Just come back from the bank. Nice folks over there, very helpful. Also just ate my Nutri-Grain bar that I threw into my bag before leaving the apartment this morning. Thinking my low blood sugar levels may be part of the reason for my mental state, which is pissy.
I say mental state, not mood, because my overall emotional tone is good. Had the day off yesterday, went to the store, spent the last of my money. Worried about running out of things. But I believe we'll squeak through this week, and I get paid next Tuesday.
Earlier today I saved-as-draft one of those rant posts that ends up with me yelling and swearing at myself. I'm frustrated not only at our poverty, which makes everybody edgy, but at my mental poverty. I think it was partially inspired by a dream Pearl had recently and told me about yesterday. She dreamed she had stolen a little bit of money from Mom and concealed it within a big bag of her own money. We agreed that money in the dream represented mana, psychic mojo, but it got me thinking about mojo and money and how little of either I've got for my own use right now.
Poetry came back to me: I ain't come back to poetry. I know what side the holdup is on. Never had this problem before. But then again I've never been this responsible before. And keeping my job and my home life afloat consumes more of me than I would prefer to give; I haven't got it left to give to poetry. So I'm frustrated, and as we all know, frustration leads to atrophy.
When I try to write now it all comes out trite now.
I play the big fish but the suckers won't bite now.
I'm feeling the burn and I learned it all right now.
Got paper and pen but I can't find the light now.
I got introduced in a dream to the shark.
Got more teeth than me and swims mean on the dark.
So too introduced to the great big machine,
but he can't parse my circuits; I ain't running clean.
There are bugs in my system; I know all their names.
When they break down, I miss 'em. They aren't to blame
for me throwing my towel in and losing my cool.
From my throat to my bowels I been playing the fool.
Like I don't know it's too much for me to require
both the hard hands of work and the wings of desire
to clench hard and sweep open, both at the same time.
Doled out wallet and heart to the very last dime,
so it's not a surprise that I can't do jack shit.
I give up on this nonsense. I'm finished. I quit.
thank you for calling, may you help me?
I've gotten so much work and so much chilling done today I really can only react with a mild and pleased surprise. I have some trepidation (wasn't this in my last post also?) that things will be less tranquil next week when main boss is back from vacation and lady boss isn't the final word anymore. But she's been working seven-day weeks and fourteen-hour days and not being able to spend much time with her kids lately and I surely hope those rascal relatives of hers give her a vacation as well.
Read the prologue so far of the "Does God Play Dice?" book Meg gave me about chaos math; otherwise I've been distracted by "A Hymn Before Battle" from the Free Library. In direct contradiction to what I was saying to Amber on the phone yesterday, today I actually was able to read things in a web browser window because I've had these big gaps during the day where I could read with the door closed down here. Mmm, reading.
As always, the end of the day now is proving much more dense with activity than the beginning or middle. Angel, the hostess (as opposed to Angel the busser, who's a guy) accidentally called our own number and I picked up. Neither of us realized what happened until I'd finished my "thank-you-for-calling-may-I-help-you" schpiel and she burst out laughing. She was like, You'd think I'd recognize your voice before that! It's been that kind of a day; little busy things suddenly getting interrupted by something relaxing or cool.
Read the prologue so far of the "Does God Play Dice?" book Meg gave me about chaos math; otherwise I've been distracted by "A Hymn Before Battle" from the Free Library. In direct contradiction to what I was saying to Amber on the phone yesterday, today I actually was able to read things in a web browser window because I've had these big gaps during the day where I could read with the door closed down here. Mmm, reading.
As always, the end of the day now is proving much more dense with activity than the beginning or middle. Angel, the hostess (as opposed to Angel the busser, who's a guy) accidentally called our own number and I picked up. Neither of us realized what happened until I'd finished my "thank-you-for-calling-may-I-help-you" schpiel and she burst out laughing. She was like, You'd think I'd recognize your voice before that! It's been that kind of a day; little busy things suddenly getting interrupted by something relaxing or cool.
Tuesdays With Abhorrent Fiends vol. 25
A strange day with a strange beginning.
I've left my ID bundle at home. Which means no driver's license--I had to pry open the office door with a butterknife instead of my trusty license. And no buscard. Good thing it's payday and I'll be needing to go out to our bank today, during which trip I can stop off at mine, deposit my paycheck and get the cash to refuel my buscard with. This'll be like a half paycheck, because my holidays are unpaid and I took time off last week. Lucky for me I worked all those hours Xmas week; I'm barely going to be able to get groceries and necessities and maybe pay an electric bill or something. Dad gave me a ride to work, or I would've noticed I left my ID bundle behind when I got to the corner and couldn't get on the bus. My bad anyway for not checking, not wearing pants with pockets in them. I even left the book I was reading at home!
Although, as I said to Dave yesterday, I have only read that book like nine or ten times, so I do kind of know what happens. It's the one-volume hardcover of Mercedes Lackey's Arrows of the Queen trilogy, some of the first (possibly the very first, I forget) books to be written in the Valdemar universe. As well to have left it behind on a day like today; I was just getting to the part in the second book where Talia's self-doubt and doubts due to mean rumors about her empathic Talent cause uncomfortable results when she's out riding her internship. Who knows why I would identify so strongly with an empath whose self-doubts cause their abilities to do as much harm as good in a situation where guilt and shame prevent them for asking for help or admitting openly that they are stretched to the breaking point.
Not that I expect that to happen today, exactly, but it isn't out of the realm of possibility. Happily, big Z did finish and submit the payroll file on Saturday; the paychecks were just put into my hands a few minutes ago. They still need to be signed, but the important thing is that they're here, and once they do get signed I can match them up with the W2s that came in last week and start giving them out.
This year I want to file my taxes. It's crazy that I've gotten away with never having filed before--then again, up until last year or so my income was never really anything to write home about. (Giggle. Me and Dave watched The Jerk yesterday. Maybe enough to write home about if you're Navin Johnson.) I'm positive the reason is that I've been entitled to a refund every year, and the government would much rather audit you to find out that there's money you owe them instead of the other way around. But I do want to do it. Myself. Mom always wants me to have her help me file my taxes, but she's stolen refund checks from both Amber and Pearl, I believe. Maybe just Pearl? I'll have to ask Amber. And there's no point asking Dad for help since he'll just give me the number of the accounting firm he never uses himself because he's got a mental block about that too. Pfft.
I did have a dream--yesterday, not last night. Lotta stuff going on, only remember the end. Dave was with me but not doing anything, just sort of a moral support presence. I was in a tub or box, you know, one of those big ones with the plastic sides like they have on reality shows where they fill them with crap and people have to do stuff. I was fully clothed and feeling generally all right. I don't remember if they were poured in with me or were already there, but in the tub with me there was this huge amont of writhing black snakes. Now, snakes don't scare me. I love snakes; I think they rule and are adorable. I started picking up the snakes by the handful and tossing them out of the tub in sort of a nonchalant way. I'd grab a handful and look, and I would've gotten them all right behind the head, where you're supposed to grab them. In my hand they were all tiny, so I could grasp more than a dozen or so at once. Every now and then I'd mis-grab and one or two would have the neck reach to turn around and nip me on the arm, but it didn't hurt much and I was vaguely annoyed rather than worried. Oh, I was grabbing them with my right hand. After I'd gotten most of the snakes out of the box I thought to check and make sure none of them had gotten under my clothes. Sure enough, there was the tail of a snake I could feel just inside my vagina. I reached in to grab it (with my left hand) and the whole thing was long and stiff. Ye gods, cliche dream image, eh? Stiff like with rigor mortis, a dead stick of a snake, was the impression I had. Its fangs were dug into me at the other end, way up in my womb somewhere. I pulled on it to try to get it out and I felt something tear. Not painfully, just like when you're having your period and you know something has ripped off of something else in there. But worrisome because that meant its fangs were dug into me and I couldn't get it out by myself. And I got pissed and yelled for Dad to come and drive me to the hospital. I had this weird series of mental "musts" then; But this is the hospital. But I don't have any health insurance. I need someone to drive me to the hospital so I can get a doctor to remove this for me. But I'd have to walk home to get someone to drive me to the hospital and I'm already here, what a waste of time.
Another odd thing I noticed when I woke up. I'd known, and it hadn't been worth thinking about while I was asleep, that the dead snake inside me died when it bit me. Like the opposite of how poison is supposed to work. I knew it was dead, I knew it had bit me, I knew the things had happened together. But I didn't feel it happen.
Wish I still had LimeWire at home, so I could download that song, "Mañana, mañana, mañana is good enough for me." I got a mirror somewhere needs to hear that song.
[time passes]
Gaah.
My horoscope was right! Today has the transit Sun opposition Pluto, in addition to the Mars in retrograde thing.
I don't even know how to begin to talk about astrology. It's one of those systems where you either know it well enough to be able to view all your days through the filter of it and give the symbols their proper place, or you don't know enough to know what means what to what self-aspects and you just make vague hunchy guesses that create more confusion than they dispel. It really would be good for me to be keeping track of where the moon and the planets are and where the Earth is in relation to the parts of the sky denoted by zodiac signs. Get more of the magical part of my mind anchored on the world outside myself and all of that.
But anyway. I found out that a payroll issue somebody's been having since December or November can only be corrected at this late date by doing an "adjustment payroll" going back to 07 that will cost us money. It would also involve re-running (and re-filing, though our payroll company would handle that part) all the W2s as well, which we haven't given out yet. On the one hand I would like to do an adjustment payroll that takes into account all the replacement checks and make-up checks and weird little issues we have sometimes. But on the other hand, the burden of actually going through our files and making a list of all the changes that need to be made for everyone who has them is something that makes me cringe to think about.
What makes me want to kick myself though, is that my first thought is "maybe I could come in and do it on a Saturday morning when nobody's here to interrupt me." Gaah! No! Stupid Viz! Don't even trip like that! Coming in on Saturday is for owners and people who get paid holidays and benefits and such! Things which you are not judged worthy to receive! So fuck them and stick up for yourself if the workload required to keep the employees satisfied is too much for you. Yes yes, you like being helpful and you want everyone to get their fair shake and what they are entitled to under the law. But if it's not possible to get that for them without going above and beyond the beyond above which you already go, then perhaps they need to work at some other place that can get that for them. Your authority only extends so far.
So ask lady boss about it when she gets in, among the zillion other things you have to ask her. Do we want to do this "adjustment payroll"? How long do we want me to spend on it? Do we want to do just this one squeaky wheel's changes, or all the changes we can find? Do we hand out the W2s today regardless, or wait until the adjusted ones come back?
Oh, and I started to write a sonnet when I was outside smoking because I'd forgot my book at home:
A winter's day I curse from door to door
The wind that pricks the neck below my hat
Would I had fur or down, and could ignore
This weather--would at least I were more fat!
Last week, soon after New Year's, it did thaw
I laughed and said, "The world is ending sure,"
Now January chatters in my jaw
And I believe the world may yet endure
The ice caps melt, and wine will grow in Springfield
The seas rise up to swamp the verdant coasts
Poor sparrows fall and crash against my windshield
And I, left shivering, reassure their ghosts:
"This winter's days are numbered; bones less hollow
Than yours, that fell today, will surely follow."
I've left my ID bundle at home. Which means no driver's license--I had to pry open the office door with a butterknife instead of my trusty license. And no buscard. Good thing it's payday and I'll be needing to go out to our bank today, during which trip I can stop off at mine, deposit my paycheck and get the cash to refuel my buscard with. This'll be like a half paycheck, because my holidays are unpaid and I took time off last week. Lucky for me I worked all those hours Xmas week; I'm barely going to be able to get groceries and necessities and maybe pay an electric bill or something. Dad gave me a ride to work, or I would've noticed I left my ID bundle behind when I got to the corner and couldn't get on the bus. My bad anyway for not checking, not wearing pants with pockets in them. I even left the book I was reading at home!
Although, as I said to Dave yesterday, I have only read that book like nine or ten times, so I do kind of know what happens. It's the one-volume hardcover of Mercedes Lackey's Arrows of the Queen trilogy, some of the first (possibly the very first, I forget) books to be written in the Valdemar universe. As well to have left it behind on a day like today; I was just getting to the part in the second book where Talia's self-doubt and doubts due to mean rumors about her empathic Talent cause uncomfortable results when she's out riding her internship. Who knows why I would identify so strongly with an empath whose self-doubts cause their abilities to do as much harm as good in a situation where guilt and shame prevent them for asking for help or admitting openly that they are stretched to the breaking point.
Not that I expect that to happen today, exactly, but it isn't out of the realm of possibility. Happily, big Z did finish and submit the payroll file on Saturday; the paychecks were just put into my hands a few minutes ago. They still need to be signed, but the important thing is that they're here, and once they do get signed I can match them up with the W2s that came in last week and start giving them out.
This year I want to file my taxes. It's crazy that I've gotten away with never having filed before--then again, up until last year or so my income was never really anything to write home about. (Giggle. Me and Dave watched The Jerk yesterday. Maybe enough to write home about if you're Navin Johnson.) I'm positive the reason is that I've been entitled to a refund every year, and the government would much rather audit you to find out that there's money you owe them instead of the other way around. But I do want to do it. Myself. Mom always wants me to have her help me file my taxes, but she's stolen refund checks from both Amber and Pearl, I believe. Maybe just Pearl? I'll have to ask Amber. And there's no point asking Dad for help since he'll just give me the number of the accounting firm he never uses himself because he's got a mental block about that too. Pfft.
I did have a dream--yesterday, not last night. Lotta stuff going on, only remember the end. Dave was with me but not doing anything, just sort of a moral support presence. I was in a tub or box, you know, one of those big ones with the plastic sides like they have on reality shows where they fill them with crap and people have to do stuff. I was fully clothed and feeling generally all right. I don't remember if they were poured in with me or were already there, but in the tub with me there was this huge amont of writhing black snakes. Now, snakes don't scare me. I love snakes; I think they rule and are adorable. I started picking up the snakes by the handful and tossing them out of the tub in sort of a nonchalant way. I'd grab a handful and look, and I would've gotten them all right behind the head, where you're supposed to grab them. In my hand they were all tiny, so I could grasp more than a dozen or so at once. Every now and then I'd mis-grab and one or two would have the neck reach to turn around and nip me on the arm, but it didn't hurt much and I was vaguely annoyed rather than worried. Oh, I was grabbing them with my right hand. After I'd gotten most of the snakes out of the box I thought to check and make sure none of them had gotten under my clothes. Sure enough, there was the tail of a snake I could feel just inside my vagina. I reached in to grab it (with my left hand) and the whole thing was long and stiff. Ye gods, cliche dream image, eh? Stiff like with rigor mortis, a dead stick of a snake, was the impression I had. Its fangs were dug into me at the other end, way up in my womb somewhere. I pulled on it to try to get it out and I felt something tear. Not painfully, just like when you're having your period and you know something has ripped off of something else in there. But worrisome because that meant its fangs were dug into me and I couldn't get it out by myself. And I got pissed and yelled for Dad to come and drive me to the hospital. I had this weird series of mental "musts" then; But this is the hospital. But I don't have any health insurance. I need someone to drive me to the hospital so I can get a doctor to remove this for me. But I'd have to walk home to get someone to drive me to the hospital and I'm already here, what a waste of time.
Another odd thing I noticed when I woke up. I'd known, and it hadn't been worth thinking about while I was asleep, that the dead snake inside me died when it bit me. Like the opposite of how poison is supposed to work. I knew it was dead, I knew it had bit me, I knew the things had happened together. But I didn't feel it happen.
Wish I still had LimeWire at home, so I could download that song, "Mañana, mañana, mañana is good enough for me." I got a mirror somewhere needs to hear that song.
[time passes]
Gaah.
My horoscope was right! Today has the transit Sun opposition Pluto, in addition to the Mars in retrograde thing.
I don't even know how to begin to talk about astrology. It's one of those systems where you either know it well enough to be able to view all your days through the filter of it and give the symbols their proper place, or you don't know enough to know what means what to what self-aspects and you just make vague hunchy guesses that create more confusion than they dispel. It really would be good for me to be keeping track of where the moon and the planets are and where the Earth is in relation to the parts of the sky denoted by zodiac signs. Get more of the magical part of my mind anchored on the world outside myself and all of that.
But anyway. I found out that a payroll issue somebody's been having since December or November can only be corrected at this late date by doing an "adjustment payroll" going back to 07 that will cost us money. It would also involve re-running (and re-filing, though our payroll company would handle that part) all the W2s as well, which we haven't given out yet. On the one hand I would like to do an adjustment payroll that takes into account all the replacement checks and make-up checks and weird little issues we have sometimes. But on the other hand, the burden of actually going through our files and making a list of all the changes that need to be made for everyone who has them is something that makes me cringe to think about.
What makes me want to kick myself though, is that my first thought is "maybe I could come in and do it on a Saturday morning when nobody's here to interrupt me." Gaah! No! Stupid Viz! Don't even trip like that! Coming in on Saturday is for owners and people who get paid holidays and benefits and such! Things which you are not judged worthy to receive! So fuck them and stick up for yourself if the workload required to keep the employees satisfied is too much for you. Yes yes, you like being helpful and you want everyone to get their fair shake and what they are entitled to under the law. But if it's not possible to get that for them without going above and beyond the beyond above which you already go, then perhaps they need to work at some other place that can get that for them. Your authority only extends so far.
So ask lady boss about it when she gets in, among the zillion other things you have to ask her. Do we want to do this "adjustment payroll"? How long do we want me to spend on it? Do we want to do just this one squeaky wheel's changes, or all the changes we can find? Do we hand out the W2s today regardless, or wait until the adjusted ones come back?
Oh, and I started to write a sonnet when I was outside smoking because I'd forgot my book at home:
A winter's day I curse from door to door
The wind that pricks the neck below my hat
Would I had fur or down, and could ignore
This weather--would at least I were more fat!
Last week, soon after New Year's, it did thaw
I laughed and said, "The world is ending sure,"
Now January chatters in my jaw
And I believe the world may yet endure
The ice caps melt, and wine will grow in Springfield
The seas rise up to swamp the verdant coasts
Poor sparrows fall and crash against my windshield
And I, left shivering, reassure their ghosts:
"This winter's days are numbered; bones less hollow
Than yours, that fell today, will surely follow."
take a picture, it'll last longer
I've been accessing the internet for years and it never occurred to me to do this before this morning: type "viz." into dictionary.com and see what it actually stands for.
So:
vi·del·i·cet (vĭ-děl'ĭ-sět', vī-, wĭ-dā'lĭ-kět') Pronunciation Key
adv. Abbr. viz.
That is; namely. Used to introduce examples, lists, or items.
[Latin vidēlicet, contraction of vidēre licet, "it is permitted to see" : vidēre, to see; see vide + licet, third person sing. present tense of licēre, to be permitted.]
It is permitted to see. Whoof, that's a doozy.
I was just explaining to Myke yesterday about magical names. The point of life--the point of your own life, for sure--is whatever you say it is. The existentialists were right about that. So, something that expresses what you know to be the point of your life should be what you choose as your mage-name. Or names, if like me you need to put labels on many aspects.
Names and their uses and deployments and constructions are the quintessential thing within the ambit of my gift. I don't want to give a name to the gift, because of all the many good reasons of mental hygiene why you don't want to name spiritual things too specifically. But if I gave it one it would be the gift of names. Because that's what it does. Somebody displays for me a thing that can be thought, and I reach back and there its names are, and I don't even know how I came to know where to look for them.
Viz being the first of the names I chose for myself, its meaning is of great importance to me. I already knew it meant "namely" and "that is" and was used to introduce examples. That was quite rich enough a word freight for me! But the Latin derivation is even better. Much, much better. Fits right in there with my other mage names. Makes me feel warm and happy in my solar plexus.
In other news. Things that are broken or mostly broken: my laptop internet card, CD drive, and the DVD player Meg gave us for Xmas. Very saddening. Me and Dave may have to start conversing with each other or something.
And I sent my resume to the Onion this morning because they need an "accounting assistant." According to the print issue that came out yesterday, not the website. Who knows. Not me. It sounds from the description almost exactly like my job here, except at a newspaper instead of a restaurant. I have finally gotten to the point where I actually like my job because I can do it well and its challenges are familiar to me. But the thought of working at a place that prints words on paper for a living is exciting. And I love the Onion generally and support its works of merriment. So who knows. I suspect the position has already been filled, which would be a bit of a relief actually. We'll see. After all, it's permitted. ^_^
So:
vi·del·i·cet (vĭ-děl'ĭ-sět', vī-, wĭ-dā'lĭ-kět') Pronunciation Key
adv. Abbr. viz.
That is; namely. Used to introduce examples, lists, or items.
[Latin vidēlicet, contraction of vidēre licet, "it is permitted to see" : vidēre, to see; see vide + licet, third person sing. present tense of licēre, to be permitted.]
It is permitted to see. Whoof, that's a doozy.
I was just explaining to Myke yesterday about magical names. The point of life--the point of your own life, for sure--is whatever you say it is. The existentialists were right about that. So, something that expresses what you know to be the point of your life should be what you choose as your mage-name. Or names, if like me you need to put labels on many aspects.
Names and their uses and deployments and constructions are the quintessential thing within the ambit of my gift. I don't want to give a name to the gift, because of all the many good reasons of mental hygiene why you don't want to name spiritual things too specifically. But if I gave it one it would be the gift of names. Because that's what it does. Somebody displays for me a thing that can be thought, and I reach back and there its names are, and I don't even know how I came to know where to look for them.
Viz being the first of the names I chose for myself, its meaning is of great importance to me. I already knew it meant "namely" and "that is" and was used to introduce examples. That was quite rich enough a word freight for me! But the Latin derivation is even better. Much, much better. Fits right in there with my other mage names. Makes me feel warm and happy in my solar plexus.
In other news. Things that are broken or mostly broken: my laptop internet card, CD drive, and the DVD player Meg gave us for Xmas. Very saddening. Me and Dave may have to start conversing with each other or something.
And I sent my resume to the Onion this morning because they need an "accounting assistant." According to the print issue that came out yesterday, not the website. Who knows. Not me. It sounds from the description almost exactly like my job here, except at a newspaper instead of a restaurant. I have finally gotten to the point where I actually like my job because I can do it well and its challenges are familiar to me. But the thought of working at a place that prints words on paper for a living is exciting. And I love the Onion generally and support its works of merriment. So who knows. I suspect the position has already been filled, which would be a bit of a relief actually. We'll see. After all, it's permitted. ^_^
So last night, I moved my laptop off the bed and set it on the floor in preparation for sleeptime. I unfortunately put it too close to the door and Dave didn't see it in the dark when he came in, so he wound up stepping on the already-much-abused network card. Which gave out. So my compy at home isn't on the web anymore. Something of a bummer for me, but more of a one of Dave, since I can play KoL on Dad's computer but it's my laptop that has LimeWire and our ever-growing collection of wonderful porn. Well, not ever-growing at the moment. So I'll be buying me a new network card when I gets paid again, if I can carve out budget space for it so to speak. That, or see if it wouldn't be almost as cheap to get myself a laptop slightly better than the one I have and get the guts transferred into the new one. I wonder if I could find a way to afford a laptop that has the network card already built inside the casing.
I just finished Pyramid Scheme. That's one nice thing about being the first office-working person to get here; I can sneak a chapter or two with the door closed. Especially if it's the thrilling conclusion.
Posting up to relate those things, but mostly because I haven't managed to get my mind around the idea of working yet today. I've tried, of course. Taken some reservations over the phone, filed some paperwork that was cluttering up my desk, that sort of thing. But when I try to do some real worky stuff, it hasn't clicked yet. They ain't made coffee upstairs yet and I'm still too unsure of what I'm doing with our monster coffeemaker to try making it myself.
[time passes]
Aha! I answered a phone call from a lady with many questions whose answers I knew well, and then called the Illinois Department of Revenue and got a human for the first time this week. Appears I can get to work now. I'm going to go look for coffee.
I just finished Pyramid Scheme. That's one nice thing about being the first office-working person to get here; I can sneak a chapter or two with the door closed. Especially if it's the thrilling conclusion.
Posting up to relate those things, but mostly because I haven't managed to get my mind around the idea of working yet today. I've tried, of course. Taken some reservations over the phone, filed some paperwork that was cluttering up my desk, that sort of thing. But when I try to do some real worky stuff, it hasn't clicked yet. They ain't made coffee upstairs yet and I'm still too unsure of what I'm doing with our monster coffeemaker to try making it myself.
[time passes]
Aha! I answered a phone call from a lady with many questions whose answers I knew well, and then called the Illinois Department of Revenue and got a human for the first time this week. Appears I can get to work now. I'm going to go look for coffee.
holy vertebrae, Batman!
Good morning, ladies, gents and germs.
Today is a day of efficiency. And me talking just that slight bit beyond where I maybe ought to talk--but that's nitpicking. I'm doing great so far.
Me and Dave meditated together last night! Afterward Dave said something like, "It was weird. It was like being horny, only it made my brain horny for something to think about." *giggles* He is funny and awesomer than ever. But I am rather biased. And I'm hoping we can do it some more. Maybe I can figure out the procedural (metis? practical? way of doing that is like muscle memory?) difference between using my visual imagination to create pictures to contemplate on and using my mind's eye to stretch out and "look" at the underside of my spacetime surroundings. I was trying to do the second thing, and he was doing the first thing. We were shooting for the same image--I came up with a fairly simple one to start on. Oh, and Dave could feel his tail! Y'know, the symbolic representation of the gravity bond between the body and the earth that various types of energy can travel up and down. I had us picturing it as a shiny, shiny ruby red string going from the small of our backs to the center of the earth. Which I'd gotten from previous meditating some while back but don't use very often 'cause I know it's a real thing.
And just last night I was whining at Amber I wanted to do more witchy stuff! It seems the time is shaped propitiously. Man, I gotta start learning to want stuff.
I wonder if Bill (the head of the firm that does our accounting and insurance, he stopped by this morning) would consider stealing me from Mohammad later. I would really, really like a desk job again once I've grown that spine. I seem to need to stay here in order to do that.
Okay then, universe! You too, dog, if you feel like listening. I'm trying to want more things because it's apparently good for me. So here are some things I want that I want to tell you about, for whatever use that information may be to you:
I want to do more witchy stuff together with Dave.
I want to grow that spine I've been meaning to grow for awhile. I've made some good progress so far, and I have a hopeful suspicion the next few steps aren't going to be quite as painful as the ones I took when I started here. Those were foundational.
I want to learn to want things more skillfully and in more ways. That way next time I'm all telling you about things I want, they will be less vague and even perhaps funnier!
That is all for now. Muah.
Today is a day of efficiency. And me talking just that slight bit beyond where I maybe ought to talk--but that's nitpicking. I'm doing great so far.
Me and Dave meditated together last night! Afterward Dave said something like, "It was weird. It was like being horny, only it made my brain horny for something to think about." *giggles* He is funny and awesomer than ever. But I am rather biased. And I'm hoping we can do it some more. Maybe I can figure out the procedural (metis? practical? way of doing that is like muscle memory?) difference between using my visual imagination to create pictures to contemplate on and using my mind's eye to stretch out and "look" at the underside of my spacetime surroundings. I was trying to do the second thing, and he was doing the first thing. We were shooting for the same image--I came up with a fairly simple one to start on. Oh, and Dave could feel his tail! Y'know, the symbolic representation of the gravity bond between the body and the earth that various types of energy can travel up and down. I had us picturing it as a shiny, shiny ruby red string going from the small of our backs to the center of the earth. Which I'd gotten from previous meditating some while back but don't use very often 'cause I know it's a real thing.
And just last night I was whining at Amber I wanted to do more witchy stuff! It seems the time is shaped propitiously. Man, I gotta start learning to want stuff.
I wonder if Bill (the head of the firm that does our accounting and insurance, he stopped by this morning) would consider stealing me from Mohammad later. I would really, really like a desk job again once I've grown that spine. I seem to need to stay here in order to do that.
Okay then, universe! You too, dog, if you feel like listening. I'm trying to want more things because it's apparently good for me. So here are some things I want that I want to tell you about, for whatever use that information may be to you:
I want to do more witchy stuff together with Dave.
I want to grow that spine I've been meaning to grow for awhile. I've made some good progress so far, and I have a hopeful suspicion the next few steps aren't going to be quite as painful as the ones I took when I started here. Those were foundational.
I want to learn to want things more skillfully and in more ways. That way next time I'm all telling you about things I want, they will be less vague and even perhaps funnier!
That is all for now. Muah.
Tuesdays With Abhorrent Fiends vol. 24
Meditated last night. Tried to dream, and did, but couldn't remember much. No image tags. I know I was with someone else and together we were going around from house to house, or from one place to another, doing or getting something.
Before sleep I lay on my back and did the whole rainbow, red to white instead of violet on top. I ended up not being able to leave my body at the end, although I got close. Couldn't or wouldn't "let go" of my eyes and face, that is, dissociate my consciousness from them and still stay poised. Think I messed up indigo, and lost concentration and my mind started to wander once between yellow and green. Not too surprising, either one, considering the attributions I've learned and was using. Red, for the root chakra at the base of the spine. Physical groundedness, sense of place, the "bear shaman" power of making home ground out of where you happen to be. Orange, for the sacral chakra and the abdominal area where the womb's at, desire and (I was surprised to find) joy. I usually associate orange with aggression or destructiveness, but that means I usually forget that passion means love, and love means the desire to create happiness. The desire, fundamentally, to create, which is why that energy source in the personality is symbolically represented by the reproductive area of the body. Losing touch with orange along the way was probably the biggest reason I didn't manage to travel. Spirit without body is made of and powered by organized emotional energy, and the stuff orange represents is what gets you moving and gives you "oomph." Not enough orange and too much purple. That's yer egghead for ya.
Anyway. No, I ended up not being able to picture a door at the end, so it wasn't a true scout's rainbow. Besides, if I'd been tranced successfully enough to find the door and go into the room, I'd've probably been tranced enough to travel. Bleh. The only place I could think of that I felt like going, parenthetically, was Wolf's Point. Beautiful spot, and sacred too, as far as locations in downtown Chicago are concerned. It's the only one of the five or six I know that isn't in or part of a building--although the Mart's parking lot has it squeezed right down to the edge of the river. When I realized I'd gone as far as I was gonna get meditating just then and Dave was going to stay up through the night, he not being sleepy, I decided to give my mental visualizer a workout.
[Interrupted. Baltazar asking what happened to his missing hours. I hate those conversations. Wish I had better answers.]
The results of said workout did help me get to sleep, although the cat interrupted my sleep attempts for awhile regrardless.
Here's the thing, with that. I have this (to me) really sexy story in my mind. It would make a really kickass erotic novel or series of short fiction maybe. I could account for all the ridiculous improbable things that (to me) put the whipped cream on the sundae of a really good sexual fantasy within the canon of the story. And really, how is it not unfair playing as a writing-person, to use the extreme intensity of sexual situations to reveal character quickly and in interesting detail? But if I ain't got brain or timespace to write a damn sonnet, no way am I gonna be able to make brain and timespace to write that. Le sigh. The whole thing is just the character backstory for the outsider Vaya the Worldbender in my old, awesome interdimensional travelers storyverse. Worldbender isn't a unique title, by the way; it's a guild. They assemble pocket universes to spec out of pieces of other universes. Which requires a lot of orange. Which Vaya is very good at using because of her many adventures.
Come to think of it, a lot of that storyverse had a lot to do with sex. Makes sense given the premise. The Greek gods never had trouble getting laid, after all. (Maybe Vulcan. What was his Greek name? I forget. But he got the last laugh anyway.) And they spent a lot of time fighting about the results when they did. I suppose the biggest difference is that all my outsiders used to be locals, and the multiverse is a lot bigger that the Mediterranean. Well, okay, I'll be fair. Homer's Mediterranean had a multiverse connected to it and was quite big enough. But the main difference is one of scale. In my story you have thousands of "gods" who think of themselves as ordinary people (and most of whom think of non-"gods" as less than people, of course) instead of a few dozen, and you have a large and indeterminate number of universes which all have different rules and populations and stories instead of many strange islands in a sea with different rules and populations and stories. The idea is the same as the idea behind any adventure story: if anything you wanted was easy to get, what would you do? And if there were a whole bunch of people who could all do anything, how would they manage to make each others' lives miserable in spite of their great powers? When people have power over other people, their true character is revealed. I believe that very firmly. So I like thinking about situations and stories where people have exactly the right amount of power to reveal their characters as much as the story has space for. Which is why the backstories for my outsiders tend to be more involved and in many ways more interesting than what happens to them after they get out and figure out which side, if any, they're on.
I wonder if I have time for a little more of this. Heh. Just had to consult the character map to get the keystroke for ñ. (It's alt+0241.)
The two Mañanas. The main character(s). Probably predate the war. Got imprisoned in the menagerie (that's mental menagerie, like the one I supposedly have) of one of the first leaders of the e before the faction had really defined itself as a group in the way it exists during most of the story arc. Back when it was just a bunch of thugs who liked to get together and have bullshitting sessions. Escaped through the deeps, went to ground (a saga I have not explored!), went their separate ways after re-emerging into the outside. In the vagaries of time, one ended up the leader of the library and the other ended up the leader of the e. So. Sorta twins fighting over ideological differences while riding herd on a bunch of ignorant godlets. Why? Because I like dual polarity and how else is a teenager going to represent her psyche?
At the end of the story arc they do both die, kind of. Mostly. I still haven't decided whether the shiny, shiny Reality node at the center of the multiverse should be the major plot element it was or just something that exists but isn't discussed. Not because it's secret, just because no one thinks to discuss it. People don't sit around their living rooms or the water cooler going "Gee, I'm really feeling gravity well today, I have a very astute sense of how much the earth is pulling on me and how much my material cells long to go towards it." So in the multiverse gravity pulls you towards the center, which is half of why deeps-diving is so difficult. Pulls you towards the center, that is, except when you get right up close, when it starts pushing. Not like a hand reaches out and shoves (although that would be fair, since the deeps do reach out and pull), but like Earth's atmosphere resists as you're going towards the ground from space. Burns you up and such.
But astrally, not materially. I'm'a keep right on using astral travel words for that stuff since that's the only symbol set I really think can be used to discuss the outside. Which sucks, because it's too accurate. If you use a symbol to symbolize the thing it actually represents, the mind quickly drops the gap and thinks only of the symbol. There's no tension within meaning to hold the thought suspended. So when I'm talking about astral travel using astral travel terminology, it makes the whole idea of traveling flat and known. Talking about it too matter-of-factly destroys the kind of poised mental openness required to actually do it. Smooths the royal purple down to indigo, you might say.
I think I would do more in the way of instructing people on how to use their natural psychic powers by writing erotic short fictions than could be done in a dozen textbooks. Even really nice ones, with pictures and exercises. Giving people psychic learning exercises in a book is usually an exercise in futility. Maybe one or two people in a thousand will do the exercises and get the intended benefit. Curious, kind minds who feel comforted by walking paths that have been tread before. Otherwise on the one side, you have people like me who won't do anything unless they made it up themselves, whether from lack of trust or will to creativity. And on the other side, you have people who will just read it, snort, and not try anything because it seems like such a dumb idea.
The latter type are the ones who would, if they lowered their preconceptions, get the best results of any of the three. But that is actually because of their preconceptions. Think of the mental tension that creates! A person has deeply held beliefs that certain things are false, bunkum, hogwash. And of course, those beliefs are comprised in large part of powerful emotions. On the other hand, the person has curiosity, wanderlust and the urge to test his limits. Powerful emotions as well. Those things clash and come together in a personality while that person is meditating, that person is going to get some interesting results. Maybe they travel, maybe they have weird psyche reconfigurations, maybe a transfiguring insight. But it's the tension within meaning that raises the intensity of their effort to the point where things get interesting. Without that, you're just having really pleasant and well-ordered daydreams.
Before sleep I lay on my back and did the whole rainbow, red to white instead of violet on top. I ended up not being able to leave my body at the end, although I got close. Couldn't or wouldn't "let go" of my eyes and face, that is, dissociate my consciousness from them and still stay poised. Think I messed up indigo, and lost concentration and my mind started to wander once between yellow and green. Not too surprising, either one, considering the attributions I've learned and was using. Red, for the root chakra at the base of the spine. Physical groundedness, sense of place, the "bear shaman" power of making home ground out of where you happen to be. Orange, for the sacral chakra and the abdominal area where the womb's at, desire and (I was surprised to find) joy. I usually associate orange with aggression or destructiveness, but that means I usually forget that passion means love, and love means the desire to create happiness. The desire, fundamentally, to create, which is why that energy source in the personality is symbolically represented by the reproductive area of the body. Losing touch with orange along the way was probably the biggest reason I didn't manage to travel. Spirit without body is made of and powered by organized emotional energy, and the stuff orange represents is what gets you moving and gives you "oomph." Not enough orange and too much purple. That's yer egghead for ya.
Anyway. No, I ended up not being able to picture a door at the end, so it wasn't a true scout's rainbow. Besides, if I'd been tranced successfully enough to find the door and go into the room, I'd've probably been tranced enough to travel. Bleh. The only place I could think of that I felt like going, parenthetically, was Wolf's Point. Beautiful spot, and sacred too, as far as locations in downtown Chicago are concerned. It's the only one of the five or six I know that isn't in or part of a building--although the Mart's parking lot has it squeezed right down to the edge of the river. When I realized I'd gone as far as I was gonna get meditating just then and Dave was going to stay up through the night, he not being sleepy, I decided to give my mental visualizer a workout.
[Interrupted. Baltazar asking what happened to his missing hours. I hate those conversations. Wish I had better answers.]
The results of said workout did help me get to sleep, although the cat interrupted my sleep attempts for awhile regrardless.
Here's the thing, with that. I have this (to me) really sexy story in my mind. It would make a really kickass erotic novel or series of short fiction maybe. I could account for all the ridiculous improbable things that (to me) put the whipped cream on the sundae of a really good sexual fantasy within the canon of the story. And really, how is it not unfair playing as a writing-person, to use the extreme intensity of sexual situations to reveal character quickly and in interesting detail? But if I ain't got brain or timespace to write a damn sonnet, no way am I gonna be able to make brain and timespace to write that. Le sigh. The whole thing is just the character backstory for the outsider Vaya the Worldbender in my old, awesome interdimensional travelers storyverse. Worldbender isn't a unique title, by the way; it's a guild. They assemble pocket universes to spec out of pieces of other universes. Which requires a lot of orange. Which Vaya is very good at using because of her many adventures.
Come to think of it, a lot of that storyverse had a lot to do with sex. Makes sense given the premise. The Greek gods never had trouble getting laid, after all. (Maybe Vulcan. What was his Greek name? I forget. But he got the last laugh anyway.) And they spent a lot of time fighting about the results when they did. I suppose the biggest difference is that all my outsiders used to be locals, and the multiverse is a lot bigger that the Mediterranean. Well, okay, I'll be fair. Homer's Mediterranean had a multiverse connected to it and was quite big enough. But the main difference is one of scale. In my story you have thousands of "gods" who think of themselves as ordinary people (and most of whom think of non-"gods" as less than people, of course) instead of a few dozen, and you have a large and indeterminate number of universes which all have different rules and populations and stories instead of many strange islands in a sea with different rules and populations and stories. The idea is the same as the idea behind any adventure story: if anything you wanted was easy to get, what would you do? And if there were a whole bunch of people who could all do anything, how would they manage to make each others' lives miserable in spite of their great powers? When people have power over other people, their true character is revealed. I believe that very firmly. So I like thinking about situations and stories where people have exactly the right amount of power to reveal their characters as much as the story has space for. Which is why the backstories for my outsiders tend to be more involved and in many ways more interesting than what happens to them after they get out and figure out which side, if any, they're on.
I wonder if I have time for a little more of this. Heh. Just had to consult the character map to get the keystroke for ñ. (It's alt+0241.)
The two Mañanas. The main character(s). Probably predate the war. Got imprisoned in the menagerie (that's mental menagerie, like the one I supposedly have) of one of the first leaders of the e before the faction had really defined itself as a group in the way it exists during most of the story arc. Back when it was just a bunch of thugs who liked to get together and have bullshitting sessions. Escaped through the deeps, went to ground (a saga I have not explored!), went their separate ways after re-emerging into the outside. In the vagaries of time, one ended up the leader of the library and the other ended up the leader of the e. So. Sorta twins fighting over ideological differences while riding herd on a bunch of ignorant godlets. Why? Because I like dual polarity and how else is a teenager going to represent her psyche?
At the end of the story arc they do both die, kind of. Mostly. I still haven't decided whether the shiny, shiny Reality node at the center of the multiverse should be the major plot element it was or just something that exists but isn't discussed. Not because it's secret, just because no one thinks to discuss it. People don't sit around their living rooms or the water cooler going "Gee, I'm really feeling gravity well today, I have a very astute sense of how much the earth is pulling on me and how much my material cells long to go towards it." So in the multiverse gravity pulls you towards the center, which is half of why deeps-diving is so difficult. Pulls you towards the center, that is, except when you get right up close, when it starts pushing. Not like a hand reaches out and shoves (although that would be fair, since the deeps do reach out and pull), but like Earth's atmosphere resists as you're going towards the ground from space. Burns you up and such.
But astrally, not materially. I'm'a keep right on using astral travel words for that stuff since that's the only symbol set I really think can be used to discuss the outside. Which sucks, because it's too accurate. If you use a symbol to symbolize the thing it actually represents, the mind quickly drops the gap and thinks only of the symbol. There's no tension within meaning to hold the thought suspended. So when I'm talking about astral travel using astral travel terminology, it makes the whole idea of traveling flat and known. Talking about it too matter-of-factly destroys the kind of poised mental openness required to actually do it. Smooths the royal purple down to indigo, you might say.
I think I would do more in the way of instructing people on how to use their natural psychic powers by writing erotic short fictions than could be done in a dozen textbooks. Even really nice ones, with pictures and exercises. Giving people psychic learning exercises in a book is usually an exercise in futility. Maybe one or two people in a thousand will do the exercises and get the intended benefit. Curious, kind minds who feel comforted by walking paths that have been tread before. Otherwise on the one side, you have people like me who won't do anything unless they made it up themselves, whether from lack of trust or will to creativity. And on the other side, you have people who will just read it, snort, and not try anything because it seems like such a dumb idea.
The latter type are the ones who would, if they lowered their preconceptions, get the best results of any of the three. But that is actually because of their preconceptions. Think of the mental tension that creates! A person has deeply held beliefs that certain things are false, bunkum, hogwash. And of course, those beliefs are comprised in large part of powerful emotions. On the other hand, the person has curiosity, wanderlust and the urge to test his limits. Powerful emotions as well. Those things clash and come together in a personality while that person is meditating, that person is going to get some interesting results. Maybe they travel, maybe they have weird psyche reconfigurations, maybe a transfiguring insight. But it's the tension within meaning that raises the intensity of their effort to the point where things get interesting. Without that, you're just having really pleasant and well-ordered daydreams.
make like a tree and get out once in a while
Back to work after a week's vacation, and in truth, I am renewed. Lots of food, sleep, TV, PS2, Heroes 4, and uh, sleep. Lots to do of course, and I'm sure there's crises hidden in the woodwork for me as soon as somebody shows up to tell me where and how. But in the meantime I have Coldplay on the CD player and am generally optimistic about the day.
It's true, although I'm a bit sheepish to admit why, that I really really can't wait till Heroes the TV show comes back. Every weekend a part of me is dreading Monday morning when I have to come in to work. While the show was on, I could spend the entire weekend offsetting that dread with the thought, "yes, but you'll get to come home after work Monday and watch your favorite show." I don't really feel that way about any other TV show. With the possible exception of MASH. But I've gotten spoiled there because the show's been over and complete since I was a tiny girl and besides, we've always got a DVR full of episodes.
What I'm really feeling sheepish about is the not-writing thing. I've had a look at me and Dave's friend Geds's blog, Accidental Historian, and HE spends HIS blog posts wiritng about moral and mythological themes in science fiction, among other things. Whereas I make...rambling "diary entry" blog posts that even I get bored with sometimes.
So what should I do? Resolve in '08 to write a poem a week or something? That seems doable. Maybe I should start with a few sonnets or something. Sonnets are so damn easy.
The thing came to me last night, the feeling of itching to write. I won't say it passed, but it faded, and I didn't have any ideas or really motivation to write. I was just sitting there playing on the computer and watching TV with Dave (as I spent most of this glorious past week) and whoosh, there it was. So there it is. I can write, I know I still can, but I feel like I don't see the point. Thinking about it makes me grumbly and pouty, like thinking about a friend I haven't called in way too long to the point where I'm feeling guilty enough that the actual guilt hinders me from calling even though nothing has actually gone wrong. I feel that way about the whole process of self-expression. Frustrated with myself and whining under my breath that none of it means anything or matters so what's the point, anyway.
On the plus side, that's really the biggest complaint I have at the moment. Which when you get down to it is a pretty mild and intellectual sort of a complaint. Indicating that many and most other things are very well indeed.
gloam over there, old soldier, said the tree
you stomp across my crown three sixty five
but now you slink, low, purpling, from me
though your great footsteps keep my leaves alive
It's true, although I'm a bit sheepish to admit why, that I really really can't wait till Heroes the TV show comes back. Every weekend a part of me is dreading Monday morning when I have to come in to work. While the show was on, I could spend the entire weekend offsetting that dread with the thought, "yes, but you'll get to come home after work Monday and watch your favorite show." I don't really feel that way about any other TV show. With the possible exception of MASH. But I've gotten spoiled there because the show's been over and complete since I was a tiny girl and besides, we've always got a DVR full of episodes.
What I'm really feeling sheepish about is the not-writing thing. I've had a look at me and Dave's friend Geds's blog, Accidental Historian, and HE spends HIS blog posts wiritng about moral and mythological themes in science fiction, among other things. Whereas I make...rambling "diary entry" blog posts that even I get bored with sometimes.
So what should I do? Resolve in '08 to write a poem a week or something? That seems doable. Maybe I should start with a few sonnets or something. Sonnets are so damn easy.
The thing came to me last night, the feeling of itching to write. I won't say it passed, but it faded, and I didn't have any ideas or really motivation to write. I was just sitting there playing on the computer and watching TV with Dave (as I spent most of this glorious past week) and whoosh, there it was. So there it is. I can write, I know I still can, but I feel like I don't see the point. Thinking about it makes me grumbly and pouty, like thinking about a friend I haven't called in way too long to the point where I'm feeling guilty enough that the actual guilt hinders me from calling even though nothing has actually gone wrong. I feel that way about the whole process of self-expression. Frustrated with myself and whining under my breath that none of it means anything or matters so what's the point, anyway.
On the plus side, that's really the biggest complaint I have at the moment. Which when you get down to it is a pretty mild and intellectual sort of a complaint. Indicating that many and most other things are very well indeed.
gloam over there, old soldier, said the tree
you stomp across my crown three sixty five
but now you slink, low, purpling, from me
though your great footsteps keep my leaves alive
hard day's night...and new dream tech?
Yesterday I worked twelve hours and sixteen minutes. Got the punch slip to prove it. Couldn't even finish the payroll, which I'd been working on, but Zubair was a champ and finished it for me. I cried again (only second time, working here!), because Gustavo was teasing me that other places he'd worked always got the payroll out on time and when my face started to squinch up he thought I was laughing. I want to apologize today; yesterday I was more concerned with making sure he knew I wasn't mad at him. I missed out on going with Dave to Pete and Cheri's and listening to Fire Sign Theater, which is a bummer. But! I feel very accomplished and righteous about the fact that I did so much work.
Dave got home a few minutes after I did. I had just gotten out of the shower and my phone started ringing. He was like, "where are you?" and I said, "brushing my teeth." "oh, you're home! I got in and didn't see you." *wags* I had been so worried that he would get home before me, y'see, and instead I was home when he got there. We got to hang out and watched the end of the Be-Sharp Simpsons episode, put a few new Magic cards in the deck and played a couple games, listened to music and just hung out and talked for awhile before bedtime. So the day ended on a really good note.
I had this dream. Part I remember is, me and Dave were snuggling and/or asleep in our room. The configuration of furniture was different. Our bed was a bunk bed (like the one I had on Rockwell) with the long side against the west wall instead of a four-poster with the long side against the north wall, and there was a big clothes dresser in the northwest corner where the little plastic drawers thing is now. There was all kinds of clothes and stuff laying around, like our room is now. We were hanging out and either doing something or talking, I'm not sure. Then we fell asleep and then I woke back up, or Dave fell asleep, either one, and I realized I had to go to the bathroom. I got out of bed, opened the bedroom door (I heard and felt it click open and shut! thought I was awake!), went down the hall to the bathroom. I looked at myself in the mirror (still thinking I'm awake, mind). I spread my arms out low and in front of me, as if lifting a large invisible bundle, and stared myself down in the mirror, the way you do to raise power and make the static really heavy between the mirror and you. And the static in my vision did get really bright, sort of a slate yellow with undertones of blue and grey and mild green. I want to pinpoint the color because while it was yellow mixed with grey, it was not that dirty yellow (typo: typed "tellow") people get when they're invading other people's auras. That's like yellow mixed with french fry grease; this was like yellow mixed with muddy snow from a field. A clean dirty yellow, if that makes sense.
And I was up back in bed with Dave. I turned to him and said, Hey baby, I teleported back to you!
And then I woke up.
Dave got home a few minutes after I did. I had just gotten out of the shower and my phone started ringing. He was like, "where are you?" and I said, "brushing my teeth." "oh, you're home! I got in and didn't see you." *wags* I had been so worried that he would get home before me, y'see, and instead I was home when he got there. We got to hang out and watched the end of the Be-Sharp Simpsons episode, put a few new Magic cards in the deck and played a couple games, listened to music and just hung out and talked for awhile before bedtime. So the day ended on a really good note.
I had this dream. Part I remember is, me and Dave were snuggling and/or asleep in our room. The configuration of furniture was different. Our bed was a bunk bed (like the one I had on Rockwell) with the long side against the west wall instead of a four-poster with the long side against the north wall, and there was a big clothes dresser in the northwest corner where the little plastic drawers thing is now. There was all kinds of clothes and stuff laying around, like our room is now. We were hanging out and either doing something or talking, I'm not sure. Then we fell asleep and then I woke back up, or Dave fell asleep, either one, and I realized I had to go to the bathroom. I got out of bed, opened the bedroom door (I heard and felt it click open and shut! thought I was awake!), went down the hall to the bathroom. I looked at myself in the mirror (still thinking I'm awake, mind). I spread my arms out low and in front of me, as if lifting a large invisible bundle, and stared myself down in the mirror, the way you do to raise power and make the static really heavy between the mirror and you. And the static in my vision did get really bright, sort of a slate yellow with undertones of blue and grey and mild green. I want to pinpoint the color because while it was yellow mixed with grey, it was not that dirty yellow (typo: typed "tellow") people get when they're invading other people's auras. That's like yellow mixed with french fry grease; this was like yellow mixed with muddy snow from a field. A clean dirty yellow, if that makes sense.
And I was up back in bed with Dave. I turned to him and said, Hey baby, I teleported back to you!
And then I woke up.
Xmas marks the spot (out, damn spot!)
Xmas was eXtremely pleasant. Saw Amber on Monday, hung out at Paula's Monday night and Tuesday day, came back to Chicago Tuesday and saw Pearl as well. Who knows, she may still be hanging out when I gets home tonight.
Still can't, or haven't been able to, escape nagging feelings of dread and self-recrimination. My mind seems to light on any flimsiest thing to hang those feelings on as long as it gets to keep them. But in fact things have been very good. At work today, no disasters or even unusually annoying things. I'm hoping it's something seasonal, psychosomatic like, based on previous dire Xmases, and will pass with the turning of the year.
Been dreaming but not wanting to remember enough to write down or, in some cases, even fix in my thinking. Something basic-assumptiony. Something identity-belief-ified. In other words, "The more something was designed never to break, the more difficult it is to get at when you need to repair it." Within the mind this means motivation and inclination dry up too as you reach the location of the damage. Thus leaving only sheer cussedness to get the job done.
I hope I have a very cussed new year.
Still can't, or haven't been able to, escape nagging feelings of dread and self-recrimination. My mind seems to light on any flimsiest thing to hang those feelings on as long as it gets to keep them. But in fact things have been very good. At work today, no disasters or even unusually annoying things. I'm hoping it's something seasonal, psychosomatic like, based on previous dire Xmases, and will pass with the turning of the year.
Been dreaming but not wanting to remember enough to write down or, in some cases, even fix in my thinking. Something basic-assumptiony. Something identity-belief-ified. In other words, "The more something was designed never to break, the more difficult it is to get at when you need to repair it." Within the mind this means motivation and inclination dry up too as you reach the location of the damage. Thus leaving only sheer cussedness to get the job done.
I hope I have a very cussed new year.
the fire and the stupid
Damn I been posting a lot lately.
This morning I feel all freaky twitchy. Maybe it's time for my period soon? That would maybe explain it.
Three times in a row there I tried to type about how I'm feeling lame and down on myself right now and was interrupted by the phone. Four, five. This feeling I have, I feel like it always happens when I've done some good stuff and rectified some wrongs. I get all shameful and sulky and lacking in self-confidence and it makes me want to go start acting less than awesomely again so I can have more things to rectify. Like I'm not okay with the idea of me being a good person. Like having people mad at or frustrated with me is part of my identity and I wouldn't feel right if nobody had any reason to be annoyed when they thought about me.
Retained an image from my dream last night. I was an old woman wearing rags. One of those is-my-self / am-looking-at-me scenes. It was dark and cold and there was a huge monster, one of those size-of-a-hill monsters with a building or something on its back. I ran onto the monster, to like the first landing or hallway or whatever of the building. One wall was open to the air and you could see the hall stretching down to my left (looking; my right, as character sitting). I don't know if I ran to or was like lifted up and set down on this couch thing on the landing. Had the feeling the couch was like a special place that I was supposed to be sitting. In front of it was a fire which I huddled on the couch and stared at, trying to keep warm. But in later shots it wasn't a fire, it was a kiddie pool with water in it (which wasn't frozen for some reason despite the cold). There was another character, male, saw him only in silhouette. I felt he was a friend or ally, someone I trusted, but that he was frantic about something. Looking for fire. Yeah, in this shot the thing in front of the couch was definitely a kiddie pool and not burning. But there was a scrap of cloth that smelled like fire, was smeared with soot, and he either had this or it was dangled in front of him and he went tearing off through the maze after it, looking for the fire. Also the landing where I was sitting seemed like part of an abandoned building, it was dirty and wrecked-looking. I assumed the rest of the maze was too, only darker because not up by the surface. I wasn't worried about the other character, like I didn't think anything bad was going to happen to him, but I felt bad that he was going off on this wild goose chase through the maze in the cold and dark looking for a fire I didn't have anymore and didn't know where it was.
I'm most sure this has something to do with my problems
[Bossman walked in, we did bills (finally!), it's been like an hour or more]
The above seems like an apt image for how my problems with relationships play out so that I treat people less well than they deserve. And look at my careful phrasing and the phrasing of my dream log even! None of the bad things happening were attributed to me, just actions performed by some shadowy force to whose whim I am also subject. This shadowy force which leads my ally-person on a cold and scary wild goose chase and also picks me up and plops me down in my place. Selfquote time! "Know your place, child. Know / into whose hands you will be delivered / when the metal links are severed." From [acorn iron] which was about being a leader on Gaia. Metal among other things refers to the seven levels of trust, all of which are metals except glass, since glass denotes lack of relationship.
The people who are best at things just do them. They don't sit around all day obsessing about how they are done or figuring out why they are done one way instead of another. People who are very good at things sometimes do obsess and figure in such wise--but not those who are best. For them the knowledge and conversation of the thing they can do is enough and explanation, complication, analysis all seem superfluous.
It comes as a surprise to no one, then, that I am not the best relationship-haver around. I am, in fact, not great at it. I've known I have big problems in this area for a long, long time--hence all the studying. I've been able to say, "well, I'm improving" for years now, which makes me feel both proud and ashamed. Proud of how far I've come, ashamed of how much that means I sucked to begin with.
Big maze monster. Reminded me a little of that giant with the penultimate castle on his back in God of War, the one you get into after fighting the medusas in the desert. 'Cept instead of being in the desert it was just somewhere cold and dark at night.
Looking for fire, the phrase came up over and over. Fire I didn't have anymore and didn't know where it was. That came and went from my place by what means I know not. Meaning that, that burning thing important enough that I huddle around it and others run frantically to look for it, is also under the control of the shadowy force. Maze monster, same thing? Well, maybe the fire isn't under the shadow's control--but access to it certainly is. That's the thing, access. (Axes, I almost typed. May I ax you a question?)
A repeating image across many dreams--I've written about this so recently!--is me about to be in a fight, going to a cache of weapons, and finding all my weapons are flimsy pieces of crap that don't do anything useful. Acute conflicts like fighting are all works of fire magic. Access (axes!) to fire in my dream not being controlled by conscious me (or character me) fits well with this. Part of the same situation, issue, thingy. Problem. That in the place of my fire I am an old raggedy woman huddling in a dirty, ill-kept place over something which is sometimes my fire and sometimes a stupid cold little pool. And I don't know which will be which at any moment, and I don't know how to make it better if it's the wrong thing at the wrong moment. Problem.
Meanwhile while I've been writing this post I've been doing various work things and generally being pleasant and helpful as usual. Once more I had a coughing fit while on the phone but I don't think the lady was too offended--I set her down for a minute then we finished filling out her gift certificate form. Dog. I want to dig more with this, I think it's important, but I really ought to get back to work, this is a ton of words and time spent on words instead of working. Yowza!
This morning I feel all freaky twitchy. Maybe it's time for my period soon? That would maybe explain it.
Three times in a row there I tried to type about how I'm feeling lame and down on myself right now and was interrupted by the phone. Four, five. This feeling I have, I feel like it always happens when I've done some good stuff and rectified some wrongs. I get all shameful and sulky and lacking in self-confidence and it makes me want to go start acting less than awesomely again so I can have more things to rectify. Like I'm not okay with the idea of me being a good person. Like having people mad at or frustrated with me is part of my identity and I wouldn't feel right if nobody had any reason to be annoyed when they thought about me.
Retained an image from my dream last night. I was an old woman wearing rags. One of those is-my-self / am-looking-at-me scenes. It was dark and cold and there was a huge monster, one of those size-of-a-hill monsters with a building or something on its back. I ran onto the monster, to like the first landing or hallway or whatever of the building. One wall was open to the air and you could see the hall stretching down to my left (looking; my right, as character sitting). I don't know if I ran to or was like lifted up and set down on this couch thing on the landing. Had the feeling the couch was like a special place that I was supposed to be sitting. In front of it was a fire which I huddled on the couch and stared at, trying to keep warm. But in later shots it wasn't a fire, it was a kiddie pool with water in it (which wasn't frozen for some reason despite the cold). There was another character, male, saw him only in silhouette. I felt he was a friend or ally, someone I trusted, but that he was frantic about something. Looking for fire. Yeah, in this shot the thing in front of the couch was definitely a kiddie pool and not burning. But there was a scrap of cloth that smelled like fire, was smeared with soot, and he either had this or it was dangled in front of him and he went tearing off through the maze after it, looking for the fire. Also the landing where I was sitting seemed like part of an abandoned building, it was dirty and wrecked-looking. I assumed the rest of the maze was too, only darker because not up by the surface. I wasn't worried about the other character, like I didn't think anything bad was going to happen to him, but I felt bad that he was going off on this wild goose chase through the maze in the cold and dark looking for a fire I didn't have anymore and didn't know where it was.
I'm most sure this has something to do with my problems
[Bossman walked in, we did bills (finally!), it's been like an hour or more]
The above seems like an apt image for how my problems with relationships play out so that I treat people less well than they deserve. And look at my careful phrasing and the phrasing of my dream log even! None of the bad things happening were attributed to me, just actions performed by some shadowy force to whose whim I am also subject. This shadowy force which leads my ally-person on a cold and scary wild goose chase and also picks me up and plops me down in my place. Selfquote time! "Know your place, child. Know / into whose hands you will be delivered / when the metal links are severed." From [acorn iron] which was about being a leader on Gaia. Metal among other things refers to the seven levels of trust, all of which are metals except glass, since glass denotes lack of relationship.
The people who are best at things just do them. They don't sit around all day obsessing about how they are done or figuring out why they are done one way instead of another. People who are very good at things sometimes do obsess and figure in such wise--but not those who are best. For them the knowledge and conversation of the thing they can do is enough and explanation, complication, analysis all seem superfluous.
It comes as a surprise to no one, then, that I am not the best relationship-haver around. I am, in fact, not great at it. I've known I have big problems in this area for a long, long time--hence all the studying. I've been able to say, "well, I'm improving" for years now, which makes me feel both proud and ashamed. Proud of how far I've come, ashamed of how much that means I sucked to begin with.
Big maze monster. Reminded me a little of that giant with the penultimate castle on his back in God of War, the one you get into after fighting the medusas in the desert. 'Cept instead of being in the desert it was just somewhere cold and dark at night.
Looking for fire, the phrase came up over and over. Fire I didn't have anymore and didn't know where it was. That came and went from my place by what means I know not. Meaning that, that burning thing important enough that I huddle around it and others run frantically to look for it, is also under the control of the shadowy force. Maze monster, same thing? Well, maybe the fire isn't under the shadow's control--but access to it certainly is. That's the thing, access. (Axes, I almost typed. May I ax you a question?)
A repeating image across many dreams--I've written about this so recently!--is me about to be in a fight, going to a cache of weapons, and finding all my weapons are flimsy pieces of crap that don't do anything useful. Acute conflicts like fighting are all works of fire magic. Access (axes!) to fire in my dream not being controlled by conscious me (or character me) fits well with this. Part of the same situation, issue, thingy. Problem. That in the place of my fire I am an old raggedy woman huddling in a dirty, ill-kept place over something which is sometimes my fire and sometimes a stupid cold little pool. And I don't know which will be which at any moment, and I don't know how to make it better if it's the wrong thing at the wrong moment. Problem.
Meanwhile while I've been writing this post I've been doing various work things and generally being pleasant and helpful as usual. Once more I had a coughing fit while on the phone but I don't think the lady was too offended--I set her down for a minute then we finished filling out her gift certificate form. Dog. I want to dig more with this, I think it's important, but I really ought to get back to work, this is a ton of words and time spent on words instead of working. Yowza!
one lemon
(Far from my best work. I think there may be more of it. Not enough reason for the lemon to be there. I thought the gold tones would turn out to be something completely different. Also I think "aren't" in the third stanza really should be "ain't" [later edit: changed it to "ain't", cause why not?], to go with "mud-in-your-eye". But I don't know how to make more without wearing my end rhyme to death or somehow finding a new end rhyme. And there are too many Buts. Arrgh and so forth. XD )
Gold tones
at a feast of bones
but I’m pining for a good strong
meal.
Some I crack, some I try
but they open up dry.
Scold my belly, but it just won’t
heel.
Slice of wine, glass of pie
case of mud-in-your-eye
ain’t inside me, so they don’t seem
real.
Splintered bones, coffee grounds
wake the sharp yellow sounds
of one lemon that I can’t un-
peel.
Gold tones
at a feast of bones
but I’m pining for a good strong
meal.
Some I crack, some I try
but they open up dry.
Scold my belly, but it just won’t
heel.
Slice of wine, glass of pie
case of mud-in-your-eye
ain’t inside me, so they don’t seem
real.
Splintered bones, coffee grounds
wake the sharp yellow sounds
of one lemon that I can’t un-
peel.
Miércoles con los Amigos Invisibles vol 1.
john the revelator tell me who's that writin'
john the revelator tell me who's that writin'
john the revelator wrote the book on the seven seals
-White Stripes
Talked to Myke yesterday.
All is actually well on that front. Seems I would really rather be friends with him after all than not. I just have to learn to be better at setting boundaries in re: the use of my time. And he's not mad at me or depressed about it or any of that crap. We just talked about sci-fi and TV for like...an hour. Aye. If I can get the kid to do his conversing in half-hour blocks, that'll be something!
I woke up this morning with a clear conscience and I'm not sure what to do with it. Universe gave me a hint. I'd just put my shiny new dayplanner in my bag, figuring now that I've resolved the Myke issue and removed that source of conflict from my mind I want to be ready to do consecratey things whenever the moment is appropriate. And as I stood up my bag tipped over somehow and all the junk in the bottom started to slide out onto the floor. "Noo!" I said and hurried to keep it from falling out.
"You need to get rid of some of that baggage you're carrying around all the time," is what the universe was saying. "Look how much of it is junk you ought to have thrown away long ago!" I ended up pitching some, piling some on the couch-and-a-half to sort through later, and shoving the rest into my bag because it was easier that way. I also noticed a bunch of crap on the bottom of my bag that hadn't even been dislodged when the smaller junk fell out.
Yes, I do and did see symbolism in all that. Dammit.
See, this is the thing about the magical life. Or whatever you want to call it. A philosophy or religion or system that encourages you to look at each incident in your life as pregnant with meaning, an interpretable sign. Tact, good humor and a healthy slice of not taking myself too seriously are how I keep from going nuts with it and losing the ability to live at all because I'm too busy noticing things. Those are qualities I wish I'd had as a kid! I like thinking of it as "magic" rather than "God speaking to me" because that makes me a little smaller. The universe is not a puppet show put on to morally edify me. These things that happen that I interpret, these sorts of things happen to everybody--only everybody doesn't interpret them. That's really the only difference.
Much, much has happened since my last post. Hopefully I'll remember enough of it to post up more later today. I'm meeting (hopefully) Clarissa after work, and me and Dave are (hopefully) going to see Lucky Boy's Confusion with Meg on Saturday. Dave bought the Simpsons movie last night and we watched it. (with hilarious results! wait, the movie was hilarious as always, the results of watching it merely pleasant.) He's half-expecting to get another one from somebody for Xmas, in which case he'll send the one he bought to Big Dave who will likely enjoy it.
Le sigh. There are many cool things about my dad, many cool qualities possessed by no other dad. But I wish he could enjoy the freakin Simpsons! And other things that people like when they are relaxed and not taking things seriously! Someone with his extensive experience of the other side of reality should not be so bound up tight about his material circumstances that he can't have any fun!
Have I mentioned lately that Dave is awesome and makes me happy? We've been talking more lately, not about anything in particular, just like talk is percolating in through the weave of our normal routine. I find it hard to write about which is oddly enough a good sign; there is some magical thing, some perspective on reality and how we relate to it, that we are sharing in a new way than before.
[interlude; Bossman shows up, we don't do bills, he has to leave again. denied for now!]
I realized when I came back to edit and update that today is Wednesday and hence this can't be Tuesdays With Abhorrent Fiends. So I decided to call it Wednesdays with Invisible Friends, only in Spanish because it sounds cooler. Isn't Miércoles cooler-sounding than Wednesday? I wonder where it comes from. I know Wednesday is named for Odin aka Wodin aka the Norse Zeus: Wodin's Day. Like Friday is Freya's Day. I'm not actually sure about Tuesday.
I finished To Say Nothing of the Dog, and liked it so much that I got it for Myke as an Xmas present. (Shh! Don't tell him!) He's been reading more Gibson. And recently wrote an awesome horror story called Daisychains which he ended up telling me the entire plot, scene by scene, on the phone yesterday. And then apologized all over himself for blathering. And I thought to myself, This, this is why I didn't think I had room in my life for this friend. Because if I work eight and a half hours a day, more or less, take buses another hour, sleep six and a half hours, that leaves only eight hours to do other stuff. I know, I know, my schedule is a lot less hectic than some (Pearl, for example!) but I still have to be watchful.
Here I am procrastinating by blogging. Grr. Back to work, you!
john the revelator tell me who's that writin'
john the revelator wrote the book on the seven seals
-White Stripes
Talked to Myke yesterday.
All is actually well on that front. Seems I would really rather be friends with him after all than not. I just have to learn to be better at setting boundaries in re: the use of my time. And he's not mad at me or depressed about it or any of that crap. We just talked about sci-fi and TV for like...an hour. Aye. If I can get the kid to do his conversing in half-hour blocks, that'll be something!
I woke up this morning with a clear conscience and I'm not sure what to do with it. Universe gave me a hint. I'd just put my shiny new dayplanner in my bag, figuring now that I've resolved the Myke issue and removed that source of conflict from my mind I want to be ready to do consecratey things whenever the moment is appropriate. And as I stood up my bag tipped over somehow and all the junk in the bottom started to slide out onto the floor. "Noo!" I said and hurried to keep it from falling out.
"You need to get rid of some of that baggage you're carrying around all the time," is what the universe was saying. "Look how much of it is junk you ought to have thrown away long ago!" I ended up pitching some, piling some on the couch-and-a-half to sort through later, and shoving the rest into my bag because it was easier that way. I also noticed a bunch of crap on the bottom of my bag that hadn't even been dislodged when the smaller junk fell out.
Yes, I do and did see symbolism in all that. Dammit.
See, this is the thing about the magical life. Or whatever you want to call it. A philosophy or religion or system that encourages you to look at each incident in your life as pregnant with meaning, an interpretable sign. Tact, good humor and a healthy slice of not taking myself too seriously are how I keep from going nuts with it and losing the ability to live at all because I'm too busy noticing things. Those are qualities I wish I'd had as a kid! I like thinking of it as "magic" rather than "God speaking to me" because that makes me a little smaller. The universe is not a puppet show put on to morally edify me. These things that happen that I interpret, these sorts of things happen to everybody--only everybody doesn't interpret them. That's really the only difference.
Much, much has happened since my last post. Hopefully I'll remember enough of it to post up more later today. I'm meeting (hopefully) Clarissa after work, and me and Dave are (hopefully) going to see Lucky Boy's Confusion with Meg on Saturday. Dave bought the Simpsons movie last night and we watched it. (with hilarious results! wait, the movie was hilarious as always, the results of watching it merely pleasant.) He's half-expecting to get another one from somebody for Xmas, in which case he'll send the one he bought to Big Dave who will likely enjoy it.
Le sigh. There are many cool things about my dad, many cool qualities possessed by no other dad. But I wish he could enjoy the freakin Simpsons! And other things that people like when they are relaxed and not taking things seriously! Someone with his extensive experience of the other side of reality should not be so bound up tight about his material circumstances that he can't have any fun!
Have I mentioned lately that Dave is awesome and makes me happy? We've been talking more lately, not about anything in particular, just like talk is percolating in through the weave of our normal routine. I find it hard to write about which is oddly enough a good sign; there is some magical thing, some perspective on reality and how we relate to it, that we are sharing in a new way than before.
[interlude; Bossman shows up, we don't do bills, he has to leave again. denied for now!]
I realized when I came back to edit and update that today is Wednesday and hence this can't be Tuesdays With Abhorrent Fiends. So I decided to call it Wednesdays with Invisible Friends, only in Spanish because it sounds cooler. Isn't Miércoles cooler-sounding than Wednesday? I wonder where it comes from. I know Wednesday is named for Odin aka Wodin aka the Norse Zeus: Wodin's Day. Like Friday is Freya's Day. I'm not actually sure about Tuesday.
I finished To Say Nothing of the Dog, and liked it so much that I got it for Myke as an Xmas present. (Shh! Don't tell him!) He's been reading more Gibson. And recently wrote an awesome horror story called Daisychains which he ended up telling me the entire plot, scene by scene, on the phone yesterday. And then apologized all over himself for blathering. And I thought to myself, This, this is why I didn't think I had room in my life for this friend. Because if I work eight and a half hours a day, more or less, take buses another hour, sleep six and a half hours, that leaves only eight hours to do other stuff. I know, I know, my schedule is a lot less hectic than some (Pearl, for example!) but I still have to be watchful.
Here I am procrastinating by blogging. Grr. Back to work, you!
winter has dog days too
Sick as a dog. Sick as two dogs. To say nothing of the dog! (Which is a fun book so far, by the way.)
Let it never be said that I don't know what it feels like to have a coughing fit so violent I threw up. At least the person I was on the phone with was advertising something and not someone making a reso! It'd be bad for business to have people hear our employees hacking sickly and making barf noises while they're thinking about the gourmet dinner they're going to eat.
Having dinner with Mom after work. Should stop by Walgreens and get her a belated birthday card, just to have something to show I didn't completely forget.
I dunno what it is, but I'm looking forward to talking with Mom. Like I was telling Dave, yesterday or the day before, there's a perspective on things that she has that nobody else has. And in spite of her illness I value some of that insight. If I can just avoid having to see her so often that she becomes toxic, I can actually stay fond of her. I imagine Amber and Pearl feel similarly about Dad.
Pearl wants to come visit on Saturday; I dunno what time. Dave's going to actually work on Saturday during the day, but go to Elmer's house instead of the office. I'm going with Paula and Dave's cousin Mercita to see that cool psychic, Mina. Maybe I should see if Pearl wants to tag along if she'll be there in time to train it out to Wheaton with me. That would be stellar.
Back to macking the payroll data for me. Let's see if I can get this puppy submitted and not screw the direct deposit people over too badly. See, the physical checks all arrive next-day delivery. But direct deposit funds take three biz days to clear. Meaning if I submit the payroll file at 7:30pm on Thursday, the hardcopy checks get in on Friday, but the direct deposit people don't get their money till Tuesday. Which is what happened last pay period. Which if it happens this pay period will make many people very sad. Which is why I should stop typing and mush. Mush I say!
Let it never be said that I don't know what it feels like to have a coughing fit so violent I threw up. At least the person I was on the phone with was advertising something and not someone making a reso! It'd be bad for business to have people hear our employees hacking sickly and making barf noises while they're thinking about the gourmet dinner they're going to eat.
Having dinner with Mom after work. Should stop by Walgreens and get her a belated birthday card, just to have something to show I didn't completely forget.
I dunno what it is, but I'm looking forward to talking with Mom. Like I was telling Dave, yesterday or the day before, there's a perspective on things that she has that nobody else has. And in spite of her illness I value some of that insight. If I can just avoid having to see her so often that she becomes toxic, I can actually stay fond of her. I imagine Amber and Pearl feel similarly about Dad.
Pearl wants to come visit on Saturday; I dunno what time. Dave's going to actually work on Saturday during the day, but go to Elmer's house instead of the office. I'm going with Paula and Dave's cousin Mercita to see that cool psychic, Mina. Maybe I should see if Pearl wants to tag along if she'll be there in time to train it out to Wheaton with me. That would be stellar.
Back to macking the payroll data for me. Let's see if I can get this puppy submitted and not screw the direct deposit people over too badly. See, the physical checks all arrive next-day delivery. But direct deposit funds take three biz days to clear. Meaning if I submit the payroll file at 7:30pm on Thursday, the hardcopy checks get in on Friday, but the direct deposit people don't get their money till Tuesday. Which is what happened last pay period. Which if it happens this pay period will make many people very sad. Which is why I should stop typing and mush. Mush I say!
I shouldn't be on here now, for oh, variety of reasons. Already posted up. Work to do. Would be more beneficial to my health if I just sat very still and cradled my warm cup of tea in my cold, clawlike fingers. Okay maybe they're not clawlike. Big Z just got in.
So did Bossman.
Ye gods it's amazing how little work we all manage to get done despite being in the office together. Boss and I went over bills, paid enough that it makes me less nailbitey. He seems to have a better handle of where we stand with all these people than I do--except every now and then something happens that makes him seem completely naive and out of the loop. I suppose I must look the same way from other peoples' perspective. Both just spent almost our entire office time on the phone, either with their wives (on both business and family care issues) or with various customers or vendors they insisted on dealing with themselves. Not that I put up much of a fight. The only time I put up a fight on that stuff is when one of them is all "Oh I'll handle it" and then they forget and the customer comes and yells at me because I'm the last one they talked to.
My cup of tea is no longer warm. I grabbed a crust of lunch bread (not the good dinner bread our pastry kitchen makes, the just-alright lunch stuff we buy from Red Hen) and it quieted down my hunger.
My cough is raspy down in my chest and I feel cold all over and I wanna go home. Waaah I wanna go home. Dave reminded me (we met outside for a smoke a few minutes ago) that I am awesome and I should stay positive because I'm gonna come home from work and he'll already be in bed and I can crawl into bed and have a nap before we leave for Lemonheads Night 2. I almost don't want to go, I want to stay home and rest instead. But last night was so much fun and I really was excited about the idea of coming back today. Am to some extent--the extent to which I'm not feeling cold and tired and sick and sleepy.
So did Bossman.
Ye gods it's amazing how little work we all manage to get done despite being in the office together. Boss and I went over bills, paid enough that it makes me less nailbitey. He seems to have a better handle of where we stand with all these people than I do--except every now and then something happens that makes him seem completely naive and out of the loop. I suppose I must look the same way from other peoples' perspective. Both just spent almost our entire office time on the phone, either with their wives (on both business and family care issues) or with various customers or vendors they insisted on dealing with themselves. Not that I put up much of a fight. The only time I put up a fight on that stuff is when one of them is all "Oh I'll handle it" and then they forget and the customer comes and yells at me because I'm the last one they talked to.
My cup of tea is no longer warm. I grabbed a crust of lunch bread (not the good dinner bread our pastry kitchen makes, the just-alright lunch stuff we buy from Red Hen) and it quieted down my hunger.
My cough is raspy down in my chest and I feel cold all over and I wanna go home. Waaah I wanna go home. Dave reminded me (we met outside for a smoke a few minutes ago) that I am awesome and I should stay positive because I'm gonna come home from work and he'll already be in bed and I can crawl into bed and have a nap before we leave for Lemonheads Night 2. I almost don't want to go, I want to stay home and rest instead. But last night was so much fun and I really was excited about the idea of coming back today. Am to some extent--the extent to which I'm not feeling cold and tired and sick and sleepy.
you gotta stay up late, you gotta stay in bed
Nother dream. Bad ending, interesting middle. Remember enough to call it three acts but I don't wanna write it down. Woke up around 5am looking into the mental faces (that visual imagination is working better even just from the intent!) put forth by a couple invisibles I felt acquainted with. Ordinary-looking human faces, nothing startling, like very well-done pencil drawings on a back-of-eyelid-colored background, is how my imagination put them. One more than the other. They were like, We get something like this, we call mama let her know. I was like, Don't, don't call her, I'll do it myself if she's gotta be informed. I think I composed a hasty short speech and did in fact think it in her direction. She ain't all ears--she's all mouths--but some of her mouths are ears. And I guess it worked because I fell right back asleep no prob and wasn't weirded out any further then or after I woke up.
That kind of ending to the dream. Grr. Just so I remember: Stan from American Dad. Cockpit of a plane. Me talking lies to the blackbox.
Dunno why it creeped me out so. I've dreamed scarier, more explicit things. I was less culpable in those other dreams though. Probably why it came out in cartoon. That goddamn drill out in the hallway those construction guys are using to slice tile. It showed up in that poem I wrote last week and I'm even dreaming the sound now. I think I feel guilty about Myke. I think I feel guilty about a lot of things.
I'm tired and sick and I had a hell of a great time last night. The Lemonheads kicked all kinds of ass, and both of their opening bands also proved themselves capable kickers of ass. Dave bought the CD of the first one, I bought the CD of the second. Brought it to work with the intent of putting it in my compy and listening to it, but I don't feel like it right now.
Quiet, want quiet so my ears can come back from their ringyness. Something that one of the characters in Children of Men says, sticks with me and bothers me much now: That ringing in your ears? That's the sound of your nerve cells dying. When the ringing stops, you'll never hear that tone again.
I was sitting on the train coming back home last night, thinking of that. I had somehow the notion in my mind that if my ears hurt instead of ringing, if the ringing faded out with pain instead of comfort, that maybe the nerves weren't dead after all, just stunned. Pain is one of the things a nerve transmits, right? Maybe the ones that bring pain are different from the ones that bring sound. I wish I knew more [interrupted by phone] .
Yeah, I wish I knew more. "Always, she asks for knowledge." (said with rolled eyes and a deep, if fond, exasperation.) I wrote about that statement before, I think.
Truly, if it weren't that I'm sick and cold and grouchy for various reasons, I would think I had started to well and truly craze a little. (Remember, craze is a verb also. It's what happens to glass when it's pushed outward by, say, an explosion, enough to develop those spiderweb cracks all over but not enough to shatter.)
(Oh thank dog the hostess is here and backing me up on the phone.)
Boss and big Z didn't do punches last night as they both promised me they would, so I can't do jack about payroll which everyone's been bugging me about for a week. We barely paid any bills at all last week and yesterday was meant to be bill-paying day for this week AND last week. We didn't do any of that, so my report on Bills We Ought To Pay is friggin huge and Boss was supposed to come in at nine thirty to go over it with me and vendors have been calling and asking what's happening with their payment.
And now the hostess (Angel today. Jaye was bomb yesterday! She's actually doing private party stuff and I am exceedingly relieved!) is down here. Because of all the construction she can't hear to talk on the phone anywhere else. Which means I should probably start doing work soon and stop posting on my blog.
But but but. I was so happy at the show. So happy the whole time. The first song they played was Hospital, which I never never expected to hear, and I got this big happy grin on my face that lasted all through the set. Even during the jumping up and down and beer-drinking parts.
There's a disease
going 'round the hospital
green green leaves
falling from the trees
you gotta run away
you gotta spin a web
you gotta stay up late
you gotta stay in bed
Even Dave said it was like a perfect setlist. He normally has the connoisseur's woe, that his tastes in concerts are so refined that he's almost never completely happy. But this time he was completely happy with it. The opening bands are both good, and the Lemonheads' set contained, as Dave put it, ten of the eleven songs he had been scrupulously avoiding thinking about with his conscious mind. Thereby freeing, by my view, the resources of the rest of his mind to nudge the Lemonheads towards wanting to play the songs that he, Dave, was not-thinking about with such intensity and passion.
And then to have this dream, which contained many elements I don't feel like writing down, wake me up at five after I'd just gotten to sleep at one-thirty, bone tired and still a little tipsy. May not even have been the dream. May have been just the dryness in my throat. When I woke up I was laying on my back, my mouth was open, and the air in the room was very warm and dry because Dave had turned the space heater on before he came to bed. First thing I did (after the brief mental conversation I mentioned above) was get the water bottle and drink some, then give Dave some to drink as well. (He was barely awake enough to do this.) Drink of water actually helped me remember further facts about the dream.
How do I end up sleeping on my back with my mouth open? Does it mean anything? Am I just clinging to this because it's me, it's within the ambit of things belonging to my identity, and I want to stay as long as possible in it before I go back to work?
Yes. I'm going to go read book and smoke, despite how cold I am, because I think I need to.
That kind of ending to the dream. Grr. Just so I remember: Stan from American Dad. Cockpit of a plane. Me talking lies to the blackbox.
Dunno why it creeped me out so. I've dreamed scarier, more explicit things. I was less culpable in those other dreams though. Probably why it came out in cartoon. That goddamn drill out in the hallway those construction guys are using to slice tile. It showed up in that poem I wrote last week and I'm even dreaming the sound now. I think I feel guilty about Myke. I think I feel guilty about a lot of things.
I'm tired and sick and I had a hell of a great time last night. The Lemonheads kicked all kinds of ass, and both of their opening bands also proved themselves capable kickers of ass. Dave bought the CD of the first one, I bought the CD of the second. Brought it to work with the intent of putting it in my compy and listening to it, but I don't feel like it right now.
Quiet, want quiet so my ears can come back from their ringyness. Something that one of the characters in Children of Men says, sticks with me and bothers me much now: That ringing in your ears? That's the sound of your nerve cells dying. When the ringing stops, you'll never hear that tone again.
I was sitting on the train coming back home last night, thinking of that. I had somehow the notion in my mind that if my ears hurt instead of ringing, if the ringing faded out with pain instead of comfort, that maybe the nerves weren't dead after all, just stunned. Pain is one of the things a nerve transmits, right? Maybe the ones that bring pain are different from the ones that bring sound. I wish I knew more [interrupted by phone] .
Yeah, I wish I knew more. "Always, she asks for knowledge." (said with rolled eyes and a deep, if fond, exasperation.) I wrote about that statement before, I think.
Truly, if it weren't that I'm sick and cold and grouchy for various reasons, I would think I had started to well and truly craze a little. (Remember, craze is a verb also. It's what happens to glass when it's pushed outward by, say, an explosion, enough to develop those spiderweb cracks all over but not enough to shatter.)
(Oh thank dog the hostess is here and backing me up on the phone.)
Boss and big Z didn't do punches last night as they both promised me they would, so I can't do jack about payroll which everyone's been bugging me about for a week. We barely paid any bills at all last week and yesterday was meant to be bill-paying day for this week AND last week. We didn't do any of that, so my report on Bills We Ought To Pay is friggin huge and Boss was supposed to come in at nine thirty to go over it with me and vendors have been calling and asking what's happening with their payment.
And now the hostess (Angel today. Jaye was bomb yesterday! She's actually doing private party stuff and I am exceedingly relieved!) is down here. Because of all the construction she can't hear to talk on the phone anywhere else. Which means I should probably start doing work soon and stop posting on my blog.
But but but. I was so happy at the show. So happy the whole time. The first song they played was Hospital, which I never never expected to hear, and I got this big happy grin on my face that lasted all through the set. Even during the jumping up and down and beer-drinking parts.
There's a disease
going 'round the hospital
green green leaves
falling from the trees
you gotta run away
you gotta spin a web
you gotta stay up late
you gotta stay in bed
Even Dave said it was like a perfect setlist. He normally has the connoisseur's woe, that his tastes in concerts are so refined that he's almost never completely happy. But this time he was completely happy with it. The opening bands are both good, and the Lemonheads' set contained, as Dave put it, ten of the eleven songs he had been scrupulously avoiding thinking about with his conscious mind. Thereby freeing, by my view, the resources of the rest of his mind to nudge the Lemonheads towards wanting to play the songs that he, Dave, was not-thinking about with such intensity and passion.
And then to have this dream, which contained many elements I don't feel like writing down, wake me up at five after I'd just gotten to sleep at one-thirty, bone tired and still a little tipsy. May not even have been the dream. May have been just the dryness in my throat. When I woke up I was laying on my back, my mouth was open, and the air in the room was very warm and dry because Dave had turned the space heater on before he came to bed. First thing I did (after the brief mental conversation I mentioned above) was get the water bottle and drink some, then give Dave some to drink as well. (He was barely awake enough to do this.) Drink of water actually helped me remember further facts about the dream.
How do I end up sleeping on my back with my mouth open? Does it mean anything? Am I just clinging to this because it's me, it's within the ambit of things belonging to my identity, and I want to stay as long as possible in it before I go back to work?
Yes. I'm going to go read book and smoke, despite how cold I am, because I think I need to.
Tuesdays With Abhorrent Fiends vol. 23
Tom Cruise is Tom Cruise crazy
Just be glad it's him not you
If you had Tom Cruise's troubles
You might be Tom Cruise crazy too
You'd flash your big, white, shiny smile
And wear expensive shoes
But you'd be the only man on earth
Who couldn't enjoy Tom Cruise
- Jonathan Coulton
Tonight, we go to see the Lemonheads! Possibly tomorrow as well, if Dave can locate tickets.
Afterflux has come and gone, like Bureauflux before it. Not having a calendar is killer, but having one is part of my evil plan to make myself more good. Let me esplain zis plan.
Step one: take leave of Myke. This is a move I talked about with Dave yesterday, and Dave actually talked some sense into me on the subject. I am bad at leaving people, especially people who haven't given me a reason why they specifically deserve to be left, and such is my brother Myke. Until I do something, like in this case sending him back all the stuff I have borrowed from him with a note of apology, my guilt and repressed annoyance / aggression will stand in the way of me making big changes in my psyche.
Step two: press the reset button in my visual imagination station. I dunno if the thing I have in mind will work--with this sort of thing, you never know what the correct action is until you're about to do it. It's a move I contemplate with great loathing and longing and trepidation.
Step three: consecrate and mentalize my dayplanner. Step two has to be done before this one, because you can't mentalize a physical object until your visual imagination is well-disciplined.
Yes, yes, I should do the hammer exercise before I try it with something complicated and editable like a dayplanner. Maybe instead of a hammer I should try the first experiment with a pen or some other object I like lots and use lots. Whole point of doing visualization practice with a hammer is that it's a tool which is familiar and used for many things. Then again, the exercise was almost certainly developed back in the day when most young men who would aspire to magical dealings had spent time in their lives building things. The ruler I carried into the dream with me that time is a good example of object mentalizing. A tool I am familiar with, have used many times, and which has many uses. Course I didn't do the visual part first--which is probably why I can't call it up in dreams anymore. Not a solid enough mind-bond to hold it in inventory. I have repeatedly dreamed (retained fragments more often than not, though on some of the older ones I got the whole thing) of being about to go into combat, turning to my hoard of weapons, and finding them all flimsy and rusty and poorly-made or poorly-suited to the job. In a recent dream where this happened, I recall getting a crappy implement out of the box/pile/shelf, starting to fight and having it bend in half the first time I struck my foe with it. So I tossed the "weapon" away, felt myself recede out to the third-person perspective and watch my dream-self dispatch the opponent with my/her bare hands.
Anyway, I've clearly gone fullspeed into a ramble, a good indication that I have no plans beyond Step Three, not even vague mental ones.
I am a sneaky, pouting doormat in some aspects. This is what this next group of transformations is meant to correct. My large deficiency in earth magic having been sorely dented, I now must resolve my problems with water in order to advance.
[time passes]
As good old Gareth Knight has written, the initiate knows how to do magic; the adept is magic.
Just be glad it's him not you
If you had Tom Cruise's troubles
You might be Tom Cruise crazy too
You'd flash your big, white, shiny smile
And wear expensive shoes
But you'd be the only man on earth
Who couldn't enjoy Tom Cruise
- Jonathan Coulton
Tonight, we go to see the Lemonheads! Possibly tomorrow as well, if Dave can locate tickets.
Afterflux has come and gone, like Bureauflux before it. Not having a calendar is killer, but having one is part of my evil plan to make myself more good. Let me esplain zis plan.
Step one: take leave of Myke. This is a move I talked about with Dave yesterday, and Dave actually talked some sense into me on the subject. I am bad at leaving people, especially people who haven't given me a reason why they specifically deserve to be left, and such is my brother Myke. Until I do something, like in this case sending him back all the stuff I have borrowed from him with a note of apology, my guilt and repressed annoyance / aggression will stand in the way of me making big changes in my psyche.
Step two: press the reset button in my visual imagination station. I dunno if the thing I have in mind will work--with this sort of thing, you never know what the correct action is until you're about to do it. It's a move I contemplate with great loathing and longing and trepidation.
Step three: consecrate and mentalize my dayplanner. Step two has to be done before this one, because you can't mentalize a physical object until your visual imagination is well-disciplined.
Yes, yes, I should do the hammer exercise before I try it with something complicated and editable like a dayplanner. Maybe instead of a hammer I should try the first experiment with a pen or some other object I like lots and use lots. Whole point of doing visualization practice with a hammer is that it's a tool which is familiar and used for many things. Then again, the exercise was almost certainly developed back in the day when most young men who would aspire to magical dealings had spent time in their lives building things. The ruler I carried into the dream with me that time is a good example of object mentalizing. A tool I am familiar with, have used many times, and which has many uses. Course I didn't do the visual part first--which is probably why I can't call it up in dreams anymore. Not a solid enough mind-bond to hold it in inventory. I have repeatedly dreamed (retained fragments more often than not, though on some of the older ones I got the whole thing) of being about to go into combat, turning to my hoard of weapons, and finding them all flimsy and rusty and poorly-made or poorly-suited to the job. In a recent dream where this happened, I recall getting a crappy implement out of the box/pile/shelf, starting to fight and having it bend in half the first time I struck my foe with it. So I tossed the "weapon" away, felt myself recede out to the third-person perspective and watch my dream-self dispatch the opponent with my/her bare hands.
Anyway, I've clearly gone fullspeed into a ramble, a good indication that I have no plans beyond Step Three, not even vague mental ones.
I am a sneaky, pouting doormat in some aspects. This is what this next group of transformations is meant to correct. My large deficiency in earth magic having been sorely dented, I now must resolve my problems with water in order to advance.
[time passes]
As good old Gareth Knight has written, the initiate knows how to do magic; the adept is magic.
please don't trample the water lilies
Good weekend, feeling pretty good. Don't at all feel like writing or posting up which is why I think I should. Didn't answer calls from Amber and Pearl this weekend, didn't get the feeling they were uber urgent, I'll call back eventually. Missed Mom's b-day, no call no show no card. Meg and Fey had both called me the previous evening, which I also missed, most likely among other things to remind me not to forget Mom's b-day. I hope she didn't give them grief for me forgetting.
Anyway the thing I wanted to not write about (which is why I think I ought to write about it) is about my visual imagination and fear of mirrors. Talked with Clarissa this morning and told her about shutting my visual imagination off and how I did it, and she very sensibly said that whatever needs to come back in should return by the same door it went out. Or something like that. Which makes me feel as pouty and recalcitrant as thinking about taking better care of myself so as to look nice and be treated in accordance with my hotness and professionalism. All of these things are water magic. The visual imagination, the use of mirrors, the perceptions of others based on your appearance and demeanor and the different interaction styles this makes default or easily available for you, and of course the process of cathection itself. By which is meant, the binding together of emotion and memory so that both memory of event and the internal clock of the evolution of the personality are contiguous through time. The evolution clock can't (as far as I know!) be tampered with, although it takes practice to access it and really the only info it contains is what it's made of--like psychic DNA, you have to turn it into something else before you have any idea what it's going to turn into. But the memory-of-event time track itself, as everyone from Freud to Foul Ole Ron will tell you, is as easy to fuck with a thing as you could ask for.
So yes. I have lots of fun issues with water magic to work on. And the fact that I'm writing them down, growly about it or no, indicates I'm about do be able to / find it necessary to do something about at least some of them.
Anyway the thing I wanted to not write about (which is why I think I ought to write about it) is about my visual imagination and fear of mirrors. Talked with Clarissa this morning and told her about shutting my visual imagination off and how I did it, and she very sensibly said that whatever needs to come back in should return by the same door it went out. Or something like that. Which makes me feel as pouty and recalcitrant as thinking about taking better care of myself so as to look nice and be treated in accordance with my hotness and professionalism. All of these things are water magic. The visual imagination, the use of mirrors, the perceptions of others based on your appearance and demeanor and the different interaction styles this makes default or easily available for you, and of course the process of cathection itself. By which is meant, the binding together of emotion and memory so that both memory of event and the internal clock of the evolution of the personality are contiguous through time. The evolution clock can't (as far as I know!) be tampered with, although it takes practice to access it and really the only info it contains is what it's made of--like psychic DNA, you have to turn it into something else before you have any idea what it's going to turn into. But the memory-of-event time track itself, as everyone from Freud to Foul Ole Ron will tell you, is as easy to fuck with a thing as you could ask for.
So yes. I have lots of fun issues with water magic to work on. And the fact that I'm writing them down, growly about it or no, indicates I'm about do be able to / find it necessary to do something about at least some of them.
in other news
Well now.
I wrote that yesterday poem at work. Which means something.
Those months ago I got that thing that went "poetry won't come back to me till I'm done with this, whatever the hell this is." In part because of the situations and moods in which I unexpectedly remember bits of it with great feeling, I've become increasingly convinced that it was one of those prophecy dealies.
Poetry has come back to me; therefore I am done with "this". The this in question was almost certainly one of those initiation-via-sneakiness-of-universe deals. You know, personality changes that you can't know you're working on or else it wouldn't gel properly. Or something. In my made-up space language the way of describing it is to say I'm an air mage who completed her journeyman's work in earth magic. And since everything that passes through the manifest universe partakes of all elements, in order to do this I had to get above my remedial level in fire magic and resolve some of the problems I'd been having with water magic.
As to how it can be told in something other than my made-up space language, well, that might take some time. You know how the symbol set you're using in large part determines which aspects of reality you have the power to describe? That's the whole reason for making up crazy terminologies in the first place. To enable the terminology-user to pay attention.
[intermission]
Taking care of yourself, changing your outward demeanor and the way people treat you, being a leader, displaying confidence. Every now and then Bossman will have a little pep talk with me about this--more like a pep talk than traditional advice-giving, anyway. He's certainly more encouraging than Dad! Just like we did just now. I even said to him, look, the actual practice of being a leader, of doing the things, I have no problem with. It's being seen to be a leader, to have confidence and things like that, even when I just think about it I get all locked up. Some people are afraid of heights or small spaces, I'm afraid of that. And he said something like, But this is good, this gives me great confidence in you. This fear you are feeling comes from some insecurity, which means you have really considered the subject and aren't just being cocksure. If you didn't have that fear I would be worried.
And he said I should watch Devil Wears Prada; he knows the lady whose life it's based on. She is, he said, an extreme example of the kind of thing he's talking about, but she is extremely successful because of her mastery of that world and the way of presenting oneself that is necessary to succeed in that world.
Grr. So helpful to be interrupted. Now I know exactly what my next thing on my to-do list is, and as always, it makes me angry. The grumpy pouty kind of angry, not anything more sinister. Hell, Dave's been preaching this line to me for months--years!. And I've still got that irrational fear.
You hide something your entire life, you build whole areas of your identity around the assumptions necessary for keeping it hidden, keeping hidden even the processes by which you went about hiding it. However you get from burying it in a steel bunker guarded by shark ninjas in a cave under a mountain at the bottom of the sea, to nailing it up over your front door, it is bound to be long, painful and exceedingly embarassing.
I wrote that yesterday poem at work. Which means something.
Those months ago I got that thing that went "poetry won't come back to me till I'm done with this, whatever the hell this is." In part because of the situations and moods in which I unexpectedly remember bits of it with great feeling, I've become increasingly convinced that it was one of those prophecy dealies.
Poetry has come back to me; therefore I am done with "this". The this in question was almost certainly one of those initiation-via-sneakiness-of-universe deals. You know, personality changes that you can't know you're working on or else it wouldn't gel properly. Or something. In my made-up space language the way of describing it is to say I'm an air mage who completed her journeyman's work in earth magic. And since everything that passes through the manifest universe partakes of all elements, in order to do this I had to get above my remedial level in fire magic and resolve some of the problems I'd been having with water magic.
As to how it can be told in something other than my made-up space language, well, that might take some time. You know how the symbol set you're using in large part determines which aspects of reality you have the power to describe? That's the whole reason for making up crazy terminologies in the first place. To enable the terminology-user to pay attention.
[intermission]
Taking care of yourself, changing your outward demeanor and the way people treat you, being a leader, displaying confidence. Every now and then Bossman will have a little pep talk with me about this--more like a pep talk than traditional advice-giving, anyway. He's certainly more encouraging than Dad! Just like we did just now. I even said to him, look, the actual practice of being a leader, of doing the things, I have no problem with. It's being seen to be a leader, to have confidence and things like that, even when I just think about it I get all locked up. Some people are afraid of heights or small spaces, I'm afraid of that. And he said something like, But this is good, this gives me great confidence in you. This fear you are feeling comes from some insecurity, which means you have really considered the subject and aren't just being cocksure. If you didn't have that fear I would be worried.
And he said I should watch Devil Wears Prada; he knows the lady whose life it's based on. She is, he said, an extreme example of the kind of thing he's talking about, but she is extremely successful because of her mastery of that world and the way of presenting oneself that is necessary to succeed in that world.
Grr. So helpful to be interrupted. Now I know exactly what my next thing on my to-do list is, and as always, it makes me angry. The grumpy pouty kind of angry, not anything more sinister. Hell, Dave's been preaching this line to me for months--years!. And I've still got that irrational fear.
You hide something your entire life, you build whole areas of your identity around the assumptions necessary for keeping it hidden, keeping hidden even the processes by which you went about hiding it. However you get from burying it in a steel bunker guarded by shark ninjas in a cave under a mountain at the bottom of the sea, to nailing it up over your front door, it is bound to be long, painful and exceedingly embarassing.
block
isn't a round edge in town
leaves silver and brown
cold rolled down to bone.
isn't a warm hand in sight
red-knuckled and white-
skinned fingers like stone.
crack of a window, crack of a sheet
of the ice on my eyelids, my tracks in the street.
let through what ain't frozen
let out what must freeze
like the sun you can't hold in
the fingers of trees
never a moment that's dull
saw slicing the tile, dead whine
as the cut pieces fall.
go caulk them into the floor
let it hold what bears down,
solid weights, as I step through the door.
plane of the sidewalk, angled to roll
down to slush-cluttered gutters, the bridges of trolls.
let through what ain't broken
let in what holds still
like the light that just pokes in
from over the sill
can't find a surface that's flat
from the step where I perch my rear end
to the brim of my hat.
come now, fit yourself in the lock
tell the square hole you're far from the only
round peg on the block.
leaves silver and brown
cold rolled down to bone.
isn't a warm hand in sight
red-knuckled and white-
skinned fingers like stone.
crack of a window, crack of a sheet
of the ice on my eyelids, my tracks in the street.
let through what ain't frozen
let out what must freeze
like the sun you can't hold in
the fingers of trees
never a moment that's dull
saw slicing the tile, dead whine
as the cut pieces fall.
go caulk them into the floor
let it hold what bears down,
solid weights, as I step through the door.
plane of the sidewalk, angled to roll
down to slush-cluttered gutters, the bridges of trolls.
let through what ain't broken
let in what holds still
like the light that just pokes in
from over the sill
can't find a surface that's flat
from the step where I perch my rear end
to the brim of my hat.
come now, fit yourself in the lock
tell the square hole you're far from the only
round peg on the block.
Tuesdays With Abhorrent Fiends vol. 22
We could hear the bossa nova
we could sway the night away
the steps of the dance
are best left up to chance
better beautiful than perfect anyway
While the moon wanes and waxes,
death and taxes are lurking out there
Life is grand
Love is real
Beauty is everywhere
--the Peacemakers
Last night I said to Dave I'd been thinking "Beauty Is Everywhere" by the Peacemakers would be a great theme song for the year 2008. He said since it's really been the theme song of the last few months of him and me, it'd be kind of a Johnny-come-lately to give it to next year. So I've been pondering the question and I think I have a candidate. "How Do You Afford Your Rock and Roll Lifestyle" by Cake. Because we can't afford the sort of rock and roll lifestyle to which we would like to become accustomed, and 2008 will likely remind us of that repeatedly.
And again, Dave being smart. I was saying, there's all this debate and discussion and newshounding about baseball because it has nothing to do with the powerful factions who control our lives and steal our money, so we're "allowed" to develop real news about it. He says that's not even the issue. It's just there's too many people who all care about completely different things, and not enough people at the same time care about any one of the things I mentioned to do anything about it.
I had a scary moment last night--I went online and paid the past due balance on the electric bill, then went to my bank's website to check my balance. Turned out the paycheck I put in early evening last Friday had not, at that point, posted. I'd run the groceries as credit on Saturday and the electric company webpage said "pay with credit/debit/ATM" so I'm thinking it wouldn't have posted till today anyhow. But still I turned to Dave and was like, "I think I'll pay the gas bill and order us more tobacco tomorrow." I looked this morning and, yay! My check has now posted and I didn't get any overdraft fees. Still, I feel it was a near thing.
The Heroes season finale was so awesome last night! *wagwag* I simply must get both seasons of that show on DVD at some point. I suspect it's one of those shows that, like Arrested Development, gets miles better when you watch a whole bunch of episodes in a row so all the references make sense because they stuck in your mind. Granted, with AD it's hilarious details instead of dramatic ones, but I like this series so much they'd stick in my mind anyway, week to week. Spose I'm now a bona fide fan and all. I like them all! Even the villains are complex enough that I don't condemn them and in a way I root for them as well! I can't wait to see what happens when Adam Monroe aka Takezo Kensei, Angela Petrelli, Bob, Sylar, and Noah Bennett all find ways of going medieval on one another (and the rest of humanity) in horrible revenge, largely justifiable preventative strikes, or completely in-character psychopathic rampaging as the case may be! :D :D Yes, yes, some of the heroes are annoying. Claire Bennett and Peter Petrelli are dumb in ways that only main characters are usually dumb, but their screen time is balanced so well against so many other, more complicated characters that you hardly notice they're the central axes around which the plots grind on.
I want to write more now, because Boss just stepped out and the day hostess just stepped in, but I can't think of anything. Weird. I'm'a go smoke a cigarette and read some more Lord Darcy stories and probably aggravate this fun flu I've got.
we could sway the night away
the steps of the dance
are best left up to chance
better beautiful than perfect anyway
While the moon wanes and waxes,
death and taxes are lurking out there
Life is grand
Love is real
Beauty is everywhere
--the Peacemakers
Last night I said to Dave I'd been thinking "Beauty Is Everywhere" by the Peacemakers would be a great theme song for the year 2008. He said since it's really been the theme song of the last few months of him and me, it'd be kind of a Johnny-come-lately to give it to next year. So I've been pondering the question and I think I have a candidate. "How Do You Afford Your Rock and Roll Lifestyle" by Cake. Because we can't afford the sort of rock and roll lifestyle to which we would like to become accustomed, and 2008 will likely remind us of that repeatedly.
And again, Dave being smart. I was saying, there's all this debate and discussion and newshounding about baseball because it has nothing to do with the powerful factions who control our lives and steal our money, so we're "allowed" to develop real news about it. He says that's not even the issue. It's just there's too many people who all care about completely different things, and not enough people at the same time care about any one of the things I mentioned to do anything about it.
I had a scary moment last night--I went online and paid the past due balance on the electric bill, then went to my bank's website to check my balance. Turned out the paycheck I put in early evening last Friday had not, at that point, posted. I'd run the groceries as credit on Saturday and the electric company webpage said "pay with credit/debit/ATM" so I'm thinking it wouldn't have posted till today anyhow. But still I turned to Dave and was like, "I think I'll pay the gas bill and order us more tobacco tomorrow." I looked this morning and, yay! My check has now posted and I didn't get any overdraft fees. Still, I feel it was a near thing.
The Heroes season finale was so awesome last night! *wagwag* I simply must get both seasons of that show on DVD at some point. I suspect it's one of those shows that, like Arrested Development, gets miles better when you watch a whole bunch of episodes in a row so all the references make sense because they stuck in your mind. Granted, with AD it's hilarious details instead of dramatic ones, but I like this series so much they'd stick in my mind anyway, week to week. Spose I'm now a bona fide fan and all. I like them all! Even the villains are complex enough that I don't condemn them and in a way I root for them as well! I can't wait to see what happens when Adam Monroe aka Takezo Kensei, Angela Petrelli, Bob, Sylar, and Noah Bennett all find ways of going medieval on one another (and the rest of humanity) in horrible revenge, largely justifiable preventative strikes, or completely in-character psychopathic rampaging as the case may be! :D :D Yes, yes, some of the heroes are annoying. Claire Bennett and Peter Petrelli are dumb in ways that only main characters are usually dumb, but their screen time is balanced so well against so many other, more complicated characters that you hardly notice they're the central axes around which the plots grind on.
I want to write more now, because Boss just stepped out and the day hostess just stepped in, but I can't think of anything. Weird. I'm'a go smoke a cigarette and read some more Lord Darcy stories and probably aggravate this fun flu I've got.
welcome the club
Been whinin' about no dream logs lately, so here's the fragment I remember.
Me and other person had climbed to the top of a something. It was the end of a long plotline of searching, climbing and finding. We were indoors, but a window beyond the top of the pile of whatever it was we were climbing looked out onto the road beyond. Daytime, not sure what season. Up on a shelf to my left as I reached the top I found a round white disc, bout as big as a dollar coin. Made of plastic or wood covered in that white covering that makes it feel like plastic. Patina of dirt across the surface, like the old dry dirt you find on the flat surface next to a potted plant that's been there awhile. On the face printed in black ink was an old-timey symbol of clubs. I didn't think it aloud but I recognized it was the ace of clubs. The person I was climbing with saw it too as I picked it up; neither of us said anything. I was going to kiss the disc but I didn't want to get the dirt that was on it in my mouth, so I brushed it across my cheek and it only slightly touched my lips. Then I turned to the person I'd been climbing with. She was wearing a white button-down shirt and seemed to be hurt or in pain somehow, so she took her shirt off (or we did?). And underneath she was wearing something like a cross between that weird twisty looking black "aromor" chick sorceresses wear in the movies, some sort of medical device (like the electroshock pads the main character guy strapped to his head in that scene in Running With Scissors) or a brace of some kind. It went all over her ribcage and supported her breasts as well, though there the black material held together white bandages. I touched the end of one of the curly parts and it bent up a little bit, like it wasn't firmly attached.
Important themes include: fire magic (ace of clubs). Dave (I got a sense the girl represented him, not one of my brain-sprites! I'd dreamed him last night as well, the dream where we were in the still-under-construction shop that had a bar where they had designer air on tap). Fear of contamination or bad patterns from the past (dirt, weird medical "support/armor" device).
They gonna take private parties away from me. Soon, soon I hope! And I gonna stay. Either I'm a dumb bunny or this is my best vantage point to come into the new year, 2008, which I have already named the Year of Great Change. I've so enjoyed the Year Without Disaster and in many ways I wish it could go on.
Bought my new dayplanner today. I want to start studying it now so by the time the Year rolls around I can make it my mental dayplanner as well. This visual imagination stuff, I've got to do, got to get less remedial in, before I can move forward with so many other things.
Me and other person had climbed to the top of a something. It was the end of a long plotline of searching, climbing and finding. We were indoors, but a window beyond the top of the pile of whatever it was we were climbing looked out onto the road beyond. Daytime, not sure what season. Up on a shelf to my left as I reached the top I found a round white disc, bout as big as a dollar coin. Made of plastic or wood covered in that white covering that makes it feel like plastic. Patina of dirt across the surface, like the old dry dirt you find on the flat surface next to a potted plant that's been there awhile. On the face printed in black ink was an old-timey symbol of clubs. I didn't think it aloud but I recognized it was the ace of clubs. The person I was climbing with saw it too as I picked it up; neither of us said anything. I was going to kiss the disc but I didn't want to get the dirt that was on it in my mouth, so I brushed it across my cheek and it only slightly touched my lips. Then I turned to the person I'd been climbing with. She was wearing a white button-down shirt and seemed to be hurt or in pain somehow, so she took her shirt off (or we did?). And underneath she was wearing something like a cross between that weird twisty looking black "aromor" chick sorceresses wear in the movies, some sort of medical device (like the electroshock pads the main character guy strapped to his head in that scene in Running With Scissors) or a brace of some kind. It went all over her ribcage and supported her breasts as well, though there the black material held together white bandages. I touched the end of one of the curly parts and it bent up a little bit, like it wasn't firmly attached.
Important themes include: fire magic (ace of clubs). Dave (I got a sense the girl represented him, not one of my brain-sprites! I'd dreamed him last night as well, the dream where we were in the still-under-construction shop that had a bar where they had designer air on tap). Fear of contamination or bad patterns from the past (dirt, weird medical "support/armor" device).
They gonna take private parties away from me. Soon, soon I hope! And I gonna stay. Either I'm a dumb bunny or this is my best vantage point to come into the new year, 2008, which I have already named the Year of Great Change. I've so enjoyed the Year Without Disaster and in many ways I wish it could go on.
Bought my new dayplanner today. I want to start studying it now so by the time the Year rolls around I can make it my mental dayplanner as well. This visual imagination stuff, I've got to do, got to get less remedial in, before I can move forward with so many other things.
no alarms and no surprises, please
End of day yesterday Mohammad and Zubair proposed to me that they train someone else to take over private parties for me (Jaye, she's got conceirge skillz) and I stay. I said I'd think about it.
This morning Roberta, one of our pastry cooks, found out her father died. I really suck at comforting the grieving but I managed to sit with her and hug her and not put my foot too far into my mouth. I told her, I wish I loved my parents that much. I didn't tell her I envied the purity and power of her grief because to say you envy someone whose beloved parent just passed is really, really bad form. At one point me and Mohammad and Zubair were talking about rent and Elmer's foibles and she rushed out of the room. Which confused me until I found out much later in the day that her father's name was also Elmer. Oops. By all accounts Roberta's father was a wonderful man and will be sore missed not just by her. A few people have asked for the funeral info and she gave it to me over the phone (hence I found out his first name) and am holding it till said people ask me for it.
I am sick. Realized I was sick last night--sore throat, sniffles, whole nine yards. Today has been a horrid day but we managed to get things mostly worked out. I'm sitting here typing in my blog because I can't do payroll stuff, because Zubair didn't edit the punch-in, punch-outs for me last night and today kept getting derailed by crisis after crisis. But he will come back in tonight; I'm hoping he can do them for me tonight and I can do the Excel part, so that it'll be easy to finish up and submit the file tomorrow so the checks arrive Friday. Really really want the checks to arrive Friday. Want to pay December's rent and spend my remaining fifty bucks on some laundry, maybe put some money in my buscard.
Gotta type up menus for tonights private dining event. Later.
This morning Roberta, one of our pastry cooks, found out her father died. I really suck at comforting the grieving but I managed to sit with her and hug her and not put my foot too far into my mouth. I told her, I wish I loved my parents that much. I didn't tell her I envied the purity and power of her grief because to say you envy someone whose beloved parent just passed is really, really bad form. At one point me and Mohammad and Zubair were talking about rent and Elmer's foibles and she rushed out of the room. Which confused me until I found out much later in the day that her father's name was also Elmer. Oops. By all accounts Roberta's father was a wonderful man and will be sore missed not just by her. A few people have asked for the funeral info and she gave it to me over the phone (hence I found out his first name) and am holding it till said people ask me for it.
I am sick. Realized I was sick last night--sore throat, sniffles, whole nine yards. Today has been a horrid day but we managed to get things mostly worked out. I'm sitting here typing in my blog because I can't do payroll stuff, because Zubair didn't edit the punch-in, punch-outs for me last night and today kept getting derailed by crisis after crisis. But he will come back in tonight; I'm hoping he can do them for me tonight and I can do the Excel part, so that it'll be easy to finish up and submit the file tomorrow so the checks arrive Friday. Really really want the checks to arrive Friday. Want to pay December's rent and spend my remaining fifty bucks on some laundry, maybe put some money in my buscard.
Gotta type up menus for tonights private dining event. Later.
Tuesdays with Abhorrent Fiends vol. 21
Happy Tuesday for true!
Something in motion, as that race of cat-people in that novel Black/on/Black might say. What it is, who knows?
Me and Dave had a great time last night. Just having our normal evening. The undercurrent of strain that sometimes mars it was not there, or rather got banished early on in the evening and didn't come back. All to the good. We watched Heroes (yay!) and a Twilight Zone called "Eye of the Beholder" whose twist I totally called like five minutes into the episode. Dave had already seen it, so I just looked over and saw him smile that sharp (but happy in this case!) little smile of his and knew I was right.
Aye, I wonder if we could play Mafia together these days. Years ago when we tried it it didn't work, because withholding information from each other hurt too much and made us distrustful and moody.
I am envious of Val Con and Miri and their wizardy lifemate bond, having just re-read Agent of Change and Carpe Diem. If we work at it, who knows, perhaps Dave and I can do some of the things they do. Things seem to be moving in a way that our magics are becoming more entwined. Nothing visible or especially explainable to others just yet. It doesn't frustrate me like it used to that I can't use my gift on Dave--y'know, the one where I reach for the right words and they just come. Better that way. Better that we both should have to work to learn the secret languages of the other; magic and love are both terribly, wonderfully important things and there should be no glibness in combining them!
I got in early and got to hang out with Clarissa for awhile this morning. (Time so far today has grooved most propitiously for me. Look, I'm getting a chance to make a blog post at work two days in a row! How often does that happen?) We talked mostly witchy stuff. I'm always surprised when I do get to use my gift with someone. Because I mostly hang out with Dave, who is exempt, Dad, who is immune (due to his misery system), and people at work, with whom that type of interaction would be inappropriate and weird. The idea keeps coming up between us how cool it would be to [interrupted here] get together a gaggle of our witchy friends and relatives so we could all share ideas and learn from each other and just have people to talk to who understood. The interruption was Mohammad walking into the room and working on something else, then leaving without asking me for anything. A good image of my hesitation on the issue. We all have other stuff going on, and even if it's very casual, bringing together a group of self-aware magic users (as distinct from those not aware of their magic use, which is almost everybody!) is a major big deal thing and best to let grow into its own time. If enough of us feel a need, things will come together so that it can happen. If we try to force it beforehand, the relationships that would need to develop between the people would be stunted and weirdified and it would cause unnecessary conflicts.
But! Among other things we ended up mentioning New Orleans and Chicago. How Chicago likes its people best when they've got their minds on their work, how we both think of the big statue of Ceres at the Board of Trade as looking down with approval at the endless stream of working people striding purposefully by with numbers and to-do lists clanking away in their heads. She says she doesn't think New Orleans likes anybody; people do strange things when they go there. She says she thinks New Orleans likes to bring out the worst in people just to see what's there, just to see what they'll do. Another swamp, like Chicago but unlike. I would, I think, enjoy visiting New Orleans at some point just to see what pops up (my guess would be its weirdness would manifest for me with invisible stuff mostly, but who knows? best to have health insurance before traveling there!)--but like Clarissa, I don't think I'd enjoy living in a city with a personality like that.
And I told her how I talked to Jimmy last week for the first time in ages. He's still there, still snickering at me and working behind the curtain. We exchanged like two sentences, but he cured my writers' block on Anatomy of Trust by giving me a new idea! The faculties, he said, are the defining characteristic of a sapient entity. By which he referred to the faculties of the imagination [interrupted by phone] .
Bah. I feel the end of the time of blog-typing, alas. Strange as it seems my workload so far today is rather light, since I rely on Boss and big Z to do things before I can get started on my real work. Be that as it may.
Something in motion, as that race of cat-people in that novel Black/on/Black might say. What it is, who knows?
Me and Dave had a great time last night. Just having our normal evening. The undercurrent of strain that sometimes mars it was not there, or rather got banished early on in the evening and didn't come back. All to the good. We watched Heroes (yay!) and a Twilight Zone called "Eye of the Beholder" whose twist I totally called like five minutes into the episode. Dave had already seen it, so I just looked over and saw him smile that sharp (but happy in this case!) little smile of his and knew I was right.
Aye, I wonder if we could play Mafia together these days. Years ago when we tried it it didn't work, because withholding information from each other hurt too much and made us distrustful and moody.
I am envious of Val Con and Miri and their wizardy lifemate bond, having just re-read Agent of Change and Carpe Diem. If we work at it, who knows, perhaps Dave and I can do some of the things they do. Things seem to be moving in a way that our magics are becoming more entwined. Nothing visible or especially explainable to others just yet. It doesn't frustrate me like it used to that I can't use my gift on Dave--y'know, the one where I reach for the right words and they just come. Better that way. Better that we both should have to work to learn the secret languages of the other; magic and love are both terribly, wonderfully important things and there should be no glibness in combining them!
I got in early and got to hang out with Clarissa for awhile this morning. (Time so far today has grooved most propitiously for me. Look, I'm getting a chance to make a blog post at work two days in a row! How often does that happen?) We talked mostly witchy stuff. I'm always surprised when I do get to use my gift with someone. Because I mostly hang out with Dave, who is exempt, Dad, who is immune (due to his misery system), and people at work, with whom that type of interaction would be inappropriate and weird. The idea keeps coming up between us how cool it would be to [interrupted here] get together a gaggle of our witchy friends and relatives so we could all share ideas and learn from each other and just have people to talk to who understood. The interruption was Mohammad walking into the room and working on something else, then leaving without asking me for anything. A good image of my hesitation on the issue. We all have other stuff going on, and even if it's very casual, bringing together a group of self-aware magic users (as distinct from those not aware of their magic use, which is almost everybody!) is a major big deal thing and best to let grow into its own time. If enough of us feel a need, things will come together so that it can happen. If we try to force it beforehand, the relationships that would need to develop between the people would be stunted and weirdified and it would cause unnecessary conflicts.
But! Among other things we ended up mentioning New Orleans and Chicago. How Chicago likes its people best when they've got their minds on their work, how we both think of the big statue of Ceres at the Board of Trade as looking down with approval at the endless stream of working people striding purposefully by with numbers and to-do lists clanking away in their heads. She says she doesn't think New Orleans likes anybody; people do strange things when they go there. She says she thinks New Orleans likes to bring out the worst in people just to see what's there, just to see what they'll do. Another swamp, like Chicago but unlike. I would, I think, enjoy visiting New Orleans at some point just to see what pops up (my guess would be its weirdness would manifest for me with invisible stuff mostly, but who knows? best to have health insurance before traveling there!)--but like Clarissa, I don't think I'd enjoy living in a city with a personality like that.
And I told her how I talked to Jimmy last week for the first time in ages. He's still there, still snickering at me and working behind the curtain. We exchanged like two sentences, but he cured my writers' block on Anatomy of Trust by giving me a new idea! The faculties, he said, are the defining characteristic of a sapient entity. By which he referred to the faculties of the imagination [interrupted by phone] .
Bah. I feel the end of the time of blog-typing, alas. Strange as it seems my workload so far today is rather light, since I rely on Boss and big Z to do things before I can get started on my real work. Be that as it may.
so green and dumb
Need a new job so bad I can taste it. So mad at Ladyboss though I know it's nothing personal. Just her lack of understanding about how frustrating my job is coupled with the misery of still having to run a business with your flutterheaded husband and brother-in-law while eight-plus months pregnant. And an unreliable and lazy employee sitting at your desk and following up on your work to worry about as well! Yah, I am a trial to her. That she requires emotional response of me, is her trained reflex, not an evil plot to eat my soul, I know. But I have been so frustrated and overworked here that it is hard for me not to react according to my reflexes when she reacts with hers.
Things are well between me and Dave, very well. Last Wednesday we went out and saw No Country for Old Men after I got home! Dave said we needed to get out of the house and do stuff to prevent us getting antsy and snapping at each other, and bless him, he was right. Thanksgiving at his aunt and uncle's was wonderful; good food, good company, good times. Me and Paula and one of Dave's girl cousins are going to see that psychic who doesn't suck, Mina, at some point in December. I look forward to it. After my bad experience with Lisa last year it'll do me good to see a pro who is on the level. Confirm and/or disconfirm my feelings on the shape of the time and all that. And on Saturday we went to see Local H in Schaumburg. I though it was a great show, if only the floor hadn't been so slippery it hindered the moshpit. Too short a set; we suspect the couple standing up by the monitors in front of us who didn't move or get into it gave the band the idea the rest of the crowd was half-hearted. But they covered Skulls and Bad Moon and played What Would You Have Me Do, so there were some lovely surprises!
Here I am at work, trying not to dread the rest of my day. It occurred to me on Friday that my menagerie (which I am telling more people more about, which leads me to suspect I am coming towards a major shift in its role!) is a set of templates of demons--negative entities. That each one has a positive counterpart, which I may well end up calling elementals, who represent the non-parasitic modes of each energy state / interaction type. That Roach, for example, may also be called Frenzy and Dread, that Fly may also be called Boredom and Peevishness, tells me things. Incomplete and hopelessly useless descriptors both, but still fair indicators that my creatures are things to be watched for and guarded against, not deployed for use. If I ever want ones that may be deployed for use I will have to generate better creatures. Which means in turn that I will have to discipline my mind and spirit together with some practice, whether I make a full adaptation of the Scouts' Rainbow or some other exercise.
Spoke to Jimmy the other day, may have been Wednesday night. My mind was just calmed enough to be able to do it. He's still there, listening and nudging, ready to tell me whatever as soon as I'm ready to listen. It's me that's too dense and crowded right now to be able to clear a landing strip for things from the other view, so to speak. I'm a mess, as regards almost everything but Dave, and well do I know it.
I try to feel confident that I'll find another job, but I haven't sent out resumes for more than a week. Not feeling very confident of late. Dad's ill luck, or his sense of it, maybe rubbed off on me a little. Hells bells, I'd even take another restaurant office manager job if it was at a place where things were run more sanely and my bosses were capable of separating out their professional from their personal melant'i.
Just gotta keep moving, hope some of the shit misses the fan and hits the wall.
[time passes; day almost over]
Got a call from Jolene at my favorite employment agency. She has a number of someone for me to contact which she left in my voicemail. Woot!
Ladyboss was here a lot of the day today and I didn't want to kill her even though our usual rules applied. Woot!
Missed the chance to have a smoke with Dave this lunch hour. Boo.
Missed staff meal because I was down here doing party-related work with Malika. Boo.
Things are well between me and Dave, very well. Last Wednesday we went out and saw No Country for Old Men after I got home! Dave said we needed to get out of the house and do stuff to prevent us getting antsy and snapping at each other, and bless him, he was right. Thanksgiving at his aunt and uncle's was wonderful; good food, good company, good times. Me and Paula and one of Dave's girl cousins are going to see that psychic who doesn't suck, Mina, at some point in December. I look forward to it. After my bad experience with Lisa last year it'll do me good to see a pro who is on the level. Confirm and/or disconfirm my feelings on the shape of the time and all that. And on Saturday we went to see Local H in Schaumburg. I though it was a great show, if only the floor hadn't been so slippery it hindered the moshpit. Too short a set; we suspect the couple standing up by the monitors in front of us who didn't move or get into it gave the band the idea the rest of the crowd was half-hearted. But they covered Skulls and Bad Moon and played What Would You Have Me Do, so there were some lovely surprises!
Here I am at work, trying not to dread the rest of my day. It occurred to me on Friday that my menagerie (which I am telling more people more about, which leads me to suspect I am coming towards a major shift in its role!) is a set of templates of demons--negative entities. That each one has a positive counterpart, which I may well end up calling elementals, who represent the non-parasitic modes of each energy state / interaction type. That Roach, for example, may also be called Frenzy and Dread, that Fly may also be called Boredom and Peevishness, tells me things. Incomplete and hopelessly useless descriptors both, but still fair indicators that my creatures are things to be watched for and guarded against, not deployed for use. If I ever want ones that may be deployed for use I will have to generate better creatures. Which means in turn that I will have to discipline my mind and spirit together with some practice, whether I make a full adaptation of the Scouts' Rainbow or some other exercise.
Spoke to Jimmy the other day, may have been Wednesday night. My mind was just calmed enough to be able to do it. He's still there, listening and nudging, ready to tell me whatever as soon as I'm ready to listen. It's me that's too dense and crowded right now to be able to clear a landing strip for things from the other view, so to speak. I'm a mess, as regards almost everything but Dave, and well do I know it.
I try to feel confident that I'll find another job, but I haven't sent out resumes for more than a week. Not feeling very confident of late. Dad's ill luck, or his sense of it, maybe rubbed off on me a little. Hells bells, I'd even take another restaurant office manager job if it was at a place where things were run more sanely and my bosses were capable of separating out their professional from their personal melant'i.
Just gotta keep moving, hope some of the shit misses the fan and hits the wall.
[time passes; day almost over]
Got a call from Jolene at my favorite employment agency. She has a number of someone for me to contact which she left in my voicemail. Woot!
Ladyboss was here a lot of the day today and I didn't want to kill her even though our usual rules applied. Woot!
Missed the chance to have a smoke with Dave this lunch hour. Boo.
Missed staff meal because I was down here doing party-related work with Malika. Boo.
home without you
(Had a bit of a fight with Dave last night. I hurt his feelings, his feelings took revenge on him, I got upset and overreacted, none of it was as exciting as it sounds, except inside our brains and hearts and souls.
Song comes in through a hole in you. This punched through. Wrote the choruses first, thinking it was a slow sad song. Then I heard fast guitars in my head, realized it was a running/driving speed song, and got the verses.
Sitting right here at my desk the day before Thanksgiving. This is the first thing I've written since I started this job I have.
edited 11-27-07, switched some things around. choruses 1 and 2 were bothering me, so I swapped the 3-line parts at the beginning and changed the trees. maple is a word that does not belong in this song!)
[home without you]
your fire is hard
to see, villages charred
and trees hanging by the roots
walk a mile in your boots
all-consuming pursuit
not maple not a larch
from September into March
left you weeping like a willow
tell you that I never will go
tell you that I never will go
home without you
your river is underground
running to blur the sound
fast enough to crack
every mountain on your back
every chain where your heart is bound
not a woman or a man
you're a hand upon my hand
you're a face upon my pillow
love I tell you that there is no
tell you that there is no
home without you
your lover is penitent
we're none of us heaven sent
got here on our feet
I was learning to be sweet
baby I don't know where it went
not a goddess or a wretch
you are all I want to catch
I am wrapped around your thumb
tell you that I'll never come
tell you that I never will come
home without you
Song comes in through a hole in you. This punched through. Wrote the choruses first, thinking it was a slow sad song. Then I heard fast guitars in my head, realized it was a running/driving speed song, and got the verses.
Sitting right here at my desk the day before Thanksgiving. This is the first thing I've written since I started this job I have.
edited 11-27-07, switched some things around. choruses 1 and 2 were bothering me, so I swapped the 3-line parts at the beginning and changed the trees. maple is a word that does not belong in this song!)
[home without you]
your fire is hard
to see, villages charred
and trees hanging by the roots
walk a mile in your boots
all-consuming pursuit
not maple not a larch
from September into March
left you weeping like a willow
tell you that I never will go
tell you that I never will go
home without you
your river is underground
running to blur the sound
fast enough to crack
every mountain on your back
every chain where your heart is bound
not a woman or a man
you're a hand upon my hand
you're a face upon my pillow
love I tell you that there is no
tell you that there is no
home without you
your lover is penitent
we're none of us heaven sent
got here on our feet
I was learning to be sweet
baby I don't know where it went
not a goddess or a wretch
you are all I want to catch
I am wrapped around your thumb
tell you that I'll never come
tell you that I never will come
home without you
Tuesdays With Abhorrent Fiends vol. 20
Happy Thanksgiving Eve eve.
I have no idea what I am doing on Thanksgiving. If I go to T-day dinner with Dave's relatives, we gotta get there super early in the afternoon. Which means if I DO have T-day brunch at home with Dad as I'd been assuming, I gotta get up on time and no dawdling around over chitchat. I don't know what Amber and Pearl are doing, and even with this, Amber called last night and I didn't answer! Is it really this job that's making me like this? I was bad before but I just don't know. Maybe I shouldn't be so hard on myself. It's just the imagined weight of other people's expectations and the obligations that come with loyalty is heavy on my mind. I tend to react to that heaviness by slowing down and sometimes grinding to a complete standstill, which is another face of the problem.
You know what, on a completely unrelated note? I love working accounts payable. I really do. I like talking to vendors on the phone and making sure our books match, and then if they don't getting documents from them and entering them until they DO match. I love taking copious notes and logging every conceivable piece of information relating to an account or a transaction. I love even the process of such filing and note-taking. Because the whole time I'm picturing my future self or future co-worker frantically searching for this one piece of information that someone is yelling about, finding my work and saying "Aha!" and dashing off to make everything better. I like getting people the money they're owed. I like taking bills and making them go away. If I can't do it in my own life, at least I can do it at work, ya?
If my job here was just accounting and payroll, I could do it. It's the private parties thing that drives me completely insane. It's a full-time job and eats my entire day two or three days out of the week. Accounting stuff is always last priority. Guests and parties can't wait, vendors and employees can. Arrgh. Granted, all of my bosses are very human about things when you get a chance to sit them down and have them understand what is actually happening. But if they're rushed, or have incomplete info, or I confuse them with too many things, it's all "they can wait!" "I'll take care of it! (proceeds not to take care of it)" and "why are you wasting your time with this?" Maybe it would be easier with only one boss. Maybe it would be easier with only two hats. I swear to dog if they hire a fulltime private party person I would be willing to stay here longer. Possibly a very long time. Now that I don't suck quite so much at my three jobs I don't dread the day as much, some days hardly at all. I just hate things slipping through the cracks, I hate the fact that I have to do a mediocre job all around because it's either that or be wonderful on one thing and completely fail at the other two. And failing at any one would be an unmitigated disaster for the restaurant.
So I love accounts department stuff enough to want to do that as my day job for the rest of my life if I have to. If I can't, you know, work part-time while I'm getting my doctorate in something somewhere. Or find some way to write enough things to have people read and buy them. Or find some way to record my music so people can listen to it. That last I'm getting increasingly pessimistic about. Even the writing, I'm getting pessimistic about. I'm starting to look forward to working until I die as long as the work doesn't make me want to cry every day.
I was consulting with myself last night, mourning that I haven't been having dreams or unusual communications or experiences lately. And I asked myself, Do you really want them? Do you really, actually want them? I had to say, Not really. Not now. I haven't got the emotional energy to spare. Well then that's why.
I know enough about the personality's interactions with gravity now to know that unless I'm facing death, incredibly old and facing death, or some other such extreme circumstance, levitation is probably out of the question. It requires a total and unadulterated lightness of being. Any emotional baggage whatsoever, any interface other than what you're born with, any film slipped between your inner eye and the world, and the circuit can't complete. When Christ said we had to be as little children to enter the kingdom of heaven, he was talking about a lot of stuff. But in this sense it's undeniable. Building a personality is like building an onion, like that famous chambered nautilus that dead guy wrote the poem about. Layer by layer, the soul is protected from the universe by the very same tissues that permit it to be a part of the universe. Naked little shell-less living creatures can do anything. Gravity itself may bend for them, and time. But naked souls desire nothing, for they have no bonds. We are too heavy to fly--but if we were any lighter, we would not be able to stand up under our own weight. We must be bound enough into the world to become what we are. So when we are old and facing death, or just facing death, maybe there can be a moment where we set all those heavy things aside, not because we do not understand them or do not honor them, but because they are no longer necessary for us.
I have no idea what I am doing on Thanksgiving. If I go to T-day dinner with Dave's relatives, we gotta get there super early in the afternoon. Which means if I DO have T-day brunch at home with Dad as I'd been assuming, I gotta get up on time and no dawdling around over chitchat. I don't know what Amber and Pearl are doing, and even with this, Amber called last night and I didn't answer! Is it really this job that's making me like this? I was bad before but I just don't know. Maybe I shouldn't be so hard on myself. It's just the imagined weight of other people's expectations and the obligations that come with loyalty is heavy on my mind. I tend to react to that heaviness by slowing down and sometimes grinding to a complete standstill, which is another face of the problem.
You know what, on a completely unrelated note? I love working accounts payable. I really do. I like talking to vendors on the phone and making sure our books match, and then if they don't getting documents from them and entering them until they DO match. I love taking copious notes and logging every conceivable piece of information relating to an account or a transaction. I love even the process of such filing and note-taking. Because the whole time I'm picturing my future self or future co-worker frantically searching for this one piece of information that someone is yelling about, finding my work and saying "Aha!" and dashing off to make everything better. I like getting people the money they're owed. I like taking bills and making them go away. If I can't do it in my own life, at least I can do it at work, ya?
If my job here was just accounting and payroll, I could do it. It's the private parties thing that drives me completely insane. It's a full-time job and eats my entire day two or three days out of the week. Accounting stuff is always last priority. Guests and parties can't wait, vendors and employees can. Arrgh. Granted, all of my bosses are very human about things when you get a chance to sit them down and have them understand what is actually happening. But if they're rushed, or have incomplete info, or I confuse them with too many things, it's all "they can wait!" "I'll take care of it! (proceeds not to take care of it)" and "why are you wasting your time with this?" Maybe it would be easier with only one boss. Maybe it would be easier with only two hats. I swear to dog if they hire a fulltime private party person I would be willing to stay here longer. Possibly a very long time. Now that I don't suck quite so much at my three jobs I don't dread the day as much, some days hardly at all. I just hate things slipping through the cracks, I hate the fact that I have to do a mediocre job all around because it's either that or be wonderful on one thing and completely fail at the other two. And failing at any one would be an unmitigated disaster for the restaurant.
So I love accounts department stuff enough to want to do that as my day job for the rest of my life if I have to. If I can't, you know, work part-time while I'm getting my doctorate in something somewhere. Or find some way to write enough things to have people read and buy them. Or find some way to record my music so people can listen to it. That last I'm getting increasingly pessimistic about. Even the writing, I'm getting pessimistic about. I'm starting to look forward to working until I die as long as the work doesn't make me want to cry every day.
I was consulting with myself last night, mourning that I haven't been having dreams or unusual communications or experiences lately. And I asked myself, Do you really want them? Do you really, actually want them? I had to say, Not really. Not now. I haven't got the emotional energy to spare. Well then that's why.
I know enough about the personality's interactions with gravity now to know that unless I'm facing death, incredibly old and facing death, or some other such extreme circumstance, levitation is probably out of the question. It requires a total and unadulterated lightness of being. Any emotional baggage whatsoever, any interface other than what you're born with, any film slipped between your inner eye and the world, and the circuit can't complete. When Christ said we had to be as little children to enter the kingdom of heaven, he was talking about a lot of stuff. But in this sense it's undeniable. Building a personality is like building an onion, like that famous chambered nautilus that dead guy wrote the poem about. Layer by layer, the soul is protected from the universe by the very same tissues that permit it to be a part of the universe. Naked little shell-less living creatures can do anything. Gravity itself may bend for them, and time. But naked souls desire nothing, for they have no bonds. We are too heavy to fly--but if we were any lighter, we would not be able to stand up under our own weight. We must be bound enough into the world to become what we are. So when we are old and facing death, or just facing death, maybe there can be a moment where we set all those heavy things aside, not because we do not understand them or do not honor them, but because they are no longer necessary for us.
Tuesdays With Abhorrent Fiends vol. 19
Happy Tuesday.
It's me and Dave's seventh anniversary. :D
He remembered (I didn't!) and he and Elmer came in to the restaurant and had lunch, at least in part so I could eat with them. It was awesome; Dave gave me a present, I got to say hi to Elmer, and I actually got to eat during the day.
Today's been super nuts because it's bill-paying day AND payroll day, which are two things that normally take up the majority of a day by themselves. Oh, and I want to get home in a timely fashion so me and Dave can hang out and get in some anniversary snuggling.
D'oh.
The longer I stay here, the more bearable it becomes--but the longer I stay, the more I see parts of myself shutting down that I really don't want to lose. I haven't written anything to shake a stick at since I came here, haven't finished anything period. Poetry won't come back to me till I'm done with this and all of that. It's a nasty thing to weigh, in my mind. This is an earth magic initiation, no question. Mohammad is an earth mage with a rare clarity to his gift and there's a lot I can learn from him. But like most people who have had success in the area of their strongest magic, he doesn't really (on an emotional level) view the other forms of magic as magic (that is, as worthwhile). I told Zubair earlier today, I feel like Michael Jordan having to make a living as a pro golfer in a society in which basketball is not valued. This is something I'm mediocre at, and the things where I'm brilliant, I have no reasonable way to put myself in a position to get paid for doing them.
Reminds me of a very cool conversation I had with Dave yesterday about the default settings we use to judge the value of people's time and allegiance. Obviously, everyone you know as an individual, you evaluate by your experience of them. But people you don't have that much of a baseline on, you judge according to your values (your religion, your res legiones, the things you have chosen). He judges people on beauty--how attractive they are, how much beauty they bring into the world around them. I judge people by magic--how much magic they have, how much magic I can learn from being around them. And Dave was like, Well, as you define magic, it's just ways to make stuff happen. And I said, Yeah, that's a very concise definition, and better than most. He's like, Well, then, I support it, and you should keep doing it.
And dangit, air magic is my strength. But you need to train your strengths to avoid losing them. Like in the Alphabet of Desire, Frustration is opposite-from-and-equal-to Atrophy.
Ai ya. Z's done stealing my compy to update the wine list. I better get my grind back to the nose-stone. Tally-ho!
It's me and Dave's seventh anniversary. :D
He remembered (I didn't!) and he and Elmer came in to the restaurant and had lunch, at least in part so I could eat with them. It was awesome; Dave gave me a present, I got to say hi to Elmer, and I actually got to eat during the day.
Today's been super nuts because it's bill-paying day AND payroll day, which are two things that normally take up the majority of a day by themselves. Oh, and I want to get home in a timely fashion so me and Dave can hang out and get in some anniversary snuggling.
D'oh.
The longer I stay here, the more bearable it becomes--but the longer I stay, the more I see parts of myself shutting down that I really don't want to lose. I haven't written anything to shake a stick at since I came here, haven't finished anything period. Poetry won't come back to me till I'm done with this and all of that. It's a nasty thing to weigh, in my mind. This is an earth magic initiation, no question. Mohammad is an earth mage with a rare clarity to his gift and there's a lot I can learn from him. But like most people who have had success in the area of their strongest magic, he doesn't really (on an emotional level) view the other forms of magic as magic (that is, as worthwhile). I told Zubair earlier today, I feel like Michael Jordan having to make a living as a pro golfer in a society in which basketball is not valued. This is something I'm mediocre at, and the things where I'm brilliant, I have no reasonable way to put myself in a position to get paid for doing them.
Reminds me of a very cool conversation I had with Dave yesterday about the default settings we use to judge the value of people's time and allegiance. Obviously, everyone you know as an individual, you evaluate by your experience of them. But people you don't have that much of a baseline on, you judge according to your values (your religion, your res legiones, the things you have chosen). He judges people on beauty--how attractive they are, how much beauty they bring into the world around them. I judge people by magic--how much magic they have, how much magic I can learn from being around them. And Dave was like, Well, as you define magic, it's just ways to make stuff happen. And I said, Yeah, that's a very concise definition, and better than most. He's like, Well, then, I support it, and you should keep doing it.
And dangit, air magic is my strength. But you need to train your strengths to avoid losing them. Like in the Alphabet of Desire, Frustration is opposite-from-and-equal-to Atrophy.
Ai ya. Z's done stealing my compy to update the wine list. I better get my grind back to the nose-stone. Tally-ho!
It's not what kills, it's not what saves
that slides to ordinary graves
but what stands naked in the waves
of doubt and crime and sloth
It's not what heals, it's not what wounds
that leapfrogs time on aching tunes
but what treads steadfast down the dunes
like scissor blades through cloth
No more to that just now.
I feel pending. Like something's going to happen. I don't feel like reading Chesterton, I don't feel like posting in my blog, work feels flat and rubbery like a water balloon that's been untied instead of broken. Weird, weird vibes this morning. I left at the same time as Dad; his car'd gotten booted so a coworker (I remembered him from when I was working there but I don't think he saw me) picked him up.
As they drove away I saw a bus I could catch idling up at the intersection and sprinted, but missed it by a few yards. Then I looked down the street the other way and coming up was the other bus I can catch, and I thought, oh good, the sprint got me here in good time. But on that bus was sitting my old acquaintance One-Eyed Fred, which is what I call him now that I'm not talking to him anymore. Interesting, interesting man, but not one I want to have as a friend. His emotions are way too confusable and undisciplined and I am a young woman and reasonably attractive and don't want the trouble that would inevitably cause. So every time I see him I make sure to pretend he's not there to the point where I don't even look at the area of the bus he's sitting in. Which is rude and uncomfortable but better than any alternative I can think of.
Then further, when I got here to work I went upstairs to see Clarissa, and she gave me coffee and was glad to see me, but was swamped by a pile of work as the thing her and her bosses had been working on all week was finally coming to a head today. So we couldn't really hang out and I took my styrofoam cup and came down to the office. Did busywork, finished my email to Myke. (Yay! I am happy there is no drama there but only camaraderie and understanding!)
And I keep getting private party calls today where people are interested in dates other people have already called dibs on. I know boss lady says not to tell people that other people already have their dates, but if in my mind I rate the probability of a group actually giving us a signed contract as 75% or higher, I can at least tell callers we have had some other inquiries on that date, right? Right? I dunno. And there's an upcoming party in like three days that I haven't even called yet today, and I have tons more accounting stuff to do, and like two people whose paychecks were incorrect need to get their corrected paychecks today. It's already the 2nd and the checks came in on Monday!
I wanted to talk to Pearl last night but I didn't call her back and she didn't call me back, so I'll call her tonight. Dog, I need to talk to Amber too. Sisters good. Being in a funk bad. Being funk good. *grumbles and curls up for a mental nap*
that slides to ordinary graves
but what stands naked in the waves
of doubt and crime and sloth
It's not what heals, it's not what wounds
that leapfrogs time on aching tunes
but what treads steadfast down the dunes
like scissor blades through cloth
No more to that just now.
I feel pending. Like something's going to happen. I don't feel like reading Chesterton, I don't feel like posting in my blog, work feels flat and rubbery like a water balloon that's been untied instead of broken. Weird, weird vibes this morning. I left at the same time as Dad; his car'd gotten booted so a coworker (I remembered him from when I was working there but I don't think he saw me) picked him up.
As they drove away I saw a bus I could catch idling up at the intersection and sprinted, but missed it by a few yards. Then I looked down the street the other way and coming up was the other bus I can catch, and I thought, oh good, the sprint got me here in good time. But on that bus was sitting my old acquaintance One-Eyed Fred, which is what I call him now that I'm not talking to him anymore. Interesting, interesting man, but not one I want to have as a friend. His emotions are way too confusable and undisciplined and I am a young woman and reasonably attractive and don't want the trouble that would inevitably cause. So every time I see him I make sure to pretend he's not there to the point where I don't even look at the area of the bus he's sitting in. Which is rude and uncomfortable but better than any alternative I can think of.
Then further, when I got here to work I went upstairs to see Clarissa, and she gave me coffee and was glad to see me, but was swamped by a pile of work as the thing her and her bosses had been working on all week was finally coming to a head today. So we couldn't really hang out and I took my styrofoam cup and came down to the office. Did busywork, finished my email to Myke. (Yay! I am happy there is no drama there but only camaraderie and understanding!)
And I keep getting private party calls today where people are interested in dates other people have already called dibs on. I know boss lady says not to tell people that other people already have their dates, but if in my mind I rate the probability of a group actually giving us a signed contract as 75% or higher, I can at least tell callers we have had some other inquiries on that date, right? Right? I dunno. And there's an upcoming party in like three days that I haven't even called yet today, and I have tons more accounting stuff to do, and like two people whose paychecks were incorrect need to get their corrected paychecks today. It's already the 2nd and the checks came in on Monday!
I wanted to talk to Pearl last night but I didn't call her back and she didn't call me back, so I'll call her tonight. Dog, I need to talk to Amber too. Sisters good. Being in a funk bad. Being funk good. *grumbles and curls up for a mental nap*
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