policy, fear, unreasonable caution

Strange old night on here. I got home and took off my pants and then put them on again and then haven't been able to focus since. I have run through all my usual formulas for little distracted moods: are you hungry? lonely? angry? tired? but it doesn't seem to be solvable. My eyes feel itchy.


B-cat is also having issues. She and I were home alone during the big bad storm a couple weeks ago, and she got very upset during it. I don't know if it's the repeating circumstances or if that event had made her stormshy for any bad weather. A severe storm came through tonight and she crawled up onto my lap and just went utterly limp. I know a good cat owner would have petted her and told no one about her dark secret, but it was just so damn cute.

Not the aforementioned important post

Clear-cutting my material life tonight which is good in that I'll have even more space to stay organized and bad in that I realized at a certain point I was up in my room alone muttering to myself as I threw away many of my possessions. Like, you know. A crazy person.

It's stupid, though, because if I didn't wear it then, I'm not going to wear it now and I should stop dressing the way that I do and buy sensible slacks and many of my clothes do not even close to fit and really, having worn the red dress to a party once in college and not a very happy party at that does not a keepsake make and the beautiful picture isn't going to stop having bad associations and to be very honest I never liked it much anyway. There are so many things I still possess that I have no right to possess as a moderately adjusted nonpackrat vaguely organized 25 year old, and it makes me feel very stupid.

I think I'm just having one of those weird nights of doubt and loathing, wherein, for example, I think obsessively about all the nice things friends and teachers have written for me in books they've signed and how I'll never come to deserve any of them. People do that when you're a writer and eventually you have friends or teachers who publish; it's a thing. My favorite one I just found, in a book written by a very, very dear professor from undergrad--she'd signed the title page and left the inscription "Jess, always keep this in mind: you are one of the best writers out there." I loved it because it felt like such a unrestrained, absolute endorsement and almost clumsy or unbelievable in its extremity. An insincere compliment is dispiriting, but every now and then in life, you run into a person who for whatever reason likes you enough to be raw about it, and I genuinely believe she meant it. I sort of took a lesson from that lack of restraint. Even if I kind of ruefully sit here now and think gloomy thoughts about it not being objectively true, maybe it should be enough that one person believed in me that much. 

Some good news, though? Don't worry; I just found my M*A*S*H t-shirt.

List

Woke up at 7:30 and already gotten bored of finishing all the little morning routine things there are to do. So now there's the question of going to Lowes to buy foam. And plants. And iced cream cones. Right?

Previously-alluded-to 'something big' post still coming.

To dream of deer

The soul, the gentle harmless self that is often hurt or wounded by our aggressiveness and cynicism, or by other peoples criticism; vulnerability; the unsocialized or wild, but gentle side of our instincts; love-sickness. In Greek mythology the deer was associated with the virginal huntress Artemis. So the female deer in a dream suggests the qualities of female gentleness and the connection with nature and the hidden world of the unconscious with all its strange wisdom. 

courage

Sitting in the dim morning light with my coffee and listening to the rain pour down outside. I haven't been a very faithful poster lately, but I've got something big coming, maybe over the weekend.

If there was ever a day I felt like just not going into work, it might be today, just because of the weather and how strangely serene it makes this house seem. But there's nothing to be done for it so I'm taking up my umbrella, the one I got from my cousin when she worked at the MMOMA with blue sky and white clouds painted on the inside, and heading out into the deluge.

More bunk

Since it's so difficult to memorize all the cards, I've been doing this exercise I read about where you shuffle and draw a card every morning as a sort of Tarot horoscope for the day. It's a good way to one-by-one get many cards memorized. And today's, it's

Six of swords: blues, travel, recovery, listlessness.

Not a terrible card, but not a great card either. Swords is the suit of air, also associated with trials.

old memories and failsauce this week

I keep thinking about college. Also, I am 19.

goddess of bad roads and inclement weather, take down our names

Another round of bad cards, storms crowding out the option of a run, so the only thing left to do for this mood is to drink and vacuum and maybe scrub the floors again. (Yes, it must be that ghost.)

At any rate, it isn't too bad to be listening to the rain pound on the tin roof and how this unending, miserable, lifesucking heat has at least brought out a strange but comforting smell to the house, like sweet sun-cooked wood.

where were you thinking that you've got to run to now?

On the other hand, the trees on the drive home smelled nice and hot and raw. On the other hand, everything else.

Deep feeling, freedom of emotion, testing of sincerity

This morning I pulled the best hand I've drawn since I started reading Tarot: The Lovers, Justice, and the Nine of Cups, all right side up, and I think I read it perfectly and accurately. Because of this, of course, I immediately think I'm ready for a grown-up deck, but mastering trump is not enough. I still have so much to learn.

I took such good care of my little soft animal body this weekend that anyone keeping score of how excellent I am at following through on any pre-arranged deals to do so might be very proud of me.  It was very productive as well. I can't help but wonder how much more I could have gotten done if not for the minor Armageddons Friday night that I had to clean up. Even with the intense storm that pretty much destroyed my yard (three hours to put the patio back into shape and cart off all the broken leaves and branches, heh, heh), I still managed to accomplish the following wonders:  took out a ton of trash, hung some pictures, cleaned and vacuumed the whole house, scrubbed the tub, paid the bills, did all the dishes from Friday, bought groceries, cleaned the kitchen, the catbox, mopped the floors, cleaned and emptied the gutters, swept everything, weeded, pruned, planted a whole host of new garden things, spent about an hour hand-watering everything and reorganized some bathroom things. *out of breath*

Now a ledger of the damages:

 

This was about mid-way through the storm. By the end, the whole patio was more leaves than concrete. 

 This is actually unrelated to the storm: it's my battle wound from fighting my lantern Thursday. It started to bleed again Friday so I took the photo to prove how I am a badass all the more for getting so much done with a terrible injury. It's like going into the battle with the Troll King at 0 LB. Also, because my jammies are cute.

Big ol' tree down in the back.


If anything, this weekend emphasized to me how I'm not a complicated creature, really, and it takes very little to keep me content and productive if I'm externally motivated. Simple things make me happy. For example, I just sang a five minute victory song about some cheap conditioner I bought at Rite Aid. The lyrics are as follows: "Happyhappyhappyhappyhappyhappyhuppyhuppyhuppyhuppyhuppyhoppyhoppyhoppy..." (There were hopping parts.)

So, yeah. Better than last entry.