I'm home in my bed, I sent mail to my parents about visiting them, I wrote notes on my whiteboard for things I need to do, I've been falling asleep far too easily mid-day for two days, why can't I sleep now?!

Feels like I forgot to do, or remind someone to do, something. I have no idea what.

(lack of sun antidote)

http://www.zooborns.com/zooborns/2009/07/calgary-zoos-swift-foxes.html
http://www.zooborns.com/zooborns/2009/06/otter-twins-in-auckland-unbearably-cute.html
http://www.zooborns.com/zooborns/2009/06/a-cougars-best-friend.html

The Treo itself is insane, due to sad screen, but I do still have a battery, stylus, power cable and powercable/computer connector that I'm not going to be using and prefer not to just trash.

Anyone need them?

So, my iPhone should be arriving sometime today. In an attempt to _not_ be entirely focused on 'is it there yet? is it now?', I'm wondering what those of you with iPhones what iPhone apps would suggest I install, when I have it?

(I do already have a minimal amount of info, from searching on my own, and from metahacker, but even so!)

(soon, there shall be a functional phone with decent service at home. Sooooon!)

Darned GMs of real life!

http://www.weregeek.com/2009/06/19/

In 'slightly less exhausted and doomy but apparently very disconnected' news:

There was watching of Star Trek and dinner having with metahacker and galaneia Sunday evening. It was charming and delightful and sad and very well done!

There was a majes' birthday party and all that entails (also, I got to see jasra's new room!).

I shall have a replacement phone at end of week or beginning of next (probably Saturday, but you never know).

Conversations with metahacker regarding the 'whys' of grad school help with future essay-ness, and I now have shelving what needs sealing but which I _have_.

Swimming this morning, even though not sleeping made me want to go find a quiet, dark, hidden corner in the basement to hide in (I kind of still want this, actually). Also, hot tub to help calm my damn muscles down and hopefully make them let me sleep tonight (also, no really, take aleve tonight, self!)!

Swimming at 6am means that all the lanes are available, which is fascinating, but not enough reason to try to go at that time regularly. (also, I probably could have gone at 5am, when I finished my book, had I but known!)

Saw the sun rise. Not my favorite thing to do, but still! Even with the rain, it was kind of cool.

I feel like I've been hungry all the time for the past two days. This may mean that I'm failing to eat decent meals, and may contribute to having failed to sleep last night. Lunchtime at work means I will have at least one decent meal today, though. I do wish I would stop staring in the fridge and finding absolutely nothing that appeals, though.

This is very much not a reflection on what's available for me to eat, BTW. Or if it is, I don't know that it is! At work, for lunch, if nothing else appeals, I can always have a salad with all sorts of crazy ingredients that I don't have to chop up or worry will go bad before they get eaten or anything. This is much of why I like eating salads not at home, incidentally!

I didn't eat breakfast, because I was going crazy because I was up all night and wanted to Get Out Of The House Now. And so, 7:30am work start time, including swimming and lolly-gagging (fun word, that) in the hottub. Also, I'm totally going home between 2:30 and 3. If I last that long.

Rice cakes & meal bars not very filling. I don't think lunch is available before 11, though.

I had inexplicable voicemail. Very vrooomy, though, whatever it was. Vroooom! (my phone makes a specific noise when I have just gotten voicemail, so I was reminded to check it from another phone!)

My head, it doth hurt.

Being reminded that I have restless legs, which had apparently been being masked by previous constant anti-inflams.

Not being awake enough to _take_ an aleve before it was far too late to actually be able to get any sleep.

My phone failing to be useful. (someone just texted me! Gah!)

Other people's emotional states being something I have to care about (can we say 'emotionally raw'? I knew we could!). The degree to which this is problematic right now? The bickering of the party members in Neverwinternights 2 made me want to kill them (since without a party my character would not survive, this makes actually playing the game not a fun thing right now). WoW is also a problem, because I don't want to interact with anyone and being in a guild means that I see what people say. I never did figure out how to temporarily turn _off_ guild chat...

Grrr. I hate people right now, so comments are off.

But I don't know what for.

I hate that!

My phone, it is a sad phone! Dropped it with rather a lot of force because I failed spectacularly to catch it when I fumbled getting it out earlier, and now the screen doesn't do anything useful.

I can still answer the phone. I can still hear existing reminders for appointments (and because of familiarity with the interface, acknowledge them).

I cannot call out, I cannot see or send SMSes, I have no idea who is calling when people call. I have no access to any of my data.

I was already planning to get an iPhone when available, and indeed there is one now all set up to ship to me on the 19th. Until then, I may or may not use a cheap temporary phone. The main badness is a lack of my data, and a cheap temporary phone won't help with that (but it _would_ let me call out and know who is calling me and see numbers that I have put into it).

Sad phone screen. Also, please don't text me! :)

Settling in, starting to figure out where I need to put more structure (it's _so_ strange having three housemates, and living with a partner), and what I'm likely to drive myself crazy with if I'm not careful.

Main problem? Figuring out how to not over-socialize myself between work and home. At least it's summer, so I have time to adjust when I'm _not_ intensely anti-social! This includes time to play silly computer games, both social ones (WoW) and not (NWN2), read, and play outside when it's nice out. This _also_ includes time for working on grad school applications stuff. At least working from home two days a week means that I can get small tidying and such done during work breaks and lunch, and not have to do _that_ during my minimal available time. (I had no idea how much time I had due to being undersocialized!)

Beginning stages of GRE prep. I don't have to take the CS subject one, and I don't _have_ to (but probably should) take the Psych subject one.

A little too early to do much with the applications themselves. Should start essays, though.

Changing from swimming Tuesday and Friday nights to weekday mornings. Second day of this; so far, so good! Hard getting up earlier, but it does mean that I have more _time_ in the evenings. Also, getting into a habit of swimming is a really, really good thing. It's probably one of the few forms of exercise that I won't get bored with. However, it's a hard adjustment and I'm _exhausted_ in the evenings. Hopefully that will adjust.

But having more weeknight time again _should_ mean I can actually go visit people in addition to existing weekly scheduled interaction times. Which will be nice!

Eeeeee! Yay!

Tablet PC WORKS!

*testing glee*

once escorted. Go read it.

Am suspecting that two ativan at night, while permitting me to fall asleep faster (assuming stress doesn't override them) also causes me to have much trouble getting up in the morning and being drowsy all day. Not really a fan, so back to one and taking longer to fall asleep. So far, so good.

I would like it to be a little less easy for me to get into states where I'm not functional due to stress or overwhelmedness or whatever. So, after much conversation with metahacker, I shall be investigating having a therp (therp! Therp! Therp! the_xtina, I blame you) to try to work on things which are non-urgent (my entire experience with mental health professionals up until now has been for urgent stuff). I am not really sure how I feel about this.

Starting to investigate application processes for grad school, to be ordering transcripts once I'm home and have envelopes and my checkbook and such. Am vaguely annoyed that the earliest application deadline place does not yet have available the electronic application for next year, and that one of my application places requires that you do the entire electronic application in a single setting. Ah, well.

Soon, I shall need to start taking a stab at various personal statement things. That'll be weird! I don't recall my undergrad application at all, although I'm sure I had similar things to do then.

I've two people from my two last classes at UML as potential recommenders (one would prefer not, as he did not have much interaction with me and it was entirely online, but at least one of the schools wants two in academia, and another wherever), and two boss/co-worker-type people. So I should be good on recommendations.

Settling better into new location. I always seem to forget how hard moving is on me. Which is probably good, or I might try to never move again, and usually there is good reason to do so, when I do!

I would like to sleep without nightmares, now, yes.

Hey, at least I was competent (more so than I actually am, I suspect) in the nightmares. And the kitty was kind enough to wake me from them.

Tired girl is tired.

I instead show all of you this pretty shirt. It's cotton, which is good, although I'd like more color options and/or multiple colors in one. But pretty!

And I'm not buying it because I don't need more clothing! (although I don't think I have much that is dressy, not black, and cotton...)

*not buying it*

Sometimes I am surprised by the conversations I have when I come out as unusual (in any of the ways that I am) to people.

I have had more conversations about face blindness & polyamory with random co-workers than I would _ever_ have expected.

And it's so... _sad_ when I run into people who probably should be poly, but for cultural expectations and the ways that has affected their live paths.

It frustrates me so much that cheating is defined, in this culture at least, as someone in a committed relationship having sex with someone else. That's too specific, and doesn't leave open the possibility of _talking_ to people about it to figure out what is actually ok and not ok.

For reference, cheating is - in my world - not sticking to relationship boundaries/agreements, whatever they are. For most people, yes, sexual relations with someone not their partner would be cheating. Some of those relationships have even discussed it and agreed on that as part of their relationship boundaries. But never having discussed it seems broken. This is coming, of course, from the perspective of someone who is poor at picking up on cultural expectations and thus prefers discussion so that she has any idea what is expected of her and so that she knows if a relationship will simply not be possible.

I don't mind monogamy when it is right for the people in question. I don't understand it, but it doesn't _bother_ me. I don't mind it when the people in a relationship actually talk to each other. I do mind it when relationships are built on cultural norms, and not questioned, not discussed. When people cannot even have close friendships with people of the gender of their partner because said partner feels threatened. And somehow, this is not only ok but accepted and encouraged in popular culture. Or so it seems. Why is this ok? Why is this a good thing?

Good weekend.

Wedding of youngest sister = entire family in one place + them meeting metahacker + crazy walk in the woods involving swarms of mosquetos + preeetty lakes. Also, lots of time with metahacker!

Visiting people I did not yet know, their puppy, and their pond. Frogs! Tadpoles! Red-winged blackbirds!

BBQ, odd games involving multiple colored balls and throwing them at a smaller white ball, random conversations.

From http://followsthesun.com/?p=149 (NSFW!)

"[...] I worked hard to become One Of The Guys, and rather than fight the laughing misogyny of the young bastards I hung out with, I absorbed it. I have it to this day, meshing poorly with deep seated feminism — a feeling that if women are just as smart and capable as men are, if only they would stop being so fucking irrational all the time."

I. Um. Yes.

I have deep-seated conviction that women are crazy. Irrational, manipulative, needy, game-playing, untrustworthy.

( this got long )

Via the_xtina, Free Range Kids at Salon.

Not that I have kids, but _yes_.

I can has playground and swingsets and monkeybars and *gleeee*! :)

And there was time with jasra, and it was very, very good.

We haven't really had time which wasn't involved with me packing or something in weeks.

And while today was largely involved in unpacking things and making my room more a _room_, and perhaps more _my_ room, there was still lots of being with jasra, who I missed very much. And wasn't really entirely aware of it, since I was so stressed.

And also... we've lived together for long enough that she _knows_ me and my habits and preferences and so can help get me un-stuck, which I very very much was with unpacking and getting settled into my room. So I needed my jasra to help me with my room and my organizing. And also we traded furniture for what was in her car with what I had in my room. Which had a _huge_ effect on my sanity, because it meant more bedside table space and also some drawers for things.

There was a jasra, there is increased sanity in my room and decorations on my walls put up with her help and her eye for decorating, and it is good.

And then there was unexpected time with metahacker in my dramatically improved mental state, which is why I'm up so late. Which was also very, very good. (I have been in no fit state to be around for weeks. I hate moving)

(I suspect much of why I was so wrecked Saturday - exhausted to the point of falling asleep repeatedly, cold/flu-like symptoms - is because I had my room's sanity improve Friday and stopped being on high alert. And then crashed, hard)

But now, sleep.

And eventually, wall shelving. And picture hooks or something with which to put my small white board on my wall. Because I really missed having it around to write notes to myself on!

Ok, whoever ordered me a sore throat, a headache, and a cough, the timing could be better!

This apartment without my wall decorations is _really creepy_.

Makes me feel like a stressed out bird who is plucking its feathers out...

Actual contentful reply from Amazon, and also a comment of usefulness on that post.

It should _really_ be less difficult to recycle electronics. Seriously.

Well, at least Staples took most of them.

From Scientific American Mind, Knowing Your Chances: What Health Stats Really Mean

Good article.

For me, expressing sympathy is almost entirely non-verbal.

It's in (hard-learned) body positioning, facial expression, _listening_. Touch, if appreciated, hugs, if appreciated.

Yes, there are listening noises made (yes, there's a word for them that I never, ever remember). But translating them to text makes it very hard (for me! Perhaps for the other person as well, but if I can't tell, it's problematic) to tell if they are 'actively listening' or 'distracted but not completely gone', especially in semi-real-time interactions. Especially if I _am_ distracted!

I have trouble with verbal sentiments of sympathy, although I reluctantly do them if social etiquette requires (presuming I know that it does).

I also lose the signals that I clearly _do_ sometimes pick up on in-person that something is about sympathy and not about solutions.

I very much suffer from Geek Answer Symdrome, and I've very much trained myself away from that as much as I can. But if I'm distracted? Or in a text interaction? Or at a job which _is_ mostly solutions and not sympathy? Far more likely to try to fix than to listen, partly because there's not enough to listen _to_ in text.

I wonder if this is part of why being on call for a hotline was so hard on me; I did not _have_ in-person signals to give or receive, in addition to having trouble effectively always having to be able to answer a phone at any time for multiple hours at a time. I could _do_ it... but it by no means played to my strengths. I did at least have tone of voice and such, and used them, but... it was hard.

*shakes head* Brains. They confuse me. Also, mine is being eaten by moving and also by needing to interview someone tomorrow. Nervous!!!!

Walks in the sun that is uncertain but warm, in a wind that is sometimes biting and sometimes playful.

Rain in torrents and wildness and small droplets and mist and rain that just threatens with low-hanging clouds.

Buds on trees and birds in flight and in song and hunting for food and sticks to build their nests. It's the incongruity of pigeons with sticks in their mouths, not because they think they are dogs, but because they are birds, too.

Small flowers blooming blue and purple and white, catching the eye because there is color again in a world that was grey and white and cold.

It's weather that allows for time spent outside, even with the reminder that winter is not long gone and you might want to keep moving. It's playgrounds and swingsets and exchanging your boots for sneakers and removing plastic from your windows. It's opening your windows wide and breathing in the air that your dwelling place has missed over the long winter.

It's hearing birdsong and trying to figure out where it came from. It's feeling that soon, _soon_, it'll be warm enough to forgo sweaters and wear skirts again, and sit down in the sun and have rain that is warm enough to stay in instead of hiding from.

Spring. It is.

My brain is crazy full of moving things.

This makes planning in April difficult!

And also, I keep forgetting things I want to post. :)

But I live! And packing things and moving things is happening!

There was a kitty - not NSPy - waiting for me outside when I got home. Ok, sort of.

He was acting like he might live nearby, but he was also very skinny and nicked here and there. And very, very friendly (if skittish). (I say 'he' because he gave me quite an eyefull while grooming at one point)

I couldn't _quite_ entice him to come inside where I could call the people we got NSPy from to come get him, but I gave him food which he was _quite_ happy to have, and pettings, and attention. And then I had to go inside and feed NSPy and be a little bit less chilly. And when I went back outside with the numbers to call to try to get him a home, he was no longer around.

I have a really hard time with seeing cats with no collar who are clearly happy with people - and in this case not neutered, so possibly not owned by anyone - out on the streets. And where I live is not precisely very cat-friendly, even if it is where NSPy was originally found.

Poor kitty.

Y'know, as someone who often has trouble knowing when people are serious, April Fool's day is just evil.

In other news, it's April! Moving month! My brain is being _eaten_ by this fact, regardless of if I can actually move things at any given moment.

*continues to succeed in not packing more things from her walls, to the probable relief of both jasra and metahacker*

Maybe tonight I'll try organizing things that I _have_ packed to make better sense for where they are going... I'm not sure there's really much of anything else I can pack until it's closer to us being moved out, so.

Oooh! I can bring things we don't want to appropriate locations... that's what I can do tonight. Makes more space, too!

Jittery girl is jittery!

Allergies: I do appear to have them! Weirdness. Watery eyes (causing the skin around my left eye to be irritable), sniffles & sneezing, slight headache, and foggy brain. And also jasra's allergy meds helped last time I tried. So at some point I should figure out what I'm allergic _to_, and also get some allergy meds of my own.

So strange.

But it's nice out today, and I'm _so_ going for a walk at lunchtime. And depending on just how warm, may have lunch outside.

I consider changing away from my boots back to sneakers, but am unsure if that is wise. It is only nearly April... snow is still possible!

Can has had party (_is_ there a lolcat past tense?!). And much cuddling. And much kissing. And also remembering that I do in fact have functional hands with which to be physically affectionate with many peoples.

There were many nifty people. Both games I brought got played. There was good time with metahacker and there were many random massages given because my hands mostly work again!

Now, there is to be waiting for my food to finish cooking. And OMG, tired. Probably partly due to raaaaaain & clouds. And a late night Saturday night.

There is to be an empty room into which I can move, soon.

But now, working until my food is done cooking, and then food, and then working again.

ratatosk is crackers. (aka, go fill out, or at least read, this poll!)

What's the best way to report car fuel-efficiency?, Cognitive Daily.

How many ways to fill in the blank are there?

________ broken, add more ________


My co-workers might like "Brain" and "beer".

Canonical 'no really, don't do this!' would be "Relationship", "people" - where this can mean lovers and/or children depending on the type of (romantic) relationship.

Bad project managers might like "Project" and "people". For extra fun, after the project was supposed to be done!

Anyone?

So, I was almost certainly sick last week. (it's winter. It happens. A lot.)

I think I'm healthy again, except... I keep having terrible nightmares. And waking up at really early times of the morning. This morning wasn't _horribly_ early, although it was definitely a horrible nightmare (and I'm curiously reluctant to talk about it; started and stopped email about it twice so far today), and I snuck in to snuggle jasra before getting up to go to work.

I'd say I'm stressed, except that I don't think I _am_ particularly. Enough with the nightmares, already! Especially since they aren't even ones that seem to relate to current reality!

Mrf. At any rate. Tired. Very much so.

I have a screwdriver in my pocket.

I know how it got there, but I'm not entirely sure why I - at the time - thought it was the right place to put it. Screwdrivers do not live in my pocket! This particular screwdriver lives next to my bed to help handle the fact that I keep failing to go to the glasses place and replace my glasses whose screw keeps being loose and which is mildly broken.

It was an insufficient screwdriver for the goal for which I took it out of my room, that of dismantling the table that formerly lived in my kitchen/dining area. The screwheads were too big for it, and I apparently decided that my pocket was easier than returning it to my room. I obtained a better screwdriver, used it, and returned that one to its home (I doubt it would fit into my pocket).

This one? This one has been in my pocket for probably 24 hours now. I wondered where I had put it last night when I was going to tighten the screw, but didn't worry about it. It was today, when I was hunting for my nail clippers, and my hair tie, that I figured out what the extra thing in my pocket was.

Oddly, it's not poking me uncomfortably. It's just _there_. In my pocket. With my change, my nail clippers, two chapsticks, and a few hair ties.

I have a screwdriver in my pocket. And maybe, just maybe, I'll remember to put it back where it belongs when I get home tonight. Or maybe it'll continue to live in my pocket.

Why can't I thumbs up songs on the radio?!

Creme brule ice cream: cold, interesting, and OMG sweet.

Having had galaneia and metahacker recall my perhaps excessive fondness for creme brule's crackly goodness and obtain ice cream based on that? Utterly, utterly charming.

Can has my _own_ miniatures to practice painting on.

My family appears to be invading Facebook. I am... perplexed!

I can has room dimensions with which to play!

Because being overly tired, loopy, and giggly is the _best_ time to remember to call my sister. :) (awwwwww voicemail!)

There is an unexpected jasra!

For some reason, "photos and bananas" is making me giggly. I have noooo idea. Blame the_xtina's post.

Ok, off to play with online room dimensions tools.

There is a post bubbling away beneath the surface of my thoughts which may or may not manage to come out in this post, as a result of the combination of metahacker's post on cuddling and affection with friends-who-are-not-necessarily-lovers, and figmentj's post on dating when not seen as an audition.

It took me a very long time to understand that, for most people, and in the context of typical societal norms, cuddling was assumed to be sexual. Touch at all - beyond a handshake - was assumed to be an expression of sexual interest.

An additional difficulty with wrapping my head around this concept is that my line between finding someone interesting and wanting to seek them out and spend more time with them, and being sexually attracted to them is very thin. And, people who I find interesting enough to actively seek out are people I would like to cuddle, and there is probably at least some amount of sexual attraction there. It's not quite true that everyone that I'm close to and seek out and am cuddly with is also someone that I have some sexual attraction to, but it's very close.

But having that attraction does not mean that I - or they - have time, energy, sufficient levels of attraction, or even necessarily are aware of it. So, for me, cuddling is _not_ automatically a sexual thing - and has never been - and the idea of there always being a sexual aspect to touch and cuddling is a hard one for me to grasp. However, it does seem true that, at some level at least, whatever nebulous concepts sexual attraction contains is frequently involved in whose touch I seek out.

Also in whose touch I am not comfortable with. If there is any level of sexual content in cuddling for another person and I am not interested in going there, I will not be comfortable cuddling them. This does not even need to mean that they are aware of said context, so I am not entirely sure how I can tell, sometimes. If I can't tell, I will tend to err on the side of caution, so if I can't read a person, I will generally not touch them. Too much cultural baggage tied up in touch, especially cross-gender. This was a very, very hard-learned lesson.

The frsutrating part about this, though, is that I do still find myself hugging people, sometimes, because the social costs of not doing so are more than I can handle right now. This frustrates me when I do it, and is usually a good sign I'm not actually up to group social interactions.

So many things meant by 'attraction', even 'sexual attraction'. So much tangled up in that concept, and the related concepts of the process of sexual entanglement and dating.

Why does [edited to add: anyone believe that] it need[s] to be true that touch and cuddling are completely unrelated to attraction in order for them to be non-sexual? Attraction may often, and possibly usually, contain sexual desire, but that isn't the only thing in there. That isn't the only possible context for touch between adults! Including adults who _are_ sexually involved with each other.

Baby red pandas!

Simple Wikipedia

Getting good time, chatting, and cuddles with my cuddly wordsmith of a sweetie.

Going to the Butterfly Place with a quite gleeful, photo-taking galaneia, where there were also some utterly adorable tiny birds. And hungry, hungry goldfish with gaping mouths.

It's almost not February anymore!

Snuggly, chatty jasra, and knowing that we will continue to see each other weekly when we are not roommates.

Being productive.

Having had a visit from randysmith last week, and getting time with majes this week.

Lasting slightly longer at a party of people I largely don't know than I expected to do, especially considering it was after spending time around small children at the Butterfly Place.

Boxes. And filling them with stuff.

Realizing that my wrist was cranky because it wanted more (non-computer) use, not because the computer use was itself problematic to the point of danger.

Sunlight.

Actually feeling my sleep meds kick in last night and being sleepy because of it (means my brain isn't going too fast for them to counteract).

I _can_ has cheezeburger!