you've got these little wars, they rage inside your head
I am feeling a bit blecchy at the moment -- sort of dull grey (not a nice mossy-stone grey, but a dour, mildewy grey -- though not quite so melodramatic), but I have realised of late how little I have been posting and this saddens me. I mean, there's you guys, and also I do like to have records of things, even if the things are just the arbitrarities of existence. And yesterday was very nice! I think, however, that I have been a good deal more depressed than even I realised, to the point that it's been affecting me physically -- total physical apathy? Check. Inability to sleep like a normal human? Check. Inability to think clearly? Check. If you answered "yes" to all of the above, you are probably not very okay! -- Uh oh. The trouble is that my brain completely shuts off and all I want to do is burrow into a cave (and/or my bedroom) and eat far too much and can't concentrate on books or television much, but since my brain is functionally off I barely register that this is going on until I suddenly realise that to the outside world I appear an utter basket case. At least I bathe.
So, yesterday was the day I thought, hang on, I do not feel good; I should probably go Do Something before I fall into a coma of chemical apathy. First item on the list: go down to the park and scour the grass for duck feathers. I love feathers, and whenever I find one on the sidewalk I automatically pick it up and carry it home, and either it gets lost on the way, or it ends up on the end of my desk or something -- but I also have several large and impressive feathers tucked into my message board. I was recently inspired to collect them in a mason jar, and it looks really lovely and weird on my desk by the tea things, but there were definitely not enough feathers for the jar, and the ducks at the park are always shedding! And wandering blithely through the park listening to Mumford & Sons, with the sun warm in my hair and the leaves just beginning to be golden at the edges was balm to the dour grey soul. (I will never, ever, ever tire of Sigh No More; it is one of the most musically rich and satisfying and intensely uplifting albums I have ever played. And, um. I have played a lot of albums.)
I need to organise it a bit more, and perhaps put some other things in it (pine cones?), but I have a very fetching jar full of feathers now.
After that I may have sort of ended up at the mall, but it was Fortuitous!, for lo! I found a bra what fits, and for cheap ($3.49 -- when Ross Dress For Less has clearances, the prices are good), and now I feel, um, much better. Also, elsewhere: first pair of proper shorts I have owned since, let me see -- pre-adolescence? I honestly do not remember the last time I wore shorts that did not come down to my knees. For quite some time I firmly believed that I had horrible legs that should be covered at all times, and by the time I discovered that I actually have fantastic legs (either that, or I did have really unattractive legs until I started exercising bicycling and they acquired an actual shape), all of the shorts were ugly. I do not like tiny cut-offs that have dangly strings. I do not really like denim shorts very much at all, unless there is something to make them Not Like All Of The Other Denim Shorts, and the double-buttoned high-waisted ones I long for prove impossible to find. Anyway! Three dollars! Clearance! They are a very dark denim and lace up prettily at the front and do not cling! (Yes, Sarah, they are the exact same ones you had at Kennywood that I was admiring. Serendipity!) I have shorts and it is really weird! And of course it is now September and I won't be wearing them much for the next six months, but. I have stopped growing; they'll still be here come spring. Also: three-dollar flowered tennis shoes, because hipster twee is in fact something that really appeals to me. Also: owl necklace (with a skull and crossbones on it! it is a pirate owl!). I like clearances. All the fun of retail therapy without the uncomfortable penniless feeling!
And Claire's more subtle Alice in Wonderland merchandise has gone on clearance at last, so the teapot necklace (with tea cup and saucer) I have been eyeing for eight months? Is mine at last. MINE.
So, when I stopped in at the new coffee shop on the way home, I only meant to stay a few minutes and scope the place out. (Also Dad had been nagging me to look for work there.) Because: we got a coffee shop! Right downtown, exactly across from the library, and (rather dangerously) five minutes walk from home! I haven't been to the coffee shop that opened last winter much lately, because I have to bicycle up a hill to get there, and things are very expensive (especially the milkshakes which my soul craves the moment I walk through the door -- the caramel one I had nearly sent me into a coma of bliss, but I cannot afford to have them very often). But this! It is close, and much, much cheaper, and in some ways cosier and more welcoming. I ended up talking for far too long to the barista -- a sweet early-forties lady -- and after I bought a cinnamon muffin (which she buttered and heated for me), she gave me a mug of double-bergamot Earl Grey on the house. There is free wi-fi (as there should be), and there will be music on Friday night and I might be able to play some time. And they serve tasty sandwiches on fresh bread, and have many many flavours of tea (so I can experiment with dollar-fifty mugs of tea instead of buying whole boxes I mightn't like!), and the atmosphere is cosy and welcoming and I am in love.
Also: directly. across. from the library.
This is a rather great danger.
--
Today Leandra and I played outside for at least an hour, escaping from a hungry troll and singing along to Steeleye Span, and she turned me into a caterpillar and fed me a leaf. (She turned herself into an owl and pretended to eat delicious mouses. She also turned me into an elephant and herself into a peanut for me to eat -- I think she was going to try to find the elephant a mouse to eat, but as amusing as that was I did not want her to find the actual dead mouse in the driveway that one of the cats left and bring it to me.) Then she turned herself into a baby bird and for the next hour would communicate in nothing but chirps. She sat at the table drawing and chirping a melody to herself for about fifteen minutes; it was darling.
Also Mum bought groceries. Including a fresh supply of Earl Grey. So. That was good.
(I am still working on That Letter Which Is Terrifying The Wits Out Of Me: I can apparently only write it when looking at it sideways and pretending I am doing something else. It is -- almost -- a pity that I cannot get drunk and retain my self-respect (also, um, my parents' trust?), because that seems like the sort of thing that would make it possible for me to get through it in a rush. Maybe if I drink a lot of tea. Or treat myself to one of those milkshakes that makes my legs collapse from beneath me. Or perhaps I should stop being quite so paralysed by a thing that, to most people, would be reasonably simple.)
So, yesterday was the day I thought, hang on, I do not feel good; I should probably go Do Something before I fall into a coma of chemical apathy. First item on the list: go down to the park and scour the grass for duck feathers. I love feathers, and whenever I find one on the sidewalk I automatically pick it up and carry it home, and either it gets lost on the way, or it ends up on the end of my desk or something -- but I also have several large and impressive feathers tucked into my message board. I was recently inspired to collect them in a mason jar, and it looks really lovely and weird on my desk by the tea things, but there were definitely not enough feathers for the jar, and the ducks at the park are always shedding! And wandering blithely through the park listening to Mumford & Sons, with the sun warm in my hair and the leaves just beginning to be golden at the edges was balm to the dour grey soul. (I will never, ever, ever tire of Sigh No More; it is one of the most musically rich and satisfying and intensely uplifting albums I have ever played. And, um. I have played a lot of albums.)
I need to organise it a bit more, and perhaps put some other things in it (pine cones?), but I have a very fetching jar full of feathers now.
After that I may have sort of ended up at the mall, but it was Fortuitous!, for lo! I found a bra what fits, and for cheap ($3.49 -- when Ross Dress For Less has clearances, the prices are good), and now I feel, um, much better. Also, elsewhere: first pair of proper shorts I have owned since, let me see -- pre-adolescence? I honestly do not remember the last time I wore shorts that did not come down to my knees. For quite some time I firmly believed that I had horrible legs that should be covered at all times, and by the time I discovered that I actually have fantastic legs (either that, or I did have really unattractive legs until I started exercising bicycling and they acquired an actual shape), all of the shorts were ugly. I do not like tiny cut-offs that have dangly strings. I do not really like denim shorts very much at all, unless there is something to make them Not Like All Of The Other Denim Shorts, and the double-buttoned high-waisted ones I long for prove impossible to find. Anyway! Three dollars! Clearance! They are a very dark denim and lace up prettily at the front and do not cling! (Yes, Sarah, they are the exact same ones you had at Kennywood that I was admiring. Serendipity!) I have shorts and it is really weird! And of course it is now September and I won't be wearing them much for the next six months, but. I have stopped growing; they'll still be here come spring. Also: three-dollar flowered tennis shoes, because hipster twee is in fact something that really appeals to me. Also: owl necklace (with a skull and crossbones on it! it is a pirate owl!). I like clearances. All the fun of retail therapy without the uncomfortable penniless feeling!
And Claire's more subtle Alice in Wonderland merchandise has gone on clearance at last, so the teapot necklace (with tea cup and saucer) I have been eyeing for eight months? Is mine at last. MINE.
So, when I stopped in at the new coffee shop on the way home, I only meant to stay a few minutes and scope the place out. (Also Dad had been nagging me to look for work there.) Because: we got a coffee shop! Right downtown, exactly across from the library, and (rather dangerously) five minutes walk from home! I haven't been to the coffee shop that opened last winter much lately, because I have to bicycle up a hill to get there, and things are very expensive (especially the milkshakes which my soul craves the moment I walk through the door -- the caramel one I had nearly sent me into a coma of bliss, but I cannot afford to have them very often). But this! It is close, and much, much cheaper, and in some ways cosier and more welcoming. I ended up talking for far too long to the barista -- a sweet early-forties lady -- and after I bought a cinnamon muffin (which she buttered and heated for me), she gave me a mug of double-bergamot Earl Grey on the house. There is free wi-fi (as there should be), and there will be music on Friday night and I might be able to play some time. And they serve tasty sandwiches on fresh bread, and have many many flavours of tea (so I can experiment with dollar-fifty mugs of tea instead of buying whole boxes I mightn't like!), and the atmosphere is cosy and welcoming and I am in love.
Also: directly. across. from the library.
This is a rather great danger.
--
Today Leandra and I played outside for at least an hour, escaping from a hungry troll and singing along to Steeleye Span, and she turned me into a caterpillar and fed me a leaf. (She turned herself into an owl and pretended to eat delicious mouses. She also turned me into an elephant and herself into a peanut for me to eat -- I think she was going to try to find the elephant a mouse to eat, but as amusing as that was I did not want her to find the actual dead mouse in the driveway that one of the cats left and bring it to me.) Then she turned herself into a baby bird and for the next hour would communicate in nothing but chirps. She sat at the table drawing and chirping a melody to herself for about fifteen minutes; it was darling.
Also Mum bought groceries. Including a fresh supply of Earl Grey. So. That was good.
(I am still working on That Letter Which Is Terrifying The Wits Out Of Me: I can apparently only write it when looking at it sideways and pretending I am doing something else. It is -- almost -- a pity that I cannot get drunk and retain my self-respect (also, um, my parents' trust?), because that seems like the sort of thing that would make it possible for me to get through it in a rush. Maybe if I drink a lot of tea. Or treat myself to one of those milkshakes that makes my legs collapse from beneath me. Or perhaps I should stop being quite so paralysed by a thing that, to most people, would be reasonably simple.)