Dreaming of Butterflies

It is oh-dark-thirty and I've just finished work - this isn't quite the way I'd planned it but anything requiring thought is so much easier after the sun has gone down. Now we're past the solstice, I'm looking toward autumn with great longing. We've still the hump of July and early August to get over before then though.

Thanks to the wonders of emusic, Heather Dale's album 'The Gabriel Hounds' has been keeping me company while I've worked. The whole thing is very well done but this one song about Joan of Arc struck me particularly so I thought I'd share it.

I'm sending cool thoughts to everyone else who is also struggling through summer :).

I am having a passionate affair with the small fan on my desk at work. When I am on my way in, I long for it. When first I arrive, I sit and bask in its gentle breezes. And if I could, I would make it portable, so we could be together everywhere we went. Despite the air conditioning, it is too damn hot (well, too damn hot for office clothes anyway) ... global warming is clearly plotting to drive me north and turn me scottish.

Or possibly icelandic.

We've had some good news this week, the level one British Sign Language course that we thought we'd missed out on for this year is actually starting again in September. It's very nicely timed and located, and Ezekiel and I are very much looking forward to it. We've picked up a few signs already from the pub meet last week (which was a little nervewracking at first, but turned out to be lovely ... when did we both get this shy?) and this should give us the foundation we need to build a good working base for the language.

We'd talked about doing this for so many years and never quite got around to it (and then had our ability to plan derailed pretty heavily when Ezekiel fell ill) so I'm so happy we've been able to find an opportunity that isn't too far away, is nicely timed and should be able to work out for both of us. Being able to sign is going to be hugely useful when she can't wear her hearing aids and when we're in places that are just too damn loud ... it's a hell of a lot of fun too thus far.

Now, if I can just get myself organised enough that I don't need to work on the weekends and pluck up the courage to head down to the community circus as well, I'll have both of my current projects off to a flying start ;).

On a different note, there's a TV show Ezekiel and I watch called 'The Closer' that we rather enjoy, it follows Deputy Chief Brenda Lee Johnson of the LAPD and her priority homicide team and provides a good mixture of typical procedural show grit and people drama that has kept us coming back for several series now. Anyway, Brenda is engaged to an FBI Agent named Fritz, and a big part of the drama we see is the workings of their ongoing relationship. One of the things we've noticed is that they have a lot of important conversations in metaphor; especially the ones where the emotional weight is too heavy for them to bear the actual words.

I am quietly pleased that Ezekiel and I are able to talk about the important things without doing this; to sit down and speak honestly with each other even when things are heavy. We had a conversation last night that proved that all over again and it makes me very happy to have that with someone.

We're clearly with the right people, eh.

I'm off now, it's time to do horrible horrible things to our poor little front room :).

The above video is about the most amusing commentary on the whole Twilight thing I've seen yet. Whatever you think of the books and movies, Edward is pretty damn creepy and this highlights it well (and has an absolutely gigglesome conclusion).

Ezekiel is spending the weekend in the northern marches, so the Den has been my domain for the last two days ... which I've rather enjoyed. My Doodle came by on friday night and we made a little music, watched an odd little Donnie Darko-esque film called Franklyn (pretty visuals, slightly better than average plot overall, and the end scene was oddly touching), nommed some dominos and played with fire out back. I think I'm going to have to make a point of putting the fire rigs aside until I've learned some more tricks so I don't burn through my wicks too fast ... it's far too much fun for its own good.

Today I've been out for a walk, curled up in the hammock with a G&T and Eating Myself by Candida Crewe, a book that I found rather more familliar than I'd like and spent some time nattering with Lamasu about Taka and various other gleeful sources of squee. I also managed to get talking to the fantabulous Helen_Bop about music, whereupon she aided and abetted my current crush on cool bluesy women by introducing me to The Smoke Fairies, who are now firmly on my watchlist of newer artists. We may also be managing to run into each other one evening next week, which is a rather fun prospect.

Last thing before I slope off for a shower and the warm embrace of bed, The Apostate wrote a gorgeous post Things that make me feel married that really tickled me. You should definitely check it out.

The den of iniquity is more open than usual in summer. Our windows are wide, our doors left open and strung with beaded curtains, fans humming away in the rooms we spend our time in, keeping the air moving. Stillness is the enemy.

At least during the day, at night when the temperature drops we still curl together and are still, when it's cooled down enough for other peoples touch not to be intolerable. We both love and hate summer; worshipping spring and autumn as the best times of year, the times when we can compromise.

The last week has been a little strange, made of shortened sleep due to an inexplicable tendancy to wake up at 5am and old ghosts, I was glad when the weekend rolled around and I could take a little break. I spent my time doing things quietly with Ezekiel and plotting shennanigans ... which came to fruition on Monday evening.

Following a day stuffed with stressful wrestling with computer systems, entirely too much hospital, an inordinate use of words like 'biopsy' and a phlebotomist who preferred to dig for blood rather than draw it (I have some remarkably amusing bruising at my elbows), I decided to head for the nearest hardware store and make my plans a reality. One quick trip out for Kerosene, a garden flare and a fire blanket later, I was ready to dance with fire.

The results? One hell of a good mood, the determination to get a few more moves ready for using with fire and some amusing photos. Sheryl was right, there's something about fire that does a mind good. Especially mixed with dancing.

Hope you enjoyed the photos (ably taken by Ezekiel), and didn't mind the rambling.

I discovered this morning that Tuesday was Captain Picard day. So in celebration of Patrick Stewart in all his glory, I give you the video to Darkmateria's Picard Song. Make it so!

I've been feeling my life moving in a different direction over the past few months; I just hope I have the werewithall to move along with it. I've found myself losing interest in a few things I thought were priorities, mostly things that were solitary, solo activities that kept me sat on my butt most of the time and being pulled into things that are more social, more movement based. I can feel myself wanting to be, not the movement but movement itself. I want to be walking, want to be dancing ... the poi is a part of that I think, if I can keep throwing myself into it and developing I think it could be the route of something very different and much more true to me than some of the other avenues I've been down.

Part of it is a change in the way I look at my body, she and I have a better relationship these days than we've had in the past, even if she doesn't quite fire on all cylinders. I've had the confidence to take off a few masks and wear something a little more true to me at work as much as in the rest of my life and it's an ... interesting feeling. I've even found myself singing more, which is a rather happy side effect of this whole shift.

The most important thing to me right now is to try and hold to this, and make it something worthwile. I'm always a little worried when things start to change beneath the surface like this; when I feel myself pulling away from something I fear the beginning of a more dramatic withdrawal. But that's not something I'm prepaired to be a party to right now.

Or again, really, if I can avoid it.

It's late, I slept very oddly today, in fits and starts in places and times where I had no business sleeping. I think it was just one of those days. While I've been awake, I've been distracting myself with the rather exciting news about Betelgeuse, with Ezekiel's delight at receiving what feels like several miles of fabric through the post for a sewing project, and by this rather kickarse post at The Apostate that made me re-examine some of my thinking on Burqua/headscarf wearing that I'd recently had to confront while talking about it with a friend of mine.

And with that, I'm off to have a shower then see if I can sleep.

Rosemary, the livejournaler who made the post I linked to earlier about the appropriation of the spoon theory linked to a bunch of absolutely kick arse poets competing in a poetry slam called Brave New Voices and they have absolutely blown me away. You can find her post with all the links here, I just wanted to mention a couple that hit me square in the centre of my chest. I don't even have the words to describe the one above, it's just right.

I can recognise so much of this myself, and the way it's laid out so publicly, something that there's such a pressure to keep hidden leaves me speechless. These poets are so publicly honest, it's inspiring and a little frightening almost.

"Strong but still weak, I've become so desensitised to my daily life that it's hard for me to bring my insides out. Hard to express myself because .. I can't protect myself if I'm exposed." Just listen to this, it's truth.

I cannot stop listening to this song, it's a bubbly piece of analog synth gorgeousness from Alessandro Cortini, formerly of Nine Inch Nails, currently of Modwheelmod and Blindoldfreak, that makes me glad to be alive in so many ways. I'm also quite, quite fascinated by the Buchla 200e modular synth he's playing ... especially that touch controller he's using - I want to know how he's set it up!

It was Strawberry Fair this weekend, I had a bimble round it with the insufferably cute Nick and Maggie, Kerry and the boy named sue (who rather delightfully bought me a scarf I'd been looking at but decided I couldn't afford) and investigated festival cute, festival food (via the world's largest ever falafel, so big it had its own gravity well) and festival people with delighted abandon. We managed to catch the parade for the first time this year, (I'll put a few photos up sometime this week) and I watched everyone do considerable damage to their wallets in a fantastic second hand book stall on the market. After we went our seperate ways for the day, I wandered back to my bike via the green area, stopped for tea with Sheryl and managed to acquire a new set of poi, spin in public for the first time and even had a spin while dancing around Tim and Jean's peace labyrinth (I have been promised/threatened with photos to follow later). This pretty much meant I was ready to keel over and die by the time I got home, but it was so worth it.

As mentioned, I left the fair with a new set of poi. They've got a lot more mass to them than my old ones (making them a bit easier to spin I think), decent handles and when you spin them at night .. they glow! I've been spending about half an hour with them every evening and am beginning to realise a few things. Firstly that I need to improve the flexibility and strength of my right arm/wrist, secondly that the one disadvantage of more solid poi is the bruises if you screw up (some of them look quite impressive :P), and thirdly that I need to start checking out some videos or getting along to the community circus to improve much past where I'm at. I've picked up Shireen Press and Delpha Turley's 'Poi Spinning Basics with Pele's Element' and am going to give that a go, then check out a few youtubes too until I've plucked up the courage (and energy) to get along to the circus on sunday nights. I'm aiming to be able to put on a decent display by the time the next barbeque rolls around ... we'll see how it goes :).

Sunday lunchtime, I met back up with everyone and we went to see Terminator Salvation; a movie I have somewhat mixed feelings about. I liked the fact that the terminators have been made frightening again (the CGI so worked in their favour), the Michael Bay-esque hugedramaticexplosions (this is definitely a summer action flick terminator) and the gratuitous use of A10s by the resistance ... I was less enamoured by Blair Williams being a cheap plot device to mellow John Connor's attitude towards the cyborg, the loss of our conflicted cyborg character at the end of the film, the SHEER HEADACHE VOLUME of the soundtrack (loudest movie I've ever been to, I think Ezekiel could have watched it without her hearing aids) and the ridiculously cheese-laden heart transplant ending. It's definitely worth a watch, but dont' go in expecting a life changing experience.

One of the things that made this weekend so welcome (both as a break from the week and for all the contact with other people) was how crazy work has been over the last few weeks. I can't/won't talk too much about it as I don't want to make it too obvious who I work for, but things are very, very, veyr focused and busy there at the moment - we've had a very dramatic change of focus and are all being encouraged/instructed to look at what we do in a very different way. One result of this has been my working into the evenings for the last couple of weeks to finish some projects and project proposals on top of my usual job that have left me absolutely wrung out. On friday evening I felt dizzy, almost drunk and had no voice to speak of after getting everything in for the final deadline. I'm trying very hard to find a sensible balance at the moment between making sure I am in the best standing I can manage in the office and, well ... having a life outside of work (and having enough physical/mental energy to enjoy it) but it's hard work, especially when things seem to be letting me down from the inside. I'm sure I'll figure it out soon enough though.

Yep, you heard me, it's polling day. We've got some interesting folk standing for the EU parliment this time around (though the switch from Single Transferrable Vote to a Closed List system still bugs me, it may be easier to understand but it's also less transparent and I prefer to vote people rather than parties where possible), so if you want to have some influence in Europe, see if anyone local to you is saying things that make sense and throw them a vote.

Alternatively, if you're stuck in an area where there's nobody of any damn use or interest standing at all, go out and spoil a ballot in an obvious and deliberate fashion to show them you're willing ... but they're not giving you anyone worth your vote. (Or if you're so inclined, figure out who the best strategic anti-BNP vote would be for in your area and throw them a vote to keep Griffith's little bastards out of power).

In other news, Ezekiel has been doing delicious things to my hair over the last couple of nights (she's made me look like a pixie or something, 'tis marvellous) and while doing so, has found my first grey hair. I am super-delighted by this fact and have named it George in celebration.

Sometimes everything lines up with the best of intentions, then the phone rings before you can get your fuzzy little butt out the door ... that was my morning. Still it has proved profitable, Great things were done with the first half of it that, fingers crossed, will win me dividends at the end of this week. I'm looking forward to being able to settle some of this into a strong, regular pattern instead of these bursts of creative chaos in between flat lulls of bleaugh.

... and all but three of you will have no idea what I'm talking about, that's the problem with these things.

Anyhoo, I'm glad things went down the way they did as my insides have been murderous this afternoon. I spent a fair part of it sat outside in the shade drinking filthy powdered concoctions, ignoring the cramps and watching the bees (becuz bees are awesome ... I can't wait until the Lavender flowers this year, our garden goes crazy with bumblebees when that happens). I also managed to have a good geek on the phone with Lamasu that set everything off just perfectly.

I was never a person to hang on the phone in the past, except when Ezekiel and I were apart from each other it was almost something I avoided. But over the last few years I've grown to love having people in such easy reach ... especially when they're ones I don't get to see every day - friendships that started through internet gatherings tend to have a bit of distance in them after all. Being able to talk to Lama, Mish, RainDog, Sheryl and my other peeps goes a long way towards keeping me in one piece mentally and physically ... and generally makes things a fuck of a lot more fun too.

It also makes it a lot harder to isolate myself from people ... which is something I used to do an awful lot (and then feel quite tortured by loneliness, what a catch 22, eh? The problem isn't having people around or not having people around, it's having people around who get you and vice versa that makes the difference) and still have something of a tendency to ... though I'm making it harder and harder to do that to myself all the time. I've changed the way I work, taken steps to get myself out and around people more often ... and to bring them here, and started to try and make a point of strengthening the ties to people I do have (no matter how half-assedly). While life still has its moments, it is much, much harder for my mind to leave me somewhere dark without anyone else to bring me a light - something I'm very thankful for indeed.

I've been reading the archives of a webcomic I've never looked at before, Waspi Square. It's an awful lot more satisfying than the title had made me assume in the past and it has done a grand job of entertaining me between paragraphs while I crank out the source of my daily bread. If your demons are people too sometimes it might appeal to you as well. I've also been leaning into thesixtyone for music and it's been doing a great job of keeping me company. I'll be glad when this particular project crunch is over though, I miss gaming!

I particularly miss hanging out with Angel and Pher in GW ... I promise I've not left or anything, guys :).

We went for a walk in the evening light yesterday and it was awesome, there were swings and ducks and unexpected ravers ... I'll tell the story later this week and show you some video. Until then, be well, all :).

I came across this musical memoir by Lavina Greenlaw during one of the gleeful, anarchic sweeps I've been making through the local library since acquiring a new library card, thought 'hmm, that looks interesting' and dumped it into my bookbag where it languished under a pile of genre fiction for a few weeks, waiting its turn.

Now that I've picked it up and read the thing, I'm kicking myself for not putting it on the top of my 'to read' pile immediately as it is absolutely fantastic. All the passion and pain and riotous, furious energy of growing up and growing into music is writ large here and reading it makes me feel about fifteen again and so very, very alive.

If music has ever been your life ... or at least the soundtrack to it, pick this up and have a read. I think you'll like it.