The state of me: new headphones, variety in occupation, cognitive dissonance, insomnia

You know what would be awesome? If I could sleep reliably and easily. That'd be great. It would also, it seems, be a goddamned miracle.

Yesterday Devon and I went out and finally bought awesome headphones, another belated birthday gift (we've yet to order BPAL, too—I've been half off smellies for the last little bit because I seem very sensitive to them right now, so there's no real rush I suppose). I long grew sick of the over-the-ear pair I use when I go out for Starbucks/library trips, and these sound much better, and I've been eyeing a certain headphone-wearing video game character with envy for a fair bit now, so they're a wonderful buy. I'm so enamored that I sort of want to wear them all the time now, except that—well, there's hardly any need at this particular moment. But they're just what I wanted in both form and function: flattering, black, portable, and the sound quality is fantastic.

I only wish I could paint the red parts green, but that may not work out so well given the warranty.

My head's been in a dozen places at once, lately. It rained yesterday, the first rain of the coming autumn—on the same day that we went out for dinner and shopping, no less. I wore long sleeves, walked through the dark and the mist, and I could not have been happier. I'm reading a book right now which, although it's still too early to tell for sure, I think I may love. But I'm not in my quiet bookish phase—I'm still playing Persona 4 and I've also taken up old school Harvest Moon, Dev's playing, oh, half a dozen games at once, and we're watching anime together for a change—all about as geeky and fangirly as can be. Moderation or, I guess you could say, multitasking like this is not my usual way: I am a creature of extremes, drowning in books or playing video games all day but rarely doing both at once. In a way it seems healthier to spread out my interests like this—I have more freedom and variety, I get a little less obsessed (and I do hate how my brain operates when obsessed), so on, so forth. But there's a certain cognitive dissonance in the variety. I'm fangirly but intellectual, hyper but subdued, talkative but quiet, and—relatedly or not—often cheerful and melancholy in alternating phases, sometimes in the same contradicting phase. For all that it may be healthier and can be quite nice, it's also confusing and fucking exhausting.

The inaccessibility of sleep doesn't help.

I don't exactly want the alternative, the extremes—but I would prefer some stability, or in the very least the ability to do a little more with both sets of moods. I have letters to write. I have posts to write, books to review, reviews to type up ... so much goes undone, and that's beginning to bother me.

I would also like to sleep.

Therianthropy: a portrait of me-as-cat by reddogdied: picspam and blather about this wonderful gift.

And then I discovered this, and now all of my complaining seems so very silly.

For my birthday the wonderful reddogdied drew an illustration of me-as-cat (that's my long fur, my fluffy tail, my little face and wispy ears, my paw, my coloring as best anyone knows, my small sleeping curl) asleep on my bed (that's my squishy green modal pillow, my beloved baby blanket in the bottom corner—Dev will love that you can even see the fraying tendrils).

There are no words to describe a gift like this. I can muster words—wonderful, beautiful, perfect come to mind—but at its heart this is a thing without language. It is me-as-cat, wordless and furred and sleeping. I fell in love with reddogdied's art for the conflation of sensation and spirit in his work: the texture of fur, the communication and expression in body and face, that each animal feels real: feels, the thick fur long whiskers sharp teeth sensation of it; real, as in authentic and individual and true.

I experience dysphoria rather than phantom sensations, and so my sense of physical self-as-cat is more absence than presence: it's the fur I should have, but don't; the size I'm not, the movements I can't make. I'm sure that phantom sensations come with their own benefits and drawbacks, but I'll admit I tend to envy them because I want to feel that connection, that sensation—I want to feel that much closer to being animal.

And so something like this—a visual of me as cat, something so personal, so me, yet so textural, so much about fur and body and shape—is invaluable. It is precious. It is so beautiful.

I am desperate for sleep and so I should try to get back to that. I think it will be a little easier now, having seen this. I'll end with two more pictures—the fullsize version of the above, for a closer look at that rich beautiful fur, and a fullsize of the beginning sketch, because I'm in love with it too. By while you're at it, go check out reddogdied's gallery.

(Typing with my new headphones on is so bizarre—I can't hear the keys click at all.)

( +2 large pictures. )