my heart is a glorious machine;

Sigh. It's a bad week for my brain. Bad bad bad bad. I guess the minor panic attack level of Off My Meds wore off and gave way to the more subtle insidious low-level not-sane-ness*, and then there's this stupid cold, and for the last couple of days it's been this fun party game of Which Part Of My Body Is Going To Stop Working Right Next? Yesterday was miserable -- my sinuses hurt, I can't breathe, my own voice comes out wrong, my throat hurts, I'm cramping mysteriously and can't find the ibuprofen, my eyes hurt, there's an edge of nausea, and also my face hurts a lot, because apparently I am never going to stop breaking out like a thirteen-year-old and gorram it, acne can hurt like the dickens. Today and yesterday, of course, the skin on my lower face was so dry it was flaking off my face and I looked like I had milk crusted all over my mouth, and it hurt, and finally I just scrubbed my face raw with a pumice stone and slathered it in Eucerin about eighty times until most of the dead skin was gone, and hey, my face almost feels like a face again!

I am well aware of, er, the word insanity -- but there's a line between actual insanity and simply... not being very sane. Which is what I am when depressed. I find myself speaking and acting and reacting in ways that don't make any sense, even to me... and they're all ugly. Dear people who think my depression rehabilitation should consist of stabilising on drugs and then slowly weaning off them: shut up.

On the brighter side, my appointment with the free clinic is somehow tomorrow (I know the lady at the desk told me October, more than once, so I'm choosing to believe miraculous forces intervened to preserve my well-being), and today I picked up some sample other medication from my doctor's office, so we'll see how that goes. I also have two more job leads -- a new coffee shop (!!!) just opened up, and the newspaper's advertising for someone to write obituaries and police blotter stuff and possibly the occasional article, which sounds like a pretty excellent deal, actually, especially for resumes in the future, although as an application I have to write an essay letter to the managing editor on Why I Would Be Good For This Job and... I don't know what to write. Although considering that I am clever, eager to learn, and know my way around a semi-colon, I might actually qualify for this job more than quite a lot of applicants, living as I do in a very uneducated area. Not even bragging here, it's the most depressing thing about this corner of North-western Pennsylvania -- nobody's curious about anything. (Also they mention in their advertisement that they're looking for accuracy and attention to detail... except they mysteriously capitalise Accuracy all of the five or so times it appears. GAH. Here's attention to detail for you!)

And: we bought a new car. It's a bright blue Ford Focus and the first twenty-first century car we have ever owned. Um... and all that that implies? Anyway, it's a lovely car, feels as though it's rather fun to drive, has a CD player and a working cigarette lighter (look, this is a big deal, considering the technology levels of our previous cars) and the sound system is fantastic, omg. Seriously. I want to go on a road trip or learn to drive this very minute so I can soar down the highway blaring things. Irritatingly it is also a better sound system than anything we've got in the house... Ought to be running off to fetch my learner's permit in the near future, although schedules still have to be finangled to make room for that. (Could have gone today, but the DMV is closed on Mondays. Well... thanks.) 

While we're still on the subject of Things Which Do Not Suck (...it's been a bad, bad, awful week), a package from lady_moriel arrived for me this morning! Now, Kyra has a habit of sending ridiculously awesome packages, although these smorgasbords of win usually appear around Christmas and my birthday. She mentioned she'd picked me up a copy of Ender's Game at a yard sale, and also -- hello, this is an example of how Kyra is made of win -- she remembered me wistfully admiring some stunning but expensive silk scarves at Woolies (is Woolies an Alaska-only place? because I can't find them on Google -- just references to Woolworths, which does not sell lovely organic hippie folk festival clothes for sadly exorbitant prices -- and a few directory references to stores in Alaska) and had her sister pick one up for me when she was on a school trip to Turkey, because they are very cheap there. And it is so gorgeous I cannot even deal. Photographs do not do it justice, but they can try.


But Kyra, being also sneaky and awesome, did not mention that the package headed my way also contained an Iron & Wine postcard and pin and the Goblet of Fire DVD (in widescreen, even!). Sneaky sneaky.

And now I've nearly managed to make myself feel a mite better, although I still feel as though almost the entire day has been wasted, and my novel is still stalling on the sixty-fourth page, and my head doesn't quite belong to me, and there are an awful lot of failures and things left undone and things I can't do looming in my future... sigh. Fie upon thee.

Autumn is coming; I can smell it and taste it. Today is fey and wet and windy, and the tree I can see from my window is half orange already. The apple tree is heavy with fruit (and occasionally with cats, as Willow loves to settle on one of the top branches and smirk down at the world), the geese are flying, and I am lighting more candles than is usual even for me, enjoying the urge to pull my gothiest clothes out of the closet (to church yesterday I wore an ankle-length black lace skirt, and a very Edwardian black-with-cream-pattern blouse with black pearl buttons and lace edges, and my black and white stockings, of course), and craving even more psych folk than usual, which is pretty startling, but, you know. Last year the band that defined my autumn was Dark Dark Dark (also Nancy Elizabeth!); this year I suspect The Magickal Folk of the Faraway Tree might be important, rather. (Don't let the name fool you -- while they are very odd-sounding psych folk, they are also quite straightforward and gloriously listenable and accessible; no rambling lyrics that even T.S. Eliot would have trouble figuring out, weird droning melodies that take a lot of getting used to, or anything of that sort. Also, even their record label doesn't seem to know anything about them. I'm posting them on musicyardsale tomorrow.)

And with autumn, my folklore loving self roars to full strength; I am listening to Tam-Lin on repeat and realising tenfold how and why I love it so very much. It's got one of the best narratives of any ballad, I think -- the story is weird, but clear, and the characters are awfully well-defined for only occupying a few verses. (Okay, a lot of verses. It's a pretty long ballad.) And Janet. I love Janet so much. I love Janet so much that I think I've got to write a full Tam-Lin retelling someday, about Janet, and not Evangeline-in-the-Janet-role. Janet is the precedent for centuries of Awesome Women In Literature. She's like the godmother to girls like Robin McKinley's Harry Crewe and Sherwood Smith's Meliara and Emma Bull's Eddi McCandry -- fierce girls who fight for the people they love without losing their lovingness. One of my favourite things is that Janet saves Tam-Lin, not by grabbing a sword of iron and driving it through the Faerie Queen's heart, but by loving, by not letting the Faerie Queen's illusions fool her, by stubbornly loving Tam-Lin and holding onto him until he's become himself again. Considering that he turned into a snake and a lion and, in some versions, red-hot iron, that takes some hardcore fierceness. (Huh. When I'm doing the Novel climax, I wonder if I could attempt to represent the various aspects of Mr Caruthers' present and former personality as the traditional things Tam-Lin was transformed into in the ballad.) And I love that it takes place on Halloween, and I love the faeries, and the atmosphere of it, no matter the version.

Now, of course, I am no longer terribly irritated with my subconscious for insisting upon turning the Novel into a Tam-Lin retelling, among other things of course. It puts the pieces together ever so much more neatly. It helps to form the circumstances of Mr Caruthers' captivity amongst the vampires, and also leads me to understand that his in-thrall-ness isn't really finished just because the government got him away from the vampires and he's a librarian now. There's something that's keeping him in thrall until he or Evangeline figures out how to break it. That also explains how and why he's the tithe, whatever that means. The vampire woman who originally led him into this mess must be the Faerie Queen role, and maybe she isn't dead (in a manner of speaking... you know what I mean), I don't know. (Related note: what would you lot think of Reynardine as a taken-name by a female vampire?) I am also pursuing the idea that after his several years of dealing with the vampires and messing in dark things far beyond his ken, Mr Caruthers, like Sunshine* -- like Tam-Lin -- is no longer quite human. Maybe he gained some extra senses when he was learning magics from the vampires. He's probably a little harder to kill, anyway. I'm not giving him Sunshine's night-vision because it always made me sad when she has trouble reading and stuff, like Giles' nightmare-come-to-life when he can't read anymore that makes me really, really sad (and unleashes a flood of OMG GILES YOU ARE SO ADORABLE AND I LOVE YOU), but maybe some vampire-like ability similar to that? Not the urge to eat incredibly raw steaks though, ew. I suppose he could have a little of that ability to appear and disappear suddenly and quietly, cos I've always loved that. Maybe some enhanced hearing/smelling/seeing? ("Didn't anybody ever tell you the whole smelling people thing's a little gross?") I don't know, but that explains why the government really wants him on hand.

* Blimey, every time I read that top blurb I shake my head in consternation. If they described Con as "Dracula's hunky Byronic cousin" they clearly did not actually read the book. What part of "skin the colour of rotting mushrooms" and the bit where his laugh is still spine-unhinging terrifying even when he and Sunshine are friends do you not understand? And Sunshine's narration is bloody well not in "the idiom of Britney, J.Lo, and the Spice Girls", for heaven's sake. (Actually, after having read Robin McKinley's blog, I'd say Sunshine sounds an awful lot like a younger, less British McKinley -- biting and clever and well-read and not just intelligent but interested.) Sorry, I get awfully defensive on the subject of one of my favourite novels.

I don't know; looks like I've got to keep writing. Blah, this is hard. But... I've never got so deep into a novel before. I understand the story far better than I have any of my previous tries, and I have fifty pages of in-order story, and an actual half-idea of where it's going to end up. And the research, oh joy, what I swore would never happen to me.

Today acquired the first bathing suit that I have owned and not disliked in many a year, just in time for July's holiday in Nova Scotia. (Good heavens, that's... really coming up now, isn't it? Need to collect a few more books. Mum got me a copy of Thomas Wharton's Salamander from PaperBackSwap, and it's coming soon; I am so happy. Salamander is one of those books that changed me, and the way I look at books and story, and when I consciously realised how much I love books as objects. It is also one of the strangest books I have ever read, and I wasn't even certain if I liked it at first, only I kept re-reading it and realising I was in love.) Anyway, it is polka-dotted and old-fashioned and not in the least dowdy or overly trendy. Also, new Converse high tops at long last! For fifteen dollars! And, er, undergarmenty things. Very pleasant to have. Also, chocolate. Must go back to it and my book immediately.

But actually, this is mostly to subtlely and casually say, oh look, there is stuff and you should look at it. Because firstly, I posted an Abigail Washburn & the Sparrow Quartet discography (complete with fabulous new live EP) over at musicyardsale, and secondly, wrote deeply strange and probably vastly pretentious Dean Priest-centric Emily of New Moon fic which plays with time and alternate universes. A sort of riff on/deconstruction of the Five Things meme of fic writing, I suppose, especially as it originally started out as one and then turned into a different scenario altogether. (Potential subtitle: A Thousand Things That Never Happened To Dean Priest, Or, A Thousand Things That Did?) There's also a broody-piano-and-cello-music mix in there, which happened entirely by accident. In fact, I am still trying to remember how it happened. Er...

Mmmm, cosy bedspread is cosy. And Impressive. Also, as bedspreads go, it is extremely friendly towards computer mice. This is an important criterion for me, you know.

The weather has been glorious these last few days. I haven't shut the window once, and have been basking on the lawn as much as I can. Thought about eating lunch in the park or some such today, but I was far too hungry, and running errands, so mostly I ate my lunch on my bicycle. (It was a loaf of fresh crusty Italian bread I picked up at the supermarket on my way to Other Errands, and there was sharp cheddar in my satchel. I had the bread in my bicycle basket, so I'd just reach in every few minutes and rip a piece off. And no, silly, I did not crash and die.)

Dad and I have been a bit busy preparing for Merlefest, which was the primary reason for my errands today: that, and the weather that was absolutely beckoning to be bicycled in. We're drawing up lists of food to bring and making notes of camping equipment to fetch and fix and purchase, and I am trying to decide which summer dresses are best suited to this festival and the North Carolina sunshine. (I really wanted a parasol, but I started looking too late, and I haven't really found a satisfactory one online yet anyway, and it would probably ship too late to get here by Wednesday evening anyway. Maybe one of the vendors at the festival will sell one. Anyway I'll make sure I have one for Stanfest in July, at least.) Of course I've got to bring trousers... it'll get chilly at night, incomprehensible as that seems now... but I want to wear dresses every day! Packing my thick stockings, and my boots, I suppose. Perhaps it will rain, as it did last year -- I found that magnificent, but I think a lot of soggy people would beg to differ. (I would have enjoyed it more if I hadn't had a notebook in my cloth satchel with me, and had to protect it from being waterlogged.)

Anyway, today was Banui's Errands For Merlefest Day: I fetched hair dye -- my roots are growing out something ghastly (and I suddenly recall why I have hated my natural hair colour most of my life; especially at the roots it's a horrid dishwatery blonde-brown-green) -- so I plan to do that tomorrow. Want punk hair for the folk music festival. Er, heh heh heh. And I dropped my borrowed books back at work (and bloody plague, I don't have any hours next week either, which means I miss an entire gorram pay period), and... kind of splurged on some feather jewellery at Claire's? But I have been planning to buy it for Merlefest for months anyway. Anyway, feather earrings! And a hair clip! And a long necklace! No more spending for you now, Banui. Especially not as you wandered into Rue21 to check on the blouses you've been watching for two or three months now, waiting for them to go properly on sale (they're properly on sale when they reach the five-dollars-or-less racks), and... they were. And I bought them. But they are pretty and... no more spending, darling, okay? Good girl.

And this morning I spent gardening with Mum and the siblings -- yes, we're starting a garden for the first time ever! And I find that I quite enjoy it. The rich dark soil feel so lovely between my fingers (how can people manage with gardening gloves?), and even pulling up stubborn ancient weeds was aesthetically enjoyable. We're planting a ring of sunflowers (a "sunflower house") in a little squared-off area near the back patio, and all sorts of other things in the front -- daisies, I know, and I can't remember the rest -- all different sorts and colours of flowers, anyway. And vegetables. And birds, apparently, as we found the remains of one, sans head, tail-feathers sticking straight up, tucked into the dirt at the back of the front garden... Thank you, Bartholomew-cat, but a bird-tree, as delightful as you might find it, is strictly im...plausible.

Ben Sollee's album is beautiful, by the way. I really wish the Sparrow Quartet was playing one of the festivals we're going to this summer; this will be the first summer in two years I haven't seen them. ♥

I have to thank you all immensely: I feel properly human for the first time in several days, and I got through work without wanting to die or kill anyone. It's actually fairly warm, still, and of course I had my magnificently warm and long and completely glorious Ravenclaw scarf that barefoottomboy sent me for Christmas (!!!). I felt not-sick enough to bicycle, which re-affirmed my theory that exercise is always, always good. And work was -- well, nothing very interesting happened -- well, Sarah and Victoria dropped by for a visit (and asked for Twilight puzzles, the minxes), and that was very cosy and wonderful and I only forgot to notice a customer once.

(Although my schedule for next week is not. my. favourite.: I'm working four days in a row again -- no, more, because that's not counting this weekend -- and then I have two days off in a row? Argh. That is what makes one lazy and more resentful of having to go to work! It's like starting school up again after the end-of-year holidays! I like having a day off and then two or three days of work and then a day off; it makes things more bearable!)

I am wearing my favourite little white dress and one of the lovely cameos (black on white in a bronze setting) that Mum got me for Christmas tied on a black ribbon round my neck, and a very whimsical necklace that is a birdcage and a little bird flying above it, and new polka-dot leggings. Pretty clothes make me happy. Also I finally got round to downloading all of the catchy songs you lot uploaded for me quite some time ago, and blared them while making my dinner, and when "You Got Growin' Up To Do" (which is Joshua Radin dueting with Patty Griffin) came on, Leandra, who will be two in February, started dancing, so I picked her up and we waltzed round and round the kitchen: she beamed and shouted, "dance! dance!". When the song ended and I swooped her down, she applauded and said, "yay!". This profound adorableness nearly makes up for her stuffing half of her dinner into her cup of milk and then pouring that all over the floor ...

And, you guys, Solas' newest album is made of awesome and win. (Christmas present from Dad: the one present I was absolutely certain to get, because Solas is my father's and my co-favourite band, and whenever they've got a new album out, whoever's birthday is closest gets it, or if Christmas is closer, I get it from Dad. Patty Griffin is pretty much the same way.) Solas, you guys have been one of my musical mainstays since I was eleven. The fact that you continue to produce brilliant, lively, nuanced, music does my heart good.

I have been enjoying Good Days lately -- a whole string of them, which is lovely, and un-looked for. The air is brimming with October and possibility, and when it isn't, I have been trying my best to keep myself busy.

Sunday: Jonathan's parents and younger sister came to dinner. This I think was a resounding success. The dinner itself went well, the food was fantastic, my cake turned out even better than I'd anticipated (though next time I think there will be more icing), cider was very seasonal & delicious. The company was much enjoyed as well -- the McKeens are pleasant and comfortable and everyone got on very well. Jonathan & Allison & I had Fun With Cameras in the backyard before heading back to Jonathan's apartment for commisseration with Sarah, Hannah, and Victoria, who has just returned from three weeks in Williamsburg, and I have missed her quite a lot, so it was more than usually good to see her. I made a lot of cookies (snickerdoodles & chocolate buttermilk chocolate chip) and they were all eaten, and Taboo was played, and much cheer and goodwill was exchanged.

Monday began with...well, laziness, and me feeling a bit sloshy and thick, but by afternoon Mum & the little girls & I had headed off on an ultimately profitable Goodwill trip, whereupon I acquired the first pair of sandals that I have actually owned and liked in the past five years or so. I loathe flip-flops and anything resembling them with all of my being and most other practical sandals I have come upon would not co-ordinate with anything in my (extremely varied!) wardrobe. But Mum found the splendidest leather t-strap almost-flat sandals, with beading, which I later discovered on the internet retail for around forty-five dollars. I wore them all the rest of the afternoon; they are extremely comfortable and bohemian and will suit next summer's festival-going very well. There were also intruiging black flats with bows & silver buckles, brown & black striped stockings, and a charcoal-coloured hat that looks like a bit like a bucket hat by way of Jane Austen. There was also a Wal-Mart trip, full of kitcheny things and general housekeeping-ness. Almost immediately after we arrived home, Jonathan showed up for a planned photography walk. This was really some of the splendidest fun & glory I've had in ages, I think. The weather was warm and gentle with just a little coldness of breath in the wind, and we explored all sorts of bits and pieces of my town I've hardly or never looked at before, and took pictures of all sorts of odd things. Some of the results from my end will show up on balladrie before long; I am still sorting them out. There is some lovely magic about finding hidden things in a place you know.

Also I bought some really awesome jewellery involving buttons & owls, and stripey warm fingerless gloves. I mention this partially because I am very happy with my purchase, and partially so that I can tell you about how I bicycled to the mall in the near-dark, and the moon came out, and she was full and pale sheeny gold, an old-lace moon netted in lavender clouds, which darkened on the way home to skeins of navy silk.

Tuesday I woke early to see Dad off: he has gone for a quiet sabbatical in a cabin in the woods, where he has been hiking every day, and reading and writing quite a lot, he told me on the phone this evening. The rest of the day involved watching a lot of Firefly (I first fell in love with Firefly last October and now it has become one of my Autumn Things, like Sunshine and Abigail Washburn and certain sorts of baked goods and combinations of colours in my clothing and the onset of me wearing more eyeliner than usual), and an excursion, which was sort of a walk, and sort of a going to Hockman's for some chocolate caramels and then taking the long way back to the park, where I curled up on the far edge, away from the playgrounds and the city pool and the ball-fields, under several trees, between the picnicking pavillion and the stream. I lay on the grass under the gathering clouds and read The Secret History of Moscow, which along with The Graveyard Book is probably going to be one of this year's most memorable Autumn Books. I missed having one last year, and since Autumn is practically a holiday to me, this was very unfortunate. I had Winter Books that could have done just as well for Autumn but they came too late. The year before that I discovered Neil Gaiman and Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, and the year before that it was Sunshine, which it is now tradition for me to read at the end of October -- I am chomping at the bit to re-read it now, but I make myself wait! -- and bake cinnamon rolls to coincide. Anyway, it started to drizzle (which is a very ugly word; I don't like it; it has very little resemblance to the delicate little scatter-rains I love so much), and my poor library book was getting damp, so I went into the pavillion and got a bit chilly and watched Firefly a bit more, with my chocolates.

I think it was also yesterday when I had the candelabra on my trunk burning so long that the left-most candle is nearly flat, and there is a great mass of picturesque wax dripping down.

Today I have watched more Firefly, read, and gone to Hockman's with Heidi and Leandra, where Leandra got a free chocolate for being ridiculously adorable and grinning her little seven-toothed grin. It's been softly rainy most of this day, too, what Mum called "Seattle rain", my favourite sort of October weather -- it makes one want to be cosy, but also to be outside, and alive. The streets finally smell absolutely of autumn -- wet leaves and far-away woodsmoke and rain and things decaying quietly and willingly, and that undefinable autumnery that must be its very own scent, independent of all material causes. I took a little barefoot not-on-purpose walk down the sidewalk a bit, loving the trees, and in the luxury of dusk stood on the ledge overlooking the road in all the wet. Our house is on a hill, but the hill is only a hill from the back, where it drops steeply down to a patch of grass and the road that feeds into the main through-town one. There's a long sort of curb of wood keeping the yard a little safer, and some odd, thin trees jumbled up together. I love standing on the ledge and just watching things. Mostly cars, but the park is just a little ways from the other side of the road, and the Medicine Shoppe is exactly across, so often there is someone walking by.

We have been making our home more homey by getting all of the decorations out of boxes and putting them on walls where they belong. The living room is almost finished; the bedrooms are pretty well set also. I indeed take pictures when things are more in order and there are fewer boxes everywhere. My bedroom needs more posters -- I will buy them with my paycheck!! -- and I am thinking of copying lady_moriel and making a collage for my door. I spent a few hours today listening to Lisa Hannigan and NPR, and pulling everything from where it was crammed into my dresser drawers, sorting it out, folding it, and putting it back in, except I hung a lot of things in the Main Clothing Closet (Jonathan was right; I do need to name my four closets), so there is much more room now, and everything is considerably more organised, and my bedroom feels a little bit more settled.

Also I cut myself shaving -- BAH, I HATE RAZORS -- and knocked a shadowbox off the wall, shattering glass everywhere, one bit of which I stepped on. The cut was small, but there was an inconvenient amount of blood. One of these days I will grow out of this? 

Today was largely of the good. (Since it is one in the morning I suppose it really counts as yesterday, but the point stands.) Lead worship with Jonathan this morning, and I enjoyed it immensely even though we (mostly me, or by fault of me) messed up a lot. Jonathan played piano, which was fantastic, and I played a hymn I had mostly learnt the evening before, and I was not always where I ought to have been, nor did I know the lyrics nearly as well as I should have, nor did I remember my music stand, so the lyrics and chords were carefully arranged on my lap and I had to keep glancing down as I played, only if I glanced down too much I got too far from the microphone -- well, yes. More practising is in order. Anyway I liked doing it, and the congregation seemed to enjoy it as well, which is really the point of it all. I also did not fall asleep once during the sermon, hurrah hurrah. (This had a little to do with caffeine-laced headache medication, but it is still a worthy accomplishment!)

Lunch was very tasty, Jonathan and I hobnobbed and watched several episodes of Death Note (which is another thing I am liking quite a lot), and bicycled to the Meadows for ice cream and working on our (mostly his) tabletop RPG and not liking the radio station much at all, after which we parted ways.

When I arrived home, Mum announced that she had just been informed that we got the house we wanted. I was so excited that I hugged her. I don't hug people very often. Now I can be legitimately excited about the deacon's bench and the laundry chute and the attic loft over the garage and the apple tree and the yellow-painted living room and the fireplace and the kitchen and my bedroom with four closets and funny little cupboards and being right in town. Right, and you lot were probably going, "did the Presbyterians not meet on Tuesday? this is Sunday, isn't it?" YES. YES IT IS. We have been waiting to hear something all week and it has been very agonising and also more than a little annoying. Church committees are far from my favourite things. (Actually, committees in general don't tend to make the top one hundred list.) We plan to move in over the weekend. (Frivolous: Mum said she would not call our hairdresser and set appointments for us girls to get our hair cut until we had a moving date. My hair has not been cut since I had it bobbed in December and I am not entirely thrilled with the way it has currently grown out. I want to get it cut and re-shaped. I also will not dye it until it is cut, and I have very exciting dyeing plans.)

Other frivolous good thing: when I was hobnobbing with Jonathan yesterday, we stopped in at Goodwill, and I lost my heart to several items, even though I was trying not to look at very much of anything at all (although I ended up buying a fifty-cent record of Saint-Saens' Carnival of the Animals, despite my lack of record player). I mentioned these to Mum, and she sort of went out and bought them for me this afternoon when she happened to be at the supermarket next door. They are: one: a black double-breasted trenchoat, which is quite possibly the only thing I have wanted longer than these boots. (I see lady_moriel being jealous way over there in England, ha ha.) Two: a Firefly-tastic cotton dress, black with silver pinstripes and vivid Chinese flower patterns and beadwork. Three: very retro (but brand-new) bright orange heels, with wide ankle straps and buckles. I may have pictures soon, because, ♥. I didn't really even ask Mum to buy them for me, I just mentioned that I sort of wanted to go to Goodwill soon. 

And now I am going to do the dishes and watch SPN (FINALLY) and go to sleep, because I have a physical tomorrow afternoon, which I am looking forward to, for some odd reason. I don't know, I always half-consciously look forward to new experiences; at least they're interesting, if nothing else. That makes me sound awfully more of an optimist than I've ever considered myself: it is probably misleading.

I should be writing about the general hobnobbing and adventures that have been going on lately, but I tried and they're so muddled together in my head (quite comfortably, sort of like my bookshelves) that I can't quite figure out which pieces go where and it's too late at night to bother, so I shall just set down some pertinent facts.

So, my last dye job is growing out rather dramatically -- the brown roots aren't especially noticeable on the red bits, but the blonde bits are starting to look a bit trailer-park. Therefore it is high time I dyed my hair again. Because life is short and I am mad, I have no intention of re-dying it the same way, and I've sort of decided that pink hair would be excessively awesome what this has nothing to do with Tonks shut up, at least for a few months. I'd like to mix it up with a bit of black, though, to give it texture, and also because I would probably have to buy two tubs of pink dye to do my entire head (my hair is short but thick), not to mention there would be serious peroxideage, and the unnaturally coloured dye at Sally's is not among the cheapest items. Ergo, I am attempting to decide whether I want more black or more pink on my hair -- pink with an underside of black, or black with a nice shock of pink. Someday I will have a go at turquoise, but Sally's has better selection in pinks than blues; I haven't found a satisfying turquoise at all so far, though I could likely ask them to order me one. (I'm not entirely sure when all of this will come to pass, but I'd like to do it before Grey Fox, anyway, which we are probably going to, because pink hair at a folk music festival will be far too much fun.) Anyway, now that I have convinced you all of my madness, forth to the poll!

[Poll #1210518]

On Friday I got my hair lopped off.



Today lots of people exclaimed over my hair, and I was very tired in church because Moony, the scoundrel, seduced me into watching two episodes of Firefly entirely too late at night. So I retaliated by watching a lot of Doctor Who in broad daylight. Not sure how well that's working...