stellaluna

Yesterday was a horrible day of airport hell, but it's over now, and I'm not thinking about it anymore. The important thing is that I made it to Atlanta, and I'm here with scarletts_awry. We went to the Flying Biscuit this morning for brunch, and then hit Criminal Records just as it was starting to snow.

After that, we went to the grocery store to stock up in case we get stuck inside over the weekend, and I was delighted when practically the first thing scarletts_awry said was, "Should we get beer? We don't want to run out." That's the classic New York response to inclement weather, and although scarletts_awry isn't from there, I think there's a little bit of New York in her outlook.

We came home and played Scribblenauts, which is awesome, and soon we're going to have dinner, then watch a movie.

And yes, we can has beer.

In about eight hours I'll be leaving for the airport, and in about 16 hours, I'll be with scarletts_awry!

I'm (mostly) packed, and I've scheduled the airport cab pick-up for the morning, so I'm all set to go. Now I just have to get there, and then we can start our long weekend together.

In addition, I don't have to go to, or think about, work until next Tuesday.

I'm feeling better today than I was last night. The sadness, the missing my scarletts_awry, is still there, but I'm managing it better.

The positive part about posting that was that I did post it, when my natural instinct is typically to repress this kind of thing and want to hide from the world.

As I said in reply to comments there, it's okay (and normal) to be sad or angry or lonely sometimes. And it's better to acknowledge that/acknowledge how I'm feeling than to repress the emotions and try to deny them. That would be just as bad as being the kind of person who gets mired in negativity and sees everything as bad or wrong or unpleasant.

It's okay for me to not feel good or thoughtful some days, and it's okay to be sad or angry or worried sometimes.

I am, always, a work in progress.

I've been sitting here with Word open for over an hour, staring at a blank document.

It's hard to come up with anything to write, because I'm sad tonight. Even though I'm going to see scarletts_awry in less than three days, I'm lonely right now and missing her and all of it just hurts. I know we're in the home stretch now of being apart, too, so all of this misery feels even more self-indulgent than it normally would.

I reject negativity and toxicity. I reject the idea of living my life with that kind of outlook. I reject living a thoughtless life. I want to do better than that, be better than that. Yet all I can do right now is sit here and think about how sad I am -- and how ridiculous and spoiled and (again) self-indulgent is that? And I think I used to be better than this at writing out my thoughts and emotions. Now all I can do is talk myself in circles.

Missing my girlfriend: that I can fix. Missing the ability to be able to write about the things that are on my mind, and the things that I'm interested in: that I don't know how to change, or how to fix.

1. I don't follow pro football and I had no stake in this game, but still and all, I'm somehow delighted to see the Saints win. And I like to think that, in some universe, Rickey and G-man are celebrating too. Shush.

2. Although I'm clean, I haven't otherwise gotten out of my pajamas all day, and I haven't taken my hair out of its around-the-house ponytail. I just need a day like that every so often.

3. I started to pack! I am trying not to overpack.

ETA:

4. Puppy Bowl 2010! Oh my god. I think the bunny cheerleaders are my favorite. Could they be any more bored?

1. I ran all the errands I needed to today prior to going out of town. Although I haven't actually started to pack yet, I also began to sort out the clothes I want to take.

2. I managed to get several more gold medals in Cooking Mama 3. The DS I bought last summer is still one of my best purchases ever.

3. I don't quite know how I suddenly turned domestic, but I've been quite enjoying looking up recipes on Vegetarian Times and the like. Not that I've actually put any of them into action yet, but I'm going to; what's more, I'm actually looking forward to it.

1. It's Friday! Which means it's the weekend. Which means that I can sleep late tomorrow.

2. I only have three more days of work before I get on a plane to go see scarletts_awry.

3. I have clean laundry. I do not have laundry that has been hung up or folded and put away, but one thing at a time. Cleanliness is the most important bit; everything else is gravy.

4. It is pouring down rain and cold and windy, but now that the laundry is done, I don't have to go out in it again tonight. I'm currently boiling water to make myself a cup of tea, and when it's done, I'm going to have it with something sweet.

1. Despite computer woes at work, our awesome tech support had me up and running again in less than an hour with a new hard drive. I will spend much of the morning fiddling with settings, but at least I can, you know, do my actual work, too. Which is especially important since I'm in charge tomorrow.

2. The headache I've had since last night may finally be starting to fade.

3. I had a nonfat chai latte this morning and sushi for lunch, and they were both good.

Okay, right now I really fail at thinkpositive30. But I'm going to try to backtrack through the week and make up for all the days I've missed.

I'll start with today's good thing, because it's the most important, and I don't want it to get lost down at the bottom of the post.

You've probably already heard, either from the news or from the million times it's been linked to on your flist, but California State Supreme Court has ruled that the same-sex marriage ban is unconstitutional. Hooray for my state, and hooray for Governor Schwarzenegger, who announced after the ruling that he has no plans to overturn it.

This is a real, true good thing. Seriously, I got all weepy when I first read it this morning, and I'm getting teary-eyed again now just typing this. Little by little, it's changing.

Okay, now for good things from the rest of the week.

Sunday (May 11):

gin200168 and I got up early so we could go to the Studio City Farmers Market, where we bought pumpkin bread and hummus and various other good things. We got Korean pancakes for breakfast, and after we were done shopping, we snagged a picnic table and had them along with some strawberries.

Afterward, we stopped back at my place so we could drop things off, and so we could stop by Starbucks, because I needed my coffee. Then we went downtown to Little Tokyo, and spent the next few hours at the Japanese Village Plaza and Fugetsu-Do Confectionary. We got a ton of yummy and cheap Japanese food, including some of Fugetsu-Do's amazing mochi, and I bought a few pretty dishes in one of the little stores (I'm into mismatched dishware) and a Haiku anthology. We also got...Gin, what were the little pancake things? I can't remember the name. We got hot, freshly-made little pancake things with red bean paste, and sat by the fountain to eat them. By then, the morning fog had burned off and the sun was out, and it was turning into a gorgeous day.

(and scarletts_awry, given your love for Asian food, we should totally go here when you visit next.)

I also appear to have inadvertently started a Maneki Neko (Lucky Cat) collection. I already had two standard ones that Gin had given me, and on Sunday I picked out a fat little purple one in one store, and then the store with the dishes had really cheap lucky cats, so I got one holding a pink marble and a little black one, and then it turned out the little black one came as a set, so...yeah. They're all sitting on my coffee table right now, smiling at me. I'm picky about tchotchkes, but I'm utterly charmed by lucky cats. And I was pleased to discover, after the fact, that the purple ones are supposed to bring a person artistic strength.

It was just a really good day all around, and we spent the evening watching Eureka.

Monday (May 12):

Gin had to go home today, but we had time in the morning to go out for breakfast one last time, and to make another Target run so that I could snag the cardigan I had decided I wanted.

After she left for the airport, I hung around the house, then finally managed to get some writing done, and I was actually able to finish the story that I'd been trying to work on forever. It was such an enormous relief to see it all fall into place, and posting it was a weight off my shoulders.

Now Gin is back home and I miss her, but we had a great visit, and got a chance to have a lot of good conversations and do some sorely-needed catching-up.

Tuesday (May 13):

Back to work today, unfortunately, but nothing had exploded in my absence, which was good.

I also started reading Melissa Marr's Wicked Lovely, which is really a most excellent novel.

Wednesday (May 14):

"Taxi" was another great episode in what's been a fabulous season. While I'll be sad to see the season finale next week, I'm also looking forward to it, and looking forward to what will happen next once S5 rolls around.

(Also, I can't believe we're heading into a fifth season, and that they're approaching their 100th episode. Blows my mind, it really does. Where has the time gone?)

...and I believe that gets me all caught up. scarletts_awry, you may have pulled ahead briefly, but don't start counting those chickens just yet.

So. Um. It would appear that I suddenly have a shiny new fandom.

gin200168 has been pimping Eureka to me and telling me over and over again how much I would like it, and although I wasn't exactly disagreeing, I wasn't really giving it much thought, either. But she brought her DVDs with her, and last night she showed me the pilot. Tonight we watched episodes two and three.

And...suddenly I am hooked. Okay, not exactly "suddenly." I was already liking it a lot after just the pilot, and my affection for the show only grew as I continued to watch. I like the characters a lot, and am quite taken by the premise and setting. The show is just...the best word I can come up with is charming. I am charmed by it. It charms me.

I like Jack Carter a lot, but so far I think Henry is my favorite character. He's just so...oh. So decent. He's a good man. (And complex, too, which I like. In fact, all the characters are pleasingly complex, even after just three episodes.)

Did I need another fandom? No, I did not. But it seems that I have one anyway.

Is anyone else out there on the flist into this show? Speak up if you are!

(Um, so gin200168 is already all smug about this, and she's going to be even more so once she reads this post. Which, normally I would not indulge or encourage her in this, but fuck it. It's a DAMN GOOD SHOW. Plus I'm feeling all gleeful with that initial burst of new-shiny-fandom starry-eyed love.)

In other news, we went to the Getty today, and it was awesome, as always. Saw a fabulous photography exhibit of work by a German photographer named August Sander, who did most of his work during and around the Weimar Republic era. Gorgeous stuff, and often unexpectedly moving, in part because of the character and history that gets revealed in the photographs, and in part because we know what's coming for these people; the shadow of Hitler and the War and everything else is already on them, even if they don't know it yet, and it's impossible not to try to read that in the faces of secretaries and farmers and government functionaries, of the members of a theater company and a Jewish composer and of two young girls on a country road.

Tomorrow is the Sunday morning farmer's market and shopping in Little Tokyo, and a Target run. And possibly a mall run, depending.

Today's other good thing is that I am now confident that there is no way scarletts_awry is going to win, not now that she's woken the lizard brain.

I'm just saying.