Countdown to Edinburgh: 6 weeks

Whoooeeee!

Samhain in an hour or so. Not that I'll be doing anything particularly special. A bottle of wine, too many candles and probably a spot of divination alongside Matt. Come to think of it that isspecial.

I really am damn lucky. Looking over the last year and a bit, I've made leaps and bounds, internally and externally. No, I don't just mean the fitness and weight loss. The next big step is approaching and I'm getting really excited about it. Nervous too, but mostly excited, because I know I'll find a nice place, and I know I'll enjoy the difference of having my own apartment. I hope I find somewhere that I can consider getting a cat too, but that can always wait.

Countdown to Edinburgh: 7 weeks

Merp! Seven weeks till I go home for Christmas, I have no idea why but I'm suddenly nervous, the last time I was home was a long time ago, not just chronologically, a lot has happened since then. I suppose I'm still not used to going back there and finding it just the same, and yet completely different, and I can never tell how much is the place and the people and how much is change in my perspective.

On the other hand, maybe it's only merp-worthy because of all that I have to get done before I board that plane.

There's a whole lot of hurry up and wait going on

But that's ok 'cause I've got good people to help me maintain my sanity.

Yet again I have various deep and profound things skittering about in my brain, but not one of them will stand still long enough for me to get a really good look at it and drag it out through my fingertips. Right now the mental pictures I have showing on the viewscreen are of (in no particular order): my man all sleepy and snuggly wrapped in a chenille blanket this morning; an auburn haired baby I've never met stagger-crawling around a house I've never seen with a banana in her sticky little hand, leaving a trail of nana-goo wherever she goes...myself sitting in an apartment I don't live in yet, playing guitar like I know what I'm doing while a young cat tries to eat my toes.

Somewhere in the very bottom corner of that viewscreen there's a girl on a tattered red loveseat, with too-long blondish hair and a forgotten pen and paper in her hand, sitting in the dark trying to figure out where she went wrong. I want to speak to her, to tell her it's ok, not to worry because in a few years it'll have worked itself out, not to think all is lost when there's so much yet to come...but she can't hear me, she doesn't know me yet, she can only find out by living through it until she sits where I sit now and looks back at herself as I'm doing. I can't help her. I can only help me.

Most of you already know that Saturday, the 5th of October, was Matt's and my 6th luniversary.

Good heavens, half a year. The thing that struck both of us is "where the hell did the year GO??" There are many parallels between our lives, we both had a large changover and restart on life in early fall of 2001, for him it was leaving the Navy, starting work in a civillian capacity, suddenly moving into his very own place for the first time...for me...well, you already know the story. So for both of us this 6 month benchmark is also surrounded by anniversaries of significant events of our own. There is a huge feeling of achivement for both of us looking back on the past year, both together and seperately. Well, when we manage not to be caught up in stressing about the future.

I'm having more frequent flashbacks and panics than I can ever remember having, they never did cause me to suddenly go foetal and hide under my bed, I had much too effectively internalized it all right from the start. Now they've become a relatively constant backdrop to my daily life. Driving to work, walking 'round a store, sitting reading somewhere, whatever I'm doing, it's there: that feeling of fear, not any specific fear, just FEAR...but I'm still standing, and it's largely due to him, I wouldn't be ready for this yet without him. I'd have gotten there eventually, but it would have taken a lot longer. He sees my strengths and it makes it so much easier to be stronger. Of course he sees my weaknesses too, if he only saw one part it wouldn't have lasted even 2 months, but he sees them in the context of how I overcome and work around them. To him, I am a fighter, not a victim, and it isn't everything, but it helps enormously.

I said a while back that I didn't want to be with another protective man. I was wrong, I didn't/don't want to be with another man who expresses protectiveness as posessiveness. Or confuses the two in any way.

Schiesse, work calls.

Pardon my silence of late…

I feel if I try to write anything for now it's going to turn in to a bland "what I've been up to the past week" opus. So it's not really worth it.

My creative writing brain cells have been commandeered by other sections, so there's very little going into my hardcopy journal either.

They're the important sections though: coping mechanisms, compartmentalization, stuff like that. I've got a bunch of little algorithms running constantly, and a secondary bunch of algorithms devoted to keeping the first set in check, so that they keep running, but don't impinge on daily life.

Yes, this is related to the introspection. With pie charts. This isn't a pie chart, but it's a major breakthrough: ever heard of delayed onset chronic posttraumatic stress disorder? Me either. But it fits. It covers and eclipses all the stuff about generalized anxiety disorder and low level depression. It also means that the one thing I've tried to cut out of my life, the part I didn't want to give any space to because it is so unacceptable to me…that is the part that I have to take out and give voice to. It is the part I have to face down and accept so that it shuts the fuck up and leaves me alone.

I tried very hard not to assign my largest problems to that one little incident, one week out of twenty years shouldn't be allowed to have that kind of effect. But apparently it did. I was traumatized. I didn't get to choose, it just happened to me, was done to me, and I still don't get to choose, I have to deal with it.

Finally recognizing that, however much I don't want to, has allowed me to see that it isn't that I'm fundamentally flawed, no matter how much trouble I had and caused as a kid, it isn't why I nearly crashed out of college. My underlying character kept me from failure, it didn't push me towards it. I had no social support, none whatsoever, and I still stayed alive, I fought with myself but I never drew blood. Furthermore, even though there are some wierdnesses gifted to me by my parents and how they taught me, they are nothing, abso-fucking-lutely nothing, compared to the emotional lesson taught me by those people.

It's not my fault. It's not my parents' fault. There was nothing we could have done in the face of such a betrayal.

Thus spake the algorithms, they're still working away in there. I'm almost afraid of what it's going to be like in my head when they're done running. What on earth will I do with the extra processing capabilities?

Maybe I'll write a novel.

Maybe two.

Even I don't how much of my self has been taken up with this task for the past six years.

Ack.

So much cool stuff to post, brain has shut down.

I won two first place trophies! They're sparkly. Bob won 2nd place in forms, he rocked, and the only reason the other guy got first is he isn't actually human. Humans just can't jump like that.

Level Up!

Testing for Purple Belt Level 1 was sprung on me last night. Master Frazer said that the rest of the class wasn't ready for their tests yet (they have lots more to learn for each level because they are all ahead of me) but that I was more than ready. So I got tested last night, basically they made sure the class covered everything I eneded to know and watched how I dealt with it. Then the regular testing is being delayed to next month, when I will test AGAIN. Merp. I have to master the spinning kicks before then.

I can't wait till I get to do jumpingspinning kicks.

Violent? Moi?

Have I mentioned my nickname when I was three was "miss piggy"? Haaaiiiiiiii-YAH!

*watches skinny frog flying across the room*

ACK!

I have writer's block. Blogger's block too.

But at least my hair is all neat and split-end free...

FRIDAY!

MOUNTAINS!!

Let's see if I can get the clocks in my head to pause in their ticking for a little while.

Countdown to Edinburgh: 12 weeks

I am waiting for 30ml of wash to drip through a filter.

drip

drip

drip...

Molecular Biology folks, it's a crazy world.

Ugh,ugh,ugh.

Cramps suck.

But I have MUFFINS and ICE CREAM and WINE to cheer me up this evening. Not to mention karate, if I manage to find some coordination.

~Ash, the tall faerie (when wearing red ass-kicking boots)

Dammit, he's not back yet, I hope I make it out by 4.30, I really want to make the karate practice. I knew I should have taken my stuff for the weekend when I left the apartment this morning, but I didn't want my guitar sitting in the car getting cooked all day, or getting in the way in the lab either.

Oh well, either way, I have decided to add "wine" to the previous list of stuff I want. Unless Matt feels like breaking out the port. Which I doubt he will.

Time went ridiculously fast up until about 2pm today, I thought I'd be hard pressed to get everything done in time to get to the extra karate practice.

Then.

It.

Stopped.

Roll on 4.30pm.

Please?

Heh, a crazy person just walked past the lab singing really loudly.

That killed all of 30 seconds.

I want: karate, shower, food, nap, snuggles with my boy, nap, chocolate chip cookie-dough ice cream...a nap would be nice too.

And Now For Something Completely Frivolous

Yesterday after work Bob and I ate raw dead animals and smashed stuff.

UG! SMASHING STUFF GOOD!!

In other words: we went for sushi and then I broke my first board. Using hammerfist. I think Bob was more surprised than I was that I did it first try, perhaps that's because I broke it before he'd finished the pep talk.

I'd told my parents I'd send them my first board, but I think I'd rather keep it and just show it to them. Maybe I can break another and send them that one instead. They can have it bronzed and keep it with my baby teeth.

Who Cares About Politics When Their Loved Ones Lie Dead?

If you twist and turn away
If you tear yourself in two again
If I could, yes I would
If I could, I would
Let it go
Surrender
Dislocate

If I could throw this
Lifeless lifeline to the wind
Leave this heart of clay
See you walk, walk away
Into the night
And through the rain
Into the half-light
And through the flame

If I could through myself
Set your spirit free
I'd lead your heart away
See you break, break away
Into the light
And to the day

To let it go
And so to fade away
To let it go
And so fade away

I'm wide awake
I'm wide awake
Wide awake
I'm not sleeping
Oh, no, no, no

If you should ask then maybe they'd
Tell you what I would say
True colors fly in blue and black
Bruised silken sky and burning flag
Colors crash, collide in blood shot eyes

If I could, you know I would
If I could, I would
Let it go...

This desperation
Dislocation
Separation
Condemnation
Revelation
In temptation
Isolation
Desolation
Let it go

And so fade away
To let it go
And so fade away
To let it go
And so to fade away

I'm wide awake
I'm wide awake
Wide awake
I'm not sleeping
Oh, no, no, no ~U2

They played "bad" by U2 on the radio this morning, the extended version, and I nearly cried, if it had been the version of "sunday bloody sunday" from Rattle & Hum I would have cried. It's strange, even though it didn't even hit me particularly hard at the time. I find myself mourning every horror, not just this one enormous one. It's difficult not to think of all the terrorist acts that have gone on in my lifetime alone. I was much closer to the Lockerbie Disaster, or the shooting in Dunblane Elementary, the various IRA bombs of the past 20 years. The lone bomber who planted nail bombs in crowded areas three weeks in a row my first year in London.

I think what touches me the most is the incredible solidarity the US is showing in the face of such attacks. Not the gung-ho let's kill the arabs stuff, but the complete outrage and refusal to accept such acts of violence. Zero Tolerance. We need more of that back home. If there was the same outrage and horror at every IRA attack or retaliation against the IRA...maybe there wouldn't be a revolution any more.

People say a lot of things about the US and it's patriotism, many of them none to flattering, but what they miss is that this patriotism is about the people, the citizens, not the government, not about wealth, or politics, but about protecting the american people. That's a type of patriotism we need more of in the world. The kind that makes us all a family, no matter who our parents are. The United Kingdom could stand to learn a thing or two about how to handle terrorist acts if they only looked across the Atlantic. Of course, its' harder to sustain Zero Tolerance when the perpetrators are your neighbors and fellow countrymen. but think of what a villain Timothy McVeigh became, while Gerry Adams still has a voice.

So maybe it's not that appropriate to talk about Northern Ireland on a day that should belong to the United States, but it's the filter through which I see terrorist acts, it's the first thing I knew in that context, and after so many years it isn't getting any better. The people of my first country need to look around them and realise that if every single one of them stood up and refused to accept the death of innocents...maybe the innocents wouldn't get hurt so often.

"Fuck the Revolution. People are dying. That's not a revolution, that's murder."

I'm in pain!

Mildly out of shape combined with an intensive karate training session yesterday = ouch.

I got a good back-cracking hug last night, that helped the shoulder tension. But my poor leggys, they need stretched good and proper if they're going to manage a decent front stance.

More on My Hair
(because it's just soooooo fascinating)

My growing-the-hair-long-again learning curve has continued with the revalation that yes, I do indeed need to condition, otherwise Matt'll get his hand stuck any time he tries to lovingly run his fingers through my hair. Hey, at least this is better than last time my hair got to shoulder length, THAT time I'd forgotten what it was like to own a hairbrush.

On a more intellectual note, I have a game-plan to improve my sanity through the next few months: I'm going to be a recluse for at least an hour a day, as often as I can manage it. I need some serious quality time staring at a wall.

Or maybe I can sit and watch my leghair grow...

I've realised the thing I like least about my body. It's not the shape, I can change that, not neccesarily easily, but it's getting closer and closer to a shape I'm actively happy with. What I dislike is the maintenencestuff. Guys have: washing, and shaving their face if they want to. Women have: Legshaving, eyebrow tweezing, bikini area de-fuzzing, making sure they don't have the random chin hairs that make them resemble fairy-tale witches much more than fairy-tale princesses.

Urgh, it's not even maintenence is it? It's just HAIR REMOVAL! I'm not spectacularly furry as people go, it just grows back too damn fast.

I don't carry out these grooming rituals because I fear I will be rejected if I have fuzz near my navel, I do it because I prefer the feel of having shaven legs, and I think my tummy looks better without fuzz.

Perhaps I should look into that laser hair removal thingy. My sister tried electrolysis and said it hurt like hell, she now has a teeny bald patch on one of her calves, the only place they managed to treat before she ran (maybe limped) away screaming.

Good Gods, I just posted about body hair. I must be bored. Or too sleepy to think of anything more interesting to say.

We had our first almost-argument yesterday, only it wasn't an argument, as there was no disagreement involved, it was an uncomfortableness. We're still finding our individual and collective feet after Lump's departure and got caught in one of those pointless "what's he/she thinking, he/she seems upset, but I'm afraid to ask..." cycles. It only lasted an hour or so, and was very much compounded by my having been harrassed that afternoon.

Luckily we broke through the self inflicted barrier of silence early enough in the day to crash together on the reclaimed futon and watch two movies, and get some semi-frivolous talking in before bedtime. The kind of semi-frivoulous that's actually all serious. That whole "yeah, this is why we're together" thing.

I suppose what it comes down to (if you really want me to boil it down to the essential oil of us-ness) is the words we used to cement that "we" were ok.

Partners?

Yes...partners.