A cold, cold day here on Thornrose. All of the literal dozens of filthy wild animals that I have been feeding are in a frenzy around my house trying to get seed, suet, cat food, and peanuts. Cardinals, finch, bluejays and chickadees at the feeders. Squirrels everywhere. Idiot feral cats needing to be shushed off the porch. 

When I got up, all ten of my crows were sitting in the catalpa, seemingly staring into my kitchen window. Because I'm a tremendous sucker, I took them breakfast out to their little feeding spot instead of waiting until my run to feed them like I normally do. It took two trips because of how they are greedy feathered pigs who eat a ton of food. When I came down with their second helping, they literally would not move out of my way so I could put down their stuff and had to step over and around them. They've never let me get that close, but they did look beautiful against the bright white snow.

I tried to run, but it was around 17 degrees - fucking child's play I guess for people who run in real mountain conditions, but hard on me, a soft idiot who is recovering from a long haul respiratory virus. I managed 3 miles and I'm going to be happy about that. The sky was really beautiful. I like that I'm starting to be able to see streaks of light sometimes well after 5pm. Tonight, they were bright hot housefire red and pink and golden. Maybe sometime soon, I'll start feeling less like a lunatic. 

Sometimes it's conceivable that I can be so candid about everything I feel. I can just say things so easily. And other times, it's like there is such a wall between me and everyone, like I am fundamentally disconnected now - or have I always been, with that one particular exception? 

Last weekend made me realize that in such a bodily way. Sometimes I feel so out of myself and disconnected, even from my own internal monologue, or my ability to be creative - and that feeling has persisted. Like I could just make positive, listening sounds and most people I know (and like!!) would nod along, oblivious to my actual feelings or the facts of my life and past and needs and loves. 

I had a friend reach out to me today about the last weekend experience overall, in which we all got in way too deep in over our heads and are all trying to come back from. Hah, I wrote that in such a faux poetic, vague way. Actually, it's much uglier and more common, it goes: "We all got poisoned by a bunch of drugs we didn't know we were taking." But it was so strange. Afterward, everyone said how impervious and controlled I seemed, unaffected. That has seemed so objectively funny in retrospect, but in an incredibly depressing way, because that's exactly how I feel half the time - occasionally totally falling apart but needing to keep it together on the outside.

How boring and fundamentally disappointing these entries will seem to me when I read them back to myself, and probably delete them, later. It's okay. Actually, having written all that bit out, I feel a little bit more cheerful. I'll hike out the the graveyard at Falls Hollow tomorrow with a few friends and pour my bro "Not Dead but Sleeping" (yet no name on the gravestone?) a libation in the forested over cemetery. Maybe I'll have some nice dreams instead of terrible nightmares, and see a good bird or something. I want to get back to myself, and do some actual camping that doesn't involve terrible fucking disasters. I think pretty soon I could be running a lot better.