juushika

Yesterday (Sunday, the 18th) was my birthday! It was a lovely birthday! Easily the best that I can remember, with grace given for "bad memory" and for "I usually get so anxious about celebrating events Correctly that I spoil the celebration, lol." I had a quiet weekend with Devon. On Saturday night we watched John Wick (this borrowing movies from the library thing is neat):


John Wick, film, 2019, dir. Chad Stahelski
Devon compared this to a specific action scene (from some-or-another game or movie, I can't remember) except that it went on indefinitely—it's that iconic scene of scrappy competence porn, styled midway between slick and down-and-dirty, extended to feature-length. Being able to maintain that niche atmosphere is admirable and so satisfying, and I appreciate that the ( spoiler? ) is weirdly tasteful. Solid.


and Devon gave me my first birthday gift early: a new tablet, a Samsung Galaxy Tab S5e—he gave me a tablet a few years ago just to see if I'd benefit from having one, and it became my primary computing device; I use my PC for gaming and typing, but my tablet for daily internet browsing/IM clients/the background is an omnipresent force in my life but I don't generally want to sit at my computer. And it's starting to show its age, particularly re: mobile games (read: Pokemon Go). I'll still use both at least until I (finally) get a phone, because the new tablet is less ideal for niche use like "walking while listening to an audiobook." But it's so sleek and light and speedy.

Saturday night we walked down to the supermarket (in the dark! while it was cool out! we've had such a mild summer so far, but still fuck summer, fuck overstimulation and photophobia, the only correct time to leave the house is 10p) for waffle mix, and on my birthday we did a breakfast of veggie sausage, orange juice, and waffles with vanilla ice cream. We own so few items and really prefer it that way, so we kept putting off buying a "makes just one thing" kitchen item, but we have no regrets about the waffle maker. We'll get plenty of use out of it, even if it only makes waffles, and after such a long wait that warm, fresh, steamy crisp chewy waffle against rich, cold "like whipped cream, but better" vanilla ice cream was exquisite. I hate cake (too sweet, texture bad) and I'm convinced that secretly most people do, that we have a cultural expectation that birthday = cake and so we eat it every year and it's always mediocre; what we should do instead is something that probably lacks iconic associations but which is suited to our tastes and feels like a sincere celebration. It's a lot of opinions to have about cake.

Devon's work as infinite PTO (with reasonable boundaries of "they fire shitty employees"), so he scheduled this Thursday off and we're planning to go into PDX proper for a Powell's visit and some sort of lunch. I'd so much rather go into town on a weekday instead of a busy weekend, and I appreciate that his job makes that—and a lot else—possible. I have to sit down in the next few days and figure out what few print books I may actually want to buy.

(He also scheduled half days over the entirety of Hanukkah, so that he can be home by sundown.)

I've been both lonely and overstimulated/anxious lately (which I mentioned elsewhere) and my birthday could easily have been a trigger—that combination of "reflect on the year: surprise! the year sucked!" and "celebrate the good things in life, of which there are objectively many, especially with where you are in your home and relationship" and "make plans towards self-improvement and the future, the thought of which is 10% anticipation and 90% crippling, spiraling anxiety" and "feel obligated to celebrate with/be celebrated by other people" was a panic attack waiting to happen. So staying in and doing small but celebratory couple-things over the weekend, and planning a larger but stress-mitigated outing, was the best solution. My birthday weekend felt full, joyful, present—I stayed in the moment and didn't spiral into horror at the passage of time.

I still can't remember how old I turned ... 34? I caved and did the math: 34. I shall now proceed to jettison that information and act like a clumsy identity thief every time I need to fill out personal information for the next year.

Last month was my birthday. Dee's family came down just before it (her brother and I share a birthday); her brother stayed a few days and her mother stayed some time longer. I went down to Corvallis in the middle of her mother's visit, to see Devon and go to dinner with my family. When I came back up I housesat for a weekend while Dee drove her mother back up north.

The company was lovely and only a little introvert-taxing. Dee, her mother, and I went down to Powell's for an afternoon and Dee bought me my birthday gift of books: three CJ Cherryh novels (one a reread) and the Steerswoman series that I just finished and loved. I went in with my alphabetized, color-coded* to-buy list and still barely managed to hunt everything down and make purchasing decisions in a reasonable amount of time. I'm used to feeling harried when I go book shopping, but I dream of one day having time to browse.

* colors since updated to reflect Powell's room colors, because it's a useful mnemonic and also pretty

The trip to Corvallis was mostly miserable, and I blame that on myself. Birthdays have become harder and harder, this one especially so, and when I see Devon I always dredge out my worst in some subconscious expectation that he will fix it. I've never matured, never become self-reliant; most of the frustrations in my life exist because I am a dependent, not a contributor—thus the long-distance relationship, living circumstances, material goods both frivolous and essential that I don't have, untreated health issues, &c. It's easier to get away with those things in your twenties, when people assume you just haven't grown up yet. But with each birthday, it's more obvious that I will never grow up; my maturation was halted by mental illness and now all my energy is forever diverted into dealing with the crazy. I'm aware that birthdays are universally fraught, but this one was especially dour.

Devon gave me Nagisa Momoe Nendoroid I've wanted for a while, though. That was good.



Nagisa/Charlotte/Bebe is one of my favorite characters of all time. I love her creepy/cute imagery and the way she changes the tone of PMMM; and while I had arguments with PMMM: Rebellion—and normally dislike mascot-/moe-bait characters—I loved her in the film. It's powerful and narratively-appropriate to turn a witch into a person, and, cutesy and mascoty as it is, I resonate with the cheese thing. I've called her Our Patron Saint of Cheese, and it's not quite in jest: she's an icon for the frustrating longing of what we want and can't have, which is indulgent and foolish but remains legitimate, none the least because it indicates why we can't have it (see: fan theories re: her character). There are a lot of things which would make my life better: if I were self-reliant, if being a dependent were financially viable, if there were societal accommodations for my dependency—all valid wants, so the smaller wants are valid too, even when petty or obsessive or in the form of a cute figure. And I have so many wants, small and large. To have her seems to prove the rule; still, I love her, my idol of wanting, so well-timed to my birthday-related frustrations.

When I saw my parents, they didn't have a gift, they just asked me to provide a wishlist of things I needed or wanted, with a subtext of "we can tell you don't really have the means to look after your basic needs; can we help via a birthday gift?" which is true, thoughtful, and hit too close to home: another reminder of the tie between my longings, my disability, and my age. I still need to write that list.

Anyway. I came back into town, had a quiet weekend housesitting the cats which I absolutely consider an auxiliary birthday gift. And then I was hit by a week of debilitating back pain, which (knock on wood) has since passed and which had no trigger, cause, aid, anything really; it was out of the blue and unrelenting. And as soon as that began to clear, my keyboard blew up. It did a low-key, static "acts like you spilled water on it" crosswiring, but no water had been in its vicinity for a year so fuck if I know; I unplugged it, made do to a shitty wifi keyboard; got fed up with shitty wifi keyboard, plugged my old one back in, and it worked perfectly again in a sort of universe-provided bit of gaslighting, "none of your frustrations or problems are real, ahahahahaha"—and then 24 hours after that it broke again in precisely the way it had before. I don't know. A new keyboard is here now, because unexpected necessary purchases don't trigger aforementioned anxieties at all, my old keyboard is probably possessed by capricious minor demons, and the answer of "how do I keep breaking keyboards when I've become so careful with them?" is probably: cats, who are less careful, and covered in fur and litterbox dust.

I've been reading a lot, gaming a lot, caught up with Critical Role which is, in itself, vaguely terrifying because it was such a long, immersive journey to get here; I am fervently not in my own head, because the only way to cope with the anxiety "I am not a real adult who can engage with life" is to refuse to engage with anything. I have my Bebe figure and I adore her. Everything else has been sort of shit, for reasons which stem from me, my vulnerability and inability and this persistent longing for a life different from my own, but, again: these reasons are real.

This is my life:

Yesterday was my birthday! Devon and I went to have dinner with my parents; we went to Laughing Planet, which I discovered last time I was in Corvallis and fell a bit in love with. I had the cheese and pico quesadilla that I always get, and it was a fantastic meal: enjoyable but low-key. As much as I think my parents wish I did something with my life (which is a valid desire), they're still pleasantly surprised just to see how much I've improved in recent years—I think they're relieved to see that I'm more vivacious and simply happy, and dinner had that vibe to it: it was a relaxed pleasure which I couldn't've managed some years back.

As if to prove a point, I noticed in the middle of a completely different discussion that the restaurant was playing Florence + the Machine, and so I broke into a lengthy recounting of this experience, explaining (mostly to my mother, who's more emotional and emotionally-receptive than my father—that's not a condemnation: he's a happy well-rounded person and so, frankly, doesn't "get it," for which I envy him more than anything else) how it came down to the fact that I needed that concert to be beautiful, and it wasn't beautiful in the back, and I couldn't tolerate that—because F+tM is about living life with foolishly and joyfully, not in halved in experiences; not because you have no fear or regret, but because you swear to yourself to throw them off.

The song they were playing? The Dog Days are Over. Then after that, I shit you not, they played Shake It Out, which at the concert was the song that told me about throwing that devil off, and has become my secondary theme song.

The bakery we went to afterwards didn't have the dessert I wanted, because F+tM and no chocolate deliciousness apparently now go together, but who the hell cares. In my life, a restaurant plays Florence for me on my birthday and reminds me of everything I should never forget, bless.

The weather's broken somewhat, down to reasonable warm-because-summer, not hot-like-burning levels; it's the sort of weather that almost lets you glimpse autumn on the horizon, and that's a gift in itself. Devon's gift is still in the air, or may be a number of various long-needed necessities. (After seeing my parents last evening, we did a late Fred Meyer run and came away with three nail polish shades I've wanted for a while—no necessity by far, but yaaaay.) My father gave me spending money (BPAL Halloweenies in my future, perhaps?), including credit at The Book Bin which I will go spend today; my mother gave me, with assurances that in a few months it would be lovely instead of torturous, a black knitted cowl which doubles around the neck and is squishy and warm—and I actually had the chance to wear it already, when Devon and I went to an early morning breakfast today while the air was cold and fog was still on the fields, oh bless. Later today when we finally get moving we have many shopping trips planned, to the bookstore and elsewhere.

So. That's all I could ask for: love from friends and family, time with the boy, good food, things I want, and Florence.

Devon's in town. Last night he made nachos—perhaps the best I've ever had, and I'm not sure why: there was nothing special about them except for the addition of second, chunkier chunky salsa, I wasn't particularly hungry at the time, but they were beyond delicious. Today we grabbed a pizza and added a side salad, and ate them watching one of the Star Trek: Voyager episodes that I remember best from my childhood.

And there was stuff.

Devon brought with him the bedding that my parents bought me for my birthday. They got both the sheets and the duvet cover, and they look fantastic. All my pillows are now covered in modal, and the plums and chocolates also look awesome against the orange sheet I'm currently using—so I can modify my color scheme at whim, and I think it'll look especially nice in autumn. That they bought both means that I now have all Grandpa Mel and Ilene's birthday money to spend as I will. I'm anticipating the BPAL Halloweenies, but after much deliberation also decided to buy a custom necklace from Sihaya Designs Jewelry/sihaya09—kin to this one but with a squatter pumpkin bead and shorter chain. I've desired her pumpkin designs for some time, and I think they're seasonable without being cutsey or Halloween-only, and autumn is so close I can almost taste it, and I want a pumpkin goddamnit. I hope I love it.

These socks in denim and these socks in rust arrived today. I'll wash and wear them and see how well they work—right now I prefer the fit on the latter, which are a bit shorter, but the former comes in more colors. I know it's silly, but I've wanted socks for so long—(occasionally) colorful, fitted, flattering knee-highs. This is a start. As I find which fit me best, maybe I'll even buy more.

I'm currently debating whether I should grab tickets to Kim Boekbinder's Impossible Tour Portland showing. Since I discovered the concert (and artist) it's reached full funding, but her music falls right into that genre of unusual female artists that I love so. Dee is away at Dragon*Con so I can't ask if she'd like to go—but the ticket prices are more than reasonable, and my gut says she'd be interested. It also satisfies this craving to do more, and more locally, and more with an indie and unique vibe.

Express and I have almost finalized plans for a visit. He was going to come up last month, and then rescheduled for this month, and then canceled again because he can't get a break at work. So I'll visit him instead. It looks like I'll be in San Francisco from October 7th through 14th, meeting a friend of many years for the first time. We are both nervous/excited to great degrees. It'll be a long train trip, but we finally found the best travel route, and I'll bring an entire carry-on containing just bedding, and buying a month in advance even means tickets are cheaper. Now we just have to buy them.

This afternoon I was able to email my mother and say, "We were considering a trip to Ashland—well, here's my upcoming schedule, and here time span for a trip. Do we want to make plans to go?" We're thinking of seeing Henry IV Part 2, and I'm eager for it. I'm filling out these dates on a handy Google calendar. I'm keeping a calender. I'm even making sure that birthdays get added.

It bothers me that much of this is money buying happiness. I don't talk about it often, but as blessed as I know I am to have a life of leisure—it's what keeps me sane, and it's an opportunity most don't have, and I am grateful for it—it's unempowering to have no independent income. Everything I have is essentially a gift—which means I don't get every BPAL blend I wish for, but it also means that I don't go shopping, that even my socks are borrowed or hand-me-downs, that it took me years to buy a new pair of shoes. This isn't because Devon doesn't notice or care, or a sign that I'm somehow unloved. But strictly speaking, all of these things—no matter how basic—are extravagances. I had bedding—it was ugly bedding, but I had it. I have socks—they're borrowed men's socks, but they work. I don't need anything, but I want so much. I want to do more with the life I've managed to save, and I want to control my self-presentation, and I want to do and have stuff that, yes, costs money. It cascades: If I have socks that flatter me, perhaps I can wear shorter skirts, but I'd have to buy them too. If I'm buying a necklace, shouldn't I be buying something more important, like shirts, instead?

And that tempers this, but doesn't destroy it. With this bedding, I can begin to pull together my room. With these clothes, my appearance. I can do things, and engage, and that thrills me. It's can be bitter, but it's still so sweet.

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. )

I just had my birthday dessert with Devon's family, a Trader Joe's Handmade Chocolate Ganache Torte which I am pleased to say was actually pretty good. As we know I prefer my chocolate simple, pure, and dark; I dislike the texture and dilution of cakes, and I'm actually not a fan of ganache (again, I don't like the texture). This torte is chocolate mousse (fairly dense, and stored frozen which only makes it thicker) sandwiched between chocolate cake (low on flour, but not flourless—it's a dense cake without the crumb-texture of most cake) glazed with bittersweet chocolate ganache. It's dense and flavorful, rich chocolate without too much sugar, and the combination of textures makes for a lovely midpoint between creamy and chewy. I would still prefer a simple flourless torte (or chocolate souflé), but for something store-bought this was surprisingly lovely.

I finally instituted an obsession: chocolate tag. It's about time!

I sat down not to write about this, but about something else entirely. I'll get to that post soon. In the meanwhile, a blurb about chocolate. So there we go.

My birthday is coming up! I'll be turning 25 on August 18th this year. This is not a big deal, but on the off chance that you were wondering what I wanted for my birthday:

Books. Here's my Amazon wishlist, which is fairly up to date. I read almost anything (almost always fiction, never chicklit or high fantasy, often fantasy, science fiction, general literature, young adult literature, and classics, with a particular love of Shakespeare and tiny little subgenres), and always want to read a book which comes with a personal recommendation and plenty of love.

Shinies. Wyrding Studios and Sihaya Designs tend to be my stores of choice, although I've also had my eye on Kendra Tornheim's pendants. I love handmade, organic jewelry. I tend towards necklaces, but wear the occasional bracelet or ring (I don't wear earrings). Peridot and amber are my favorite stones and colors, and I prefer brass and copper metals. This old post is a good introduction to some of my tastes, but I don't have a current shinies wishlist.

Smellies. Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab is my drug of choice, of course. My BPAL wishlist is a little out of date, but it's a good introduction to my tastes. Philologus (ancient books, crackled parchment, faded incense, and candle wax) is currently at the tippy top of my wishlist. The Halloween update, which is traditionally my favorite update of the year, will be a few days after my birthday—so that's when I'll really be making grabby hands. Spending money for the update would make my (birth)day.

I sometimes collect bears (of the teddy variety in particular). I always collect pennies. My body pillow Henry could use a new modal pillow case. I could always use a few more modal shirts. I am a materialistic desirous beastie in many ways, and none of this matters! I don't expect gifts, but would certainly welcome well-wishes. So there you go.

Last year for my birthday, because she is a wonder, notsuchastrangr sent me a slim little Moleskine (a ruled cahier). It's too small for lengthy writing but the perfect size for notes and for carrying everywhere, so it immediately became my permanent to be read hardcopy list. It's a dream to use, the perfect size and durability, more than long enough for its purpose, and there's even a pocket to store my library card. It's such a small thing, yet I couldn't have hoped for a better gift.

I have something of a fetish for my TBR list. When I'm in heavy reading mode—as I am now—I live by it. I'm constantly scribbling in titles and notations, and there are few pleasures like crossing off items I've discarded or read.

Most of my listings appear as BOOK TITLE, AUTHOR, listing only the author's surname (to save space). A few appear as Author: AUTHOR, listing the author's full name (to make it easier to find them). I'm usually drawn to works, not artists—it's an exception to the rule when an author's entire oeuvre catches my eye. On a similar note, when listing authors I'll often add a sublisting for one or two of their books.

I then annotate each listing with a number of markers: ( In geeky detail, they are... )

Books end up on my TBR list for all sorts of reasons. Reviews and mentions online are the most common source, I take some personal recommendations from friends and acquaintances, and I browse bookstores and library stacks for titles and covers which catch my eye. The rare exemplary author, and more often the treasured subgenre, will lead me to seek out books with a purpose. There are books which have been on my TBR list for years, and books which I write down just for the pleasure of crossing them off. There's a lot of joy in the notation—the same sort of joy found in writing reviews or collecting books. Books are primarily the words themselves, but they are also an act, a culture, a physical object. This is one of the reasons that I keep a TBR list in hardcopy and wouldn't own a e-reader if I could: I enjoy the physicality, the interactiveness, of books to handle and hold.

Speaking of: I own hundreds, probably thousands of books, but most of them are in boxes while I live as an unofficial houseguest. A small chunk of my collection lives with me in the bedroom, but for that reason and because it's cheaper most of the books I read these days come from the library. Even when they don't belong to me, thought, I still love the books I can have, for a little while, and hold.

( My current would-be bookshelf. )

Why post all this? Because it interests me, and because it would interest me if others did the same. I'd love to know how the rest of you interact with books, if you do: how you view them and how you chose them, what your TBR list and stacks look like, what your bookshelves and book piles look like.

And if books aren't your thing, ( have a picture of Dude scratching to get out of the room. )
If he stare at it long enough, it does indeed open.

Happy Birthday to me—for real this time. Today is my birthday. I'm turning 23.

I had a long, severe stretch of panic for some hours yesterday, and just woke up from a very upsetting nightmare; I'm still shaky as a result, and it makes a day of celebration seem mightily ill-timed, I'll tell ya that. But! But there shall be a day of rest and possibly book reviews and of course reading, and tonight Devon's parents are coming over to celebrate and bringing a flourless chocolate torte tonight (I like my chocolate as dense as humanly possible, thank you). Tomorrow, it looks like I'll be meeting up with my family to celebrate—not sure when or where, but that should also be nice.

Devon's parents are buying me BPAL: a bottle of Velvet (gentle sandalwood warmed by cocoa vanilla and a veil of deep myrrh to replace my nearly-empty imp. Janet (Devon's mother) didn't know why anyone would want to smell like chocolate, but I of course live by chocolate BPAL. This goes on top of my other BPAL purchases, a gift from Devon and a little bit from me, to me. It should be enough to keep me happy, for a while at least. ^_^ Mum says I also have mail waiting at the house—I don't know from who or if it's for my birthday, but I suppose I'll find out tomorrow. And I did a library run yesterday which, even if they aren't books I get to keep, gives me a total of ... eleven novels to browse through and read at my leisure.

Life could be much worse on a birthday.

My birthday is ten days away: I'll turn 23 on August 18th. Just typing "23" is a bit boggling, to be honest. I'm bad with numbers, and have had a hard time keeping track of even my own precise age for, well, a few years now. By the time I get used to the new number it changes again, and so we go again: 23, when I should be a college graduate heading out into the world of graduate school (more likely, for me) or else actual employment, but where I am instead a content stay at home girlfriend who reads a lot. And writes book reviews.

Not only do I have a hard time remembering my own age, I've never really celebrated my birthday. The day seems vaguely unimportant. It falls at the wrong time of year (I feel like a child of fall, and no one is around in the summer to celebrate), and I'm not too social, and I'm never rich enough to buy many presents for others and so I don't expect to receive too many myself. But I go out to dinner, say, and see my family, and the boy gives me spending money which I funnel immediately to books and BPAL. And then I am a year older.

(Ironically, I love receiving gifts—perhaps because I've never had my own independent income, and so I feel guilty buying things for myself and rely on gifts from others; perhaps because I'm selfish and materialistic. But I've never understood people that don't wish for things, or who are shy about receiving presents. I've always enjoyed receiving gifts. It's an honor and a joy: to be important enough to warrant gift-giving, and to have the chance to enjoy something that I wouldn't have any other way. I enjoy it so much, actually, that I feel ashamed to admit it. It makes me feel selfish.)

My birthday wishlist this year is largely my BPAL wishlist. I long for a bottle of Ivanushka, one of my all time favorite scents, which is a retired LE that will only be available through some collector's sale. I also want bottles of O and Morocco, which I wear all the time but only have imps of, and I'm having cocoa and carnation cravings and want to hunt down some new blends that contain them. Obviously, no one is urged or obligated to send presents, but if you want to: my Paypal is swiftskyes at hotmail dot com and my contact info is here (can't see it? want to? just ask). I'm also open to simple birthday wishes, or letters, or complete silence.

Meanwhile, I plan to buy myself Sharp Teeth and probably a preorder on The Tales of Beedle the Bard, as I have a little bit of money hanging out in my Amazon account and free shipping thanks to my family's Prime account. Devon is preordering Viva Piñata II: Trouble in Paradise, which comes out in September. He's also giving me some money for BPAL: we'll probably put $25 into Paypal so that I can (for a change!) sign up for a Halloween decant circle, and I plan to purchase a bottle of Velvet (since I'm almost out of my imp and love the scent) and one bottle from the Halloween update—I'll know which when the update goes live.

This is hardly the short and simple post I planned when I began writing! Nonetheless.

Meanwhile, I've always known a surprising number of Leos, and all of our birthdays are coming up and passing. To sisterite, and raynala, chaos_current and assimbya, Max and Cassady, and the many people who share my zodiac: Happy Birthday to us all, even if I haven't made it over to your journals to say so.