After waxing philosiphical, I have to take a moment and pout.

I had this absolutely fantastic weekend!

But I had to go back to to work today...

Now... for the shout.

apotropaic!

I have a new cookbook.

It has a healthy section of vegetarian main dishes...

When you coming over for dinner again? :)

Raen.

I continue to be very thankful to cricketbug for the very useful information about mustard and burns. This weekend, while cooking dinner, I managed to slosh full on boiling water onto my hand.

Ow...

A couple of minutes of cold water wash, followed by lots of mustard, and a couple of hours later my hand was much happier.

In other news, had a good weekend in general. Went down to see mentalgremlin, made it up to Boulder on Saturday, had dinner with a couple of friends, and even made a new friend... and then went to see Hancock on Sunday.

Go see Hancock... all of the stuff from the preview is in the first ten to fifteen minutes of the movie... and its a _good_ thing. Although the movie may not be what you'd expect, it was still really good.

On the downside, Iggy's sick. His nose is swollen, he's congested, and he's attempting to sneeze but not quite pulling it off. He's also _very_ prone to cuddling. While he's at the oncologyst today they're going to do a chest x-ray and see how he's doing. Fortunately, today's not a treatment day... its a blood test day.

Foodwise, I misbehaved most of last week and the weekend. That's okay, though... I figure I deserved the break from being so stringently good. This week, its back on the wagon while last_bastion and I see if we can make that effort to get back into the workout routine.

*smiles* I'm not mad enough at myself to motivate completely into it yet... an that 5am start time he's talking about could prove problematic. Case in point, our alarm started going off this morning at 5:30. I turned it off, knowing that we had to get the cat to the vet, got up, and then promptly crawled back into bed when last_bastion wasn't quite getting up quickly enough.

I am not a morning person.

Now, its back to the grind. *smiles*

Raen.

Sick.

I caught the crap that last_bastion had last week. Stuffed head, in general hot, off and on headachy. I'm trying to bull doze through it while taking care of myself... I have plans for the weekend, and I'd rather not see them get shot all to hell because my immune system can't handle anything that last_bastion catches.

*heaves a sigh* So, anyway... since y'all are listening...

We made it down to Colorado Springs again last weekend, and the Garden of the Gods. It was a very beautiful place, and I could see how I could spend a long time walking around it. It was nice to immerse in the natural rhythm of a place, and to feel something so starkly different than the rest of the landscape that so resonated an age greater than me (you/us) towering above. The wind was cutting through it, slicing off tiny layers of limestone and driving it into my hair, my eyes, and my teeth. It was a truly wonderful experience.

And, before I got sick... so all the better for it.

mentalgremlin and his wife were kind enough to host, and fed us, and carted us around the area. All in all, it was an enjoyable day. Even if I made the mistake of trying funnel cake again... which tasted very good, but proceeded to sit in my stomach like lead.

Speaking of stomachs... tried a new dish tonight. The South Beach version of mashed potatoes... which involved steaming cauliflower, and then running it through a blender. It was a little wet tonight, but I can see where with some work I'll love this as a dish. Its no _real_ replacement for mashed spuds (there is nothing like starch when you're wanting comfort food...), but it was tasty enough.

....

You know, I hate being in the middle of being sick. 'Cause it always feels like you're just not going to feel normal again.

Feh.

Raen.

Okay... so I've been here a week now. Thought it high time that I told y'all something about it.

( The State of Things... )

I'm in the process of going back through my journal and tagging everything to make previous posts easier to find.

This isn't so much of a statement until you realize that I've been journaling since 2001... August, in face. I've kept a lot of me pictured up here... sometimes obscurely, sometimes not so much so. Sometimes its happy, sometimes its depressed, and everything in between. Like it or not, you'll see me in here.

This. My space. My thoughts. For no one but me...

... and an occasional way to track down a friend for easier communication.

Tonight has made me nostalgic, though... in a sad way. I really miss somniaro. He was a friend of mine in developing that I met through deramani... and I haven't heard from him in ages. You'll find him mentioned in my journal quite a bit early on. In a similar fashion to me, he tends toward eternal optimism... and the view of optimism as a chosen state of mind.

At some point, I'm going to need to track down an e-dress for him... drop him a line... and just see how he's doing.

In the mean time, I think bed's in order. That, and I need to get the visiting black neighbor demon out of the main house so the cats can have some peace and quiet.

Raen.

I've lead a very uneventful life... to a point.

I've come to this conclusion.

At least, up until the point that I moved out of my house, went to college, and hooked up with certain people. Really, I lead a very normal life. Pretty bland by comparison to most of the people around me. Worst thing that happened to me in school was getting picked on for having glasses and being about two grades ahead of the classes I was in. Bruises go away, and thought and consideration conciously paid to selfworth eventually do eat enough from the foundation of the tower of selfabasement that we can look at ourselves with some semblance of pride:

I enjoy the color of my eyes even if not the lines around them; I'm aware of the fact that when I apply myself I excell in classes where others don't/won't; and while it takes some effort at times, I'm proud of the fact that I can tolerate as a person a whole hell of a lot more from my fellow man than most of the rest of my species.

All of us have some esteem even if only a little, and I believe the above words would qualify as a statement of guilty pleasure. But I'm straying far off topic.

I've lead a very normal life. Life didn't become 'abnormal' from a societal standpoint until a couple of things shook me up, another few dropped me a few degrees, some very important ones picked me up, and I myself had a lot of time for introspection. In a manner of speaking, I think of that period of my life as wresting the leash from the hands it shouldn't have been in and gradually beginning to pull it toward myself. The hands in question...? Parents, schools, inadequacies, neurosies, and standard society in general.

Then life got strange... at least, from an outside viewpoint. Strange is not necessarily bad, we should remember. Just different.

But I'm off topic again.

I've lead a pretty "normal" life.

I have a lot of people I'm fortunate enough to call friends. The number of them increases slowly but surely over the course of the years. Some drop away when I wish they would hold me closer, then others surprise me by appearing out of nowhere to bear hug me with a ferocity I didn't know existed. I suppose that's life, though.

And I'm off topic.

There was a point to saying I've lead a normal life, after all. Its a point of pain, to a degree, because a lot of those friends I hold close and dear to me have been through a lot in one sense or another. Many of them have scars, though its the friends who carry their's less visibly than others that really worry me. I've been reminded of their presence more and more recently; some with new appearances, others in more smarting ways. For a lot of them, the scars shroud the world itself. That in and of itself is hard to watch.

But I also know I'm not the _only_ person out there who lead a life perfectly free of the manner of things that haunt these friends of mine. Likewise, I know I'm not the only bleeding heart worn proudly if sometimes tearfully on my sleeve. And I know I'm not the only one who would take it all away if I could. And while I know those good friends of whom I'm speaking would look at me, some of them frown, and tell me they wouldn't wish it on me (or anyone else)... I'm not discounting you. I'm just thinking out loud about how I wish I could take it all away. But since I can't I suppose I'll just have to work on making tomorrow a better place... one in which you can say "You know, it wasn't a fair start... but things are looking pretty good today."

*smiles* Interesting how the world feeds itself sometimes.

Just being thoughtful....

Raen.

Yeah... that about sums it up.

Long day... long day before... but so gratifying. *smiles*

I love Christmas. I love the smell of fresh pine in the house, the lights on trees, wrapping presents (even the paper cuts that happen as a result), and knowing that the days creep closer to the grand opening on Christmas day... and the trickle that follows as friends who couldn't be there appear out of thing air to receive their gifts.

*smiles* Let the giving commence, yes? Already in motion...

But that wasn't all of the weekend. Friends were the other part. Friends I don't get to see often enough even if one was sick... and one in particular that I don't often get the time to just chill with. *grins* Thank the gods for some small pleasures in life, and being able to catch up on it.

So... a reiteration... to the Cinci House... Merry Christmas, and we'll see ya at New Year's. ;)

Raen.