Enough

I always think it’s strange when people ask me questions like What are you looking for in someone? or What sort of relationship do you want?

When I’m by myself, I’m okay with just that. But when I’m around other people who pepper me with questions, it starts to make me feel like I shouldn’t be okay with it. Like I should be looking for Something Big and not happy with being on my own.

I start to feel ungrounded.

I’m looking for me to be grateful, happy, resilient, at ease, and at peace. I want a relationship with myself in which I’m honest, trustworthy, and respectful.

And I think that’s more than enough.

Things Will Never Be the Same Again

Sometimes it still weirds me out that my life right now is so different from the life I had a couple of years.

Minus some unsettledness I experienced recently, I’m stretching out into it.

I’ve always had a desire for emotional safety and comfort in my life, driven from a rather tumultuous childhood spent around mercurial temperaments and other dysfunctions. While I have this safety and comfort again now, it is in very different forms and packages, and it takes some getting used to.

I’m slow to adjust sometimes, but I truly do like this life.

And this song.

Other Good Things

Quinoa chocolate cake in cupcake form (and with agave instead of sugar).

Heck yeah.

Totally good.

Fall

There’s something about this combination of being in school and kicking down a leaf-strewn sidewalk while drinking hot tea and wearing a scarf that transports me to my undergrad years in Columbia.

Or maybe it’s this feeling of wide-openness in my life right now that takes me back.

In any case, I’ve been listening to old school Ani recently, which I haven’t done in 12 years or so. And I think about friends, the fall, coffee, writing, of feeling close and feeling open.

Warm and Fuzzies

In all the crappiness that I had ensue in the past approximately 24 hours, I was struck by a realization:

I have a great support network.

It’s a random cobbled-together little network spread over various places, but it’s mine and I love it.

Thanks.

Perspective

Nothing can jerk one out of maudlin existential woe like finding a disemboweled chicken, one half-dead chicken, and one injured chicken.

A raccoon broke into the chicken coop through an air vent. My roommate found the mess.

Porkchop came over to help with clean up.

June Wayne is gone, and Scooter is following quickly. Scout was able to hold her own better and escaped with minor injuries (we think).

Damned raccoons.

Night Again

Falling asleep to the words of a yogi.

A mat is my bed tonight.

The yogi says, “You and I are different…we grew up so much more quickly than most other people.”

I look around mentally, and I realize that is what defines my true friends.

I’ve Got Your Back. And Your Front.

Some mornings begin with snicker-worthy events.

This morning, for example!

Today started with Porkchop calling and inquiring whether I could:

1. Lend her a bra.
2. Drop off said bra at her workplace.

Since my school is just blocks from her workplace, it worked out. We can all breathe a bit more easily knowing that Porkchop is bridled.

And I will leave it to one’s imagination as to what prompted this request in the first place.

Finally

Someone has posted my new favorite. I listen to this at least five times a day.

Also, it wasn’t my intention to be Cat Power’s hair copycat.

Ooopsie

Some mornings, I find myself wiping up menstrual blood off the floor of the public restroom in my program’s building.

Those mornings are awesome.

I’m usually a tidy cup user, but sometimes splashes and splatters happen. It doesn’t bother me so much – I’m more concerned about the occupants of other stalls who probably don’t expect a blood spatter to intrude upon them.

IUD Update

I’ve had my ParaGard since mid-August, and things are nearly back in order. This round of bleeding is more normal, although heavier. However, I prefer that to last month when I wanted to get a spoon and scrape everything out instead of suffering from a very slow leak.

I never wrote about the IUD insertion. It was like getting punched in the cervix and having a fork stuck in my uterus.

Not pleasant.

The best part was that I nearly passed out afterwards. It was my own little after school special at Planned Parenthood that day, complete with a bloody pool on the exam table paper. To make it even better, Porkchop and her girlfriend came to my rescue…picking me up and driving my car back to my house.

But, seriously, it wasn’t too bad. And I’m still glad I went the copper IUD route rather than hormonal stuff.

Pretty Indulgences

I’m not one to want possessions, but I think this should be mine:

Collection of pretties.

This was from an art show/viewing of collections that I went to right after Half-Drag. The juxtaposition of the two shows was thrilling and each was equally exciting/disturbing.

Also disturbing is the rate at which Keetah is aging. I stopped by to love her yesterday and left with sadness.

Little old friend with a broken meow

Keetah is not allowed to age any more.

Today I’m recovering from an outrageously delicious steak dinner at Iron Barley, as well as drinks at the local piano bar. Such painful indulgences.