aesmael

What I wrote here was incomplete.

The happiness, the joy at diminished fear allowing me to live, those were real. However, the thoughts which had prompted those nightmarish days, the... mental images, those did not vanish. They did cease to dominate my thoughts or press with immediacy, certainly reduced in frequency and intensity, so I could say truly I was relieved and unafraid. It was just imaginings now, as easily ignored as the many other sets which reside in here.

With time, and until reminded, I can even forget about them. Had not reached that stage yet. Yesterday... I experienced another peak of anxiety and fear, that paralysing sick feeling of helpless terror and imminent threat.

In the morning I showered and thought I might die trapped in the bathroom if there were to be a zombie outside the door. I considered our dog Angel (who was not at all helpful in her own outbreak of nerves that morning, following me in to the bathroom in her own apparent shaking fear of being alone) possible threat of sudden attack, or emergency food in desperation. I considered dismantling my razor for use as weapon of last resort or implement of suicide. I thought about being so disconnected from my laptop and unable to reach out or communicate any last words.

Showering, I held myself and tried to say it was okay, that it was okay to be afraid and let it out. I couldn't bring myself to. I felt sick. Safety contracted until the walls of the shower itself were the only gesture in that direction. I remain relieved I have yet to see the things my mind's eye insists on.

As I have managed so far, I made myself continue my life, to leave the room, and get dressed, and go back out into the living areas. Fortunately soltice was online and available to call on Skype. I was insistent on video, to assure myself I spoke to a living human.

We talked long time and she was a tremendous help. I was finally able to cry a bit, and let things out. Stress, anxiety, obligation, much of it self-imposed. I had asked myself during that shower, 'why zombies?', and they seem to represent to me the inexorable closing in of hopelessness and death with no chance of escape but only, sometimes, a choice in how to die. And soltice helped. We talked of anxiety, stress, pressure and coping with it. The reminder that loosening ourselves from obligation can allow us to get more done, when we allow it to be okay doing only what we can at the time and letting the rest go. Also the importance of letting fun be fun rather than a drudgery.

At the beginning of the conversation I had been thinking myself in need of anti-anxiety medication, feeling this must be a neurochemical issue with no focus. Talking with soltice I realised there is indeed a lot I am stressed with and began to think that if I can alleviate and manage this stress I might be able to be happy with my functioning without needing medication. Of course that is unknown still, and there may be an underlying issue I could not manage unmedicated, but I am now less certain of its necessity.

Thanks to soltice (and with the help of pazi_ashfeather and mantic_angel) I was feeling again light and happy by the time she left for the gym. I resolved to loosen my burden of self-imposed obligation and take some ease that afternoon and evening. I actually was looking forward to writing but did not get to it, being tired and lacking sleep lately.

This is not being an easy shift for me to make. I have something of a cycle, of building stress until something breaks, then realising again I am allowed to have fun and release myself from pressure, followed by intense relief and I slip into feeling as if I can add 'just this thing more' and piling obligation on myself again.

Right now I am feeling tense about my lack of accomplishment for the day so far. Trying to calm myself down again, remember it is okay. Plus, if I am too stressed to actually do anything or even choose something to do, that is self-reinforcing.

I wrote a little bit on November 5, but not in the two days since. Mostly because I have been tired and not sleeping much. I am looking forward to writing more today though. Would be happy to get back into that.

Epic Fantasy

9,826 + 436 (4.4% more)

(2:31:39 PM) Tess AshFeather: The problem with dating a bird is that you really can't get away. We'll just land on your head and make a nest of your hair.
(2:32:08 PM) Trice AshFeather: ♥♥♥

Originally published at a denizen's entertainment. You can comment here or there.

For one of my classes I am tasked with the creation of a bibliography, an extensive document serving as a directory of books, serials and web resources pertaining to a particular subject. More complicated than something for which a simple catalogue search would suffice.

The library whose resources I have chosen to create the bibliography for (it has to be for and using the resources of a particular library) is the Seattle Public Library. The subject I have nominated to cite is resources for building writing and artistic skills.

My actual intention behind this is to create a resource index for aDE, material we can use to study and learn from. Currently the area of material I am investigating is very broad and not especially well defined. It would be helpful if people would nominate particular areas of interest for skill development, or resources they have found useful in the past.

People who are not members of aDE are welcome to participate too. They are certainly welcome to make use of the bibliography once it is done.

Originally published at a denizen's entertainment. You can comment here or there.

Light is of course a fluid. Drennets learn this at a very early age and frequently run outside as children to catch in cups the daily rain of sunlight, which they keep glowing by their bedside at night, or drink to feel its warmth flow through and fill their bodies right to the very tips of their fingers and hair, sometimes overindulging to the point of themselves beginning to glow and leak, or sometimes dip brush or finger in and use as paint, that special paint which is seen at night until it dries and fades or leaves radiant stains in many a youngster's reach.

As they grow older, the more inquisitive might experiment with pouring sunlight through prisms and learning the tastes of the colours. Hot, sharp violet, the tang of green, sweet soothing red. Mixing and remixing, sometimes sifting fine and collecting as many gradations as they can for experiments artistic, culinary, scientific, or some combination of the three. Or perhaps the simple joy of collecting.

Sunlight is plentiful and easy to collect, its fall regular, predictable, and abundant. Starlight is different. Each faint glittering point in the night produces such fine mist it might take a night, a week, a month to fill even a thimble. Each star's light is different. Tinted, flavoured, altered by its source and path. Dust-sweetened, tang of re-radiation, merest whisper of brushing other worlds.

Each unique, each precious. In fields beyond the cities myriad dishes open at night, each arranged just so to collect its target's light, stored for later collection in specially mirrored containers to prevent evaporation. These are used much the way sunlight often is: art, flavour, science. Starlight distilled, starlight blended, starlight flowing glowing in many-threaded tubes, the light of a thousand suns mingling in intricate sculpture in a dark room. Expensive seasoning, fierce nova light, never to be tasted again in a lifetime.

Night falls and silver flowers open to the light.

    I went out shopping earlier. Did not find what I was after, probably just as well because a storm was breaking as I came home and it would have been soaked. My first time ever driving with lightning, with rain coming down so hard I had to turn the wipers up to full and everything turned to mist.
    The clouds themselves were not so dark, so the rain had to make up the extra.

    I did hear on the news that someone was killed by the storm, so perhaps it is fortunate we did not get it as intensely here, nor any of the promised hail. I did get soaked getting out of the car though, which is exactly the same as dying.

    My sheets were (are) out there though, so maybe I will sleep on a bare mattress or take this opportunity to dig up a set which fits my bed or just not sleep at all. Who knows?

    Also, I really must get to writing some time before midnight. Last night I managed 42 words of Elegant Girl, thinking I was inspired to finally write the story about the dragon. Unfortunately it turns out I was only thinking so. I also wrote 128 words for my Sekrit Projekt. That is not many and certainly not enough to make the average I should be to meet my monthly target, however it does have the advantage of being exactly as much as the story needed, no more and no less.
    So I am happy about that, if not my writing overall. Shall see what I can manage tonight, tho it would be better if I did not start tired.

910 / 9,300 (8.0%)

    It is 84 days since I was placed on a trial run of hormone replacement therapy and my prescription has run out. I took my last oestrogen pill 24 hours ago, although there is still enough cyproterone acetate to last me until several days past my next (third) appointment with the endocrinologist I have been seeing, on the 11th of December.
    I suspect it was his intention that I run out of those several days before seeing him again, so that he could test my blood under the influence of anti-androgens alone. However, soltice has pointed out to me that I can indeed call and ask if that was the intention and I shall do so Monday morning.
    As for effects, my chest has been still tender this week, perhaps more so than usual, and the lumps under my nipples seem fairly large. That is about all to report this week.
    Today and this evening I have felt weak and lacking energy, although I doubt that is an effect of oestrogen's absence.

( Onward to measurements, pictures )

Not the exact song I was first looking for, but I needed this one too.

    Travelling by train to an excursion several weeks ago, I was asked by classmates about my plans for the next few years (relevant to an assignment). When I told them I saw myself in the United States, Canada or the UK in four years time, it felt as though I was jumped on with requests for explanation.
    Really, in what world does a desire to travel/live overseas for an indefinite extended period mean "Don't you like it here?" is a sensible question. Okay, okay, I can see some logic to that question but it still annoys me to be expected to explain myself as if it is somehow bizarre to want to leave the country.
    I don't hate it here but I have always wanted to travel and see other places *resists temptation to segue into Star Trek opening monologue*.
    Oh, and I am annoyed with myself for being tongue-tied as always in my defence and for keeping silent on the most important reason for those particular in that particular time frame to avoid further judgement.