Sagittarius, so far, I feel like you've been stepping on everyone. And I think, "Man, it seems so unlike you. What's with that?"

But I think, at least to some extent, that you're challenging our ideals. Asking up to live up to the flame we've lit under your banner. Asking us not to undergo change, because we already have, but to own our changes and use them to move forward.

And as hard as it's been, I'm trying that.

( Year review of 2009. )

...so I forgot to post this earlier, before I started reading through my book to try to work on my essay. So here it is.

Back to term papering.

Brian is right. I am such a pithy last lines kind of person. (Completely unrelated to anything.)

I don't drink wine very often and I dislike beer to the point of disgust. Therefore, as a twenty-something student person, I have become open-minded about many, MANY forms of liquor. So generally I drink liquor, mixed if it's sugary, straight if it's not too sweet, and shot if it tastes like ass. (Though I won't shoot Yukon Jack or Goldenschlager because both have been my only two drinking-puking experiences; both right after the shot.)

What I've come to realize is that my attitude about drinking is odd. Because alcohol has lots of calories, I generally won't drink just to be social or on any occasion (at least not anymore). When I do drink, it's serious business (because if I am going to do so, it may as well be for the cause of inebriation). Of course half the time I don't end up drunk anyway because my liver seems to be a monster but whatever. (I'm still confused as to how I survived some of the nights I've had at Matt's.)

But that makes me one of those kids that used to drive me nuts: people drinking just to get drunk. Although I don't know. I don't really try to get drunk to be cool? To let go of any inhibitions? I guess at this point being drunk is still a count-on-hands type experience so I'm just kind of interested in figuring what the hell it does to me.

Certain demographics of our society are OBSESSED with being drunk, though. It's like it makes them more fun and takes away culpability? Personally, I like raunchy sober adventures just fine and I'm usually mostly lucid when I'm drunk (although I have gone once or twice, "Well I was DRUNK when I did that"). I think, though, that it doesn't that I didn't WANT to do whatever I did -- I just didn't have that good ol' thinking cap that tells you there will be consequences. I don't think that makes us less guilty of our choices, though. I mean, hell, we chose to drink.

It's just such a weird issue for me. I know probably a lot of people don't intellectualize it and that's fine. Just for so long, I HATED drinking with a passion for what it made people, because drinking was something that always had a negative effect on my family life (and later on one of my relationships). Then I began drinking and it became Not a Big Deal and a decent excuse to socialize -- but I'm still honestly not too sure why we do it, even though now I'm totally that person who learns how to mix drinks and tries new things and whatnot. (But I was always obsessed with beverages. And tastes. This is inevitable stuff.)

Why do we do this, guys? Gather in someone's basement, play Flip Cup, and act like monkeys? I don't get it.

(I didn't, tonight. I just drank a half-cup of Limoncello to be polite and went home to help Jay with his essay. Everyone was weirded out by my choice of drink.)

(Also I just learned how to play Flip Cup last night anyway, so I probably couldn't have flipped the cup.)

So my Christmas wishlist is intensely lame, since I can't really think anymore. Period. This is the sad list I gave my mom. I know, I'm too old for this stuff, but my mother finds it important and Jay will probably just ask what I want, too. (I think I'll tell him a hip flask, though. To go with my pocketwatch.)

LJ, what do you want this year? Can you think of any hip, AWESOME things everything should want?

Here is my sad-sack list.
( a direly practical wishlist )

Other than new bedding and socks, I am actually pretty unenthused about this stuff.

In other news: I might be able to do a directed reading on female protagonists in contemporary vampire narratives. The prof I asked is going to see if she can get compensation, and if so, we're GO. If not, I may be able to ask another prof -- but I do want this one, because though she'll be tough, she's also a vampire expert. Like, certifiably. She's written a book about Dracula. :)

So if you know of any female-involved vampire media that's actually pretty decently written, feel free to let me know! This poor lady will probably be sitting through GEMS like "Twilight" and other utter crap for my sake, and her caveat was that I try to find something good for her.

And now to depart from my ROUSING academic excitement to get back to my heaps of work. *eyeroll* While I appreciate the romanticism of take-out food, late nights, burying my face in books, and writing wonderfully pretentious papers and poetry, I'm pretty sure white people like the IDEA of grad school, not the PRACTICE.

I start to think that nothing is a coincidence.

And lying against him, warm against his skin and in his scent, I'm safe. This room is safe. This place is ours, untainted, untouched, and I feel safe, safe, safe. I almost cried over it today. How not-dire it is. Eating apples and doing homework and coming home to his nude, uncovered body backwards on the bed, fast asleep with the lights on. The handsome and innocent and nervous lines of his face, his smile when he sees me, the simple and habitual patterns of his hands, the way they wander under the rim of my shirt and cradle my belly.

It is so easy to get wrapped up in. Like a favourite blanket. To forget about everything in the anesthesia.
But I can't do that anymore. Too many lines lifted out of this song and I need to finish writing it. Filling in the gaps. Not glazing over the parts that are broken, feeling the shards poke now and again; now to pull them out, to fill them in.

I had a good birthday. Jay bought me a beautiful pocketwatch (kind of like this one) and Dani drew this amazing portrait, which is just beautiful. I also got to sit down and have a conversation with a very wise and strong woman, and I have no doubt that conversation was, in its way, fated. And it prepared me. For many things.

November is doing its job to alter my course. I just have to follow it now.
I'm just sad that I know it will take risks. That sometimes I will have to step out of this safe, warm place, and these arms that have, for the past four months, wrapped unfailingly around me, through loss and cancer and all manner of other things.

But I have to be my own person, and not just intellectually or professionally.

Deep breaths in and out. And another set of ashes to rise out of.

I look in the mirror and I don't know that I recognize me anymore.

Upon objective assessment, I can see things that haven't changed. I'm still smart, particularly for my age. I read quickly and I have a natural knack for editing that I have discovered has very little to do with my technical knowledge of language; I still have a lot to learn on that account. I'm still a doting girlfriend, I'm still very geeky, and I still have a hard time picking up on simple social cues or not chewing the skin around my fingernails in public. I still write and dye my hair red and cry at movies.

I don't know that it's bad that so many other things seem to have changed. I don't become intensely sad nearly as often and I sleep through the night and I rarely have problems with my blood pressure. I get all of my work done and I call my mother almost every day. I don't freak out about the things I can't change and I seldom say rash things in anger.

I guess sometimes I just wonder. I know that somewhere along the way, I lost an innocence I was fighting tooth-and-nail to keep. There's no point in laying blame for it, and I'm not sure I could. Shit happens, and many things did. I'm not as trusting, I'm not as forgiving, I'm not as vulnerable, and I'm not sure I miss it.

I just think that, for so long, I defined myself by those things. So take them away, and I'm still discovering whatever person hatched out of them. I know I still want to care for people, in a way that I always have. That's one thing. And I still believe in honesty. That's another. And now, more than ever, I want to write.

It's funny. I used to know myself so well, to the extent that I knew all my dysfunctions but refused to overcome them, for fear of losing myself. Now, maybe I have, but I function pretty well. Still all extremes, I guess.

All I can do is be. And hope that it means something.

and I am already starting to feel hyperaware of myself. afraid or annoyed that others notice/don't.

This November, I'm keeping my ambitions simple. I just want to work on something creative each day. Whatever I'm feeling up to -- writing, editing, playing, recording. Now that I have written that down, I officially must commit to doing it.

All the work I do tends to actually pay off. I can't complain. I am just beginning to feel lonely, as I realize I've been isolating myself. Not by avoiding people, but by surrounding myself with so many of them that I've never had to face the dangerous prospect of becoming too attached to any particular one. I didn't realize I was doing this (sometimes I think I'm two minds; my much smarter abstract one, and my much snarkier practical one) and am relieved but also annoyed that I've figured it out.

Part of me almost doesn't want to change the behaviour because I still see people and it's easier, but the part of me that recognizes I'm human realizes that I should probably find some people in my life to reach out to. So that, being written down, is something else I should do.

Other November commitment: write a personal message to someone I care about (besides my mom) each day.

Call it superstition, but this time of year is always a transformation for me. And call it typical, but every year, I find a reason to welcome it.

I never hand in songs for Creative Writing class. I wimp out because I'm confident in my verse, but not my verses. Yeeah. But maybe I should this time. (I will probably change my mind in a couple of days.)

I imagine it's raining the day I wait for you two hours alone
I picture you lying in your bed at home
and in my mind, you're still there
your head on your pillow, surrounded by your hair
you never stood outside, your eyes searching the street for mine

and did we even notice --
no, nothing's really clear
your hands in your pockets
your words are static in my ears
it's icy on the sidewalk
and you reach to break my fall
then we're together on your pillow
what did we call this?

I imagine it's raining the day
you play me that song that you wrote
I picture us sitting by a window
then in my mind, you're at my door
and when I answer it, you play those same three chords
and you just stand still
you never disappear

and did we even notice --
no, nothing's really clear
your head is hung in silence
my words are gallows for your fears
the autumn leaves turn quickly
the rain outside begins to fall
then I'm alone at my window
what did we call this?

what did we call this?
what do we call this?
what do I call this?
what can I call this?

An almost-friend posts a Facebook status update that looks like a suicide note. Do you:
a) run to their house to beg them not to do it
b) laugh at the obvious joke
c) scratch your head and look it up to see if it's a song lyric you just don't know

KIDS TODAY.

Usually these are private, but I don't post much of anything lately, so...meh.

I knew within a week that I would be better off without you. Even though it hurt and it hurt and it hurt and it hurt and just when I thought it couldn't possibly get any worse, it hurt some more. And it's kind of funny how pain isn't quantifiable, physically evident; we have to give it our own voice, even though the state of being in pain is exactly the kind wherein language breaks down, where WE break down. Such a funny thing.

So I knew I would be better off without you, but I dreamed you would come back; I wanted you to. I missed you so much I didn't feel like I was me and to be honest, I still don't, really. Like if I were a song and somebody ripped out the chorus so now there are just verses and bridges, constantly reaching for a missing resolution.

I still haven't figured out those parts of me. And I still make a lot of the same mistakes and I still don't know how to fix them. But there are some things I've learned.

I am better off without you. It doesn't justify anything you've done to me -- it's still on you that you became someone I was better off without. And I can't forgive you all of it; I don't want to. Every time I tried, you destroyed my trust again.

And now, when I imagine you come back, I wake up shaking. Because -- and it's just as much my fault -- you became something that ruins my life.

And I'll admit, your mere existence hurts. Even with you out of my life. But your death would wreck me all the more, because unless it's of old age in your sleep I'll always feel like it was somehow my fault. No matter what you do, you've created a part of me that will never heal. Though maybe it scars.

And I don't miss you anymore.

Well, for once I'm sitting in front of my computer and not feeling immensely guilty for spending time on the Internets, so.

Jay and I spent a week at my mother's, and it went really well. I confirmed my suspicions that though he's friendly and boisterous at home, Jay is actually pretty nervous and shy. It's so strange to see the sides of someone you usually don't, but it's nice in a way to know that his aren't...lying or otherwise sneaky ones.

I realized for myself, last night, how very few times I've cried since I've started seeing Jay. That doesn't have entirely to do with him, because I've taken the initiative to kick a lot of internal and external badness to the curb, but it's nice that for once my boyfriend isn't a cause of any. Nor his friends, nor mine regarding him.

I'm starting to feel ambitious and cook up schemes again, which is usually the sign I am more myself. Most won't come to fruition, but if any do, I'll bring it up. I'd rather not write them down as I'd rather use that time to try to do them, for once.

As always, I have work to do now. Whoever told me I'd have more spare time than in my undergraduate was a dirty liar. In any case: take care, Internets.

Not much has changed. I'm busy and now sick.

I wish that life was like my office. I could just organize it efficiently enough for a couple of hours every day and it'd run smoothly and leave me with plenty of spare time.

(Yes, I'm beginning to believe I missed my calling as a secretary.)

Lately, I'm constantly concerned with how little I'm getting done. I'm irritated with myself, and starting to wonder when anything (or everything) I do will ever seem enough, and how I came across feelings of inadequacy so pervasive that I have to constantly "accomplish" to win myself over.

There's another breaking point coming. I feel sure of it. And I will probably feel less empty when it comes. Still, on some level I'm getting sick of the need to burn to ash and reform constantly. It'd be nice to take passion with a side of stability (and oh it sounds so immensely stupid to say that, actually).

I'm not sure what to say. Everything lately is deconstruction and I don't really know where Derrida meant to end with that. When all you've got is parts of parts, can you choose correct ones to build with? Or is it impossible to achieve synthesis without creating what you wanted to break?

I used to know so clearly, but I have a sneaking suspicion that the things I want have changed. And there are so many parts here to make something out of, but someone lost the top of this puzzle box.

It's not terrible, just liminal, and I'm terrible at living in shades of grey.

My mom is okay! They're confident that they got everything and she was fine after the surgery, and she should be home within the initially expected time.

While that is a HUGE LOAD off my shoulders, I now have to get back to work.

I would bitch about my workload, but really there's no time. To be concise: I haven't had time to dye my hair and I'm almost a month overdue and seriously, if you've met me in real life you know how diligent I like to be about my dye. Yeah. Yeah.

Trial solution: get up earlier in the morning and try to get readings done before office hours/class (and sleep less).

I have picked flowers to send my mother when she gets home (some roses). I miss my family.

Okay, okay, that is all, there are 40-minute seminars to prepare. GACK.

11:30: get up.
12 - 12:30: work meeting. Talk to Brian; discover alternative to Writer's Market, Duotrope's Digest. Rejoice.
12:30 - 1:30: drop off prescription. Grab bagel. Eat bagel, discover I'm off my mother's health plan and need to prove student status AGAIN, make several calls.
1:30 - 2: pick up proof of enrollment and send off; hand in OGS application. Go home.
2 - 4: use Duotrope's Digest and my own research to make a spreadsheet of magazines to submit to, their reading periods, payment rates, etc. Eat lunch.
4 - 7: class. Second-year grad assures me emotional breakdowns are a regular part of her educational experience. I've somehow managed to forget to read an essay we cover.
7 - 7:30: hunt down an original copy of "Seed Catalogue" in the library for my seminar. Go home.
7:30 - 8: ponder what to eat. Find Chinese with delivery, as it is terrible out. Order food for Jay (who is out) and I. Check e-mail. Queue up torrents of favourite shows.
8 - 9: become anxious that my mother hasn't called. Eat two two-bite brownies. Open "Seed Catalogue" and start taking notes; Chinese shows up, eat some ravenously while reading some of the Windsor Star. Return to work.
9 - 9:30: Jay gets home. Serve him some Chinese. Mom calls; talk to her for most of this time.
9:30 - 11: take notes on "Seed Catalogue." Find some essays (including mine) on it. Make one post on D&D group's blog.
11 - 12: Finally give up on "Seed Catalogue." Organize all papers looking for Creative Writing package, only to find it with D&D character sheet. Pick up a few items of garbage, moping at house mess; change garbage, water neglected basil plant, fix tea for myself and Jay (so he knows I remember he exists). Read Brian's stories.
12 - 1:30: gain headache and become frustrated. CW work is not bad, but nothing I can relate to or be inspired by; miss old class. Stop to check on Jay; decide to bathe and try to read next week's Disability class reading ("The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time").
1:30: about 1/3 through the book, give up, shave my legs, and decide to come upstairs and visit with Jay. Will probably watch an episode of Supernatural and go to bed, chatting for 30 minutes about our day before we fall asleep (3 a.m.).

Didn't really waste much time today, I guess. Also got mind-bendingly tired and hungry and blew my diet and got a headache.

Bleh. Better luck tomorrow, maybe.

Okay, this is ridiculous.

I'm in grad school for Creative Writing and I never even have time to WRITE.

I think this week I am going to log the hours I spend doing all manner of things. Like calories. And then, I can look at that log and feel guilty for the time I'm wasting on whatever the hell I'm wasting it on, because I can't seem to figure it out.

That, or I'm not really wasting much of any time and I'll just have to cut out some area of my life. I am always trying to do too much, although I didn't think school/work/family/boyfriend/friends/writing/music was too much to ask.

...okay. It's too much to ask. But what out of that can I dump? Really.

Time management suggestions, anyone?

It is not really "Daisy" day. Brand New's album "Daisy" came out yesterday, but today I am purchasing it at the mall when Jay and I go there to DDR. I am still undecided about the album as a whole, as it's odd and it will take me a few dedicated listens to give a fair review, but it does have a few immediately good songs.

Jaymon still surprises me often. He's such an open-minded and easy-going person. So we're not exactly similar, ha, but it's kind of a nice set of differences.

My sister is getting married next fall! Which means that she (and I, by extension) have a lot of planning to do. I know nothing about wedding planning, but I like weddings and I love her, so I assume this will go well somehow.

Work is good. I'm still proofreading an academic text (freelance) and working for the literary magazine is going well, as thankfully the volume of work is finite enough that I can impose order upon the chaos that office has been. I suspect once the year is through, the place will be organized so meticulously that it might terrify incoming English students.

My classes are enjoyable; Disability and the Body isn't really my field per se, but it's interesting and the prof seems good at choosing engaging contemporary texts/films. I might ask to do a directed reading with her next year (feminism and vampire narratives!). Creative writing is a bit strange since I'm the only poet, but everyone's pretty nice.

When I'm not in class, working, doing homework, or writing scholarship applications, I attend D&D, submit work to magazines, cook for the boys (and sometimes company), and call my mother very often. I also eat lunch in a new locally owned cafe, super-pretentiously, and help Jay with his homework. Being a first-year grad student while your mate is a first-year undergraduate student -- in your field -- is kind of trippy.

So that's my life lately, LJ friends. Kind of boring to report, I guess, but I'm assured this overabundance of diligence will pay off in having more time to myself later in the semester (once the office is running smoothly, my third compulsory four-week class is done, the textbook is proofed, and scholarship applications are done). Hopefully it comes up quickly, because I want to do some more musical work and become more fervent about promoting my writing.

And that is all.

I've started graduate school. The amount of work is intimidating thus far.

I have a new phone, an iPhone 3GS. I have officially joined the future and I think I like it, though I haven't had much chance to play around.

I'm working and freelance working. The good news is I'll have some more book credits under my belt.

I'm trying to start making magazine submissions again so that I'll have some more publications under my belt, too. My list is somewhat pitiful though I suppose I'm mollified by the fact that other people in my graduate class are just getting around to the idea.

Our house has a revolving door, so it's perpetually a mess. I would be frustrated about that if I had more time to be. Not the people (I like them), but the clutter.

I am logging my calories almost every day in an attempt to start losing weight, as I'm starting to feel really out of control with my weight gain, but I can't seem to shake being hungry a lot. Maybe if I had more time to exercise things would go more smoothly. Hopefully, being aware of my intake will start to help at least a little.

I am making a recipe book with the ambition that giving it to some people may prove useful for them and save me thinking up other thoughtful gestures.

Well, it would seem that Jay and I will probably be watching some True Blood and retiring, so I shall sign off for now until I find a more interesting way to express my daily struggles. I don't feel quite as writerly as I would like to lately; I suspect it's because I've been swamped. I am working on constructing an orderly routine so I can create more time for myself. Calendars and agendas and compartmentalizing. Yes.

Until next time, Gadget.

People still contact me periodically, trying to find Steve. I understand why they do, because since I've known him I've often been the only reliable way to get in touch with him. It's just awkward and somewhat sad now.

I like my friends, oldish and new, but I realized recently my summer has been so hectic because I have spent all of my time socializing, out of some paranoid feeling that I'm a terrible friend. Overcompensating. Now I'm tired as hell and frustrated with myself for not getting a lot done these past months and for gaining weight, which I'm wont to do when I'm constantly eating out or cooking for everyone.

It's all been pretty silly, too. Because the people who liked me in the first place seem to like me regardless of how much time I spend on them, and the others ignore my kindness no matter how exaggerated.

Now that I've stopped hurr-durring long enough to figure THAT out, I'm hoping I can start taking some time to myself. Today I worked for some hours and have started doing the laundry. The boys are playing D&D in the dining room. Before school starts, I'm trying to finish a proofreading project (a 320-page textbook) for a couple of professors, so I'll be busy with that. One of them sounded likely to give me some tips as to how to freelance editing work, which is something I wouldn't mind doing next summer. And I need something to do next summer, other than possibly going to France.

I'm enjoying the leak of Daisy. Of course Brand New went in yet another direction, and it was kind of WTF on first listen, but it's beginning to really groove for me, some songs more than others. "You Stole" stands out from those that are actually new to me (I had heard "At the Bottom," "Gasoline," and "Bought a Bride" already).

In any case, I'd better get back to various work or I'll feel guilty for not going to visit someone (one of our friends lives with his girlfriend who is new to town; he's over now playing D&D, so she's at home alone). Despite my need for clean laundry and relaxation and everything I said above, I still feel bad when I don't put others first. Bah.

Life has been a lot of things, but also repetitive. So I guess there's not a lot to say.

I'm starting graduate school in a couple of weeks. I'm nervous, but determined. I certainly don't feel worthy considering how little writing I've done this summer, but I am hoping a fresh start will bring out the best in me.

My mother's surgery has been pushed back to the end of September. I'm scared for her, and sometimes it leaks out, that feeling of helplessness translated into a feeling of inadequacy that just exacerbates my criticism of everything I do. I call my mother compulsively often.

I've been surrounded by some new people. Which I suppose always takes up time, finding your place in a group. Thankfully, this doesn't follow with saying I've lost all my old friends. I think I'll be able to keep what was worth keeping, and that's all that matters.

Jay is coming to Brand New in October and to visit for Thanksgiving, to meet my mother. Our relationship is one big risk. But I don't really care; neither of us seems to care. It's a kind of sureness I've been missing for a long time.

And the other strange thing is, even as neurotic as I've been, I feel like I've been getting a little bit better. I wonder, as I do often, if it's escapism or progress.

I guess we'll find out.

I think I may be actually turning into a cat. My head started to hurt today, so I laid down on my bed and nuzzled my face into my pillow, stretching out my limbs and digging them into the sheets.

Yeah. Heh.

I just paused while talking to Jay, and had one of those moments.

In most of my relationships, either the relationship has somehow been entirely fucked, or one of us was somehow entirely fucked (completely depressed, anxious, etc.), or the situation was somehow entirely fucked. Excuse my French, but that's really the best way to describe it. I think, and knock on wood here, I just had a moment where I realized: this is what it is like to love someone when things are not somehow entirely fucked.

(Not to say I didn't love those that I did when they had problems or I did, or vice versa. But just to say it's different.)

I am not currently a wreck or a damsel. I took the space to stop pining over other guys. And I'm not looking to be rescued.
He's not in need of saving. He wants to make his own awesome future and be someone I'll be proud to be with (though of course, he already is).
We're not long distance, or about to be, or disapproved of by anyone, or any other sort of thing.

We can just love each other without all the despites. I mean, there are still life obstacles. And differences between who we are. Like with other human beings.
But for once, I might have found a romance instead of a tragedy.

I won't jump to conclusions about that, though. I'll just enjoy it as what I think it definitely is: a step forward.

And yes, for all I've been through, I'm still saying this and taking myself seriously.

That breakthrough I was waiting for, that maybe a lot of us were, happened for me already. And I hardly noticed it.

I think I realized that this morning. I was waking up from some silly nightmare, but still dreading waking up, as has been instinctual this summer. Then I rolled over, saw Jay, smiled at him, and it occurred to me that I actually really wanted to be awake, that I had and have a lot to look forward to. And it wasn't boyfriend things I thought of (though they factor in, of course) but every good thing that comes with life, and being me.

So I'm enjoying this afternoon alone in the house, and the sunshine, and I think I'll practice some instruments while the boys are gone.

Shit, time flies when you're falling in love.