Spent quite a long time talking to my mom on the phone, about my grandma, about things that have been upsetting me. It seemed to bother her that I'm more upset by worrying about other people than being hurt and sad and so on. It's not that I'm not upset about those things, not at all. Matter of priorities, worldview & all that. Like my pal poppybird wrote once about herself, I'm not that good at being an -ee. Probably be easier for everybody if I were better at that.

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Happy?

Thinking about the sex scenes in Norwegian Wood and feeling worried.

Vulgar, vulgar, vulgar.

Just got called by work, problem with email, the sort of thing I want to know about, not really on Saturday night, but still. Anyway, fixed now.

Not actually that vulgar, more sweet and prone to worrying, really.

T brought me some black currant sirok in chocolate from her parents, very tasty. Glad she got back from errands, was having a pretty dark time of it here by myself. Try going to my happy place, remnants of earlier massacre has left it less inviting than it once was, having trouble getting the bloodstains out of the furniture, body parts keep turning up between the cushions.

Keep thinking about the time when I was a kid and our Skye terrier ate our cat's kittens, eyeballs beneath the pines.

Quite the array of singer-songwriters in my head today, 'Eve of Destruction' in the shower, 'Big Yellow Taxi' while walking along the greenway behind the Roundhouse parking lot with P just now, something else this morning, what was it? Oh yeah, 'Parasite'.

Thoughts keep going down dark alleys & getting scared. Hum little tunes to myself, feel a bit better.

Trying all sorts of things to feel more normal, nothing's working, walk in the sunshine (that's you!), hot shower, tasty snack, reading, writing, sudoku, etc. Ball of nerves. Should be in Baltimore, nothing feels right.

Peretz still seems kind of out of it, keep trying to convince him that eating random objects found in snow piles isn't really the healthiest habit, he tends to look skeptically at my cigarette & smirk. All do what we have to to get by, I guess.

Glancing over my checklist of things to do in life, "Find true love" checked, "Lose true love" also checked, no more entries about true love, probably for the best.

Fantasizing about dim sum, missed it for today, I guess Great Wall started doing that on Sundays as well, so maybe tomorrow if I remember. Making some frozen egg rolls as a sad substitute.

P still seems to feel a little sketchy, curled up & a bit somber.

Should probably bake something with the Red Deliciouses from the shadow economy, don't see us eating them otherwise, maybe a tart? Would need to clean the kitchen first, don't really feel up to it.

Heart hurts.

Doing online crosswords, thinking about sex. I know guys are supposed to think about sex once every 7 seconds or something, that's not me, normally anyway, prim little schoolgirl, mind on metaphysics, narratology, self-structuring systems. Anyway, had some very interesting sex, now I'm thinking about it quite a bit. Usually I get detached and bored quite easily, this wasn't like that at all, also felt very healthy & correct. What's weirder, I'm quite sure the feeling was mutual. Didn't last, sadly, we're both alone again and, given our idiosyncrasies, likely to stay that way. Well, she's not alone, in theory, anyway. Don't get me started about theory, I can go on & on.

Peretz seems to be feeling a bit better.

Did eat some pears, should probably have something more substantial.

Woke to find Peretz very desperate to be taken for a walk, he seems to have a fairly nasty digestive disturbance, so I guess melancholy trip to the seaside is off. Poor guy. We walked past an SUV full of very large dogs by the yarn store, amazing how much they could make it shake.

Thinking about sudoku as an emblem of things to come. Culturally neutral problem sets popularized through rebranding by the Japanese seem to sum up a lot of what we're facing nicely.

T's pushing gray market pears on me, resisting, have a bit of a digestive disturbance myself.

Been having some bizarre quasi out of body experiences for the past hour or so, probably an effect of being too exhausted to get up and go to bed, anyway, they've been lovely.

Tempting to go to bed though, might have some more disturbing sex dreams like last night, those were pretty neat. Keen.

Nice to have odd ecstatic experiences again, I'd missed them.

Been thinking a lot about people being suicidal for the past couple years, hadn't thought much about it for a long time- when I was younger it came up a lot, I guess one benefit of keeping almost entirely to oneself for many years is not being confronted with things like that. Anyway, the thing that's clearest to me about it is that suicide is pretty ideal as a method for hurting people in direct proportion to how much they care about you and people who really hate themselves tend to fear, resent, etc. people caring about them. It's hard to know whether not being around to observe and gauge the exact amount of pain caused is a benefit or a drawback. Merely fantasized pain is purer of course, real pain is a big mess.

If one wanted to get a more objective sense of this, one could of course experiment. Just pick one person who cares about you a lot and be dead to them. Probably best to choose someone whose use of modern communications technology allows you to observe the suffering from a safe distance, with little to no risk of providing any comfort to the subject and skewing your results.

Really feeling a lot better than I have in quite some time. Trying to think of interesting things to do with myself again. Not coming up with anything good, but that's nothing new.

Loneliness is a lot harder when you get out of the habit of it, habit's coming back. Halfway wish I could forget I could feel any other way, not likely to, dealing with it. Maybe it's better for me to have someone to miss this badly, keep me from getting too abstract. Halfway wish I could get too abstract.

Soda shop?

Wishing I could do a better job reconciling the gentleness of my feelings for others with the extreme harshness of my thoughts, experience and manner. The thoughts are behind it all of course, layers of static, multitracked, reversible, incessant. A real problem with opening myself up to people is that they end up getting exposed to these processes and they tend to scare the shit out of them. It's not surprising, that's mostly how I feel about them myself. The thing is, these scary things are the basis of most of my good qualities- reliable, empathetic, perceptive, etc. Should probably work harder at keeping my insides on the inside, it's not very pleasant and it makes me feel terribly alone, but it's probably best.

Extreme natural beauty continues outside, spent a while walking around in town, watching the Friday traffic, people cartoonish in their variety waiting at the traffic light at Pleasant & Main, haven't done that since Summer. Picked up some nice Thai, had nice chat with restaurant workers about loving heart teddy bear pin, get more enthusiastic responses to that pin, very thoughtful of T to get it for me, a sign & a warning. Preved!

I was asked a while ago, "Don't you think I know what I'm giving up?"

Honestly, I didn't and I don't. No one could, a lot of unexpected possibilities were in the offing. Past experience suggested that a lot of those would be of a shattering goodness, would have been quite something, I'm sure, but what in particular- no way to say.

Poor, sick bird.

Poor, sick me.

The beauty of this day, like yours, would be difficult to overstate. Went walking with Peretz through the Smith Phys Plant dumping area, finally dry enough to be passable, piles have been moved around, quite fascinating.

Just spent some time away from acls out in the sunshine, should find a way to spend more time out in the sunshine. Burrito, coffee, fresh air. Walking barely hurt at all.

Had some pretty intense dreams last night, shadowy movements, violence, overwhelming feelings of safety and contentment, a warm and friendly darkness. That's me all over.

OK, more Cisco.

Reading about experimental treatment of PTSD with MDMA, sounds more fun than cognitive behavioral therapy anyway.

Think some time away from the workplace is going to do me good, feel more relaxed & mentally flexible than I have in ages, very difficult for me to be around people for extended periods when I feel as bad as I've been feeling. Very difficult is actually something of an understatement, it's always very difficult. Let's say I have a hard time understanding how I've been making myself do it.

Foot's a lot better even, that could be the soaking though.

Had some fruit fresh from the Post-Soviet underground economy instead of Count Chocula, healthy choices, healthy life. Would be nice to feel healthy again, I felt just amazingly healthy for most of the fall, insane & misguided, maybe, but really fucking healthy.

Actually, I'm pretty sure that there was nothing insane & misguided about it, passionate & clear-sighted is more like it. We were doing the right thing then, my body vibrates with the certainty of it. Sadly, not everyone shares my confidence, go figure.

Dialectical, haha.

Managed to get in & out of Target without causing a scene, leaving my image as a pillar of strength intact, among the nonblogreading community at any rate. Drove away well stocked with paper goods, singing 'Ask' to myself. Also got a fresh supply of milk, maybe treat myself to a melancholy bowl of Count Chocula later, boy do I ever detest the stuff. Making reasonable progress on dutifully working through food supplies left behind by fleeing damsel, quite a lot of nicken choodle soup left, fresh out of sherry, wondering how it can be made reasonably palatable, add garlic maybe.

Despite most of my central nervous system's strong and recently reaffirmed commitment to pressing on with life and doing its best whatever the circumstances, the rest of my body is really showing some disturbing tendencies to throwing in the towel. It liked the old plan better, can't say I blame it, wish it would get with the program, I've tried reasoning with it, should maybe leave it in a gutter somewhere while I do some astral voyaging, wish I felt more confident it would miss me.

Wish, wish, wish, all the while shit's piling up in the other hand.

Maybe it's kind of odd to find yourself hoping that people you care about can maintain their resentment and hostility toward you, keeps happening regardless. It worries me that I don't seem a very plausible target, more than worries, actually, it's been keeping me up at night.

Need to go get toilet paper, was thinking about going to Target, as they often have good deals on the stuff, got to thinking about the board games section & started crying. Guess I'll go somewhere else, don't need a reputation as the big, scary guy who cries at Target. Ah fuck it, I'll just go to Target.

Anybody need anything?

Spending the day with my head in a Cisco console and my heart in Baltimore, hurts, hope the nice folks down there don't mind the spurting blood getting all over everything. Feeling a bit lightheaded, should probably eat something.

Really wasn't aware I was capable of feeling this strongly about anybody, a learning experience I guess. Tempting to say it's one I could do without, but I think that would be a mistake. I'm actually learning a lot, going through some strange changes in general outlook that I think are probably for the better, feeling simultaneously more & less alone.

OK, enough about learning more than I really need to know about pain, loss & my emotional needs, back to learning more than I really need to know about address translation.

Finally got access to Cisco stuff, will be starting in on that today. Good day to be at home doing something like that as my foot feels like something very heavy was dropped on it, should probably soak it.

Thinking about crabcakes.