So Relieved...

...that it's Friday.

Today was simultaneously better and worse than the days preceding it.

I'm still a hot mess of compound emotions. (Sorrowful-hyper, anxious-happy, etc.)

I've been listening to the same song on repeat for just over 3 days now. I think it might be driving everyone around me a little mad, but not me.

I've been drowning in sorrow
Chasing tomorrow,
Running away
Now you're crossing the border
See no tomorrow
But you're not afraid

OooOooh Sinéad,
For the first time
Life is gonna turn around
I'm telling you
You will like it, I know
(I know, I know, I know, I know, I know)

I've been singing with reckless abandon and doing my best to adapt the photosynthesis interpretive dance to it so, in theory, it hasn't been a total waste of time. :P

I spent a good deal of this evening trying to muck my way through Bird's Philosophy of Science while listening to Wuthering Heights on audio book with limited success. Perhaps those aren't the best two things to attempt to do simultaneously, no?

'Loons and I are now exhausted and are lying in the empty bath tub with our blankets writing to you.

And that, that, Dear Friend, is all that I know.

Love and stuff.
Talk to you soon.
<3 Me.

Burnout.

I'm still up to my eyeballs in social burnout.

I'm still feeling hypersensitive.

Today it was the sound of water moving in the fish tanks. And the way R's shoes squeak when he walks. (In addition to the sound of the animals licking anything, that one's always a problem.)

I'm also really wrapped around the axle about politics. Mostly that I hate them, particularly right now just before an election. Everyone is at their worst. They're all battling to prove the other guy is the most hateful. But you know what? All that hate stuff just crushes my soul.

It's so weird.

It's just like weight, so much weight just comes pouring out of the computer and onto my chest and I can't breathe. I caught myself today wondering if election season was a 'survivable event', which is kind of my cue to shut down any and all sources of political discussion or information.

I was going to follow your lead and deactivate my Facebook, but my ASD groups on there are soooooooo wonderful and helpful I just couldn't do it. Instead I've just blocked nearly everyone's feed. :P

When I read this, it sounds so sad and mournful, but it's not meant to. I'm really fine, just overstimulated and socially overwhelmed. I'll feel much better once I've had the weekend to myself. I just need some time to regenerate.

Saturday my dad and I are going to get to work on some of our projects. I believe we're working on the 1933 gas powered washing machine, but we might be building the cart for our gas powered ice cream machine. (It combines a 1922 ice cream machine, an early gas engine, and a cart into one device that makes ice cream as it wheels itself around, it's basically amazing. We're super excited about it.)

That's all I know Dear Friend. I miss your face. <3

Song of the Day for Yesterday!

Climb the ladder, you're my courage
Jump the river, you're my hope

Gypsy eyes
Heart strung with sterling silver
Sister Blue
Ruby red blood running through you
Sister Blue
I know there's a Heaven made for you





I really, really, really just love Tattle Tale. Such a fantastic little band.

Uh-oh.

I may have overdone the social butterfly bit this summer Dear Friend.

It all seemed like such a good idea at the time.
I had such lofty goals.
Dreams even.

Dreams of getting out of the house.
Of doing all sorts of lovely things outside my comfort zone.
Of being uncomfortable.
Of growing.

I did many of these things. I made a great many friends. I went lots of places. I saw lots of things. I had stupid amounts of fun.

And that was all well and good.

But like all things, moderation is the key, and the key to moderation is knowing your own limits.




Now, with summer nearly gone and fall closing in on me, I found myself today just totally and completely overwhelmed by the amount of people around me.

They are always there. Clawing at me. At my mind. At my organs. At my time. At my money.

'Come hang out with us!' they call.
'Come have lunch'
'Come to karaoke'
'Come have coffee'
'Come hiking'
'Come dancing'
'Come drive into the mountains'
'Come play dress up'

Exhausted and overwhelmed I want only to stay home by myself. To have a couple of days to regenerate myself.

But the phone rings endlessly. There are text messages. Facebook posts. Comments.

'What are you doing right now'
'Where are you'
They read.

'What are you thinking'
'Why aren't you answering me'
'Are you dead'
'Hello...'


I found myself today needing rest. Really, really needing it. I was wandering around on the verge of tears, watching the text messages pile up. I could feel my organs panicking over the possibility of any more social interaction. Of having to do anything.

I went home and spent hours crying over articles about dead babies, stillbirths, and animals who refused to leave the side of other dead or dying animals, hoping, praying even, that it would ameliorate the stress/anxiety building inside of me.

Instead I found myself stressed, anxious, and sad, which was not my intention.

In my intensely distressed state, all of my senses heightened which caused me to hyper-focus on things that annoy me. The sound of the dog or the cats licking things has been driving me crazy all day. Nervous break-down crazy. It doesn't matter where in the house they are. The second the stick their tongues out it's like they're licking my brain. I found myself reasoning with the dog, pleading her to stop smacking her lips. To stop licking her nose. 'If you love me at all, you'll stop licking things' I kept whining, pacing around trying to get away from the sound.

Smells kept finding their way into my nose. Smells that were irritating and offensive. I dismantled the house in search of them. I took apart and scrubbed down the inside parts of the washing machine with bleach. I fixed all the plumbing issues in the house, including the garbage disposal/sink drainage issues in the kitchen (HUGE victory, for the record). I crawled around sniffing the carpet looking for spots that didn't smell right, trying to eliminate anything that might irritate me.

All the while my phone continued to go off. All sorts of people were needing all sorts of different things from me. Small talk. Comfort. Companionship. Fun. An end to boredom. Entertainment. The list goes on.

I couldn't handle it.

I need like three weeks of quiet solitude. Three weeks with the shades drawn and the lights and music turned off to just reflect on the miraculous couple of months I've had without interruption from the world.

I just need time.
(and space)

So I did what any reasonable person would do.


I locked my phone in my fire safe.


I don't know how long it's going to stay there, but I do know that I suddenly feel better.

People are exhausting. Their existence is loud and constant and it makes me itch when I don't have time alone to center myself. I need, on average, about twice as much time alone as I spend with others in order to function. When that doesn't happen, I have days like today.

Hopefully tomorrow brings better things. Hopefully this next week is much more quiet. Lots of love to you Dear Friend. I miss you terribly. Even on days when I hate all things.

Love and Stuff,
Me.

Swing.

She came to and her
Whole life was how she remembered it
She had a mouth full of fur
And she was laughing

Meh. So I'm back. These past couple of weeks have been chaos. I'd try to catch you up, but it seems that every time I promise to do that I never do. *le sigh*. Instead I'm just going to ramble and you'll have to make due with the stuff that falls out of my mouth/hands/whathaveyou.

First up, I finished my bikram crucible! Hooray! I missed two days out of the 14 due to circumstances beyond my control, but overall I'm super proud of myself. I'm working on getting the money together for the 10 week challenge, so hopefully that will start soon.

The first two classes, as discussed earlier, were ridiculous and challenging and all sorts of other things. Then, on the third day, something magical happened: I found my center. I'd been listening to the instructors tell me over and over again that it was all a head game, that this was really a 90 minute moving meditation in a challenging environment, that I just needed to find my space and listen to the sound of my breath. And you know what? They were totally right.

Day three was really the most magical of all the days. I moved through the postures without issue, I touched my toes without wanting to die for the first time in memorable history, and I really didn't even notice the heat. This day, however, was a bit of an exception. Since then there have been good and bad days.

Some days I have no balance. Some days my right hip just refuses to stay in the socket during triangle. Some days I can't grab my toes. Some days I still get nauseous coming out of camel. Some days (like yesterday) the humidity really kicks my ass. But overall, every day I leave feeling better. More centered. More positive. And less arthritic. So I'd call that a substantial victory.

She parked her hearse
Across three spaces posted for motorcycles only
And jumped out, shouting
"What the cus could make a nice girl
Like us feel so lonely?"

I'm still struggling to really get into the swing of the semester. I have not been able to settle into a good rhythm of work, school, homework, housework, but I'm slowly making progress. Clawing my way toward some semblance of order. I'm pretty proud of that.

Are you weary as water
In a faucet left dripping
With an incessant sadness
Like a sad record skipping

And an ugly and ornery
And shadowy dread
Lurking like a troll under the bridge
Between your heart and your head

My grandmother passed away last week, which was bittersweet. She's been suffering for years and years now, alternating between being crippled by Parkinsons and being plagued by hallucinations brought on by the Parkinsons treatment. The last six or so months have been really unbearable. So while I know that Dad is heartbroken to have buried his last remaining parent, he is also really relieved that this last leg of her journey is over. He came back home to us feeling better and more at peace with the whole process, which makes me happy.

Please dumb blind kind sir
Lend little miss listless a bit of Christmas
She's been a real good girl
But now she's stuck here

Sleep issues have been plaguing me since the start of the semester. I fall asleep easy enough, but no mater what time I go to sleep, whether it's early or late, I systematically wake up at 3:11 am. It is super annoying. Today I'm going to start taking Magnesium supplements and I am going to turn the clock around and see if I can't reset my internal clock. I don't feel tired during the day, but I know that lack of sleep is going to add up and then when it finally gets to me I am going to be a totally unreasonable, raving monster.

The world is so little and still
Mysterious and ominous as ever before
Like an unmarked bottle full of pills
On the shelf right next to the ting
You were reaching for

I blew through Frankenstein this week, and then watched several lectures on different ways people have analyzed the plot. It was pretty fantastic. I'm actually really sad that this is my last semester, and that I didn't take more totally useless classes during my time in school. I mean, I took a LOT of useless classes, but they were always like molecular biology, or organic chemistry, or whatever. Classes that were simultaneously useless and serious. (I mean useless in relation to my degree, not in terms of inherent value, obviously) I did not take a lot of light-hearted art/lit classes this go-around, and clearly I should have.

Swing the groove 'round here
Where I can reach it
When I get my ass back on track
I'm gonna need it

Swing shift 'til I get the money
To buy me and my baby a moon full of honey
Then I'm gonna turn on the nagging voices
Inside my head

That follow me to bed and say
You suck, blah, blah, blah

I love you Dear Friend. I miss you terribly, as I'm sure you're aware by now. It seems somehow unfair that there is so much...geography...between there and here. One day I'll be able to solve that, you'll see. Just snip out all the middle bits. Take care. Lovelovelove.

Are you weary as water
In a faucet left dripping
With an incessant sadness
Like a sad record skipping

And an ugly and ornery
And shadowy dread
Lurking like a troll under the bridge
Between your heart and your head

Song of the Day is Swing, obviously.

(Song is currently refusing to upload, so use your imagination for now, I'll fix it later. More love!)

Dorothy Mae

Born Nov 12, 1925 departed this world September 4, 2012.


Posts may continue to be patchy for a few days.

Lots of love.

Why Hello There, September!

Dear Friend! It's been a crazy and chaotic start to the semester, believe you me. So many (totally irrelevant and mostly uninteresting) things have been happening around these parts. I'll try to address them in blocks.

First and foremost I started bikram! It's pretty awesome. It's actually been a bit of an experience.

Last Tuesday I went in and bought a two week unlimited pass at the discounted rate for new students and committed myself to doing everything in my power to go every day for the two weeks.

Tuesday Sweet Lady J and I went for the first time. The instructor was super nice and gave us the run down on what to expect for the first day. No talking in the room, not feeling well is normal for the first few classes, don't push yourself, all that sort of stuff. He also set our mats up for us in the 'new student' corner in the back of the room.

And then he said this:

"Remember ladies, your goal for today is to just stay in the room".

And that, Dear Friend, that is when we really began to grasp exactly what it is we had gotten ourselves into.

The room was hot. Like walking into a wet wall of heat hot. You sweat almost immediately. It drips into your eyes, up your nose, fills your ears. There is no fighting it. The class consists of twenty six postures with two sets each. On day one I attempted the first half of them, and had to lie down for the second half for fear of passing out or throwing up.

In hind site, I now know that there were two big issues for me on that first day. The first was that I was pushing myself way too hard when I should have been adjusting to the heat and the flow of class. The second was that I was thinking too much about the postures and whether or not I was doing them correctly instead of making sure I was remembering to breathe normally. As a result I was out of breath, dizzy and nauseous for most of the class. But I did make it to the end of class, so that was a pretty big victory for me.

On the second day we were allowed to choose our own places in class. We got there a little later than I would have liked and so we had less places to choose from. However, there was a big open spot in the back right hand corner so that's where we set up.

This was a bad decision. More on that later.

I was still slightly nauseous from class the day before. I hadn't gotten a chance to eat all day because I was still trying to adjust to my new work/school schedule and had instead, resorted to eating bananas in the car on the way to class. In addition to this poor decision, I was also poorly hydrated and hadn't slept much the day before. It was not going to be pretty.

It seemed much hotter this day than it had the day before. We were drenched to the bone before class even began, and it seemed as though we were standing on the surface of the sun. As we moved into our first backwards bend I looked up and to the back, as you do when you're bending backwards, and that's when I saw it.

Right, directly above us.
The heating device/humidifier.

I stared at Lady J in disbelief, mouth agape, finger pointed up at the mouth of 'the dragon'. It was official. We were going to die.

By the time we were nearing the end of the first fifty minutes, the sick pickle-y feeling in my gut was growing. The room was spinning, and it was time to leave. Staying would only have resulted in some sort of catastrophic yoga injury (the likes of which the world has never seen).

I curled up in the locker room and waited for my stomach to stop flipping. Lady J joined me shortly there after.

One of the nice girls who worked there brought us some coconut water (which for the record, is basically inedible. Yuck). We drank it through gritted teeth, hoping it would make us feel better, and you know what? It actually did. (Even if it was just awful). Lady J went back in and finished up the class. I did not. No thank you. I was not about to have to leave the room twice in one class. That would be unacceptable.

It turns out that back corner is empty for a reason. It's 3-4 degrees hotter back there and much more humid. While that doesn't sound like a big difference, when you remember the rest of the room is already a toasty 104 degrees with 40% humidity, that means that back corner is approaching the 110 degree mark. Yuck.

But even if it was terrible, we learned two valuable lessons: Stay away from the mouth of the dragon, and if everybody in the class is avoiding an area, there's probably a reason for that.

To be continued....

Song of the Day: