soft laboratory of love

It's been a little while since I started up my "processing" filter. Time to re-poll!

I went back, and most of the entries that were filtered are now either public or just basic friends-locked, so you can see what I'm journaling about on this tag here:

http://trascendenza.livejournal.com/tag/%26+this+is+a+process

Poll #1212384
Open to: All, results viewable to: All

Would you like to be on the "processing" filter?

Like it says, you only need to answer if you *aren't* on it, or if you're on it and decided it isn't for you (no hard feelings).

the air smells of juniper,
crisp, fresh, ocean in the breeze.
my heart opens.

I think my hormones are in flux. I'm probably about to start my cycle. That actually explains a lot--the intense mood swings, the zero sex drive, the random food cravings. But, man, doesn't make this simple. I'm feeling on edge all the fucking time the past few days. I have cried three times in front of other people in the past three days, and even though each time was really great, it's *a lot* for me. I'm really going through a lot and dealing with a lot and today has been this massive wave of feeling fucking overwhelmed with it all.

It's so amazing and so horrible all at once. Gah. For instance, take this day--I watched a sunrise in the mountains; I had a good therapy session; I worked with Garret and spent the whole time trying to not make eye contact with him or engage in conversations; I've sat here for the past few hours just feeling like I'm going crazy. Wanting to just cry and crawl into someone's lap and have them hold me and tell me it's okay. I want that all the time. Even writing this I want to cry again.

The difference in my process this time--as opposed to the last time I felt this way--is I'm talking to people. I'm talking to my friends and family and therapist and my LiveJournal (*waves*), and if I am going to go through another bout of depression, I'm certainly not going to do it alone again. I refuse. I deserve better, and I am making a commitment to give it to myself.

Well, I'm off to get ready for bed. I know I keep talking about heavy emotional shit on this filter. I also know that when I read entries like this I often want to respond with *something*, but rarely know what to say. I'm not exactly looking for advice, though I never turn it down.

But if at any time you'd like to say something to me, I would love to receive "I hear you"s, "I see you"s or acknowledgment of the work I'm doing, because I am often struggling and appreciate and value any and all support. (Conversely, if you're not the type to speak and are a witness, that is appreciated as well! Having people witness my process on any sort of level is a big step for me--I've let go of a lot of shame I had around feeling this way--and I'm so glad to have you here. ♥ But no need to feel guilty if the next time I poll about staying on here it's not for you, because we're all in different places and I know I've often been the person that wasn't emotionally at a place where I could witness things like this.)

I had a good day. ☻

How about you?

I journaled quite a bit privately today, too. Talky talky!

( Today I: )

And now to bed with me. Tomorrow is my first consciously chosen solo/emotional processing/relaxing/fun activities day. I have no specific plans for what I shall do. I like it that way.

( too tired to write legibly (not that i'm writing, but that's my pre-bed sense of humor for you) )

i'm reading opening up by tristan taormino and it is *awesome*. i'm all aflutter about polyamory all over again. it's like a second honeymoon. i've been bookmarking pages and highlighting passages. yay. ♥

( Raw foodiness )

I want to keep journals on so many things. Raw foods, spirituality, poly-ness and sexuality. I read Redefining Our Relationships by Wendy-O Matik this morning, a book that's a small primer on alternative relationships. It's very basic, and as a per usual, some of it I agree with and some I don't, but it brought up some interesting questions for me around desires and expectations. That's something I've been grappling with and exploring lately. What *do* I want? What do I expect from people, especially unconsciously? When I get mad or annoyed at someone I'm intimate with how often is it related to my unconscious expectations not being met? Would like to journal about that some time, but now I want to go get ready for work.

I read and ate food all day, it was aaaaawesome. And did some sitting in the sun. Plus, it's a book about adorable gay pirates. They're so cute I find myself giggling out loud quite often. I was going to take my dad out for a father's day dinner but he pretty much slept through the whole day, literally. I think he was up for an hour around 5PM but he crashed again pretty quickly after that.

I seriously need to make sun + reading + eating delish food a Sunday ritual. Best thing *ever*.

( La dee da da )

I resisted the cameraphone idea for a long time, but, FINE, IT'S USEFUL, OKAY.

( Have some pictures. )


Kisses! ♥

Also, ( totally random things I was noticing as I was brushing my teeth: )

In conclusion: I love summer, but, man, the heat does weird things to my physiology. But sleeping with the windows open and not getting cold? For the *major* win. \o/

( Emotional journey )

And I want to enroll in this program. I haven't even read the webpage yet, but from the few sentences Maria told me about walking by the classrooms, I know this is for me.

( Meep! )

( Randoms thoughts/my day thus far )

Edited to add:

My smoothie this morning:

- fresh strawberries
- ground flax
- frozen pineapple
- coconut milk + water
- almond milk (with lecithin and almond extract)
- hazelnuts
- dates
- goji berries

Delish!

( And more rambling )

( And more! My God, I'm chatty. Stuff, and late nights vs. early mornings. )

( On journaling )

( Edited to add more )

( My day )

I want to start journaling again every day. I have no idea what about, but to disclaim what it might entail:

- rambling about my day to day happenings with little to no context.
- lots of overexamination of my emotional state.
- random incorporation of fannish thoughts.
- general lack of cohesion.
- poetry? maybe.

All these entries will be filtered for the time being, and it's totally opt-in.

Poll #1200383 Opt-in filter
Open to: All, results viewable to: All

Do you want to be on the filter?

Reasons I am flirting with checking out the Iron Man fandom:

1) Rhodes/Tony. (BFFs, uuuuuugh. They get me every freaking time.)

2) Tony/Jarvis. (Like I can resist a snarky AI.)

3) This man, who, just due to this quote, is made of WIN:

A lot of my peer group think I'm an eccentric bisexual, like I may even have an ammonia-filled tentacle or something somewhere on my body. That's okay. - Robert Downey Jr.

Thus, have a poem instead:

*

daylight wanes:
the night creeps up my shins
and settles into the
crook of my spine,
fallow,
inky,
wet.

morning dawns:
the sun shimmers inside my chest
and diffuses its way out
like drunken fireflies,
fevered,
brilliant,
aimless.

midday shines:
the wind flows through veins as
blood and exhales past
my willow-whispered lips,
twining,
weightless,
free.

Raise your hand if when you look at Brendon Urie's lips you are struck with an inexplicable but wholly irresistible urge to bang him out of his silly skull.

Or, if you're not raising your hand, tell me the name of your current must-tackle-to-ground-and-have-my-way-with-now person (can be anyone, bandom or otherwise). Cookies will be given if you include pictures, video clips or capslocky flail.

And... go!

Since these have all long since been revealed, probably time I 'fess up.

For remixthedrabble, I wrote:

Dead Like Me: Pocket Change (The Parlor Trick Remix). George, Mason, 150 words.

Heroes: Watchmaker (The Fairy Tale Gone Wrong Remix). Gabriel, Virginia Gray, 764 words.

Fall Out Boy/Panic at the Disco: Drain Him 'Til He's Dry (The Attainable Remix). Pete/Ryan, 100 words.

Battlestar Galactica: Leave This Behind (The Indivisible Remix). Boomer!Eight/Sixteen!Eight, 200 words.

Bare: If We Were Silent or We Had Spoken (The Contradiction in Terms Remix). Ensemble, 312 words.

As the World Turns: Bad Idea (The Intelligence Quotient Remix). Luke/Noah, 176 words.

And for remixredux08, I wrote:

Heroes: Glass House (The You Are My Eyes Remix). Nathan/Peter, Sylar, 1,085 words.

If I had to pick a favorite, it would probably be this one, because it gave me a lot of room to explore young Gabriel, or this one because remixing doppelcest is *always* a treat.

remixthedrabble round 4 is now live!

All the entries have been [ tagged by fandom ] and [ memoried ]. Those of you who offered your fic up for remixing all were remixed, so you should definitely mosey on over there and click on your "original author:" tag. :)

I received four lovely remixes:

X-Men: Claws (Extend/Retract Remix). It's Logan/Scott and gets into Scott's head very nicely, and I love how it remixes the original with a completely different emotional signature.

Heroes: Only Wrong Away From Him (The Perfect Moment Remix). Nathan/Peter; very believable Peter POV.

Heroes: I'm Not Him (The Run-On Sentence Remix). Mohinder/Nathan. Holy hotness! And poignance. Love the pacing of it, particularly.

As the World Turns RPF: Set Redecoration (The More Important Things Remix). Jake/Van (who else?). I adore the Jake-ness of this, ugh, just. Yes.

And I wrote five remixes, mostly familiar fandoms and one new one. As per usual, I encourage rampant and wild speculation about what I wrote. :D There may be prizes? Though I do tend to take months and months to deliver on those, errrr. *is bad*

Sad I wasn't able to get the whole song. So pretty!

So that semi-hiatus-y thing is going to continue indefinitely because, crap, man, I never realized dating takes so much time. Not that I'm complaining, not by a longshot, but phew, I have been on the run non-stop for the last two weeks. I even had to start keeping a real live calendar otherwise I would lose track of myself. So I'm ( rambling about dating in here. )

Other news:

• Tomorrow marks two weeks of the unplanned-yet-awesome-spontaneous raw food diet I went on.


• I got a new bicycle. ♥ My other one was stolen a few years ago, so I am very joyous.


• I lost my wallet. :( And I think someone picked it up and didn't turn it in. :( But I've already got the important stuff replaced and I've got my fingers crossed that it'll turn up in the next couple days.


• I have two new frames of glasses, both purple and cute. Eeeee, I love them.


• I freaking cannot stop listening to the Hush Sound. At all. I think it's physically impossible.


• DUDE WHAT I'M MEETING PANIC AT THE DISCO. AHAHAHAHAHA.


• I'm planning ( an even bigger hiatus in June. )


• I'll be attending Burning Man at the end of August. Uuuuuuugh, yes.

Also, random fannish thoughts:

• Maybe fandom went ahead and decided this while I wasn't paying attention, but is I Have Friends in Holy Spaces a song about a certain someone (*cough*Brendon*cough*) being scared of a bad reaction to coming out of the closet?
  
  I mean "we're splashin' around / and the news spread all over town." That just screams "and we got caught having sex backstage / and it was posted all over buzznet in like five seconds" to me. Plus, the whole theme of famous friends not being real friends--people who might not stick around after such a revelation. And "if the sun would come out and sing with me" just, awwwww. He wants everyone to love his adorable queer self! Okay, whatever, tinhat, but at least it's a comfy one, right?


• Um, I finally caught up on some ATWT clips (although I'm still months behind, waaaah ;_;), and Jesus, we get Noah talking longing about how he wants to discover the joys of anal sex with Luke? I don't even. My. My brain. It's titillated and baffled on so many levels! How is this less racy than another kiss? No sense does it make, no sense.

Okay, sleepytimes now. God, I'm even too sleepy to tag this. That's really saying something.

Sooo, I just received this e-mail.

Hello member of Northern Downpour!

Congratulations! You have one a fan club exclusive meet and Greet with Panic At The Disco! Be sure to bring a printed copy of THIS email to ensure entrance. Please do not wander off, as a representative of the band will come to you around this time to escort you into the fan club exclusive meet and greet. You will need a photo ID in order to gain entry. ONE small item (CD booklet, photo, magazine, etc) will be permitted to be signed.

I'M NOT EXACTLY SURE HOW TO REACT. GLEE? HYSTERIA? SOMEWHERE IN BETWEEN? D:? :D?

( Random thoughts on where I stand with my non-traditional sexual boundaries &c. Rambly, possibly not cogent. )

As always, chiming in with where you stand is welcome, though I'm still in my non-responsive mode. But sexuality is one of my favoritest topics in the world; so dense, so rife with personal experience and views and so integrally tied to other things. I'm always down with rambling, and even more so on this subject. Endlessly fascinating.

( 2008-02 Tweets )

My favorite:

Erica on the Wonder Twins: "I'm an elephant and I ram my nose in your ice bucket."

I have completely forgotten the context of this quote, which I think actually makes it more genius.

( 2008-01 Tweets )

My favorite tweet, written while I was going through some old journals as a prelude to recycling them:

“Wednesday, April 23, 2003 […] organized stuff until about 4AM.” MY LIFE. IT NEVER CHANGES.

Ahahahaha, oh, God, I don't even know what to say about myself at this point. I'm such a walking punchline.

In the interest of getting anything done ever (especially a bunch of projects for which I'm way over the deadline) for the next two weeks:

- I'm not going to read either of my friends' pages

- My comment responses will be even more sporadic than usual (if I respond at all), because I'm going to turn off e-mailed comment alerts.

I've disabled my LJ Addons extension and I hope that'll be enough to stop me from reading my friends' page, BUT, if you get randomly de-friended by me any time in the next two weeks, it'll be because I'm de-friending my entire flist as a last resort to keep myself off here, not because I'm actually de-friending you. Yes, I am that pathetic! You will, naturally, be re-added as soon as I've sorted my shit out.

A lot of my "getting projects done" involves making posts at this journal and clearing out my huge cache of private posts: fic, icons, screencaps, among other things. I've decided not to disable comments on them, because even though they won't be e-mailed to me and even though I may never respond to them, I prefer to leave people that option. As ever, no pressure to ever leave comments here, and, equally, no pressure to censor yourself if you do feel like making one. It's all equally chill whichever way you prefer to do things.

Of course, if Brendon Urie does something like make out with Shane on-stage, I *will* expect one of you to PM me or e-mail me, because gay > projects any day.

Okay, okay. I'm off to go make my browser as LJ-unfriendly as possible. Wish me luck!

This is what happens when I talk to catechism and murklins. This transpired, from idea inception to fruition, in the last fifteen minutes.

Dear Sheera,

Thank you for booking your travel through Travelocity.

Your trip to Chicago, IL (ORD) is confirmed.

*

Thank you for purchasing tickets on Ticketmaster.

HONDA CIVIC TOUR
Congress Theater, Chicago, IL
Sat, May 24, 2008 06:00 PM.

AHAHAHA, I LOVE MY LIFE. \o/

( Thoughts after listening to Pretty. Odd. once through and then sleeping on it: )

I did get the sense that, ( hmmm, how to put this? )

And, yeah, I might have made this icon just for this post. *pets their pretty grown-up faces*

My day has consisted of:

- Waking up at 5:30AM Eastern time to get to the airport. (I got to sleep about... err... 4AM Eastern time?)

- Faceplanting and zonking out into my windows through two flights back to California. I even slept through free pretzels and I adore free snackies, woe!

- Landing at 1:30PM Pacific time and getting a ride home from deardotti. ♥

- Slumping on top of my drum and re-acquainting myself with it because I missed it so. That was an interesting experience; never tried playing it lying down before. It's amazing the things that seem sensible when I'm operating on low sleep, ahaha.

- Passing out with Leneevik on the couch for six hours. The poor baby got his leash all tangled around one of his little hands and was super stressed about it (his whole beard turned black), so I thought some cuddle time was definitely in order. He's also the best lizard ever to nap with, d'awwww.

- Waking up and watching Dancing With the Stars because it was easier than actually being conscious.

Things I hope the rest of my night will hold:

- The longest, hottest, most glorious shower ever.
- My sweet, familiar pad on the floor. ♥
- And... writing! Maybe?

I'm just a few thousand words shy of meeting the wordcount requirement for my bandombigbang fic and I am so, so happy about that. Unfortunately, I wrote a lot while I was on the road which meant it was more random and less sensible and I still have to figure out what I'm really saying with the story and what the cohesive through-line is, but, hey! I'm at 15,000 words and counting! I'm going to dwell happily on that before I start stressing about editing.

I had a fantastic trip. Will have to expound upon that sometime, especially once I get all the pictures we took from elventwilight.

Just FYI, while I'm re-settling and especially because of the writing project, I might be in lurker mode for another week or so. And now I'm off to forage for dinner-like foods.

Wait, wait, wait.

BRENDON URIE WHAT?

I swear to God, this is why I can never leave the internet. It always has to go and explode with gay while I'm away. Pah.

I'm off in a few hours.

I'll be gone until March 18-ish. I'm driving to Michigan with my friend elventwilight and I'll be flying back on the 18th. We're stopping at Vegas, the Grand Canyon, Oklahoma City, Chicago and then spending the weekend in Michigan. I have no idea what kind of internet access I'll have, so I'm assuming none. (Well, except from my phone, which means I'll be twittering a shit-ton.) I tried to answer most of my comments and e-mails yesterday, but if I didn't get to one I should have, I'm not ignoring you, promise. I was scrambling to pack my clothes and not die from lack of sleep.

I'm turning off alerts on this post (i.e. comments won't be e-mailed to me), so, hey, if Panic does something especially ridonk, leave me a link or twenty here please? *smiles winningly at you*

Or comment with whatever, really, because I'll misssss you all. In fact, you guys should totally write me haiku and post silly pictures and generally go crazy in the comments so I have something to laugh at when I get back. \o/ *is not above using a week of absence to beg for Pete/Ryan porn. just sayin'.*

See yas in a week. :) I'll probably have pictures and accounts of my ridiculousness when I get back.

And a separate one for the blue tongues, because I have taken *so* many pictures of them.

( Oleev, the older and wiser of the two. )

( Fyeta, from his days as a wee little skinklet lumpling. )

Okay. End of Photobucket cleaning out is now here. Yaaaaay. It'll probably be cleared out late Saturday night/early Sunday morning. (By which I mean I'm lazy and will do it next week. Um.) And then I can spend months stressing out about how to tag images in Flickr, ahahaha, awesome.

This installment features my pets!

And here's the deal with these: if you click one of the cuts and don't like what you see? DON'T TELL ME. I really don't want to know. You have to understand that I love these little ones like they're my kids. They may not be furry, but they're very special to me, and I have spent hours researching how best to calibrate the nutrition of their diet, taken them to the vet, cuddled with them when I'm sad, cried when they get lost, and laughed myself silly when they do something extra adorable. (So many times! Hee, my babies, so silly.)

So, really, I love them, and I'm just not in the mood tonight to have anyone call my babies ugly or creepy or slimy, okay?

That said, PREPARE FOR CUTENESS. And a whole lot of it. *beams*

( Plants, me inside a lizard tank, and other random stuff. )

( Enos, the amazing flying crested gecko. )

( Eerbeese and Taleeya, a.k.a. the cutest leopard geckos *ever*. )

( Leneevik, the bearded dragon who knows how to chill like a villain. )

( Random spider pictures and Udacha, the giant madagascar hissing cockroach. )

Oh, God.

I don't even. I don't have the words. This is the song I've been wanting so badly and I didn't even know it.

Behind the Sea.

So, so beautiful.