An interlude in sleeplessness
Dear three am: platonic is good but I'd rather be sleeping together. I am at the stage of the old mental cycle where I have to be walking-into-walls exhausted before I'll go to sleep; otherwise, I just lie in bed with my eyes shut worrying about things I can't fix or change, and it's no good for anyone. I'm kind of a wreck right now, actually. I don't miss my pills, but they did have the side-effect of making me sleep. But at the moment I'm sleepwalking through things, getting dressed after four hours of trying, you get it. It's a bit of a reaction, I suppose: I'm proud of having got through a lot of things sucessfully, over the last couple of weeks. The last thing was a second interview for a job (well, I say interview; it was more an assessment day, which are not among my favourite things to do) and I went down to London successfully, did the interview on four hours of sleep and adrenaline, and sat on the station platform afterwards, in the sunshine beneath the shade of hanging flowers, and thought I might just sleep right there on the platform edge and be happy. They even fed me a very nice lunch that I was too nervous to eat, and I got through it. They haven't got back to me yet. We'll see.
This is, oddly enough, the last night I'll spend here for quite some time. It's crept up on me, but tomorrow I am going to Bristol for a couple of weeks - a short placement, followed by a training contract interview - and after that I am going to Oxford for my own graduation ceremony, and after that, term starts. So tonight, in its quiet sleepless mundanity, marks a minor turning-point. On the whole, I'm glad to be going; I have lived at home on and off now since early April - I remember making that decision, I remember taking medical leave, but it seems a very long time ago now - and, perhaps, it's long enough. No, I know it is. There was a day in April by the river when I chose to live through this, and here I am, five months later, and I am living through this. Everything is hard-edged and hard, but I never thought it wouldn't be, and I am living through this.
I will miss hathy_col, though. We had a nice evening this week watching Deep Space Nine and looking at pictures of conventions past, and it made me happy. We've both been watching a lot of DS9 recently, and I'm going to say again: it's good. It's really, really good. And I love Jadzia Dax and Kira possibly more than is quite healthy, but they are so wonderful. Because of them, nearly every episode passes the Bechdel test, and because of them, you get real plots about strong women doing things worthy of them. Oh, and the details - I love how well-thought-through everything is, so Dax's notions of sex and gender and, indeed, parenthood, are fluid (because they would be, if you'd lived eight lifetimes in eight different bodies), and Kira's Bajoran upbringing influences everything she does, and I love the Jake-and-Nog travellin' show, and how Odo and Quark clearly can't live without each other, and how much Bashir and O'Brien love each other, and did I mention, Dax. Dax, whose spots go all the way down. Yes.
Having got through almost an entire season in two days, I suspect I may be acquiring boxsets in the near future. Alas and alack.
As this is not an overwhelmingly substantial post, I'm going to leave you with two links of very different sorts - firstly, one I have been meaning to post apropos of something for quite some time, and as nothing appropriate has appeared, am now posting apropos of nothing much. From Tehelka: Why Indian Men Are Still Boys. It's perhaps not of much interest to most of you, but for the other Indians on the flist, I would be keen to hear your thoughts. Personally, I love it: I think it gets it, and articulates it in a way I've been trying to, without sounding like a mad NRI harpy. (Which I perhaps do sound like already, without trying either way.) Anyway, yes, I recommend it.
And secondly, a fic rec: The Other Path, by laleia, Harry Potter. Written for femgenficathon, this is about Hermione. It's short, it soars, and it makes me smile, and think about why I do what I do with my life.
Now, sleep.
This is, oddly enough, the last night I'll spend here for quite some time. It's crept up on me, but tomorrow I am going to Bristol for a couple of weeks - a short placement, followed by a training contract interview - and after that I am going to Oxford for my own graduation ceremony, and after that, term starts. So tonight, in its quiet sleepless mundanity, marks a minor turning-point. On the whole, I'm glad to be going; I have lived at home on and off now since early April - I remember making that decision, I remember taking medical leave, but it seems a very long time ago now - and, perhaps, it's long enough. No, I know it is. There was a day in April by the river when I chose to live through this, and here I am, five months later, and I am living through this. Everything is hard-edged and hard, but I never thought it wouldn't be, and I am living through this.
I will miss hathy_col, though. We had a nice evening this week watching Deep Space Nine and looking at pictures of conventions past, and it made me happy. We've both been watching a lot of DS9 recently, and I'm going to say again: it's good. It's really, really good. And I love Jadzia Dax and Kira possibly more than is quite healthy, but they are so wonderful. Because of them, nearly every episode passes the Bechdel test, and because of them, you get real plots about strong women doing things worthy of them. Oh, and the details - I love how well-thought-through everything is, so Dax's notions of sex and gender and, indeed, parenthood, are fluid (because they would be, if you'd lived eight lifetimes in eight different bodies), and Kira's Bajoran upbringing influences everything she does, and I love the Jake-and-Nog travellin' show, and how Odo and Quark clearly can't live without each other, and how much Bashir and O'Brien love each other, and did I mention, Dax. Dax, whose spots go all the way down. Yes.
Having got through almost an entire season in two days, I suspect I may be acquiring boxsets in the near future. Alas and alack.
As this is not an overwhelmingly substantial post, I'm going to leave you with two links of very different sorts - firstly, one I have been meaning to post apropos of something for quite some time, and as nothing appropriate has appeared, am now posting apropos of nothing much. From Tehelka: Why Indian Men Are Still Boys. It's perhaps not of much interest to most of you, but for the other Indians on the flist, I would be keen to hear your thoughts. Personally, I love it: I think it gets it, and articulates it in a way I've been trying to, without sounding like a mad NRI harpy. (Which I perhaps do sound like already, without trying either way.) Anyway, yes, I recommend it.
And secondly, a fic rec: The Other Path, by laleia, Harry Potter. Written for femgenficathon, this is about Hermione. It's short, it soars, and it makes me smile, and think about why I do what I do with my life.
Now, sleep.