HAPPY, HURT

disclaimer: This blog post is 100% fan squealing enthusiasm about why an awesome thing is awesome. I have no business relationship with The Stupendium and am not being paid to say this, I just got caught up in wanting to.

 

Okay so, one of my team members has recently been linking me to a bunch of Stupendium songs, and they're really good. The other day I arranged a YouTube playlist starting with a song my teammate had been listening to a lot recently, which I took as tonal inspiration, seeking a similar sound in instrumentals for the rest of the mix. You can find the list over here, but that's not what I'm here to talk about, that's just the background.

"Slide Into The Void". It's based on Control. I have never played Control. I have, however, played Lobotomy Corporation and read a fair amount of the SCP wiki, so the tropes of the Federal Bureau of Control were instantly familiar to me.

A few days later, I approached my teammate with a nonsequitur message:
🤍 HAPPY, HURT

They didn't seem to pick up the reference, and so I felt compelled to analyze and explain why I thought they might have. Why these two words are so emphatically memorable to me as a symbol of the song.

Continuing On

"I feel like you imply to me that I'm wasting your time every time I ask a question, in class or outside of it."
"No, it's not that. It's just that we have a lot to cover and very little time to do it all."
"The way you say it upsets me every time."
"Ditto."
"Well, I'm sorry for my side of that."
"Me too. Let's begin again next day."
handshake

-Monday 24th, September

The term is now thoroughly underway, and I have been neglecting my blogging again. I have become acquainted with the chaplain on campus and one of the two counselors, who I am set to meet once a week. I have been feeling busy, with pressure from classes, homework, and financial stability; regular job searching has as usual been discouraging. My several runs of boldly introducing myself and dropping off CVs in person have yielded nothing so far and largely robbed me of the energy to continue making online applications to posted jobs.

I am seeking to break into freelancing, to work on my own terms, and maybe do some tutoring, even in IT Carlow itself. UpWork has rejected my application twice, though, perhaps negating the hearsay I had from a friend of a friend that the application process was pretty much a formality. Having taken ten tests on the site and scored above average on every one and in the top 10% on some, I feel indignant about this, and am wondering whether you have to already be an established freelancer for UpWork to want to support you.

The lecturer I had the above encounter with has been treating me with greater kindness and consideration since. In my Excel-based computer labs, I race ahead. In non-computer lab Management Accounting classes, I have begun to sometimes stop even processing through the problems. Vainly racing the lecturer's Excel with a hand calculator while my mind is crowded with her talking was growing very tiresome, and I feel confident I already get the idea by now. If I could find the time to do more practice on my own it would be great, but my time is mostly spent wondering how I'm ever going to juggle all of the things I need to do.

And then there is archery. It's the one club I've been going to reliably, learning form and stance and hearing encouraging words from the coach, who is acting as a better teacher than any of my lecturers, using effective repetition, class participation and good humour, much like my statistics lecturer back at Fanshawe did, to help us memorise the safety rules and terminology of the bow, adding a little every week. There is also a lot of waiting, since the beginners shoot only 4-6 at a time so that the coaches can observe us and correct mistakes, and the rest queue behind. I have begun to get to know the other left-handed archers; In archery, which hand you fire with depends on the dominance of your eye, not the regular dominance of your hand, and so someone who is a right-handed writer may be a left-handed archer. There are perhaps three right hand archers to each of us lefties, and we share the same line to shoot with a left-handed bow.

I enjoy archery, even though there's a lot of waiting. I have been challenging my social courage to chat to and get to know some of the other lefties. I had an amusing conversation with one young man yesterday who's in the first year of a software course going into cyber security. For the money, he said when I asked, and we talked about different countries and pronunciations, accents and languages. He wondered why out of all the countries in the world I would want to come to Ireland, and expressed a dislike of the Irish accent and disdain for the country in general. He was an interesting conversationalist, although as I said to him myself it seemed in some moments as though we were chatting across from different sides of the D&D alignment table. He laughed.

Between the talking and building my skills and the generally welcoming atmosphere... Well, probably more important than any of that is that when I am at archery club I feel a certain pseudo-obligation to leave school, work and busyness matters mostly aside and just be still for a while, focused almost entirely on other things, and that's just deeply refreshing.

I had an ongoing email conversation with someone who runs the campus's tabletop games club, suggesting some ways he could make his emails and Facebook messages more welcoming and less cynical. We met in person yesterday, and essentially he told me that he wasn't interested in spending the effort to improve his approach for this thing he was volunteering his time toward. I am proud of myself for continuing to speak animatedly but cheerfully with him until we parted ways, although I went away from it feeling stressed and perhaps on a verge of my social anxiety that I am a bit surprised I managed to cling to, and not tumble over. He did thank me for the feedback and admit to some surprise that the way I had rewritten a couple of his messages registered as so much more welcoming even to him.

Also yesterday, a couple of my friends introduced me to A Capella Science, with Entropic Time and Banting's Imparted Years, which has made my Song of the Day list. The single-voice a capella of the latter is a little harsh on the ears at first, but it really grew on me over time, and the arrangements are good.

I had better get moving. It is another school morning and I need to be at school in a little under an hour to book an appointment with the campus doctor to get a renewed prescription of my thyroid medicine. Oh. Also also, I picked up a bottle of apple cider vinegar, which was mentioned in my marketing class, and have begun trying to take a spoon of it every day like a medicine. I don't know how valid are its claims as a health tonic, and I feel a little self-conscious for following a trend like this, but I'll just give it a try, and see if it seems to do me any good.

The Broken Throne

So. It's been a week and two weekends. I have felt I've been doing surprisingly well. I have reflected on the happiness of working toward a goal that I have enjoyed over the past year. I have cried, have sought comfort in the words and company of my friends back in America and found it. I have felt confused, and hopeful, and empty.

I have searched for work, intermittantly, between sessions of passivity and fatigue bordering on depression, but not quite depression. I have despite this managed to submit resumes or reply to job ads to the tune of twenty in the two weeks I have been here.

I wrote a song. I got into a conversation on FetLife and was disappointed and alienated by an uncanny scriptedness of the advances of another human being, even though his script was polite.

I came into the campus this morning to job search, but wrote "love thyself" on my checklist, consciously, intentionally, a note of gentleness and will toward peace and joy.
(Context: There was a time, during a panic attack that I documented here, that I wrote "LOVE THYSELF" on my checklist as I was leaving class, like a compulsion, in jagged and accusing words, and visualised myself in a round room, curled up in a fetal position, with those words wrought across the rounded wall. It was one of the most direct and straightforward messages I have ever gotten from myself through my visualisations and compulsions.)

I came into campus this morning to job search, and listened to favourite OCremixes on the way, enjoying a variety of the songs that impressed me enough while I was combing through the vast collection that I wanted to keep them and hear them again. A few that I may want to remove, being not as impressed with them now, or feeling I had only liked them in comparison to other songs I liked less. Still at home, I felt a little downcast at the memory of Turks in Pursuit. A fine track, but one that Eoin had pointed out to me, based on an original track he liked, back when I showed him my habit of Audiosurfing these remixes. Now I sit down to a desk in the campus library, access the wifi, and another remix is next to come to my ear. It is one that's always struck me hard and driven me to thoughtfulness, and worse, it also speaks of Eoin. He knew the original duet, and we had planned, once, to sing it together. A 'Kid-pella, a touching a cappella rendition of Setting Sail, Coming Home from Bastion.

I take your hand; now, you'll never be lonely...

Tears come. I had hoped to be professional today. And I still hope I will be. But if I need to cry, it's well that I do it, and the sooner I can get over it.

I imagine the million things I want to say to him. To say I wanted to believe better of him than to think that his having said I would always be special to him last year, having said he liked me, and thought he would like to stay in touch a week ago, was empty words to placate. I still want to. I feel angry, although my wisdom counsels patience. I feel angry that I have heard nothing from him, after promising I would let him come to speak to me if he wished to.

I wonder, in my reeling thoughts, when I think of this, whether that was a mistake. Whether I might be able to claim him as friend quite readily if I'd been willing to lead the overture, but that he will be too intimidated to start a conversation with me, will not know what to say, and so will say nothing, until it eventually feels like it has been too long, and it would be too late now, and so will continue to say nothing. Should I rescind my promise? But that would be weakness. Desperate weakness, and would make me a clinging thorn if the truth is he would rather not speak with me.

I wonder if I should wish there was enough submissiveness or enough apathy in my nature to live on without much thought to it, and let him speak to me in his own time, whenever it strikes him to do so, even if it never does. I cannot wish for apathy, though.

The challenge of staying in touch with my loves across the ocean is upon me. It is quite natural for me to stay up late, but it makes it difficult to get any sleep. I am woken most mornings as my roommates rise, a neighborhood dog barks, a child with some developmental disability hoots a now-familiar loud cry. Perhaps I will be able to sleep in the evening, wake for company, and sleep again through the morning until it is time to wake. Perhaps, but then when will I work? There is so much to answer. It is difficult. But the voice of my dear Iris is comforting, in that blind, desperate way that something can be comforting even though it does not necessarily make any of the things that are wrong better. I remember that I wanted to talk with my friends about my future. I want their advice to help me figure out what to make of it. I realised through this experience that I build myself more to be what I think the people I love want me to be than I may have been willing to admit before.

I smashed the throne I built for Eoin, but the pieces, heavy as marble, still weigh in the center of me. I have not cleared them away, and it is hard enough even to resist the temptation to rebuild it. The throne room is a sad place now, deserted and despairing after the hope that had lived there. "My heart is wrapped in cold sorrow", I remember thinking to myself, as I marched home that Saturday afternoon, after that Friday evening, and my train back to Carlow.

Dear Memory: A Love Story (The End)

There was a time that we were lovers,
through March, April and May.
I went home in the summer,
though I wished he had asked me to stay.
The ocean was very wide,
and it got in our way.
So I came back from the other side,
to see how much had changed...

The time we met;
The time he loved me;
Today.

He always was a gentle man.
He is a gentle man still.
He met me at the train station,
like he'd said that he will.
We had a long, awkward conversation,
head to head, eye to eye.
I had lost his heart some time ago.
I may never know why.

The time we met;
The time he loved me;
Goodbye.

Does he regret
the time he loved me
today- I promised I'll be okay,
so I'll be okay.
Though I loved him- Maybe I'll hear from him,
and I can be his friend,
who loved him.

The End.

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.

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.

Dear Memory: The Man in my Dream

Vivid dreams again last night. They seemed to follow on from the dreams of kissing people a couple of weeks ago. Only, this time... I was thoroughly in a happy courtship with a tall young man with black hair, cuddling close and sharing things I found awesome. He wasn't explicitly attached to your identity in my dream. He wasn't explicitly attached to any cached identity. It was the kind of dream I might have had as a pre-teen and grieved and cursed the fact that I must have woken up from it... Except perhaps that those dreams also usually seemed to involve climbing a tower, and I don't remember any such element to this one.

I reflect on it with soft, confused consideration, and am mostly happy, I think. I got in touch with someone I'd met in Ireland the other day on Facebook after they liked one of my posts. I bound them to secrecy and told them about my plan to return, my thoughts about contacting you once it becomes time to choose between colleges, so you could have your say about whether I should be close by. I found their answer this morning after I woke from the dream. "If you're here, surely he'd wanna be with you?" Again someone on the outside responds as though this were obvious. Someone closer to your side this time. Again it is warming.

I walk about the house, thinking of music in a lively style inspired by the traditional Irish sound of jumping and leaping violin, thinking I would like to compose a song to mark my love of the music and of the place, and the strange fey madness that seems like part of the picture. I feel tired. My sleep has been less than eight hours again, though I woke up naturally. My sleep has also been full of vivid dreams. Perhaps that demands more energy of me. If not to dream, then to process having dreamed.

I had my Finance midterm yesterday. I have my Tax midterm today. I am not particularly worried, although I don't think I'm all that well prepared either. Not being worried may be partly down to the fatigue.

Dear Memory: The Song in my Dream

Good morning, Eoin. At least, morning here. It is a quarter to seven in my local time. In my dream, I sang part of the melody of a song familiar to me, by Enya, and it stayed with me as I woke, with the strange, eerie weight of some dreams that drives people sometimes to interpret them.

Such was the weight and the strange calm, and my appreciation for thinking again of someone whose music I have loved and not listened to in quite some while, and the strange dream-sense of importance, and also as well some of my desire not to forget the melody, that I sang out the verse-melody again as I remembered it. But I have never known the words. They are not in English. I did a bit of Googling to see if I could find it. Enya > Watermark (for I know that's one of only a couple of albums I know). On the track list I saw it, one track titled in Irish. Undeniably Irish; I know some of the patterns now, and I remember the word "geal" from that one song by Maria Dunn. Na Laetha Geal M'òige, which according to translators means "The bright days of my youth" and is a song that mourns time lost, and whatever vague things; opportunity, experience, that were lost with it.

So here comes again this sense of both devotion and frustration. As soon as I saw it was writ in Irish, the song had meanings linked to you, although I won't consign you to a thing lost in the past just yet. If anything, I shall take this as a precautionary tale not to live with regrets, to seek out those things that delight me and live my life fully as I can.

However, even so, my dreams evoke yet more little poignant reminders of how much I miss you, as well, I suppose, as my desire for physical affection, and the conflictedness of trying to figure out whether I would, at this time, be comfortable falling into some physical intimacy with someone who were not you. Since that seemed to be expressed in my recurring dreams about getting close with and kissing an acquaintance or stranger. I think I had those dreams three times in one week, which is remarkably recurring for me.

Having seemed to have clawed back out of my slump for now, I fetched out the application forms yesterday for the six Irish colleges I have been considering, and intend to make it my task over the next short while to start filling them out. I stopped by the business office yesterday to ask where I could find the closest thing my college has got to a program syllabus, since that's been requested alongside my application if I were to return to Athlone. If I were to return to Athlone, indeed. And something inside me thrums and shudders like a guitar string that's just been plucked at a little harshly.

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.

Dear Memory: Five Years Ago, Three Thousand Miles Away...

It is the day of back-to-back exams from 3 to 7. I slept in to be well-rested, had a shower and a filling but not over-filling breakfast. And I remembered, as I was turning to head out; early, so I could spend a little time studying... I had wanted to listen to something new. I had been thinking I wanted to listen to that weird song you showed me, "An Audience With the Pope". See what else was on that album that I hadn't explored, because the names hadn't caught my attention as much. Your taste in music has rarely failed to interest me.

You might already see where this is going.

So I found the album, and put it on my mp3 player, and listened to the first track while I was crossing the road. Heh, I thought to myself. Well, it's refreshing. I haven't worn out my ears on it yet, and yes I think I might vaguely remember this... Not exactly the thing to want if my purpose had been not to think of you romantically, but then I already knew that.

But there is something I had forgotten about that album, if I ever knew it, that you surely know very well. The next track came on. And I was a bit stunned. The first song I ever heard you sing... Which, at first... I caught the mention of a cigarette and raised my brow at it as I gathered myself up and left your house, the very first time I visited it. In retrospect, with all I know now of that day, and having listened through the fullness of the song again... Well, I guess it may have been well on your mind from the disappointment when you thought I was informing you that I was unavailable.

And so I march on, and appreciate the meaning. It's not the crude encouragement I thought. It makes... sense now. Obsession, memories... They're addictive and habitual.

And then... There is something I had forgotten about that album, if I ever knew it, that you surely know very well. The next track came on. And I was a bit stunned. The song that you had sung to me, along that farm road. I knew there had been one, thoroughly a love song, that I couldn't quite remember. It expressed finding something that had been missing for a long time, but... I couldn't remember how. The melody, everything, was lost to me. I only remembered that you had sung it to me, and I had asked you whether you really felt that way, about me. And you had said yes.

I think I had almost started to convince myself that it had only been Skyscrapers, and I had mis-remembered. But Skyscrapers doesn't say that.

And here it is, to my ear. The same band, the same album, the very next song. A parade of little memories. I am struck with profound appreciation and a sort of reverence. And I'm nine months later, and... Huh. Well, would you look at that.

Dear Memory: A Turn to Hope

Today, I did some research into Irish accounting organizations and immigration. I reached out to someone at Fanshawe whose card was given to me by a pathways advisor, and recieved pretty much the best possible news I could have hoped for regarding my plan to return to Ireland.

OSAP does offer support for people studying outside of Ontario, outside of even Canada. There are already a couple of Irish institutions on their list of approved colleges and an appeals process for adding more. I feel... a little embarrassed. I had been so intimidated at the thought of this being difficult that it took me quite some time to really work up the courage and get past the procrastination to do some looking... and find that this may indeed be much easier than I thought.

For most of today I have been in an energetic cloud of hope and happiness. Fantasies rush upon me of announcing on Facebook that I would be returning to Ireland. Of being able to make the journey less than a year from now. Of meeting you again...

Last night, I stayed up late chatting with two of my friends, and we had an awesome conversation, discussing everything from the community management snafu surrounding Roko's Basilisk, some theory on the nature of dimensions and different kinds of infinity... And lots of asides and jokes and... Damn, it's good to have conversations like that. It's been so long. I should get those two to hang out with me more often. ♡

So even though I was woken up early by a roommate's phone call... I didn't really mind. I like my new roommates, and am more inclined to make allowances and feel tolerant towards their impact on my life. Besides, I knew she would be getting up early, and I had stayed up late. It's just a pity these friendly girls will all be leaving in two weeks.

Classes today were fun. Conversation Circles was easy, and as always a valuable exercise in exposure to other cultures. And I even finished my daily checklist. Well, almost; the shop I went to to drop off some electronics for recycling had closed down, but that isn't my own fault; I give myself credit for doing the thing. A setback will require me to do it over again, that's all.

And at the end of the day, I am altogether too proud of myself for a horrible pun I managed to put at the end of my short Microeconomics assignment, about the direct distribution razor company, Harry's, needing to continue to manage their brand positioning as new companies try to copy their distribution model, to maintain their 'edge'.

Visiting Facebook briefly to post a song of the day there which happened to be in my head, I scrolled through my history and paused at your name. I followed it to see a few more recent pictures of you, dear memory. However, I feel it's something I probably shouldn't have done. It felt creepily stalker-ish, although there was really very little to see. I think... Until my plan for return is set up and in motion, I should keep myself away.

When I have my plane ticket, my approval for funding, and it is time to break the silence... When I get the long-awaited treat of greeting you and asking whether you can meet me in a couple of weeks, when I will be there... Ah, hasten the day. Four years, I would despair of. Eight or nine months... I think I can bear with much better grace. Ah, if only. If only you could see me now, perhaps. If only you knew I was coming back for you.

But I am not allowed to tell you, and I cannot know that it would be for the better if I could.
Someday, I will come back, and probably look over any tracks you have left recently as of that time. Hints that you are, or are not, still in Athlone. Hints that you are, or are not, in a new relationship. But that day is a long way off yet. My heart has been crying desperately through much of the day, but not so much in sorrow. It is a desperate, dizzying hope and joy-of-hope, and it repeats: I love you! I love you! I love you!

I must retain my composure, and keep my head about me. My heart, though, flaps about in giddy circles like a bird on a leash. Here, and with my friends, I can speak of it honestly. Here, I dare to express my inner melodrama. Those who do not want it have no reason to come.

Goodnight, distant Memory. I still have not made up for the lost sleep. But I am happy, with the affection of real friends. It is great solace to remember, to experience, that you are not the only one who can listen with love, who can make me laugh, and invite me out to laugh at myself. I am happy, and that is better than sleep. I will catch up on it tonight, or the following night.

Dear Memory: Stirred on the Breeze

Good morning, dear memory.

This last few day, I have been, instead of the oppressive fatigue, instilled with a greater brightness and whimsy. I am more easily caught up in emotions both grand and fearful. I sit in my classes attentively and answer brightly, but I worry more that I am annoying those around me by speaking too often or giggling too much.

In the same wave, you come to mind more often and more strongly. I yearn for you gently, and push the feeling away gently if I am set to a task, or turn into it for a moment, wistfully, if I am not. But I am not sure what to do there.

The land has been gorgeously white. I have walked so much in the shallow sidewalk snow that some muscles in my legs ache, for the walking is more difficult on this purchase. I often imagined bringing you with me. I would love so much to show you what winter, real winter, Canadian winter, is like. Walking on the shallow sidewalk snow is a bit like walking on beach sand. It churns away slightly under the foot, rather than giving a solid surface off of which to push. I do think the shallow snow trodden into a path by bootprints is a bit more difficult than beach sand though, because it is also inclined to be slippery and inconsistent. Some areas are loose, and some are dense, and it is not always evident which are which, so that the churning under your foot might take an unexpected direction, or turn into a slide sideways instead.

The snow is deep and white and gorgeous, fresh from its recent falling. It formed banks up to meet the hoods of cars in the used car lot I pass to and from school. Icicles hang in sheets from roofs and signs. Here, let me show you some pictures I took:

The last few days, I have also been suffering frequent irritating headaches, and keeping them at bay with painkillers. I misplaced my bank debit card Wednesday, and intend to go in to my bank branch today after classes to replace it.

I have been getting back to my studies steadily, an hour here, an hour there. So long as I gently push thoughts of you away into the future when they come to me, and push aside other intrusive thoughts like momentary conceptualizations of eye horror with patience and endurance (those do come to me sometimes when the work is dull and invites reluctance) I can focus well enough to perform well.

Today, I had put Heroes of Might & Magic soundtracks on as my background music, seeking something fresh. The strains of one song, I think it was the one called "Searching for a Dream," (although I think this one ultimately carries the feeling better) sang a reminder of you and of Ireland into my heart that was particularly stirring. I faced the dilemma for a moment. I was busy working, and was not to be distracted, but I did not want to neglect or entirely ignore the beauty of remembering you in a poignant moment, feeling as though a dry leaf fluttered in the breeze, looking toward a future I hope dearly to see.

I wrote "write love letter" on my list of things to do that day, as a promise to myself not to forget, not to neglect that beauty, nor the part of me that insists on acknowledging how it moves me.

I dearly hope that this is alright. To feel, and embrace that I feel, for you, my dear memory... I hope that this does no harm. I might worry that it is something that might someday offer pangs of guilt to you, if you were to consider turning me away. But I feel somehow that in this particular context, in this frame of mind, it is right to remember you with a wistful tear on my cheek and an uncertain but hopeful half-smile on my lips, looking to a past I cherish and a future I hope for. Hope for, but intend not to demand. Surely, that must be alright.

So here has been my love letter. It seems likely my blog will be crowded with them in the coming months, but I think that is alright. It is usually quite barren here, after all, and I am happier to populate it with whimsical love letters to a memory than not to populate it all.

Besides that, when I speak here, as though whispering to a plush toy perhaps, I spare the energies of friends who might be fatigued of my endless obsession with you, or my difficulty in maintaining or regaining an acceptable balance of self through the fits of intensity and patches of slump that I am prone to.

And again, some distant day, perhaps I will share them with you, sitting on the edge of your bed and turning often to look upon you, admiring the beauty I saw in you in that self's past, and which I still see, but may be brought out in a special way in the light of these memories.

Forgiving Mentors, Relentless Longing

It is the second day of classes resuming, and much of the miserable doubt and worry of the empty time during the faculty strike is lifting surely as our professors reassure us, cut out small pieces of the courses, and focus the first week largely on review. Every gesture shows understanding and mediation for the difficulties of resuming after such a long interruption. My intermediate accounting professor, having read an email I sent him telling him that my morale and confidence had been very low trying to navigate his online course with the textbook alone, thanked me for my refreshingly candid words and invited me to sit in on classes in person. It is all a soothing balm to my troubles.

Sadly, the professors themselves may have had little relief from theirs. The strike's disputes were not resolved, and there is some worry that this might all repeat in another four years, after the new contracts expire again, and they must meet to agree on terms of renewal again.

My spirits are higher, and I look forward to moving into a very nice house directly across from the campus, the nicest I have lived in... Looking back, and looking back further, it may be fair to say that it is the nicest looking and most modernly appointed house I have ever lived in in Canada. My parents' houses were a welcome home to me, but simple. My new room will have an ensuite bathroom, and the kitchen has a central island and two big fridges to accomodate I think five female tenants.

Through all that, though, my thoughts remain restlessly and inexorably drawn back to Eoin and distant Éire. It feels to me as though the memory of him stands always behind my shoulder. When my mind wanders, it wanders to dreams of return, and meeting with him again, with much tear and hope and fear, desperate to know what his answer will be...

It has been three weeks since our last goodbye, and since the law of silence has been set between us. These last few days have tested my will to adhere to that law. I felt that I was doing fair well, for a little while, at looking to my own life alone, although it was a miserably empty stretch of life indeed with neither love nor work nor school to sustain me. I took up to make a game to run for friends, which I have nicknamed the SCDP game, a Super Casual Drop-in Pick-up game of Pathfinder such that I can run it and invite people to play it without a set group or a set schedule. I finally finished writing all the stats for available player characters to the website I'll be using just a day or two before the return to classes, and I have not played it yet. I am not certain I will even get the chance, but the project was something with which I might hope to enjoy the social attentions of friends.

At some point, perhaps a week ago... I lost track of the empty days for a while, so I am not sure... I was re-watching a bunch of video reviews, and one of them ambushed me with the high, haunting and familiar voice of Loreena McKennitt and the sweet melancholy violins of Irish tradition behind her. I knew the song, The Old Ways, I had heard it and loved it and felt magnificently drawn by it from my early youth. It hit me like a hammer blow, and broke open yet again any thought that I could deny my desperate want to go back there, back over the bounding waves to the distant shore of a land I have always loved, in music and legend, and the man I loved who lives there.

Eoin could not promise me any answer. It has been three weeks since I last heard his voice, and now at last doubt begins to creep back, and I begin to worry and wonder. We knew each other scant three months, and it is already past that long ago. Even if I do make my way back to that great isle, and see his face again... If it is a year, if it is several, how could I expect him to look on me as other than a sad and obsessed woman whose storms and ferocity he may have been glad to be rid of?

But. I know with enough confidence to say that I know... whatever may happen in the coming years, at the time three weeks ago when he bid me leave him be, Eoin was yet undecided. If he had in his mind any certain answer, I know with confidence he is too good and honest a man not to have given it. When last he spoke to me, there was love enough in him, and perhaps also longing of his own, that he was not set against seeing me again someday. He was not sure what he would feel. If it had been more honest to tell me he would rather never see me again, for all the pain it may have cost him, I am sure he would have said it anyway.

So. What his answer will be, I cannot know until I have heard it from his own lips. I cannot hear it until I go there, for until I am there, he cannot know himself whether he will be willing to bring me close again. As I walk out from my house into the cold, bare young-winter, gazing up at the steely light where the sun shines through the thinnest parts of the grey clouds, returning at long last to my studies with the weight of my work things at my back... As I walk the cold and formal halls of my college, which now seems too large and too impersonal... I know that Eoin is not the only or the first man for whom I have felt this utter determination, the deep and aching sense that I would be willing to do nearly anything to see him smile at me again. I feel rather as though I will set my determination to heading there, but do it all with a sheepish apology to him, and hope he will not feel my devotion cheap because he has not been the only one to inspire it.

I know my will, though mighty, is shifting. I know I may look back on these words with embarrassment and a shake of the head that I was so caught up in love and grief. Still, from here, as of now, I am determined by all the madness of my heart and a relentless longing in my bones to go back to Ireland, to distant Éire, and find out what his answer will be. I know that to do any different while I feel as I do would be to rend apart my nature, to bury my desire and smash my compass, and live as someone I am not. It would not be a story worth telling. Better to go, full of all my courage and wild strength, and profess myself to him as simply and as gently as I can, even if the answer I find is to be turned away as a nuisance, and go back to the rocky path of lonesomeness, to stalk on like a restless ghost and seek on anew for someone who will at long last stand and travel by my side.

So every day, whether I resist it or not, my thoughts wander back again when I am not looking, and I imagine living in love with him again; or I imagine troubles there might be in trying to get in touch after I land; or I imagine cautiously studying his eyes when he first sees me again, asking how things have changed, what shape his life has taken, and trying to learn whether there is room for me in it; Or of being greeted with a kiss and falling into desperate tears, begging to know if he meant by it that I would be given a chance to stay this time. Sometimes I imagine talking to a border guard of my intent to immigrate. Sometimes I imagine talking to a representative of an accounting firm for which I intend to work in Ireland in an interview about my reasons for coming. But it is always something, and it always pulls my view East, across the ocean, with the call of the bounding sea.

Beyond the Emerald Isle

I've left Ireland behind me and moved on to Vienna. The grasses that fly by the train window are green, but dark and dull, not the exceptional brightness I often saw in Irish grass. Why? What is so special about it? Is it a different species of common grass?
I feel loss and already miss the island itself, not to mention the people that I grew so very fond of there. Vienna is interesting and huge, full of young punky people at first glance. It is the first city I have visited where signage is everywhere, but does not speak my language. I stare at public notices dumbly, instinctively trying to read them, wondering what they say.
I immediately feel great pity for those in North America who don't have much English and are at every moment at a disadvantage. I, at least, have a friend by me who grew up here and can help me navigate.

The first morning, after the first night, I wake up and I feel grief, low and soft and lapping like muscle ache. I wonder why, and try to imagine if there is any other reason but the obvious ones (I miss you, I miss you, I'm sorry...). But then, I am naturally and habitually prone to grief. Perhaps the habit and the stress of a long day travelling on little sleep is all the answer there is. Perhaps the answer is just as simple as it seems, and why am I trying to deny it?

Ah, of course. I am looking for something I can do besides waiting for the grief to eventually subside. I want to be good company to my host, rather than crying mournful for all the time I planned to spend here.

I miss you. I miss you. I'm sorry.

Somehow, writing those words presses on the grief more directly than anything else I had tried thinking about or looking at, and pushes tears out of my eyes. This may be some kind of progress. It may be... Important to express it.
My host asks me if I need some tissues. He can see me crying. He might not know what they are called in English, but he holds them out to me with his question, so it is clear what he means.

I miss you, Ashlynn.  I miss you. I'm sorry that my travelling and polyamory was too much for your heart.

I miss you, Coda. I'm sorry I had to go so soon.

I miss you, Ireland...

Distant memories of every love I ever mourned for march solemnly through my head. I feel tired. I feel tired of walking away from people I care about.

I miss you, Alex... I'm sorry, Jack... I miss you, Kitten... I miss you, Damon... I'm sorry, Jason... I'm sorry, Pieter... I miss you, Di... and Zi... I miss you, Robby. I'm so sorry things went that way. I miss you, Zephon. I'm sorry I hurt you... I'm sorry, Fancy... I'm sorry, Wolf...

and now, the latest in a long line joins the list of bright links, fragments of time when someone else shines through the veil of life's general impersonal darkness and pierces my outer skin to reach my heart and shake it... one of those bright as primacy, and sweet, and seeming to promise endurance.

I miss you Eoin. I'm sorry I left. I will try to come back to you. I want to come back to you. I'm... so sorry. I miss you so much.

No doubt, I will miss Sen too, by the time this journey is over.

At every juncture, turning back to the long, long road again.

You may remember me saying this, Eoin; perhaps someday my path will lead me to a place I can really see as home.

Pubic Hair

written on August 7th, 2014
& inspired by Ani DiFranco

When I'm in the bathroom
I have a way of wiping myself
that has a habit of plucking out pubic hairs on
just one side of my groin
And I could probably learn to change it
if I could see what I was doing
but for now I guess I'll live with it;
It's not important,
It's just annoying.


When something is pulled away
Oh time will ease the pain
When something is pulled away
Oh time will ease the pain


Ain't it funny how the little things
in life just get passed by
like the hangnails you pull off sometimes
and the crusty stuff that gets in your eye
There are some things we don't talk about
Things we would rather not discuss
And the silence just fades into the background
-until somebody has to die
!

Then suddenly all of the silence
comes crashing down around your ears
and you can scream and wail all you want to but
Nobody wants to hear
There are some things you don't mention
except alone and in quiet prayer
While lives get plucked from the human race like
Just so many pubic hairs


And every time we do not speak
We fill our world with silence
And every time we turn away
We fill our world with silence
And every thing we don't discuss
We fill our world with silence
And the silence will cover our graves


So when I'm in a dark room
I have a way of crying to myself
that has a habit of making the skin
around my eyes feel raw and burned
And I think we could learn to change this
If we could see enough to care
I just hope to god we learn
that some things are more important
than a hair


When something is pulled away,
(Every time we do not speak)
Oh time will ease the pain
(We fill our world with silence)
When something is pulled away,
(Every time we turn away)
Oh time will ease the pain
(We fill our world with silence)
When something is pulled away
(Every thing we don't discuss)
Oh time will ease the pain
(We fill our world with silence)
And the silence will cover our graves


And suddenly all of the silence
comes crashing down around your ears
and you can scream and wail all you want to but
Nobody wants to hear you 'cuz
There are some things you don't question,
except alone and in quiet prayer
while screams are brushed aside
like so many stray pubes on our underwear


Ain't it funny how the little things
in life just get passed by
like the hangnails I pull off sometimes and the
rash that crying leaves 'round my eyes
There are some things we don't talk about
Things we'd all rather not discuss
No matter how much or how little
they quietly affect all of us
And the silence just fades into the background
along with the best of us


When something is pulled away
Ah time will ease the pain
When something is pulled away
Ah time will ease the pain

~~~P.S: My own thoughts on presentation...

The parts in purple should be sung or spoken more quietly, more like a whisper,
and ideally blend into a sort of musical break between the sections in black.

Would like to have guest backup voice/s for
"We fill our world with silence" and possibly for all of the parts in purple,
while still singing/speaking solo the parts in black. Or white, as it generally appears on my blog.

Singin' With My Sisters

Thursday is Music Jam day from 11 to noon at My Sister's Place. I'm not really there often, but I've been there and enjoyed the music a few times. I usually stand against a pillar and sing along, as everyone else does  sitting around the tables, while whoever's at the microphone sings and the accompanists play piano and/or ukulele...

Skill levels vary. Anyone's welcome to take the mic. I never have here before. I know I'm more than good enough that my singing would be enjoyed... but there's too much chance of choking or freezing up, either due to my social anxiety, or because I'm too touched by the song to keep my voice steady. It's a genuine risk with some tunes, especially Hallelujah.

Today, near the end of the session, I actually got up myself to sing a song. Yesterday, by the Beatles, one of a reasonable but small handful of songs in the Music Jam songbook that I know, and like, well enough to be interested in singing. It took a little steel, but wasn't as hard as it might have been, and much like playing piano, I got a fair few compliments afterward. No complaints. This time, anyway. Someone who had been trying to get me to sing gave me a double thumbs up from across the room, and I think I heard the pianist say through the crowd that I made her day. She did definitely mention that no-one sings that song, despite how beautiful it is, because the range is so broad it's almost inevitably either too high in the highest parts or too low in the lowest ones. It's true. I had to shift awkwardly between chest and head voice to sing it, but I remembered the tune and rhythm and enjoyed singing.

It was a little awkward also because I couldn't hear my voice coming through the speaker while I was behind the mic, so I couldn't tell how well it was coming through. Ah, well. What's important, and true, is that I stood up and took the mic for once rather than singing in the background behind someone else. It was... nice. And probably counts as something towards cognitive behavioral therapy, one of many steps to push my comfort levels and beat back anxiety one moment and one decision at a time.

I also got my hair trimmed and got a big load of laundry done while I was here today. Keeping things in order and modestly maintained... Things keep going. The haircut looks simple and flat-edged to me, but I trust it's not bad. The haircut lady was pleasant and polite, and it was nice being combed. She took care only to cut a little bit, just enough to clean up and get rid of the split ends, rather than shortening it significantly. My hair is still very long, and probably doesn't look that different. I hope the slight improvement in neatness will make me look a little more professional and neat.

A Perfect Day

Someone decided on me that today was going to be a perfect day.

I got an email that tells me my potential employment process with another promising company is moving forward, though this time I'm not going to tell you readers which one. I have been welcomed to the team. I don't consider myself to have the job yet... not until I'm all the way through training and signed up. But now I have some confidence it will happen.

I made a big pot of soup which I am calling "Green Soup". Two packages of chicken noodle soup, a stalk of broccolli, two huge carrots, three onions, a couple handfuls of frozen mixed vegetables and a substantial bunch of spinach, brewed up in the pot with salt and pepper and oregano. I didn't expect it to mellow out so nicely, I expected that the huge mass of vegetables would make it either bland or bitter, but it seems like I got it to work out.

I'm listening to Jethro Tull for the first time in half a year, and sharing some old, old stories of my life with my Pup, who I am now calling Whelp, and emoting tickle-attacking him. Earlier, I watched a bunch of the 40K Rejects series by miniwargaming, after being so cracked up by the Whelp's impression of Sgt. Slaughter that I had to hear it for myself.

And walking home, some black guy I'd never met and I shared an amusing moment of conversation, starting with my giving him an amused look for singing along with Bruno Mars's Lazy Song which was playing in a restaurant we were both passing. He offered me a bus ticket, or rather, asked if he could get rid of it by giving it to me. He observed that I sounded authoritative when I told him, "Don't need it, got a bus pass. Thanks, though." I said I was just watching videos of a sargeant shouting at his recruits, so maybe that was it, and even dared to try my own impression, "MUH-REENS! CLEEN YUH SHOOWZ!" Came out well, and he did an exaggerated march for a few steps, playing along, before we parted ways.

Earlier this morning, I helped a friend of mine to feel better despite the heavy grief of losing a family member... partly by telling a bad joke at a perfect moment.

And somehow... somehow... I don't even feel like something terrible now has to happen to make it all crash down.
It's got to be some sort of miracle.

Fools Of Us

You just cannot win when you're wrong

Though the battle be bloody and long

Oh, the truth will make fools of us all

And the longer you cling to illusion,

the harder you'll fall.

We were all of us ignorant, once

We fought with our lies and the battles were lost

To have wisdom, we must pay the cost

Bitter remedy swallowed with pride

'neath the hat of the dunce

The truth will come out...

It always does, in time.

And the louder you shout

The more foolish you'll look, to yourself

at the end of the line

You just cannot win when you're wrong

Though the battle be bloody and long

Oh, the truth will make fools of us all

And the longer you cling to illusion,

the harder you'll fall.

You just cannot win when you're wrong

Though your allies be wordy, your arguments strong

You may hide behind tyranny, authority,

maybe last your whole life;

Doesn't matter how long, you will never be right

The truth will come out...

It always does, in time.

And the louder you shout

The more foolish you'll look, to yourself

at the end of the line

You just cannot win when you're wrong

Though your allies be wordy, your arguments strong

You may silence dissent, but what victory is that?

You're no closer to truth for each tongue you cut loose

And the truth will come out...

As always, it's yours to decide...

To acknolwedge the loss;

To abandon your pride;

To be wrong,

to be free,

to be right...

Oh the truth will make fools of us-

You just cannot win when you're wrong

Though the battle be bloody and long

Oh, the truth will make fools of us all

And the longer you cling to illusion,

the harder you'll fall.

The truth will make fools of us all!

Family Androgyne

So, I've been a bit idle for a while, my dear readers. Not too long, though, I think. Were you wondering how things turned out with the subby fur boy? He's still around, and swiftly became the love of my life. He's been one of the most important things in my mind for about six weeks now, for better or worse.

I've found myself feeling... an odd impulse. I really, really want to go out and get work, not just to fund my Secret Plan, but... to feed and support my family.

Now, I don't have blood children, obviously, and I don't plan on having any. But my subby boy has swiftly become close as kin to me. Damon already is, though he's been keeping more distant of late. And a quiet reunion with friends I haven't been able to talk to in far too long reminds me I have others as well... And I would love, so much, to be able to earn them shelter and food, at least in part. I really want to make them a home to live in. I fantasize about my loved ones supporting me to search for work, and being there to thank and congratulate me when I bring the spoils home to them.

And I find myself wondering... is this some weird, filtered version of the impulse I keep hearing hits the young once they reach the right age, to settle down and start a family? Maybe it is. I am very proud, personally, that my version doesn't involve unnecessary production of additional population. Why should it? Not only am I VHEMT, I already have a family, and I love them dearly and want to support them in all of the ways I can... as well as helping them to support each other.

It helps, of course, that I recently introduced the new subby boy to one of my older, more long-term, less obsessively full-time loves... and their first impressions seem to be that they agree abjectly, each of the other, that this person is just as awesome as I thought they were, and it is amazing and wonderful to have another such awesome person to know and like. They want to adopt each other. The thought got me thinking about the whole household issue, and sighing wistfully over it. Mind... if I call in help and support from all of my supports who are most likely to be able to give it... and turn over some responsibility for care of the intense, attention needing sub to another truly awesome person I trust not to let him down... it should help me immensely with mounting an effective search.

I guess I really am just a home maker. I feel like such a family-oriented androgyne. ^.^

In other news, said subby sweetheart just showed me a rap song I enjoy. It feels really weird for me to type that sentence. I usually hate rap with a passion - when it's not derogatory, it still doesn't stop being self-congratulatory posing. Except... except in this case, the congratulatory posing is not directed toward the self, at least not entirely. It's interesting hearing rap arraying out in street verse and rhythm the praises of someone else, besides the singer, for once. And it reminds me, in my heart of hearts and my mind of minds, that any language can speak truth and things worth hearing, even if they often don't. Yes, even rap.

Besides, it's an amazing track to get pumped up and prepared to do and be awesome to. Remember the Name. I have one word, and only one, to voice to the artists who made this: Respect.

Which brings me to a final thing. Sub boy has got me playing a Dragonball Z based roleplaying game with him online, and it rocks all our socks clean off, it's so much damn fun. Maybe because I didn't know all that much about the series, but already had some degree of respect for it. Maybe because it's a fresh new system that hasn't gotten stale in my head. He runs it fast and loose, which fits DBZ perfectly, and he's teaching me the lore with references and inside jokes, and the fact that we're effectively playing a slightly altered timeline of the show's plot, just as non-canon characters. He is an amazing DM. And I approve. Also, props to whoever made the above Anime Music Video, because the way it uses the song's lyrics to talk about the characters and make completely valid points about who they are and what they're about is fucking brilliant.

A Friend in Need

I have made a friend in a woman from My Sister's Place, who first approached me perhaps two weeks ago about my piano playing there, to suggest that I might like to perform at a recital that took place today. A little later, she asked me if I might help her to figure out a song she had been working on before... or, failing that, to attempt to put music to one she had written.
This latter project is one I took up and that we worked on together with much time and energy. Sadly, she was not able to perform it with me at the recital today for which we had been preparing.
She is seperating from her husband and the chaos of this month's needs and demands, of bills and preparation and packing to move away, required her to do much more than she expected she would have to today, and thus not to have time to sing at the recital. She is, understandably, angry, and it is a sad opportunity to lose, but I think she will have another chance to sing her song to the lady to whom it was written. She is not entirely leaving, but leaving the position of full-time staff and will only be back occasionally, to fill in for shifts that are due to some extenuating circumstances no longer filled.
This friend has since become very close very quickly, no doubt in part because her circumstances are dire enough that she must be open to help and support, and I am more than happy to provide it given one of these rare opportunities in which I can step in to do small things that will mean much to someone I know just well enough to be confident that she will accept and appreciate the gestures.
And so, now, she has asked me to look for an apartment to share with her. Her offers are so generous that I am somewhat suspicious of them. Having access to more money than me, she expects to pay more of the rent accordingly. In addition, she intends to look for an in-house nannying position that would keep her away from the apartment even during nights for most of the week, giving me free reign and privacy of the entire place while she is working. Finally, she says she does not mind if I have the larger of the two bedrooms. I don't think I will ask for it, though. This much generosity is cause for skepticism and suspicion, and so I will watch vigilantly, though I have no other reason as yet to think that she is not quite serious and genuine in her offer.
Time shall have to tell us. We intend to apply for an apartment we went to see today. The layout was nice, the condition of the place reasonable, the view beautiful. I do not expect our search to be this easy, but I do look forward with careful, patient, unexaggerated hope, to hearing whether we will be accepted there.

To my new friend, if you end up reading this, I suspect you will understand well enough not to take offence to my suspicions. You know well how devious some people can be. I do not mean to distrust you; only to keep myself quite aware of the level of my own vulnerability to deception and disappointment, and keep that knowledge with me to inform my own decisions.

Oh, also, I should note that I did play an independant piece at the recital and was met with many compliments for it. The skill level among the performers was not high, and I take the compliments happily, but not with much weight. This audience was very easily satisfied, and their approval does not mark great skill, but nevertheless it is always pleasant to know that my performance is appreciated.

Also, also, I have been listening to an audiobook of Sun Tzu's Art of War. I suspect the formality of it may have rubbed off on me somewhat.