bloodteethandflame

I might regret it, but I’m on Twitter now.

I joined so that I could follow and support the awesome thing that Tom Hiddleston is doing.  He’s trying the SNAP Challenge, and I wanted to follow his tweets.

I know.

How fangirl-ish of me.

My heart really hurts today; a physical pain.

Maybe I’m mis-reading it.

Maybe it is nothing more than a pulled muscle, or maybe even indigestion.

It could be a sort of indecision, or possibly, stress.

Either way, my heart hurts today.

~~~

Things have been tense.

I’m not sure if it is that things are moving forward, and I am fighting it, or if things aren’t moving at all, and I’m being stubborn, or subconsciously blocking the message/being willfully blind to seeing what I need to see.

I have felt this way before, and looking back on it, it was always when something in my life was out of whack and needed to be confronted.

My body manifests physical pain long before I notice the reasons why, long before I think about finding the root cause of it.  I deal with it, thinking I’m being brave or strong or whathaveyou, and then, I start to realize:

“Shit, it seems like I’ve had a headache for weeks.”

or

“I can’t remember how long it has been that I’ve been feeling this ‘tightness’ in my neck/shoulders/chest/upper back,” as I consider yet another day, feeling keyed up and run down at the same time.

(Once I had a massage therapist tell me that it is as if I have a small knotty animal that lives in my upper back to the left of my spine, and ze needs a lot of vigorous prodding to unwind.)

And when I realize that I’m feeling pain — and can’t ignore it anymore — only then do I start to examine what I’ve been focusing on lately.

Usually, I find some sort of pattern of negativity, of worry, of doubt somewhere.  I’ve had enough therapy in my life to learn how and when and where in my body that my emotional pain manifests itself physically.

In my head.

In my heart.

~~~

Here is an excellent post from P. Sufenas:

http://aediculaantinoi.wordpress.com/2013/03/04/paganism-and-privilege-visible-and-invisible-privileges-discussed/

~~~

I have to say that this post hits me with food for thought on so many levels, that I am still untangling exactly on which level it inspires me first.

The reason that I link to their post is because it is an amazing post on privilege, passing, and thoughtful discussion on how interactions with others can require that an individual make decision — sometimes daily — to either wear or *not* wear various ‘masks’ that denote ‘normalcy’ in our culture.
Very thought-provoking stuff for me today, as I consider the changes that are manifesting in my own life.
~~~
To be perfectly honest, I have been struggling lately with several key situations and changes concerning my job, my marriage, my gender, and my spirituality.
It seems almost more than a coincidence that we are coming up on a year since I participated in a very moving mask ritual in honor of Loki and April 1st.
I realize that, last year, there were a few masks that I had decided to discard, and in that regard, I feel that April 1st 2012 was a significant ‘coming out’ for me in a few, very important ways.
I discarded two significant ‘masks’, and yet, I realize that there remain several other masks firmly in place.
In that vein, I am thinking on what masks still serve me, and what masks I am willing to discard for the sake of authenticity.
I may not get to choose, and so, I sit with the possibilities.

Ugh.  It’s been quite the emotional rollercoaster of a day today.

I’m so glad that it’s almost over.

I thought that I had a new episode of Game of Thrones to look forward to — what made me think that the new season would begin March 13th rather than March 31st? — but, as you may have guessed, I do not.

Another good thing is, that my job might be saved for another quarter.

It looks like I will have enough hours this go-round to hold onto my position for a few more months.

🙂

(But if I don’t make it the next quarter, it’ll give me a good reason to shave my head and pierce my nose. I have been wanting to, for a while now.)

Yeah, that’s what my mid-life crisis looks like.

OK, so I guess that I’d better point this out.

Ugh.  After all that writing, one thing becomes clear:

Loki giving me cuddles and forehead kisses *would be* hard emotional work for me.

So maybe I shouldn’t snark that concept, after all.

.

(With much thanks to crazy dumbsaint of the mind. )

1.  Where were you born?  Boston, MA.

2.  Were you named after someone?  No, not someone.  Some thing, I suppose.  My dad wanted to name me Angela.  My mom wanted to name me Sabrina.  And they couldn’t agree; each one disliked the other’s suggestion.  So they left it up to my two oldest siblings, my brother, aged 5 and my older sister, aged 2, at the time.  (I have another older brother, but he had just turned a year old two weeks before.  As a matter of fact, today — March 6th — is his birthday.)  They both liked the sound/concept of ‘Heather’ — a pretty purple flowered shrubbery.  <–(A shrubbery! Not too tall, not too short, and not too expensive….*grin*)

(It was the 70’s, so it is also very possible that my older sister might have also had a Holly Hobbie doll.  Holly Hobbie’s little sister/friend, by the way, was named Heather.)

3.  How many children do you have?  Two

4.  How many pets do you have?  I have one dog, three cats, and one ferret.

5.  Your worst injury?  Probably that time that I knocked out both of my front teeth trying to ride a wooden wagon down Harmony Lane (which was a very steep hill) when I was 7 years old.  There was a line of fence posts at the base of the hill.  Gah. I suffered a concussion, too.

6.  Do you have a special talent?  Huh, probably.  I make a really delicious apple pie, among other things.

7.  Favorite thing to bake? Chocolate chip cookies.

8.  Favorite Fast Food? Anything with bacon, I suppose.

9.   Would you bungee jump? I really don’t think so.  (As Rebecca had said, I think that there’d have to be a sizeable cash prize for doing so, if ever, at all.)

10.  What is the first thing you notice about people?  I notice how people treat each other in their personal sphere — especially how they treat service personnel that they come in contact with (waitstaff, checkout clerk, the door greeter at a hotel).  Maybe it’s because I’ve worked in some form of customer service all my life.    Other than that…I know that it’s going to sound shallow, but usually I notice people’s shoes.

11.  When was the last time you cried?  Last night.

12.  Any current worries? How my son K is going to do on the FCAT.

13.  Name 3 drinks you drink regularly.  Coffee, water, whiskey.  Though, not usually, all at once.

14.  What’s your favorite book?  Gah.  As if I could pick just one.   Several of my all-time favorites: Galina Krassakova’s Feeding the Flame,  James Thurber’s The Thurber Carnival, Angela Carter’s Saints and Strangers, Flannery O’Connor’s A Good Man is Hard to Find, and…. any short story anthology written by Ray Bradbury.

15.  Would you like to be a pirate? Possibly.   I mean, I’m not so great at the hand to hand combat, but I can wear an eyepatch with little to no ill effect to my depth perception.

16.  Favorite Smells?  Popcorn, leather, rain in the trees, woodsmoke, oranges, and cloves.

17.  Why do you blog?  Because I fear succumbing to Alzheimers.   Too much that I don’t want to forget.

18. What song do you want played at your funeral?  Hm.  As it is with the books (above), I love all kinds of music.  Hopefully the loved ones that I leave behind will create an interesting soundtrack of the various songs that I love, and play them.

19.  What is your least favorite thing about yourself?   Ah, Rebecca; I agree with this one: I, too, am  a slacker of epic proportions. I have great intentions but no follow through.  I routinely welcome — and often, need  — a cosmic boot up my ass.

20.  Favorite hobby? Writing.

21.  Name Something you’ve done, you never thought you would do?  I used to think that an avowed misanthrope like myself could never find the wherewithal to go to a HUGE event (like LR or DO), without a partner, and still have a fantastically soul-enriching social experience.

22.  What do you look for in a friend?  A certain level of unabashed geekiness, an interesting vocabulary, a well-developed sense of compassion, and a wry sense of humor.

I try not to be melodramatic, but I think that it is easy for me to be so.

Perhaps it is my temperment.

I received this letter in the mail — from Letters in the Mail — and it was five pages long.

I was excited to read it, but when I opened it, I realized that the pages were out of order.

I read it in the order that the pages had been folded, all the while, trying to decipher which page led to which other page, until I had some idea of how it was supposed to be.

When I finished reading, I briefly considered reading it again, but then I felt lazy, thinking that the one time through had been good enough for me.

~~~

The letter was written by a writer who has books published (though I’d never heard of any of them).  The letter was about metaphors, especially Jungian metaphors.  While reading it, it seemed to me to be a jumble of thoughts really — because the pages of the letter were out of order, I’m certain — but even so, that letter got me to thinking.

That letter struck me as being a good metaphor for my life right now.

Yes, my life does seem like a long, rambling letter with pages out of order, and only now I am figuring out in what order the pages are supposed to be.

Sounds lovely, doesn’t it?  I’m finally figuring shit out, right?

Well, I suppose so.

But, the melodramatic part: this should tell you a little bit about how my brain works, and about my old habits of perception.

I paid money for a divination recently.

I’d been meaning to get a divination for quite some time now, but I was always afraid to, for fear of the answers that I’d get.

But the answers that I did get were quite lovely, actually, and helpful.  But I wouldn’t be me if there wasn’t at least one part that got me to over-thinking, and showed me for the melodramatic, worried sort of person that I really am.

The reading, in part, pointed out that some big changes were coming this spring, but not to worry, they are the changes that I had been seeking.  (Which was nice.)  The winter of my life is over, as it were, and what I wanted for me life is about to…manifest.  There’s going to be a change in seasons — a spring is coming, if you will.

My first thought, however, when I read that, was full of *anxiety*

(I sense your eyeroll, here.   It’s OK.  I’ll wait.)

Here’s a truth about me: I am unlikely to think in terms of what I might gain when I hear that what I want is about to manifest, I think about what I might be forced to give up (or, possibly, lose) in the transaction*

Yep, that’s me, focused more on the negative.  This is a bad habit – my fear of loss** — that has blocking me for YEARS.

So, with that in mind, I swear to gods, what I really should get tattooed on my forehead is:

Let Go of Fear

It has become a most annoying prevalent mantra for me.

It has literally become the BadWolf of my life.

It is what has been repeating in many ways, over and over, trying to drill it into my soul.

Everything has been converging to that, and whether or not, I’m actively looking for it, it’s there.

Be open.

Let go of what doesn’t help you.

Let go of what hinders you.

Let go of what blocks you.

But there’s also that Fear, that insidious whisper:  What are you willing to lose?

That’s a good question.

(It’s hard work for me to think of the other side of the question, though:  What are you willing to gain? — an the attendant thoughts of worth and efficiency and whatnot.  Those thoughts are usually 30 or 40 spaces down the list, in my thought processes.)

This is me admitting it.

Now excuse me while I go try not to forget what I wrote here and keep my promise.

~~~

*(It is not difficult for me to think about situations of choices in that way.  Every choice that one makes has a price.  The loss is always hard, and the gain is always vague. My father used to call it something else, but I think of it as a misanthrope economy.)

** Loss of what, you ask?  Loss of control.  Loss of security.  Loss of sanity.  Especially, loss of sanity.

After writing the entry about what I did get out of my weekend (mostly), there were a few things that I didn’t get out of my weekend, as well as a few things that I realized quite late in the weekend (Sunday night/Monday morning) that I had been downright dodging/avoiding.

For one thing, V and I never did have much of the Big Conversation that I’d been planning on having with him, due to two things that I hadn’t counted upon:

1) Even though V had told his employer’s project managers that he was not available to work, conference, or take calls from Thursday, February 15th, to Monday, February 18th, clients called on him anyway, sucking up eight hours of his time on Saturday, and four hours on Sunday. It seemed that nothing could be done about it for several reasons, as everyone on the client end seemed to think that he’d honestly meant that his availability would be open for those weekend days only, rather than every and any other weekend this month. So, despite shaking my fist at the Universe a few times, I came to the realization that, maybe, I am not ready to discuss these matters, and/or he might not be ready to hear this sort of discussion as of yet. Because every time that I tried to begin talking about the subject, his phone would ring, and any time he tried to set aside his work-brain thoughts to listen to me, his phone would ring with yet another work-related distraction. (At one point, after having told him about my Loki-lookalike friend from the elevator, he suggested that I might as well find my other boots and go enjoy myself a bootblacking, because he was scheduled for a call. Again.)

2) The other thing that kept coming to the forefront was V’s obvious and pressing need to socialize. Several times, the same situation kept arising wherein he would become so distracted by the presence of others — whether they be old friends, new acquaintances, or some individual smoker standing outside looking for a light for their cigarette — that I quickly started to wonder if I was ever going to be able to get his completely undivided attention.

Well, it seems to me that the Universe said NO to that this weekend. Gods, did it ever. And oddly enough, I had an interesting dream on Monday morning that involved this very thing, causing me to consider the very excuses that I have been making in order to keep from meaningfully engaging with an Other who seeks to engage with me.

So…touche, I guess.

~~~

And the lesser, but still worth-mentioning thing that I intended to do but didn’t was to get over myself and introduce myself to Del Tashlin. I’ve been reading both of his blogs – and leaving comments here and there — for somewhat over a year or so now, so I suppose that it might be appropriate to introduce myself, lest I seem like a stalker, no…?

It seems like such a little thing doesn’t it? But yes…it’s true.

And several opportunities arose wherein I could have introduced myself, and yet, I did not. I kept promising myself, next time, next time…and yet I.Did.Not.

I was even in the elevator with him and yet I did not say a word.

What the hell, right?

So, I tell myself one word: FUSION.

Let’s hope that I keep my promise then…I will introduce myself to Del Tashlin at Fusion 2013.

There. I said it. For all of you to read. And now I have to make it happen.

~~~

OK, OK, that’s enough complaining.

I also wanted to point out that I won/bought something at the NCSF silent auction that was totally not for me.

I still can’t figure out why I was drawn to it so — and even though I bought/won two other items (both were things that V was wishing for me to have) — but I most certainly drawn to have this beautifully decorated metal purse/clutch/accessory thing. It is decorated with polished stones: carnelian, yellow jasper, green/pink jasper, quartz, etc.

It was so not me. I think that V was shocked that I wanted it.

But, for some reason, I had to have it. It was crazy.

Maybe it was for Freyja…or something.

When I unpack it, I’m going to put it on Her altar.

I had a good weekend.

As it is with me, not everything that I planned to do actually happened, but a lot of what I needed to happen actually did. 

There is a lot for me to process.

It was heartening — and important — to see V in an environment wherein we could really focus on each other.  We did get to have some of that time.

I could have used more time to really focus on V, of course, but sometimes, the Universe has other plans.  That’s where the ‘let go or be dragged’ comes in.

Some of it was really mundane, but necessary, concerning something that I’ve been struggling with for a while on how to receive service from others gracefully and without guilt…and I received some of that (twice!) in the bootblacking chair.

  In this way, it was nice to make a few new connections, and as much as that can be difficult for me, I forced myself to make that happen, much to my own amazement.  And the Universe rewarded me for that.

Classes: I had other commitments, so I hadn’t really expected to have much time for classes, but I did get a few in: One in particular, Playing with Past Trauma, was lovely.   The instructor gave me much food for thought — and even though the class was in line with concepts that were already familiar to me — it is always helpful to consider another person’s angle on this often controversial topic.  I was also glad to see how well the instructor handled the disagreement/discussion on personal responsibility/accountability.  Always a plus!

The second class that I felt lucky to squeeze in was on Sunday, titled, Dark Goddesses and the Path of Submission, taught by Anya Kless.  Again, I probably wouldn’t have been able to attend, had V not had an unexpected work commitment that bled into a few hours, and I was left at loose ends for a time.  But again, luckily, I can say with certainty that it was definitely an opportunity that I did not expect.  Again, this topic left me with much food for thought and gave me some information which led to several interesting connections concerning my own personal praxis.  (Though there was a certain aspect to the class that made me wonder if I should have grounded and centered before arriving, as I left with my head feeling as if it had been split open, to some degree.  Thank heavens for the lunch break that followed.)   And, concerning the realm of my social anxiety, it was good that I was able to hold myself together enough to have been able to introduce myself to her without too much trouble.

As for other learning experiences, I did find myself facing certain things about the past that I hadn’t really intended upon facing, and most of that concerned discussion of J, and what had happened with us.  I tried to be fair, but I’m certain that I came across a little more emotional that I had previously intended, but I am grateful that I handled much of what I’d needed to release without bursting into flames.

All in all, it was a good weekend.  I saw a great drag show (the Kinsey Sicks), had some long-awaited deliciously carthartic play with a dear friend, tasted some great booze (Jamison is my new ‘boyfriend’), and ran into a delightfully attractive transman who was a dead-ringer for Loki in the hotel elevator…who ended up being a very accomplished bootblack.  I was truly blessed to have received lovely service in hir chair (even if it was another situation wherein I found it difficult to completely ‘let go’ — I am grateful to have allowed myself an experience that I won’t be kicking myself for avoiding later. )

(Hail Loki, teacher of the painful and graceful lessons.)