Where we go when we die

To come back to where we go when we die. I have two thoughts. When I’m trying to sleep or very down and laid up in bed I often return to them. 

One is when we die from hurt. Whether it’s a bullet to the stomach or some sadness. I imagine myself stumbling on and on until I crumple in a heap, and my tears flow into the ground under me until I grow roots and dissolve and turn into a tree. Live out the rest of my lifespan as a big tall tree. Lots of leaves, no feelings. Just sunlight and the companionship of neighboring trees all rustling together in the wind. Then one day when the pain is all gone because so much time has passed, the tree dies and the person wakes up. But there’s no memory of who they were or what was wrong and who they loved. The person starts all over again and maybe even meets someone who knows them from the last life - but they can’t remember and it means nothing to them.

The other one is just dying. You can feel the urge coming on for a long time before hand and tell everyone it won’t be long. Then one day during breakfast or lunch with your family you just suddenly say it’s time, and then get up and walk out toward a body of water. Most people live next to a lake or a pond or the sea, and they follow behind you. When you stumble into the water you start to dissolve from the tips of your fingers and toes like a bath bomb, until, completely submerged, you fizzle away.  Someone who loves you follows you into the water crying and trying to hold on to you but there’s nothing to hold on to.

But the water contains everyone who’s ever dissolved into it. If you miss someone you can go for a swim and feel them holding you. If you talk to the water you hear it murmuring things back.

Most families have a lake where everyone goes and the water is friendly and kids can swim and play there on their own and nothing bad can happen to them. If your people are in the water, you see a shimmer on the surface in the night. Sometimes immigrants or orphans are surprised to find some body of water in some foreign place that recognizes them, and calls out to them when it’s dark.

A lot of people go into the sea so the sea is friendly to everyone. Water evaporates and comes back as rain so that’s friendly too. Even the shower or the coffee is friendly, in a nice stranger who smiles at you at the bus stop kind of way. 

So actually no one is really ever alone.

On being a badly bound book

Recently I had a pretty bad spell of anxiety and depression for no apparent reason. One part may be the fact that while I was in Taiwan I had to always be present and correct when shit hits the fan, and perhaps that’s left me with less resources than I would normally be able to scrape together. Whatever the reason, it’s  always like juggling on a alpine mountainside in winter, where one dropped ball launches an avalanche and all of a sudden I remember how much stuff I have to be sad about, if I ever took the time. 

Back in the little basement flat in Toronto when I cried over books full of photos of Audrey Hepburn and promised myself that my life would be beautiful one day, I didn’t foresee that when I got there, I would have trouble believing in it. Now everything is good but I’m worried that there’s a something just around the corner, beyond the next blind-spot, which is waiting to shove me to the ground. 

Fortunately for me when I tell this to them, they let me cry and shield me and tell me that the things I fear will never come to pass. A sat on the sofa, face full of compassion, while I cried in my old high-back chair, trying and failing to pull myself together. N put his arms around me and let me sob into the collar of his linen shirt, while trains whizzed past us in the garden. S wrote with book recommendations and words of encouragement, responding in detail to my long rambling account of every last weird thought that’s ever crossed my mind (Nothing is actually wrong but the persistent and intense anticipation of what could go wrong and remembering what has gone wrong in the past makes me howl with tears all the time. Sometimes I feel like my chronology is messed up so that things which went bad in chapter 4 makes another appearance in chapter 36 as though I am a bookbinder’s mistake). 

J held me all night while I cried and J rushed home to make sure that I was ok. When I tensely pulled a sponge cake out of the oven and declared that it was a-okay, T asked me if I was happy and I unthinkingly replied yes. He smiled and said good, because that’s what we want. 

It’s a funny thing because T is really… wimpy. Prefers to be soft and cuddly, whines about me being mean when I pan his favorite novels, and is scared of having his blood drawn. In comparison I feel tough as nails. But he suddenly pointed out that it’s just a coping mechanism because I’m anticipating yet another thing that I must survive.Turns out I’m not very tough after all just hoping to fake it till I make it.

I have all the good fortune and everything that is required to make me happy. All I need to do is take possession of it. Believe that it happened because me. Because we wanted it, and we built it. It seems that while I’ve stopped worrying about how things should be, I am still working on enjoying how things are. 

The other day on the phone with F he suddenly said but what if things go right? I’m trying to hold onto that all the time. 


Another thing that’s been playing on my mind is intrinsic vs. relative worth. It seems to me that I’ve been conditioned to equate my self worth with my productivity, academic achievement, appearance, and comparison to my peers, among other things.  

One day T and I were on the phone and he said are you ok you look tired? I was like yes it's PMS and this is how I look and how I will look for a while - old and tired, because I am. Then I apologized and he was like what the fuck for? Then I realized that I see being attractive as one of my core competencies and if I'm failing on that front I should be sorry. It's not how I would think of friends or lovers but it's how I think of myself like what the fuck is wrong with me. 

They got me young and now it’s a reflex I can’t work myself loose from. I’m lucky in that my partners really don’t seem to think that way. When we went for a walk together after my first ersatz birthday party (Sunday afternoon at the old airfield), none of them were thinking about why I held someone's hand more often, and if that means they are more important to me. Someone asked me whose hand I held during the walk there and back and when I asked them, they were like… it depends on who was talking to whom? Like why is that even a question. 

If their needs are met, they don’t wonder if someone else is better. I wish I were like that, but I cling to the illusory crutch that I am comparatively, relatively better, in some tangible way (as a giraffe would say - taller). Everyone has received the memo that this useful lie is to be kept up at all times. Luckily they don’t seem to find it an issue. 

Though N did ask me whether there isn’t something that I bring to the table that is uniquely mine. I hesitated and said… money? He was like, uh, no. Perhaps it’s one clue to solving the problem - like how I never compare myself to trans girls because I literally couldn’t grow a dick if I tried so why bother? (T suggested that I simply must find the dick in everyone else so I stop comparing). We are lovely and different creatures. Maybe one day I’ll see everyone like that - no more tallying up points. Like how when Katarina told Ben that her six year old can cycle 30 km in one day, Ben asked yeah but he can play the lute?

I'd like to feel sure of my intrinsic worth because rationally I think I'm very worthy of love. Even though just writing that makes me doubt myself a little, in the way that birthday parties make me wonder why I'm even worth celebrating.

So next year on my ersatz birthday I'll go all out and get party decorations. I'll send invites well ahead of time and let people know it's my birthday. 

Poetry and Documentaries

 Last night we went to bed early and lay there each doing our thing. I found Good Poems on my Kindle and giggled at the biographies of the anthologized poets (he stabbed Marlowe just to watch him die). Then I found out that Wallace Stevens was an executive at an insurance firm and wrote poems during his commute. I had to read you The House Was Quiet and the World was Calm. Then I had to read you To His Coy Mistress. Then you asked me about the Metaphysical Poets so I had to read you A Valediction Forbidding Mourning. Then you showed me one of your favorite BBC nature documentaries about South America. It's the kind of evening that makes me grateful for every bit of my Boring Little Life (trademark pending). 

Why I go to the gym

 Cycling home I thought of our talk that morning and all the (hopefully) imaginary and/or temporary problems that may (or may not) arise. Instead of anxiety, I suddenly realized that maybe instead of punishing you for all the mistakes others have made and all the stupid things they’ve done, I should give you some credit for never having let me down. It’s always a tug of war but when I’ve had a good work out, I feel like I might be winning. 

Beached as

Once in a while I feel very bummed. Usually it's hormones related. But knowing the cause mitigates the effect only a little bit (if at all). At times like this I feel very foreign here and wish I could go back to some place where I felt at home. Then I have to remind myself that every place makes me feel like an alien in some way - and the only way over something is (usually) through it. I've not made much of a habit of turning back and at the age of 37 I'm not sure I want to start. I would rather climb this mountain. So yeah, integration continues. I will try harder and if I ever get the point where I've done my utmost and I'm still not happy, I can reassess the situation then. 

Maybe part of it comes from not having been anywhere else for ever so long. 

And another thing that I remind myself of is the fact that the bad and the good comes together. I can't have the good without going through the bad, it seems. So the only thing I can do is try to get through with as much grace as I can muster. 

At times I like to come here and read about myself. It's soothing because it's a friendly voice that understands. It's also nice because I find (mostly) that I like myself. When I go back a long way I find (surprisingly) that many things about me are unchanged and at times I feel also that my instincts are good, and wish I had trusted them more. 

So I'll redouble my efforts to be me. 

A while ago

 A while ago we had the worst fight in ages, mostly because the boiler issue. I get so overwhelmed with anxiety and frustration sometimes and if you go on and keep underlining the worst possible outcome (however likely it may be) I just end up shouting which then sets you off shouting.

To be honest I’ve never had a friend I shouted at/with so much but every time it happens we make it up after, so it’s not (absolutely) a bad thing.

We also did some fun stuff like birthday with homemade chocolate cake, paper crowns, craft beer, and hand knit socks:

and I made you a badge with your nickname on it: 

We had French onion tart, rucola salad, and white wine at dinner, and popped some corn after so we could all watch Arrested Development together.

Over the next few days you were sometimes sad to be alone. But not all the time. 

We also went to the fields and gathered greenery for our advent candles. I got these tiny little mushrooms from Oxfam (along with a bunch of other old decorations). You said that you had them as a kid.

We also baked Julian’s favorite Christmas cookies. The first batch was filled with jam and the second with chocolate ganache.

Today we decided to make some homemade pocky sticks from the NYT food section.

It snowed overnight the other day and everything came up all frosty. It may be the winter of our discontent but I'm happy about the snow. 

A little joy

This morning you slept in but I got up early to put chocolate buns in the oven. Then I went into your room to check why you were still in bed. I sat on the edge of your bed behind you and put my head down on your side. You petted me awkwardly. Then I went to the other side and laid down in front of you. You put your arms around me as I curled up, and I felt that you liked having me there.

We chatted slowly about this and that, the same way we do when I say goodnight (I lie down and pat the bed, you sit down, then I curl up around you like a snail and put my head in your lap. You get up to brush your teeth and walk around mumbling while I wriggle around under the covers). 

Sometimes I get a clear sense that my presence and affection makes you happy and brings out something good. The days right now are so repetitive and the things we do daily over and over feel like small rituals. I want to build new habits - positive expectations of comfort, safety - of freshly baked things and warm meals and someone being there, morning, day, and night.

Because many other things are hard and often bad, without recourse, beyond control or ability to influence. Because all we have to lean on is our goodness to one another. Because it’s good to arrive and throw a tantrum and let it all out and be scooped up and held. And it’s good to be the one to say come here, where I can look after you.

Before you went to take a shower I sat you down and brushed out your hair. Today the server was down for maintenance all day and with nobody to shoot at you were getting agitated and anxious. I like to think that me brushing your hair was ten minutes that were better than the ten minutes before or the ten minutes after. It’s not much, but it’s also everything.

You look very handsome when you are happy.

Feeling a bit

... low these couple of days. I see my peers perform and jam and start studios and achieve success and wonder if I'm good enough - or ambitious enough. I feel like I'm driving myself pretty hard but there's no one to tell me if it's what I'm suppose to do. If I'm on track. Of course the main problem is that I have a bad habit of comparing myself to others and I'm determined to quit that. I want to look at those around me and feel genuinely proud of their success and celebrate it with them.

Another part of why I feel low is probably because I'm lonely. Recently questions or ethics and related dilemmas have been plaguing most of my waking hours. It's not driving me over the edge but it persists like a hum in the background of everything.

I don't know how to cope except keep at it and wait for things to loosen up and change on their own. 

天下沒有不散的宴席

Even the best of things must some day come to an end...

Last four gigs at Roxy J.

逆境 and related thoughts

Recently I've been thinking about how I handle situations in class where I'm not able to get a handle on the material very quickly - especially if I'm slower than others (that really exacerbates the issue). So firstly of course what the hell am I doing comparing myself to someone else? Their performance (esp at the stage of learning) is totally irrelevant. Secondly - I've begun to see how how one handles these situations is really important. You can't expect the learning process to always be smooth. Some classes are more challenging than others, and I just need to come up with strategies that help me take things in my stride.

So my first strategy is to remind myself that challenge can lead to growth. Whenever I really suck at something big time I think to myself: I'm about to improve so much, just as well as I get the hang of this. Focusing on how rewarding it's all going to be helps me keep my spirits up. It sure as heck beats thinking things like "Omg I really suck at this. I'm so rubbish I don't even know why I try" because that's how I ended up getting so frustrated I cried in class.

The second strategy is to think of the challenge as a "take-away" project. I might not be able to get the hang of it in an hour, but I will definitely be able to get the hang of it (or at least make significant improvements) if I spend some time working on the skill.

Given the previous strategy my next step is to set a goal for the duration of the class: If I try to do the rhythm in my feet AND the isolation in my torso AND the hand/arm gestures then I'll probably fail. So I'll just work on two of the three (and usually the feet is a good place to start because it presents the least trouble to me). The rule is generally to set a realistic goal that I can kind of achieve during the class - and then I'll be happy with myself and feel accomplish regardless.

Realistic expectations also matter though - no matter how I work on it I won't go back next week and do it as well as the teacher or someone else in my class. Physical skills take time to settle in, and there's no way to hurry that process. What matters is that I can feel my own progress (even though sometimes it feels like a bit of a stop and go rather than a smooth progression - I hear that's normal).

Also something that can be really frustrating is when I KNOW exactly what I need to do (such as in a polyrhythm exercise. what each hand is doing is pretty fucking easy. it gets near impossible when it put it together), but my body won't do it. That's when patience comes in.

Sometimes I get so frustrated I want to lop off the offending limb but then I usually get the hang of it later so I'm always glad that I didn't. The long-run. The big picture. You see?

On Success

It occurs to me that to be successful is to get what I want and for that I would need to clearly define what it is I want. Is it to be the best dancer in the world? Is it to have a successful school with lots of students? Is it to be self-supporting as a dancer? Also if the criteria of success is based on comparison with others then I will likely always be unhappy, because I have no clue where others are actually at. The comparison would never be objective and exact. It would only be a reflection of how I felt at the time about myself, and might have more to do with how much sleep I had, what phase of menstrual cycle I was at, and how much people tokens I had left etc. So I should try to give more thought to defining that goal.

Except some days when I'm not so into assessment I just plug away at what I'm doing. Like when I'm walking up a hill and instead of looking at where I'm going, I'm looking at where each foot step falls and enjoying every little forward movement. Those days feel even better though I suppose it's important to have a little bit of both. Or I might end up on the top of the wrong hill at the end of the hike. But is there a right hill? 

heart's desires

This afternoon I had a dream that I was a part in a simulation in the mind of someone I love. We stood side by side in a landscape of his imagining - his childhood hometown. He was embarrassed to find himself there, as if missing home were some kind of weakness. I walked down the paved road explaining to him that things can shift at any moment. Maybe the ground will open up beneath his feet. Maybe he will meet people he had loved and lost, or the children he could have would have should have had. Turning around I found that he had gone. Though I knew he is simply standing right behind me, just slightly out of my field of vision. "Maybe you'll never see me again", I said. And as I said those words a wind lifted me off my feet and my sense of being airborne transformed into descent until I woke up on my sofa, already missing him intensely, this someone I do not know. 

On pride (and the acquisition of skills)

Does anything come naturally to anyone?

Throughout most of my education I was the top of my class. Most things that were taught in school came to me "naturally". I'm not sure what that means exactly except to say that I picked up the concepts fairly easily, could usually make further educated guess based on what was taught to me, and had no trouble applying concepts to solving/analyzing hypothetical problems. For most of that time struggling to learn was something that I watched other people do - not something I had intimate personal experience with. On occasion when I "struggled" to come to grips with something complex, I usually did it in isolation and privacy, with my head stuck in a book in my room late at night, or at the library (Derrida comes to mind). But these were the exceptions rather than the rule. What I specifically do not remember much is other people getting things while I struggled to understand them. Until I went to Oxford, that is. Then there was a lot of people who seemed to get things as quickly if not more so, which was really kind of scary.

Learning rhythm and dancing has kind of been the opposite experience and I really struggle with my pride. I hate struggling with a move in a class. I hate it when other people pick up rhythms or hear them in a song more quickly than I do. I hate it because I don't know how to deal with being the second person to understand something. I hate it because it seems to call into doubt something that I've always been.

There are two aspects to dancing, in my mind - one is about physical agility and coordination and the other about the relationship to music which is in part analytical. To some people I observe these abilities seem much more innate. I'm not sure if I'm physically agile - I think I'm slightly above average but definitely not close to the top. As for musicality I started out a total dunce. Quite honestly in my first performance when I was asked to raise my hat on 5 I didn't know what that meant, and couldn't understand it when they tried to explain.

In my recollections music was never in beats in my head in those days. It reminds me of the argument that the word blue didn't exist because it wasn't a thing until humans could reliably reproduce that colour. I feel that way about music. When I hear the rhythms in music it's not because of some innate connection with it, but because I'm trained my mind to detect patterns and apply some kind of analytical tool that lets me distinguish where it's at. Now when I listen to music, the counts literally sings itself to me in some part of my brain. Which is why it's very challenging and scary sometimes when I find a song that confuses me, because my rhythm detection is thrown off by half a beat or by two beats. At times like this I do what I've always done. Ask someone who knows, and then take it home as homework. I sit in front of the computer listening to these tunes over and over, counting them out to myself, waiting for the correct information to overwrite the incorrect information. I feel like I'm trying to grow instincts - or at least, to train myself until it becomes instinctive.

The asking someone though, costs me pride. I don't know if I was always this bad in school (heck it was a long time ago) but I just feel really negative when I don't get something - especially if I have to resort to asking a peer rather than a teacher. That was just never me. I was the one who others went to ask, not the one who did the asking.

The thing is I don't really like this aspect of myself. What is wrong with not understanding something? Surely where we begin is immaterial - the important thing is where we end up. If we don't start where we want to end up (most of us don't, I assume), then we have to do whatever it takes to get there. And once we do - does it matter where we started? I keep trying to tell myself that whatever it is I am not, I am not yet, because I'm in the process of becoming.

Perhaps it is also to do with insecurity. Just as I hate asking people to come out and dance when I DJ because I hate the feeling of needing to ask for something. I hate being disempowered whether it is needing their help in terms of coming to my events or in terms of teaching me some move or anything else. I'm sure I'm not the only person who feels this way though, and I would very much like to come to terms with being someone who has needs. I'd like to be able to express my needs and my regard for the people who bring things to my life (friends who teach me, who come support my events, who practice with me etc.), without a ridiculous sense of disempowerment - because I think it isn't disempowering. We just need people. That's all there is to it. It's no shame and no weakness. One day hopefully I can just ask for whatever it is I need without feeling my my pride is in the way, and if I don't get whatever it is I ask for, I can take it in context and not let it affect me in a personal way.

Also it just occurred to me that the toughest thing is to refrain from drawing any conclusions from the fact that someone can do/can understand something which doesn't come naturally to you. How I feel is "whoa this person is such a natural I bet I'll never be as good of a dancer as him/her" when in fact I have no clear conception of the circumstances which may have gone into making of this situation. Perhaps he/she is innately awesome (in which case, yay, good for this person), but perhaps he/she has just had a lot more practice or some kind of formal training. I think back now to all the kids that I watched struggle in calculus class. No doubt some of them simply came to the conclusion that I was "smart" and they were perhaps less so. I always felt at the time that there was something erroneous about this conclusion (because I see them being smart at other things, and most of them were def. more socially adept than I was at the time). Now I think I know that part of the error is not seeing why I performed well in calculus (because I was tutored in maths from an early age quite separately and additional to my formal education, and because I had no social life and devoted free time to solving whatever extra physics and calculus problems I could lay my hands on in order to feel extra prepared for exams because otherwise I'd freak out because I'm a control freak and couldn't ever just try to 'wing it'). So yeah, there's always so much that we don't see.

Good enough

Sometimes I get very anxious about not being good enough. Since I came back from holidays there's been a sharp decline in class attendance. There could be any variety of reasons (one week it was Chinese Valentines Day; I'm teaching Al & Leon which is not my own choreo so ppl can just easy easy learn it online; I no longer run the Thursday practice groups or the monthly social so there's less promotion; I have been away from the core scene too long so people don't know me as well etc.) but of course I immediately take that as a sure sign that I'm not good.

When I stop and compare I always look at those people who I perceive to be doing better than me and a sense of dread comes over me and I feel like an imposter. I forget though that there are also those who don't do as well as me. There are also those who don't even try because they think they wouldn't get anywhere - and up until I decided to give myself this year of doing everything I wanted to do in dancing, I was one of those people.

I never tried to make it my thing because I feared that I wouldn't be good enough. But how would I know if I've not tried. I told myself I would just try and try for a year, and not evaluate myself until the end, because sometimes, when I'm not something, it just means I'm in the process of becoming something, and it's pointless to beat myself up during that process.

And also when I compare myself to others I must remember that many people devoted themselves to their thing for much longer than I have. My year isn't even out yet, and really how could a year of working hard at something be long enough to really make a difference?

As ever I have more questions than I have answers.

Recently I started DJing at Roxy J. The first two times dancers came out. The third time no dancers came. I wonder if I should interpret that as a personal failure on my part. I used to imagine "what if no one came to my classes"? And then I'd think - that's ok, I'll just use that time to practice. Then I'd imagine "what if no one came when I DJ?" I guess that's happened already. Except, um, the place was actually quite busy they just weren't dancers so I'm not sure what I want or if that counts as a fail. But the point is maybe this is a good time to think about what these things (DJing/Teaching) really mean to me, and what the minimum return would have to be in order for me to be content.

Again that's something I don't have an answer for at the moment.

But here's something I saw the other day which I like:


Living means taking chances and coping with the fear and possibility of failure. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. So when the fear really gets to me I just tell myself to grow some balls (or something like that).

Good morning world. Today I can't sleep for being anxious.

Stuff I've discovered

Recently my life has been full of discoveries. Well, some are new discoveries and some are just things that are being confirmed.

Like People Tokens. I always suspected that I only ever have a limited supply but I think I know now just how limited. It's really just the one thing that I can't do anything about. When I'm out, I'm out.

Another discovery is that I don't really like to run socials. It's not really my thing. I don't want to have to worry too much about how to make sure everyone has a good time (though obviously I do want them to). I also hate wondering if anyone will show up. I also don't know if I will have enough People Tokens on the day. This all combines to make it kind of exhausting and even if I try to prepare, still out of my control (because of PT).

Another thing is that I just can't do more than 4 hours a day. I would break down. Also tiredness is totally cumulative. I'm now cumulatively tired. I've not managed to do more than 1 hr of popping every day. I've been more or less doing just the bare minimum for about a week and this morning I finally had some energy and inspiration but going out and getting a haircut and seeing a venue and two friends for a cuppa kind of used that up. I still did my hour of popping and tried to practice some general stuff after that but now I'm wiped.

I hate the feeling that I'm not working hard enough but I realize sometimes I don't have more to give and beating myself up won't help. That's why I'm looking forward (even more) to being away.

Also the weather is dreadfully muggy. It'll be nicer to be in Europe.

Another thing I've been thinking is that my most tangible progress is actually through rhythm. I should resume classes when I get back, because on my own I quickly fall out of practice.

oh and also just to keep things in one place

這個小作品是跟 Angela Hong 一起上課的小紀念, 對我自己來說也是個挑戰. 拿一個脫衣舞的經典名曲來排 popping, 大概會是大家見過跳這首歌最不性感的一隻排舞吧! 也明顯地點出同一首歌, 不同的人聽真的會有不同的感覺, 藝術真的是很主觀.

Brotha Wu（@brothawu）分享的貼文 於 2017 年 7月 月 16 6:11上午 PDT 張貼

Update

Sometimes I feel like I might be overloading. Last month I was doing a lot of lessons and I gave a talk and I organized a party and tried to finish a routine I was learning etc. It got to be a bit much. This month is the last month before Herräng so I'm trying to take it easy and do less. I would hate to leave for a long trip in a flurried frame of mind.

Most of the time I struggle to improve but sometimes I feel palpably better at dancing because I'm now able to do things that were not possible before. Obviously on an absolute scale I'm still totally rubbish at some of these things, but it doesn't matter. Progress is progress.

When I practice popping it's very difficult not to think things like "this looks shit it's totally stupid it's too late I'm to old to pick it up" and feel discouraged. So I just tell myself that I can assess at the end of the month when I've put in all the practice hours - not before. Measuring progress before I've put in the number of hours I decided to put in is counterproductive.

At the same time I'm looking forward to some time off in Herräng just to unwind and go back to my first love. Swing will be so much fun. I'm also doing the authentic jazz track in week 3 which I'm looking forward to. I have to remind myself not to be too confident just because I've done so much street dance lately XD They are different disciplines after all and I'm sure there will still be plenty of super challenging things ahead ^-^

Anxiety

Some mornings around 5 or 6 am I start to have anxiety based dreams. It's like my irrational fears get out of control and my dreams start to play out all the things that I'm anxious about, to their worst conclusions.

In my sober moments I know that these thoughts are ridiculous. But sometimes instead of trying to calm myself and overcome these anxieties, I decide to just get out of bed and give up on sleep for the next few hours. 

Serendipitously

I got really upset today seeing my friends on facebook berating someone, and also the general casual misogyny is something that just fills up slowly until it eventually overflows.

And then Roo messaged me, out of the blue, because I had been in a dream of his. Apparently his flight was rerouted and I was there in the waiting lounge. He can't remember how the dream ended.

I can't help but feel this is somewhat of a godsend. One of the earliest really truly good people in my life, just popping in to say hello, and remind me that people are good.

I thank whatever providence brought this about (and brought him into my life in the very first instance).

On the forefront of my mind today:

Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy.

O, Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love; For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; it is in dying that we are born again to eternal life.

... so please be kind if i'm a mess

Biopsy vs. Autopsy

I misspoke and said that I needed an autopsy but actually I was scheduled to have a biopsy because I've had this weird lump on my arm. But then when I got there the doctor decided that it's small enough that we should just get it removed altogether.

So I now have four stitches on my forearm and have been warned off excess movement or flexing. I'm using this week to do some other stuff, like write up some basic musical theory re: swing and also some basic exercises.

Next week I go and get my results, and hopefully take the stitches out. In the mean time I'm enjoying being a bit more sedentary. 

At about one month or so in

When I wake up in the morning sometimes I'm just like... why are my feet so sore? Oh. Because I practiced 3 hours yesterday.

I started popping classes lately and am carrying on with waacking. It's given me ridiculously well defined back/shoulder/arm muscles. Even my teacher is a little incredulous that I don't go to the gym any more. If only my abs would do the same (#nodice).

Everything is a constant struggle. Actually there are days when I feel measurable progress. But the rest of the time is pretty much a constant struggle.

I have trouble explaining to people what I'm doing sometimes.

On other fronts I feel I can always do more and do better (like update my vintage business) but then so much of the time all I can manage is vegetate. I'm not sure if I'm slacking or if I'm just exhausted.

Still, I think overall it's a forward progression, so I won't ask for more than that.