Be the change you want to see.

i have a new tattoo! First stage of my baby sea turtle was completed yesterday, and it's really a good one. jopie_lee made it so this stage is cool to wear and doesn't feel unfinished, but we'll come back to it in a month or so and work on the rest of the details.

i also had a pretty profound endorphins crash. wrenb called it a serotonin crash, she'd know better than i would.

she theorized that after the pain endurance of the tattoo and because I recognized at the time that I was definitely surfing the endorphin rush! that i was likely to crash today, so she checked in.

when i told her i was drinking yesterday's cold tea, she asked did i *want to* and I said "eh, it's easier"

she told the polycule that "whenever Liz or I aren't bothered or don't have the energy to make tea, something's wrong!" which, LOL, called out. But also not incorrect!

so she came over and took care of me, and it was LOVELY. she made all the decisions and just moved through the house like a mother of hobbits, helping and asking and doing and fixing things up "what else do you need to do to feel better" she asks after helping me clear all the surfaces in the livingroom/kitchen. so we (mostly she) folded and put away the laundry piles in the bedroom.

and wrenb found some clothes that were on the way to being rags and said, "do you really need to keep these?" and it was a good question to ask, because No, I don't need to keep ragged clothes, I can actually throw them away, it's totally fine, I have three other pairs of shorts and i don't actually know how many sports bras I have now... and it was GOOD.

All I have to do is finish clearing the bed off before bedtime. I fed myself lunch (potstickers in broth) after she left and it made it a little bit easier to think a little bit more, I'm gonna eat some fruit probably in just a bit and try to get a bit more housework under control.

*slurp* mmmm tea.

my friend Adi asked me why did I need to cover up the old piece. and that was also a good question to ask. I've given various reasons to other people, but to her I said, I got the old one when i was with my ex husband, and I need a new touchstone now. I like that. It has the added benefit of being honest and true without being something I thought too much about.

I don't know how i made it through literal years of thinking about and planning this tattoo without telling Jeff that I had elemental associations for all that big ones I've had planned. the one in the userpic above? the Sun. This one? a water turtle, ahead of my 50th birthday. Next one planned is a crow, mid-flight coming in to snatch a shiny thing. Probably gonna do that one for my 52nd birthday.

Earth, I've not decided yet. I've thought about a crescent moon on the back of my neck. not 100% sure about that.

I Contain Multitudes. =)))

and sometimes you just gotta shed some skin to make the change happen.

it didn't feel like being crabs in a bucket
too lonely an experience for a plural metaphor.


though definitely there was a dragging down experience:

• anything exceptional
  
• anything experimental
  
• anything that broke the status quo

I expected we'd be raising each other up
not pulling someone back to toe the line
I expected us all to reach for the stars
not speak only when spoken to

I didn't realize my teaching internship
landed me in a diploma-mill
churning out inferior product
with very few value-add options

Should I have known better?
I didn't.
I have always been too trusting.

I was sent into the trenches
to build bridges with cardboard
and I was guilty when the bridges failed.

when I asked for lumber they said
"There's no budget for that
You'll have to find that yourself."
And some of them smirked.

I was a hero
but I couldn't see it
all I could see was
muddy trenches and disrespect
for miles in every direction

and when I was discharged
grateful and ashamed
I took my papers and went away
glad and sorrowful
that I was too soft for these wars.

I tend my garden on this faraway hillside
watch the struggle from a distance
climb the cliffs seeking perspective -
and maybe some new way to stop the war.


(this is my entry for this week's therealljidol.)

Paradigm Shift.

If I cease to be what I was,
What am I NOW?

What do I Want To Be?

If I open the Gates of Possibility, do I walk through them?
Or does the Flood emerge, engulf me and destroy all I once thought I knew?

I have gnawed off a bite too large to consume;
Ere I choke I must spit it out. Perhaps anon I could try eating the elephant, though in smaller bites.

Promises, contracts, shares and stakeholders.
And if options are beautiful, as some have said, then I have beauty before me...

but this kind of beauty is just short of terrifying.

Here yawns the Abyss.

Happy Birthday, Scotty.

I love you.

My brother died this Sunday. Yes, while I was in Japan.

I'm dealing. Work is helping me sort stuff out so I don't have to try and teach when I'm, um. Upset.
*nods*

My brother's, um, widow. *handkerchief*
is doing a college fund for Aubrey Faith, in lieu of flowers.

So let me know if you'd like to contribute, eh? You could contribute anytime. And prayers and kind thoughts/energies are always welcome.



and if you want to help, you can ask me how I am when you see me. I posted to Barbarians list about this but haven't um. tried to read the messages yet. thanks for people's support so far.

If there's an upside to this, aside from Scotty not hurting anymore *handkerchief*
it's that compared to April 28, 1994, when my dad died (yeah, my mom gets two deathaversaries in the same month now...) I'm actually grieving. Took me like 6 or 7 YEARS to move out of cotton-wool-stuffed denial and irrational anger about my dad's going.

So I guess that's something. Stuff is moving.

Better get going.