my heart is a glorious machine;

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? 

Currently I seem to be undergoing the worst period ever to befall me. Details are probably not wanted (nothing very odd, though, just...a lot, okay?), but I feel tired and squashy and extraordinarily fly-off-the-handley and have spent quite a lot of the day in bed -- not because I felt sick, just exhausted. I did get a reasonable amount of sleep, however, and that felt good. And Heidi bought me Hockman's (...with my money), so that was nice, and I've been curled up with books, and -- oh, rewatching Angel S5. ALKHSFDLKHG WESLEYYYYY. I AM SORRY, I CANNOT HELP IT. EVERY TIME HE TALKS MY INSIDES DO FUNNY THINGS. Like, his quiet voice? When something is either very very wrong or very very right? And he goes so quiet and enunciates his consonants very carefully and his voice is just a little rusty and aklghkhfghg. Also I need to write fic about Wesley and Giles bonding over Fairport Convention and being in Giles' car or something and it's on the tape player and they're all "COME ALL YE ROVING MINSTRELS AND TOGETHER WE WILL TRYYYYYYY" and then they pull into the school parking lot and get out and straighten their ties and are like "WE WILL NEVER SPEAK OF THIS TO ANYONE." (Also why Wes is intimately familiar with Tam-Lin. I AM JUST SAYING. THIS IS NOT SELF-PROMOTION REALLY EXCEPT FOR HOW IT TOTALLY IS.)

-- I sound very chipper just now. Actually I feel rather bouncy, despite having been MASSIVELY CROSS all day long, and in addition to being cursed with femininity, also blowing my nose constantly and having a brief bout of nausea and losing the cord for my iPod twice. But I did switch box-springs with Timmy last night, because mine was too long for my mattress and his was too short and I couldn't get my under-the-bed-boxes under the bed, which made the room even more unpacky than it might have been otherwise (and very cluttered and difficult to walk in especially when wearing granny boots), so my bedroom is a little less crazy and I feel a little better being in it. I made the bed, even. I need to organise the closets better and find places for the rest of my books (...I have so many! It's fantastic, most of them are actually mine; I had no idea I personally possessed so many books! but I have no bookshelf now cos there isn't room for the one I had!) and pound nails into the walls and find a chair for my new-old desk and put up the fairy-lights, which could take a while. Yes yes, I have Mum's old desk (minus the massive hutch, which does not fit very comfortably in the corner designated for the desk -- sort of a pity as it contains much room for books) and have banished that silly flowered too-short thing with the pink swivel chair of rubbishness and ick to Heidi's bedroom and Mum's desk is wooden and a little battered but very cosy and sort of old-fashioned and very desky. Only at the moment it's mostly got candelabra and formal gloves and skeleton keys and my voting registration card on it instead of Things Which Belong To A Desk. (This is mostly on account of Lack Of Chair, I think.) I really need to take pictures soon, especially of the Book Nook, which may be the most fantastic closet I have ever had.

This bounciness is fortelling good things for the future, I think. I am tired of being woeful and cranky but it is not much good getting myself to not be when I am. (Well, most of the time anyway. Sometimes I can say shut up you are brooding and being a prat and there is no good reason, go do something productive and/or interesting and you will feel better! but lots of the time I am just miserable and there is little in my power that can change it. Which only makes me miserabler.) 

Cold, you have been hanging around for nearly two weeks pretending you are about to leave and lingering instead. GO AWAY.

(OMG WESLEY READING T.S. ELIOT OUT LOUD. THIS SHOULD HAPPEN. UNFORTUNATELY FIC WOULD JUST NOT BE THE SAME AS HEARING IT. THERE SHOULD BE A MINISERIES OF SOME KIND SPECIFICALLY FOR THE SAKE OF HAVING WESLEY READ "EAST COKER" OUT LOUD. I WOULD DIRECT BUT MY DIRECTIONS WOULD MOSTLY CONSIST OF THINGS LIKE "*WIBBLE*" AND EVERYONE WOULD BE ALL "...WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?".)

Capslock I hereby banish you.

No internet at home yet, woe! Not that it was supposed to be up today anyway, but when I came back from getting a washing machine part at the hardware store Mum was on the phone with Verizon attempting to get a real person on the other line, because apparently we got a call saying our internet installation is delayed until Monday?! DO NOT WANT. DirecTV was already delayed until Thursday because the bloke who was supposed to do it got sick (and I was looking forward to actually watching Pushing Daisies on the television, exactly on time! grr argh). I would be extraordinarily vexed if I weren't so busy -- and I am irritated. Hopefully by the time I get home things will be sorted out, although I doubt it a bit. Anyway, the library is down the block. There are perils involved, however: in order to get to the library, I must pass both Hockman's Candy and Dollar General, source of cheap sweets.

Well, am half refreshed, and half fantastically sleepy even yet, and hungry, and somewhat frustrated, especially with the current lack of computer + internet and having to do things at the library -- goodness, there's quite a lot of other stuff I would like to elabourate on just now, but the library is just not conducive to lengthy introspective narratives. Have been working on the Evangeline novel in my head a lot lately, however -- the three sisters' personalities are beginning to emerge somewhat satisfactorially, and the mythology of my vampires is -- well, it's still massively hazy, but the primary vampire has been having conversations with Evy, so that works out all right, and Evy's voice is getting a bit more -- voicey. Eventually I ought to write something down. Also there are playlists that want working on, and I want to post my autumn mix, drat it! (And watch my television!! WHAT HAVE I BECOOOOME?!)

I should likely wrap things up; dinner will theoretically be soon-ish, my brain is not being very clear, and there are some books I want to look for. My stomach is making funny noises. My bedroom wants more organisation. I am actually not as cranky as these terse sentences are making me out to be. Really! 

I begin to think that every part of me that has got nerves in is aching, but before long I discover a brand-new place to be sore! On the bright side, my upper arms are toning rather excellently (they've been my problemest area in terms of flab I'd rather not have). Also I am rather ridiculously happy. This, again, may be due to the dose of caffeine pills I had this morning, without which I would not have been able to do much of anything. I slept terribly last night, despite being more exhausted than I can remember being since -- well, the last time we moved, I imagine. It seems that with every move I am required to lift more heavy furniture. Fortunately today we have many strong adult men loading, unloading, and carrying bureaus and headboards and bedframes and desks and trunks up the stairs (which are narrow).

But I'm happy. In the midst of a lot of physical labour, even, and physical labour and I don't get along well at all most of the time (neither of us are very keen on the other, I'm afraid). I suppose a bit of it is that I feel properly useful, or that I am doing something properly useful, instead of lying about brooding and eating far too much, and I'm getting things done and trying not to think about things I can't do. Could be the caffeine at work -- caffeine always gives me a bit of a high (but I wonder sometimes if it's less of a high and more of a normal feeling, except that I haven't felt normal and unclogged for so many years now that it feels like a high) -- but it could just be -- what? I don't know, I'm not going to question it. I love being happy. Although what I will love even more is when all of the moving bits of moving are finished with and we can get down to the business of settling in. The house is so lovely! It's the sort of house you want to decorate and organise (and keep clean). My closets (all four of them) are full of cunning shelves and nooks, and I've a ledge over the window, and cupboards on the wall near the ceiling, andandand.

I think it hit me at last, though, last night, about leaving the Rectory, and I was a little broody about it while trying to go to sleep (this took a while). I do love the Rectory terrifically -- it's been my favourite house to live in so far, and my favourite location as far as neighbourhood and surroundings go. I love lying out on the roof (and sometimes sneaking out onto it at night, to look at the moon or the stars or catch a bit of rain or breeze, or just to be gloriously alone), and slipping out to the hill behind the house, or down the block to the pond. I love having nature and what city there is to be found in our little town within easy reach. I love my large closet with the stained glass window and enough room -- as I've imagined in more whimsical moods -- to hide a fugitive in for a week or two. (Usually it was Remus Lupin. I kept him well supplied with sandwiches, cake, newspapers, and my tattered paperback Eliot.) I love having the church next door, hearing them singing from my bedroom, or wandering into my back-yard and finding my friends there, or hearing Father Mark rocking out on the accordion in his office, or accidentally running into parties, like the magical night of Alessandra's wedding rehearsal, when Father Mark had the Victrola on and everyone was waltzing -- including me, by myself, very inexpertly -- and there were candles and people and songs and laughter. But at least I'll be able to come back to this house often, and it isn't so very far to the hill or the pond.

And I am very excited about getting acquainted with this house. (I am also amused at how we always seem to end up in parsonages, rectories, and manses -- few of which have belonged to churches of which we were a part!)

Have stopped by the library, as it is about a five-minute walk from the new house, and am using a library computer to type this: their computers seem to be rather better than ours. Furthermore this one has Firefox. I am well pleased. And we likely have a crew coming to clean the Rectory while we're at church tomorrow morning: another pleasing thing. Most of my things are in my new bedroom, and I want so terribly to organise them, decide what things go on which shelves, make a little nest for myself in the closet that has a sort of seat in it, bang nails into the wall to hang my Victoriana message-board and my Waterhouse Lady of Shalott (my other pictures are already up, at least for now, there being nails left in), hang up curtains, re-paint the walls, make the bed, find places for the books -- take a nap. Listen to Lisa Hannigan. Read a good cosy book and enjoy the autumnery.

I learn many useful things in my frequent moving. Last year's lesson was: always have a book handy. Always. Fortunately this time I have my iPod, with all of my music on it and in my pocket, not to mention a lot of telly, and I have library books lying about too -- or did, until I dropped them off just now, but last year I got so bored during the lulls and late at night that I read a copy of TV Guide cover to cover, three or four times. (Mum had bought it for me as there was an article about the upcoming season of Lost.) My discman was broken, and I had stupidly packed all of my books -- every one, even my pocket Eliot -- and then the night Dad and I brought all sorts of things to the house and I unpacked a box of books and arranged them on the hutch of my desk (which I have always hated and have finally given up to Heidi through this move), and still I forgot to tuck one into my bag. Another lesson: pants and the sensiblest shoes possible, if you can. Shorts are nobody's friend when you are carrying heavy things. Also: caffeine is good. Caffeine is your friend. Caffeine may very well be your lover or your saviour or something, I don't even know. Right now caffeine is my very best friend. Without it I would be dead -- or at least look it.

And now I'd best get going. I am unsure as to when our computers will be in working order, but I imagine I will be sneaking over here frequently until they are, ha ha.

The moving goes on. Jonathan was a great help yesterday, and we should have more help over the weekend, and a truck. On Friday we get a key. I am already scheming to be on the trip to go to get said key, as I have not been inside the house yet (just been outside, and on top of things, and in the yard examining the apple tree and the garden potential, and Mum took many many pictures when she had the tour...). I am Not Down with boxes and my books and jewellery going away inside of them. I have also been excessively sleepy, which is a great bother and is probably related to underlying depressive symptoms, drat them. I spent so much of today falling asleep (after sleeping in) that it bordered on insane. And now I am sleepy again, but not enough to crawl under my fleece blanket and two quilts and shut my eyes and get down to the business of slumber.

in other news, it is autumn! And it is finally beginning to feel a bit more like it, although the humidity that persistently crops up is getting on my last nerve. Fortunately we have very chilly nights to make up for it -- and when I am sitting on my bed reading or outside on my bicycle I can hear geese honking as they fly over me for warmer skies. Mum made baked beans and delicious cornbread with Italian sausage for dinner -- autumn is my favourite time of year for food. Cocoa and cider and apples, cinnamon rolls, spice cookies, gingerbread, my father's stew with massive savoury chunks of beef and potatoes seasoned with pumpkin ale, hot satisfying dinners, oatmeal and very very cold milk, all sorts of bread. Naturally, having a new oven with new quirks, I will be forced to bake a lot of things to ascertain what the quirks are and how to work with them, yes? I foresee much bread in my future. And spice cookies. And things which require cream cheese icing. Also: very pleased friends and family. (Aha, and it is nearly time for my yearly reading of Robin McKinley's Sunshine, and that means that I shall have to make cinnamon rolls. AND HIDE THEM IN MY LOFT.)

I am also nearly finished with the autumn mix I promise every year -- for real this time! Having a new et cetera journal is really doing strange wonders for my productivity. I wrote a short story (when does that happen?), posted a poem that's been lying in a notebook for three months, got back to attempting to write the last section of a fic, and nearly finished a mix. How very odd. I hope this productivity streak continues. Also: does anyone know how to save a song file edited in Windows Movie Maker? I was clipping several minutes of applause and talking off a live track I want to use in a mix, and for the life of me I cannot manage to save it as an mp3 file -- it's all "Windows Movie Maker Project" rubbish, which kind of won't play in iTunes, thanks. (Yes, I realise that there are far better programms for clipping the ends off of songs. Somewhere. Only I haven't got any of them.) 

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.