Burning Off

Seems like I'm in one of my high-functioning phases. Last night was another short one, and I feel a little more together this morning than I did yesterday morning after nine hours sleep. I've been exercising terrible self-care and I've enlisted help in eating more than one meal today. I have been getting a lot done, but that's mostly because the things I do aren't things I need to think about... much.

I went down to the party in the states, it was a Cancer birthday party for a bunch of people born... well, around now. It was fun, and though I didn't know many people there it was the sort of environment I'm comfortable in-- casual nudity is just part of it, people are nice to each other, there's random dancing and chatting and physical interaction but all respectful. There was also a bunch of fire stuff-- poi spinning, staves, and an awesome thingy on a chain. One particular woman spun poi to Queen's "Fat Bottomed Girls" and though I try to keep flash-in-the-pan words out of my livejournal it was epic.

In the morning there was sunshine, breakfast outside, a little bit of post-apoc talk, and a pretty boy who's taking horticulture. He tried to explain compartmentalization and hissed at ivy. It was a pretty sweet morning. Still, can't I meet a gardener from my own city that I haven't made by my own hand?

On the ride home I heatstroked myself-- the sun was on the back of my neck and I was dehydrated and hadn't been eating much, so my body wasn't efficient at cooling and I frankly was not paying attention. That took through into yesterday night to shake off-- I tried to go home from work early yesterday but an emergency six hours was added to my workload, so I get the benefits of having to do all the work I moved from yesterday on top of today and also of having had an overtime day yesterday. Whee.

Oh well. I do like my job, my boss was properly grateful ("above and beyond") and the money will come in handy.

Last night was movie night at Andrew's-- we watched a ridiculous Japanese movie that made me super happy (something or other style 5+) and I got home super late. Five hours later here I am, journalling and listening to Alanis Morisette in the morning (? Andrew has a shirt which says 'not the doctor' and didn't know the song existed. I blame that discussion).

I definitely stay happier when I stay busy. I'm a little too busy-- I want to sew myself a folk fest skirt or two before the weekend (FOLK FEST!) but I'm not sure I've got enough time. Today after work is all Angus, all the time (well except maybe for doing a bit of rat troubleshooting with a friend) because, well, this is an awfully busy week. Fireworks, date night, and then it's off to the folk fest (I cannot believe how quickly it's crept up on me).

I am looking forward to some sleep too. And to the period that won't quit finally being actually really honestly over. It started on the 13th fergawdsakes, you wouldn't think there'd be that much in there.

I would tell you how my garden is growing but all I know is the tomatoes are flowering their damnfool heads off and that's ridiculous for July (the Silvery Fir Tree at least has greenies on it). I would tell you about my rats but they're sitting around being cute and that's basically that.

I should go do that work thing I do. It's possible I can shove a bunch of it to tomorrow, when I have a helper (!!!!!!) who I am going to train to water (!!!! the most mandatory 20 hours of Mon, Wed, and Fri is watering-- the rest is more flexible) thus allowing me to occasionally take full days off (!!!!!!)

Peace to you.

Happiness

Happiness Is The Art of Being Broken

Happiness is the art of being broken
With least sound. The old, whom circumstance
Has ground smooth as green bottle-glass
On the sea’s furious grindstone, very often
Practise it to perfection. (For them, death
Is the one definitive shrug
In an infinite series, all prior gestures
Take relevance from this, as much express
Sorrow for stiff canary or cold son.)

Always the first fragmentation
Stirs us to fear… Beyond that point
We learn where we belong, in what uncaring
Complex depths we roll, lashed by light,
Tumbling in anemone-dazzled fathoms
Seek innocence in surrender,
Senility an ironic act of charity
Easing the agony of disparateness until
That day when, all identity lost, we serve
As curios for children roaming beaches,
Makeshift monocles through which they view
The same green transitory world we also knew.

Bruce Dawe

Of No Fixed Topic

First, the ambiance. As always, put it on and listen but forget the video:

Second, the post:

Look at this! Two posts in a row. I'm not sure how long I'll hold out for, my right wrist is tweaking a bit (did I mention yesterday I did six hours of hedging with a heavy vibrating powertool and I tend to take most of the weight on my right wrist, being right-handed?) but here I am with the luxury of time, a glass of boyfriend-squeezed vanilla lemonade (one step up from "fresh lemonade" I can tell you!), an internet keyboard device, and a bit of a nap under my belt.

There are a couple things I had been intending to write about which my nap toned down a little-- also some paper journalling and first dinner with a friend of mine who let me talk away about it helped me to get most of my thoughts in order. Basically (no seriously, don't laugh!) I seem to be back in the real poly pool, and I'm having some feelings about that, namely, stark terror and nauseating guilt. I am only being a tiny bit tongue-in-cheek here. It was my original intent to go on at greater length about these feelings, and to justify them a bit, and to contrast them with how I feel about monogamy and 'sorta open' relationships. Then I could go on and discuss primary relationships vs anything else, and how that's been for me, and how all poly has been for me, etc. However-- I have done a lot of this before, here in this journal, and I'm not really feeling it. Suffice it to say that there's some internal conflict there, and move on.

I am thinking very seriously about throwing my livejournal a tenth anniversary party when I get to that point. I'm not sure what that looks like-- if it looks like a day of blogging, if it looks like me having a party centered around word-games and writing, if it looks like... well, anything. It's just sorta exciting to me to think about that happening. Ten years of written personal history means a lot to me. It's the way I remember, and so it means my memory extends back a whole decade.

Earlier I also intended to write about love. I was feeling particularly lyrical; love is a lot of things to me, and there's a lot of it in my life right now. That deserves recognition and tribute above all other things. It also deserves description, it deserves to be committed to this written memory, it deserves that I give it my best behaviour and every ounce of strength I have in me. It is an occasion to be risen to. None of that is anything new, but that doesn't make it unremarkable.

What is this, a piece of writing about things I'm not writing about? I guess so. I'm not very deep in my head right now; that nap after so many consecutive days of so little sleep left me stuck in my body like a heavy warm blanket. I can't crawl up into my head easily. This is not necessarily bad.

What I really should write about is my relationship to food of late. Food is one of my hedonistic vices, like sex, napping, sunshine, blankets, language, snuggling; well, name anything I do really. Thing is, I do those things for fun/connective reasons, to be inside myself better, and most of them I can just leave at that. Food, though-- I need to eat, and I need to eat frequently. I need to eat when I'm pushing my body hard. I need to eat when I don't have time to switch my brain over to pleasure mode. I need to eat when there's no food around up to my admittedly high standards. More and more lately, when I need to eat-- I just don't go to the trouble, and that's a problem. Add that to the fact that when I'm somewhere stressy I can't eat in that location-- it would be making myself vulnerable there, opening myself to experience instead of locking it down in my head --and things get really funny. When I have a ton of cash to throw around I buy food wherever I am whenever the mood strikes me, and that's usually enough. When I don't have the money to throw around, though... I just don't eat enough.

That seems to work out okay when combined with not sleeping enough, but I can feel my brain leaking out my ears when I ride that edge too closely. I can do things but I can't think. I will definitely have to figure this out before low cash/high stress/high thinky school kicks in.

What I really want to write about is sex, but I'm not sure I can. It used to be I'd write a lot about that kind of thing and very openly, and if someone was uncomfortable with some level of detail of their sex life being revealed online, well, they could stop fucking me. I've got a lot more respect for people's sensibilities now, and perhaps the details aren't as important to me as they once were. I keep learning things about myself, though, and rediscovering things that had temporarily drifted out of mind. It's neat how many very different ways the same themes surface.

This kind of feels like a failed entry-- I won't write about this, this, or this --so perhaps I'd better quit while I'm ahead. It's been calming to write it despite the terrible knot forming in my right shoulder (you try holding a hedger up for six hours then your arms out the next day!) and if I get into rats or todo lists that will be obliterated.

Oh, except-- the first full weekend in August I have scheduled, written down and calendared, to lie around eating proscutto and melon (and maybe artichokes etc) and watching West Wing and DOING nothing. I am so fucking excited.