Of course, I'm not at all sure that what I possess is really grace under fire, and not just a blockheaded refusal to actually give in to panic. I can feel it there inside me, trying to chew through to my core, or chew out of the containment it's inside, or something. I did not get anything Tuesday-wise done, not seriously. Yes, I did pick up a bit, and kitchen stuff like getting the cherry syrup into bottles and getting the sugar-sludge from the bottom of the cherry jar into the other cherry jar, and the boozy cherry liquid out of that cherry jar so that the sugar-sludge could go in.

Boy oh boy, I'm specific.

It occurs to me that I probably want to point out that yes, things in this journal do get locked, and I don't automatically friend back, though most who've stuck around for any appreciable length of time will notice that. There's no hard and fast rule about when I do and when I don't, but some sort of pre-existing relationship tends to be a rule, either that or interaction, and it takes a really significant amount of niftiness for me to add someone without either of those. And I have not much spare time these days. I have over 50 recent messages in the inbox waiting for attention of some sort. I don't mind it when people read me, though, as long as there isn't any creepy-stalker thing going on. (To date, I think one LJ person has tripped my alarms on that front, and they're quite tidily banned. And out of a rather intimidatingly-sized Also Friend Of list, that's really not bad, just the one!)

I finally managed to put things in the formerly empty cupboard over the refrigerator. It's a really awkward one to get at, if there's stuff on the top of the refrigerator. I wound up putting the great huge pot in there, the spare tea jar, the glass cake plate, and the container of paper plates up there, all together. I don't use those, any of them, not regularly, and they're all large enough to take up cupboard space that could be used for something more frequently used.

And Lady Malfoy has started sitting near my heart and cooving softly to herself. I have not heard much from Darkside. I wouldn't expect that I would. (Cooving is an onomatopoeic word from a dialect of the chicken language; it refers to the loud worried calls of a hen, especially a broody hen, and especially especially a particularly worried grey mother-hen of my family, named Chickabird.) ... I think it's bedtime. (Oh, no, I've said too much.)

Called Darkside last night, and we had fun chatting.
I'm amazed how much he starts telling me about stuff
in his life when he starts talking. It wouldn't be
horribly much for anyone else, but for him, he who
never talks about himself, it's amazing.

I like the idea that he talks to me. I really do. That
means he trusts me. And really, if I have his trust
and affection, what more do I need? Some things took
me too long to figure out, though my undermind was
almost there all along. I knew I was fine with things
as they are after one of the Mr. Shallow incidents,
but it took me a while to get my words wrapped around
why I was fine with things.

Love, to me, is the artistic combination of affection
and trust, and occasionally lust. Add in loyalty, and
you have it. Hooray, love.

I told him about a lot of the
functioning-of-Loony-brain updates that he'd missed.
How, most days, the fragmentation's barely notable
now, and that's barely notable to the internal
monitor. Among co-workers, among strangers, I pass as
a singleton. I told him about the history, briefly,
the root causes and how the thing that made everything
go haywire was treated.

Slowly but surely.

( The Mr. Shallow thing, and so forth. )