who only by moving can balance

I am now in the habit of eating chilli oil by the spoonful straight out of the jar AND I KNOW WHOSE FAULT IT IS.

(however Aforementioned Individual would probably be appalled by the Abomination I am drinking)

(it is aloe drink + rose water + basil seeds)

(I have no regrets)

In which we determine that caramelised red onions consitute barrier protection:

kaberett: oh come on, it was totally a cheese toastie
noldo: NOPE WAS NOT
kaberett: it was a cheese. fucking. toastie.
noldo: EW that is gross and anyway OBVIOUSLY I would give them some privacy. I could NEVER COME BETWEEN THEIR PERFECT LOVE.
kaberett: ... the caramelised red onions did, though.

(Awesome Housemate C.: ... you do realise, don't you, that putting this on the Internet would be really. irresponsible.
n: ALL THE MORE REASON TO DO SO.)

---

On capturing our inner elephant:

kaberett: ... but my inner elephant roams wild and free across the savannahs of my heart
noldo: no, elephants like like jungles and shit

It's been another year in which Neil Gaiman has done things which distress or annoy me, but it's also the first year in which I feel I can say that this wish came wholeheartedly true:

May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you're wonderful, and don't forget to make some art -- write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself.

I got medicated. I didn't plan suicide. I started afresh with wanting to learn. I got DLA and a wheelchair - and another wheelchair. I took a train to Germany, cooked a huge pile of lasagna with footpad, (finally!) met his wonderful beautiful dog, and watched him get married. I spent a glorious, fantastic, nonsensical week in Singapore (with a day-trip to Malaysia) with noldo, mustela_nivalis, and azuire, and I've got the Myspace photo of the four of us on the southernmost point of continental Asia on my bedside table. I learned to code - I've got five? six? patches actually live in the actual Dreamwidth codebase. I migrated my Dreamhack from Mercurial Queues in a CVS repository to github. I went to Edinburgh for the Fringe - I never thought I'd be cool enough to do that. I went to Austria and read scientific papers and watched the swallows migrating and felt like I was home. I read and I wrote - poetry I take seriously; fanfic I take seriously; fanfic I really don't; songs for Lashings, safer space policies for VP; essays and analyses and notelets and most of my Master's project and my diary. I kissed really rather a lot of people who think I'm wonderful. I made a library; I made new friends; I made grad school applications.

I took care of myself. I made mistakes; I was kind, as much as I could be. I took care of other people, as much as I could do.


So here's my plan for 2013: I'm going to try to graduate, and if that doesn't work out that's okay. Whatever else happens, I'm going to spend the summer on me. Come autumn I'll move on to something new - and I don't yet know what, but I don't have to, either. I'm going to read poetry and novels and some more of the Hard Stuff, because I'm starting to be in a place where I can cope with that again. I'm going to finish watching Buffy and Angel. I'm going to write.

I'm going to take risks and I'm going to take care and I'm going to keep on finding out how to best be myself.

Thank you all, so much, for taking care of me and sticking with me this year. Here's to you. <3

( context, i.e. the immediately preceding part of the conversation )

noldo: PUMPKINS: THE TRUE OPPRESSOR
noldo: ...
noldo: by the time I'm 40 I'm going to have a conspiracy theory about every single vegetable in existence, aren't I
kaberett: yes
noldo: RIGHT
noldo: BETTER GET CRACKING THEN
kaberett: face
noldo: HOW DO I FEEL ABOUT BEETROOT, I WONDER
kaberett: I do not think
kaberett: this will actually
kaberett: require
kaberett: any especial effort
kaberett: on your part
kaberett: ...
kaberett: I've met you
noldo: you _know_ how many vegetables there are out there, right?
noldo: by the time I get through every single fucking variety of spinach in India I'm going to be sixty
noldo: anyway
noldo: pumpkins
noldo: they would bite you and draw your blood
noldo: only they don't got teeth
noldo: so they enlist the help of the blood service
kaberett: ...
kaberett: ...
kaberett: ...
noldo: THIS IS WHY BLOOD DRIVES
noldo: IT'S THE PUMPKINS
noldo: I'M NEVER DONATING BLOOD AGAIN
kaberett: ...
kaberett: this is going on DW
kaberett: jsyk
noldo: oh god
noldo: you realise at this rate
noldo: everyone on DW is going to think I am some sort of tinhat nutter wait never mind carry on
noldo: if the shoe fits etc etc

[previously: Antarctic onion-herding, citrus fruit grow underground, perplexed clementines, multilingual list of edible plants that are evil and must be destroyed, mangoes, potatoes, bonus sharks okay those aren't actually vegetables]

kaberett: GERMANY
noldo: I WAS TALKING ABOUT ROOT VEGETABLES
kaberett: NEVER LET IT OUT BY ITSELF
kaberett: IT MAKES STUPID WORDS
noldo: SO I WAS REALLY CONFUSED
noldo: AND WAS LIKE ALEX ORANGES ARE NOT ROOT VEGETABLES
noldo: WHAT ARE YOU DOING
noldo: um
noldo: face
noldo: okay
noldo: help me out here

[...]

noldo: okay
noldo: face
noldo: I thought you were attempting to give me the German for Taro
noldo: this is the fundamental confusion here
noldo: I was like what is going on
noldo: why am I in the weird universe
noldo: why is it the citrus fruit grow underground universe


[The management is happy to inform you that in German taro is either der Taro or, rather less helpfully, die Wasserbrotwurzel.]

You're welcome.

(Am beginning to work through music recs. Thank you for all of them!)

O dear, eheu, oi moi, etc. A wailing and a gnashing of teeth!¹

I am awake. It is three in the morning. This is sub-optimal. It is especially sub-optimal because my sleep cycle has been kind of shot recently², and tonight I actually got to bed by about 10.30.

Why, then, am I not asleep?

Because I have been coughing so hard that my eyes are getting bloodshot, my sternum hurts when I breathe, and surgery scars are acting up. It is not fun okay.

Therefore I shall offer you evidence of my doings in times recent. The journal of the thrice-esteemed noldo contains one conversation and one perplexed clementine. Below the cut you will find an (unbeta'd, concrit welcome) A:tLA fic. And, do you know, between that and coughing and watching this Dr Who fanvid on loop, that's about all I've been up to.

¹ Teeth? Will be provided.
² Winning combination of grief and stress and depression. See also: reasons I have not been terribly social.

( A fic! )