Out

Headed out with the silver dragon druid guy and votaniato a bar up the street. Nice place. Got dinner there. Chatted. Found myself very quiet.

Odd how my personality varies between introverted and extroverted. I think I'm headed inwards again. Darkside noticed this morning, when I closed up. I can't lie to him. That is, I can speak untruths, but I cannot do so in a way that he'll believe, and I cannot speak untruths in such a way as to pass them off as truths to him. Evidently I am a good actor, but a bad liar.

I can lie to other people, just not to him.

I'm going to want hugs tonight, and lots of snuggling. How likely am I to get that? Virtual snuggles and phone just aren't the same.

Noted to Votania that my powers of perception are getting very, very good. She concurred. Noted also to her that my cycle of power is at its ebb; when I swing back around, things are going to be seen.

I need to re-read me some Cyteen. I keep coming and coming back to Ari's model of fluxes. I need to map mine better. That's what LJ's for, right? Only I need to keep a graph cycle of a bajillion different things. Based on time of day, even.

(no subject)

Somehow, on the night out, at one point I glanced into the bathroom mirror and wondered when I'd gotten beautiful.

This is due in part to two glasses of Sex on the Beach, and one Jamaican Mindfuck. It's also due to losing some of my excess weight. It's also partly attitude.

It might also have to do with prettiness.

Counseling & Alcohol

Went out last night sometime around nineish, with Votania and the silver dragon druid guy, one of the construction workers who's been upgrading Albertsons. He has no wheels, so he called a taxi and we went to Pappy's, a sports bar up the street. We had drinks and dinner and sat around bullshitting. Guy's more of a babblemouth than Darkside, for many of the same reasons. I wound up zoning out some.

We asked them to call us a cab at one (the cutoff for alcohol); the cab got there around two. Meanwhile, I whipped out The Two Towers and started reading, being finally sober and tired enough to. Have had a difficult time touching Darkside nonphysically since I decided to physically keep hands off.

Cab came and brought us home. Silver dragon druid guy came in, and Votania showed all her silly Flash games and movies. I requested and required some hugs from marxdarx, because my hands were starting to hurt from the energy I wasn't letting leak. The party of gloom moved out of the living room to sit on my bed. Marx cheered me up enough for me to recognize that he needed hugs too, and to talk about stuff. Talk we did. My insight is operating at an all-time high, and I have the internal knowledge to be aware that this is my new ebb, not my apex.

Why they say "That which does not kill you makes you stronger" is this: Occasionally things in life will come along that require new levels of strength from you (in any area); if you summon or realize the strength to get through the difficulty, you survive. Otherwise you die. If you survive, it is up to you to keep that newfound strength. It doesn't have to be an emergency or crisis situation. It can be something longterm that's building up, that will take time to overpower. Same principle, though, just on a longer timescale.

Talked about perception, too. In his situation currently, he has a very good sense of the microcosm; he has a monofocus and an excellent grasp of the field he's concentrating -- on a micro, very detailed level. I have some of the same areas of interest, but I have an overview of his field of interest, including some macro details that he is entirely missing. Together, his image and my image are very incomplete and limited, but when we merge views, insight comes pouring out.

Some people will lie down on the couch, or wrap around you, and tell you their problems; what is required is for you to reflect their insights back at them at angles they hadn't considered before, and allow them to see the exact places that need to be fixed in a different light, and provide some helpful strategies.

In other cases, when the person is accustomed to keeping it all inside, it is necessary for the healer to reach inside, pull out the insights, add the professional spin, and reflect it back. Same general idea, just more excavation required for the second method.

I stayed up way late because my body refuses to go to sleep while I'm noticeably intoxicated. Safety mechanism, I think. I was able to stay awake for all of this...

Day

Woke up ~1000. Bummed around and housecleaned for the hour between noon and one, as Votania's mother (and father, and great-aunt and Jewel) were to be coming over.

The reason for this visit was a belated birthday gift for Nephew, from one of the out-of-state aunts. It turned out to be Bob the Builder legos, the nice big ones. Instant hit.

Jewel played Drakan. When Grandpa started getting sneezy, we hitched a ride to AZ Mills Mall, and wandered around in there.

Got rocks. Mmm, rockses. Mmm. Love my rockses. I'm collecting such a number of bits of fluorite... cracked semi-obscure jokes to the tattooed guy at Black Market, which made him laugh. I mean, you have to have a garnet & dagger necklace, and when there is a triangle fluorite pendant with an oval Made In China sticker on the other side, and you look at it from the side without the sticker, and just see the oval in the middle of the triangle, of course you're going to laugh.

Came home on the bus, after finding the bus stop (finally!). Votania and I ganged up on Marx; his ass off was teased. During the second leg of the trip, the long long ride home on the Red Line, Votania played paper-rock-scissors/sword-gun-ziggybomb with Nephew. I gave Marx hugs. Then we swapped, and I played the game with Nephew, and Votania hugged Marx. Poor boo has headache and should get sleep.

Nephew really needed a nap. He's been too goofy for us all day, acting up in the mall, not sitting down on the bus, talking to strangers. Dinner, being not PBJ or hot dogs, caused a screaming fit. Marx convinced Nephew that goulash was not ghoulish, and it is now his bedtime. Yay.