And The Rants Just Keep On Coming

Dear Museum Director and Tarot Guy:

While I appreciate your desire to use some of my work in your show in your bitty obscure museum in California, you really do need to work on a few things, chiefly but not exclusively restricted to the following:

Getting your (respective) scatterbrained and anal-retentive heads out of the asses in which they currently reside (which may or may not be your own, each others', or someone else's entirely);

Then, once out, you might also consider working on learning to communicate, to wit:

Do not contact me in a flurry in the spring, telling me the show will be in October, then not contact me again until the first week of November, at which time you are all OMG WE NEED THIS NOW two days before I am slated to go away for three weeks. Do not then get all flustered and panicky as if this is MY FAULT.

Also, if you could actually communicate with EACH OTHER, O Museum Director and Tarot Guy, to whom I explained everything (I thought) clearly and concisely back in the spring, and so understand, Museum Director, what the actual art you wish to have in your exhibit actually looks like, I WOULD very much appreciate it. It would save the current round of misunderstandings, and probably some panic on your part. Which is not my fault, and would be amusing, save for the fact that it gives me a rather stabby pain in my lovely round bottom.

I would also like you to understand that YOU ARE NOT PAYING ME. And so, when you tell me to Jump!, not only am I NOT going to say How high? I will probably shoot you a VERY sarcastically unimpressed look, whilst making a gesture that can be described thusly:

I will take my right hand, and curl my fingers and thumb as if around a tube-shaped object measuring about an inch and a half in diameter, and then make rapid up-and-down motions with it, in imitation of WANKING OFF.

Because that is what you can do.

Cordially,
Thalia

Samhain Work of the Axe Murderess Kind

Well, writing that last post inspired a fruitful (or distracted, depending on your point of view) past few hours, because I googled 'Sarah Williams,' just to see. And the internet, being the unpredictable miracle that it is, provided.

I found a genealogy site by someone of that name, with copious linked lists (I believe it is a part of ancestry.com); and it wasn't too long before I found a Sibyl Williams, married to someone of the name (get this) Elkanah; and plugging in my grandmother's name lo and behold she came up, too. And I knew it was her since the date and time were right, and I recognized her parents' and grandparents' names; but, though they are obviously connected, I couldn't quite link the two. It doesn't help that 'great-great-aunt' is a little vague, and might not be strictly accurate; but that site proves they are related somehow (beyond the evidence of the framed bit of linen, that is).

But going back from my grandmother it wasn't very long before I struck the surname Borden.

Speaking of axes. I am from exactly the correct area of the country, you know, and the Bordens listed were, too. And, sure enough, the famous Lizzie of that name was on there, entangled in that family, my family; and, with a little bit of work (mostly just clicking the mouse and drawing a few diagrams so I could keep it straight), I found a connetion. A connection, anyway, and given the ubiquity of that family in the area, I'm sure there are plenty more recent ones, but at the very least I can now officially say:

Lizzie Borden is my ninth cousin thrice removed.

It had always been a family rumor, though last time I asked my father he flatly denied it. Well, now I know it's not a rumor.

So, y'know, don't piss me off. There's no telling what I'm capable of. It's in the genes, you know?

Heirloom

Which reminds me about Samhain, and the ancestors. I did nothing for it this year, nothing official, anyway, however--

About mid-October the Sibling came by and I managed to persuade him that getting into that attic closet was What He Wanted To Do that day. I'm not sure how; he is notoriously fickle, being only interested in what he is interested in. (This just may have something to do with that narcissism thing.)

The closet at the top of the stairs, you may recall, which is the next piece of the puzzle in my refurbishment of my attic studio room, since I want to (O I hope I hope I hope it will fit) put the bureau and the other cabinet-thing in that closet. Fingers crossed; it originally came in through the window (which has since been replaced with a slightly smaller one, so it won't actually go out that way, well, not without some help from an axe) and it's kind of big; so I don't know if it will be able to be maneuvered out the door and into the little hallway and back around into the closet, especially given the presence of the big fat chimney.

Anyway, so cleaning out that closet, even though it's a big, distracting, dusty sneezy pain in the ass, is actually part of this process, because there has to be room for the bureau in the closet before it can be attempted to be moved into the closet. And I just don't care enough, honestly, to do it myself.

Hence the Sibling's involvement. Well, really, what it comes down to is that I'd probably just throw everything away; the Sibling, having inherited our father's hoarding gene (though to a much smaller degree) will just die if he isn't allowed to go through and approve/disapprove/take whatever he wants. Well, that, and I can't be bothered. I just don't care, not really.

Except it turns out that that closet is full of heirloom-type stuff, not just old books or broken fans. Though I don't know if heirloom is quite the right word--yes, these things were once valuable, and many of them are quite old now, but they are just so sad: expensive vases that have been broken and put back together without all the pieces, falling-apart jewelry boxes, foxed mirrors, a set of lacquered tea-trays (the detail is really quite exquisite) in pieces, fallen apart, that kind of thing. Things that are emblematic of a once quite prosperous family wholly impoverished by the Great Depression. So very, very, sad.

And then there are the photographs, all these pictures, on paper and card and tin, some you can't even make out unless you hold them at the right angle to the light, little mirrors with someone else's face looking out. Piles and piles of them. And almost every last one of them unlabeled. We may be able to piece a few of their identities together from other photos, or circumstantial evidence, but so many of their identities are lost, gone. And the man that may have identified them is lost, gone, too, though still alive in that nursing home down the street.

Out of the whole pile of things I found only a couple of things that I would keep, myself. One is a set of hair-combs, made of what sure looks like aluminum set with rhinestones or glass; it is fairly cheaply made but unmistakably from the 1920's. I don't know that I will ever wear them, but I know they would look glorious against hair black as mine is now, since I dyed it back to black a week or so ago.

The other thing is a small framed piece of cloth. It is undyed linen, stained here and there a bit in brown, and it is woven in a pattern reminiscent of overshot coverlets from colonial times. It is matted, and on the matte is written:

LINEN

Spun by Mrs. Sibyl Williams - 1800
Great-Great Aunt of Sibyl Robeson

The second Sibyl being my grandmother, her married name.

I think I will hang it on the wall of my studio room.

The Long Dance

I know, I know, it's all about me me me. Well, this is a blog. You can hardly be surprised.

I do feel bad that I haven't written much here lately. I guess that bit about being tired would be why; still, I feel bad. This place is very important to me, if only because it helps me think and sort. Although I do love rereading my posts about him, of course.

I mean that's kind of self-indulgent, I guess, or at least it sounds it when talking about it here 'out-loud,' as it were. Still, going back over old posts has proved very helpful, because in reading them in one go I can see the patterns and the developments both. Very, very helpful. I suppose that if I were to read the posts from last November I would find the same attitude. It has happened more than once. I like to think I am not seasonal in my moods, or forget that I am not; but this is of course not true, and somehow it always astonishes me to see it before me.

It is the week after Samhain, a reflective time, of course, and a time to take stock of what is here and what is lost.

Sensitive

Actually I got a bunch of test results back, from this latest go-around in early October and from the last one before that. Everything normal on the latest, save for my B12 levels, which were just (by two points) off the bottom of the scale. (And yet I had gotten a postcard from them with the box checked off "Blood tests normal.")

Now from what I hear you actually want to be in the high end of the B12 normal range, not the low (so why is the low still normal? The more I look at this stuff, the more fucked-up it seems to genuinely be), so, that could certainly be a contributing problem.

The thing that I'm wondering about, though, is my TSH levels (for what those are worth). Both times they were within the range, but the number had tripled from the first (last December) to the second (first week of October). And higher is tireder, on this scale. Both well within range, by the way, but I still wonder--I am notoriously sensitive to medication and such (as examples, I have never gotten acclimated to the statin I am on, and it still always causes at least some stomach upset, and when they tell me to 'ramp up' on a med I always take it at least three times as slowly, to the point of starting on a quarter pill every other day, that kind of thing) and it is not at all far-fetched to imagine that I would feel that tripling. Because I am that kind of sensitive, and I always have been. But I don't know if a fluctuation like that is normal within one person, or what, and I can't seem to find it out through googling, though perhaps I have just not hit on the right keywords (and my google-fu is usually quite good).

So I don't know. And I'm not sure what to do.

Snippy

Well I'm no longer quite tired. If anything, I am now mildly hyper, which is instilling in me a sense of foreboding. Maybe I'm misinterpreting it, though; maybe I'm just more or less back to a normal energy level but reading it as 'hyper,' since it's been a while.

Hmmm, not real sure about that.

I don't really want to think about what it might mean.

My doctor seemed to think my insomnia was the primary problem. Now, don't get me wrong, I'd sure as Hel like to see that particular health mess get fixed; but after I explained that, yes, it does take me four or more hours to get to sleep, but no, once I'm asleep I'm okay and I usually do get at least eight good hours of sleep, she then went on to talk about sleep apnea.

Now, I do snore. I was absolutely horrified to learn this, years ago; you have to understand, my mother snores. My mother snores horribly. When I say you've never heard anything like it, you simply must believe me. The nearest I can come to describing it is that it sounds like a distressed cow crossed with the noise of an approaching freight train. It is loud, good God. So when I was told I snore years back I just... I couldn't deal, and pretended I'd never heard it.

But it turns out I am not in fact loud at all. A couple of those summertime camping events ago, the woman in the neighboring tent told me one morning that they had all gathered round after a party the night before listening to me snore. I must have looked suitably horrified, because she then said, "It was so cute! It was like the sound a kitten would make!" and I was like, Oh, thank God. So that was a relief.

So I told the doctor that I do snore, but quite quietly. She ignored that. Now, I understand people can have apnea and not even know it, just that they aren't sleeping well. But that's the thing--I know what it feels like when I haven't gotten enough sleep, or haven't gotten enough good sleep: I am tired, yes, but in a very specific way, with the slight nausea, slight dizziness, sticky eyes, heart racing just a tad, that kind of thing. But this kind of tiredness was very different. It felt like the side-effect of a medication.

But she went on about apnea anyway.

And then she told me that "we have to get you moving, even if for only fifteen minutes a day."

I'm not sure where that last one came from.

Oh wait, I have a guess, and it's the same place the apnea stuff is coming from.

I mean it's subtle, and so I can't tell if my hunch is right, but what do you wanna bet she took one look at me, saw "fat," and then what comes up but apnea and the idea that I must never exercise?

Of course I didn't put that together at the time. But I was at least coherent enough to get snippy with her, asking her, hey, why was I here? Why it's because I'm TIRED. And that motivates someone to exercise how? Then I told her I was running last year, and I'd sure like to be doing that again, except for the I'M TIRED bit. Yeah, I was snippy. To my doctor. That is a really really good thing.

And I didn't even mention "adrenal fatigue." I have a feeling she would laugh at me and tell me it doesn't exist. Which I suppose I should. The sooner I find out for sure that I need a new doctor, the better. Still, what a pain in the ass.

Black Walnut

Sometime in the misty dawn I woke (I know! I was actually asleep at the time!) to a very strange noise, at the exact same time Puss One suddenly jumped up from her sleep to sit on the edge of the bed, where she then sat and stared, all a-focus, ears locked, on the door to my bedroom closet.

She was wrong, though; the noise was definitely coming from outside. Two noises, actually, a quiet little clicking sort of noise, and another rather louder one--the thud of something, or somethings landing on the roof at irregular intervals. Which roof is just the other side of the ceiling, by the way, given that my attic room has an angled ceiling.

At first I thought the clicking noise was from a flock of little birds flapping around in the cherry tree outside my window; the chickadees, especially, like to be noisy. As to the thuds, though, I was baffled. So I finally rolled over to peer, bleary-eyed and glasses-less, out the window. Nope, no birds. What I did see, though--

It was a steady rain of leaves, like I have never seen before. I know in autumn there are usually some leaves falling, one or two here and there in the air, but this was different. It was constant, and fairly thick, and coming from the black walnut tree. That was what the noise was--the little clicking was the dry leaf-clusters falling through the cherry tree, and though I couldn't see it, the thudding noise could only have been the leaves hitting the roof, which, on a black walnut, are arranged two dozen leaflets to a stem, and which fall off as one good-sized unit, hence the thuds.

And I watched the leaves fall, steady and glorious, and I thought, I am witnessing a miracle. I am seeing the one hour in the entire year that the black walnut leaves fall.

I am blessed.

I Have A Really Weird Cat

The past couple of days I have noticed an, er, odd smell coming from, well, the cat. Puss One, to be exact. Said smell had been drifting about her for a while, but in such a subliminal way that I did not at all first associate it with the Cat.

It was, after all, an odd smell. A really odd smell.

But, sure enough, once I managed to actually connect the Smell with the Cat, I buried my nose in her fur just to make sure, and well, yeah, there it was.

I can only imagine she's been rolling in something, something very unusual.

Unusual for a cat, I mean.

For Puss One smells unmistakably of Nag Champa incense.

And I'll be damned if I could figure it out at first. Whaaaaaa??? How? Why? I mean that's like a cat walking up to you purring her head off after blissfully rolling around in a bucket of lemons.

But sure enough, I caught her last night. She was standing under a small table in my bedroom, a small table that had been piled high with stuff. Stuff that had proved too big for the table and had all toppled off onto the floor somewhere in there. Stuff that, apparently, included a stick or two of Nag Champa.

And there she was, rolling around on the floor, rubbing her face in that incense, over and over and over, like it was the happiest most catnippy stuff on the planet. She was practically drooling.

She is such a weirdo.

But she sure smells nice!

Grrrrrr.

I found myself sitting at a round table the other day, perched on a high cafe-type chair in someone's kitchen, sitting across from my mother. I was reading a series of index cards, mint green ones, when suddenly I said, out loud and in spite of my mother's presence,

Is this a dream?

And it was.

I have no idea why I remembered.

And I was like Oh! OH!! This is a dream!!! And I stood up, and looked around; and I looked at the index card and read the sentence on it; then I flipped it over, and back again, and the sentence was different. And I knew.

But I was feeling kind of cramped, like I needed to stretch. So I stretched.

And apparently that was all it took, or I must have stretched and moved a little for real, in my actual body, because then I woke up.

This is a damned aggravating hobby, this lucid dreaming stuff. I was all set to call him to me, to see if he could come to me, and I was even, ha, ready to introduce him to my 'mother' in my dream. Wouldn't that have been funny?

And then, just maybe, go off somewhere and have wild and passionate screaming sex.

How goddamned difficult is that, O my Unconscious Mind? Just once. Just fucking once.

Well, yeah.

Grrrrrr.

Cold

No, I don't like the starry background stuff. The dark, that's great, but not the stars. Too much light. And anyway I don't want out; I want in.

I've been on a wicked orange and black kick; it's crazy, given that I'm I swear the only Pagan in the Universe who can't stand autumn. Or usually can't stand autumn. This year, I don't know, I'm beginning to see it as beautiful. I never could before. Too cold, too much despair knowing that winter was coming, and I would soon always be cold.

I was talking to my bibliophile friend the other day and mentioned this. She was kind enough last year to buy me a lovely heater, one that very nicely heats a whole room up quite quickly; I told her it was really nice to be warm, and that I thought it had something to do with my liking autumn more than usual (or at all) this year. And she said something that I had never thought of. It's obvious, and it is heartbreaking.

I have always been cold in the winter in this house. My miserly bastard parents always kept the heat on about fifty-five during the day. No word of a lie. Fifty-five degrees. (They would put it at sixty or sixty-five on Christmas.) In the wintertime I could pretty much count on my fingertips being bluish much of the time. Again, no word of a lie. Also, for the vast majority of my childhood we didn't have hot water, so it's not like I could just run them under the tap to warm them up.

And here I am, and was, and always will be, an artist. One who very much likes fine detail in her work. And a pianist, that too. With blue fingers that don't move well in the cold. Every goddamned winter. In New England.

There's that. But that's not what my friend said. She said:

That autumn wasn't making me upset this year because I knew I would be warm. Because being warm means my life is not in danger. Because being constantly cold is a threat to survival.

That had never occurred to me. Never in a million years. But it is absolutely true.

It is not just a stress; it is not just an inconvenience; I am not just whining, a judgement I have taken deeply into myself, no doubt because my mother used to call me 'Princess' in a sarcastic manner when I would complain about such things. (She did that to me exactly once after I moved back. I tore her a new one. I told her: Don't you dare ever say that to me again. As if hot water is some ridiculous luxury!)

No, consistently being cold is, and was, a threat to my survival.

Of course. What is more basic than food, clothing, and shelter? Shelter, which is supposed to protect you from the elements.

I think this is why I have been tired, perhaps. It is so wearying to deal with all this stuff. It never ends, and has no bottom, or so it seems. But I don't know. Maybe it is my thyroid. Which, incidentally, if it's not working quite right, would make me tend to feel cold, more so than most people.

I don't know.

Wev

Mmmmm, wow, yeah.

I've been so tired lately.

I went to the doctor; they took a bunch of blood; I get a postcard in the mail a little while later with a box checked off saying blood test results normal.

Not very helpful.

In the last couple days, though, I've begun to perk up a bit. I've no idea why.

It is amazing to me how much this has affected my mood. I mean, I shouldn't be amazed, really, I ought to know myself better by now, I'd think, but still. Grouchy, cynical, unable to even try with the stuff that might actually be useful, the affirmations and the spells and the prayers.

Well, wev.

Yeah, I'm that tired that I'm using 'wev.' Also, I just like the word. It's funny.

So here I am, and this is only the third post this month. I'd feel guilty, but I'm still just a hair too tired to care.

A Question of Balance

The other day I was in an auto parts store with my brother, who was looking for some fuel line for his, get this, Citroën CX. Which car I'm sure you've never heard of, as there are perhaps only a couple hundred in the US, since they were apparently never quite legal. So, when the salesdude asked, well, what kind of car do you need this for, hoping he could type it into the computer and look it up, we both laughed.

While we were waiting, two men came into the store. Two rather forbidding, gruff, tough, gangsy sort of looking guys, the taller, bigger, one in a Harley shirt and the smaller, younger one in the usual baggy pants big t-shirt and baseball cap turned to the side sort of look. Both of them with the requisite don't-fuck-with-me stare and the defense-turned-up-so-high-it's-become-offense attitude. So they made me a little nervous.

But as we were waiting a while with our business they just stood there, waiting, I assume because they had a question to ask too.

And I looked at the younger one. Or rather, the younger one's hat, specifically. It was, like I said, a baseball type hat, turned to the side and sort of tilted in that it's-fashionable-so-it-doesn't-have-to-make-sense-but-you-know-it-really-looks-kind-of stupid-to-someone-who-doesn't-actually-care-about-fashion kind of way; it was also a peculiar bright yellowy green, and though given the way he was standing I couldn't really see the front of it, I could tell that it had some sort of red semi-circular design on the brim. I wondered about it a bit, trying to figure it out, but I didn't want to stare, given the tough-guy look to him.

But then he turned, and I saw the thing.

It was a Kermit the Frog hat.

And I couldn't help it. I said, "Oh! I like your hat. It's really cute!"

And tough-guy suddenly got all sheepish and grinned, and said, "Thanks," in a sort of sweetly embarrassed way.

For the rest of the day I just could not stop laughing about it. I mean he must have known, right? I mean, seriously, dude, on the one hand you have the tough-guy attitude, don't-fuck-with-me menacing look to the eyes, the baggy gangsy looking clothes and on the other a Kermit the Frog hat? That hat cancels the rest of it out, dude, way waaaaay cancels it out. Dude!

Yep, Still Tired

Well, had an appointment with my doctor today. I don't think it went well.

I have a few things going against me:

I am female.

I am overweight (actually, technically I'm "obese" according to the BMI, which is all kinds of fucked up. The BMI, not me, I mean).

My symptoms are pretty vague, namely being tired all the time and sort of kind of vaguely achy, and yet of course still ridiculously insomniac.

The first two mean I have an automatic handicap when it comes to a doctor listening to me. And the third is just so amorphous it's damned easy to dismiss.

Let me state up front what it is I think is wrong with me. It could be a bunch of little things, and I would not be surprised if that turns out to be true, such as lowish on my iron levels, that kind of thing. But I would bet money that the main thing going on here is that my thyroid has begun to wind down, just like it did to my mother around this age. And I would also bet money that it's being served up with a side helping of adrenal fatigue, which is what is causing my very specific variety of insomnia.

I suppose I don't have any evidence beyond my symptoms and an over-generous helping of internet reading, surely not the best thing if one tends to hypochondria; but then there's this:

The other night, lying there in bed (as usual), I tried a little meditation, a little visualisation. He was there, sure, though I've honestly been too tired to see much of him lately; but also there was a woman in white, a healer, of some sort. And she was there to check me out, I guess, on a spiritual level or somesuch. And so she laid her hands on me, or rather, just above me, and I could feel the energy coming off of them. And then a very curious thing: she got up to just above my navel, about around my solar plexis; then she spread her hands, so that they ended up just to either side, probably about six inches from the center. And she held them there, while making little circular motions above the spots.

And I could feel the spots, about the size of a quarter on each side, twinging a little or something, I swear; and at first I thought it was my ovaries, being symmetrical like that.

But, no, it was too high; and looking it up, sure enough, that's just about exactly where the adrenal glands are located. I was surprised; I had thought them lower down.

But anyway, that's not the kind of evidence you bring to your doctor, especially if you're pretty sure she already thinks you're a flake, since you once expressed skepticism about statins being useful.

I have to say, I went in there assuming she probably wasn't going to hear me. I don't know if that's a self-fulfilling prophecy, or just being acquainted with reality. And I suppose I wasn't wrong.

She reluctantly agreed to get my TSH levels tested; she seemed to think it was more to do with my insomnia and odd sleep schedule. Which, hell yeah, I'd like to be able to fix, so if she had any suggestions?

Not really. Only to tell me that people who work the night shift (i.e. people who are on a similar sleep schedule) have shorter lifespans. And that is supposed to help me how?

Then she started in on how I should get more exercise. I told her I'd sure LIKE to get more, except for that little part about I'M TOO TIRED. She looked a little skeptical and I told her that you know last year I was out running and I'd like to start that up again.

She then said something about how I just have to make it a priority, or convince myself that it's important enough. At which I did not, thankfully, blow a gasket like I should have (mainly because, hey, I was TOO TIRED to argue much), but I did tell her (through gritted teeth and whilst giving her the Hairy Eyeball I'm sure) that you know I was rather acquainted with the whole mind-over-matter stuff and affirmations and all that and that you know, I was just TOO TIRED. What I did not say:

I'm a WITCH, you pinhead. I am very, very, VERY well-versed in such things. Good fucking GOD the placebo effect is my RELIGION. And really, do you think that as a woman, as a fat woman, I did NOT automatically start from a place of assuming it was all my fault, all in my head, something I should work out for myself? That I am here in your goddamned office (by the way, like the new suite, with the new exam rooms that are half the size of the old ones and now have no windows) means that I have ACTUALLY CONVINCED MYSELF that it is in point of fact a PHYSICAL problem. That, realistically, means it's much worse than I think it is, if past experience is any measure. JesusFUCK, woman.

Nope, didn't say that. Sure shoulda, though.

So she handed me a lab sheet with a bunch of tests circled on it to bring to the lab; and after checking out I headed off for it. Looking at the paper as I walked down the hallway I seriously considered circling the tests for T3 and T4, only I didn't have a matching black ballpoint pen handy, and well, fraud and all that. But I was sorely tempted.

Down in the lab the technician-lady drew (count 'em!) FIVE vials of blood. And me on an empty stomach, and feeling tired as it was.

And when I got home it was another drama about people not listening to me, or whatever you want to call it. I go to the doctor because I am tired, and I have five vials of blood drawn on an empty stomach, and when I ask my mother and my brother if maybe they could make me some food, or maybe get me some food because I am very very tired, what do they say? My mom says she hates to cook; my brother says, no, he has to go home because there is a TV show he wants to watch.

And here I am. You know, even when I have the worst flu and am running a temperature I don't ask them to help me. I know it's useless. I suppose I shouldn't really have expected anything from them, and should not even have bothered to ask. But somewhere in the back of my head, I don't know why, I have this idea that families are supposed to support each other once in a while. How many times have I picked up my mother's pills, or cooked for her when she wasn't feeling well, or driven her to the ER in the middle of the night?

I don't know why I can't seem to get that notion out of my head. There's been ample evidence to the contrary, at least with this family.

And so today it came to me, quite certainly, and quite calmly, that whenever I finally get the opportunity I will move overseas, and I will disown them. Let them have each other.

Sweet

I went into the City today to meet a friend (which I'm not going to talk about much just now except to say OMG I met Evn! He exists and is not merely virtual). Now, I don't do that a whole lot since I moved back into the country, and I was a little nervous about it because it had been a while, but I did okay, parking the car at one of the outlier stations and going in the rest of the way by subway.

And after meeting Evn and hanging out a bit, and having this OMG fucking amazing cold hot chocolate (I think that's what you'd call it?) I went back the way I'd come. And I saw this:

The train was rather crowded, as it was rush hour; and so I didn't get a seat and had to stand the whole way back, which was fine. But when I got on a youngish Asian man with a book got on too. I assumed he was a college student given his age and the way he was dressed; he planted himself right in front of me, quite close because of the crowding.

Now that's not particularly remarkable. What was remarkable, amazing, really, was the look on his face. He looked smack in the middle of something very emotional--sort of worried, sort of sad, and concentrating so hard I feared he'd miss his stop.

So I looked at the book: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. He was right at the end, with about ten pages left, and was absolutely completely nail-bitingly riveted to the story. He was just so taken with it.

It was so sweet.

In Which I Grouse A Bunch

Now, the reason astrology is on my mind today is because I actually managed to drag myself to the local Pagan Pride Day event. It's a sad thing, really, though; I went because dammit but I really need to find some local folk. Except when I got there, of course, I was too stressed by all the people there that I pretty much freaked out and didn't talk to anyone.

Well, okay, 'freaked out' is a little harsh. Overstimulated, maybe? Or just plain annoyed? I don't know.

I mean, really. If I saw one more cheesy cloak made from a bedspread badly printed with Celtic knotwork, well, someone would have ended up in the nearby lake. Jesus Christ. My eyes cannot roll that far back. I just, I can't.

I don't mean to be a snob, though I imagine I am being one. It's just that the place was filled with, and I don't say this unaware of my own taste in clothing, believe me, but it was filled with people dressed as strangely as they possibly could have been. Striped tights and platform shoes, most impractical for the rain-soaked uneven ground, giant crystal pendants, t-shirts with Jessica Galbreth fairies on them (don't start; I can't stand her stuff), dudes with beards walking around in Hard Rock Cafe t-shirts and walking sticks with all kinds of crap tied to them, even one guy in an actual white Druidy sort of get-up.

So many people wearing stuff that just screamed, LOOK AT ME!!! LOOK!! LOOK!! I'M DIFFERENT, AREN'T I? SEE?!? LOOK!!!! LOOK AT MEEEEEEE!!!

Very much like the way teenagers constantly broadcast that same message; laughing a little too loud (LOOK GROWNUPS WE'RE HAVING FUN!!) and proclaiming to the world that their lives are full of ANGST, though in this case, I guess, the folk were proclaiming their lives to be full of, I don't know, FAERY DUST or something. Not that I have anything against faeries.

But anyway we all know how fucking annoying teenagers are. Though, at least with teenagers, one can forgive them for being in a stage. One that they WILL GROW OUT OF.

Yeah, yeah, grumpy old curmudgeon, I know. And I was grumpy and curmudgeonly there, too, because I was stressed and out of my element. I was even grumpy and curmudgeonly whilst wearing pigtails and a Monkees t-shirt, and now that's hard to pull off. So, go me.

And I was tired. I'm tired anyway, but to get there with any kind of hope of making the classes or entertainment scheduled, I made myself get out of bed at 11:30am. You laugh, or well, if you're a stranger here you laugh, so, I guess, you're not laughing since I only have five or so readers anyway, and if you're still here you have probably heard about my insomnia by now. Let's just say I got up a full five hours earlier than I am used to.

(Uh oh, having mentioned the entertainment there, I feel another rant. I will try to keep it contained.)

I really, really, really hate most Pagan music. I especially hate the sing-songy chanty crap, both the stuff actually used in ritual, and the songs in that style that pass for 'music' in the Pagan community. And goddammit the lyrics just suck. I'm sorry, but they do. I want poetry and mystery, not some god-awful awkward lyrics with too many syllables crammed into the line. (I mean, come on--"the Goddess changes everything She touches and everything She touches changes" if you're gonna flip that last line inside out, actually fucking make it mean something different.) I never listen to Pagan music, though I have met a few Pagan musicians who have given me albums to listen to. Really, when I want Pagan music I put on XTC.

Okay, that wasn't too bad, as far as rants go. But then I am tired.

So anyway there I was at the local Pagan Pride Day, walking round and round looking at all the vendors, though not really looking at anything too hard. When you have no money what's the point? I avoided the one that had several dozen badly-made dreamcatchers hanging (I like my dreams where they are, thank you), and I walked past the booth where a guy was giving free mini-reiki sessions; and I gotta say it kinda squicked me out, the idea of some dude I don't know laying-on his hands, though I've had reiki done before. There was something off with that one.

And I sat in on a couple of classes, or lectures, or whatever you call them, basically a handful of people sitting around a picnic table. One of them was, and you may have figured this out, on astrology. Hence the sudden interest in my chart when I got home.

The other couple were from the author Deborah Lipp, who I knew was going to be there. But I never did get the energy to tell her, hey, you know, you and I have a virtual friend in common (that'd be Evn, who is one of my five readers, or used to be anyway, not that he's commented here in forever. I mean, I believe him to be actual and not virtual, but I suppose I can't say for sure). So I met her, but she didn't meet me. Which is kinda funny.

Late in the afternoon I even got to watch a mediocre tribal fusion belly dance troop. I've nothing against middle eastern dance, in fact I quite like it, but I don't think I'm used to seeing it in such neon colors danced to club music. Ewwww.

Okay, I'll wrap up the curmudgeonly tired rant now with one last thing. They were to end the day with a ritual, a large one. It was roped off with crepe paper in the next field over, and near the entrance was a sign that said, "Now entering sacred ground." Which struck me as pretty stupid, since isn't it kind of the point in this religion that it's all sacred ground? Anyway in spite of that I lined up for it, got smudged in a half-assed way by some bearded pony-tailed dude in one of those damned Celtic cloaks, and followed the rest of the people into the circle. They all stopped about halfway there because there was a large cloth-covered thing (not the altar; that was in the middle). I had no idea why, but given that the other half of the circle was nice and shady, as opposed to in the bright nasty sun, I just looked at them and kept walking. People can be very, well, sheeplike, you know? But I was informed that I was NOT ALLOWED to be over there by some lady who was probably calling the bitch quarter and so I went back and stood in the sun.

Which was too much for me. I was tired, and it was hot, and I just wanted to go home.

So I let myself, finally. I ducked out the circle and went to my car and drove home.

Just in time, actually. When I pulled out of the parking lot onto the main street it started to pour.