Things to remember and stuff

In lieu of my having an actual brain, this entry will serve as my short-term memory for a few days.

Scheduling:

1) Meeting with Angela @11AM Monday. Theoretically to work out my independent study next semester, but really just to gossip and do modular origami.

2) Arriving at BDan's @7AM on the 11th for adventures. (and sleeping in the car. >.>)

3) Figuring out when the Regency tea dance is on the 19th and going to it. See also workshops on the 18th.

3a) Magically kidnapping SCDAlex from Seattle or MD and dragging him with me to said tea dance because it is truly unfair that they moved the tea dance so it would be when he wasn't around.

(I have been noticing lately that I have been actively missing dancing with Alex, which speaks very highly of both his abilities as a dancer, and the general fact that he really enjoys dancing and it shows.)

Costuming:

1) Tooth Fairy --I finally have an idea for a sketch (riffing on the idea of "do you really wanna mess with a fairy wearing human teeth as earrings?"), I need to bring my wings to MD (this is going to be fun), tooth socks, bandoliers, etc. Over break, I need to make a skirt (tooth poodle skirt!!) and possibly figure out a better shirt. Also, harass everyone I've ever met forever for their spare teeth.

2) Ash --Pikachu is in MD, I need to decide whether I'm going to get some paint and deaditeify him or not --leaning towards not right now. Need to dig through the basement and Nik's room and see if we have any pokeballs left (those firstgen Burger King pokeballs were the best), and I think I need green fingerless gloves. And a hat. I should probably pack most of the costume in the fashion of "beg a friend to bring me the bag for Arisia so I don't have to take it home too".

3) Something Garrity-related --no ideas. Not sure I could do Unity in a tasteful enough manner to satisfy my "not being an asshole" needs (she's a zombie sewn together from many parts, meaning an accurate costume would involve figuring out a way to make half myself look black, which is a little too close to running into blackface for me to feel comfortable trying it) and I'm not nearly blonde (or curvy!) enough for Helen. Mell might be ginchy though, and I do have a very cute little plaid skirt. And if I do Ash, I'll have at least one gun, and that's really all I need for Mell --a gun and a plaid skirt.

Christmas List:

1) Headphones. Not picky.

2) Orange fingerless gloves. More importantly, warm bike gloves.

3) A large spiral-bound sketchbook from picadilly inc, and yes, I do insist on the correct brand name here. The one I had is the only sketchbook I've ever had that didn't completely destroy my drawings because I'm warped enough to solely use pencil to sketch. Death on sketchbooks that rub your drawings into a blurry mess. You know, all of them.

Dance:

1) Aforementioned Regency and more Regency. It will be very strange to do Regency without Magus. Almost stranger to do it without Racheline. And I already mentioned that it's just damn depressing to not have an opportunity to force SCDAlex into a pretty tailcoat.

2) Ooo, the temptation to be cryptic is so...so tempting! But I wouldn't do that to you.

2b) So, I'm off to New Haven next weekend, for an invite dancing thing. There shall be quadrilles. And probably me dancing the boy part, because thats what happens a lot of the time. I'm honestly starting to prefer Tech Squares to everything else, simply because squares gives me the ratio closest to 1:1 regarding which role I dance. I like dancing *both* roles, thanks. It's more fun that way!

3) Speaking of squares, graduation is on Tuesday. IhopeIpassed, IhopeIpassed! Also, there will be hack tips (muahaha) and I might have thought of a personal hack to do to myself, because I am a very bad person. Or pretty damn cool. More cryptic, I see! 'Tis the season and all.

It being the season...

1) Yeah, no one is getting physical presents, unless they are things that I no longer need. I am stone-flat broke.

2) Still seriously debating bringing my collection of ducks and other tchotchkes to Arisia, and giving them as presents to interesting people.

3) Looking forward to Getting Things Done in Maryland. Ambivalent about everything else, right up to and including New Years. I'm sure that will change sometime.

4) On the plus side, weird mid-week Georgetown on the 22nd! Come spend your Wednesday evening laughing at the people who haven't finished their shopping. And finishing your shopping!

Food

1) I am casually speculating that I might be slightly allergic to shellfish. Or to my pair of cargo pants. Experimentation may have to occur somehow over winter break.

2) So, in this class, the nice lady next to me offered me some of her bamba snacks. They are peanut butter poofs (compare to cheezy poofs). Oddly awesome!

Transportation, Communication, Accommodation and Hair

1) Transportation: Blaise continues to be the Greatest Thing Ever. Rode nine miles over the past couple days, and she is still just a delight. I will dearly regret having to put her away once there's snow on the ground.

2) Communication: I hate phones. I am bad at e-mail. I haven't been on IM. Sorry that I've been completely out of touch.

3) Accomodation: I got a night to myself last night, since Ria was busy gallivanting. I swoon with happy.

4) Hair: Not critical, but could use a washing. Managed a 96% perfect braid, and am feeling very smug about that. Is apparently 75 cm long --was measured for a thing in class-- which seems a little short to me, but let's go with that.

5) What?: It's a thing from a person Racheline knows. If you've all the above in order, you're probably doing alright. Speaking of whom, give money to Dogboy and Justine!

Things to Do

1) Schoolwork. We'll leave it at that.

2) Yuletide. Tentative ideas, I think I need to sit down with Write or Die and crank out a thousand words of drivel that I can maybe find a plotbunny in.

3) My room is a mess. And I need to do laundry.

4) I still haven't registered for classes, because I am having Tuition Issues From Hell. Almost sorted -I have taken all the steps that I am responsible for.

That is all for now. Hopefully.

~Sor
MOOP!

Small joys

My neck _aches_, I've a ton of things to get done tonight and no motivation, dinner was filling but unsatisfying, and my room is freezing.

And then I look up, and realize that there are a half-dozen glow-in-the-dark dinosaurs parading across the top of my windowframe.

Thanks recentpast!Sor. You do good work.

~Sor
MOOP!

Ritual and Repetition

The entire output of my 750words for yesterday consists of ten words, repeated a hundred times.
(And two lines with an additional seven words, just to round it out.)

In some unrelated words, a space where I am supposed to be strong and intelligent and sensible, I was beginning to talk like I wasn't. Like maybe some of the bad things that other people do are my fault, and I should feel guilty for them.

And yes, it's punishment, and I am not the person who should be receiving punishment for them, but sometimes my brain works very very poorly, and sometimes simply the best answer is to present myself with a ritual. I have always responded very well to ritual, and I feel it's a thing that sets me apart from the rest of the world. Certainly, there are things I'm reluctant to talk about with people, because I feel they'll make me look foolish.

Let's be honest, because I am not sure they would understand. Even if I do not look the fool, I don't know that they will interpret the meaning and import of my explaining what I did. In part because I don't always know how to explain it myself --what makes one hot shower just a hot shower, and another ritualistic?

But repetition can easily have a ritualistic component to it, and it's a thing I have been using more often than usual lately. There were the *hugs* to Harena the other night¹, and there was that entry into my commonplace book, in which I filled a page with script², and now there was this.

And of course, part of it is doing it right. Writing each and every word myself. Copypaste is incredibly good for winning arguments or for being silly, but some things must be done fully by oneself, or they don't...they don't count. I could easily fool the website, fool anywhere, and the output would be just as pretty to look at. But I wouldn't fool myself, and cheating thus would take away some of the import of writing the words, over and over and over again.

It is important to write the words over and over and over again. That's what makes them true. Oh no, not for everything of course --you can write "the sun rises in the west" until your hands fall off without changing a thing. But for thoughts, for feelings, for emotions? For subconscious ideas that are not right and need to be changed?

Sometimes the only want to change them is to acknowledge them, and insist that you simply will not take their shit any longer. And so you say the words --and sometimes you can't, sometimes your brain simply will not let you (I deserve happiness, and it takes a deep breath and a pause to admit that) and so you find a form that your brain will accept. And you use the compromise until you believe it, and then you take a step closer to your goal.

And a step closer.

And a step closer.

Until you can write the true words, the words you need to say in the form you need to say them. And admitting that sort of thing from deep inside you may hurt and be hard, but every time you say it, it becomes a little bit easier. And that's why I had to type the words myself. Because it's a phrase I say often, and a hundred times is somewhat of a pittance, but the trap I'm trying to avoid has sprung at me again, and that means I have to take slightly extreme steps to _shut that mental fucker down_.

Also, a hundred is such a pretty round number, and the phrase conveniently has ten words, and I *have* been trying to hit a thousand with my 750words account. The math just adds up so pretty!

Words are important. Ritual is important. And if I tell myself enough that I am not at fault, perhaps one of these times it will actually stick. Actually seem true.

~Sor
MOOP!

1: Harena was having a bummer of a night, and I was worried I'd upset her, so I made reparations with a hundred hugs, each typed out, in her IM window.

2: Writing in cursive has been my creative meditation of the semester. It's a dying form, and that's a shame, because it's such a *pretty* dying form. Just perfect for writing diary entries, little bits of joy over the boys I love best, but yes, just perfect for writing secrets as well.