occipital hygiene

Cold and hungry and a bit ticked off!

Did have a good weekend, as well as it could have been. Very nice visit to Elgin town; Mom was at full nice-mode and I really miss Amber and Pearl so it was even more awesome than usual to see them. Mom took me and Dave to Boston Market on Sunday, so I got to see Dave in person at least for a little while and we all swapped "Craig is unbearable" stories which I think made Dave feel better a little bit. I got a nice haul of stuff; Xmas money and many sweaters and other about-to-be-Amvets'ed clothing from Mom, many books from Amber and Mom's bookshelves.

On to the day. Family meal is canceled as of today, so I'm going to demand a lunch break. I would settle for free food from here, but if Bossman tries to stick me with anything less I am going to demand a lunch break even more. My first three weeks proved to me that if I try to work an eight-hour shift with no food in defiance of biology and law, I will go completely insane before I starve to uselessness. And bringing cold sandwiches from home is not an acceptable solution. I know nobody here takes my happiness or comfort seriously, although they feel fondness towards me and would like to believe otherwise in their public minds.*

On to news of my brain. It wasn't really in the dream, more in the doze after waking up, but there was this image of a big hulking guy with a sharp-toothed mouth where one of his eyes should be. Which I thought enchanting, and before I knew it was imagining I had a sharp-toothed mouth over where my right eye is. It had a long tongue that could snap up flies, it announced in a sarcastic voice all the thoughts I held back in the interests of diplomacy, and when someone threatened me or I got sufficiently angry with them, it would chew and bite them with great efficacy. It was a blood-drinker also. I even spent some time figuring out how the mouth would combine the current positions of my eye and sinus cavities with some extra membranes to form an additional tributary into my esophagus.
[Interrupted by phone call re accounts payable. Put on some hand lotion. I wonder what plant shea butter is made from? That would be something to definitely have on our apocalypse farm!]

Told Dad about it when I woke up; he thought it was scary. Which is funny to me also. No chance of a physical mod like that happening! But psychically I'm having a difficult time thinking of reasons why not. *giggle* What you think is an eye is a mouth indeed. And I really do need more teeth to go with my new spine, neh? I already have some skills of a demon summoner and assembler and disassembler. At least for those demons (or very rude elementals or very animated made thought-forms--the distinction is taxonomical, not practical!) which are of a small enough size that fight-or-flight is not a necessary consideration. But to have an image for their practical everyday application, an image which is part of my aura projection, is a lovely idea.

Another thing occurred to me, too, last night, thinking about the conversation me and Pearl were having about tech when we were all hanging out in Amber's room. My way of sonaring out my spiritual surroundings is based mainly on tactile sense-images at the moment. I had shut down a lot of the conscious functions of my visual imagination all those years ago when my use of it got out of hand; the machinery all still there, just forbidden from use for certain personality maintenance tasks. By so doing I made the visual-imagery parts of my mind available primarily to my unconscious self. Which as we know are the same areas of the mind where most of anyone's magical abilities are shelved.

I know I'm overthinking this. What I'm trying to say is that magical visualization is about to get a lot easier, and if I can show the same discipline in packing it out that I did in putting it away, it will stand me in good stead.
Also Jimmy reminded me that he has much inclination towards docenting and certainly wouldn't mind prompting me on protocol and things when I get off my ass and start getting out there. In there. Whatev.

Anyway I feel much better already at the idea of growing an eville toothy mouth to wear through the back alleys of the universe. Given my continued inability to take up symbolic arms. I still don't get my non-using of weapons in mindspace. Even if it's a good weapon it becomes unusable as soon as I pick it up. I wonder if that's connected to my stubborn no-makeup policy. Cause it's not wearing makeup that I have a problem with. It's the process the putting on of makeup represents to me. The beauty-as-weapon thing. A purely offensive suite, designed to lower the inhibitions of others and woo their confidence by taking advantage of biological hardwiring. I don't believe there's anything innately objectionable about that, and I think people who use it with style and grace are to be honored for their perspicacity. It's just I flinch from standing there in a mirror changing my face with something physical. Inclines to make you forget that you're also changing your face in ways not physical, in more important ways. And for me to confuse symbol and substance in that area of interaction is my great fear. So I eschew the (physical) symbol, the prettifying, whether it's makeup or jewelry or dressing up or ways of carrying oneself, even as I obsess endlessly over the (psychological) substance. The altering of one's personae to adapt to different interpersonal situations. Altering personae almost without limit while retaining a cohesive self, this is my obsession that doesn't leave hardly any of my sticky for other things.

Okay, I'm officially a crazyperson. Mark it up in your little mental clipboards. I am more afraid of standing in front of the mirror every morning "putting on my face" than I am of having my right eye replaced with a nasty-minded, insult-gabbling toothy mouth with a forked tongue and a taste for human blood.
*giggles* At least I'm dead set on keeping the eyemouth invisible. Wouldn't that make for an ugly ID photo!



*edit later: This was a pretty unfair thing to say. I of all people ought to know the difference between "caring about" and "feeling one has a right to speak up and do something about."