Sit Down and Eat
It's the last night of my epic two weeks off. It's been lovely, being able to unwind a bit - and so much socialising!
It's been a fantastic August, with three amazing weekends - the first was the UK Feminista campaign where I learnt how to lobby the government, about the current attack on our abortion rights, how to do non-violent protest and I met so many great people, including bumping into several very dear friends to me, and the for the first time in months I felt as if I could make a real difference to things. I'm planning to join the London Feminista group to take part in more actions, I've written a letter to my local MP and my twitter suddenly have a lot more feminists on it :)
The next weekend was with my mum and brother staying in Ipswich, enjoying the maritime festival and drinking lots of real ale. The fireworks were beautiful and inspired to do a cool drawing that I'm really happy with. It was also nice to see my brother with someone new after his ex-girlfriend broke his heart. And he can cook a fantastic ackee and saltfish dish, and! cook better rice than me. I definitely want to be more in touch with both of them. Family is important, and I remember that everytime I talk to Dad and ask how my grandma is. She's got dementia and it's made her psychotic. She's in the mental health hospital for the second time in 6 months and well, Dad doesn't want to me see her in this state. I think he's afraid it'll make me love her less, when I'm perfectly good at loving people who hurt me as well, for better or worse.
The weekend after that, I was feeling completely gorgeous with my hair redone (red/black braids and very bouncy), good sparkly liquid eyeliner and new clothes. Had a Pinto Bean meetup to celebrate DAT ASS (and the Chris Pine attached to it). So lovely meeting beederiffic, beederiffic, beederiffic and takhallus - I always seem to laugh harder with fangirls than almost everyone else. The gift bag was awesome, but the tiara broke up in my bag. Having broken bits of tiara seems apt somehow - I don't know! Of course, making a mental note to meet other beans and other fangirls in the future...
Saturday was Polyday, which deserves a post all of its own. I met a cute guy and a cute geeky girl, me and Tom discussed relationship stuff, I got tips on how to do BDSM on a budget, enjoyed good amounts of UST, friendliness, geekiness and I felt gorgeous as hell in my lovely blue top and blue/flowery skirt outfit. Also got a decent number of email addresses.
The last three weeks has just made me feel so - Powerful. Tom says I've been so alive lately. It's partly fuelled by him, but just as much fuelled by being able to give the many aspects of my life a chance to sit at the table - my black side, my family, my romantic relationship, my friendships, fangirling, faghagging, positive feminist rage and learning, reading, fanfic-ing and Buffy DVD binges. I even got to see some art at the Barbican. I've done drawing and musing on a blog to put all these aspects of my life in one place, but can't think of a damn name yet. I've also bought myself my first piece of PVC goodness (a corset, bought off the sales rack - because I'm still poor!) and Tom and I are planning to go to Torture Garden or something. Considering neither of us have been before I hope it's a thoroughly fun experience...
So yeah in general, everything is beautiful and nothing hurts. I tried to gif it and failed! And now I'm finishing off my time off with some Harry Potter audio goodness before I'm back to firefighting, but this time I'll also be kicking ass!
It's been a fantastic August, with three amazing weekends - the first was the UK Feminista campaign where I learnt how to lobby the government, about the current attack on our abortion rights, how to do non-violent protest and I met so many great people, including bumping into several very dear friends to me, and the for the first time in months I felt as if I could make a real difference to things. I'm planning to join the London Feminista group to take part in more actions, I've written a letter to my local MP and my twitter suddenly have a lot more feminists on it :)
The next weekend was with my mum and brother staying in Ipswich, enjoying the maritime festival and drinking lots of real ale. The fireworks were beautiful and inspired to do a cool drawing that I'm really happy with. It was also nice to see my brother with someone new after his ex-girlfriend broke his heart. And he can cook a fantastic ackee and saltfish dish, and! cook better rice than me. I definitely want to be more in touch with both of them. Family is important, and I remember that everytime I talk to Dad and ask how my grandma is. She's got dementia and it's made her psychotic. She's in the mental health hospital for the second time in 6 months and well, Dad doesn't want to me see her in this state. I think he's afraid it'll make me love her less, when I'm perfectly good at loving people who hurt me as well, for better or worse.
The weekend after that, I was feeling completely gorgeous with my hair redone (red/black braids and very bouncy), good sparkly liquid eyeliner and new clothes. Had a Pinto Bean meetup to celebrate DAT ASS (and the Chris Pine attached to it). So lovely meeting beederiffic, beederiffic, beederiffic and takhallus - I always seem to laugh harder with fangirls than almost everyone else. The gift bag was awesome, but the tiara broke up in my bag. Having broken bits of tiara seems apt somehow - I don't know! Of course, making a mental note to meet other beans and other fangirls in the future...
Saturday was Polyday, which deserves a post all of its own. I met a cute guy and a cute geeky girl, me and Tom discussed relationship stuff, I got tips on how to do BDSM on a budget, enjoyed good amounts of UST, friendliness, geekiness and I felt gorgeous as hell in my lovely blue top and blue/flowery skirt outfit. Also got a decent number of email addresses.
The last three weeks has just made me feel so - Powerful. Tom says I've been so alive lately. It's partly fuelled by him, but just as much fuelled by being able to give the many aspects of my life a chance to sit at the table - my black side, my family, my romantic relationship, my friendships, fangirling, faghagging, positive feminist rage and learning, reading, fanfic-ing and Buffy DVD binges. I even got to see some art at the Barbican. I've done drawing and musing on a blog to put all these aspects of my life in one place, but can't think of a damn name yet. I've also bought myself my first piece of PVC goodness (a corset, bought off the sales rack - because I'm still poor!) and Tom and I are planning to go to Torture Garden or something. Considering neither of us have been before I hope it's a thoroughly fun experience...
So yeah in general, everything is beautiful and nothing hurts. I tried to gif it and failed! And now I'm finishing off my time off with some Harry Potter audio goodness before I'm back to firefighting, but this time I'll also be kicking ass!