So, I really love the SCA…

Seriously…I have the best time when I’m around this group of strange, funny people, so much that business meetings, etc. are something to look forward to. Tonight was yet another case in point. And now we have an event this weekend, and another in two weeks, and another a month from that, and a month from that. Yay!!!

Looks like I’ll miss the demo on the 4th, though: bellydance class is moving to 7:15 and that’s cutting it just too short. Sigh…but there will undoubtedly be others. The upshot to the time change, however, is that I believe there is an intermediate class right after the beginning on Tuesdays and I might try double-teaming it this month since I’ll already be there and all.

But back to the SCA. I’ve been told by several people I’ve met at events that I am really lucky to have Oldenfeld as my home Barony and I am quite in agreement. Even though there is some obvious groupings, there’s still a lot of cross-over and when pieces of different groups are all together a good time can still be had by all. Seriously a plus for the newbies who hardly know where to look first.

mew.

She whines then runs away. Not stellar on my part. But anyway.

Last night’s bellydance class was fun. Finally have the cane dance down, just need to polish it. Going to be dancing with the group for First Friday next week! Wohoo! (or really scary, depending on my mood!) Next week starts the next piece of choreography, Mach Mach (the scarf dance with hips from hell lol). Julianna asked me about helping her with the mural she wants to put on the studio wall. Her plans are really cool and it’ll be a fun project to help on when she’s ready to start.

Then things started to slip. I had trouble getting to sleep because of a tickle in my throat, got past that and then woke up a bit late and feeling none to good. I made myself go to work because a) I had invoices that needed to go to a client for their end of year, b) the mail still needed opening from yesterday, and c) I really didn’t want to resort to sick-time this month. Yeah, that lasted less than two hours. I completed ‘a’ and ‘b’ and gave up…my head was pounding from different directions, my throat was aching and I just felt horrid. Bleh. Went home and went to bed, slept on and off until about 8:3o.

Tomorrow marks an historic occasion: The last payroll I will process in house. Yup, that’s right, starting next week we’re making the gigantic leap to using a payroll service. I’ll still be processing the information in as much as figuring times, etc. but then I’ll call it in or whatever and be done. AND…we’re offering direct deposit now. Wohoo! It will be a time of transition, of course, but this now opens the door to making some other changes that are needed, in the name of progress and so forth. Next week we’ll be viewing a presentation on a new program that might fit our needs, and if so, I get to travel for training…all the way up to Massachussetts! This means I’d have to fly! On a plane! Eek! But hey, as long as it doesn’t conflict with an event I’m game lol

And now? Bedtime for Bonza-Jen!

Daydreams

I sometimes wonder if anyone (everyone?) lives in their head as much as I do. I always accepted that it was normal taken to an extreme by my various neuroses, but maybe I’m not that far off. Maybe?

I’ve always had an active imagination, am always thinking over things that happened and how they could have happened if I’d just said or done something slightly more brilliant. In addition, I’m looking ahead to things (confrontations, inevitabilities) and trying to prepare myself for every conceivable variation of the outcome of even a simple ‘hello’. This is where I think I get a little weird. I hate to be surprised. No, wait, that’s not quite it. I love to be really truly surprised in a good way, it just hardly ever happens. I never really learned how to handle surprises, so they scare me a little. That’s more correct. And as such, I’m always trying to figure out where someone or something is going before they get there, before I get there, and I try to run through my reactions four or five ways until I come up with something I’m happy with. It’s like when I was in highschool and would totally re-write my homework if I didn’t like the way my handwriting looked. And I changed my handwriting periodically. And somehow, whenever someone compliments my handwriting I cannot help but share that little anectdote.

But I digress.

So my mind’s always running these what-if scenarios involving me, my family, my coworkers, friends, strangers, and a whole cast of second-string make-believe people or people I’ve barely met and have built up in my head. They make up for things being relatively calm when its quiet at the apartment, they lull me to sleep after I’ve put down the book and turned off the bedside light (and checked the alarm setting for the second time and get up to check the deadbolt because I’ve been lax about flipping it when I first get home). But sometimes, sometimes the daydreams stop.

Last night was one of those times.

When that happens I’m forced to not only take a stark look at reality (which I’m always aware of, that’s what my plans and scenarios usually focus on) but look at me, as I am: not how I want to be. Now that I’m single I find myself thinking back to relationships past and picking out the things I’d like to keep, the parts I liked, and leaving out the parts I don’t want to relive with whomever comes along, because of course someone will eventually come along, right? And there it is, the doubt. Now, granted, law of averages says I cannot possibly be through with all my allotted relationships at 29 years of age. And I’m not in any hurry because it really is rather soon after the split, but I do have to wonder, with so many missed chances in the past…will I always be, as Barbara Mandrell sang, sleeping single in a double bed?

I’m okay on my own. Somedays better. Most days my mind is too busy to think about it, and I think I prefer it that way. But there are things I miss. Having someone to lean on (not in a dependent kind of way, more a comfort thing), having someone to hug. I laid in bed last night with only the fan turning and the sound of the dog’s breathing surrounding me. I had left my eye mask off for once, for a little while, and the light coming through the blinds outlined the blank walls in the bedroom. The totally uninteresting ceiling. The stark relief of the pattern on my sheets.

Earlier in the day I had leveled with myself on some things. Self, you know it’s silly to keep thinking this person is a part of your life. That’s past and gone, not going to change, and you don’t even really want it to; do you? Well, no, it’s just nice to think about. But I’m right, I just need to stop.

So I did, and it was fine, until silence hit and my mind was still for the first time in months, and I felt the most alone I have ever felt. I reasoned with myself, out loud because it was just too damn quiet, and knew that I wasn’t a hopeless case. But the fear is there, the fear that while I’m sure I’ll eventually hang things on the bedroom wall, that I’ll definitely move again (I’m even toying with the idea of buying a house in a couple of years), the fear is that I’ll always just be going home to the dog.

Still, I don’t consider myself desparate for some sort of filler psuedo-relationship. I know better than that. I’ve been there before, years ago, and I don’t want to go back there because it’s just plain unappetizing. Still, I miss knowing that there’s one person out there who considers my every word and whim the utmost of importance. I miss being able to do little things for one special person–because while I may suck at being a wife, I kick ass at girlfriend level (either platonic or otherwise). I miss the other half of the pairing, my lobster as Phoebe would say, or that strange belly-button incompleteness that comes from one of those old Greeks that they talked about in the Butcher’s wife.

Oh go google it and give yourself something to wonder about.

I am apparently…

a black hole for rulers. Or, rather, my home is. Sigh…I know I had it earlier. On the table where I’m working. Today. But where my blue plastic ruler is now is anyone’s guess. It’s slipped into that fourth dimension to rendevous with my nice 18″ metal ruler that went missing shortly after the move.

Nonetheless, page 2 of my scroll is going well…I have the blocks captioned (in pencil), 3 completely sketched and 2 more partially sketched. The one that is not even begun is the one I had partially done last night before I realized I wasn’t in the correct style for my example. So I erased it and put it off to the end for some reason. Really it will be easier to render since the Cantigas style is very two-dimensional, which is why the other panels have gone so well. Of course it would be so much simpler if I had my ruler (grr)…a yard stick just doesn’t do it.

Oh, I found out last night that Dreamhost has a one-button-install for Gallery! So now there is a photo album on my site. Wohoo. Of course I didn’t have much on this computer to upload (will have to chance that) so I just uploaded one as a test–my self-portrait from Watercolors. Go see!

Hit or Miss

Weekends can be a great thing, or they can suck. It really is hit or miss. This weekend, well, through no fault of its own is leaning towards sucking…either than or I’m just really too tired to make anything of it. Half my to-do list is done, and Shrek is on TV, but I have it on DVD so it’s not like I have to just sit and watch it (of course watching DVDs ties up the laptop because I haven’t added an electronic components since the move. I need to though, and update the TV! Mine’s a smidge on the small size). But I’m seriously considering giving up for the day and going to bed very early. I feel so old…