to me while I was taking a shower at some point, perhaps a week ago, perhaps two... that there had been a time that a former state of Serp was thoroughly obsessed with you, and that state of Serp had had little else in its focus than you, and what might be the best way to have the best chance to know you again, and to have all the good of your company. That Serp decided that in order to have the best chance, it must cease to be the obsessed Serp that it was, but make a plan to pursue you gently and without being obsessed, so that the future, non-obsessed Serp would not simply ignore you or fail to make any effort. And so my past self plotted, and felt, and dreamed, and wrote you letters here, burning out its passion and resigning itself to pass away, giving way gradually and by its own will to a different Serp with a very different state of mind.

It feels like a different person wrote those letters, a little. This Serp, this present I... I do not think it is obsessed. I do not think I am obsessed, but regard this whole adventure as just the way that things are going to go. In respect for my past self, and in accord with the arrangements and work already put into the plan, in acquiring an acceptance from another Irish school, a deposit from my father, committing to my landlord to leave. I do not feel all that romantic about it day by day, but from time to time I do think about the future and wonder what will happen, when I will actually meet you. What look will be on your face? What will you see when you look at me? Will you notice some differences right away? Will I seem calmer? Stronger? Thinner? Happier? The subtle changes that take place over months are rarely well observed by one who lives through them. They are rarely drastic enough to notice, and even when they are, the new way of things quickly becomes merely normal again. But perhaps you, old memory, will notice.

And so that I do not leave it out, because it is still part of the reason, I do come to Ireland in order to find out. In order to see you, and speak to you, and in order to answer the question of whether we can and will love one another again. Perhaps I will feel a wash of emotion as soon as I see you again, eye to eye in real time and real space. Perhaps I will remember my obsession and be again entangled. I think, however, that I will be able to resist becoming obsessed for a time, by being careful, so as to not overwhelm you or make myself a nuisance by being too attached if it is not reciprocated, or if it is not desired of me. It is not, now, a demand... as my past self insisted it should not be, and I think I am ready to fulfil that. It is not a need for you. It is an open question, one in which I remain interested and curious, and very much inclined to pursue. Will we love one another again? Shall I be your companion for some substantial amount of time? Will your life and my life fit together? Can we make them complimentary in a way that makes each of us stronger? Will you want to?

I remind myself, in a reflex, to imagine that the answer could be no. And I smile a little to myself, because I think I genuinely have managed to prepare to accept that gracefully, by reminding myself every time. It would be alright. It would be satisfactory. The question would still have been answered. Don't get me wrong, I expect it may be at least a little disappointing... But my cunning past self knew just what it wanted its strategy to be, and set it in motion and then lay down and passed peacefully into the past so that I could emerge as I am, as planned, and I have to say I am somewhat impressed with myself. I didn't realize I could do that.

I think I'm ready. I am prepared for long travel, and to face uncertainty with confidence and with ingredients gathered around me from which to forge all manner of alternate plans. I am ready to meet you and be rekindled as a lover, or embraced as a friend. An... old friend... I remember the words, and my mind is transported back to a grassy field, a gentle rise, a tense and tearful conversation. My eyes leak in sympathy with the past and I feel curious, and wistful, and I continue to think about the future, but note that there is still this possibility of being reminded vividly of the past, like a movie playing over again, known fondly and memorized.

I have begun to sell some of my things. Took a bunch of photos and made a bunch of listings the other day. It has demanded more organization from me, and I have done it. It is useful on its own anyway.

I knew it'd been some time since I wrote here. There are a good many things I struggle to make time for, in those moments when I have power and confidence enough to choose to do something, and then go ahead and do it. Rather than going through my life desperately from reassurance to reassurance like it sometimes feels like.

I have three weeks left at my summer job, and then another handful of days left to myself, and then a long, long travel back to the country where I met you, old memory. Since you will not be able to meet me the day I land, there is not really any need to plan the meeting in advance. I will take up the offer given me by my college and be transported to Carlow to begin to settle there, and then I will probably feel I have the right to speak to you more freely, for I will be there, and available at the expenditure of a few hours in transit. I breathe. I sigh. Until then, then, old memory. Heh. The reunion comes.

Dear Memory: Overlap

It's been a while since I wrote here... A lot has happened.

I mean, a LOT has happened now that I look back on it. Three short weeks later, and so much has happened after these long, stretching months of seemingly so little... I have finished my diploma. I was a bit worried about Tax, so I studied it purposefully and did well enough on the exam for a solid pass, although still not a great grade overall. I have moved out of the house with the loud and inconsiderate roommates I didn't feel I could talk to. Moved right next door, to another room managed by the same landlord, with different roommates. These ones don't bother me much. The walls are thicker and the room is further away from main flows of traffic. I've been sleeping full nights again, at long last. I even have access to quite a large downstairs den which I can reshape to my heart's contentment. I cleaned off and rearranged the furniture, populated some neglected shelves and a mantlepiece with books, knicknacks and an assortment of tasty snacks. I actually set up my round table, which has had no space to be useful in for over a year and was just in the way at my last house. It is so pretty now, a comfortable and happy place into which to invite my few local friends. Including a special new addition...

My asexual girlfriend finally moved to London! I had been forgetting this was even a thing, but a few days before I moved (which was a few days before the end of the month) she was landed and local. The night before the move, unable to sleep and stressed, I called her up to go walk the London night streets together and we hugged and kissed and chatted about all sorts of wonderful things. I've been showing her the markets on the weekends. It gives me an excellent excuse to go out to them myself, and there's a great budget stall at Gibraltar that sells non-perishable foodstuffs that are past their expiry date. I've found some pretty great things there (like sunflower seed butter and some delicious little cookies) and also some not great things there (like protein bars and Welch's fruit snacks which become very tough as they go stale), but the prices are certainly right for experimentation.

I got another three offers from Irish colleges, and am currently trying to decide between Sligo IT, Carlow IT and IT Tralee. I also got mail from Waterford, but to be honest their letter wasn't even a conditional letter of offer like the other three were and I was very unimpressed, so I'm not seriously considering it. I'm currently leaning towards Carlow because it's the closest by transit to Athlone.

I booked my plane ticket. Five hundred dollars or so, including baggage allowance. I'm bringing a real suitcase this time, bringing more with me; since I'm leaving nothing behind to wait for me.

And I broke the silence. I wrote you an email on the first of May. Brief and simple and somewhat formal, but contact has been made. I got a response the very next day, which was even shorter and simpler, but although little is said and although you did not take me up on the offer to talk more by starting a further conversation, there is enough confirmation there to make my heart sing. Misspelled and humble is a simple message that validates all the work I have done to get back across the sea. "Of coarse I'll meet with you".

Now my next big task is to choose between these three colleges and get access to enough money to pay my confirming deposit before May 30th. I'll probably need a student line of credit. And for that, I'll need a co-signer. Probably my father, if he'll agree to do it. Otherwise, I might reach out to Iris. Or Ashlynn. Or maybe even Brian, possibly. I'm willing to have some really awkward conversations about finances in order to make this happen. I will find a way.

As I was heading out to the bank today to discuss this, I paused and wanted to hear a specific Ani DiFranco song. This happens often enough, but this time... I didn't have the version I wanted to hear. I have the song, somewhere in my discograpy, but... it was too loose and whispery. I remembered a different rhythm. The search for the correct earworm involved a flustered overturning of YouTube to no avail and my purchasing a single track for 99c of the other non-live recording that was made of it... only to be sent the wrong song. They sent me "Shameless" instead, so I called the support line to have them fix it and ask questions about the song I was looking for.

It's been sorted. I have it now. The lighter and jazzier, more rhythm-tight 2007 recording, from the album 'Canon', of Ani DiFranco's song "Overlap":

...I know there is strength in the differences between us
and I know there is comfort, where we overlap;
Come here; stand in front of the light.
Stand still, so I can see your silhouette.
I hope... that you have got all night,
because I am not done looking at you yet.

I love this song. This version of this song. It prompted me to draw an analogy between communication and light that I built up so thoroughly I drew a colourful diagram of it years ago. And thinking those lyrics brings tears of intensity to my eyes. I feel this so much. I feel this about you. Not just you... So many of my friends. But also about you.

I have started taking firm steps in the process of job searching. There are postings on a student website. There are agencies in town that might be able to find me a temp position; maybe even one related to my accounting studies. I had an intake interview with one of the recruiters at one of those agencies on Tuesday (two days ago).

But I think I may be pushing myself a bit too hard. I came home feeling somewhat dizzied today, my mind full of blades and violence. I've had a particular propensity within the last week and a half or so to imagine stabbing myself through the left eye with my biggest, sharpest, favourite kitchen knife. It has been making me very twitchy, and I'm not entirely sure what to make of it. It may be... I hope... just down to a high intensity of stress, which is natural as the school term is ending and one is looking for a summer job. And preparing to go back to school. And adapting to changes in romantic relationships. And a move into a new house. And finances... So all told, I mean, I don't think I have a reason to be all that worried, but it's still a particularly unpleasant symptom of stress and I hope it goes away soon.

I hope I will hear from my dad. I hope he will be willing to co-sign a line of credit for me. I hope I can find a summer job that pays enough that I can do some saving for Ireland. I hope so many things, really... And I look forward to seeing you, sometime in my first few days of being back on the isle. I want to get to know you again, Fish. I hope you want that too. I really do.

Dear Memory: The Games You Play

Hi, Eoin.

I feel very close to you today, dear memory. I have been listening to your voice. It has been... over five months, I think... since the last time I listened to your voice, and that sound, so familiar, carries an amazing weight of nostalgia now.

I know you must be doing okay, for now, because you're part of a podcast now. Maybe later, I will come back and add a hyperlink to it into this post, but not yet. Not today. I'm a little afraid that you'd see the back-link somehow, and find me here, watching you, and that that would make you uncomfortable. So as much as I would love for you, for this person you are now, your voice still familiar, your jokes told with the same friendly sass... but not to me... As much as I might love to see you turn and see me watching you, I do not rustle the branches. I stay quiet and hidden and permit you not to be any more likely to notice me than you already are, for I've posted links to my blog sometimes on Facebook and I think once, the preview line visible from there held your name.

It's so good to hear you laughing again. And Gearoid and Troy, too. I miss hanging out at your house, listening to you banter with them like this, at home and happy and comfortable. I miss listening to you talk about the games you love, and shows you love, and things you do. I hope I will one day be welcome again to stand awkwardly at hand, listening. Trying sometimes to find something to contribute by saying. Even feeling self-consciously out of place there, but still allowed to be there, listening, enjoying the stories... and talking to you about them afterwards.

Maybe someday I will play games with you again. I hope so. You're so fun-loving. It's... relaxing just being around that, sometimes. It... was, I mean.

While looking through Steam today after nabbing a game which was released for free as an anniversary promotion, I stumbled across something I had remembered only dimly for some time. The Beginner's Guide... And I remember, like vision, like the physical world coming back as a dream fades. I remember sitting and laying on your bed and exploring it, rapt with attention. I remember the prison cell which ostensibly would originally have trapped the player for hours. I remember the trick-door which kept coming back or something, although I'm not sure I remember the trick to it. I remember three figures with blank faces, asking questions about how I got there, and how to move forward. I remember a huge room full of bubbles with comments in them. I remember a combination lock without any clues to the combination. I remember a man standing at a podium. I remember a red curtain around a stage, and a gun which shattered the scenery into blank whiteness... I remember a house full of little things to fix. Little chores to keep up, maintenance to be done. I remember liking that part. It seemed... peaceful.

I remember sitting with you and speaking aloud back at the narrator about the point I thought he'd missed. I remember... rising above the maze. Do you know, Fish...? I still keep that screenshot among my wallpapers. And whenever I see it, I think of you.

I listened to your podcast while I took a long walk today, and bought some ramen. Many times, I laughed at your jokes. Not just yours, Eoin, I mean Troy's and Gearoid's too. I'm glad you're okay. I'm glad you're talking about things that you love. I'm glad that I can listen to your voice without getting in your way. If you keep doing this, then there may be a way that I can have your good humour and your cheeky cleverness in my life even if you don't want to talk again when I land.

When I land. Dear memory... I haven't written this here yet. But last week, I got my first offer of placement back from an Irish college. Dear memory, the only condition set out in that offer is that I successfully finish my diploma and hand in my transcript by May 30th. Dear memory, I don't even have to get good marks in my classes, I only have to pass them. Dear memory...

I am coming.

I hope I will get more than one offer. I hope I will have a reason to contact you and ask which one I ought to choose, a lapse in the silence that's existed between us for more than five months. But even if this is the only choice I am given... I am coming. It's gone from "hope" and "maybe" and "trying" to something more solid.

The day after I received the email, I woke up in my bed, and squirmed gradually to consciousness, and my first conscious thought was to repeat, in my mind, I could buy my plane ticket today. I'm going to Ireland. Where to head after I land may not be set in stone, but I have my confirmation now. There is at least one answer available to that question. I'm going to Ireland. Coming to Ireland. I'm coming back, and I'm coming for you. It sings in my heart so intensely it turns almost to a shriek when I think about it. Like a perfect tone, sweet and high and pure and so loud it could shatter glass.

There is still much to be done first, but the greatest hurdle, the most doubtful issue has been cleared. The rest is details. Details which will fill my days, my nights, my schedule, until mid-August.

And this is why I felt it was now an acceptable time to look through your Facebook page again, and see a couple sorta recent pictures. And I found your new podcast there, and I've been listening to it. It's close enough now, somehow. It doesn't feel distant and stalkery the same way it did once before, because I expect I may have cause to actually be in touch within just another two weeks.

It all comes down to this... and now I hear you laughing and joking with your friends, just like you used to. And something in me that had worried that you might be somehow a very changed person now, someone less likely to like me... something of that fear melts away. You will very likely have changed somehow... but you laugh the same. In your most recent pictures on Facebook, your smile is as I knew it before I left. That's Eoin alright. And that's something right about the world. Something happy. Right now, it must be night time in Ireland, though it's yet early evening here. Goodnight, Eoin. May you rest healthfully and wake happy. I love you.

The Old Storyteller Barney McCaffrey

I've been watching a sort of mini-documentary on old stories from the valley where I grew up, presented by a man I remember from my childhood, Barney McCaffrey. He's dead now, but I remember him as one of the things that I think contributed to my feeling so attached to my own Irish heritage. He was a great local character, a story-teller. Half-Irish and half-Polish, so he adopted the area by Killaloe and Wilno as his home. Whenever there was a party or a significant social gathering about Wilno, he'd be there. Playing his accordion and singing songs and telling all manner of stories.

My father would take me to those sorts of things often enough, and sometimes my mother would too, when I was young. So much so that the sound of people playing live music some distance away or old classic rock through a radio makes me a little sleepy even to this day, because it reminds me of falling asleep in my mother's or father's car after I'd got tired, but they still wanted to stay and keep having fun.

I wonder now how much my love of stories and the tradition of telling them in songs and poems may've been shaped by Barney McCaffrey and characters like him.

Why do Monsters Make Me Happy?

Hello, world.

My slump seems to continue. I missed several classes again last week. I overcame some reluctance-towards-everything in order to attend a session I had booked almost a month ago with my counsellor on Friday. I spent just about the whole time venting and ranting and voicing my assessment of the great streak I had been on for a while, and the restfulness, and then restlessness, of my disengagement since February 19th.

The next day, I went back to the gym. I had a headache, that ebbed and returned while I was working out, and part way through my strength exercises, my willingness to exert myself gave out. My muscles seemed to be doing alright. It wasn't pain or pushing near the usual shaky intolerance that made me stop one of my sets at eleven, and the next, when I elected to try it again, at ten. It was something closer to boredom, or apathy, or reclusiveness.

I saw the coach who had originally set me up with my work out as I was heading up the stairs, and he asked cheerfully how I was, but I had nothing cheerful to say back, so I only waved. It was nice to see him again, since he was a positive acquaintance and very energetic and understanding from the beginning, but it was uncomfortable to be seen.

I noticed the other day that I had completely forgotten to pay rent to my landlord in February. In a fit of profound embarrassment, I immediately sent him an e-transfer for two months' rent to cover February and March, and filled the comment box and another email beside it with my apologies. He was gracious, and made nothing of it except to thank me for the messages. This landlord has been uncommonly good to us. I count that a dear blessing.

The kitchen continues to be wretched. The stove covered in grease and burned debris, the floor just dirty enough to be slightly sticky sometimes, and slightly slidey with a layer of dirt which is not secure on the floor at others. It is an unhappy, weighing thing to see.

Friday night my roommates had friends over. I have been trying to sleep at night again, and have been having some limited success, sleeping in late evening and remaining awake five hours before waking up on my own. However, I cannot measure my progress very well when I am not left to myself to wake up. I woke Friday night to the sounds of people, coming and going and loudly talking. I did not have the energy, or perhaps simply did not have the will, to move. I only lay in the darkness, awake and tired or perhaps sometimes vaguely approaching sleep again for a while before the voices roused me. Someone laughs. Someone swears, and my tension ticks up another little notch. I do not know how long I laid there before I found whatever I had been lacking and moved.

I should note, it was not paralysis this time. Sleep paralysis feels very different. I was stuck between rest and motion, not between my nerves and the waking world. It was very tiresome, but was not claustrophobic in the same way.

Eventually I stirred, rolled over, groaned, and turned on my laptop to check the time. About 1:30 AM. My thoughts grew darker, but were still tired and predominantly wordless. I wrapped my housecoat around me and staggered out to boil some water and fetch a snack, casting dark, empty looks toward the corner where those two roommates and their guests sat or stood or lay variously on and around the couch, talking loudly and not seeming to do much of anything else. I did not talk to them. I did not have the grace or the desire. In the short term, I was already woken, and in the long term, I no longer felt any inclination to believe my words would make any difference at all to their behaviour. Perhaps they do not understand the affect this has on me, but I have tried to make it clear to them before.

The loud speaking continued until 3:30 or 4 or so. The next morning, the area was scattered with pieces of chips, an empty chip bag, a large empty vodka bottle. The common area thus decorated was slightly worse than usual. Since then, the bottle and bag have been tidied away, but the pieces of chips have not. A few days ago, I left out a note on the counter that only said, "The STICKINESS on the floor is GROSS. Please CLEAN it." It has shifted around and been pushed toward the section of cabinets I reserve for myself, and the marker has been smudged with wetness and the paper spotted with grease, but so far as I can tell nothing has been done.

This afternoon I confronted one of my roommates in the kitchen, toneless, dark, not feeling enough of myself to give of myself. I greeted her and said, "Does it not bother you to see the kitchen like this?" She said quickly that it does, and that she would clean it tonight when others were not in the house. I heard it listlessly, almost feeling this gambit were unfair. I told her that if she did not, I probably would, and that I had a friend I wished to have over tomorrow.

I do not particularly believe her, but I will look to see whether anything is done. She also told me, the other day, when I sent out a text to the household and the landlord complaining that the thermostat had been turned to 78 degrees, that the landlord had set it so after she had complained of the cold, and it automatically reset to 78 if they changed it. I heard from the landlord in response to the same message that he would put a lock box on the thermostat.

I went out and bought some groceries, mostly frozen things to heat in the oven. The freezer I share with another roommate is mostly full. I send her a text message offering to make room if she needs it, and saying she shouldn't worry about it if she needs to rearrange the freezer or anything. I have generally gotten on well with this particular roommate, although she is rarely here. The kitchen bothers her more than it does me, and she has a boyfriend she can spend time with away from here, so I suppose why wouldn't she?

While at the grocery shop, I bought Monster energy drinks again, and had one as soon as I got home. I had been feeling deadened, disinterested, wondering whether my slump had degraded into depression. Shortly after the drink, though, as generally and bizarrely seems to happen, I felt... better. Cheerful, in a way I have not been. Why does this happen? What is it about the energy drinks that sloughs away the misery in a way nothing else does? I find it... concerning. I have a sense that I ought to be able to feel this alert all the time, without having to rely on a drink to trigger it. Why is it that they make me happy, even if I still feel tired and sleepy? Do I really feel my fatigue more as emotions than fatigue? I do know that nothing saps my energy like getting upset, but I didn't expect it to work so thoroughly the other way around. I know tiredness manifests as a form of sadness, but I do not expect energy to manifest more as happiness than as perceptible energy.

Burn Out - Oceans

I woke up this morning feeling really exhausted, and very much wanting to go back to sleep. My system reacted to waking up before it was ready with awful indigestion that kept me returning to the bathroom five minutes after leaving it, until my gut and intestines were acclimatized to my being awake. I had a class to go to. No time to go back to sleep.

While in the bathroom though, I noticed a little detail of definition, a little inward crease running vertically down the center of part of my chest, that I had never noticed before. I've only worked out in my new routine three times so far. Is it possible it could already have made a visible difference somewhere? Perhaps I'm just more inclined to notice details of my body now. However, this is interesting. I might keep looking for new or developing details.

I'm pleased to report that on my days between workouts, I am looking forward to going back, although the curl-ups and shoulder presses are still kicking my ass pretty hard. If my tolerance for them seems to worsen, or fails to get noticeably better for another week or so, I will talk to a coach about it.

I had been looking at Thursday as my second-longest day of classes in the new term. However, it actually seemed pretty forgiving today. The law class I'm taking seems to emphasize different areas of focus than the previous law class, despite using the same textbook. This is cool. I expected to already know this stuff more than what I actually do, which demonstrates that the re-learning and reinforcement will be valuable.

For the last few days, I've been jamming a lot to a song called Burn Out, by Beatdrop, one of the artists I got a free taste of by supporting OCRemix before they got full charitable organization status. It may be one of the first dubstep type songs I've been tempted to try to sing along to. Admittedly, most of the dubstep I've heard doesn't have lyrics. The whole Revolution album has a pretty good pace and tone for my recent start on working out, and continuing to write and complete checklists, pushing to get quite a lot done. It's honestly been a pretty awesome week, but I haven't been getting enough sleep lately, and it's starting to take a toll in the mornings.

A classmate let me borrow her Intermediate Accounting textbook to photocopy pages full of exercises; I bought an old version which doesn't have the same questions in the same order, and the solutions are in an online key only provided for the current version, so if I want to have practice work I can actually check answers to, I'm going to need them.

Actually, this connects back to a weird story. Yesterday was a very packed-full day for me. I had stayed up very late having an awesome conversation with a couple of old friends and someone I had spoken to once about six months ago, but saw online and decided to try asking to play Xyzzy so that we had enough players for a game. The game went great, and we just kept talking. I have found a new awesome person. I also realized that I have been establishing a collection of awesome people and storing them in a little place of my own. I left Ashlynn's Discord server a while ago, having grown increasingly detached and alienated from the community there. Now... I'm building my own. Around the kind of friends I want to have. Some of them I found there. Some, I found in other places. I have my own curated pack of friends. That's... really cool. That's leadership I guess.

So, having stayed up late, I slept in and didn't have as much time as I had originally expected to do everything I planned to do. A session of homework, a meeting with one of my professors to talk about promoting me, my workout session, a bunch of classes, and a household meeting.

I started with homework and did some exercises from my non-current textbook. It was published in 2013, and some of the questions were exactly the same as the ones in the current version which we had taken up in class together, except for the dates, which had been edited to be one year in the future relative to the publishing date of each.

The last question I attempted to answer before heading out for my meeting involved parental leave. I don't really know how to account for parental leave yet. When is it paid out? Periodically throughout the leave? All at the beginning? All at the end? I acknowledged that I didn't know, but decided to attempt to answer the problem using the presumption that it would all be paid at the end. Unlikely, but it was the kind of book keeping I'd been dealing with the most. 17 weeks of parental leave, starting Dec 1, 2014. Okay. Excel, how many days is 17 weeks? So, I need to accrue 31 days of benefits within December and the 2014 year. That leaves 88 more days into 2015, and the last journal entry should be dated...

Um...

March 29th... My birthday. Specifically, my twenty-fifth birthday. Specifically, that one particular day that I started out by staring at my ceiling for half an hour, contemplating my accomplishments at my entry-level retail job and how poorly I felt I was treated there. My ambitions and whether I would ever do anything with any of them. That was the day that, ultimately, that I decided I was going to stop working as a stocker/cashier/donor greeter and go to college.

That... was a really creepy date to show up in my accounting homework. And... if it hadn't been this version of Intermediate Accounting Vol. 2 that I happened to find and picked up at the used textbook shop... it wouldn't have.

And with that bizarre experience feeling strangely profound and important in my head, considering how far I've come, and how many fascinating things I've been through in the past going-on-three years, I headed off to my meeting and told my professor the story of what had just happened.

Today, I actually included "rest and relax" on my list of things to do today. I'm not sure I've done much resting, but I have taken the day happy, and am not stressing myself out taking on more homework.

Law was fine and interesting, and then I went to the first of my Tax classes for this term. My Tax professor is a woman with a fairly thick Bahamas accent who blazes through slides so fast that sometimes I lose track of what she's talking about entirely while trying to figure out what she just said. However, after the lecture, we got to practice, and the practice was actually very clear, and hands-on, with checks and feedback at every step and a clear procedure to follow. I made forms with in-cell equations in Excel that filled themselves out with just a few inputs from the question, and was able to finish several exercises that followed the same pattern very quickly, then spent some time making the spreadsheets beautiful while the rest of the class caught up.

There was a concert at the school this evening, called the "Upside Get Down", featuring three bands I had never heard of: Kid Royal, Chad Price, and Texas King. Tickets were free, and I've kind of committed to participating more in the culture of the college, since I moved right across the street. It was one of the best things about Gate Lodge. I should milk it for what it's worth here too. I invited Ampersand, a local friend and crush, to come with me. He came to my house to hang out a bit beforehand. We shared fries and dumplings and played Ultimate Chicken Horse and watched a bit of TierZoo, then headed to the concert and listened to the opening band play.

They were pretty unpolished, amateurish in both lyrics and performance, and the speakers turned the music into a wall of noise whenever they decided to rock harder for a climactic moment. Not... bad, though. There was some ambition to try things that were difficult, and while the performance wasn't tight yet, I felt that these guys could be on their way towards becoming great. I kept wondering whether Ampersand was having a good time, and tapping my foot, swinging my hip, wanting to get more into the music, wishing people around me were dancing so that I could dance and not be the first one trying to. Wondering whether I was having a good time, mostly feeling tense and affectionate as over-amped love songs, and the lights, and sound loud enough I felt the rhythm hitting my breastbone like waves crashing onto a shore, created an atmosphere of awkwardness and tense romantic potential.

After the set, which Kid Royal closed well, with the best song of the bunch, I took Ampersand away from the noise. His knees were sore, he was getting tired. It had been fun and the music was pretty good, but he wanted to turn in and get some rest. Yeah, okay. It was fun. I walked him back to his car, and hugged him and waved goodnight with thanks for coming, then stood outside for a bit, wondering whether I wanted to go back to the rest of the concert.

After some indecision I did. However, the college doors had locked, and now it was a matter of finding an entrace that had student card access, as many of them don't. The easiest route to the concert was blocked by a security guard in blue who stiffly turned away anyone attempting to enter the free concert through an entrance which had been inexplicably designated exit only. In order to attend, you had to enter from the West, and either have someone open the nearest door from the inside for you (since it lacked a card access point) or detour the long way around the outside of the Student Union Building.

To be honest, this encounter seriously diminished what little was left of my interest in seeing the rest of the concert. However, I found my way to the allowed and intended entrance and inside just in time to hear the second band announce and perform their last song of the set, a song called... "Oceans". I stayed and listened, and softened and enjoyed. In contrast to their openers, this guy, Chad Price, and his band... They had polish. They didn't make the speakers emit a raw mess of noise at their dramatic moments, but made good use of silence to frame sound. His style includes a lot of shifting and bending his pitch around and stretching out vocal tones to play around the rhythm. A lot of people try to do that and it's something I often find pretentious and pointlessly frilly. But he built his style around it, made it fit, and kept the rhythm tight while playing around it. They were good. And it was a really nice love song.

This, I decided. This made a good end to the concert, for me. And I headed home, happy to have returned for that one special song. I found it on YouTube. I sent the link to Ampersand, to share that part of the concert with him in some sense too, and I reflected that... It had sounded better live, something I was delighted to be able to observe. I'm going to download this one. I'm going to make it my song of the day today on Facebook.

It's been a good day.

Also I misplaced my smartphone sometime between my tax class and the concert. I'm not particularly concerned, though. I'll probably find it again tomorrow, and I don't actually use it as a phone anyway, I mostly just listen to podcasts with it.