洋随筆　Western Rambles

I Am Not Stalker

Thu, 01 Dec 2011 19:02:50 GMT

Funny, how one can realize these things, when reading other friends' words.

Or even, sometimes, not-friends. (But therein lies a far too convoluted tale.)

But, if I ever worried - sometimes, I have - well, for starters, when someone said, no longer beating around the bush, "I no longer have time for you," I put on the big-girl panties, and have never-ever sent another communication.

Not like one friend who has to deal with the return of a stalker, something like a bad penny returning, in the midst of her other crises. Or someone who has taken to employing third parties to pelt the object of "affection" with a variety of consumer goods, all in the name of getting a response.

On the recommendation of another internet friend, years ago I'd read a book, The Gift of Fear. It became an immediate touch-stone, not only in considering those situations when I may have been in the sights of a potential stalker, but also - recognizing my own personality - if I might have been liable to developing into a similar sort of pest.

Interestingly, one person of my acquaintance, who I've since come to realize is actually a narcissist (with all that entails: charming first phase, "devalue and discard" in subsequent stages), is the one who would make side-comments about "his stalker". Bwa ha ha ha!! he should be so lucky! (Like, I have the time for that shit?? No....) At the time, I thought, "Thus does the crooked inn-keeper judge others by his example." Only later, did it become clear - as a narcissist, he was doing everything he could to devalue what he thought he saw in that other person. (Me, in other words.) Using the latest buzz-word as his strategy.

It's not even very imaginative, actually. It is to laugh. Except for the sad realization, that my one-time acquaintance is going to keep circling around the emptiness in his heart, snagging and dragging down anyone unlucky enough to get into his orbit. Unless he gets a clue.

I can always hope. But I'll be doing it from afar.

The State of Me

Mon, 20 Jun 2011 15:45:29 GMT

Lately? "Trekkin' along", as they used to say.

I'm working hard on my third attempt to take the course of 2nd year Japanese grammar/reading at my institution. It's The Last Time, at least as allowed by the institution. On the other hand, there might be ways beyond this so-called hard boundary. I don't know if it will involve kicking up a fuss with regard to a rather tardy discovery of a serious limitation like ADHD or just the promise of lots more cash than the "subsidised" rate I currently pay for my classes. (As regards the diagnosis of "tardy", that's because I've been at this study since, what? 2006? And not only am I a little annoyed about that, but also the after-care leaves something to be desired... but that might be a separate topic, at this point.)

So, my usual day is saying "goodbye" to Mr Sweetie as he heads to work, and then settling at my study table, if I hadn't already been there for anywhere up to an hour. I try not to make this too heavy, despite the sound of that - it's mostly just working on anything that's part of the day's planned study that is amenable to half-brain access, like writing over old exercises, or problematic portions of the syllabus. Stuff that pokes my brain and tells it that it's time for the start of another day.

My birthday's coming up soon. Goodness gracious, I'm looking at the last years of my 40's. Apart from some minor physical issues, and the mental ones that have been on the table for awhile, I'm actually feeling pretty damn good. Hopeful that I might be reaching some of what I want to be, as my understanding of that has developed over the last, oh, fifteen years? It's a strange, strange feeling to me. For so long, I was always behind the curve on what everyone else seemed to know, be doing, etc. Now? I'm the one saying to people, "When I was your age...?" or "I remember when this wasn't like it is today." Sometime even to people who I see as already quite complete in their own awareness of our world.

I thought there might be more, but at this moment, I guess not. Maybe until later, eh?

Don't mind me...

Thu, 28 Apr 2011 21:16:11 GMT

Sometimes, one puts out feelers to interesting people on the internet.

Sometimes, they turn into interesting contacts. Other times, they sort of fizzle out. Or one party or the other says, "Meh, this doesn't look like my cup of tea."

And lastly, they make no reply to one's overtures. And then, without any feedback, delete a comment you've left on a recent posting.

Fine. I can take a hint. Time to slap the sandals together, shaking the dust off.

She's alive!

Wed, 27 Apr 2011 18:53:36 GMT

Yes, I have been Too Long in the posting.

In a nutshell - life continues here. The main reason I put off with posting is I was getting a handle on a new development in the "landscape" that is my life. Or rather, the development is in my understanding, since the feature in this landscape has always been. And that is a new diagnosis on the mental health front.

Sometime late last year, when I was visiting the uni psych, after a bit of a chat (yes, that's your writer redacting a few pertinent details), he mentioned, "You know, you might want to consider getting tested for ADHD. It's often co-morbid with depression."

Given that I felt like I was slo-o-o-owly sliding back into an un-climbable pit, I thought, "Oh heck, why not?"

A tests later, with discussions in between with Mr Sweetie, and waiting for the scores... well, they weren't really a surprise, were they? Not after I went through some of the questionnaires with the question ever louder in my mind, "Where the hell was the corner this observant person was sitting through my childhood?" It wasn't so much the "hyperactive" part of the disorder, but huge swathes of my inner world were described to a T. One other thing was also made very clear to me in this process - they've certainly expanded the range of experiences they consider as part of the disorder. I have vivid memories of the boys in our family always being a bit restless (and one cousin getting into arguments with his mother for not taking his prescribed medication for... you guessed it, "hyperactivity") while I slipped away dreamily into my book of the moment. "Not a bother from her, she's always reading. She could be doing better at school, I suppose, but.... HEY! YOU! STOP TEASING THE CAT!!!"

Well, I'll see how floating this out into the open goes. I know I've been away and truth to tell, I've missed my journal-keeping.

One last thing, actually - the regular reader and long-term friend will know me as a nervous, VERY nervous flyer, right? Well, get this: after having been on the medication the psych prescribed for me for ADHD... my most recent flight was marked by me being completely CALM. Color me incredibly surprised, indeed. Taking a stimulant to calm down? Well, sure, if what bit of your brain you're kicking awake also happens to be in charge of emotional regulation, impulse-suppression and planning: frontal lobes - they iz mai friends!

I'm a little weblog,... yet again.

Wed, 03 Nov 2010 21:34:47 GMT

A comic about the communications minefield when considering gender.

http://www.gabbysplayhouse.com/?p=1444

Hat tip: Echinde of the Snakes

House Guests and Inspirations

Thu, 28 Oct 2010 05:44:21 GMT

We've had a flying visit from yonmei, as she's mentioned in her own journal. The visit was icing on the cake; she's actually off to a professional conference, and we made a handy stop along the way. (Hooray!)

School continues apace, at my "own-drummer" pace. My classes fall on Monday and Tuesday this year - hooray - but Tuesday, thanks to scheduling, have me "romping" with my materials for a couple hours after lunch, before going into classes at 4 p.m. and not emerging again until 9:30.

And then I have to get home, BUT it turns out that there is someone else in the same class who comes from 2 villages beyond our town - and comes to class with her car. Oh WOW, but that worked out a super treat - she's even very personable to talk to, and has her own wide-ranging set of interests. And she states she's grateful for the company on the return journey home. (As am I.)

This year's classes are more or less a repeat of last year's, since I failed yet again the second year grammar class. **deep sigh** I was so close to passing, too. On the other hand, I know from having spoken with friends going on to the 3rd year, that the gulf between where the 2nd year ends and the 3rd year picks up is a difficult leap, so the part of me that actually wants to know the material (as opposed to the part of me that simply wants to have her ego stop aching every time she's performed badly on the exam) is pretty well reconciled with repeating the class. And, after some grumping to the university, they are reconciled, too.

Oh yeah, gotta love those "Bologna accords" - this is a process by which the academic world of Europe is rationalizing its system amongst the member states of the European Union. In some ways, this is a Good Thing, but in others - namely, the part where universities seem to be turning less into places for everyone to improve their knowledge and contribute, and more into diploma factories for a cherry-picked, meritocratic elite, to service the big businesses to which universities are turning more and more for their funding - it's bad, Bad, BAD!!! Much bad language has been pronounced in our household with regard to the new regs I'm having to deal with. There is some "grandfathering" as well as also being able to "request facilities" (such as taking a course for a third time running) based on my application (which is necessary to repeat yearly, damn them) for the individual program based on "limited funtioning". (That, my dear readers, would be the depression you've heard me mention in the past.) At least there are things I can do within the university system to register my presence, needs and above all the effects some of these new roolz are having on one student.

I don't want to be a poster-child for depression, dammit. But I also don't want to be tossed aside like so much trash just because The System has turned into a way to service itself, rather than human beings in search of particular kinds of knowledge.

Yeah, I'm grumpy. Well, actually, lately, apart from this particular topic, I'm doing pretty well, as is Mr Sweetie. I'm still enjoying the Japanese language study, and for the history course - which I did pass last year (sorry for the impression above that I may not have...) - I'm taking the companion course, of early Japanese history. And I'm giving a very good impression of a one-woman steam-machine with the project I've chosen as my course "extra", what would have been, in the olden pre-Internet days, the research paper.

Aikido is still doing well, mostly - however, I've had to offer up one training in my week, due to the late evening in uni coinciding with one of my regular training sessions. (Boo! Hiss!!!) But it's all to the greater good, and, ultimately, a temporary condition. I'm still rooting around as to how best to deal with the new situation - I notice that even missing one session out of three in the week, my body gets twitchy because of the consequent reduction of physical activity, less venting of those accumulated stresses and mental detritus from sitting and studying, or stewing when it comes to other topics (like local social situations, or the "wider" world of politics). But in this world, that's all small beer, eh?

Questions for Grownups

Wed, 29 Sep 2010 19:37:03 GMT

Or so this was presented to me. (Hat tip to replyhazy)

1. What bill do you hate paying the most?
Library fines. :) Because it's my own stupid fault.

2. Do you miss being a child?
Absolutely not. There was too much about being powerless that has marked my present character for me to look upon my childhood as a time of pleasant innocence.

3. Chore you hate the most?
All of them. More to the point, which chore do I hate less enough to be able to do it? Laundry.

4. Where was the last place you had a romantic dinner?
I have an embarrassment of riches with Mr Sweetie, as I count any meal I'm having with him as romantic.

5. If you could go back and change one thing what would it be?
Wish for a psychiatrist who took depression also in very young children seriously. (Although I'm not sure that would have helped, as the time of more effective medications had not yet come to pass.)

6. Name of your first grade teacher?
Mrs. .... Hatchet? Hatfield?

7. What do you really want to be doing right now?
Well.... aiming for the thing I'll be doing after this - going to bed and to sleep.

8. What did you want to be when you grew up?
Oh, I had all sorts of imaginings of what to be. Apart from being "the woman speaking multiple languages", though, I haven't really gotten to the "be when you grow up" part.

9. How many colleges did you attend?
Two, if you count a Junior-Year Abroad experience.

10. Why did you choose the shirt that you have on right now?
It's a long-sleeved lilac colored t-shirt; I chose it partly for warmth (the autumn here is definitely both chill and wet), partly for the color, partly because it was a second hand shirt from a houseguest. (Smiling at the houseguest in question, in case she wants to pipe up and say it was her....)

11. What are your thoughts on gas prices?
I don't have a direct stake in them - we do not own a car, and that leaves me blessedly ignorant. On the other hand, while public transport is a reliably present cost in our budget, it's not an onerous one

12. First thought when the alarm went off this morning?
"Gotta get going! Need to get out quick before I awaken Mr Sweetie!" (For a special, early-morning training.)

13. Last thought before going to sleep last night?
"Hmmm, there are enough blankets on the bed, but my nose is a bit cold."

14. What famous person would you like to have dinner with?
There remains a spot in my fannish heart for J. Michael Straczynski.

15. Have you ever crashed your vehicle?
I've managed a couple of nasty falls, at speed, from a bike.

16. If you didn't have to work, would you volunteer?
Only for short-term projects.

17. Get up early or sleep in?
Up early.

18. What is your favorite cartoon character?
Nausicaa (of the Valley of the Winds).

19. Favorite thing to do at night?
Find a friend from a different time zone via internet chat, and have a good old session of shooting the wind.

20. When did you first start feeling old?
When I noticed my memory was not retaining new material as fast as I remembered it doing in my first go through college.

21. Favorite lunch meat?
A nice, garlic-y salami. Or a nice paté, which kind of reminds me of the braunschweiger I adored as a small girl.

22. What do you get every time you go into Wal-Mart?
Well, I don't have a Wal-Mart here in Belgium, and if I did, I'd probably never go see the inside of it.

23. Do you think marriage is an outdated ritual?
No, but we need a better awareness of the way marriage has changed in function and form throughout history.

24. Favorite movie you wouldn't want anyone to find out about?
Legally Blond. I was pushed into going to see this movie, but am so glad I did see it.

25. What's your favorite drink?
I enjoy a variety of drinks - if you want to buy me one at the bar, though, you'd better ask me what I want, since not only does my mood change, but I also do my best to follow any alcoholic drink with water.

26. Who from high school would you like to run in to?
"Our Mutual Mary" would be lovely to run into.

27. What radio station is your car radio tuned to right now?
Don't own a car.

28. Sopranos or Desperate Housewives?
I'll go for Sopranos but, honestly? Give me a good science fiction series, please!

29. Worst relationship mistake that you wish you could take back?
Not sure I would "take back" any of them - sure, there are some painful decisions, but I also learned a lot. Well, I lie, just a little bit. There was one... which I won't share, except to say it was during my time in Italy, attempting to connect with a fellow student from a different country.

30. Do you like the person that sits directly across from you at work?
No work, so no person sitting directly across from me at work. On the other hand, I really-really like the person sitting across from my desk hutch at home. :D

31. Have you ever had to use a fire extinguisher for its intended purposes?
No.

32. Last book you finished reading?
The Thief's Gamble by Julia McKenna.

33. Do you have a teddy bear?
Yes. And also a few other stuffed toy animals.

34. Strangest place you have ever brushed your teeth?
Not sure I have one! Train washrooms are definitely the most cramped and dodgy I can remember.

35. Do you go to church?
No; I don't feel the environment is a nurturing one for my own spirituality.

36. How old are you?
I am nearer to 50 than any other decade.

Mechanics of Silencing

Mon, 30 Aug 2010 15:35:30 GMT

Off and on these past few months, thanks to a few friends, I've encountered the concept of "man-splaining", that pernicious habit some men have of explaining the obvious to a (usually younger, but not always) woman, in the clear belief that she was ignorant of said item.

I think I had hit the mother-lode of concept demonstration, here, but seeing as I haven't been tending this journal for awhile, I thought I'd mull over a few bits and pieces. Of course, I can recommend reading the rest.

The title is "Men Explain Things to Me -- Facts Didn't Get in Their Way"; I've had some similar experience, not with explaining (well, with that, too) but even with just sheer attention-claiming. One journey to the US, I had a constant barrage of approaches by men, despite the presence of my husband, or a woman friend to whom I'd been talking. No, no - they weren't sexual approaches but they were approaches just the same, claims I should say, for my attention.

They didn't have the same "attack pattern" (term borrowed from The Gentle Art of Verbal Self-Defense), or rather, the same gambit wasn't played. The moment I recognized I was having a problem was when I started to feel anxious, as if I was being pulled in two directions. And I was, no doubt about it - pulled between my own current desire to spend quiet time with a friend, to quietly grok a complex Pacific NW Indian artifact with Mr Sweetie, or enjoy a ferry ride with some other friends.

Once I realized the root of my anxiety - that I was being pulled away from something I was already enjoying, and in some cases had been anticipating with great intensity because of the intervening years I'd not seen some of these people, I deployed what was then to me something of a new skill; self-assertion. Interestingly, that it felt almost like I was doing something wrong, in the face of some male trying to make a claim for my attention without any greater justification than he felt like he needed it. But fine, I took my therapist-recommended deep breath, and started out with, "Excuse me, but I'm actually here to...." and stated my own agenda point.

Now, here's the curious bit: without exception, the man trying to get my attention would blanche, and nearly run away. As if he were afraid. I suppose that was better than one alternative, which I gather is becoming more common these years - of the man then trying to argue why I was supposed to pay attention to his needs instead of my own. But it was still... odd. Had they really not thought what might happen if they acted as they did? I am supposing not; the joys of privilege, I suppose.

I won't spoil the rather entertaining story at the beginning of this article - suffice it to say, a really, really entertaining bout of foot-in-mouth, but one soon stops laughing and becomes more enraged, as the deeper implications are laid bare.

Every woman knows what I'm talking about. It's the presumption that makes it hard, at times, for any woman in any field; that keeps women from speaking up and from being heard when they dare; that crushes young women into silence by indicating, the way harassment on the street does, that this is not their world. It trains us in self-doubt and self-limitation just as it exercises men's unsupported overconfidence.

If I had to add one thing, to make this clear in my own mind, it would be to insert thing: "It's the presumption of our supposed ignorance that makes it hard." But the rest - from owning my own mind? from speaking up? Non-ownership in this world? Huge resonance, there.

"Credibility is a basic survival tool," says the author. Yes! Damn straight, it is.

There's more, but again, I'm afraid I will spoil it by ruminating further. Happy reading!

Relief

Fri, 30 Jul 2010 07:29:18 GMT

We've taken our darling dowager empress to the veterinarian, and the diagnosis for those lumps we'd been feeling under her coat is "most likely innocent, given that they don't grow much" and "it's a phenomenon of old-age in cats". And she impressed the vet with her, *ahem* lively display. Neither Mr Sweetie nor I emerged from the surgery unscathed. Nothing a dab of iodine couldn't deal with, though. (Even if I did find myself slightly freaked at seeing Mr Sweetie bleeding from the scratches...)

Coming Down the Road

Tue, 27 Jul 2010 18:09:13 GMT

Poor Mr Sweetie. He's struggling, with something any pet-owner has to face up to.

Our eldest cat is over 15 years old. She's pretty spry for her old age, and some would say a bit bitchy, too. But we love her.

We both hold her, and have noted, first with some concern, and now - mostly on Mr Sweetie's part - alarm, that she's developing some lumps. They don't seem very fast moving ones - I know that we'd been with her to the vet before, and one of the lumps had been "diagnosed" as the site of her chip implant.

Still, I know folks who've had some dire stories of visits to the vet "just to check it out", coming home with a sad little ash casket some days later. And so does Mr Sweetie.

I'd like to think I'm not being hard-hearted about this. I'm not too worried. I mean, I'm not dismissing his concerns, and I'll be going with him as he takes our eldest kitty to the vet later this week. But... this is the deal that I accepted when we first brought a cat into the house. We are simply much longer lived than our companions felis catus. I'll be there to care for her when she's ill; I'll save the hurt (much as I can, anyway) until she is dead.

A friend I spoke to about this pointed out that my somewhat greater experience with family pets may have given me a store of armor that Mr Sweetie doesn't have, since he didn't have quite as much opportunity (what a word, in this context!) to have to confront the issues he's now worried he'll be facing. Armor and a certain sense of knowledge of the lay of the land. I have been taking the odd moment that I might not have done earlier, to sit with our elder cat, pet her, really watch her face as she seemingly lets the cares of her elderdom fall away, turning into a kitten under the ministrations of her long-gone mother. Because she is a good cat, a good companion.

Still, wishing us a bit of luck at the upcoming vet visit will not go amiss, definitely. (And thanks in advance for that.)

Come Saturday morning,...

Sat, 20 Mar 2010 14:12:39 GMT

as we go away to aikido!

It's been awhile since I've done one of my "love letters to aikido," meaning the detailed account of the training.

Our dojo was a little thin this morning, and only 2 black belts besides the sensei, and most of the other students grouped in the 6th to 4th kyu range. Luckily, the practice ethos of aikido is one of always embracing things with a "beginner's mind", in an effort to keep even the most familiar of techniques fresh and open to new insights.

What will also help that, of course, is actually practicing those techniques with someone who lacks much of an idea of what you want from them. Which means for me that my mind is actually in two places at once: in my own self, and with my training partner, trying to help guide him or her to where they need to be; given that our roles are complimentary uke/shite ("receiver"/"do-er") - this can tax my poor brain. But, in a good way.

The work our sensei chose for us was also basic, and very good for that kind of "beginner mind" cultivation. We started with different kinds of openings to counter a punch to the stomach - stepping off-line (of course), but also the relation between the bodies of uke and shite. This was an exercise in tai sabaki, or "body-movement". (Actually, looking at the kanji, 体 tai is body, 捌き saba.ki is "handling", which is what it comes down to; how to handle yourself in such a way as to be in an advantageous position for yourself and one of disadvantage for your partner...) This is an old, old problem of mine: I joke often that I must have nailed my feet to the mats, so little to I remember to move, sometimes. (That would be beyond my other big problem, of the "deer-in-headlights" freeze when I see a strike bearing down on me - still!! after more than 6 years of regular attendance of training.)

After some warm-up with the evasion of punches, we went on to practicing with overhand strikes (shomen uchi), then expanding onward to the "entering throw" (irimi nage), and then the "four direction throw" (shiho nage), which doesn't mean you throw poor uke in four directions, but that the movement shite makes has one facing all four points of the compass before uke gets dropped to the mat. (I'm too lazy, otherwise I'd start hyperlinking these things on YouTube, which I understand has quite a nice little selection of demonstrations by now...)

Taking an overhand strike and ending up with throwing one's partner using shiho nage is an interesting little problem, because one uses the hand to block, then almost immediately, as your opposite hand has "cut" in to keep the striking hand from finding its home on your face, your first hand goes out to uke's face in a sort of strike. Some places really do hit the face, or just a light tap: I know my second dojo back in Ireland made a point of teaching us, when taking uke, to always be ready with the free hand, to block atemi strikes like those. I keep doing it here, even though I don't see it taught as explicitly; no one's ever tried to tell me not to, either.

Then we got a real puzzler: still trying to do the throw shiho nage, but this time with a side-strike: we had to learn how to tell the difference between that (yokomen uchi) and the overhand strike, in the split-second they would differentiate, and apply the correct opening. That was a barrel of laughs; despite working with two other people (with consequently more time to recover between moments of concentration), I still was mixing up the correct entries. So, at least, were my partners, so we were all in good company, and feeling assured that we were actually working on exactly what we all needed to work on!

Then it was time for the wooden swords to come out - still shiho nage, but this time, applying it to a sword-strike - the secret in this is getting out of the way, and realizing that once the sword has descended, its energy for the overhead strike is essentially spent: control the sword-wielder's hands at that point, and there's not going to be a second strike. But, when it's all coming toward you very fast, it's kind of hard to remember, except as a sort of mentally gibbering catechism, "OUT OF THE WAY, GRAB THE WRISTS!!" kind of panic. Good times.

Then, to end, a nice gentle little tenchi nage, or "heaven-and-earth throw" - because one hand goes up and the other goes down. We did what is called a "turning" or tenkan version, which means the attacker's lead forward by his/her own intention to grab both hands, while the defender simple absorbs it by turning, and then, the attacker's forward energy dissipated, applies the unbalancing "earth" and "heaven" direction for the respective hands, and away rolls uke.

Chop water, carry wood, or was that the other way around, again?

Sun, 28 Feb 2010 19:53:45 GMT

My Inner Child threw a major strop* on the way to aikido recently. Bit embarrassed to say why (not that I quite understand it all myself), but there it is.

Still, pushed onward to the training. Managed to get through without too much going wrong. Which afterward I could properly appreciate - usually that kind of dive in mood is enough to make me run howling back for bed, or at least the safety of home.

But I wanted to do aikido more, and rewarded myself afterward with a lunch out, eating a spaghetti with meat sauce (and Belgian cheese, *g*), chatting with a few of the dojo mates. A slice of life, some of it more cut than elsewhere. (A few others are also going through rough patches, and with the very last one who stayed, also eating a meal out, we had a talk about doing aikido with invisible chronic illnesses, which was a good conversation for my partner to have, I think.)

Getting ready for classes this week, still enjoying that bit of news about the history class - I'd gotten around to a talk with the prof, and learned that I not only had done rather better on the exam than I'd thought (though still much room for improvement), I'd also gotten the equivalent of 17/20 (or 85%) for the wiki-style paper (a separate wiki-service hosted by the department.) You could have knocked me over with a feather on that one. But after that talk, I felt that I finally could really own that lovely result of a grade, rather than just have it be a number that appeared with not much connection to my (quite perceived) efforts.

*oh how I love my Brit friends for introducing me to this turn of phrase...

A Perfect Moment

Sat, 27 Feb 2010 16:38:49 GMT

On a particular day of the week, there is a market that sets up in the square of Our Town. I get to walk past this place due to my weekly schedule. There are many different kinds of stall-holders with their wares - bakery, butcher, fishmonger, pet supplies, bags, clothes, flowers, fruit-and-veg, gardening...

I leave early in the morning, and the evidence of earliness is also visible in the market. My favorite, though, is something of a classic: a stall-holder walking into a local café/pub, holding a small tray with two coffee cups, complete with little saucers beneath. He's clearly been to the pub earlier, to fetch couple of hot, strong Italian-style coffee in demi-tasse, for himself and a colleague. The pub owner, knowing that the stall-holder is nearby on a regular basis, has no problem with the temporary loan not only of the crockery itself, but the little spoons and tray that make the last preparations of the coffee (carrying, adding sugar and milk) that much easier. The pub worker prepares the order, probably close to the same time every week, when the stall-holder comes in for the usual. After consuming it during an early morning lull on the open market, he (or she - I just happened to see a 'he' most recently) faithfully brings back the cups, spoons, saucers and tray, probably exchanging a few pleasantries with the worker in the pub.

It's that feeling of a network being created and maintained before my eyes that I just love, the reason I love being in a place of a smaller scale than is the norm these decades...

Now For Something Direly Shallow

Thu, 18 Feb 2010 19:06:02 GMT

Clothes.

What I'm wearing today:

a camisole with a fake-lace blouse over, both in white. And then a haori, a Japanese-style jacket with the characteristic long sleeves. The jacket is peach, with a lightly-done motive of flowering branches, with orange-y blossoms, green and gold stems, silver accents. (I bought this from a vendor calling haori "wearable art", and that is surely what they are). I'm wearing this over a pair of jeans-like trousers in a bordeaux color, and a greyed red-purple pair of socks with "THURSDAY" on them in white. (Yes, classy is also more fun if I get to end whimsically.)

Accompanied by a long necklace of silver and glass beads in pastel colors. Spring colors.

Because I want spring here. Now.

Random Groupings

Sun, 14 Feb 2010 15:33:10 GMT

also known as "Five Things Make a Post"

It's been a very long time since I've written one of my detailed "love-letters to aikido". I find I kind of miss it. Although I don't really have the energy for a hugely detailed account, I can say that - apart from some backchat from my knees - I was happy with what I got to learn today. Always learning, always "beginner mind", even when practicing with the "real" beginners. (I do tend to seek them out: I have some vivid experiences of being paired off during my earliest days with newbies maybe only a little less ignorant than I was, and I'd like to help the current newbies at our club avoid the frustration of puzzling out something imperfectly understood, if at all possible.) Definitely I was getting a good dose of "beginner mind" when practicing with the more advanced students - each time I came away with a detail or a new puzzle piece to consider. That can make a girl very happy indeed.
Speaking of knees - I had thought they were getting better, but today they really "got at" me, to the point where I had to get off the mat and smear them with some kind of anti-inflammatory salve, before I could continue training. That helped for the most part, but I guess I've learned that I should not short the habit I'd been developing: applying a home-made liniment (essential oils of ginger and black pepper in vodka) before I begin a training session. I decided I could skip it today. I was being stupid, I guess. D. from the club gently remarked that the weather, which has been below freezing for many days in a row, probably was affecting them. Really not the sort of condition you want to short your body care routines.
After spending a couple of weeks down in the dumps, seriously convinced that I'd failed the history exam, I discovered I not only passed, but had a rather good grade! I guess there was more weight in the grade for the Wiki-style page than I realized. (Or, though I can't say this is my most-seriously-considered possibility, I actually managed well enough on the exam itself. I just blanked on a couple of items that I myself would have considered deal-breakers.) I'll get to find out more in a chat with the professor soon.
Mr Sweetie and I are giving the most needful Valentine's Day gift today: quiet rest and room for us each to recharge our respective batteries. How boring, I know. That is, "how boring", if you're a seller of superficial greeting cards.
I have a new file on my computer, named "One Million Words of Crap." In that file are a few silly twiddles, like a "plot? what plot?" piece that looks on its way to 2000 words, or more. I set it aside a couple of days ago - I seem to be someone who works very intensely at ONE thing, and then turns away for what seems to be a long time: the art is how to pick things back up so that I can finally finish them, I guess. Anyway, last time I figured an average, if I kept up the writing speed over the first short period I'm considering, I'll be through my "one million words of crap" in 6 1/2 years. Oh well, that'd be before I graduated, I suppose, and definitely before I would ever be able to manage a black belt. On a tangental consideration, I'm not counting the words of non-fiction or journaling, nor the fiction I'd written before this: I reckon I am getting into this boat again as the person I am now, and not the one I was when I first scribbled those other pieces down. I'll be content with finding my own writing prompts, or mining them from an excellent resource for the ever-wonderful ysrith, The Writer's Block by Jason Rekulak.

On not moving on...

Sun, 07 Feb 2010 20:57:55 GMT

I've been in the process of saying goodbye to a friend. Or, more accurately, a friendship.

I really, really don't want to. This is someone we'd met here, and for awhile, I had entertained thoughts of being able to be close to this person in a special way. The ways that a friend, not just a shallow-one-day-acquaintance friend, but the mutual empathy kind.

But, as the weeks have worn on from the time I started to detect, oh, I don't know what exactly, but a sort of lack of responsiveness. Okay, I know I've gone through my own rough patches, and non-communicative phases. But there was something not quite right, and never any chance to even explore what that might have been.

So, there this ending has sat, like a wodge of undigested food from an overly rich meal. A sort of emotional constipation has ensued, if you will, including the "ugh, I don't want this!" reaction.

Oh yeah, and all of the self-blaming "should have known" reproaches have been welling up from my heart. (Should have know what, for fuck's sake?!) I keep trying to tell myself, "This, too, shall pass." It has before, and it's even not the searing pain of previous times. However much I know I hurt, there is at least this realization of improvement, less pain than before.

There's still a reflex to keep trying, which I realize is the unwise attempt to not lose the "sunk cost" of all the emotion I'd invested already. But, painful as it is to realize it's time to stop, I am reminding myself it will be even more painful to pursue something that just isn't going to develop.

Hope still rears its somewhat unwelcome face: perhaps, it whispers, perhaps after a time of laying fallow, something might grow again, on a more sturdy basis. Well, I won't hold my breath for that. Life needs to continue to be lived in these parts. Mr Sweetie is there, a steadying presence, thank goodness, and I've been continuing all of the activities that - if not giving complete pleasure all the time - at least provide moments of distraction and a positive desire to focus someplace else for awhile. And I've even managed some accomplishments in my personal garden, which can only be for the good.

Perhaps, soon, I'll bake a lemon cake; it'll be real, and I can concentrate on both the making of it, and the eating (yum!) of it, to create a spell of banishment, a personally-coded placebo bulwark against the inner storms raging against inarguable realities of communication with others.

Hmmm, lemon cake; good.

The Lady and Her Bath, extended edition

Fri, 29 Jan 2010 19:53:10 GMT

In between classes and aikido and stuff, I've been returning to my old activity of aromatherapy. It's been helped by two things - one, that I am now more familiar with what essential oils I can get locally, and two, Mr Sweetie built a lovely shelf for me, on which I can put my entire essential oil collection. Being able to view them so easily, I can also use them a lot more easily, too.

I noticed that one big difference is that the local market doesn't seem to flinch at offering some of the more expensive essential oils that in Ireland might have been diluted - no, not diluted in a fraudulent way: oils like Rose or Neroli are offered in the Irish market diluted to 5% in a non-odoriferous carrier (rich ones, like jojoba oil). A couple of years ago I did luck out and find some rose absolute, and whoa, nellie! that was a scent to carry one off to the Platonic ideal of an eternally extending rose field.

And today, I decided I would finally spring for some pure neroli (orange blossom). I couldn't wait 'til getting home, so I sniffed it a wee bit while waiting for my train home. (Yes, the knowledge of what is available extends necessarily beyond Our Little Town.) And even after I'd recapped the 2 ml bottle (itself about the size of the end section of my pinkie finger), I could smell and smell and smell the scent. Not one to knock me over the head, but the stamina of the pure stuff, it is to be admired.

So, first, I wanted to mix a kind of tester, or additive, which I would use to further scent my oils...

in 5 ml of grape seed oil:

5 drops rosa centifolia (rose) absolute
5 drops citrus aurantium var. amari (neroli), pure
5 drops jasminum grandiflorum, itself already diluted to 5%
6 drops santalum australocalidonicum (sandalwood, but not the traditional one, santalum album; I'm not particularly happy with this variety, but not enough to chuck it away)
1 drop pogostemon patchouli (patchouli, just enough to give the end of the scent a bit of umph after all those flowers...)

***
several drops of this in my usual base of 15 ml sweet almond oil made a very nice bath indeed.

Looking Back - long view

Sun, 03 Jan 2010 16:57:13 GMT

In essence, one can look back ten years at any moment. (That's my sop to the crowd protesting that the decade isn't really over until next year.) (Hat tip to coth

Continuity:
over ten years? Well, living with the ever-wonderful Mr Sweetie would top the list. There's an essential "me-ness" that stays, recognizably, even when I feel like I've covered a lot of ground in other ways; bodywork, massage, aromatherapy, aikido, interest in languages, interest in writing, handcrafts rotating in and out of activity, interest in calligraphy/writing systems, being a fan of various science fiction shows.... It was probably about ten years ago that we'd encountered the musical group Anúna, and they've remained favorites by pushing themselves and thus not falling into a rut for their audience. I also have some aikido paperwork dating from around the late 1990's, but I think I can't call myself seriously practicing until I was able to attend training regularly, and that was more around 2003 or so.

New Things:
Living in Belgium, although we've been here for not quite half a decade - how time flies, eh? Beginning a serious (if somewhat slower than normal) study of Japanese (language and culturally related) at a real university has brought a huge change in my priorities - not so much reading fiction these days, which I do miss.

The internet still counts as "new" mostly because I benefit so much from it, these days - contacts with friends from former lives (I mean, the life I had back in the USA!) and ease in acquiring a variety of language materials counting among the largest bonuses of this tech. I've had to learn a new way of dealing with all that information - so I don't descend into that "Someone is *wrong* on the Internet" feeling. And certainly I've learned in the last ten years a new way of handling my own communication (as evinced from the link I've just posted - to find it, I used a search engine, and lo! a shared link for any passing reader! Boom-da-yada-boom!)

Lost, Stolen, Strayed, Discontinued or Very Much Reduced:
Some of my favorite pieces of jewelry went missing when we were burgled, still living in a hotel room in the days before we could occupy our current house. I still miss some of those items, including things given to me as going away presents. (Still, very grateful that the damage that could have been inflicted was not - given that we were still closing on the house, the loss of some of our documents would have been far, far more painful.)

Interesting changes:
Heh, shot my wad, didn't I? Up there with "new".

Hopes for the next decade:
Better times for my friends. More stability in the ways that will help them. More justice for suffering people, more compassion from those who suffer less.

The Lady and Her... Aromatherapy Diffuser?

Fri, 01 Jan 2010 20:51:33 GMT

Yeah, I guess! This blend might be called "the morning after the night before" - I picked the oils for their "cephalic" qualities (apart from the single drop of vetiver, which was mostly functioning as a fixative, and maybe a grounding after all the mental ones!)

1 drop vetivert
3 drops rosewood
3 drops cardamom
3 drops basil

set in a small dish of water over a tea light

This was a wonderfully focussing perfume in the grey, dull late mid-afternoon, after having stayed up too late (for the sake of my body, that is - but I could not miss the change to 2010!) for my energy to cope well in the semi-light of a winter's day. I could smell each individual scent (apart from the vetivert) at different moments while the diffuser tea light was lit. It made the task of staying awake at least through the mid-afternoon "dip" much, much easier.

Mini Progoff

Mon, 28 Dec 2009 20:09:23 GMT

(Using the catagories from Intensive Journaling, as a way of looking both backwards and forwards in the final days of this year 2009.)

Persons - Generally good, except where not. The charmed inner circle of myself and Mr Sweetie remains, well, charmed! Old friends in the US have stayed in contact, or I've managed to re-kindle a few of those contacts, which is a real treat given the distance at which I live from them. "New" friends in aikido in our little town, who I mostly know four years now, have given me more confidence in my own abilities to make and maintain meatspace friendships. There's even a couple of special friends, who I get to abuse with some of the most wild of insults, all in good fun. (Of course, they tease me right back. Sometimes "black widow" when I've been especially clumsy, but recently "stress-kiekje" or "stress-chicken", or when one of the senior students was demonstrating in the place of our sensei, he called me a "lioness"... as in "I have tamed the Lioness." That sure farbled me for a bit.) Old friends in Dublin remain mostly available when I make a trip to see them, and last summer was a fabulous party at M's place, and visits with friends from my previous dojo. Relationships with my teachers and fellow students is sort of on a low flame, mostly because we're all just busy trying to get through the semester and then all at once, never see each other.
The "not" parts would mostly be family (really, zero interest in ever seeing most of them again, and the ones that might interest me would be under strictly controlled conditions and very far away from here.) But a few old relationships that, having travelled some distance from them, I can console myself as to their previous toxicity and the superior situation of no longer being in touch with such people. For the most vexing who do manage to get inside my guard, and for whatever reason I'm not ready to totally break things off, I try to remind myself not to rise to whatever bait they put out, but only to respond when there is something positive or affirming I can communicate. After all, if I'm connecting only via the Internet, I have the luxury of not obliging myself to respond.

Works - This used to be a section I really dreaded. I was stuck with "I wannabe/am a writer." For the moment, I'm "setting it free" to see if the muse will return, and focussing on things that are probably as demanding, just differently so. Studying Japanese is the hardest thing I've ever taken on; moreso as I know that while my discipline has improved, my brains have definitely declined from their best days of my mid-20's. (However, I also don't miss the hideousness that was suffering from depression and not really able to get help, because of - well, everything from lack of own courage, to pushing through others' misunderstandings in order to get help. But I'm getting ahead of myself, unless I decide that "self work" is also a work with which to dialogue.) Apart from aikido, for which I just passed my 2nd kyu exam (Yatta!!), and maintaining happy relations with Mr Sweetie, everything else is taking a firm second place. And I have my peace with that.

Body - This is the year I had to grasp the nettle, and bring into a public sphere something I'd rather have kept private: I arranged with my university to take a very reduced course load, on the basis of a "functional difficulty", namely depression. Damn, damn, DAMN but I hate having to put that out in even the limited way of the university's structures for handling such things. (And, despite that, I'm still rather cagey about mentioning it in my direct environs - the aikido people know somewhat more than the university people, and that's partly due to the warning from a departing advisor at the uni to not be too open about depression with the department...)
On the other hand, the medical side of the treatment is working very well, and continues to do so. The "insulin for diabetics" analogy very much works for me, after all the years I fruitlessly spent trying to "bootstrap", find my moral fiber, whatever. Fuck that shit, it did not work.
And, as the mentions of aikido will imply, my physical health is something I'm very happy about, for the most part. Bits of dings and pains that need a bit of looking after, but I can move and learn, and at this age I'm very happy that I even still have a waist! Even if I am somewhat wide abeam and with a wee bit of a tummy even when I contract the abdominal muscles. But I try to think good things about how well my body generally behaves, especially as I head into perimenopause.

Events, Situations and Circumstances - This would be a whole entry just by itself. (That's not quite fair - all of these catagories are: I'm being very superficial in my review, but for some odd reason this catagory is trying to privilege itself in my mind. Justifying myself to some external judge, maybe?) Our own personal circumstances are comfortable, after some years of sometimes deep nervousness of whether things are going to work out. It's a relief, but I struggle with a sense of selfishness, now. I can tithe my oregano and cumin, but I'm still very slow to embrace the bigger gifts, both the material ones I could give (even lovingly give) and the more intangible ones of time, talent, self-development for the sake of dreams and hoped-for accomplishment. There is the dark side of the urge to accomplish in the face of current events, best encapsulated by the moment Samwise Gamgee takes The One Ring, calling out how he will turn Mordor into a giant garden - realizing at that moment the seductiveness of the power the Ring seems to have offered him.

Dreams - there are the nocturnal maunderings, and the dreams of the awakened heart. I suppose I'm on okay terms with the first, and regard the second with considerably more caution. It used to be, I wouldn't allow myself to settle on a dream at all, because it wouldn't come true anyway, so why make myself vulnerable and inevitably hurt? These days, I try to listen with a gentler attitude - trying on dreams the way one might try on dresses: you can look, you don't have to buy, not until you're really, REALLY ready. And sometimes, dreams have a way of arriving in reality without my having understood they had even started the journey: this past year, I went to a party, one of these student-artist things. Spoke English, Dutch, Italian, some German and even a bit of Japanese, as differing conversation partners seemed to require. After I started on my way back home, I suddenly remembered, when I was a very small child, hearing about a woman who - said my family - could speak 5 different languages. Then they had the challenge of trying to explain to a very small American girl what exactly was a "language", when she was still quite hazy on the notion of her own being called "English". Whatever they said, or more to the point were unable to express, must have really caught my imagination, because there was always a part of me afterward that wanted to be that woman. And, at that party, I discovered that I had become her.

Society - Society, you suck. Big time. Especially in your treatment of women. I hate being afraid, and it's largely the fault of the people in aggregate who think treating women badly is actually okay. There are a lot of things I could go on about, but that's the primary one, for me.
On the other hand,... sigh, friends, internet, aikido, language learning... the list can go on and on. On a microlevel, and sometimes even on a macrolevel, something will work. My only sadness is when it comes at the price of another's happiness. I'm not yet big enough to renounce those things.

From the Rooftops

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 06:24:48 GMT

From my morning news surfing, words to gladden my woman's heart, after the years -- nay, decades -- of always being told that the male of the species was dangerous, and that it was up to me to curtail my activities, appetites and very being if I was to have any hope of safety.

UN chief Ban Ki-moon has unveiled a Network of Men Leaders to act as male role models in a campaign opposing violence against women. It's short and to the point: men must make known to their fellows, that subjecting women to violence, committing acts of violence against women, is UNACCEPTABLE.

A good quote from Archbishop Desmond Tutu (who I hope my readers can respect, even if they don't like the United Nations affiliation of Ban Ki Moon), said: "You are a weak man if you use your physical superiority to assault and brutalise women.

And so say all of us.

PS editing this a couple of days to add (with a hat-tip to badgerbag) an article in The Guardian of the United Kingdom, Patrick Stewart talks about his personal encounter with domestic violence. It's a stunning read.

The Lady and Her Bath

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 21:11:25 GMT

4 drops laurel bay leaf
4 drops frankincense
1 drop vetiver
in 5 ml sweet almond oil

From the Workbook

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 18:55:13 GMT

Draw a picture of life.

Intro:
I'm not much of a drawing person: I am too attached to the idea that if I'm going to draw, it's going to be just perfect, if not in a technical way, then in a manner that perfectly expresses what I want to express. So, I put this off. Well, today I thought, "If you want to draw a picture, why not use a medium you're very comfortable with - that is actually part of the notion of exploring oneself, is being in a place where you do not struggle with the medium."

So...

The picture:
This would actually be a comics-style, story board kind of series of images. One: a plant, a small one. Tender, just starting out, sweetly green, two main leaves at the top, the remnants of the two "feeder leaves" with which it first emerges from its seed with. Two: small shift of perspective - the plant is still occupying a large part of the frame, but the viewer sees, way in the distance, a car. Three: car is closer, the frame shifting even more: the plant is growing in a crack in the pavement, between the curb and the main road. Four: WHAM!! the car has run over the plant, squashing it flat.

But, something in me rebels at such a sere picture, and so, in frame Five: a little while later, not far from the shriveled and dried remains, a new plant has started to lift its tender leaves up toward the sun.

I like the subversiveness of life. Although individuals get creamed, all the time, the processes? They're still there, churning out the next one.

Still, it's a damned hard view, I'm afraid. It's hard not to judge myself as somehow "wanting" in the department of how I view life. I can point at any number of times when I was confronted by someone important to me, saying "You don't mean that!" and actually believing that by that assertion alone they would bend me to their will. (Sad thing was, as a kid, that worked, because I was poleaxed by abandonment issues, big time. These days, someone tries that on me and they get cut out, cold. I will not be made to feel like that inadequate but still human child again.)

The Lady and her Bath

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 20:56:37 GMT

Four drops petitgrain
Three drops cypress
One drop vetivert
in approx. a teaspoon sweet almond oil - luckily, I remembered to store the bottle in the bathroom. I couldn't have faced a trek to the kitchen.

Words! Words!

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 19:44:46 GMT

how Yonmei sees me:

Beer, backrubs, books... Coffee; chocolate.

(Or, if the above is too pedestrian: kindness, Japanese, writing, Tarot, dreams.)

I allowed this meme she was participating in to give me a reminding sort of poke, to return here and write a bit. (Larger world: actually pretty okay, some distractions from combined guest visits and special events at school, which aren't distressing at all, just eating up my focus on longer term projects like this journal.)

beer - the irony is, I detested beer until well into my 20's. But my first beer drunk with enjoyment and intent was a Belgian one, consumed right here in Belgium, in fact. It was a really hot summer many years ago, what was then a very surprising thing. (These years, we all just seem to brace for a hot one, and heave a sigh of relief when it turns out to be more "normal".)
backrubs - this one is rather easy, from the standpoint of why yonmei would associate it with me: at the World Science Fiction convention in Scotland, the 1995 one that is, we were meeting for the first time, after already having been acquainted with one another in print (we were both in a womens' apa, which would count as regular correspondence, eh?) She mentioned something about her back hurting, and I'd just received a lovely standing massage from the publishing partner of Mr Sweetie, so I told her to turn around, and paid the massage forward, right in front of Mr Sweetie's book stall. Good times.
books - are such a commonplace in my life that it's a real culture shock to get to know anyone who is not a regular reader. (Some of the guys in aikido, however, are exactly that - non-readers, in any sense of reading for recreation, that is.) But I can remember a time from very early in my reading years, when it was the artifact itself that fascinated me: the covers with their linen fabric surfaces, the little bit of stripy cord at the top and bottom of the spine, and - especially - the revelation of how a book signature was printed, before being folded and cut. *sigh* I can still see it in mind's eye, even though the graphic came from nearly 40 years ago. It was in a kids' encyclopedia. A male printer (well, in those days, they would have been axiomatically male, but luckily, these days I have to actually qualify the gender...) held aloft a large piece of paper, nearly as long as he was tall. On it were numbers, but I could see they were not in sequence. Some of them were also printed upside down, and roughly half of the numbers were printed in a burnt-reddish color; the two groups were not the same, but overlapped about half-way. It took me quite a while to puzzle out, but puzzle it I did, thanks to the text. (My mother was not helpful: "It's the way they print it," without any further engagement on the topic. I suppose I can count myself lucky that she had some life-of-the-mind, as regards books regularly in the house, or I may not have been much of a reader.) Eventually, I understood that the up-side down numbers would be right-side-up when the sheet had been folded. Likewise, the numbers printed in red were the page numbers on the reverse side of the sheet. To test this out, and later just to marvel at the magic of this method, I went through a phase of folding a paper carefully, half, quarter, eighths, and - super hard because of the resulting thickness - 16ths, then unfolding, and carefully marking the resulting areas with their future page numbers, refolding and then - with a lot of effort and nearly never with a good scissors (handling the good scissors was judge too dangerous for a little girl, but no available adult was offering to help me neatly cut the edges of this proto-signature) I would hack through the edged, then cradle the resultant booklet in my hand, lovingly counting 1 to 32... if I got the numbers in the correct places, that is!
coffee -as with beer, I was not a born-coffee-drinker, but made one through an extreme circumstance. Which, on the whole was a good thing, since I very much like the taste, but have also remained a tea drinker (to the extent permitted by a somewhat uncooperative digestion, that is.)
chocolate - I always loved chocolate. I would refuse soft-serve ice cream if they only had vanilla and no chocolate. But I learned to adore the special chocolate my dad would bring from the airport after one of his many absences. Without quite meaning to, I think, he started me on the gateway of Toblerone, then quickly progressed to the continental European flavors and qualities, such that I was no longer really looking at a mere Hershey's, except when I was feeling a bit blue and there was truly nothing else available. Eventually, I learned which specialty shop in the mall imported those special chocolate sorts, and despite the clear difference in price, I was directing my pennies towards them, and no one could convince me that I was getting a bad bargain. (They tried, you know. They didn't understand I wasn't buying expensive chocolate for the sake of a "statement", I bloody well preferred the taste of it! Especially the dark stuff.) These years? Hmmm, Leonidas and 99% pure with either a glass of red wine or even a whiskey. It works, it really does! (If you're into those beverages, that is.)
kindness - me receiving it? Or giving it? It feels a bit odd that someone would associate this word with me, but perhaps not unprecedented. I remember once listenting to intelligentrix as she described me as "forthrightly diplomatic". Not quite "kindness" but I was pleased to see something I strive for coming back to me in that comment - I may want to tell truth, but if I don't have to be hurtful, I don't want to. There is a point when "nice" is what it was supposed to be - remembering the other person in front of you is a human being, too. I don't always do that, and I feel badly when I fail at it, but the point is at least trying. (The most likely provocation leading to failure? Someone failing to demonstrate at least a similar kind of consideration: like when your admired author says the only way to talk to liberals it so beat them up. Definitely a compassion-fail, right there.) Getting kindness, well, that's more or less the well from which I draw when I manage to pass some on to someone else. That's not very big of me at all, in the end.
Japanese - it wasn't supposed to be this way, taking the courses for a bachelors degree. Back when Japan won the Worldcon bid, all I wanted to do was to be able to read a bit - with the fond thought of attending the Worldcon in my mind, I took seriously the notion of being handicapped without at least some literacy at my command. After that, though, well,... it just growed. There was the rest of my life, and fitting an independent study in between the cracks, then an international move, and... by the time the dust settled, I started looking at alternatives and, well, the rest, as they say, is history. I sound like a very rude five year old with pretensions of politeness. But in the last year, despite my struggles, I can actually pick through a newspaper article, and (with the help of online supports) get the general idea, enough for me to decide if I want to read more deeply. And that is a development I find profoundly satisfying.
writing - ack! I've hardly done any lately; I feel like such a fake! I still want to, but I think at this moment I'm refilling a well that had emptied rather precipitously. I need to be in a good place to do the inner confrontation out of which the best writing, the stuff that's worth reading, can be produced.
Tarot - oh really? Not sure where this came from. Sometime just after moving here, I bought a new tarot deck, noting with amusement that the cards were given Dutch and not English names. I decided I wanted them around as a method of randomly generating events and character dilemmas, since they're less cut-and-dried than, say, picking slips of newspaper articles out of a hat. I might not want to write a murder (at least, not right away, but if I pull randomly a card with a man working on the inside of a church interior, talking to two other worthies - with the 3 pentacles cleverly creating the decorative gothic window, well, I can just kind of riff on that...) Mind, there is a story, a longer one about a time in my teens, when I'd given a reading to an entirely labile woman some years my senior; her utter lack of filter when receiving what I had to say in response to the moment of reading these cards prompted me to toss every deck I owned. I did not want that kind of power over another human being. I'm not sure if I'd told this story to Yonmei. (Did I?)
dreams - wheee, another can-of-worms word, eh? The dreams of our nights? Our woolgathering, "wouldn't-it-be-nice-if...?" daydreams? The "calling of my heart" dreams? I have some doozies of dreams, pre-anti-depressant days, which not only were nocturnal maunderings but managing to illuminate some of my "calling of the heart", although not in any "what's my job" kind of way. Dreams have changed and yet not since I went on this treatment - they seem like they record more pedestrian details, yet invest them with importance that I don't see in waking life. Which might just mean that, somewhere in all this, I must still be having to learn the lesson to pay attention to now.

Which might just be the moment for me to put some shoes on, and go for a walk, breathe some fresh air, admire the evening and our town. Good for you if you read this far - not so good when I don't write for so long and then regurgitate... well, if you want to pass along the joy, just put "words!" in my comments, and I'll do my best to give you some introspection prompts. Many thanks for Yonmei for giving me mine!

洋随筆 Western Rambles