For the past couple days, the stairwell in my building has smelled like... exboyfriend. I can't figure out for sure which (they were all so long ago at this point), and it could even date back to high school, scarily enough. But it's a smell like some kind of fabric softener maybe, a smell of clothing that I must once have buried my face in. It doesn't feel awful or anything, just strange and kind of wistful.

I have been winding a skein of yarn into a ball. It is messily tangled in some places, and as I work the yarn over and under and around itself sometimes my mind wanders and I start thinking about all the messy human things that I am dealing with these days, and then suddenly it all clicks and I'm positive for just a moment that the thing I am holding in my hands is the physical representation of my life.

The wind howled all last night, and in a half-dream I kept hoping that maybe it would blow down some important power lines to my workplace, and then I wouldn't have to go in today. That didn't happen. Oh well.

Everyone, stay warm.

The hat is done!



Also, for those keeping score--
Scarf: 2 years
Hat: 2 weeks

Improvement, no?

Progress on the matching hat:



I am still working on ear flaps, but I was so pleased with how the hat fit that I wore it around inside for a while this evening. It's no good outside in the winter until it covers my ears, though.

My hat... is... AWESOME!!!

Lately (knock on wood) I've started to feel as though I have that new year's resolution under control. It's almost as though I've been sinking slowly through thick layers of anxiety, and breakdowns, and lack of faith in myself, and suddenly I hit the bottom and found that, after all, there was something solid there. You can call that something "inner strength" or if you're me you can call it "resignation" but whatever it is, it's allowed me to go through my days smiling and nodding, being proactive (I've decided that "proactive" is my Official Word of 2008 because it's exactly what I intend to be), being polite in difficult circumstances, and letting myself be angry later.

Letting myself be angry at other people, I've found, is a crucial part of this recent recipe for being competent at life. The problem is if you don't let yourself be angry at other people, you end up convincing yourself that your own flaws are the big problem in your life. And sure, being aware of your flaws can be useful and all, but self-loathing is such a pain to deal with. Other people go away eventually, but you can never get away from yourself. So, anger is good. Expressing that anger, of course, is something to be careful about. But today I went to the gym and tried to keep pace with the eighth notes in Bad Religion's Process of Belief for half an hour. And after that I was tired, and didn't feel like punching people anymore.

Not every day goes like that, of course. Plenty of days go just fine. But when they don't it's nice to know there's a way to deal.

It is also nice to know that there is solid rock underneath everything about me that is tangled and emotional, and I only have to plunge through it all to get there. The feeling of drowning is temporary. If I didn't go diving there with a spear gun, knife and flare, how would I ever make it through?*

Yes, I am still alive, though I had a lengthy battle with my website over the weekend, which is a shame because I may have actually written things. It seems to be resolved now. Woo. <-- Never type these words! You will regret it!

Over the weekend I slept in great quantity, but not quality, as you will observe. Interpret these dreams if you dare:

Friday night I dreamed that I was in a strange city, and I went with Dave and his family to a museum that was next door to my hotel. The museum seemed to largely consist of a giant model insect several stories high, which one observed by riding an escalator alongside it. At the top of the escalator there was the gift shop, and then a fancy restaurant, where Dave and his family somehow became Supervisor of Awesome and then disappeared. After the restaurant I was returned to the main floor via a gust of wind which sent me floating sickeningly into the air and then lowered me back down. As I was in the air trying not to feel ill a recorded voice told me that I could pick up my complimentary tacking iron on the way out, and I thought, Nice! Those things aren't cheap! and tried to distract myself with that thought until my feet were on solid ground again.

When I left the museum I found myself not near my hotel at all, but on an entirely different street in an obviously bad neighborhood, which was so filthy that it looked like the trash had never been picked up, ever, and all kinds of discarded old furniture and trash bags and rotting garbage were littered everywhere. I walked down the street, trying to circle the museum to see if my hotel might be on the other side, and saw a little terrier running down the street. A creepy old man with tangled gray hair grabbed it and laid it on its side, then pulled out a knife and placed it against the quivering dog as though to skin it and eat it. I wanted to help the dog, but I just looked away and walked faster, thinking if that's what he does to dogs, what will he do to me? I turned down a side street and suddenly there was another creepy, unwashed man right next to me, leering down at me, and somehow I was out of breath and couldn't run, and I just stood terrified looking at the man until thankfully I woke up.

On Saturday I dreamed a shadowy, cold dream with characters who had no names or faces. We were outside in the snow, someplace that vaguely resembled a college campus, with fields and stone buildings and unnecessary gates and things. There were dozens of stray cats wandering around, and one of the nameless characters egged us on to setting the cats against each other, getting them to fight and chase each other to untimely deaths, either at each other's paws of by falling from fences or running into roads. We did this not with the giggling glee of a child pulling wings off an insect, but with a cold precision, never harming the cats ourselves but all the same leading them to their demise, and looking with satisfaction upon their unmoving bodies afterwards.

At some point we came upon a train station, and in all the snow it was hard to tell where the platforms were and where there were tracks. We were standing there as a train approached, thinking we were safely on the platform, when at the last moment we realized we were on the tracks and had to dive out of the way. We were not the only cold and merciless things out in the dusk. Some time passed and I don't remember what happened, but later in the dream we went out again with our nameless ringleader to cause the deaths of cats, all over again.

Sunday night I did not remember my dreams at all, and let me tell you, after those other ones that was JUST FINE with me.

Never write a post saying that your weekend battle with your website seems to be resolved. The post in question will not post.

I wrote a post about the disturbing dreams I had this weekend, and some combination of the words therein caused my website to claim that a security rules violation had occurred. If that doesn't keep you in suspense, I don't know what will.

earlier --