| I ran errands on foot today! And on the way home, I was reminded of an old LJ meme. I will give you two (or more!) consecutive lines from each song I listened to, in order. You guess the songs in comments. (There was one instrumental. Here it is, if you're curious. Warning: awesome bagpipes.) These were all on random, no playlist. There are a few that I'll be very surprised if you know 'em. There are a few that are blindingly obvious. The only deliberate choice was the first song. EDIT to put unguessed songs on top. 3. "On a psychedelic space machine, galactic sugar high/like a caffeinated satellite, gone way past 99"6. "We're the patron saints of rented cars and last goodbyes in airport bars/and in the morning, like ghosts, we slip away"7. "Pretty whitewashed lies/endless alibis/and reasons that need cleaning every night"20. "And one of these dreams/you forgive me"21. "Will you rescue me from my motor lodge room/open the curtains to let in the moon?"1. "I look at her and I see the beauty of the light of music/the voices talking somewhere in the house late spring" - R.E.M., "You Are the Everything" -  michaeldthomas2. "Those hopes have turned to fears/you wonder where you are/without a little light, you know you won't get far" - Captain Tractor, "Not in This Town" - yendi4. "Well, the darkness has a hunger that's insatiable/and lightness has a call that's hard to hear" - Indigo Girls, "Closer to Fine" - spacehawk5. "Do you think we're gonna make it? I don't know unless we try/you could sit here scared to move or we could take them by surprise" - Dropkick Murphys, "The Gauntlet" - yendi8. "I don't care what consequence it brings/I have been a fool for lesser things" - Billy Joel, "For the Longest Time" - aamcnamara9. "There's a rising tide in the rivers of blood/but if the answer isn't violence, neither is your silence" - Pop Will Eat Itself, "Ich Bin Ein Auslander" - jasmine_koran10. "If you want to read the secret story written in your future/you better start to write it now" - Gaia Consort, "Secret of the Crossroads Devil" - k_crow11. "She came out west to find the sun/she lost her name but found a new one" - Everclear, "Amphetamine" - silver_fish12. "And now I'm in this clothing store, and the signs say less is more/more that's tight means more to see, more for them, not more for me" - Dar Williams, "When I Was a Boy" - spacehawk13. "You got sirens for a welcome/there's bloodstain for your pain" - Duran Duran, "Wild Boys" - yendi14. "And you know for a million years he has been your lover/he'll be a million more" - XTC, "Greenman" - sbisson 15. "Sun lights up the day time/moon lights up the night" - Peggy Lee, "Fever" - sealgair16. "Like a photograph whose image is still changing/the letter that I never sent to you explaining/all I want is a place for my heart to belong" - Sophie B. Hawkins, "Strange Thing" - phenom_woman17. "Pretty looking road/try to hold the rising floods that fill my skin" - Duran Duran, "Save a Prayer" - fangirl71518. "Standing stretching every nerve/had to listen had no choice" - Peter Gabriel, "Solsbury Hill" - fangirl71519. "I don't wanna touch you too much baby/'cause making love to you might drive me crazy" - Def Leppard, "Love Bites" - spacehawk22. "Hey, my love, you came to me like wine comes to this mouth/grown tired of water all the time/you quench my heart and, oh, you quench my mind" - Dave Matthews Band, "Two-Step" - rubrchick23. "River, river have mercy/take me down to the sea" - The Pogues, "Lorelai" - michaeldthomasGo. | |
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| I need to go to the dentist.
I find dentist visits extremely fucking triggery. Like, when I googled local dentists, I had to throttle down my panic reaction. Last dentist visit, I ended up triggered and shaking and unable to speak in a normal voice for a while.
So I think what would be best for me is dentistry under sedation.
Like I said, even googling and looking at websites has been freaking me out, so I'm hoping that y'all might have some recommendations. Does anyone have a really good dentist who might be reasonably trauma-aware and use sedation? | |
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| I have a lot of thoughts about last week, and about what it was like to be a Watertown resident in lockdown, et cetera. I'm not going into those right now. But that plus intense overwhelming stress from midFebruary through now means that I am doing a hard reset on everything and taking a few-day retreat soon as I wrap stuff up here today. See you on the flipside. Last week, I told you that Elayna had narrowed her college choices down, and that we'd have a decision by Sunday. Fortunately for the way the week went down, she had a decision Thursday. Elayna will officially be attending Bay Path College! *throws confetti* I had written a thing here about how she arrived at her decision, and I was flailing over it, so... *delete* *delete* Suffice to say that this was an EXCELLENT choice. Perfect for Elayna and for how she wants to go about learning to teach. I am very proud of her. More on all of that later. For now, I need to go make a master list of all the stuff I gotta do. | |
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| Yes, we are in Watertown, where they have the bomber pinned down. We're all safe at home! Updates will be on Twitter, because I can't update everywhere at once. Twitter name = LJ name. | |
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| Judah and I walked through the Boston Public Garden; he'd never been. So quiet. The birds and squirrels are not shy there; we stopped several times just to study them up close. A young man in BDUs stopped once, too, to hang out with us and a squirrel.
One crow decided that a particular bush was his, and declared it to be so in no uncertain terms. His feathers were gorgeously iridescent. We watched him for a while; so did an equally-amused older woman.
***
The magnolias are in bloom along Comm Ave. We walked down the median park. We were the only ones there, save a scattering of joggers and yellow-vested policemen at every corner. The trees had gone into full spring blossom overnight, deep pink shading to ivory against the brownstones.
***
Boston is full of beautiful old churches.
I am not a member of any church or any religion that uses churches for any reason. But they are beautiful, and I needed quiet. That sounds strange - needing respite from the silent streets of my city. But I've been running at top speed; Monday was supposed to be my day off to slow down and curl up with a book. I have so much Too Much. So when Judah and I turned onto Newbury Street and saw that the church we'd been admiring, right across from the police barricade, was open - I dragged him in.
Silence.
We walked lightly among old wood and Tiffany windows. We sat in silent meditation. We lit candles.
When we emerged, we paused - recalibrating from the darkness to the light. And across the street, we heard the first soaring notes of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow".
Judah held me as we watched a solemn procession: A man playing "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" on the saxophone, followed by a man wrapped in a silver shock blanket and holding an American flag. The street was near-deserted - just us, the cops, the military, and this procession.
***
We walked down the street, walked the perimeter of the crime scene. We skirted thick knots of news vans and clusters of cameras and journalists; we moved through blocks where we'd only see maybe two people, one recounting their where-I-was story for the other. Eerie silence otherwise.
We saw runners in their blue and yellow jackets. Everywhere we went.
The saxophonist played the national anthem.
***
We stopped at the reflecting pool at the Christian Science Center. We sat. We talked about our Boston, about what we loved. We planned what adventures we'd have next.
There was no traffic. There were no cars. No honking horns.
Nearby, we heard helicopters.
***
We went to Diesel for coffee, and met a friend for a dinner planned before Monday, before the bombing.
On the way back to his car, we saw a post-it note on a store window.
It said, simply, "You are safe." | |
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| I walked today. I have a lot to say about that. But I just found out that lizardling passed away unexpectedly on Thursday night, and I wanted to make sure you knew. Those of you who knew her. I don't have anything coherent to add right now. | |
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| Elayna is off getting her state ID right now; next she'll be opening a checking account. Adam's with her. Judah's off training someone on the CNC router.
We're going for a walk, later. We're going to downtown Boston, and we're going to take a walk. Freedom Trail if it's not too crowded; if it is, we will have a wander.
This is our city. | |
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| Explosions at the finish line of the Boston Marathon. USE CAUTION WHEN CLICKING THAT OR ANY RELATED LINKS. A lot of very graphic and distressing material is being posted. Adam and Elayna and I are safe at home, and Judah is safe at work, and I am anxiously awaiting checkins from my runner friends. | |
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| So here's Elayna's scorecard: Accepted by four schools. Rejected by three schools. Waitlisted by her #1 choice. While she waits on Wheaton to realize how perfect she is for them, we do have to put a deposit down somewhere. Fortunately, she would be perfectly happy at any of the schools she applied to. She dropped one off her list because it didn't make much of an impression. Three schools left. She visited Framingham State on Saturday. We're going to Bay Path on Thursday, and Salem State this upcoming Saturday. And then Elayna will choose. Let the betting begin.
Poll #1908602
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 27
Which school will Elayna choose?
We'll post her choice no later than a week from today. (I suspect we'll be putting a deposit down by the end of the day Saturday.) There are no prizes. Unless someone can think of a prize that we can do free, given as we are putting a college deposit down this week. Week of Truth. | |
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| So I lost another week again! *buries head in hands* I tried writing about yesterday, but it appears that I'm still too angry to do that. The short version: Yesterday I had to march into the headmaster's office because my daughter's gym teacher is bullying her and attempting to force aversion therapy on her. I have made it clear that I do not want my daughter to have to deal with this person ever again, and that it would behoove the school to figure out how to give her the PE credit she needs for graduation without putting her in the same room as this person. That is the option that keeps me from storming the office with my Southern on again. Sometimes "You do NOT want to deal with me. Here is an easy way to never have to see me again." is a good approach. One month til graduation. Your choice, man. Choose well. He'll be meeting with her this afternoon, so we'll see how that goes. (She doesn't have gym today.) So there was that and some other stuff, and all the other stuff is behind me now. I would just really like to have a week where nothing goes off the rails; it's been a while. *breathes* Hi. Okay, other stuff! Elayna's narrowed her school choices down to two, plus the one she's waitlisted at. She's visiting them tomorrow and Thursday. The Thursday one is the one she's leaning toward, so we might be putting down a deposit on Thursday. *crosses fingers* Next week is school vacation week. Soooo no writing. But hopefully a good opportunity to rest and recharge a bit, and visit some museums maybe. (Yes, that actually is her idea of a good time too!) Oh man, I have all the busy. Friday MemeageWearing: Hahaha. Judah just barely left, so I'm not dressed yet. Target calavera pajama pants, BARCC t-shirt, Anthropologie cardigan. Reading: Weird Life: The Search for Life That Is Very, Very Different from Our Own by David Toomey Writing: Ahahaha *weeps* Knitting: Still poking at the Still Light tunic. Planning: Tabling for BARCC at a Vagina Monologues performance tonight and Sunday afternoon; college tour, then party tomorrow. I think that's it. Sorry, y'all, just exhausted and dealing with All the Things. Today is for paying bills and doing laundry, and maybe I will get to start a new lace shawl as self-therapy. We shall see! I'll get to it. | |
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| HI GUYS So. I had a horrible draining constant grind of a week last week, and a wonderful but overfull weekend, and then I utterly collapsed and spent most of yesterday in bed. >.< SO THAT HAPPENED. The truly godawful stuff is all well along the path to being fixed, so I shan't go into them. Other stuff! * Team Venture raised over $6,000 for BARCC! And had a hell of a lot of fun along the way. * Elayna's a capella choir took gold at the Heritage Music Festival in NYC, and her band took silver. She thinks it should've been the other way around. Picky In Victory should be our House's motto. * Elayna has four college acceptances and is waitlisted at one school - unfortunately, that's her top choice! So she's sent in a statement and commissioned an additional recommendation letter, and we wait. Last week we devoted an afternoon to setting up visits at all four of the school's who've accepted her, complete with requests to meet people in their education departments; Elayna wants to be sure that their approach to teaching is in line with her own, and she only knows that for sure about one of them. The visits are April 13 through 20, with the goal of having a decision and putting in a deposit by the 21st. * There also is writing. I can't take long breaks from this novel - Ash's voice and self are so unlike mine that it's hard to get back into them after an absence. Hence the need to just sit down and get it all out at once. Which has not been happening. And then I get into a stress feedback loop. Last Thursday alone, I reversed direction twice. Being intensely busy and also dealing with Other People's Stuff have been severely interfering. I'm honestly not sure if there's a solution outside of a complete writing retreat. I'll keep trying. We'll see. * Judah's at Joslin this morning, meeting with all the people! He's been managing pretty well. Still some things he's figuring out, but that's par for the course. Okay. So for today, I need to get my calendar in order, then tackle the pile of e-mails. I wish today was a writing day, but last week's hijinks prevented me from getting copyediting done, and I'll now be hard pressed to make that deadline. So. A bunch of me stuff, then head down into copyediting. :( How's by you? | |
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| BARCC's Walk for Change is this Sunday! And... some amazing person who has chosen to remain anonymous sponsored me, Adam, and Judah to the tune of $500 each. *kermitflail* Bring the guys to their goals, and me past mine! So now I'm turning the spotlight on the rest of Team Venture! Behold Team Venture's page, where you too can sign up to join us!Team Venture has, at present, three walkers who have yet to reach their goal. Ashley Fullstop Brown only needs $52 to make her goal! Benazeer Noorani only needs $130! Lisa Smith needs $600! Also exciting: check out the leaderboard. Team Venture is right behind the three big volunteer divisions and the BARCC Board of Directors. Those are all bigger groups, y'all. Much bigger (except for the Board, and... deep pockets there.) We can beat out the Board, totally. We can also maybe outearn Hotline. Let's find out. But why should you sponsor? Here I will copy and paste, because I have a bunch of other stuff to do today! Hey y'all! This is my seventh year volunteering with BARCC and my fifth year Walking for Change! I am proud to be walking in support of the Boston Area Rape Crisis Center and the incredible free services they provide to survivors of sexual assault and their loved ones. Yes: incredible! and free! BARCC provides 24-hour hotline counseling and medical advocacy, as well as individual and group counseling, legal advocacy, case management, public education and outreach, and survivor speakers, always 100% free and confidential to all survivors, regardless of gender, race, immigration status, sexual preference, anything. It's a lot of work. It's a lot of amazing, powerful work. And BARCC is able to do it partly through grants, but mostly through people like you, who support BARCC in the fight against sexual violence. | |
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| * Went to BARCC's 40th anniversary celebration last night! Saw a bunch of people I haven't seen in ages, and it provoked a lot of thoughts on how I can continue to fight sexual violence in a way that best utilizes my skillset without exhausting all of my spoons. So so many thoughts. That I'm not yet able to articulate. Story of my life. * I have new glasses! They are weird! I'm adjusting to them. They're bigger and differently-shaped than my last pair, so they're touching different parts of my face and also my visual field is different. I wear multifocals, so if you see me in the next few days, you may notice me tilting my head around like a bird to figure out where my focus zones are. I'm also in that "is this the right prescription? Am I eyestraining? Am I overthinking this?" stage. * BARCC Walk for Change is next weekend and you should GO SPONSOR ME RIGHT NOW please and thank you. * BPAL reviews! Belgian Chocolate, Honey, Cubeb Berries, Black Mission Fig & AvocadoIn bottle: UNF. I... wow. Okay. Chocolate-covered fig with a kick of spice from the cubeb. On me: The honey coils up around the chocofiggygoodness. Avocado is.... there's something vegetal there that complicates the scent. It may be taking over a little too much. Will check back on it. If the avocado recedes, I may want a bottle; if not, an imp should do it. *recheck* It is all avocado. ARGH. EDIT: No! It loops back around to the cubeb kick! Yes. Love. Dark Chocolate with Merlot-Infused Black Cherries and Star AniseIn bottle: ANISEANISEANISECHERRYANISE On me: Ooooh, weird. The merlot grounds everything pretty steadily. The anise is no longer screaming. Instead of chocolate, I swear I'm getting something dark wood - mahogany? Is that just the deepened cherry influence? Way more complex and wearable than I'd've thought from the bottle-sniff. Synesthesia Lass note: it smells hollow and slightly rounded, like the interior body of an instrument. EDIT: Apparently this scent drives Judah absolutely wild to the point where I had to leave the room to keep him from being late to a meeting, so I am totally getting a bottle of this. Elayna has a half-day today, so today is for non-writing work. Which I nonetheless have to get to! | |
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| I won't be able to attend ConBust this weekend, unfortunately. :( | |
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| So that finishing-Cicatrix-by-Wiscon thing? Yeah, I kinda have to. Sooo expect to see me online a bit less!
Before I shower and get down to it, here are some BPAL reviews.
A Thought from Propertius: Sweet honey, white apricot, and a touch of cayenne pepper.
In bottle: Oddly starchy, followed by a lot of sweetness.
On me: Starch starch starch. More apricot than honey, when that dies down. Very sweet and lightly fruity; it's lovely, but it's not very me. Where is my cayenne?
Quaeris Quot Mihi Basiationes: White honey, red currant, sugar cane, and ginger.
In bottle: Currant and a kick.
On me: Mostly currant. The ginger is frustratingly mild. Hrmph.
Right, then. Off I go! | |
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| I have never written a whole novel before. I have written poetry, short fiction; My Empire for Ashes is a novella. It's... well, it's not easy to write unless I hit that golden state of mind where everything comes out and all I have to do is get out of the way. But it's much easier to budget time.
Some points:
* A novel is a lot of time, and since I have never written a whole one, I don't know how much.
* Elayna gets home at 3, so I only have til 3 every day.
* Cicatrix is deeply immersive, and I'm hesitant to jump into it when I know I'll be interrupted.
* Having a school-age child means constant interruptions. Not just that 3pm line - there's February break and April break in addition to holiday break, there are half days and teacher workdays... my available time is sliced to ribbons.
* And we have an even bigger interruption coming up. Summer break. Elayna's last day of school is a full month earlier this year: May 30.
* I do not think it possible to write Cicatrix with Elayna home and in preparing-for-college mode.
So I've been flailing. The two possible solutions:
1. Focus on poetry and short fiction for now, and restart Cicatrix in September.
2. See if I can finish Cicatrix before Wiscon. Adam has April break off and can take Elayna to visit colleges and keep her out of the house.
I was planning on #1, but that is making me cranky.
Can I finish this book in two months? I honestly don't know. Judah asked me how far along I am, and I don't know. Not very.
So that is one of the really big things that's been preoccupying me lately. | |
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| So hey guys! That was super-eventful! Here's the catch-up.
Judah
Judah came home on Friday. <3 He's now on insulin, and he's managing that very well. Blood sugar is not yet where they want it, but it's a lot closer, and we were told it would take time.
Me
I brought Judah home and promptly had an attack of the chronic-illness st00pidbrain as soon as the adrenaline subsided, followed the next morning by a migraine. I'm okay now! But that's why the lack of substantive updates. (I did miss Vericon, which sucks, but partner-in-the-hospital is a legit reason.)
ConBust
is this upcoming weekend. People in the general vicinity of Smith: where are the good gluten-free places?
Wiscon
Judah isn't sure yet if he can go - plane tickets are expensive, and then there's the five days away from work for him. So I'm looking at probably going myself. It's cheaper to fly into Chicago and take the bus than to fly into Madison itself - any other Bostonians doing that? Travel buddies?
The Cat's Name Is
Sebastian. Count Sebastian Ampersand Vorcattigan Engineer the 3rd. Bash. Judah added Sebastian, and yeah, it fits him perfectly; he's Sebastian or Bastian when he's being regal, and Bash when he's a ginormous kitty wrecking ball.
Elayna's Birthday
deserves its own post. It was perfect.
My Parents
have been and gone, leaving a new TV and, soon, new glasses in their wake.
BPAL Reviews
Since I'm here.
Vivamus, Mes Lesbia, Atque Amemus: Ethiopian ambrette seed, summer honey, Alpine lavender, cognac, mate resinoid, peru balsam, and red musk
In bottle: Weird lavender/cognac blend, with the balsam just beneath.
On me: Oh hai cognac. Step aside, let something else come through! Or... just... fade to nothing? Nothing with a ghost of lavender? Hrmph.
Sic Erit: Red amber, benzoin, red musk, bourbon geranium, oak bark, Atlas cedar, and 13-year aged Sumatran patchouli
In bottle: Mostly benzoin and amber...
On me: Tiny wisps of woodsy sweetness from the cedar and oak, but I *really* have to huff it deeply to catch any of it.
And so
I am here sorting out my everything after an extraordinary two weeks. | |
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| We had a Babylon 5 marathon in the hospital yesterday, punctuated by the checking of blood sugar and occasional doctor visits. Judah's in good spirits - we're actually both really relieved to have a diagnosis! His weight loss and other stuff were scary.
He definitely has type 1 diabetes, and will require insulin. Which is where y'all come in: I know some of you use insulin pumps, and some of you do injections. I've been doing a lot of googling, but obviously I want to know what your personal experience has been like.
Also, to that end, any advice for a newly-diagnosed type 1 diabetic?
I'm off to the hospital again soon. We'll be seeing the diabetes counselor today, and they expect to release him today. I hope to still get to my Vericon panel this evening, but that's going to depend on how today goes down... | |
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| ...here is the backstory!
He'd been losing weight over the past few months and feeling generally fatigued, but he thought it was just stress. (Startups, man.) He was always hungry, but couldn't put on any weight. Unbeknownst to me, he'd recently started to be thirsty all the time. He mentioned that to his stepmother on Monday, and she and his dad urged him to go to a doctor ASAP, which he did yesterday.
Now, the thing is, Judah has not had health insurance. He applied for Commonwealth Care, borked the first attempt and landed the second; his insurance was set to kick in on April 1st. So the doctor only did a urine test, because Judah was paying out of pocket and bloodwork is super expensive.
Sugar in his urine sample. Doctor said "You need to go to the ER, because you could be in diabetic ketoacidosis."
To the ER he went! And in triage, he had a blood glucose level of 500, which is superdoubleplusnotgood. >.< By the time I got there, they'd pushed insulin, which brought him down to 157 - but the descent was too rapid and had him woozy. Then he had a sandwich, which bumped him up to 230, which is apparently too much for a sandwich...
...yeah, lucky Judah, he developed a condition that I do not yet know like the back of my hand! Adam's diabetic, but not SuperDiabetic like this; he's never required insulin or even regularly blood glucose testing. So we're all learning, and since I know many of you are diabetic or are caretakers, I'm just throwing all the info I have up here and hopefully it can be sorted out.
They were originally just going to put him into a regular hospital room for observation, but since he wasn't stabilizing and was considered too brittle, they put him in the ICU. At some point in the night, he got moved to stepdown care (literally a step down from ICU-level care, and a step up from a regular hospital ward). The nurse I spoke to this morning was the one who had him last night; she says that he's stabilized and his sugar has been under 200 most of the night.
So. That's the story so far! Judah just called, and I'll be on my way over shortly. *nod* | |
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| He was moved from the ICU to a stepdown unit at some point last night. He had a good night, other than being woken up every two hours to have his blood sugar checked, and his sugar's stayed below 200. Not sure whether that means I get to take him home today; nurse was end-of-shift scattered. I'll know more when Judah wakes up and calls me and when I see him. Visiting hours start at 1, but the nurse said I could sneak in earlier if I'm discreet. | |
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