bending_sickle | I was away, I don’t know where, lying on the floor, pretending I was dead.*

Good gods, I haven't written here in a long time, and what's worse is that I've had a post and LotD ready - well, constantly being added to - for a week now but just can never seem to get around to doing anything about it besides that. So here, have some post. There's a lot of whining and moping and aaaahing which may explain why I'm not writing much or doing anything at all.

Or you could skip to the photographs, fanart and links. Whatev'.

So, yeah, I'm not dead. Again. I've been home from Chicago - visiting my brother - for ~~a week~~ three weeks now and am still in the thrall of jet lag. (Edit: This is still more or less true.) It really doesn't help that jet lag in this direction is really just an exageration of my own night-owlish tendencies. Aw well, tomorrow, I will set the alarm clock and well see what happens to the world in the morning.

I have so little oomf it's ridiculous. There's emails I haven't replied to - to say nothing of a whole email account I haven't looked at, y'know, the important one that jobs and job-having people have. *sigh* I haven't even been able to write. Just tumblr. And even that has lost some of it's shine. LIvejournal, I've afraid to say, has lost so much of it's shine it's like antimatter. I keep getting spam comments - annonymous or from puppets - in Russian, or at least Cyrillic, and it's getting really, really annoying.

So yeah, I'm going to try and get back on the job-hunting horse, evil beast that it is. I might trade it in for the find another place and country to live in pony, because maybe that'll work better (until, of course, I go broke). But actually I might need to saddle that pony soon because my dad's been put on his Occupation's the lottery list of folk who might get sent back to Home Country, whiiiich, yeah. I'm not following them back. Which leaves me with right about nothing in this world but a desperate need for a place to live, preferrably not in this country because I don't like it here, and also, some form of employment. And I've realized that I couldn't care less about my studies, about everything it's all about. I do not care. I don't want to work in that area. Which leaves me with nothing but facepalms and headdesks and why the fuck didn't I study forensics or psychiatry or something goddamn applicable and useful for a change litanies which help no one.

Chicago was nice, though. Hadn't seen my brother in over a year, although I'll be seeing him again in June for his wedding (!!!). I had had the vague hope of staring the job-hunting there, but my number one priority was to just get my shit together. I did, sort of, but am rapidly unravelling said shit now, thanks to my mother and the potential-homelessness situation.

But like I said, Chicago was nice. I didn't get myself back together enough to make any great progress, but I wrote a little, made some fanart, both of which are good signs because I made shit. It was great being away from the nest, and especially great being with normal people with normal expectations and reactions and who fucking respect your choices or even just yourself. Myself. Whatever. It was especially lovely when we spent a weekend at a couple's house in Idaho, watching reality TV (cooking and clothes design, mainly). I was surrounded by normal people being nice to each other and it was kind of sad that that was such a novelty. But whatever, it was a balm to the soul, I tell you.

I even got to go the the Shedd Aquarium, which was especially great because they had a jellyfish special exhibit (disappointingly small), and I seem to have gained a jellyfish thing.

But right now, I'm just trying to keep my head above water when I really should be on land already and yeah that metaphor isn't working. I mean that it's hard enough to keep the staus quo from sinking when what I need to do is make it fly. Again, metaphor not working. One last try. Simply keeping myself together is hard enough, so doing more than that and, y'know, getting a fucking move on with my life, is just a tiny bit hard.

I'm anxious. I've come to realize I have an anxiety thing. Maybe not a Thing, of course. But certainly a thing. Like, gee willikers, breathing seems to be a bit hard and erratic and unsatisfying today. Like, I've just woken up and I hate everything because I've already failed at today. That kind of anxiety. The kind you can't identify because you can't stare at it too hard for too long or it'll burn right through you. Sorry, I seem to be all metaphorical now after such a long writing drought.

This anxiety comes out in dreams, too. I had a long one where I was screaming at my mother all these hurt emotions, these I am a human being with feelings and my emotions are valid things, just pure frustration and hurt and I matter spewing out of my mouth. Except not really. Because my throat was so tight my larynx was practically hugging my pituitary and I could barely breathe, like when you're trying not to cry and it hurts and you think you might never be able to swallow ever again. And my words came out as high-pitched whispers that dragged glass through my throat, but at least they came out. Muteness wasn't happening. But gods, it hurt.

Of course, sometimes I'm lucky enough to have the other kind of dreams, where I'm on the second story of a beautiful house with no walls, open to a forest and rain everywhere, and Current Crush waltzes up the stairs with flour and a smirk on his lips and kisses me. That one was good.

Although my daydreams, which are usually a good measure of what I'm dealing with and how I'm coping, aren't too comforting. I mean, the POint of View's been tortured, then there's a lot of just sitting around with in the company of a vague and unresponsive presence. Which, y'know, yay.

Today I tried to do stuff, though. I achieved a few things, namely writing three emails and putting up glow-in-the-dark stars (although why the fuck I'm getting around to decorating my room a) after two years and b) when I'm going to have to leave is just something I don't understand). That's it. That's all. But I'm dragging my feet a lot and things are hard and slow and just not happening.

I'll finish with a quote from

phantmgreeneyes, who's a darling and is more eloquent and explanative than I am at the moment: "...I should be proud of the small victories I made this week. And I did. I had some definite wins. But I still don't know what the fuck I'm doing in life. I'm not living. Whatever this is, it's not living. I just don't know how to change, and I'm not sure where to find the strength to try." There's so many people in this boat it hurts but it's a little comfort as well One of us is going to find safe harbour and then we can all cheer because yes it can be done.

Chicago photos: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8

More Fanart, A Softer World Remixes:

Quotes of the Day: EM Forster, A Room With a View & John Green, The Fault in Our Stars

There is a certain amount of kindness, just as there is a certain amount of light,' he continued in measured tones. 'We cast a shadow on something wherever we stand, and it is no good moving from place to place to save things; because the shadow always follows. Choose a place where you won't do harm - yes, choose a place where you won't do very much harm, and stand in it for all you are worth, facing the sunshine.

I’m in love with you, and I’m not in the business of denying myself the simple pleasure of saying true things. I’m in love with you, and I know that love is just a shout into the void, and that oblivion is inevitable, and that we’re all doomed and that there will come a day when all our labor has been returned to dust, and I know the sun will swallow the only earth we’ll ever have, and I’m in love with you.

Links of the Day:
Supernatural:

dean_sam's flocked Official Magazine #30, Part 2, Part 3

mediocrechick's Scans Entertainment Weekly: Shippers and fanfic

wolfpup2000's Masterlist NashCon12 Photos

inplayruns' Meta Dean Winchester and Depression

i_speak_tongue's Meta Because Dean just doesn't do "helpless" - On guilt and 7x14

missjack's Meta Foreshadowing in 7x14

princess_aleera's Fic Mute!Cas 'Verse Masterpost

secretlytodream's Fanvid Always Find Me Here
affairsmagazine's The Supernatural Phenomenon: A Peek into the Fandom - ♥

Sherlock:

humansrsuperior's Doctor Who Crossover Fanvid A Million Ways to be Cruel

redscharlach's Fanart Sherlympics

Other Fandom:

theweaselking's Star Wars Oi, Lucas

chloris67's Picspam Much Ado About Nothing Picspam (Tate & Tennant)
temporarilyobsessive's BtVS Meta Buffy vs. Season 6

Random:

tracy_loo_who's Previous Entry Add to memories! Share Track This Report as Adult Next Entry
Alps + Cairo + Abu Dhabi + India Part I

greygirlbeast's Scan of upcoming graphic novel, Alabaster ; the cover for the review galleys of After, an anthology of YA post-apocalyptica, edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling. The book will be out in October [...]

ursulav's On Id-Fic - "Good? Of course it’s not good! What does “good” have to do with it? I read for pleasure, not so that I can whip out my reading list at parties. If I want self-improvement, I will take a yoga class."

theweaselking's Happy news: real news, compelling stories, always positive ; USA begins to realise that the Century Of The Fruitbat has passed them by and try to catch up. - "Further, after concluding that neither the law nor the record can sustain any of the interests suggested, the Court, having tried on its own, cannot conceive of any additional interests that DOMA might further." - US District Court Judge Jeffrey S White, ruling today that the Defense Of Marriage Act is unconstitutional." ; GIF The Universe ; Recipes ; Dog and kitten playfighting ; Washington dragged kicking and screaming into the Century of the Fruitbat. ; Molecular coffee ; Stanford surgeons put pacemaker in 15 minute old baby. Yes, "minute", not "month". ; Giant squi always wins! ; Clockwork hummingbird ; Chainsaw bicyle - For the zombipocalypse.

made_of_fail_pc's Episode Fifty-One: Tell Me About the Kittens, George
News Feed History of the World: WWII - Facebook style
Karanarora's Insane art formed by carving books with surgical tools
BBC's Italy plans to tax Vatican on commercial properties
Wiki's Sophie Hunger (singer) ; Ambre Heard (Supernatural fandom's Deanna Winchester ; Mads Langer (singer)
Andrew Scott on his character in Chasing Cotards
The Hunger Games vs. Battle Royale: TV Tropes, Geek Furious, Good Reads
XKCD's Good Cop, Dadaist Cop
cakemeister's If you live in the United States and don't have health insurance, you qualify for discounted prescription drugs

* Richard Siken, "Snow and Dirty Rain"

I was away, I don’t know where, lying on the floor, pretending I was dead.*

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