Prompt from Indie: Are you a morning person, a night owl, or both? Explain why and what you enjoy doing in the morning and/or nighttime.

I've never been a morning person. It doesn't matter if I have gotten up at 6am every morning for a week, if I have the chance to sleep in, I will stay in bed until 10:30 a.m. at the *earliest.* My best schedule is waking up at 11 a.m. and going to sleep at 3 a.m..

I have learned that while I am always tempted to stay up later and get up later, getting up any later than 1:30 p.m. or going to bed any later than 3:30 a.m. is a really bad idea for me. If I get up that late, I will miss too much sunlight and it will make me feel wilted and depressed -- especially in the winter. And if I go to bed later than 3:30, any time after that is wasted time. My ADHD goes haywire and I can't get anything done, and even doing brain-rest things stops being restorative because I can't focus.

I think the decreased stimulation at night is why I like being awake then. There is less ambient noise from outside, less mental noise from people doing things, less visual noise because it's darker.

I would enjoy being up early if I ever got enough sleep, but I can't ever go to bed on time because there literally isn't enough time in the day for me to decompress. I'm hoping that I struggle less with this after I move, when I will have a much shorter commute.

Speaking of which, I realized recently that for the past 7 years, I have basically been living in 2 houses -- mine and Topaz'. I have two toothbrushes, pillows, phone chargers, etc, because I have spent at least 2 nights a week at their place for so long. I didn't realize how much back-burner stress this caused me until I started thinking about what a relief it will be once I am moved.

To not have to wonder where my stuff is or pack and carry sets of clothes. To not have to worry every weekend that something terrible may happen to my cat and I wouldn't know until it is too late. To be able to have a smoothie on the weekends! To not have to try to remember which house I actually have food in. To not have that stress of having to remember all the things when I leave in the morning.

To not have to choose between dinner with Topaz or sleeping in my own bed. To not have to choose between spending the weekend with Topaz or by myself, because it will be easy to mix it up. To not have to choose between getting to have friends in my space or getting to spend time with Topaz. To not have to choose between tidying my living space or spending time with Topaz.

Really hoping that the lifting of these stresses will have a noticable effect. I'm certainly less stressed than I was last year, but I still am barely functional in so many ways.

So Topaz is moving from the place they have lived the entire time I have known them, which is reminiscent of me moving because I spend probably a good half of my free time (or more) at their house. We have already taken 2 car loads to my house and there are still some things there that will need to be brought over. While it's sort of stressful and now my living room is once again filled with stuff that needs sorting and putting away, it also feels good to be pulling stuff back to my house.

I didn't realize that I felt sort of back-burner stressed about having so much stuff over there, but it makes sense because it felt disorganized, especially having my craft stuff over there. I feel low-level constant stress when my stuff is not organized, because it feels like I am not respecting it. Ever since I was a child, I have felt like things have feelings and all things want to be noticed and used. I feel like it is unethical to keep things you don't love or use because they could be with someone who will actually value them. That's why I am getting rid of so many of my books -- if I will literally never read it, I am disrespecting it by keeping it.

When I was a little kid I took this ethic of "whoever will love it most should have it" to an extreme, and I would steal from people if I felt they weren't loving their things enough. Some of my most prized possessions as a child were things I stole. I would also give away my things if I felt like someone else loved them more.

Now that I am an adult, I realize there are more things to consider than "who will love it most." While I still don't believe in ownership of anything you didn't make or customize, I know that other people do, and I know that people will feel violated by being stolen from, so of course I don't do it. But that's not because I think it is inherently wrong, but rather because of the effect it has within this society. I never want to cause someone to feel violated and that is a higher ethic to me than possibly anything else.

I've recently changed my work schedule to hopefully have more time to rest and write in a day. I find it immensely difficult to switch contexts, to the point that when I am out I never really want to go home and when I am home I don't want to go out. When I am working I don't want to stop and this makes it very difficult to stop to eat, and sometimes I will endure an aching bladder for hours rather than go to the bathroom, because I just hate context-switching so much. I can't explain it and I can't control it.

So a 30 minute lunch was really a terrible idea for me, considering that it is a definite interruption but not enough time to do anything that involves focus. And each day of the week going to work takes more energy than the last. My Friday afternoons I could hardly talk, even to Topaz. So I have front-loaded my week so that I work longer days monday and tuesday, then shorter days the rest of the week, with an hour lunch each day.

I am writing on my lunch break at work right now.  I haven't yet adjusted to the difference in traffic so today was the first time I managed to be actually here before my start time. But if I can push myself to be very strict about leaving on time, this will be the best. I am in sort of a writing mindset when I am at work so I think I can use my lunch to read or write on lj, and 5 hours a week is way better than the zero hours that I was doing for weeks. I know you are probably sick of hearing all my good intentions followed by weeks of silence, but here I am trying again.

I've been thinking a lot about my living situation lately. I was trying to find a new place which was pretty much impossible with my parameters, and even if I found something that fit them, I would have no extra at all. And the main reason I wanted to move (besides hating my neighbors who harass me) was because I thought people might make more of an effort to be my friend if I live in a 'cool' place. But there is no reason to think that's true. Maybe everyone just uses the distance as an excuse. And the few friends who regularly make an effort don't live in the 'cool' places anyway.

I'm now leaning towards staying here until Kanika dies of old age or I am able to buy a house, whichever happens first. I'm guessing 5 years, because it will take at least 2 to even gather a down payment. I don't want to move Kanika more than one more time, because she loves it here and I would hate to take her from happy and free to forever cooped up in a tiny apartment or worse, bedroom.

So as a sort of experiment, I am going to invest in this house again. I had been really avoidant of everything about it because I kept thinking I was gonna leave in a month. I just bought myself a set of wire cubes and cloth baskets to help me make my closet usable, and just finally cleared out a MASSIVE hoard of recycling (with my friend Sande's help). I'm gonna see if I can make it feel like a home.

This week has been recovery, and I feel better in many ways but still in need of low-energy activities and lots of rest. I still don't quite know what hit me so hard... I know moving was truly dreadful; I wasn't prepared to move out of the first place I'd never felt unsafe. I know it was hard losing Abby as both a lover and a friend, but in an indirect way that I couldn't really process. But those things don't seem nearly enough to add up to total crash later... maybe the March depression I used to get every year showed up and I didn't realize it because I was distracted with other things? I dunno.

I wish Kylei could sleep through the night. We go to sleep at the same time but ze usually gets up in a few hours and then can't get back to sleep and by the time I get up ze needs a nap. And I feel entirely too motivation-poor to get up by myself, most of the time. Argh. But I was productive today, organizing the last of Kylei's moving mess. And yesterday I hung up fabric in front of my doorless closet, which increased the attractiveness of my room by a ton. And I did lots of dishes. small victories.

My dreams last night were so depressing and difficult -- biofamily dreams are just never positive. I need escape! My dreams need to be GOOD.

I have been painfully busy this week. Today I just sat on the floor in my old room and looked around and wanted to cry and give up. There wasn't even that much there, I just felt so unable to do the organizing and the deciding. This move has been the hardest for me, emotionally, for a lot of reasons. I had actually bonded with the Maxwell House; it was the first place I've ever lived that really felt like MINE. I'm starting to love Freeflow but it's not home yet, and all of my art is still on the walls at the Maxwell House... I also felt sad because I felt less supported (number-of-people-wise) than I had in previous moves. Also I moved the big/heavy things before even packing my altar, and that was a huge mistake. Having to sleep in one house with my altar active in the other is like having my body split from my spirit. Kyle helped me get started packing it (handing me things one by one as I wrapped them, because I just could not do it alone), and I brought it home tonight.

That intense discomfort made me more aware and I've realized some things. I feel like Sekhmet-Mut has just become active in my life. I've had a figure of zir for a long time now, but just out of admiration, not out of a sense of zir presence -- I knew the statue wasn't of Bast but I didn't know who ze was. But I feel strongly that ze wants to be active in my life in this house specifically, and I feel like it has to do with the intent of this house's agreements. I also feel like the agreements are in alignment with Ma'at and that pleases me deeply. I also feel a heaviness at the idea of trying to be true continuously and not just re-direct when things start going wrong. I feel I have swung the pendulum too far within myself and I have faith that it will settle to a less scary place, but it will take time. Also, I used my sistrum for the first time in a VERY long time today and realized that I need to perform more active practice; it's a need that I too easily ignore. Also also I anointed myself with an oil that is sacred to me and was incredibly relieved to find that it smells the same; it is many many years old and scented oils are not made to last, especially in a container with a permeable (cork) lid. But I feel it has remained vibrant through being on my altar.

I'm so exhausted. I experienced my first dear-to-me death last week, and went to the wake last Sunday... I am still processing this; it was shocking to me because I didn't know ze was so ill. What do you do when the person just isn't there to talk to anymore? The wake was a powerful experience and I want to write about it but I'm just too wiped. I just need a shower (the hot water is not on here yet!) and to be able to sleep and then lounge all day, without any more fretting or deadlines or losses, for just a day. I'm hoping Sunday will be that day...

I know I haven't written in ages upon ages -- there has been just SO MUCH happening I've not even had the time to check my email. And I JUST realized that it's been an entire MONTH. I thought it had been two weeks because my life has practically been on fast-forward. I've been sick for the past three weeks or so, I think mainly because of the pace of life. It seems to be settling some now and hopefully that means I'll recover.

So, I moved in at Serendipity on the 18th and I've started working in exchange for room and board (mainly helping to fix up their old house so it can be rented out). I'm nervous about it because having business arrangements with people I care about has mostly led to broken relationships. But I do have the one example of that NOT happening (the Wynnes) and this feels more like that than the others did, so I'm hopeful that this will turn out to be mutually beneficial and not slanted one way or the other. It helps that they have experience with this sort of arrangement.

I want to write about the incredible beauty of love and change but words are so damn pale and my heart spends itself all day long in the unspoken poetry of kissing and biting and caressing and hugging and eye contact, and yes words but they're not the kind that drip glitter and petals -- they're the kind that build glorious-but-sharp castles out of shared pain and joy, desire and wonder, fear and hope. They're salted with tears and spiced with blood. Everything is so complex and blended. I live in constant sharing -- what are you thinking? what are you feeling? with almost never a serious refusal/absence of answer (Arizona WILL answer "nothing" when ze wants to tease, which is pretty much whenever the answer involves desire :-p). I've yearned for that for so long, so long. Daily communication, especially the sharing of emotional reactions, is so important to me. You know how my yearly Hannah-visits were such a source of joy and growth for me? this is like that, only with more people and for a longer time (I'm soooo yearning to have Hannah and Nick come meet everyone, oh so much).

And I've not written about Kyle really at all yet!

We're about 6 weeks into this unexpected ebullient mutual orbit (we'd seen each other maybe three times and never had a real conversation before the spontaneous hang-out which ended in kisses and my heart flinging itself at zir and three days later love-confessions). Kyle is... incredible. Kyle has what I think of as a tumbleweed spirit* -- ze has wandering feet and a passionate love for chaos (whether fortuitous or no). Holding zir hand and walking is an invitation to adventure; I'm so thrilled to have found a wildchild who wants to share life with me (for my heart is a child that stumbles lonely for the arms of the wild). We are strays and if you feed us we'll keep coming back but close the door behind us and we panic. We've been smiled upon by the Deity I've yet to speak of here. I know that ze is one I can nestle under trestles with and one I can make the most ridiculous 'mistakes' with and one who also sees that beauty in the dark and the dirty and the broken. And ze's a bard, and I mean that in the truest and most sacred way. Ze wears zir violin nearly everywhere and offers gifts of living song to anyone who shows an openness to receive -- and sometimes just to Music, and every now and then to Love. And oh, I've never met anyone so clearly and constantly open, seemingly down to core. The amount of bravery in that absolutely breaks my heart (in that way that only the most intense beauty can). How ze came to practice openness/honesty so constantly without any encouragement I cannot even understand but I am so grateful.


*edited after I learned that "gypsy" is a racial slur.

I know I haven't written in ages upon ages -- there has been just SO MUCH happening I've not even had the time to check my email. And I JUST realized that it's been an entire MONTH. I thought it had been two weeks because my life has practically been on fast-forward. I've been sick for the past three weeks or so, I think mainly because of the pace of life. It seems to be settling some now and hopefully that means I'll recover.

So, I moved in at Serendipity on the 18th and I've started working in exchange for room and board (mainly helping to fix up their old house so it can be rented out). I'm nervous about it because having business arrangements with people I care about has mostly led to broken relationships. But I do have the one example of that NOT happening (the Wynnes) and this feels more like that than the others did, so I'm hopeful that this will turn out to be mutually beneficial and not slanted one way or the other. It helps that they have experience with this sort of arrangement.

I want to write about the incredible beauty of love and change but words are so damn pale and my heart spends itself all day long in the unspoken poetry of kissing and biting and caressing and hugging and eye contact, and yes words but they're not the kind that drip glitter and petals -- they're the kind that build glorious-but-sharp castles out of shared pain and joy, desire and wonder, fear and hope. They're salted with tears and spiced with blood. Everything is so complex and blended. I live in constant sharing -- what are you thinking? what are you feeling? with almost never a serious refusal/absence of answer (Arizona WILL answer "nothing" when ze wants to tease, which is pretty much whenever the answer involves desire :-p). I've yearned for that for so long, so long. Daily communication, especially the sharing of emotional reactions, is so important to me. You know how my yearly Hannah-visits were such a source of joy and growth for me? this is like that, only with more people and for a longer time (I'm soooo yearning to have Hannah and Nick come meet everyone, oh so much).

And I've not written about Kyle really at all yet! ( remedying that! )

I feel so full of love and positivity. Life is good. I am noticing small changes in myself that I love. Earlier, it was 10:58 and we were driving to the video store when I realized we weren't going to make it on time, and rather than giving up as would have been previously natural for me, I decided to take a page from maladroitkat's book and ASK for what I want. (M-Kat is living embodiment of the phrase, "Ask and ye shall receive.") Unfortunately Ben accidentally dropped the phone under his seat so I wasn't able to make the call, but I was actually going to ask them to stay open 5 minutes later. After all, it is no inconvenience to them for me to ASK, and they get to make the decision on whether they are willing to accept the inconvenience of actually doing it. I was so proud of myself for even making that mental step. Often I forget that rules are run by people, who may be generous if given the opportunity (though they are often pissy if the gift is taken rather than asked for).

I really really really want to move to Glasgow. Not because I don't love it here because I DO, Georgia is in my blood, but because Kate and my soulfriend Hannah go to Glasgow Uni (or will soon, anyway) and it has a good philosophy program and I thirst for a REAL college. I could easily go to a university here for free or near to it, but I don't want to go to college for a diploma, I want to go to LEARN. I think this is an alien concept nowadays. And the University of Pittsburgh gave me a taste of what it is like to be awed by the knowledge of your professor, to listen to them and feel your mind expanding (and it was also very flattering to learn that I had been talked about between my two favorite professors, heh heh). It was so wonderful to have mind-stimulating conversations with people who know so much more than I. I took Latin American Literature instead of a foreign language, expecting to be bored, and discovered Julio Cortazar, the best writer I have ever sampled. I am still awed by the incredible depth and saturation of his metaphor. I really really enjoyed writing essays on his work -- how often does it happen that you ENJOY writing essays? But the book went completely over the head of the other students -- they preferred One Hundred Years of Solitude which was exactly how it sounds. After you are finished reading it, you feel as if no relationship is ever real and everyone lives in an impenetrable bubble and you might as well kill yourself because you're slowly dying anyway and nobody's gonna care and you cannot make any mark on the world. But the other students liked it BETTER than Hopscotch because it was more literal (even the magical realism of OHYoS was far too simple to be of any special note to a fantasy reader). Bah.

I really love learning. I hated math because of the constant review -- while I see that it was necessary, I infinitely prefer to learn something new every day. I get envious when I hear others talk about things they heard in a philosophy/sociology/psychology/culture/literature class, because I want to learn that stuff and roll it through my mind and decide what parts I agree with or disagree with or am confused/curious about. I want to understand more about people. I want to take a class on every major (population-wise) culture of today. I want to develop new ways of expressing myself through words. I want to be inspired to write poetry again. I want to take art classes! I am so curious.

And I have decided that I want to at least try following this dream. I want to talk to Ben, see what he feels about possibly moving to another country, pray about it, apply to the college (eek!), look into scholarships, and see if it is feasable. Who knows? I won't unless I do something. Knock and the door will be opened, right?

I feel so full of love and positivity. Life is good. I am noticing small changes in myself that I love. Earlier, it was 10:58 and we were driving to the video store when I realized we weren't going to make it on time, and rather than giving up as would have been previously natural for me, I decided to take a page from maladroitkat's book and ASK for what I want. (M-Kat is living embodiment of the phrase, "Ask and ye shall receive.") Unfortunately Ben accidentally dropped the phone under his seat so I wasn't able to make the call, but I was actually going to ask them to stay open 5 minutes later. After all, it is no inconvenience to them for me to ASK, and they get to make the decision on whether they are willing to accept the inconvenience of actually doing it. I was so proud of myself for even making that mental step. Often I forget that rules are run by people, who may be generous if given the opportunity (though they are often pissy if the gift is taken rather than asked for).

I really really really want to move to Glasgow. Not because I don't love it here because I DO, Georgia is in my blood, but because Kate and my soulfriend Hannah go to Glasgow Uni (or will soon, anyway) and it has a good philosophy program and I thirst for a REAL college. I could easily go to a university here for free or near to it, but I don't want to go to college for a diploma, I want to go to LEARN. I think this is an alien concept nowadays. And the University of Pittsburgh gave me a taste of what it is like to be awed by the knowledge of your professor, to listen to them and feel your mind expanding (and it was also very flattering to learn that I had been talked about between my two favorite professors, heh heh). It was so wonderful to have mind-stimulating conversations with people who know so much more than I. I took Latin American Literature instead of a foreign language, expecting to be bored, and discovered Julio Cortazar, the best writer I have ever sampled. I am still awed by the incredible depth and saturation of his metaphor. I really really enjoyed writing essays on his work -- how often does it happen that you ENJOY writing essays? But the book went completely over the head of the other students -- they preferred One Hundred Years of Solitude which was exactly how it sounds. After you are finished reading it, you feel as if no relationship is ever real and everyone lives in an impenetrable bubble and you might as well kill yourself because you're slowly dying anyway and nobody's gonna care and you cannot make any mark on the world. But the other students liked it BETTER than Hopscotch because it was more literal (even the magical realism of OHYoS was far too simple to be of any special note to a fantasy reader). Bah.

I really love learning. I hated math because of the constant review -- while I see that it was necessary, I infinitely prefer to learn something new every day. I get envious when I hear others talk about things they heard in a philosophy/sociology/psychology/culture/literature class, because I want to learn that stuff and roll it through my mind and decide what parts I agree with or disagree with or am confused/curious about. I want to understand more about people. I want to take a class on every major (population-wise) culture of today. I want to develop new ways of expressing myself through words. I want to be inspired to write poetry again. I want to take art classes! I am so curious.

And I have decided that I want to at least try following this dream. I want to talk to Ben, see what he feels about possibly moving to another country, pray about it, apply to the college (eek!), look into scholarships, and see if it is feasable. Who knows? I won't unless I do something. Knock and the door will be opened, right?

I feel so full of love and positivity. Life is good. I am noticing small changes in myself that I love. Earlier, it was 10:58 and we were driving to the video store when I realized we weren't going to make it on time, and rather than giving up as would have been previously natural for me, I decided to take a page from maladroitkat's book and ASK for what I want. (M-Kat is living embodiment of the phrase, "Ask and ye shall receive.") Unfortunately Ben accidentally dropped the phone under his seat so I wasn't able to make the call, but I was actually going to ask them to stay open 5 minutes later. After all, it is no inconvenience to them for me to ASK, and they get to make the decision on whether they are willing to accept the inconvenience of actually doing it. I was so proud of myself for even making that mental step. Often I forget that rules are run by people, who may be generous if given the opportunity (though they are often pissy if the gift is taken rather than asked for).

I really really really want to move to Glasgow. Not because I don't love it here because I DO, Georgia is in my blood, but because Kate and my soulfriend Hannah go to Glasgow Uni (or will soon, anyway) and it has a good philosophy program and I thirst for a REAL college. I could easily go to a university here for free or near to it, but I don't want to go to college for a diploma, I want to go to LEARN. I think this is an alien concept nowadays. And the University of Pittsburgh gave me a taste of what it is like to be awed by the knowledge of your professor, to listen to them and feel your mind expanding (and it was also very flattering to learn that I had been talked about between my two favorite professors, heh heh). It was so wonderful to have mind-stimulating conversations with people who know so much more than I. I took Latin American Literature instead of a foreign language, expecting to be bored, and discovered Julio Cortazar, the best writer I have ever sampled. I am still awed by the incredible depth and saturation of his metaphor. I really really enjoyed writing essays on his work -- how often does it happen that you ENJOY writing essays? But the book went completely over the head of the other students -- they preferred One Hundred Years of Solitude which was exactly how it sounds. After you are finished reading it, you feel as if no relationship is ever real and everyone lives in an impenetrable bubble and you might as well kill yourself because you're slowly dying anyway and nobody's gonna care and you cannot make any mark on the world. But the other students liked it BETTER than Hopscotch because it was more literal (even the magical realism of OHYoS was far too simple to be of any special note to a fantasy reader). Bah.

I really love learning. I hated math because of the constant review -- while I see that it was necessary, I infinitely prefer to learn something new every day. I get envious when I hear others talk about things they heard in a philosophy/sociology/psychology/culture/literature class, because I want to learn that stuff and roll it through my mind and decide what parts I agree with or disagree with or am confused/curious about. I want to understand more about people. I want to take a class on every major (population-wise) culture of today. I want to develop new ways of expressing myself through words. I want to be inspired to write poetry again. I want to take art classes! I am so curious.

And I have decided that I want to at least try following this dream. I want to talk to Ben, see what he feels about possibly moving to another country, pray about it, apply to the college (eek!), look into scholarships, and see if it is feasable. Who knows? I won't unless I do something. Knock and the door will be opened, right?