my heart is a glorious machine;

I was greeted upon waking this morning by post! -- a card from lightofjudah -- proper illustrated Milne Winnie the Pooh! Pauline, you are a wonder -- and a little parcel from miss_baxter containing music! And it was so terrifically cold that Mum drove me to work, so I wore a skirt for the first time in a week. I feel rather dreadful, wearing trousers constantly -- lately even my days off have seen me trouser-clad, as this weather calls for either those or industrial-strength stockings (maybe wool ones, cable-knit). Oh dear. Perhaps this is why I have been feeling un-myself lately?

At work, I had the most magnificent customer: a gentleman, perhaps fifty, in a long grey peacoat, and a very sophisticated yet eccentric tie, all orange and green (it looked a bit like the one that Noah wore to Alessandra & Roberto's wedding, here-folk, except more epic), and he had on a waist-coat, and I am quite sure that he was either a rare American member of the Watcher's Council, or a wizard pretending to be a Muggle and being somewhat more successful than most.

(I also have an inordinate amount of people asking if I have puzzles. Not puzzle calendars -- puzzles. Why, I don't know. We sell calendars. It says so on the sign on top of the kiosk. Calendars and puzzles aren't really connected at all except by virtue of being generally square-shaped and given to people as last-minute presents when you don't know them well enough to figure out what they might really like. The first time someone asked this, I was not especially perturbed -- people ask me all sorts of idiotic questions. After the fourth time I am beginning to be worried.) 

(And when I arrived home, a package had come for me -- only it was an anonymous Fed Ex package, and I hadn't ordered anything, but when I opened it, after epic struggle -- they make cardboard thick! and even the "pull this tab you silly twit" tab came off when I tried to pull it -- it turned out to be from bornofstars, and there was a present and a lovely handmade card, and my message board is quite respendent with the fruits of my f-list's labour just now; it makes me quite cheery to look at it.) 

I have been trying not to be tense and cross. It is only working out about half the time. Alas. But I curled up on my bed with paper and stamps and ink and started making Christmas cards, while playing Over the Rhine's and Neal & Leandra's Christmas albums (my favourites: and warmest and sacredest). Some of said cards I am extremely pleased with and others are not quite as excellent, but I haven't delved into the stamps in quite some time. Be forewarned: I cannot cut a straight line. It is physically impossible. So, as much as I have tried to even them out, your cards will have at least one odd-shaped edge.

And now I haven't got to work for three days. It is delicious. Tomorrow, Dad's Christmas Eve service, in which I am ... um, doing most of the singing, oh help. And then the long car-ride to my aunt's for the holiday. I love the late-night Christmastime travel -- there's something cosy and old-fashioned and magical about being all smashed up in a car with packages falling on one's head, while Dad keeps changing the radio stations trying to find good Christmas music, and finally putting on CDs, and falling asleep, and looking up to see the palm-familiarity of my aunt's neighbourhood, turning into the dark driveway and then trying to be very very quiet greeting everyone (and when you are twelve, you only want to yell).

The Mix: it is uploading as you read this.

I twined my smallest strand of fairy lights all around my iron headboard this evening, and when the lights are turned off in my bedroom, they send faint finger-touches of colour all about the walls and the bedspread like little blessings.

Thus far the Day Off has been a success. I did not, as I often do, spend a lot of time getting around to accomplishing something, and ending my day of lazy leisure with a thick feeling of disappointment. It took a while, but I did do things eventually -- went to the library (that was purely for pleasure, but as it involved running two blocks in the bitter cold, it woke up my senses enough to get to the Next Step), made a large lunch, cleaned my bedroom. I listened to NPR all day, which I have sorely missed, and -- well, I would have slept in if not for my appointment with Dr DiGilarmo at ten am, which I also ran to (only a block, though). I feel a little less -- jumbled about, now, I think, in some ways? And -- several weeks ago he had me take a test for ADHD, and the questions made me laugh because I was checking "VERY OFTEN" for nearly all of them, so he had me take another one today, to see how consistent my scores were, and -- they were pretty ruddy consistent. So I have an appointment with my doctor on Friday ...  

(I'm rather optimistic about this -- even depression treatment hasn't cleared up some of my messiest mental problems: the fatigue, the inability to concentrate, the way I keep drifting around life unable to touch anything; the way I can never, ever, ever finish projects, or half the time start them; the general feeling of my head never being clear, like my bedroom, except I know how to clean that, and my head just keeps getting more and more cluttered and disorganised and uncomfortable. If I can just straighten out my head -- I think a lot of things come through after that.)

One of the points of interest I was too exhausted to remember last night is that we got our Christmas tree last week, and Saturday morning Mum & the siblings & I decorated it before I went to work. (It wasn't quite right, doing it in daylight, but we had a Christmas open house for members of our little church that evening, so we couldn't wait till after I got home.) Our Christmas tree is always such a fun colourful jumble of unique ornaments, each humming with memories. Of course Leandra keeps trying to run off with them ...  And the fireplace mantle has a garland entwined with fairy lights, and the stockings are up, and there are extra boughs from the tree nestled around the sconces on each end of the far wall: everything is marvellously cosy.

And now for bed... ! (Maybe.)

I was actually joking when I commented on

ressie_noldo's Happy 2007 entry (dratted Indians, getting to the new year before us), but then I ended up having a go at it, so, um, I welcomed in 2007 in probably-predictable Banui style: sitting at the computer writing ballad-fic (yes, ballad-fic, it's for 'The House Carpenter'/'D(a)emon Lover', if you're interested, because it's one of my very favourite ballads and one I've had a very long relationship with; also, ballad-fic, unlike, say, Potter-fic, has a possibility of maybe making me money someday, except hardly anyone wants weird short stories, I reckon) and listening to Deb Talan, with the Black Death and my pocket Eliot (which is currently in the stage of Falling To Bits, held together with a hairband) beside me. Hopefully this bodes well for the upcoming year. Like, maybe someone will discover an Eliot epic in the vein of 'Prufrock' that never got published. And I will write fic about it. And maybe go on to write about my other very favourite Child ballad, 'The Grey Selchie'. And eat--well, ack, that doesn't bode well for my weight-loss hopes. (I say hopes, not plans. Plans and I do not go together well.)

Speaking of selchies, the family and I watched The Secret of Roan Inish last night--before midnight; after midnight we were engaged in some very, very trippy early cartoons (some of them kind of reminded me of Terry Gilliam's animated bits in Monty Python's Flying Circus, except his stuff was better, and it wasn't supposed to, somehow, make sense, which meant that you weren't terribly, terribly afraid that everyone involved wasn't also heavily involved in, say, opium)--um, anyway, it's a very good film, and I really loved it, but the main point of talking about it is because it reignited my interest in the selchie legend, which I've always been fond of on account of being very intimately in love with Solas' eerie version of 'The Grey Selchie' since the age of twelve. Also, Jane Yolen's retelling in The Book of Ballads is rather good. What I'm saying is...actually, I don't know what the real point of this is. Selchies are nifty, and I want to write about them. Which sounds really shallow when you put it like that--the really interesting thing about the selchie tales, I suppose, is all of the motivations and reactions which are typically left out. Would a selchie-wife really love the husband who held her in thrall, and if so, how and why? What about someone attempting to gain control over a selchie for nefarious reasons? What sort of fellow would marry a seal-woman he knew nothing about, and what would village gossip say? What about the children of a selchie? I mean, really, what about them? It's all very fascinating, I think. (And, maybe this is completely out there, but are there any traditional ballads with vampires in? Not that I would want to incorporate one into a current project, mind. I would never do that.)

 

Well, yikes. Why am I suddenly realising that no-one is going to read this straight-through?

I don't know what it was, really: some change in the colour-scheme, some brightening or dimming of the lights, but suddenly and astonishingly Christmas spirit burst into me like flame igniting wax. Despite last night's Omen Of Deep And Profound Ill--the Christmas tree toppled over at two thirty in the morning, with one ornament fatality and several minor injuries reported--things seem to be going rather well, and I am--dare I say it?--Looking Forward. (Also, poking at the presents is always good for the mood, unless one is too easily frustrated. Yay, presents. Mum & Dad, in a typical show of Deviousness, have refused to put tags on any of the presents, so we haven't a clue who they are for. Fortunately, there are plenty of presents from other people--grandparents, family friends, and the like--and I've got my own little store of things from lady_moriel  and midenianscholar  to puzzle over. lady_moriel  = BEST PRESENT ADDRESSER EVER. Except for the one time Dad gave his parents a fruitcake 'from Beelzebub'.)

Well, tomorrow morning--today, actually, as it is one thirty in the morning now--we are piling in the Gigantic Van and driving at not-exactly-breakneck speed towards The House Of The Aunt, where my cousins and I will recommence whatever insanity we didn't finish properly with last time we saw each other (which will probably involve making a short film of some kind, likely starring action figures), eat pizza, and commence Not Sleeping At All In Any Way Except For That Brief Bit At Four Or Five When Our Tongues Have Begun To Ache From Talking. 

Hopefully I will have shed this cold by Christmas, at least. I sound like a complete and utter prat whenever I talk and I am beginning to want to rip out my vocal cords and start over again. Also, I have been wearing an inordinate amount of makeup as my upper lip has got a vivid red patch that eerily resembles a Hitler 'stache. ...Which, yeah, wrong. 

P.S.: D'you know what I want for Christmas? PLUTO. ♥


(AND I SAW TWO EPISODES OF MONTY PYTHON TONIGHT. EEEEE. *goes to bed*)