authoring destruction

It's been a long, dark, sweet, difficult, stretched, and driven handful of weeks. A lot has happened. A lot is happening. A lot of things are going to have to shift when I get home from the left coast, in a clutch of days.

I've driven effectively from Chicago to San Francisco in three days, the vast majority of those miles in a vehicle larger and more ungainly than anything I've piloted in my life. I've seen three bands I absolutely fucking adore (Nightwish, Kamelot, Psyclon Nine) and stand to see a fourth I'm excited about (Assemblage 23) in a couple of days. I've danced and screamed and sang and been having unusually vivid dreams, and for the first time in a number of years (and to my great relief) felt the touch of the ocean. Walking out toward the surf and the setting sun, I greeted the cold water like I always do, hello lover, and was reminded that even as my life is rooted and happy, I belong to greater upheaval than this. Much as I know and love the deep earth, stillness and silence, tectonic hibernation, I should not grow complacent here. I am so restless in these cities. But I feel more like myself. More like the creature.

I'd really like to write in great depth about a variety of corporeal and incorporeal things that are going on at the moment, or that I'm chewing through, but... I absolutely do not have the focus for it right now. I suspect half of that is going to fall on the crows side of things and half of it will fall on the clocksong side of things, but I'm not honestly sure all of which is which. Because, a lot is wrapped up together, right now. I'm trying to sort it out. There are some complicated feelings, and not even all about the things I was expecting.

Wow, it's more than a hundred dollars cheaper to fly into Burbank than it is to fly into LAX.

Just trying to think about going down for a few days and pack my shit up to get it out of storage exhausts me.

If someone had been more honest and upfront, and given so much as two shits about how his communication affected me during this period of my life, this all would have been a lot easier. As it is, his concern seems to continue to be exclusively for himself without any regard as to how it might influence anything around him. That would be fine if I'd left saying, fuck you, I don't care what you're doing or what you think. But I didn't. I left saying, I love you, and with assurances that there was a high likelihood that once we got a couple of months of space we'd be talking about me coming back down.

Ha. Ha. I don't even think, at this point, that I'm going to tell him when I come down to retrieve my things. I can't imagine trying to sit across a coffee table from him and pretend that we're still good friends.

Getting closer. Still debating whether or not to bring the cat. On the one hand, she's happy where she is, she stresses my parents' cats out a little, and it's gonna cost me at least $200 bucks to make that all happen. On the other hand, it's my CAT. I loves her and will be lonely without her for 6 months. And. She'll be happy wherever she is. Damn entitled cat knows how to take her happiness from whatever she can get it out of better than any other creature on the planet. Hmm. Hmm.

Porgi, Amor: http://youtube.com/watch?v=OB8IWGJl7Nw

I am with singing this in voice as of this week. I -adore- this song, and have ever since I was exposed to it when my old voice teacher, Moni, was using it to audition for an opera program when I went to visit her in Philadelphia. The last months of sight-reading have really paid off... this is the first piece of real music that I've actually had to employ it on, and it's going remarkably well considering how confident I don't feel about my ability to read the music straight off the page and figure it out correctly. It's starting to make sense in my brain though! It's a chore, pairing the intervals with the counting with the phrasing with the lyrics, but I know the difference between right and wrong and I'm not simply guessing at how it's supposed to be sung anymore. Freakin' yay!!

TDMonthly: I got my first assignment as a 'regional correspondent' this week. Basically, I'll be conducting phone interviews with retailers about new product for '08. They're going to pay me a little for the 'work' I did at Toy Fair, too. I've sent them the necessary paperwork. It's not going to be a huge source of income, but it's A: better than nothing, B: a great opportunity in terms of experience in two industries that I care about (writing and toys) and C: shouldn't be at all unpleasant. I'll probably still look for a regular job, at least part time, possibly waiting tables (I've never done that before!) once I get back from...

Oakland! Which is where I'm going tomorrow with a friend who's driving up to visit people. So. I get to visit some of my people, too! Yaytastic.

I am in Boston, this very moment. The flight(s) in were charming, the most charming part being that it started to snow just before we touched down in the city and they couldn't figure out how to get the two inches of snow off the runway for an extra full hour of flight time. Actually, it wasn't half bad, all in all... I've been on way worse flights.

Boston is gorgeous. It was snowing overnight (barely any is left) and has been raining out of an oppressively low sky all day. Mother and I brought umbrellas and wandered around the splashy streets... breezed into the library for a few minutes just to look, saw the school, hung out with my brother a little. He seems to be becoming a serviceable human being afterall.

I'm ridiculously excited about New York. A: Toy Fair is awesome, if hard work. Additionally, I may have secured myself a job writing for a toy industry online magazine. The lady sent me a trial assignment she wanted to know if I was willing to take on during Toy Fair next week. Like, yes. I have an interview of some kind Sunday evening after the show. I have been clear with them so far that I want to be able to work remotely at least some of the time, so I can travel.

:)

Travel plans for New York are made for next month.

I can't keep my hands out of anything. I've sewing I'm at, knitting, guitar, the usual singing, and more writing than I can hold in my head at any given moment...

Not to mention a thousand more ephemeral things, which I relish even more. It is good, it is good, it is good. It is...

I hate having so much to say and then realizing I don't, as soon as I open my mouth. The most interesting new development is, however, that I seem to find myself falling back into the fold of a smile behind my teeth, every time I go silent.

I have three names to play with:
Kestral Gaim
Adler Mourne
Yaeli Brokov

No relation.