Suddenly it's much easier.
Intangible Updates:
-Joined a forum called Spirit Lodge last night. I figured since I use it for so much on-the-fly totem information, I might as well join it so I can have discussions and all.
-Thinking of embroidering a bear pendant. At least, that's what I keep getting visions of, and the Bruin keeps giving me that "remember that" kind of nudge whenever I see it. Not quite sure whether it's a full-body embroidery or just the bear's head (most likely the latter), but either way it's a knotwork brown bear encircled with yellow/orange knotwork. I think the yellow stands for honey. So I pulled a couple of bear-profile pictures from Google, and I'm going to draft the pattern tomorrow. Although the Bruin does say that it's not particularly urgent, since I should get my red knotwork bracelet done soon.
-I got an almost repetitive-stress injury from washing so much stuff at the dental clinic. My rib muscles and left shoulder keep getting sore/tired too easily, even though I make sure to stretch at the end of the day or whenever it happens. On the plus side, it's not too bad and I've got until Friday off, but on the minus side, I've lost two days of my paycheck. Mom has told me that I should switch hands from now on whenever one arm gets sore.
-I bought a book about thinking yourself into wealth a couple days ago. Aside from terminology it's pretty much what shamanism deals with: Focus on your goal; success can't be gained without effort; and failure just means you need another path to success.
And then I'd written this long affirmation/manifestation thing for money in my notebook; later on when I was checking Facebook, I found out that my friend in Washington is pretty much homeless, so after I asked the Tuatha De to help him find a job and place, I grabbed my notebook and wrote it down so I wouldn't forget it.
Like, it's just this really short "Friend: Work And A Place ASAP." Then I remembered that I also want Photographer Friend to stay in the Bay Area because I want to keep working with her, and I can't do that if she has to move to Chicago, so I wrote down a line for her as well. (Along the lines of "Needs a good place in Oakland.") And THEN that got to Manic-Depressive-Friend, whom I really want to just man up and take his fucking meds so he can come back to the theater group.
Which finally left me and my plans to start making Celtic-knotwork jewelry as a part-time business, so I wrote them down. And... there was a looooot of energy-unblocking.
Macha went "Heeey, you figured out what to do!" But it reminded me that I bought a set of fancy felt-tip pens for this exact thing a while ago, and I'm like, "Well, fuck. I bought a load of Special Manifestation Doo-Hickeys and index cards months ago, and in the end I just scribble things into a notebook. With a mechanical pencil."
So she cackles at me and goes, "'Eeeeeeeeverything is easier than you give it credit for.' And it's not that you have problems setting goals, honey, you just have trouble keeping focus. Or problems NOT TALKING YOURSELF OUT OF IT. If you write things down, that's a lot more solid than trying to keep it all straight in your head."
I started hearing this drumbeat in Spirit-Me's tower, so I headed out and saw Ogma drumming on the wall again. He laughs and says, "Good job, sweetie, you figured it out." Then he pecks both the back of my neck and my throat-chakra, and there was more energy-unblocking.
I asked if it was weird that I'm asking the Tuatha De to help three non-related people as well as myself, and Macha told me, "Why is it bad? You know these people, you worked with all four before one got kicked out to Washington, and being around them makes you happy. Besides, we're gods and there's a LOT of us."
So I'm taking the book's advice of reading my sheet of paper before I sleep and when I get up in the morning. Although I am going to use index cards and at least a couple of the pens from now on, because I can't keep tearing sheets out of my notebook.
Then Arawn comes in and tells me something he's been saying for quite a while: "Albatrosses live in colonies."
So he's been dropping by just to tell me that for the past couple of weeks, so I finally asked him what it means. He said, "Albatrosses live in colonies. They wander from group to group, job to job, business to theater to business. They're not going to just stay put with the same people in the same place doing the same things."
-----
Otherworld Updates, Part 3:
Last night after I had literally three Inner-Demon false alarms in a row, I told the Bruin that I really want to stop letting my baggage affect me and getting my own thoughts all fucked up because of it. The Bruin laughed, I had a huge energy-unblocking jolt, and the next minute I'm surrounded by a bunch of... well, BAGGAGE. Like, literal suitcases and bags. So Wes and the Fianna started clearing it out of my room.
I don't even know what's in the suitcases, but I'm really glad they're gone. I still had a couple of false-alarms after that, but Otso told me that I've haven't even been baggage-free for a whole day, so I'll get used to it.
---
Loki warned me about the riots this morning. Like, he just woke me up and told me, "Don't forget your knife when you head out there."
And that's a problem because I don't HAVE a knife. At least not one bigger than a box-cutter. So he went, "Then ACT like you have one. If you show fear in the wrong place, they will cut you open and string you up, and they'll laugh at you until they stop being crazy. And by then it'll be too late."
I'm like, "Loki, this is Oakland. There's only a few people stupid enough to actually hurt people for no reason."
And he told me, "Well, I know my riots. This one is already getting up there, and you have bad luck with riots."
So, slightly concerned about Thursday. This may be connected to the dream I had last night about zombies, because I forgot to ask the Bruin to keep an eye on me.
It does not help that Loki accidentally triggered me into remembering a past riot with lots of fire.
---
You know how upset I am about Cory Monteith's death? Well, yesterday night he just... walked into my headspace and went, "HI, SWEETIE! :D"
For a minute I thought he was Nechtan's-Cupbearer!Finn, but then he said he was Cory, and I'm like "FJDKSLAJLA OH GOD WHAT?!" But after I'm done flailing (it only took a minute or two this time), I asked him, "Wait, Cory, why are you here?"
"Everyone's really upset about me. Like, REALLY upset. So I'm just dropping by to help them along."
And that made sense, so somehow we end up talking about my occasional daydreams about guest-starring on Glee and making endless height jokes about him. Like, whatever else I'd have to do, I would demand to always stand on something or be awkwardly unable to hug him properly. Then I'd ask how the hell Finn and Rachel manage a relationship with their height difference. (Lea Michele is barely taller than me. I always end up feeling a kinship with short actors for some reason.)
So Cory went, "Ha, you're so tiny! It would have been AWESOME working with you!"
And I'm standing there looking at him and thinking, "Fuck, now I CAN'T. I know it wasn't serious, but still." Then I can't help myself and I ask, "Okay, I'm not going to ask how you died because I'd rather find out in the real world first. But did it hurt? I hope it didn't hurt too much."
He said, "Actually, I'm not too sure. I passed out a couple hours in." (This would make sense, seeing as he died from a mix of heroin and alcohol.)
So I told him that I haven't watched Glee for a while because it's getting too soapy and not-campy anymore, but I did watch it for a good two years and I'm resuming my life-swallowing fanfiction. He hugged me and said, "Ha, that's okay. Once a Gleek, always a Gleek." And he mentioned something along the lines of, "You know that song you're thinking of doing? The Imagine Dragons one you've been listening to, it's going to get LOTS of hits on Tumblr."
And I'm like, "But you just died, how do you know what's going to happen? Or what I'm going to post on Tumblr?"
"Oh honey. I was never that spiritual, but I still know there's weirder stuff than that." Then he had to go off to Canada to check on his family, and then he'd go check on the Glee cast (especially Lea). And then his fans.
At which the Fianna came up to help him. Well, they came and David went "YOU ARE NOT GETTING BACK TO CANADA WITHOUT SOMEONE'S HELP. AND THEN YOU NEED TO GO CHECK ON EVERYONE ELSE CRYING ON THE INTERNET ABOUT THIS SHIT, BECAUSE SHE IS DEFINITELY NOT THE ONLY ONE."
And Cory went "Holy shit, the Warblers?!"
David tells him, "CLOSE, MAN. WE ARE THE FIANNA!" So then they hoist him onto their shoulders and barrel off going "CANADAAAAAA!"
-----
That night, I had a dream where Aengus Og dropped by my house, and then he flew me around like Superman. I was scared, but I knew he wouldn't drop me. Of course, him not dropping me didn't mean that we couldn't crash into the town's cinema--he was trying to land on the roof, but he went too low and we crashed into a top window of the building.
And then we fell about three floors down to the lobby. But after everything finished falling/breaking around us, he was standing in the rubble and looking at me dig my way out with that "See, you trusted me and you aren't dead" or "look, you trusted me and it's not so bad" vibe.
When I got out of the rubble after a minute, he looked very long at me and his expression read, "Why are you always afraid of things that can't hurt you?"
-----
Wes has an ice-pick. And it's not for ice.
When we were at Valhalla, I sort of noticed him fiddling with one in that "You touch my sister and you get this in your face" way, but I forgot about that for a while since Moritz went berserk on everyone.
So a few days later, a blonde woman charges into my tower on a cat-chariot, claiming that she's Freya and I need to go with her NOW, but she won't tell me anything about why or where we're going. When the cat pins me and I start shrieking, Brighid comes up and goes, "I DID NOT TALK ABOUT THIS WITH FREYA. YOU ARE INTRUDING IN HER HOUSE. GET OUT."
Brighid has to throw FIRE at Folk-Freya to make her stop dragging me out, and whatever glamor Folk-Freya was using breaks instantly. Then she became a huge black-haired woman who said she was the Morrigan. And I'm going "NONONONONO THE MORRIGAN DOES NOT DO THIS SHIT! LET GO!"
But naturally she won't let go, so Brighid has to smoke her out of the house with more god-fire. When I calm down, Wes comes up and remarks, "Looks like you need some iron to keep the Folk out." And he just gets his ice-pick out and stabs it into the top of my door-frame.
I'm like, "Wait, Wes, don't you need that for... not-ice?"
He told me, "I have, like, five of them, little sister."
And I go, "Okay, it's one thing for David to pull giant knives out of his sleeves, but ice-picks? Where's your swords and lances and stuff? Ice-picks are more like the fucking MAFIA than the Fianna."
Trent responds unhelpfully with, "We don't use them anymore, but I keep mine in my room!"
And Wes sighs and tells me, "Oh, little sister. We're the FIANNA, not the SCA [Society for Creative Anacronism]. We adapt."
David goes, "Besides, if we came up in your room looking like normal, would you have liked us as much?"
And I'm like, "What do you mean, like? Of course I would have LIKED you."
He scoffed and went, "Yeah, after you were done running the fuck away from the Giant Irish Forest-Warriors." So... I think they all dropped their appearances, because one minute they were the Warblers and the next, I was in a forest surrounded by men in Celtic war-paint, various weapons, and pelts.
I didn't freak out, but I probably went mute for a bit because the Bruin growled at them to make them take on the Warbler appearance again. And David went, "See? Wes was freaking ouuuuuuut after the Morrigan called us up."
And he showed me a flashback where Wes told them "GUYS, WE CANNOT SHOW UP LIKE THIS TO MY TINY ARTISTIC SISTER WITH LOTS OF BAGGAGE REGARDING MEN."
So they're like, "Okay, it's one of THOSE cases. Time to watch some non-threatening shows." And they all meet up in a living room and start flipping through channels on their TV, to which various Fianna ask David: "Pushing Daisies?"
"Cute, but not enough people."
"Buffy?"
"Not enough men. Or music."
"Harry Potter?"
"Harry's already her video guy. Besides, not enough music."
"Deadliest Warrior?"
"NON-THREATENING, dude."
And Wes switches to a channel and goes, "Ugh--I don't know, Dawson's Creek?" (Unanimous "NO!")
They finally settled on Glee's Warblers because of the suits and the music.
Huh, I'm almost done with the Otherworld backlog. It feels weird.
-Joined a forum called Spirit Lodge last night. I figured since I use it for so much on-the-fly totem information, I might as well join it so I can have discussions and all.
-Thinking of embroidering a bear pendant. At least, that's what I keep getting visions of, and the Bruin keeps giving me that "remember that" kind of nudge whenever I see it. Not quite sure whether it's a full-body embroidery or just the bear's head (most likely the latter), but either way it's a knotwork brown bear encircled with yellow/orange knotwork. I think the yellow stands for honey. So I pulled a couple of bear-profile pictures from Google, and I'm going to draft the pattern tomorrow. Although the Bruin does say that it's not particularly urgent, since I should get my red knotwork bracelet done soon.
-I got an almost repetitive-stress injury from washing so much stuff at the dental clinic. My rib muscles and left shoulder keep getting sore/tired too easily, even though I make sure to stretch at the end of the day or whenever it happens. On the plus side, it's not too bad and I've got until Friday off, but on the minus side, I've lost two days of my paycheck. Mom has told me that I should switch hands from now on whenever one arm gets sore.
-I bought a book about thinking yourself into wealth a couple days ago. Aside from terminology it's pretty much what shamanism deals with: Focus on your goal; success can't be gained without effort; and failure just means you need another path to success.
And then I'd written this long affirmation/manifestation thing for money in my notebook; later on when I was checking Facebook, I found out that my friend in Washington is pretty much homeless, so after I asked the Tuatha De to help him find a job and place, I grabbed my notebook and wrote it down so I wouldn't forget it.
Like, it's just this really short "Friend: Work And A Place ASAP." Then I remembered that I also want Photographer Friend to stay in the Bay Area because I want to keep working with her, and I can't do that if she has to move to Chicago, so I wrote down a line for her as well. (Along the lines of "Needs a good place in Oakland.") And THEN that got to Manic-Depressive-Friend, whom I really want to just man up and take his fucking meds so he can come back to the theater group.
Which finally left me and my plans to start making Celtic-knotwork jewelry as a part-time business, so I wrote them down. And... there was a looooot of energy-unblocking.
Macha went "Heeey, you figured out what to do!" But it reminded me that I bought a set of fancy felt-tip pens for this exact thing a while ago, and I'm like, "Well, fuck. I bought a load of Special Manifestation Doo-Hickeys and index cards months ago, and in the end I just scribble things into a notebook. With a mechanical pencil."
So she cackles at me and goes, "'Eeeeeeeeverything is easier than you give it credit for.' And it's not that you have problems setting goals, honey, you just have trouble keeping focus. Or problems NOT TALKING YOURSELF OUT OF IT. If you write things down, that's a lot more solid than trying to keep it all straight in your head."
I started hearing this drumbeat in Spirit-Me's tower, so I headed out and saw Ogma drumming on the wall again. He laughs and says, "Good job, sweetie, you figured it out." Then he pecks both the back of my neck and my throat-chakra, and there was more energy-unblocking.
I asked if it was weird that I'm asking the Tuatha De to help three non-related people as well as myself, and Macha told me, "Why is it bad? You know these people, you worked with all four before one got kicked out to Washington, and being around them makes you happy. Besides, we're gods and there's a LOT of us."
So I'm taking the book's advice of reading my sheet of paper before I sleep and when I get up in the morning. Although I am going to use index cards and at least a couple of the pens from now on, because I can't keep tearing sheets out of my notebook.
Then Arawn comes in and tells me something he's been saying for quite a while: "Albatrosses live in colonies."
So he's been dropping by just to tell me that for the past couple of weeks, so I finally asked him what it means. He said, "Albatrosses live in colonies. They wander from group to group, job to job, business to theater to business. They're not going to just stay put with the same people in the same place doing the same things."
-----
Otherworld Updates, Part 3:
Last night after I had literally three Inner-Demon false alarms in a row, I told the Bruin that I really want to stop letting my baggage affect me and getting my own thoughts all fucked up because of it. The Bruin laughed, I had a huge energy-unblocking jolt, and the next minute I'm surrounded by a bunch of... well, BAGGAGE. Like, literal suitcases and bags. So Wes and the Fianna started clearing it out of my room.
I don't even know what's in the suitcases, but I'm really glad they're gone. I still had a couple of false-alarms after that, but Otso told me that I've haven't even been baggage-free for a whole day, so I'll get used to it.
---
Loki warned me about the riots this morning. Like, he just woke me up and told me, "Don't forget your knife when you head out there."
And that's a problem because I don't HAVE a knife. At least not one bigger than a box-cutter. So he went, "Then ACT like you have one. If you show fear in the wrong place, they will cut you open and string you up, and they'll laugh at you until they stop being crazy. And by then it'll be too late."
I'm like, "Loki, this is Oakland. There's only a few people stupid enough to actually hurt people for no reason."
And he told me, "Well, I know my riots. This one is already getting up there, and you have bad luck with riots."
So, slightly concerned about Thursday. This may be connected to the dream I had last night about zombies, because I forgot to ask the Bruin to keep an eye on me.
It does not help that Loki accidentally triggered me into remembering a past riot with lots of fire.
---
You know how upset I am about Cory Monteith's death? Well, yesterday night he just... walked into my headspace and went, "HI, SWEETIE! :D"
For a minute I thought he was Nechtan's-Cupbearer!Finn, but then he said he was Cory, and I'm like "FJDKSLAJLA OH GOD WHAT?!" But after I'm done flailing (it only took a minute or two this time), I asked him, "Wait, Cory, why are you here?"
"Everyone's really upset about me. Like, REALLY upset. So I'm just dropping by to help them along."
And that made sense, so somehow we end up talking about my occasional daydreams about guest-starring on Glee and making endless height jokes about him. Like, whatever else I'd have to do, I would demand to always stand on something or be awkwardly unable to hug him properly. Then I'd ask how the hell Finn and Rachel manage a relationship with their height difference. (Lea Michele is barely taller than me. I always end up feeling a kinship with short actors for some reason.)
So Cory went, "Ha, you're so tiny! It would have been AWESOME working with you!"
And I'm standing there looking at him and thinking, "Fuck, now I CAN'T. I know it wasn't serious, but still." Then I can't help myself and I ask, "Okay, I'm not going to ask how you died because I'd rather find out in the real world first. But did it hurt? I hope it didn't hurt too much."
He said, "Actually, I'm not too sure. I passed out a couple hours in." (This would make sense, seeing as he died from a mix of heroin and alcohol.)
So I told him that I haven't watched Glee for a while because it's getting too soapy and not-campy anymore, but I did watch it for a good two years and I'm resuming my life-swallowing fanfiction. He hugged me and said, "Ha, that's okay. Once a Gleek, always a Gleek." And he mentioned something along the lines of, "You know that song you're thinking of doing? The Imagine Dragons one you've been listening to, it's going to get LOTS of hits on Tumblr."
And I'm like, "But you just died, how do you know what's going to happen? Or what I'm going to post on Tumblr?"
"Oh honey. I was never that spiritual, but I still know there's weirder stuff than that." Then he had to go off to Canada to check on his family, and then he'd go check on the Glee cast (especially Lea). And then his fans.
At which the Fianna came up to help him. Well, they came and David went "YOU ARE NOT GETTING BACK TO CANADA WITHOUT SOMEONE'S HELP. AND THEN YOU NEED TO GO CHECK ON EVERYONE ELSE CRYING ON THE INTERNET ABOUT THIS SHIT, BECAUSE SHE IS DEFINITELY NOT THE ONLY ONE."
And Cory went "Holy shit, the Warblers?!"
David tells him, "CLOSE, MAN. WE ARE THE FIANNA!" So then they hoist him onto their shoulders and barrel off going "CANADAAAAAA!"
-----
That night, I had a dream where Aengus Og dropped by my house, and then he flew me around like Superman. I was scared, but I knew he wouldn't drop me. Of course, him not dropping me didn't mean that we couldn't crash into the town's cinema--he was trying to land on the roof, but he went too low and we crashed into a top window of the building.
And then we fell about three floors down to the lobby. But after everything finished falling/breaking around us, he was standing in the rubble and looking at me dig my way out with that "See, you trusted me and you aren't dead" or "look, you trusted me and it's not so bad" vibe.
When I got out of the rubble after a minute, he looked very long at me and his expression read, "Why are you always afraid of things that can't hurt you?"
-----
Wes has an ice-pick. And it's not for ice.
When we were at Valhalla, I sort of noticed him fiddling with one in that "You touch my sister and you get this in your face" way, but I forgot about that for a while since Moritz went berserk on everyone.
So a few days later, a blonde woman charges into my tower on a cat-chariot, claiming that she's Freya and I need to go with her NOW, but she won't tell me anything about why or where we're going. When the cat pins me and I start shrieking, Brighid comes up and goes, "I DID NOT TALK ABOUT THIS WITH FREYA. YOU ARE INTRUDING IN HER HOUSE. GET OUT."
Brighid has to throw FIRE at Folk-Freya to make her stop dragging me out, and whatever glamor Folk-Freya was using breaks instantly. Then she became a huge black-haired woman who said she was the Morrigan. And I'm going "NONONONONO THE MORRIGAN DOES NOT DO THIS SHIT! LET GO!"
But naturally she won't let go, so Brighid has to smoke her out of the house with more god-fire. When I calm down, Wes comes up and remarks, "Looks like you need some iron to keep the Folk out." And he just gets his ice-pick out and stabs it into the top of my door-frame.
I'm like, "Wait, Wes, don't you need that for... not-ice?"
He told me, "I have, like, five of them, little sister."
And I go, "Okay, it's one thing for David to pull giant knives out of his sleeves, but ice-picks? Where's your swords and lances and stuff? Ice-picks are more like the fucking MAFIA than the Fianna."
Trent responds unhelpfully with, "We don't use them anymore, but I keep mine in my room!"
And Wes sighs and tells me, "Oh, little sister. We're the FIANNA, not the SCA [Society for Creative Anacronism]. We adapt."
David goes, "Besides, if we came up in your room looking like normal, would you have liked us as much?"
And I'm like, "What do you mean, like? Of course I would have LIKED you."
He scoffed and went, "Yeah, after you were done running the fuck away from the Giant Irish Forest-Warriors." So... I think they all dropped their appearances, because one minute they were the Warblers and the next, I was in a forest surrounded by men in Celtic war-paint, various weapons, and pelts.
I didn't freak out, but I probably went mute for a bit because the Bruin growled at them to make them take on the Warbler appearance again. And David went, "See? Wes was freaking ouuuuuuut after the Morrigan called us up."
And he showed me a flashback where Wes told them "GUYS, WE CANNOT SHOW UP LIKE THIS TO MY TINY ARTISTIC SISTER WITH LOTS OF BAGGAGE REGARDING MEN."
So they're like, "Okay, it's one of THOSE cases. Time to watch some non-threatening shows." And they all meet up in a living room and start flipping through channels on their TV, to which various Fianna ask David: "Pushing Daisies?"
"Cute, but not enough people."
"Buffy?"
"Not enough men. Or music."
"Harry Potter?"
"Harry's already her video guy. Besides, not enough music."
"Deadliest Warrior?"
"NON-THREATENING, dude."
And Wes switches to a channel and goes, "Ugh--I don't know, Dawson's Creek?" (Unanimous "NO!")
They finally settled on Glee's Warblers because of the suits and the music.
Huh, I'm almost done with the Otherworld backlog. It feels weird.