re: moving to Antarctica and sticking my head in a fucking lake

Let me tell you something important:

So in Antarctica, deep, deep under the miles and miles of glacier ice and snowpack, there are ancient lakes that have been there for half a million years. And all the pressure from the ice and residual heat coming up from the planet's core keeps the water liquid, and it's supposed to be pristine and crystal clear all this prehistoric water, and nobody knows what lives there, or if anything even lives there at all.

But I tell you what: right now, and for tomorrow especially, God, I wish I lived there.

After working seven hours in a nonmetaphorical fever, I stopped in at the grocery for a few last minute hurricane supplies. (I mostly mean wine for Josh.) I carried them in through the cold rain, my shivery heart leaden not so much with lamentations as grim acceptance. Since the backdoor was locked and I don't have a key for it, despite my landlord's most ardent promises four Junes ago, I cut down through our side alley, stepping through a deep puddle which perfectly drenched my feet. The gutter over the side has been broken since the snowstorm three winters back, so it poured a steady stream of water down my neck as I tried in vain to shield my parcels. Finally, I got to the front door, unlocked it, and came up the stairs, soaking wet. The first thing that met my sight: the bathroom, which has been under landlord-construction for over a month, was still quite shittily unfinished. I found the likewise-effected closet/dining room in a similar state. Coughing in fury, I called my landlord for the fourth time this week. My phone smashed between my shoulder and my wet face, I wandered around the devastation of my home, feebly reminding him of the various things that were undone whilst I helplessly shoved at the clutter that I could still not put away. Receiving no straight answer and losing my civility, I hung up and headed back out into the rain via backdoor to carry in the remaining groceries.


But my backyard was completely transformed. In the brief time I'd been inside, about 50-100 migratory robins had blown in. Every conceivable space was brimming with chattering, dipping, flapping birds. They didn't even mind me. I just stood there and watched them.

I know it's stupid and doesn't mean anything. In my life, I collect and value this great girth of sentimental bullshit. I assign significance to moments--natural or interpersonal--and hold them tightly and count on them like my own small fortifying army. I think that a lot of the times, people are too kind to call me out for what am I, which is a fool. I've felt so grim and alone the last weeks. But the birds did remind me, if nothing else, this world is one of true magic and beauty, and God, I love it. I don't care. It was something of a lonely miracle, and it didn't make all of the things that worry me today or this week or the last year go away. But it did make me know this: I never want to stop appreciating all of the small, wonderful blessings that constantly surround and support me.

seriously

1. Be the most responsible, goodly, sober DD at epic fun party so as not to get hungover or a late start on the most productive Sunday ever.
2. Become critically ill overnight anyway from unrelated sickness and get no sleep aside from that granted during sparse night terrors.
3. Get up, insist on continuing cleaning/productiveness routine despite on-going sickness.
4. Impale/rip hand open on inch long thorn during the first chore of the day.

I'm not saying I'm stopping, I'm just saying that now I'm angry.

it fits around me so tight

Spooky, foggy little morning on here in the Valley. Feeling blonde and removed.

Daily bullshit: an important card for me as it's the card of Sagittarius: the blended and balanced alchemy of optimism and risk, composure with expansiveness. Earth to water, air to fire. One reading suggests a particular significance paired with Knight cards, and I did see a few this week in cross. The eye of the hurricane.

We may minimize our emotions today, particularly if they stand in the way of something we want.

Yesterday, I bought some dark, murky-green nail polish with little weird swirls of glitter. It's something very unlike me to wear, sort of goblinish, but the heart wants what the heart wants. In my case, this heart also wants: a white pumpkin, a couch, another cup of coffee, time to tuck my garden in for the winter, some small assurances, a new dress, and a few other non-bloggables. Controlling my own expectations has always been a particular sticking point of mine.

While it's true that my toes actually are cold outside, it's better to be sitting out writing this. The mountain is very colorful and there are leaves and yellow jackets all around me. It smells a bit like fire up here, but not in that comforting legends campfire way, it's more like a grill. I want to attribute the strange chest pains all day to altitude, but I don't think it's that. So: taking a nice deep breath and a little break.

Today I've cooked about a million things and done all the dishes and cleaning, but like yesterday, in spite of working near constantly, I still feel unproductive and restless and half-mad. I don't really know what to do with myself. Jittery.

we'll see how brave you are

Traveling these last few days.

 Lots of mountains here in North Georgia.

Also some sun.

I like to think this decrepit barn looks like a hobbit abode if you blur your eyes.

Soligado, one of my favorites.

I spent 90% of the day digging, hauling dirt, transplanting, planting, and clearing the yard. As such, I woke up a lot of hibernating lizards. They were cold and sleepy and didn't mind my (gently) relocating them.

Really, though,

Quite a lot of lizards.

57 F in my heart and living room

"One solution is to think of your experiences in the intense shadows as an exciting journey into the unknown."
-Bunk

cosmos

Sometimes, but especially this week, inaction is my enemy. Right now I find myself alone at my parents house with nothing to do--which is weird when you're almost 26. You're never just home alone in your old house anymore. It's not that it makes me feel melancholy, but it is that it makes me feel like a teenager, and not in the good way.

quickest girl in the frying pan this morning

quarreling, looking for a fight, being bothered by trivialities

Here in the Valley, the trees are starting to go. I drove past my two favorite historical markers today: Where Ashby Fell and The End of the Campaign.

I am making myself chai tea. It's funny, I have been making chai tea for years and this is the first time I've just made it for me when I've been home alone.


I'm in a fairly good mood for a girl who had to do post production all day, leave work for an hour to go cry in her car/see about throwing up, and come back and continue post production. I always feel thoroughly odd after a migraine, a bit like my brain has been scrubbed by a cheese grater, but very quiet and... pure sounds like a dramatic, indulgent word for it. It's possibly less a raw quality and more like the feeling of the last fuck having been giving. I'm still really word switchy: I typed fairy instead of rainy, suburb instead of superb. It'd be funny if it wasn't so embarrassing and frightening.

But that said, I have a good, if wary little feeling on. Not about everything, but sort of about me. Maybe it's just the hot water.