Greenstorm's Journal

I haven't been eating enough; I'm shrinking physically, my breasts hollowing a little bit to what I consider their normal size, my belt suddenly another notch too small. I hadn't been eating well; broke and not wanting to go home to where all my food was, that's how it fell out.

Payday happened yesterday, and a counselor's appointment (free through work benefits, my boss doesn't even know) with someone I really hit it off with and now I feel super encouraged about counseling in general. I'm hopeful that I might not have to figure out my hard stuff totally all on my own, with no way of differentiating good from bad resources. The dude actually laughed when I said funny things, or winced when I said painful ones, and answered thoughtfully when I looked him in the eye and said, "do you honestly think..."

Then the rest of my tattoo got lined on. I had thought I'd feel a little sad to look in the mirror and know I'd never see my body free of those lines again, maybe a bit wistful for it sometimes. Right now, I look at myself in the mirror and feel complete. When my shirt rides up by my waist, my body reminds me "a time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; a time to rend, and a time to sew". When I wear short shorts, or a short skirt, it tells the world "and enjoy the good of all his labor, it is the gift of God".

How can that not make you feel complete?

I have been reconnecting with so many friends. So many! Crushy architect okcupid boy is keeping himself pretty busy, which is good; I'm not resealing myself to one person. I am migrating back to my dear friends, to my heart, to my web; I feel so loved and people are so gentle to me and so caring. I feel lonely and weird pretty frequently, but I can more or less always text someone if I don't want to sit with that feeling and they will respond.

And some people (like you reading folks who responded) just spontaneously be nice to me. Seriously, guys, it's like being wrapped in the strongest cocoon ever.

So I know this is the crest of a wave. I haven't been sleeping well; date with okc boy followed by a night in the livingroom (Blake didn't want to sleep beside someone who was tainted by the touch of someone else, I suppose) and then another last night. This morning he came out of the bedroom and said I could sleep in the bed with him if I wanted. I do want, but it wasn't the time or place for me to have a discussion about how I had every intention of being an icky dirty slutty slut slut and having sex or sex-like encounters with my friends on and off as I felt like it, and did he want me to disclose that before I took him up on the offer?

My sex drive has apparently woken up. Not surprising, I guess, that it wandered off after being poked by a painful stick whenever it stepped out of line (and honestly, mine is always out of line). Gonna be a challenge to keep it pointed in productive, non-harmful directions. I've gotta remember my pretty fantastic options for lovers are mostly available to me now and not automatically cross them off the list because it's too much hassle to come home to a sad house after.

Um, but I did eat well yesterday, and the plan is to find somewhere better to sleep than my livingroom tonight (Taoshi the rabbit has learned that if she rattles her cage beside my head I will get up to feed her to shut her up, which causes her to rattle the cage more, unless that was Mella doing that). I'm having food with people tonight, so another full meal, and hopefully my stomach will expand to a reasonable size again. I told my counselor that food and sleep were my priorities this week, and he agreed that pretty much made sense (totally by his facial expressions, not some weird formal counselor-language. I seriously love this guy).

And apparently I'm kind of back to journalling. It's pretty damn good right now. You'll no doubt hear when it's not.

I've been neglecting this in favour of my written journal this week, especially last night when I sat down and wrote for an hour in my brand new paper book because, well, it was new. I went to dinner after that and my friend asked me, "what do you write about?" I gave him the list: the way the book smelled, the way I ended the last journal (with a half-finished paragraph and a pen that ran out of ink, which seemed inappropriate), the difficulty of starting this new journal vs the last one, the biomechanics of writing, how to carry a pen with the new book when it has no spiral binding to slip it into, then I begin to write about the topics I should cover... By this time he's laughing at how meta the list is.

And here I'm writing about talking about writing about writing.

I woke up this morning at 7:30, having decided last night I just wasn't going to freeschool this weekend. After a morning twitter scan I went back to sleep and had an apocalyptic action-romance dream starring an author I've never met or read, but know only through his tweets. The dream was a perfect two hours, had a lot of flooding and engaging camera work and emotional punch, and ended on a happy note.

I immediately got up and came here into the livingroom to write to you, livejournal, because I miss you. I definitely type more quickly than I handwrite, which perhaps might be remedied by several years of practice but which is a legacy of MUSHing with four character windows open or whatever for so long. I can generally type faster than I can think; I can handwrite about as fast as I can think.

My life is pretty good right now. I have this huge expanse of time, through August, unfurled in front of me like an empty banner and I have a paintbrush in my hand. I have work, but I don't have plans, and August is my favourite month. I mean, sure-- there's a Leo party one day, a West Wing marathon with the Writer one weekend, and a wedding-- but that I think is everything I have written down for the month. The usual suspects will fill some of the time; there's monthly Korean movie night, weekly movie night at Andrew's place which I often attend, if the Writer is doing Ramadan I think I have some business with him right about the beginning of that; I have some stuff going on on the 13th involving a movie and maybe a party. Still, I feel like I've been let loose in a playground. I have the incredible luxury of seeing people I don't normally have time to see (some of whom I feel pretty guilty about not seeing for awhile) and just doing... things. Walking down to the park and swinging on the swings is an option; going to the beach is an option; just walking in a direction or sitting in a coffee shop is an option. Taking myself out to dinner is also an option.

I can spend late evenings at work if I want, watering plants as the sun is going down around me. It's a mellow time to work, and quite lovely.

There are some flies in the ointment to set against this, of course. Now that I'm not running full steam through everything I see that I probably shouldn't spend the money and time on PAX the weekend before I start school. I know someone who wants a ticket, so this is probably okay with everyone else, and it avoids-- I'll be honest-- one of those stupid awkward poly situations which always stresses me out.

The roofers threw boards on my tomato plants, which together with the weather means maybe no crop this year.

School is really rather expensive, and so although I'm making more money than I've ever made in my life it's not disposable income-- but that always happens to me, whether it's with rats or gardening or feeding people or whatever.

My house is an incredible pigsty because I have been so busy. I expect this weekend will help remedy that.

In the last couple of weeks I've picked up the very good habit of starting every morning with a smoothie-- usually banana and some kind of milk (almond or soy) with some flax thrown in for texture. Even if I end up eating a second breakfast, having that first thing makes the whole day go more smoothly. I'm learning not to make the smoothie with blueberries (they curdle the soy milk into soft tofu) and thinking about experimenting with a grapefruit and some sort of sweet juice base. I'm considering getting some of Brendan Brazier's vegan smoothie powder to throw in there too-- I lived off it for breakfast one year and it works --but until next paycheck the answer is a definite no.

I'm really really getting better at being aware when I need care-- either self-care or when I need to ask someone to do something nice for me. Sometimes I don't do those things, but the secret is that you don't have to do -everything- if you make it a practice of generally taking care of yourself-- the base level is high enough that it doesn't bring ya down not to do one thing. Life becomes less a seething mass of need and more a matter of this or that. I expect there will be periods where I backslide, as there have been in the past, but this is not one of those.

For now I feel I am the recipient of extraordinary good fortune: I have a lovely home, very good friends, I come home to someone who loves me, I eat well, my garden is lovely if a little flattened, my job engages me, my bosses are excellent, my innamorato is thoroughly engaging, the weather is fine, there are good prospects on the horizon both near and far... I have made this life with my own hands, and I have also been blessed with it. I will set myself to enjoying it for awhile.

Came home, stared at the wall for awhile, went to sleep. Woke up to Angus coming home with cookie ingredients; not I'm up, have licked off the beaters, and am prepping to go to 'SOUL Chickens' with dark_sphere. I am unbelievably glad that I came home when I did; I know I was making mistakes, and that's saying something because I'm good at that work. The weather is being kind to me; in the rain my body is more able to rest, and also my work is lighter.

I've been thinking about asking mom to stop letting me know about what's going on. She doesn't tell me much, and generally not a lot of details, but it's pretty painful. On the other hand I really want to know-- my brothers do, and they're involved, but maybe I should wait and hear it from them? I so cannot be here for mom in this. I so would be here for my brothers if they chose to talk to me about it, which they don't much. There was one magical night when they were all over and no one else was here-- I should recreate that, actually.

Sleep definitely cut the panic. I can handle myself at this point. I could not this morning.

I keep wondering-- there's definitely the possibility that this journal or anything else of mine on the internet could be found and used in this battle. I hope it isn't, but I refuse to keep off the internet just in case.

Enough of that. Here's with the not thinking about it. I need to do more one-on-one social stuff, snuggly and comfy, and also knock things off my to-do list. That makes me feel productive, with nothing hanging over me, and loved, with neat and interesting people to distract and fulfill me in their various ways.

Also, gotta limit the sugar and refined stuff, and zero my caffeine. I've been lazy about it in the last couple of months and is it ever showing.

Bike loaner coming from Walker, makes me happy. I'll get my own wheels next paycheck or two.

I think I can pack dinner to eat during the presentation this evening. I've been having trouble eating food in my own house or made by my own hands-- always a sign of stress for me --and it's led to too much on-the-fly eating out and then not eating at all sometimes.

Time to get back on track. Luxuriating in dysfunction is over.