post consult

talked to the plastic surgeon today, he's a pretty serious guy (not a bad thing) with a limp handshake (not a good thing). thinks i'm a good candidate and i feel ok about him. sadly he doesn't do before/after pics but he has been doing this for over 20 years so that's good. wait time is way less then i expected, probably less then 6 months. this is all happening very quickly and i don't know if i'm more happy or scared. consoling myself that i can always freak out and change my mind right up until the surgery. guess i better get my head on straight and come to terms with this a lot faster then i thought *deep breath*

photographer i like

very interesting artist i found on the etsy blog: her name is sally mann and she's a photographer. best known for a controversial set she took of her own kids. very moving images and also very interesting perspective since this was featured for mother's day on the premise that mothers see the intimate moments in childhood; when their children are lonely or sick or hurt or angry. knowing and trusting someone is not measured by how you are at your best, it's how you are at your worst. anyway, check her work out here

stuff and things

so stuff. i don't know what i was trying to do with my days off but apparently i'm not doing it. instead i'm hanging out and sleeping and listening to this song because it's randomly stuck in my head. i think my b12 vitamins are helping stabilize my moods. strangely that feels weird and wrong. much as i really hate feeling crappy all the time i've gotten very used to it. neutral to ok doesn't feel authentic in any way. see how i feel in a few weeks or months i guess. try to get actual sleep since that helps a lot too. much as it means i can't have a life at all and i have to run all my errands and do all my cleaning on my days off, i'm not as miserable on night shift so i'll do that for a while too. things. and more stuff.

oh zen.

you bring me peace. i am neither a Buddhist nor a Taoist but i love reading zen quotes. they center me and draw me out of myself and give me perspective. i find there's something very impressive about a philosophy which you don't have to believe in or even agree with to have it improve your life, if only by making you examine it.
read some quotes and say ooooommmmmmm

zomfg man!

aah parkour. the art of being both a gymnist and a street kid at the same time. this guy is fucking amazing. i wonder how many bones he breaks? i only wish i was this athletic and coordinated, maybe i'd hurt myself less while, you know, walking.

i r in urban dictionary

hey hey! i couldn't believe urban dictionary didn't have the definition of sundowner (or at least the one i was using), considering medical personnel have been using it for at least 20 years to describe people who go nutso after dark. that's been mostly me lately. i posted the definition and it should be found here in a few days, hehe.

operation greek dinner party

it's finally nice out and i have to (grudgingly) admit that the patio furniture the evil landlord picked isn't bad. i've been craving greek food and the places around here suck lately. i wanted a greek variety platter type thing but that means making many different dishes and while leftovers are good it would be nice to share with a few friends while everything is fresh. the good part is that most greek food is really simple and can be made in advance therefore the menu will be:
tyropita triangles
mushroom triangles
spanikopita pie
fresh tatziki
fresh hummus with sun-dried tomatoes
pita bread
greek salad
lemon potatoes
kalimatas for nibbles
sangria
which is a lot of projects so i'll be making the mushroom and tyropita triangles in advance and freezing them, buying the pita bread pre-made, making the hummus and tatziki a couple days ahead of time and the greek salad the day before. this way we can have a feast and i'll only have to throw together the spanikopita pie (15 min prep), the sangria (10 min prep), and the lemon potatoes (15 min prep) on the day of and throw various things in the oven at the right times. i've made all of these before and i don't think any of them have more then 6 ingredients or take more then 15 min prep. wish me luck! i think i need platters of some kind. i haven't enough dishes to bring this all outside and still have plates to eat on. hmmmm...

well i acquired platters and more bowls and cups. unfortunately i have not acquired anyone remotely interested. two people said "i might stop by" and another said "yes! we'll talk later" and never did. i'm also several days behind in prep. something tells me this is not happening. i have all the ingredients so i guess i'll break it up into several meals and eat it alone over several days.

well it did happen, sort of. it was four of us, including myself, my roommate, my neighbor, and my friend who was over an hour late. the food was fantastic (if i do say so myself) considering i threw almost all of it together the night before. sometimes the measure-nothing-and-chill-the-hell-out school of cooking works best. afterwards another friend came by and we watched rocky horror picture show. it scares me that i remembered more callbacks then the resident expert in our group this time around.

hmmm, mothers day.

not having real parents, i always have mixed feelings on mother's and father's day. on one hand i don't have to deal with the hallmark-ness and arranging for outings or gifts or such. on the other hand i'm acutely reminded of not having parents to care about or who care about me. since the only mother i acknowledge is my goddess i think today is a good day to thank her for all the wonderful gifts and blessings she's given me. now i shall go find a tree to hug.

this song touches me on many levels, some good, some bad

stuff i'm doing: the jungle

in the absence of being able to get into therapy for some months (stupid lack of government funding) i'm channeling my energy into redecorating my horrible apartment. not sure how i came to that conclusion but it's a good distraction. my phone has a piece of crap camera so no pics yet but we're going for a jungle theme in the living room and carrying the natural, foresty theme throughout the house. we have discovered that our apartment does not have enough light to sustain real pants so i'm contenting myself with silks for the time being. bringing home the 6 foot tree on the bus was loads of fun. i was telling people i'm taking my tree for a walk. it's amusing to see the generational gap when you do things like that; everyone over 30 was staring at me like i was an alien taking a crap in public, everyone under 30 was smiling at me conspiratorially (you're doing something fun and unusual and i've done similar). i also did a nice tropical painting and stitched a bunch of fake grass panels together to make a throw rug. the rug was supposed to be a bath mat but after testing it was judged too lumpy for bare feet so it's now a welcome mat instead. i picked up several inexpensive silk hanging vines which i painted the pots of. i also raided the dollar stores for realistic looking fake birds and butterflies to go on the plants and bouquet of tropical flowers. this all sounds like it will be full of plastic and old lady aesthetic but it's actually coming along quite organically. you'll see when i acquire a camera. a trip to ikea the other day yielded a couple of nice carpets, a new shoe basket, and some scented candles. next cheque i'll be getting a 6 foot palm to go in the other corner of the living room and maybe the big bamboo from micheal's which needs to live in my bedroom. i'm looking forward to my string of orchid fairy lights arriving from etsy as well. i think this is becoming a bit obsessive though and don't know what i'll do with myself when i really have done all i can to my house. luckily this is a time consuming and expensive process and will hopefully be dragged out until i find another distraction

update: we got the 6 foot palm today and i LOVE it! i want to get two of the 4 foot ones to keep him company and the hunt for green sheets to cover the walls continues (why on earth it's this hard i have no idea). we got some lovely moss green curtains and i think i want another set for my bedroom. $30 for the longer ones isn't bad at all. we also need to swap the dark red (stained and old) tablecloth on the coffee table for something blue and purple. maybe a swirly or paisley pattern. i think i'll need to raid dressew for cheep fabric since the sheet hunt is failing. so. next cheque will be two smaller palms ($35 each), a bunch more bamboo mats for the walls ($1-2 each at the dollar store) and some cheep fabric from dressew. it's starting to look really nice in here. once we have the green and blue flood lights, the waterfall fountain, another fog machine, and maybe some cheep wall decals off etsy this place will look amazing. and i'm fairly certain i'll have done all of this for under a grand over a few months. i think i'm getting good at this! maybe i should add interior design to the list of jobs i want to try in my lifetime.

finally got another palm and set of green curtains for my bedroom. better yet i have some pictures of my favorite completed bits! note how i carefully cropped everything ugly out of the photo. i've learned how to make my peace with the terminally messy house: it's just like a forest, it's too alive to be perfect. the lights from etsy never arrived (long story) so i made my own and i think they're way prettier then the etsy ones anyways. the pics are all at the top for some reason, i'm too tired to deal with this nightmare of a program right now, i'll sort it out later

on procrastination

so the apathy and depression bugs creep up on me insidiously on a regular basis. i seem to have developed this strange way of procrastinating which involves me setting myself goals, chosen from my to-do list and then somehow managing to do everything but those things. i can't entirely say i did nothing but at the same time i did nothing that i set out to do. this frustrates me. my goal for today is to clean the kitchen. it's disgusting and i can't move in there and i need to cook a lot tomorrow if the dinner party is going to happen. i know that it is never as bad as i think it will be. it never takes as long as i think it will while staring at all those dishes and it never bothers me that much while i'm doing them (as long as i remember actively to not resent the process). for some unknown reason, instead today i have bagged up all the recycling, tidied up a bit, did ALL the laundry, started the yogurt draining for the tatziki, make popsicles with the leftover strawberries before they went bad, and repotted a plant. granted i don't have to go to bed anytime soon and i'm currently drinking my second cup of coffee to try to motivate myself but WHY is it that whatever is the most important task for the day, that is the thing i will avoid by doing everything else i can possibly justify? even more irritating, when i don't give in to this and i do the most important thing first (you know, like a sane person) i feel almost no satisfaction from it. i am a strange little creature. i think i better force myself to get out of the house tomorrow and run my errands first and then forbid myself from turning on the computer or tv for anything but music until the rest of my crap is finished. maybe that will work better.

living out of my body

survivors often split. we cut ourselves off from our bodies. they say some yogi masters spend years trying to have out of body experiences. i'd like to live in an IN body experience. as a child i did not have the capacity to deal with the physical and emotional pain of what was happening to me. i could not have gone to kindergarten and learned to read and play and act like other children if i had been fully experiencing the reality of my situation. it would have driven me insane. as a survival tactic i learned to not feel my body. i lived in my chest or in my head and was numb to a greater or lesser degree from before i can remember till the last few years. occasionally now i can be in my body and feel what's really happening. not often. not when anything threatening is happening. not when i feel in any way unwell or insecure. i still don't call my body home. i'm more aware of it now. it's like being anesthetized. like having an epidural or your face frozen at the dentist and being afraid you'll hurt yourself by accident because you are not fully in control of your limbs. i don't feel hunger until my blood sugar is so low i'm trembling and dizzy. then of course i don't feel secure so i'm all up in my head and honestly can't feel my legs whatsoever. i go down a flight of stairs and i cling to the railing and stare at my feet trying to will them to go where i say and not topple me to my death. i stop concentrating for a moment and i lose my balance and panic. i try to know myself through masturbating mindfully and find i can't stay present while touching anything more then my own shoulder. i don't feel pain the way everyone else does. i feel a nagging annoyance until it's suddenly unbearable. i don't know i'm tired until i can't focus on reading or keep my eyes open anymore and then i lie staring at the wall with every muscle tensed waiting for...what? i don't remember enough to work through it and i don't know how to. and i'm so very afraid to remember alone yet i can't possibly imagine being comfortable going through the darkest places with anyone else. accepting help and comfort feel repulsive and like i'm a failure who couldn't do it myself. so where the hell does that leave me?

why i feed my cats raw meat

i am a vegetarian. my cats are not. having natural predators for roommates and children poses interesting moral dilemmas for an animal rights activist. on the one hand i object to supporting the meat industry because i disagree with the way they treat the animals before and after their deaths. the concept of eating meat makes me a little nauseous but eating cat kibble would make me feel the same way. i really hate buying meat. i hate touching it, smelling it, trying hard not to think about the fact that this is a corpse of a living creature that thought and felt and did not have a happy life and now i'm chopping it up.
i also love my cats to the ends of the earth. they are my children and i want what is best for them. our vet suggested raw food to try to treat spook's bladder disease. after some 10 foods and 12 medications and nothing helping i was willing to try just about anything. even touching dead bodies. even homeopathy (i'm an herbal healer and even i think homeopathy is crap but it's working so i don't care why). after some research on how best to go about this i came across a lot of interesting studies on how much generally healthier cats were on raw food (i.e. REAL food) instead of kibble or packaged wet food. it makes a lot of sense. cats have only been domesticated a few thousand years. from an evolutionary standpoint that is nothing. their digestive systems are still very similar to small wild cats. have you ever read the ingredient label on cat food? 99% of them have some form of grain or carb as the first ingredient. that means they have more grain then anything else. what cat, in the wild, eats carbs? do you see lions raiding farmers fields and eating all the corn and rice? leopards digging up potatoes? cats are predators. they eat meat. the only grain or veggies they would naturally eat would be the stomach contents of their prey (maybe 1% of their diet?). as such their digestive systems were designed to live on this. we have this weird notion that cats should eat like humans and get their veggies and brown rice and such. cats need carbs like humans need fat; as the smallest component of their diet. giving your cat a bowl of kibble is pretty much the equivalent of eating a bowl of mayonnaise for dinner. your vet saying they should eat the prescription kibble? have you checked those labels? they're not much different from no-name stuff. that's like a doctor saying you should eat vitamin fortified mac and cheese for the rest of your life. it doesn't make good sense. drying or cooking the meat degrades it of a lot of the nutrients cats need. their systems were designed to handle eating scavenged, several day old kills. a little salmonella is not going to hold up under that immune system. as long as your meat isn't infected with parasites it really is the best thing for them. wet food has vitamins added so i do mix in a bit of it with the rest of their diet but it's made from the worst quality floor scraping meat and fillers possible. i think my children deserve better.
as much as i feel for the animals on feed lots, as much as i think the system is evil and wrong, i care about my cats welfare more. when it comes down to a choice my loyalty lies with those i have known and loved. i can only try to limit my impact by buying ethically raised eggs, meat, and milk, and be grateful that my cat is healthier on this diet then he's been in the last 5 years.

on perspective

oh several notes on paradigm shifts. one, my incredibly irritating customers who FREAK RIGHT OUT because their tv doesn't work for a few days. normally i would be compelled to tell them to go outside before your brain dribbles out your ears but one the other day one actually said "this is my worst fear, that the tv wont work! really, it's THE most important thing. i MUST have the tv working for the hockey game!" which both makes me feel very sorry for them, that they have nothing else of worth in their life (i have no idea when the hockey game is on and i survive just fine), and really it was all i could do not to verbally shake them with "wow, that's you worst fear? really? that must be so nice! can you teach me how to live that way?" i really really need to get away from this job before it destroys whatever is left of my faith in humanity.

favorite book quote of the day: 'a family in my sister's neighborhood was recently stricken with a double tragedy, when both the young mother and her three-year-old son were diagnosed with cancer. when catherine told me about this, i could only say, shocked, "dear god, that family needs grace." she replied firmly, "that family needs casseroles," and then proceeded to organize the entire neighborhood into bringing that family dinner, in shifts, every single night, for an entire year. i do not know if my sister fully recognizes that this is grace.'
which very much sums up my worldview on many subjects. these recent campaigns for awareness drive me absolutely mental because they make it seem like they are fixing the problem. they aren't. awareness of any issue is only the smallest first step. you have to actually do something about it to make any kind of difference. i don't object to raising awareness on subjects that need attention. i have a problem with making a huge hoopla about AWARENESS to the exclusion of actually fixing the fucking problem. i have an issue with campaigns that stop there. that take all the funding and effort that could be put to good use instead being spent on ribbons and walk-a-thons and other stupid shit instead of paying the doctors or researchers or therapists, changing curriculums, otherwise actually helping the people who really do need help instead of squandering money and time and effort trying to make the rest of the public understand that a problem exists. stop trying to figure out who's fault it is. stop trying to make the rest of the entire world hear you. focus on what's really important: what can you do now? today. this minute. right now is all we have. how do you want to spend your energy?

on our reaction to emotions

as a culture we are uncomfortable with strong emotion of any kind. anger, sadness, even excitement and joy. we are taught to be quiet, to calm down, to take a deep breath and above all *control ourselves*. i think by doing so we rob ourselves and each other of the vitality of being alive. to fully feel an emotion we must and should express it. this is what makes us human and alive. even the most well meaning of friends cannot simply let you feel. they need to step in, to intervene, to fix it. there is nothing to be fixed. when we cry or yell or laugh for pure joy we are doing exactly what we were designed to do. sometimes you want to feel better, to have someone's shoulder to cry on and a hug from a close friend. sometimes that is the last thing we need. there is nothing wrong with feeling strongly and expressing it. we have somehow created a culture where it is not considered ok to do so, even in the privacy of our own homes, even around our closest friends and family. we are robbed of our humanity and crippled from fully living by this belief and attitude and i think we are wrong to continue it.

on humans vs. nature

we are the only species which makes a differentiation between nature and ourselves and what we have created. i think that separation in itself is a lot of our problem. it's not just what we do to the planet, it's the way we see ourselves as not a part of her. we see all other living things as a part of a whole but we are not? what makes us so "special"? our being capable of things which other species are not just means we have a responsibility to use that power carefully. just be cause we CAN do all manner of things a tree or a lion or a spider cannot, doesn't mean we SHOULD. we used to know this. when we were still a people who relied on the whims of nature and the fortune of a mild winter or a good hunt to survive we understood that we are not different from the food we eat or the land we walk. we are not special and this world was not created for us or as a personal playground to protect or destroy as it suits us. it is remarkably arrogant that we even have the word "nature" or "natural" as opposed to man-made. that implies that anything we create or change is somehow more or less or not the same as that which grew and evolved and changed without our touching it. because we ARE nature as much as the rest of the world we should be mindful of this and have the things we touch and change and build be worthy of that definition.

gebus bloody christ on a bicycle!

so my cat almost died this morning. i was woken by my roommate yelling that he needed me NOW and ran to the living room to find spook limp and glassy-eyed with bloody foam draining from his mouth. turns out he was eating so quickly he failed to chew a large piece of meat and got it well and truly lodged in his windpipe. aaron managed to pull it out and get him breathing again and took a nice puncture wound to his finger in the process (reflexive bite urge). the blood was only from aaron and he was breathing again by the time i checked him over. took him a few min to come to and get up, vomit the rest of his breakfast and get his bearings. he's ok but he's really clingy now and obviously very scared. thank god for having two first aid attendants in the house or we would have lost a very beloved member of the family today. what a way to start beltane!