If questioning would make us wise
no eyes would ever gaze in eyes;
if all our tale were told in speech
no mouths would wonder each to each.

Were spirits free from mortal mesh
and love not bound in hearts of flesh
no aching breasts would yearn to meet
and find their ecstasy complete.

For who is there that lives and knows
the secret powers by which he grows?
Were knowledge all, what were our need
to thrill and faint and sweetly bleed?

Then seek not, sweet, the "If" and "Why"
I love you now until I die.
For I must love because I live
And life in me is what you give.

-Bill Archer.

The grass is still covered in frost, and it's past noon. It's still crunchy spearmint grey, I watched Fezzie, one of my cats, pick his way across the lawn, imagining his bare paw pads burning from the cold. He looked distinctly unimpressed with the situation, I could practically hear him swearing under his fishy breath. (Cats always have fishy breath, even if they live on Science Diet)

Inigo is much more sensible, he is curled up next to the base of a radiator in the hallway, in a patch of sun from the big window in the stairwell. The sun doesn't make much difference to temperature outside in the freezing air, but behind glass it is a little warming. Inigo knows how to weather through the winter.

As I human I have the advantage of being able to resort to clothing to keep my paw pads warm. Fuzzy woolly socks and equally fuzzy woolly gloves, no tiptoing barefoot through the frost for me thank you very much.

Time to get dressed and head back into town. Only one and a half more days in Scotland, then it's on to the south of France. I wish I had a little more time here, but I'm pretty sure if I were here for the whole two weeks I'd have just ended up leaving everything until the last minute, at least this way I've been pretty efficient in my usage of time. I have bought most of the Tartan Tat (scottish-themed souvenirs) I wanted to take back, and located a gift for everyone on my list. All I need to get are the foody items I promised to take for people. I can get those tomorrow.

Now I know why I didn't get in the habit of wearing high heeled shoes of any variety while I lived in Edinburgh. Cobbled streets. And hills, steep hills and steeper little closes (alleys) that make shortcuts between streets on different levels.

CLOMP CLOMP CLOMP. This is the sound of me striding down Fleshmarket Close in my chunky red boots. CLOMP CLOMP CL-stagger-OMP. This is the sound of me narrowly avoiding: a - twisting my ankle; b - falling on my arse; c - staggering into oncoming traffic; or d - all of the above, while crossing Cockburn street, which is cobbled and steep.

It was well and truly cold today, only just above freezing in fact. It made a nice change for me. I have a warm jacket, having added woolly hat, scarf and gloves to make it draft-proof, I was able to stride about town all day, blowing misty air from my mouth and feeling my cheeks going bright pink from the sting of the air. It was lovely and still today, wind would have made the cold much less fun, and the sky was a clear icy blue, allowing the sun through to paint everything yellow (but not affect the temperature one little bit). Unlike the perma-grey that has been in force since I arrived, today there was real daylight and everything! For several hours.

24 hours till take off.

It is officially winter. The duvet has been released from its cramped confinement in a duffel bag under my bed, unfurled from its summer hibernation and draped across the bed to insulate my winter slumbers. It remains as yet uncovered, because wrestling with a king-sized duvet cover in the dark at midnight is not my idea of a good time.

Suddenly all is warm snugglies, with the squishy weight of feathers keeping us cozy. I find it much easier to sleep with the feeling of covers over me, so much so that even in an August heat wave in New Mexico I couldn't sleep without at least a sheet over me.

Tomorrow I'll be going home to an even heavier duvet, a super fluffy construction deep enough to get lost in, highly necessary in the drafty long nights of an Edinburgh winter. Besides which, it's excellent for hiding under and surprising people. Not to mention watching the cats wading across it, with their feet sinking in as though it were an indoor snowdrift.

Cats! I haven't seen my two furballs for a year and a half. I wonder if Inigo will remember me and fall back into the routine of dragging me off to bed at 11pm so that he has access to my room. I wonder if I'll smell like a stranger to them and get ignored. I realize they're they closest thing I have to children, not very close at all really, but I planned their existence and talked my parents into letting Annabelle have just one litter, I've known those two little animals since they were a couple of hours old. I can talk to my parents over the phone, and that compensates for the distance somewhat, but interaction with an animal is wordless, and you can't do that over the phone. Even if Fezzie's purr has occasionally carried down the wires.

Most things about "home" can be replaced or substituted in a new place, you can make your own home. Pick furniture, plan art projects to personalize the place, develop comfort food habits revolving around local specialties, find a new café to inhabit…but it'll be home anew, nowhere can ever be the same as the first place you called home. Not even the original place itself.

I know that when I go back, there will be moments when I'm walking down a street and it could be any point in time since I first walked down it ten or even twenty years ago (though twenty years ago it would be more toddling than walking for me). More often than not I suspect I'll be noticing how different it is, how much more like I remember London being, all the hoards of thirteen year olds with mobile phones and the snazzy sandwich places having replaced the less cosmopolitan teenagers I remember, and the cheap little bakeries that used to sell wonderful greasy pasties and pies for the local workers' lunches.

My parents house will still be both cozy and drafty as hell, but now the kitchen's actually painted, and the shabby beige living room set got sent away and came back after some major reconstructive surgery as a lovely new three piece suite in a nice burnt orange color. Not a single cat claw mark anywhere on them! I'm not even sure if the cats have been allowed to sit on them yet.

I'm going back for a visit, this is the first time it's really been so clearly just for a visit, this is the first time it's going back to where I grew up, not going home. I suppose it isn't even my second home any more, it's "back home" and my flat in North Park (A Community Of San Diego) is "home". I'm making and finding my own traditions and habits, my own signals of the changing seasons. I still can't help hoping that some day I'll live in Edinburgh again, so I can share the things I remember with Matt, and discover together new things about that city, recreate home there for myself with a different perspective.

It may never happen, I won't be distraught if it doesn't, for now it's merely a pleasant idea. A way of keeping homeclose to my heart.

Home is... Cold air and warm sun shining through bare trees. Sparkling frost on the concrete sidewalks before it gets trampled and melted by passers-by. Gusts of cold rain thrashing through my hair as I trudge up Dundas Street towards my bus home, cursing the long skirt of my school uniform that offers no protection against being soaked to my skin. The dreamy near-silence of the summer air, in which everything seems to echo slightly, the sound of my Dad trimming trees, or a car door slamming on the street, that damn bird who's call sounds exactly like our phone, or maybe it is the phone this time. That spot on the edge of Brighton Park that alwayssmells of dog poop, and nobody's ever been able to figure out if it's dogs, or just a really stinky shrub…

I had some potentially interesting thoughts about gender identity on Saturday, or rather, spurred by Saturday night's hanging out and shooting the shit. I'll probably save that till I've got more time to compose something properly.

I've solved the problem of the generic new and shiny furniture, or at least formulated a plan to. I found an untreated pine table and I'm going to stain it very lightly, and decorate it with both a pyrography wand and some little painted designs, and paint similar designs on a couple of wooden chairs to go with it. It will be very plain furniture, but the decoration will be entirely personal and idiosynchratic. This also turns out to be a pretty darn cheap option, which is always a plus. Especially after paying double rent in December, and funding Christmas presents. I figured out I can get additional storage for my kitchen, the table and two chairs all for about $160, which is a lot less than I was expecting to have to shell out. Of course that doesn't include the cost of stain, paint and lacquer, or the time investment of the decoration, but the cool part about personalizing my kitchen furniture is that it's a project, a creative passtime, and a money saver all at once.

In about 169 hours I'll be on my way to the airport to head home. One of my "homes" that is. I confuse myself saying things like "I'll bring stuff from home when I come home". At last count three places qualify as "home": my flat, Matt's place, and Edinburgh. This is a nice change from not to long ago when the internal wail of I wanna go hoooome was met with the realization that I meant Scotland, my parents, the beat up old loveseat under my loft bed and my supersized laid back tabby cat. Now I'm starting to establish a homeyness in my new place, the main thing it's lacking is that "shabby genteel" thing made up of drafty windows, semi-threadbare carpets and junk store furniture that makes my parents' house feel so well lived. I may never get used to how new and shinyeverything is here.

I think the hormonal whirlygig might be starting to wear off. Finally. Today it seems that my biggest quandary is whether or not to return those low-rise jeans I bought online, since they don't actually reveal anything untoward, just threaten to. I need more fashion advisors.

Yeah, I'm definitely shallow today, it's a relief though.

Today's the 8th luniversary too, I don't know how the past two months have gone by so fast, it seems like we only just had our big landmark 6-monther. I suppose that's just more of the whole running along smoothly thing we do so well. It seems silly to count the months now, we're just together, actually looking at the timeframe the numbers seem awfully small.

I have absolutely no idea where to start on the past week. I guess the most important thing to say after that last post is that I'm fine, healthy and as sane as I ever get, all that rot. Well, I've still got an occasional stabbing pain in my left temple, and interesting mood swings taking me from hyper-silly to hyper-depressive inside about 10 minutes. That's not entirely unusual though, migraines and PMS are all par for the course here.

I took a sick day yesterday, originally because the brightness of the kitchen light made me feel sick, while my head was still under the blanket, so Matt fed me Excedrin and I went back to sleep for a few hours. Then it kind of turned into the cliched mental health day. Even more so because the only thing I left my apartment for was to go to a counseling session.

Yesterday was the first time I'd been alone with my own thoughts long enough to figure out what I really felt, and why I felt that way. It's pretty rare for me to find it difficult being around Matt, but sometimes you just need to be alone. Completely alone. Alone and free to pull faces and cry if you need to, or stare at a wall for hours without someone asking if you're ok, to sit and think until there is a solid conclusion formed. The conclusion is that I had one of those significant life occurrences, and it was significant, but it hasn't really changed anything. That's kind of new for me, I'm used to these Life Moments being pretty tumultuous, not minor hiccups.

Only one thing still bothers me: why am I so reluctant to spit it out? Why am I still talking around it? So here we go.

I had a miscarriage last Tuesday. I didn't know, or suspect, I was pregnant, nor would I have kept it had I found out before starting on the Depo- Provera shots. It had gone four weeks at the absolute longest. It both shook me greatly and meant almost nothing to me, I suspect the largest part of the emotional response was due to my hormone levels imitating whirling dervishes. That, and my usual guilt-ridden wondering: if it's ok to not be devastated, then wondering if it's ok to be upset at all when it was really a lucky escape…then feeling guilty for thinking of it as a lucky escape, then realizing how silly thatis…

I suppose I'd always assumed that any unplanned pregnancy stuff would involve being pregnant and aware of it, not an " oh, by the way, you were pregnant for a couple weeks, but its' all over now…"

This happens all the time, every day hundreds of women miscarry, some know they're pregnant, some don't, and some never even realize it happens. It's only a tragedy for those women who desperately want a child. There are so many things that we all go through, and yet they seem utterly monumental at the time it happens to each of us. All the love/death/sex/birth stuff.

I was going somewhere with that I swear. It doesn't really matter though, because everyone knows what I'm talking about, and of the very few who read this I'm sure some are shocked, lots are concerned, and a couple are probably disgusted. Every one of them for their own reasons.

It's unusual for me to have something in my life that I worry about the potential reactions of my good friends, worry that they'll think less of me for it. I suppose it's the hint of irresponsibility, of reckless behavior. Especially on something I like to consider myself super-clued-in about. So maybe this has served as a reminder to me that you don't have to be stupid and irresponsible to get knocked up, you just have to be fertile. It's not having a game plan worked out that's stupid, not accepting that there is a possibility of it happening.

Wow, I've managed to boil this incident down to another trite little life-lesson. Go me!

It's not what happens to you , it's the way you deal with it that makes you who you are.

Does it mean it's something serious if the Doctor's office won't let you have a 10 minute walk in appointment and immediately finds you a proper time-slot that day? Bearing in mind that this is the Doctor with whom I had to make an appointment three months in advance...

It isn't like me to be scared by medical type stuff, and I know it's most likely a standard sideffect from using the hormonal variety of birth control. It's the dreams I had this morning that are making it disturbing. I don't remember ever having a dream where I was pregnant before, and in these dreams someone or something was trying to make me un-pregnant. It might even have been me, I don't know. There was this awful feeling of my body not being my own any more, not knowing what to expect from one minute to the next, feeling possessed from within and attacked from without, and not knowing whose side I was on, or wanted to be on.

It could just be because I have "issues" about the ownership of my body, of course I know it's mine, but one of the many many reasons I'm not ready for kids yet is that I need longer to prove that to myself.

Countdown to Edinburgh: Three weeks...

Clarification
For those who don't know me, my mannerisms, my goals in life and my personal motivations, (which is a lot of the people on this planet) I feel some clarification may be neccessary.

I moved into an apartment on Saturday. The only name on the lease is mine. The only person who decides when I leave said apartment is me. The only person who checks my mail is me. The only people watching my comings and goings are the little old ladies twitching their curtains. The only person who gets to comment on my housekeeping is Matt.

I did not move to make a statement to anyone, out of spite, in a fit of rage, or any other tantrum-related action you care to name. Nor did I move to indicate anything about the state of any of my relationships. My move was the sole purpose and aim of moving. It really is that ridiculously simple.

I moved because I want to live in my own place. I moved because I have come to value privacy a great deal more than I ever did, and the only way to achive the level of privacy I wish to have in my life is to live in my own place. I was not driven to it, nor was it a horrible undertaking forced upon me by evil adversaries. It was a positive life choice. What is more, the only person whose life it dramatically affects is...you guessed it...mine.

How does it affect me?

Simple. I have a home now.

Soooooo much to do! Here I was thinking moving in would be pretty much the end of it, but there's this stuff called groceries, completely from scratch. I don't even own any spices. Gack. It's all going to cost a lot of money intially, but when it comes down to it it's fun. It's an adventure. I get to figure out exactly how much parmesan I can go through in a month, and how many gallons of cream soda. I have barely been cooking for myself for months, and I have to remember how to do it again, it'll be pretty easy because I won't get distracted by a fridge full of other people's leftovers: the only things crawling around the back of my fridge will be things I put there. Or possibly Matt. Things Matt put there, not Matt crawling around my fridge.

I need a few naps to catch up on lost sleep from the past couple of months. Sometimes I feel it's to catch up on lost sleep from the past 13 months.

So far the only snag is that my mailbox has a label on it saying "R. Burford" I love it when the mis-spelling faeries give me a chance to try on a different surname.

The internet is a wonderful thing. Never mind my finding the apartment listing on wednesday morning, viewing the place that afternoon and being offered it the next morning (speedy credit checks also thanks to the internet), today I have notified my cell phone, credit card and insurance companies of my new address, and added renters insurance to my policy. I also filled out the Post Office change of address form online, then printed the DMV form and filled it out ready to mail tonight. The only one left is my bank.

I was pleasantly surprised by how handily compartmentalized my belongings are too. Though it helps that I don't have a whole hell of a lot of kitchen equipment, and I certianly don't have any foodstuffs to transport. Apart from some tubes of decorative frosting and an unopened bottle of balsamic vinegar. Charmingly picante combination you know...frosting and vinegar...they're serving it at allthe best restaurants in London these days...

Drumroll...

I am now oficially a cave troll. Though hopefully I won't find myself dragged around a giant underground city by a bunch of awks for the sole purpose of getting beaten up by four hobbits, two humans, a dwarf, an elf and a Gandalf in a pear tree.

Even if the light hadn't been an issue I think I needed to see the place again to reassure myself that it really is a liveable space. Honestly, the only real gripe I have is that it's doors on the shower, not a curtain rail, so my groovy shower curtain will have to go into cold storage. Or be loaned to Stonedragon, for his new abode. Pretty damn small complaint when you really think about it isn't it?

~Ash, the semisubterrenean faerie

I have now been accepted at / offered three different apartments. All right, so the first one was to move in November 1st, and wasn't fantastic enough to justify the extra expenditure of moving in that early. The second was teeny tiny, in a great building, but still teeny. Plus that whole closet being completely open to the bathroom thing, no thanks to moldy sweaters. The third, the one I'm going to re-view today, has little personality, the kitchen isn't a separate room, and it could very well turn out to be a cave. I saw it after dark before so I can't be sure. Besides the troll issue, do I really want to live somewhere that at most said "meh" to me, rather than somewhere that leaps up and down and calls "you could be at home here, this is a YOU place!" the moment I walk in the door?

I have seen three places where I would truly love to live, all interesting and attractive to me for very different reasons. All open way too early, or already taken. Or both. These three places I walked in the door and thought "Yes! I want to live here! This is a meplace"

Of course I'm not going to stay in this new place forever, but even if you manage to coordinate the leases, moving does cost money. There's no escaping it. So I want to minimize moves, therefore I want to live in a place that I feel I'll stay in, not a place that maybe I'll kinda sorta like being there.

Now we come to the real undercurrent to all this: maybe I don't want to find my own place. I've become very used to spending every evening and night with Matt. Not just used to, very much enjoying. We drifted into it because I wanted to be there more than anywhere else I had to go, then it became the routine. I want to change part of the routine, but I don't want to change the part that involves waking up next to him, and moving into my own place will mean that for part of the working week at least I will be staying at my place. In fact I'll make sure I do, otherwise I'm back to spending $10+ a day to store my belongings.

This is why every time I get close to signing for a place I can only think of the negatives. Though when I really think about it that teeny studio was too teeny (not to mention the closet thing) and this one may very well be a cave. I'll find out in about 30 minutes when I go to look at it in the middle of a sunny day.

If I do turn my nose up at this place there's a couple more prospects, and there's always next week's Reader, and neighborhood walking this weekend. As long as my subconscious remembers it's place and stops pointing out how much nicer it would be if the window were over there instead of where it really is…

Holy jet-lagged tartan batman!

A month from today I'll be heading home for the first time in over a year. November is going fast, way too fast considering everything I still need to get done.

Countdown to Edinburgh: 5 weeks.

Rain.

Friday.

Three-day weekend ahead.

Plushe was wearing that fuzzy dark teal sweater this morning.

Life is good.

I gave up, and replaced the template entirely. I think I've remembered all the people that I had linked on my blog roll, if I think of anyone else I'll add them on again. When I get around to owning a computer other than my jumped-up word processor of a 486 Compaq laptop I'll take the time to figure out html beyond my current cut-and-paste abilities and think up something more originally me.

Currently the server seems to be denying the existance of my blog, but it'll allow access to the archived pages. Go figure.

It accepted the new post on "Past. Present. Future: perfect?" though.

You may notice the template is screwing up a little. I managed to fix it so that the links down the left are the colour they're supposed to be, instead of occasionally teal or magenta as they were this morning. I've gone in an "fixed" the date header and timestamp several times, but it won't save my changes. So I'm giving up for now.

~Ash the non-HTML-literate faerie

No candles after all, we would have slow-roasted ourselves if we lit them all again, it was a mild night and (of course) you can't run the fan when there's candles right next to it. We sat and talked about the future, and a little about the past. I got to ask what one of his songs was about, one that had intrigued me for a while. There's a more solid plan forming for our planned trip to Scotland. Thankfully we agreed not to try to see absolutely everythingat one go. A taster of London, followed by Stonehenge, the train ride north with a stop at York and/or Hadrian's wall, then 6 or so days in Edinburgh exploring local castles and historical sites still covers a hell of a lot if you ask me!

My parents might want to meet us in London and come along for the ride, that would be fun. Matt will get a real picture of my formative years, taking trips with my parents, the way they both approached the opportunities to see new places, is one of the things I feel shaped my world view the most. I get the feeling he'll absolutely love it. He's already got the getting things done but still managing to smell the roses on the way mentality.