The Man

There is a man.

The man comes home from work. He is tired.

The man takes off his shoes. He takes off his jacket. He greets his wife with a smile and a little kiss.

The man calls his children to dinner, and they eat together and ask each other about the events of the day. The man complains casually about his boss. His wife complains affectionately about messes. The children complain about their homework. The family tells itself that it's going to be okay, and this is how life is.

The man puts on slippers, and picks up a drink, and picks up a newspaper, and sits down on the most comfortable chair in the living room, and reads about events in the world beyond his house and his neighbourhood. He reads in order to be up to date on what to talk about with his co-workers during breaks, and what to avoid talking about because it may be awkward in light of something which has happened. He reads in order to know who to be annoyed at for what recent indiscretion. He frowns at indulgent politicians. He smiles at progress in public works. He pauses to wonder at the pace of technological advancement.

The man is comfortable.

The man is sometimes worried, especially when looking at construction projects, and newspaper headlines, and stressed people whose problems he does not know how to solve.

The man is sometimes happy, especially when he thinks about his wife, and his kids, and his friends, and his home.

The man doesn't know what to do about the politicians, or how to feel about fluctuations in immigration.

But the man knows he works hard and does well enough by his boss and co-workers.

He takes care of his wife and his kids.

He looks back on his day and he feels he is doing his best. He can relax into that thought, like a warm bath; or an old, well-worn pair of shoes. He does not feel compelled to question it. He could, but it would only leave him more worried than happy, so why would he?

He settles into his chair, and keeps reading.

 

Advice and Resentment: All Over Again

I come here for a change not presenting my own writing about my experiences, but the words of a friend who felt inspired to write about my experiences after hearing me relate a part of them.

A dear friend of mine shared a disappointing experience with a counselor just now, and I feel the urge to say something about this. The profession of counseling is naturally one of providing advice, one of giving counsel to clients. It’s entirely expected that a counselor will have opinions on how to improve a client’s behavior. And yet. 

There are people who have been talked over, who have been pressed down upon with the opinions of others throughout their lives. These people have spent a great deal of time treated as though they couldn’t possibly know what they’re doing. They have been imposed upon with well-meaning advice, time and again, to the point that they begin to lose their own voices. Their own agency becomes forfeit to the crush of external narration, telling their stories for them. 

It’s a counseling instinct to want to correct a client’s poor choices. A client’s working through reclaiming their agency and voice doesn’t mean the counselor is relegated to observation alone, or that all sharing of advice is harmful. It does however mean that counsel must be given with care. Someone going through this process, such as my friend, is very likely to set boundaries on being given advice, and is very likely to frown on advice being wrapped in polite disguises. Responding here by rejecting being relegated to observation is a false dichotomy, a trap of black-and-white thinking just like counselors everywhere try to guide clients out of. That negativity and accusation only refreshes those old hurts, no matter the counselor’s intentions. 

There is a middle path that I’ve learned to walk — one that should have been obvious to my friend’s counselor — though I still stumble from time to time myself. Offer. It is so easy to assume the privilege of being the expert, to throw advice out like people are blessed to hear it, and people all too often forget the simplicity of offering first. It is a habit that must be trained, but a very compassionate one, full of respect for a client’s agency and intelligence. 

"That sounds stressful. I have advice on how to handle it, when

you’re ready for it." 

"That’s a good start. Would you like to hear a way to improve

that, either now or in a bit?" 

Those are just two examples off the top of my head of how to offer, rather than impose. As a counselor, you have the luxury of patience, the luxury of writing your suggestion down and holding onto it, for when the pressure has been vented, for when the concerns have been validated, for when the urgency has faded. To give in to the dichotomy, and assume the privilege of the expert, is such a common kind of weakness. I know we can all do better, counselors and friends alike. 

In loving and hopeful defiance, 

Sable Seylerius

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.

Dear Diary: Time To Make A Plan

I came in to the campus just to write a Financial Accounting test today. And I sat it, and finished it, taking about 98 minutes out of what would have been an available 120 I think, although that may have been stretched out from 90.

I walked away from the testing hall with a bit of niggling frustration over trying to remember whether it was IAS 37, 38 or 39 which dealt with events after the reporting period. I've never been good at remembering arbitrary numbers and codes like that. I let it fade gently from my mind, and my thoughts settle on something else.

I need to stop not having a plan.

This morning I told my dear Stars that over the past few days, I've come to the conclusion that it's important I come around to admitting that coming to Ireland was a mistake. "And so I've said it," I told them. And so I have. It was a mistake to come here. It may have been a mistake I needed to make, in the situation I was in, needed to make and then learn from. But it was a mistake. Which is the English human shorthand way to say, I suppose...

I need to stop trying to justify this and figure out how to recover. Write it off, sell it for what scrap I can get for it.

What now?

It's strange how much difference that makes to my perspective, when none of my options have really changed.

Well... If I'm not assuming I have to stay, I need to have a plan to go. Plane tickets, dates, an address of someone who'll let me stay with them for a while when I arrive back in Canada, either for rent or otherwise. All of it flexible, ideally, so that if I do manage to get a paid internship here with a company that'll put me through my next year and offer me a place with them, I can pivot to that.
Huh. Using the word pivot that way on a personal blog makes me sound like a corporate dickhead. Well, not pivot, then. Switch to it. Adjust to land there.

So. Refundable plane tickets. Those exist, I'm pretty sure. How much time do I want to give myself? Couple months? If I don't have an internship set up by mid-June, I don't think I'm likely to get one, so let's say late June maybe. April, exams are in May, June. Alright. I can work with that.

Today while I was walking to the campus, I listened to some episodes of the ACCA student podcast, including one episode on Clever Job Hunting which I listened to more carefully than the others. One of the things it says is about networking - that it's important to build relationships up before bringing up jobs at all.

Well, there's the kick, isn't it? Don't look desperate, ever, especially when you feel desperate. Don't ask people for awkward things. Smile. Shake hands. Talk small. Make friends.

I've never been good at that. I hate feeling like I'm confined to safe, inoffensive subjects. And I'm quick to get annoyed with people's bad habits. I have to admit, though, I get it. Swooping in and expecting the attention of people who don't know what makes me great looks pretentious, entitled. Because it is. I fly around the world, leaving places and people behind me, looking for a break... And then who's there to help me or vouch for me?

Anyway. Book a ticket to leave in June, then. Get through the rest of my classes and exams. Shift emphasis away from menial work for the summer - it seems even mushroom harvesting positions are looking for people who intend to stay longer than a year. Keep throwing out applications as I can bear to for internships, try to learn about companies that might be a gateway for me, here or in Canada. Maybe look into the US a bit, but since I've no claim there and no degree so far, don't expend too much effort on it.

Wrap up the story of the tabletop campaign. Does everything just go to hell because the death of Isabet Carol was only the first sign of things going very, very wrong, and the PCs didn't actually investigate enough to stop it? Sounds plausible, and may offer them enough closure to satisfy. It would be nice to have a tabletop story actually end in a way that feels like an ending for once.

Continue the conversation with Fanshawe and maybe other colleges in Canada, look at continued study... Maybe. I'm tired of going to school, though. Look for work in Canada, yes. If it's something that can get me starting to do work that aligns with my strengths and studies, great. If something that aligns with EA, even better.

Alright. Go and set it up, then, Serp.

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.

Group Research Problems

I have gradually developed an utter hatred for group research projects over my time in college. The two things are often shoved together, unfortunately. It seems like four of five assignments we're given in groups involve secondary research: scanning through databases, looking for articles and (occasionally) not being allowed to say anything, even points of common knowledge or what seem to be profoundly obvious extrapolations, without pointing to someone else who said it first and in print.

The work of organizing groups, and trying to get quality work out of other students over whom I ultimately have no power has always been something I dread. When a classmate sends me, two days before a report is due, a piece of writing that I can barely untangle into readable English, that gives a link to a source that contradicts rather than supports it, I as another mere student have to try to find a way to explain that we can't use this, that it's not good enough, in a way that actually gets my teammates to do better rather than starting a fight about why I get to decide what we do and don't use... Or ignore their contribution and rewrite their entire part in whatever time remains and look forward to complaints about my having done so... Or use the nonsense they give me anyway and let the incoherence of the work drag me down with them.

There's a community I really admire called Effective Altruism (shortens to EA). Every time I've seen suggestions in EA articles or discussions promoting research as one of the best ways to do good in the world, I've gotten an awful feeling in the pit of my stomach, like I'll never be able to help as much as other people who can stomach research. It occurred to me recently that this seems a lot like the reflexive rejection many other people have from any subject with a substantial numerical component because they're "bad at math". Maybe if I hadn't become conditioned through college to associate research with the feeling of either herding cats or dragging them around on my back in a sack that occasionally grew claws, I wouldn't think I was "bad at research", or that research was inherently miserable. Maybe I should try to find out what the experience of research is like in a more professional environment as opposed to what college usually turns it into.

It Festers

I come here with a bent mind, frustrated at a... friend? acquaintance? friend?... who asked me how I was doing as the last class began to settle down into their seats, and would not take my grimace and uncomfortable silence as an answer and did not hear my whisper, reached to touch my hand.

Such small actions, one might think they should not bend me.

I have become trapped in the mirror, and appropriately the things I see and hear around me all reflect the dark. The voices that close the podcast I listen to sound lower, slower, tired... in a way they did not once before. I feel less entertained by it, and wonder whether I would see it becoming lesser if I was not, within myself, shriveling. Everything I see and hear now becomes suspect.

Last week, I made mistakes. I acted in ways that, in retrospect, in dread, I knew must mark me as an outsider, and every time I spoke of it, in voice or text or explicit thought, I cried. I cried in front of my peers who came to chastise me. I sat in frozen stillness for long moments in front of my peer who sought to comfort me; or perhaps, comfort themself with the hopeful confirmation that I was fine... which I refused to give them. I cried in front of my friends of this last half-year, whose notice and acknowledgement and forgiveness for the act I sought.

I stayed up late on Sunday night, spending a few cherished hours with those I cannot see or hear any other time than the middle of the night, and missed my first class again on Monday morning. But not Tuesday this time. I arrived to class twelve minutes after the hour but in time to hear much of the lecture. About insecurity and social media. Of course. With little jokes about how obviously as a younger generation we were all addicted to Facebook even if we knew it was exploitative. As if saying that kind of thing were funny rather than insulting. I can't say it helped.

Such small gestures, one might think they should not bend me.

But everything now is in subtlety. The greatest impacts can be wrought with the flourish of a pen and the pressing of a button, which are actions even smaller, in the simple physical performance which is so little of the context that fully makes them up.

Why should I be ashamed? Why am I ashamed? Why?

The post on my blog two posts back is displaying improperly. Three paragraphs are shown in the smallest available font size, and although I can edit the text of the post, I cannot change them to normal size such that they display properly on the webpage. I am left feeling frustrated and powerless. Such... small... things. Such small things that yet I do not have the reach to correct. Like all the things I may feel are wrong with the systems here.

I wonder whether my friend?acquaintance?friend? will forgive me, and cannot really claim to stir myself to enough feeling to hope. I wonder whether she will care to learn enough about me to begin to understand what I need, why it is painful for me when someone pushes for me to speak in a room crowded with people, such as students in a classroom. What to do about it. But as a point aside from all of this... when I looked at her eyes looking at me, trying to reach out to me, there was a warmth there that I would like to see again...

People keep telling me I know I can always talk to them if I need someone to talk to.
I wish they would stop telling me that. It isn't true.

Last week I dragged myself into school on Thursday mostly so that I could attend counselling, but I was told I had no appointment. I had begun to depend on my counsellor. I had begun to trust him enough that last time, I opened up my chest and let him see me raw and crying. I suppose we mentioned it each time until last time, and he had written me in for another appointment, same time next week. But not last time. When I trust, I assume, and do not think to say it, and then it is not done.

I wished that I had an appointment this week, but I do not want to speak to the staff at student services to ask for one.

I wish people would stop telling me I know I can rely on them. I don't. People keep showing me that I can't; not in the ways that I rely on people.

I think it's time to start calling this depression.

I am trapped in the mirror now, and nothing I see on the other side, nothing I hear, can be trusted not to be twisted by the reflection of my own darkness.

Hello, old darkness. It's been a while.

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.

Unsupportive

This has not been a good day for me so far. I stayed up last night playing The Sims again. I'm kind of worried that I'm not sick of it yet. I have a lot of other things to do, but it remains compelling and distracting.

I was so tired that I slept through my first class. Now I almost wish I had missed my second one as well, because I got so angry. The first tax quiz was exceptionally low-scoring, and a bunch of my classmates were concerned about it, as was I. I felt I had not made the same mistake I did last term, when I also scored low on my first tax quiz. I had checked the slides over, and the textbook, on almost every question. One of my classmates told me he had been sure he should have gotten 100% after studying hard for it, but only got 70%.

This in itself is not such a big deal, although it may feel like one at the time, and a quiz is worth 5% of our final mark in this course. The professor's response in class can make all the difference, and here it definitely did. She went through the questions, quick-firing off references to what specific paragraph the answer was supposedly in for each one, leaving no time for analysis of what the paragraph or the question actually said, and ending by cheerfully telling us we need to read the book.

I spoke up one last time saying I didn't have time to follow her through this supposed explanation and still thought some of the questions were wrong, and was told it didn't matter, she was giving the important point of reading the textbook and that it was all there. I did not speak up for the rest of the class. I quietly did the exercises, and thanked the student next to me for sharing his textbook, but despite having questions to ask and answers to give, and despite the professor's probing comments that the class was quiet today, or that everyone was 'asleep', I stayed quiet and barely even made eye contact. I was fuming, and no longer willing to speak to her.

I have sent an email to my tax professor from last term to ask if there is still room for another student in his classes. I may request to transfer over. I had some concerns and complaints and found some things difficult in his class too, but I don't think he ever insulted us like that. I'm not going to make that choice now. My head is not cool enough for important decisions, and anyway I have other things I need to do.

Feeling Small

Perhaps things have come to a head. I do not want to write at this moment. I do not feel as though I want much to do anything, but I will write. So as to reduce the burden on my friends, or any anxiety I feel about their being unavailable, I will write. Because it has been a few days, and because there are a number of things on my checklist that I am leaving fallow, I will write.

Yesterday was some kind of homecoming party. My roommates went out to party around nine or ten and came back around midnight, boisterous and chattering with a party of friends as guests.

I had been excited nearly to trembling to meet the representatives of the Limerick, Sligo, Carlow and Tralee Institutes of Technology. The meeting had come, had been carried out, had passed. I was tired from early evening, but did not expect to be able to sleep while others in my house were preparing to go celebrate. I spent my time watching YouTube, my mind tired and my current goal met, not feeling up to doing much of anything that was not restful.

Come midnight and the return of my roommates, I asked them if they could arrange for everything to be quiet by 2, and left for the college. There was something I could do that would not require much presence of mind; scan textbook pages which had problems for practice.

I came back slightly past 2 to find my roommates and their friends still (or again) around the kitchen table, chatting happily, but asked them immediately to bring it to quiet, and went into my room and came out again a few times in quick succession to repeat myself when they continued talking at a conversational volume.

After twenty minutes or so they had gone and there was quiet. I watched and listened to some more YouTube and played a little bit of Binding of Isaac while I calmed and relaxed toward sleep.

In the morning between 8 and 9, I was woken by my other roommate's car having been started to warm and make ready to leave. Its muffler is cracked and nonfunctional; my room becomes a chamber full of pressure and low-pitched car noise when it is idling out front. I caught the roommate whose car it was on the way out and told her so. After she left and after laying down a while, turning this way and that way, I slept again, until I was woken by talk between some of the first set of roommates again, and went out to tell them that even at the volume they were at, it was enough to wake me when I were already asleep.

Here, I had some comeuppance for my complaints. There was confrontation, politely spoken, and they told me that some of the sounds I had thought quiet enough not to be heard outside were room were not, that they needed more co-operation and consideration and forgiveness from me; and somewhere in there that it was normal to have little disruptions like this, and that they were entirely willing to take themselves downstairs at night when it was only them, but their friends had thought it was weird of me to be so insistent at them.

I think something in that struck at me somewhere; although of course, I had not been sleeping well and was not at my most stable. I began to leak a few tears, silently. One of my roommates did see, and was alarmed and apologetic, said she was only trying to have a normal conversation about it. I said that I cry easily, and not to worry about it, that it was important to talk about it if there were problems with anything I were doing, too, and I thanked her for doing so.

I have not had the will to write my follow-up emails to the representatives from Ireland today, though. I have not been willing to do homework or work out, or even really to go back out into the cold (it is quite cold and windy today) to buy bread. I am feeling weak, and sad, and small. I have returned several times to crying.

I miss Eoin. I feel conflicted. I feel guilty and self-conscious and yet still slightly, in some ways, indignant. I think some part of things is that I had been so focused on the meeting with the reps, and I suspect some stresses I had been putting off processing are out now that it's done. I decompress. I feel sadness. I remember all the things recently associated with sadness, and I feel a little helpless, listening again to voices talking in a language I do not understand, through the very slight muffling of the wall, and I miss Eoin.

I will pick it all back up again later. For now, I remain small and curled inside myself, hiding from the conflict I do not know how to deal with gracefully, hiding a little from the responsibilities I must return to in time. There is time, there is time.

October; Natural Cyclical Endings

A chill rides on the quiet wind, what some old friend of mine once called a "culting cold". The ground is littered with leaves in yellow and red, although many yet remain green on the branch.
The temperature is just the way I like it most. It has an edge of cold that might grow uncomfortable if I were tired and had no protection against it, the better to hide in a comfy sweater or a warm blanket. The sky grows dusky around six, and grey with cloud. It is not bright enough to hurt my eyes, though I still see clearly and in colour. Meandering through the campus grounds, I take in the beauty, alone. I allow myself to meta-think about my heartbreak, still not fully healed, and to notice and embrace that I am capable of enjoying this autumnal atmosphere, the beauty of cyclic endings, alone. It is not too much to bear that no-one stands with me. Perhaps it would be too much if there were no way for me to share my appreciation of it with... But I can write it here. I can mention it to friends in passing.
Alone, I can walk across paths laden with fallen leaves.
Alone, I can feel the chill of coming winter foretold on the breeze, but not, as yet, here.
Alone, I can walk away from those things I must leave behind, without knowing in any certainty whether I will ever see them again. This is life and mortality.

I remember the similar chill of mild Irish winter, and smile fondly. In the coming months, that mildness will make way for the harsh and savage ice winds. I will walk through paths carved in deep snow... probably, anyway. I wonder if I will feel more or less lonely then. I wonder if I will spend my time with new friends. I wonder if I will build a snow sculpture on some day when the snow comes plentiful and wet enough to inspire it. I wonder if I will take an opportunity to slide down hills as I did when I was still a small child.

I have a test today. I know the fact, acknowledge, accept, and then hold it at some distance, although I do not push it away so that I might forget. I walk through the chill air, admire the campus clad in autumn. This is one of my favourite times of year, and it is good to relax before a test.

I feel well. Parts of me are certainly still grieving, but overall, I feel well. I am beginning to imagine ways that the future might be acceptable even if I never see that person again, although I should hope I will. I am beginning to imagine that I may be happy in other places, with other romances. I reflect on age and maturity, on the continual process of growing up. I consider that I seem to have a much better time meeting and keeping friends than I used to. I consider that my radical views have, to a large degree, mellowed out. I tend to give more credit to those I disagree with these days. My mind wanders, philosophical, serene, reverent. I write half from memory and half as a lucid stream of consciousness. I feel I have written enough, for now.

Life Across the Sea

The Irish winter is mild compared to Canada. It was particularly mild when I arrived and for a few days then, and felt like spring, but now it's quite bitterly cold enough to be irritating. Being outside and moving is really not a problem in winter clothes, but inside, my apartment is not heated efficiently enough to cope well at all.

Worse, it's heated by metered electricity and that inefficiency costs a not insignificant quantity of money. At least now I know how to turn it on if I decide not to suffer numbness of my toes and fingers anymore for a while, but if I were to keep it on and keep my room a comfortable temperature with it (it does take a fair while to spread the heat sufficiently through the room) it would cost me 2-3 euros in electricity charges, per day, by itself.

I learned to my unhappiness that I would not be provided any blankets either and the first night I was here, I shivered impotently, huddled against a wall heater in the living room to no avail. The building was colder still while most of the students who would regularly inhabit it were still away on the winter holiday.

For the first five days I was here, I walked roughly three kilometers to the Athlone Castle in the center of town. It is just what it sounds like, a great old stone castle with a cobbled cart road up into it, and up at the top they have kept some cannon and stocks as historical artifacts. Each time, I sought out the St. Vincent de Paul's outlet I had seen existed downtown on Google Maps. Some of those times, it was closed, and its signage calls it Vincent's, with new and unfamiliar branding. However, I did buy sheets and a towel my first trip, and blankets on a couple of subsequent ones. I went back later for some more clothes, hoping to find something to wear to a nightclub, although that's another story; and finally, shorts and athletic capris. Regardless the place, a thrift store is my personal lifeline.

In the first two weeks of school here, I've learned that the Irish are more relaxed about time (less monochronic, as my earlier classes may have put it) and the proper time to arrive for classes is right on the hour. The lectures will actually begin 5-10 minutes later. Several of my classes were cancelled because it was so early in the term, and one was cancelled just because the lecturer did not show up.

I went out to Eddie Rockets (a local diner) and the cinema with some of the other New Internationals. This is not an official term, it's just what I'm calling those students who, like me, arrived here as transfer students for the second term of the year and with whom I was inducted and shown about the school. There are some from Germany, some from France, some from the Netherlands. The film we saw was Passengers. It was not perfect by any means, not an immediate favourite like Amelie, but it was visually absolutely gorgeous, and it was acted very well. I did however find myself internally facepalming at the movie at several moments though (Goddamnit, John, you should know better than this. You do not cross that line until you have had that talk. Could we maybe at some point consider having a romance movie which doesn't depend on someone doing something incredibly stupid and unethical for all its tension? Although, to be fair, he has pretty much descended into a personal hell. The extreme circumstances having affected his mind at least makes sense.) (Look, it's a science fiction movie... We know this guy is going to die because he's not one of the two protagonists who have to pull things out of the fire. Did you have to make him black? Really? Lawrence Fishburne does a fine job, but the adherence to the trope is embarrassing.) (and worst of all... What? Excuse me, what? You can't do that, that's cheating. She stopped moving while immersed in water. You made a point of showing her ceasing to struggle and going limp. No-one else is there to rescue her. She's dead. She is not going to get up from that no matter how much she's jolted around. She's dead, goddamn it.) ...but for the most part, although it was full of tropes played straight and pretty predictably, each one was played sincerely and with impressive style. The eye candy didn't get in the way and was absolutely beautiful. I was actually sitting in a cinema, noticing the tropes but not minding all that much. I found myself thinking... Well, would you look at that. In this moment, I'm damn near acting and feeling like a normal healthy young adult.

The New Internationals who were with me laughed at my comments on the film afterward, and split up, some going home, some heading out to the nightclub Karma. I was wearing thin and anxious, but elected to give it a go. The atmosphere when I stepped inside though did not agree with me, and I was already feeling tense having walked around for some time with a trio who were primarily speaking French to one another. I tried some of my learned high school Canadian French, to the encouragement and appreciation of Sana, but every time I opened my mouth, I felt deeply embarrassed by the knowledge that my ability with the language is so patchy. Perfectionism is not helpful in learning new things.

At the nightclub, the fee was 8 euro just to get in. Then inside there was a bag check that cost another 2. A youth slung himself around a corner hollering, and the throbbing music from inside did not appeal. Annoyed that I was already facing being milked of my money stage by stage, I defied the sunk cost fallacy, turned on my heel and left, stopping to ask the lady at the ticket gate whether I could get my 8 euro back and just leave. She said no. I wasn't going to argue.

Triggered, I walked towards home, around midnight downtown in an unfamiliar country. But then, being triggered is often like that. I despaired that I didn't have Lonely Digger on my mp3 player anymore, nor my mp3 player with me, and more than anything I despaired for being alone, far away from any of my close friends, and especially the closest, she who I dream will travel with me, my Ashlynn. Reaching a peak in my desperation, I sat on the sidewalk, took out a notebook and pen, and wrote. I do not, however, recount that writing here.

Since arriving, I have made contact with the Tabletop Society (board games, Magic, D&D players; a lot of familiar and friendly culture, gathered loudly in one room Thursday evenings), College of Kingeslake (SCADIANS! ♡), the Dance Club and the Archery Club (brought to us by College of Kingeslake on Friday afternoons). There has been much to learn and friendly people to meet.

An international student who has been here since September, Anni from Finland, was a quick friend, greeting me in one of my first classes and inviting me to come to Tabletop Society. It is good to have met someone I am comfortable asking questions and asking to work with me on group projects. She's taking accounting as her elective. Perhaps I can help her with the knowledge I already have.

I'm sure life in Ireland will continue to be new and challenging. Goodness, I didn't even really mention the rustic, eccentric architecture and the plentiful unfamiliar birds and how remarkably green the fields are... It will have to wait. There are things to attend to.

Solace in a Tomato

The day before yesterday, I had plans to help another starting freshman student move to her new home in London. I awaited her call or text message to remind me where to meet her, and let me know it was time. As it happened, not only did it never arrive, but a phone call to her failed immediately, giving me the recorded message that this number was not currently available, and the previous day, none of my texts to her were answered. I still don't know what happened.

The day before yesterday, I got into another fight with my boyfriend in which he didn't see me trying (although I was) to account for his feelings and mind them, and I didn't see him trying (he wasn't sure he was) to account for mine, and he wished I'd just drop it and leave it alone like he wanted to do, and I wished he was willing to bear some pain and effort in the short-term in order to learn habits that'd make us both happier in the longer term, but he was no more willing to commit to that than I was to just drop the issue, certain as I felt that it would come up again.

Yesterday, I had an appointment with my doctor, who has in the past seemed dismissive and distrustful of me. I was reluctant to go, but did anyway. I felt very discouraged. I kept thinking about the failed moving day, and even though I now no better than to catastrophize it, since the most likely answer is that there was just some problem with my fellow student's phone and she either didn't remember my number without the use of it, or didn't think of using another phone to contact me... but still, not actually knowing was really bothering me.

I kept not thinking, but feeling, that my plan for school was too ambitious and would certainly overshoot my capacity or take too long to prepare. I know with my logic, as opposed to my feelings, that the only way to find out if I can is to try, and I still remember why the logic is sound that leads me to believe I could. But in that discouraged, I dare say even reactively depressed state, I could not remember why I cared to try.

On the way out to go see my doctor, I forgot my mp3 player for one thing and had to go back for it from the bus stop, reasoning that at the time it was, the likelihood of this making me miss my appointment was very low, I didn't actually care if I was only slightly late, and if I didn't get my mp3 player and bring it with me, the chance of not having it making me much more miserable was high. Even if I don't want to listen to music, not having the ability to choose to makes me nervous and tense.

I also saw my tomato plant.

There was a time around April/May of this year that I asked our landlord here if I could use one of the little square garden plots myself when planting time came, since I was very interested in doing some gardening even though I was a newbie at it. He agreed to that, and gave me the one which had had a rotting pumpkin in it since the last autumn, and said that was good for a garden, of course. It was the second of four little squares built into our side yard with plank edges that he'd set up.

Later, come May when the weather was getting reliably warm and frost didn't seem to be coming back, I went out with my seeds and used two and a half little packets of them, carrots and tomatoes and some low-to-the-ground herbs. I had gotten advice from one of my coworkers who gardens a lot about repelling pests and good plants to plant near one another that wouldn't give a newbie too much trouble.

The same day, the landlord's wife comes out and starts her own planting, and she digs up and uses and plants in all four of the squares. And when I complain that the landlord promised me one of them, she goes and talks to him of course... But as it turns out, he never told anybody about that but me, so he just apologizes and his wife gets all the gardening space and I get none of it, my seeds wasted, my time and effort spent in anticipation and preparation for nothing. Landlord's wife says the soil is too shallow for tomato plants to grow well anyway (although that didn't stop her from transplanting some, just in a different one of the squares).

Determined and angry, I went into my house and brought out a flower pot bowl thing that we happened to have, and set it not far from the squares and said I was going to plant something in that. I planted a few tomato seeds in it. In the following days and weeks, I weeded out all but one of the tiny seedlings, watered it whenever I remembered and the soil seemed not to be moist enough, and watched it slowly grow. Next to the wife's transplanted tomatoes, it seemed like a runt of a litter. Over the months, it grew to nearly but perhaps not quite two feet above the soil, in a maybe not quite one foot deep little pot, and although it seemed to wilt sometimes from heat or thirst or maybe something else, it looked like it was pretty healthy, despite being small.

When it bore flowers and then lost them, there was only one little forming tomato that had taken on its little branches, but that one fruit grew and reddened. It was not as big as even the small tomatoes you would buy in the grocery store, nor as big as several of the tomatoes that its transplanted neighbors grew, but nevertheless it was there.

Any time I left the house or returned to it, which was not every day, mind you, I would see my tomato plant, especially since recently its transplanted neighbors have been harvested and taken away and its solitary red tomato is the only red in the garden. There was the one single fruit of my independent labour at gardening without space or cooperation.

Yesterday in particular, I could really use that reminder. A solid, physical, undeniable thing, small and modest but wholesome, that I had brought about, by trying to do so.

It felt, bizarrely, as though the tomato plant was forgiving me for my flaws and foibles, and had tried its feeble best as a two foot tall tomato plant growing in a one foot deep flower pot, and had put some effort into giving me something in return for my care of it, even though I had sometimes forgotten to water it for days at a time. I felt forgiven.

It didn't immediately cheer me up, for I did not, immediately, want to be cheered up. It is very rare indeed I get to show a doctor rather than merely tell them about the lows of my moods; generally, the act of going to the doctor's to begin with was proactive enough that it cheered me up considerably on account of actually doing something. But today, I did not want to see that doctor again, and my discouragement was weighty, and I rather wanted a medical professional to see it first hand, so I held onto it, and made a mental note to write this blog post later, which would help me focus on something positive, when I was ready to do that.

My doctor seemed no less dismissive and accusatory this time. The problem I have with my throat, that makes me gag and retch whenever I brush my teeth, and feels like I have a hair stuck in it? She says unless I am actually having trouble swallowing (something physical like food, I guess), she cannot give me a referral to a specialist. She didn't bother to ask if that was what I was asking for, no, just said I couldn't have it. I mentioned that there had been times I had been kept up at nights, my swallow reflex triggering repeatedly, but feeling uncomfortably blocked or aborted. She said nothing to that, almost as though she had not heard me.

Her responses to some of my other matters held a similar attitude; she personally does not believe the evidence for intestinal flora being important to healthy digestion is strong, so she will not prescribe me anything to improve intestinal flora, but she will, if I like, hand me a chart of foods I should and should not eat for better digestion, and seem to expect that it is no harder than a whim to radically change one's diet.

It seems very much to me as though this member of "a caring profession" does not care to help me unless I am in a particular amount or kind of suffering; otherwise, she does not advise me. As though it were somehow beneath her, a general practioner, to put any effort forth on improving health that, though not good, is not yet in the realm of critical illness or injury. Apparently it's meant to be my own responsibility to judge how best to make my crummy-but-operational body work better, and to put forth all the effort of that path myself. Of course, how stupid of me. I thought doctors were meant to help their patients to be more healthy, regardless of how healthy they are to begin with.

I took the bus past my home to the college, and went back to the Learning Center, which is quickly becoming one of my favorite places, to talk to someone. Isaac, my favorite person to talk to so far, whose sound judgement, signs of honesty and assertion I could do anything I put my mind to have inspired me to try, was not there; he will likely hang out there sometimes, but he recently gave up his post as scheduled staff of the place and was not there yesterday, so I ended up talking to "Shay" Sheryl instead. She had put on a lecture I liked, full of effective ice breakers, and with a casual, engaging atmosphere.

I talked to her about some of my stress, and about my plan for school, and she was supportive, giving me some helpful suggestions, and becoming a little alarmed on my behalf when I told her the Counselling and Accessibility office would not book students for ongoing counselling until after the tenth day of classes when they were no longer able to get their student fees and tuition refunded without specific cause. I learned her nickname, and enjoyed her company, though it was not quite as uplifting as Isaac's had been.

I felt better, not completely restored but much better than I had been, on my walk home. And when I got there, I ate my tomato. It was delicious.

Dear Diary... I Quit!

After my vacation... Nothing seemed any better at work. I was just as disillusioned, cynical, sick of it, as before, and more so. There was another incident with one of my supervisors... I think I have largely managed not to speak of those here, though I thought about it. Simply put, two of the supervisors I work under have repeatedly treated me and spoken to me with disrespect I am just not willing to put up with... From the tasks I am assigned to and when, to how they respond if ever I question anything they've done.

Not long before my vacation, for example, I got a face full of really bad attitude just for asking, and trying to do it politely, where my supervisor had been, as I had not managed to catch sight of her on the sales floor for the past twenty minutes. I am not claiming necessarily that she was not there; I focus on my work while I am working, and people can sometimes come and go without me noticing them, but there was a point when I was looking for her actively, to deal with something that required a supervisor, and could not find her. I got no answer, just assertions that she knew what she was doing, for my information. Of course, the problem was that I didn't. Know what she was doing, that is. Or where she could be found.

This example is on the extreme end, but archetypal. I have brought up my issues with management before... The result tended to be that some meeting was had, behavior improved for about two weeks, and then everything slowly returned to the way it had been, disrespect included.

This has not been the only problem I've had with my job, that's made me more and more irritable with work since last September, but it's one of the easiest ones to remember and brood over, and after the newest incident, which I will not detail here, I decided I had had too much already, and was not prepared to take any more.

So I came in on a day I was not working for a meeting with the management. I asked to be placed in the processing room instead of in sales, exclusively and as soon as possible. Several days later when the head manager was available to talk to me, she explained to me politely why she would be unable to transfer me exclusively as I had requested. And I responded by stating politely that I would like to officially resign from my position. I had a resignation letter penned, signed, dated and in her mailbox the same day.

I have worked two shifts since then. After all, it's legal imperative and good form to give two weeks notice before actually leaving. Those two days, I've had a lightness in my step and a glee in my heart. Several customers have commented on my excellent customer service, and one even bought me a coffee. I am very glad to be leaving.

Funnily enough, both of my problem supervisors reacted with shock when I told them I was quitting, and almost immediately asked, "But why?". I kept diplomatically silent or evasive. I'm escaping from my troubles there, no need to make a scene and make enemies. It's not as though it's a secret that I've had troubles with them, but my experiences have told me that they don't accept or listen to direct criticism, so it doesn't seem there's any point in confronting them. It would be a waste of my time and energy.

Instead, I've been fantasizing and dreaming in my head about business ideas I would love to bring to fruition, and how. I don't actually think about college itself that much yet; I'm sure I will as September gets closer. I hope I will keep dreaming and fantasizing and fleshing out my plans, though, up until college and all the way through it. My studies should teach me enough practical skills to get those dreams started. I will likely begin some of the early steps while I am schooling. I look forward to it, and again and again I repeat to myself how much more skilled and more competent I've become. I don't have to put up with disrespect or answer to bosses who won't answer to me. I could find a better place to work, but I think I'd rather make one. I am already reading books that should help me.

The plot is afoot.

How I Spent My (Sex) Vacation

Hello dear diary blog.

I am back at home now after two several-day trips out of town. The first was to go visit a girlfriend and her girlfriend in St. Thomas not far away from the city. The second was a trip out to Scarborough to visit another old friend that I had had sex with before, and had for some time considered that it would be nice to go visit and do it again.

Both trips were wonderful.

I watched a movie. I played games, including Three Dragon Ante, Therapy, Gloom, Spelunky, Chess, Scrabble and Squarez. I faced my deep feelings of alienation, and cried aloud and wept. I slept on couches. I slept on an extremely comfortable bed. I cuddled. I kissed. I hugged. I had sex of various kinds. I had orgasms. I gave someone else orgasms. I watched and shared funny YouTube videos. I cooked and shared delicious meals. I dreamed up a game system. I went out walking and almost got lost. I came back home wishing I had more time to spend with the excellent people I was with. Twice.

Then I came back and I had an appointment with my counselor. I played some games at The Cardboard Cafe with my boyfriend and my roommate, drank expensive but good tea, and ate expensive but good snack food. Now we need to focus on getting together our rental application for an apartment we really want to move into, and submitting it with attached rent deposit. There is much to do...

Spring Update

Alright, I feel I owe anyone who reads this a little bit of a catch-up talk on what's really been going on in my life, plumbing aside. In the last two months, I had two teeth completely extracted, and after each operation I fell into a state of increased moodiness and fatigue, sometimes extreme, for somewhere around two weeks. The first of these lasted for the last couple weeks of February, the second filled most of mid to late March, and that's one of the reasons I haven't written much, although I did think about it.

Near the end of my period of lethargy in February, I wrote this journal at work, intending to share it:

February. Lethargy. For at least two weeks now - or going on two weeks, maybe?
Exhaustion has been my constant companion. In my dreams, I struggle to sleep or I struggle to wake or open my eyes. Dreams feel like waking hallucinations, fitful and flighty. When I wake, I may feel awake for a fleeting moment, but sleep calls me back to her like a siren.
If I must, I rise and dress drunkenly to march my weary body to work, and for a time, forced activity revitalizes me, but my energy does not last even my shift. I have felt nauseous and weak 'ere I am done even on short days.
My nose and tongue trick me with experiences of old, rotting blood, sickness, tobacco and skunk...Perhaps the skunk smell was real. I am no longer sure I can tell.
This morning continued this drudge...
...but when I arrived for my early shift, I was honored to discover I was being placed as primary cashier - alone for the first hour unless I were to call for my boss. Perhaps there is hope this may be a better day.
Nearer the end of my workday, the fading sets in and the world becomes slowly less crisp and more unreal. I am still enjoying the honored position not often mine, so this day is better than most, but it is not enough to entirely drive away the fatigue.
My eyes ache, slightly, warmly.
I am thankful for the shot of perspective - spending long stretches of time at cash and dealing with customers, I understand better now how hard it is to do any stocking as well. 

One of my customers was a very soft-spoken young man, slender build, light hair I think, and there was something noticeable about his teeth, perhaps they were set a little forward. He spoke in a way that was... not merely polite. Somehow reverent, perhaps? Unhurried, and sincere, certainly. He seemed almost eager to move around the counter when I asked, and showed no irritation when I looked with some interest at the books he was buying. One was titled "The Pagan Christ," by Tom somebody. I've never heard of it, but that is definitely an intriguing title. I made no comment, but neither any move to hide my interest. Perhaps I shall have to look up this book - partly on its own account, partly out of a striking curiosity to learn what this quiet young man was reading. He could, I thought to myself, have been a priest. If so, of what faith, I wonder? Of course it's silly, but I am enjoying the silliness of fancying after him.
I bid him not let the cold get him down. Pity, but I don't remember clearly what he wished me, only that it was kind and said with quiet, unhurried sincerity. Perhaps wishing me a good remainder of my day.
One way or another, the quiet man and his mysteries make the unreality of my tiredness nearly enjoyable, and certainly much more bearable. 

Yes, this is a much better day so far - but still, I will have to call my doctor for advice or an appointment as soon as possible. I suspect my lethargy may be related to the increase in dosage of my daily supplements that started a week or two before I began to notice the fatigue...

Of course, at the time I did not know it was almost over. Perhaps one of the other reasons that my tiredness in February was much worse and a bit longer than the one in March was also that I was getting into frequent, nasty fights with my online lover. Things had reached the point that I had become afraid of him, despite how far away he lives, because of how effectively he could tear me down, intentionally or not, into a mess of guilt, rage and smallness. When he was angry enough, I was sure that his anger at least, which is in some ways separate from him, did it on purpose. Little comfort to me that he was also unhappy with this - his anger was easily roused and easily controlled him, particularly with regards to me. I guess he was fed up with my own weaknesses, among them a tendency to be defensive and accusatory when something strikes me as potentially offensive.

Often after our fights I was left so angry and depressed that I had neither wish nor will to do anything, and so I would just lay down and either distract myself with comfortably familiar recordings of voices, or sleep, or both. Certainly the despair could have added to my sense of lethargy and hopelessness.

A couple of days after I wrote the above journal, my boyfriend, my rabbit, the one I live with, who had been trying, with mixed success, to be supportive while I was suffering, ran the first session of a Pathfinder game he had been planning. Both lover and I were in it, and some in-game politics started another fight. I told him it was over. The next day, I woke up with my energy back; free...

Of course, breaking up with a lover who is friend to one's friends is not as simple as that. Breaking up with anyone one really cared about isn't. The next few days were extremely hard in their own way as I negotiated for peace after separation, for protection from any potential anger that might come after me for leaving, and kept clamps on my tongue anywhere around that group of friends. Keeping myself quiet was tearing me apart, so at one point I turned to another one of my friends and rambled my aching madness to her, instead... and may have lost her for a long time or forever.

So two weeks full of lethargy were followed by around two weeks of very heavy grieving for a dead relationship. I threw myself forward into it and hurt as hard as I could bear rather than trying to hide from it, in the hopes that I could get through it faster that way. It worked; after a couple of weeks, I felt better, but of course any thoughts of my fresh ex were still painful. Flash forward for a moment to now, and I realize that I now feel about him much the same way I did before there was any romance between us; I dislike his attitude, and he frequently annoys me in almost exactly the same ways. It's disappointing to see that we are so, seeming just back to square one.

Soon after that came my second surgery and its following period of fatigue, but the depression this time was milder and the fatigue did not haunt my dreams. I also had the previous lethargy to draw from, and had some hope and understanding that my bizarre recovery period after surgery would last about two weeks, which it did. And that carries us to my birthday, which was just a few days ago. I was busy that day and the next, so we didn't do much celebrating for it; but my roommate and my boyfriend and I did sit down together to watch a movie of my choice; Indie Game: The Movie.

That morning, I woke up and stared at my ceiling for a while. I was still not in a good state of mind in which to be assessing things or making decisions, and I knew that, but at the same time, I was not sure when was the next time I would be, and felt that assessments and at least tentative decisions needed to be made.

I was 25 years old, had had a job in a charity thrift store for almost two years. I was making a lot of headway on my emotional scars and healing, despite setbacks. I was much less often self-destructive these days, and when I was, it didn't go nearly as far. I was being better to my boyfriend, and for that matter, had arranged to live in a house with two people I liked and was capable of getting along with quite well, generally speaking. But was I happy with where I was, and where I seemed to be going?

No. I wasn't. I had been feeling growing frustration and discontent at work. I felt overworked and under-appreciated and lorded over by at least one supervisor that I felt knew no better than me, and often seemed to know worse. I had been having a very hard time not taking the messes I cleaned up at work personally, and felt I had to sacrifice the things my bosses cared about more in order to do my job right. I felt I had learned most all I ever would from my main position on the sales floor. I did not feel I was getting any closer to moving up the ranks, even though I had been trusted to man the storefront mostly independently for a few hours at a time.

So I thought about that, and that night, I talked to my roommates about it. I think I am ready to take one of the next big steps and enroll at a college or university soon. I think it's time for me to investigate the resources and the courses that may be at my disposal. I still have too many interests to be sure there is any just one thing I want to do, but perhaps I never will be. I'll start somewhere. Perhaps somewhere safe; a business administration degree would be useful in finding a higher ranking position... And, of more personal interest to me, might give me the knowledge and skills to start my own small business or few. Perhaps even an indie game development team.

In the few days since then, I've attended the first session of a group counselling initiative rather cheesily titled Making Changes In Your Life, and have been dutifully trying to fill out the rubrics they gave me to track positive things I have been doing to control and steer my reactions and initiatives. I enjoyed some delivery fried chicken and had my roommates bring me a cake covered in candles to blow out, complete with the traditional Happy Birthday, even though it was one day later due to time constraints. None of us minded. The day after that, we went downtown together and my boyfriend bought me a birthday present; a card game I recognized and liked called Gloom. We picked up snacks in the Covent Garden Market and sat in the mezzanine and ate and played a round of my new game. I got the wonderful feeling that I got to have three days of birthday this year, perhaps to make up for the years in which I did not celebrate. Actually, I felt as though the time from my birthday to the second anniversary of the day I met my boyfriend (which is the date I track, since we found ourselves interested in one another right away) a couple weeks later had been made into a festival for my life, our lives together, a celebration of friendship and support, and feelings of family. I was very happy.

I also, by serendipitous chance, popped in to my workplace on the way downtown just in time to hear my boss congratulate and deeply thank all of our staff for the hard work we've been doing, and our excellent results on our most recent sale. Some of the unappreciated feelings and resentment I had been having began immediately to lift. I was glad I had waited on my impulse to complain.

I still think it would be a good idea to investigate university now. But happily now I'm feeling more carrots and fewer sticks about it.

This morning, I woke up and showered... and came here to write. I am taking the time to get around to some things that fell by the wayside during my month and a half of mixed miseries. And I am proud of myself for it. This is progress. This is... Well. Good steps. This is good steps.

How My Mind Works

Hello. Good afternoon. How are you?
Huh. Cool. Quick to be promoted.
Oh heavens I'm sorry but I think I'm drunk on conflict. I'm feeling like a dark euphoria or something.
Or... maybe...
HmmmMm.
I've been restraining myself so thoroughly and effectively for the last few days... that I really, really want to do something reckless and risk fucking up something beautiful apparently.
Is this what it's like realizing that you're addicted to failure? That's hilarious.
I think... I feel like I am a whimsical entity, this reactive, animal conscious-mind, caught in a moment in which gears larger than itself are shifting. A decision is being made around me. To take responsibility for my own actions. I'm barely even the thing making it any more. I'm just in the high. Loopy, feeling the gears grinding. Wondering what bits of me that I once cared about are the dust, dirt, roots and chips coming off and falling away.
Bye, me! Bye, excuses for being unfunctional. Look ma. I'm loopy. But I am still here.
And you? You're dead. You're dust. You're... you're going to start leaving me alone now.
♥
HmmmMm.
Sorry it was you. It couldn't be anyone in my regular social group. The person I am having to restrain myself with is there, and I have to wait for him to be ready to walk into the group presence with me and ask for their help with our peace accord together.
I do hope that I am not causing you much distress.
Perhaps I am entertaining. Or simply obnoxious.
Let me know, sweet?
Oh, I am such a tease, aren't I, being incomprehensible like that. I guess it's one of the habits I'll have to kick. It's more actually intelligent and more actually difficult, a greater, nobler challenge, to speak succinctly but clearly enough that one is not a challenge to follow.
But permit me this indulgence. For now. Still, if you wish, I can explain... any part of this... more clearly.
No, it's only my fault I'm being incomprehensible.
Do you hate me for it? Oh, do say you'll hate me for it, that you'll never understand me, that you'll look back on this moment and realize that it's not worth talking to me. Ha. Hahahaha. You know what? I think I get it. Yes, that needling would be awful annoying, even in small doses.
♥
Hurf. So... can I not care? Not caring seems... HmmmMm. Not caring about the bad, but being grateful for anything good? It always seemed like such a double-standard, didn't it little starfish, hmmm...
But what do you lose? A few chips off your shoulder that were really only keeping it from a full range of motion. Go on. Throw it away. You... you can be new.
You can be whole. Don't you want to be whole? Capable? Prove yourself and WIN, for once?
Mmm.
Again, Sorry miss, I never could talk to myself worth a damn without an audience.
Because then who am I talking to? Or something like that. Having someone watching... Something about it... makes it... real.

So. How are you?

(She left. I don't know yet whether she's going to come back.)

Scattered Rambles: September Update

I've been feeling like it's been a while since I've written. I've been feeling often very busy though, and use that as an excuse to do other things.

The fall sale happened at the store recently and was only slightly less successful than the last sale, which was record-breaking. I had a nine hour shift, and that was now... four days ago? I am planning a vacation soon, to combat an increasing sense of burn out. Robby and I are being transferred onto the same Ontario Works account. I am increasingly interested in cooking. The other day I bought $78 of Forgotten Realms fiction from Goodwill; 35 paperbacks and two hardcover books. Hopefully I will get around to reading a fair bit of it.

I am ever more anxious to see our roommate leave and the new one arrive. I have considered to myself whether I might still feel like the house is not my own, but if there is anything about the new roommate coming that should ease my fears it is that he is a naturally very gentle person, not inclined to be hostile over small matters at all.

I had a plan to design some Hallowe'en adoptable critters for a trick or treating community game on Chicken Smoothie, and drew up five line arts for it. I had already digitized one of them and made at least two dozen variations of the creature on it, when I dropped my laptop. No damage was immediately obvious; it had not powered down immediately and ran as usual for a couple more hours, but when it froze and I shut it down, I was unable to start it up again. It would not boot, even from a USB recovery OS my friends advised me how to set up (using Robby's computer).

Since then, I've been using my old, slow desktop again. It is frustrating; I cannot both run a game and play a video at once without disruptive lag. I plan to call the retailer's warranty line after work today (I have been unable to for the past week due to their Mon-Fry 9-6 hours conflicting with my work hours, but today I have an early shift). I have been entertaining myself by watching YouTube videos, but I download them first with clipconverter.cc; otherwise, they would be very choppy. I have also been playing Pretend You're Xyzzy more often with the guys, and I've been building cardcast decks to use in the games, based on my fandoms or on nothing in particular. I have three public decks that I have been working on: Grimith, Dwarf Fortress, and Serpent's Standard, which is where I put anything I think of that I don't mind sharing publicly and doesn't belong in the other two.

A Shot of Proactivity

Hi, dear blahgh.

I did a lot yesterday. I've been doing a lot. I had my troublesome top tooth out, it was a premolar. I've been getting some nasty ache while it heals which sometimes reaches all the way up to just under my eye, probably due to the fact that the cavity in the root opened up an infection right against, or possibly in, some of the lowest part of my sinuses.

I got a referral and went for a psych evaluation. The psychiatrist said that my triggered mental images of being stabbed or otherwise hurt with almost any particularly scary object I see was OCD. It's what he said; not might be, was. I personally am not sure how much confidence to have in his apparent confidence, but I've just started taking the mind medicine he prescribed me. And holy hell is it ever bitter. For now I'm going to presume that means it would be dangerous to take too much of it, so they did their best to make sure no-one would want to. I'm being started on a quarter tablet, then half. I should be taking whole tablets daily within two weeks.

My roommate's Australian girlfriend is visiting and she is awesome. She cleans. She cleaned his room, she cleaned the kitchen. I helped her clean a box full of dishes from the place he and Robbit used to share. Then, because Robby was feeling tired and lazy and I would have been bored walking by myself, she went with me to the drugstore to pick up my prescription for mind meds, and we stopped in to get gardening supplies, which I've been meaning to pick up, and groceries.

Gardening is something I've been really wanting to try for a while, and I'm very excited about it! I planted seven trays of ten spots in those little pre-planting seedling trays made of decomposing cardboard, so you just tear them apart and replant them outside without having to take them out of their potlets. All cucumbers and lettuce, since those were the seed packets I had that suggested pre-planting in the instructions on the back. I'll be trying to follow the instructions as much as possible, because I'm very new to this and I know I don't really know what I'm doing, despite having helped my mom and dad in the garden sometimes while growing up. I'm sure what limited knowledge I do have will be useful, though. I really look forward to having home-grown vegetables during the summer. I hope I can keep a garden somewhat maintained. I imagine having the reason to be outside should be good for me, too.

So anyway, yesterday was awesome in many ways, I got a lot done - I even tidied up my room and went through my shirts to get rid of some by donating them to the Goodwill store I work at. I really do have more than enough clothes, so I got rid of anything that I probably wouldn't wear, either because it's not as comfortable as other options I have, or because it's too high-cut and shows my belly-button if I lift my arms - not that I have anything against that kind of shirt, but I can't wear them at work, and I rarely dress up to go other places, and I have no problem wearing longer shirts when I go out to other places anyway. I didn't toss all my high-cut shirts, but I did pass on a few. A lot of my clothes probably won't be good enough to go out on the sales floor, but I know that the "salvage" they get there (what isn't up to quality standards) goes to do some good too, so I'm sure they'll be able to do more with it than I was.

I was so energized last night due to my good mood that I stayed up late just because I wasn't tired. And then, unfortunately, I was woken up very early by my roommate packing his lunches into tupperwares. It sounded exactly like a kitten chasing the lid to a tupperware container around the kitchen floor, with a lot of scraping and sliding sounds. I'm going to ask him to try to do that in the evening, now that he's working morning shifts and is home earlier than 11:30 at night, so that I don't get woken up that way again.

Roommate's girlfriend is staying with us during weekdays for two weeks. I hope that I can continue to use her energy to spark my own. Maybe I can help my boyfriend out by stealing his bedding and insisting on washing it. He won't do it himself, but I really think that the mess he voluntarily lives in can't be good for him. Maybe I should be more like her, and clean his room like she cleaned our roommate's. I hadn't thought about it this way, but I may be neglecting Robby by allowing him to neglect himself when we both know he's in a rut.

For now, excitement abounds! Thanks for reading, and may you be inspired to make progress in your own lives as I am being inspired to do in mine.