At the Threshold of the Fall Equinox

Tomorrow is the equinox, so I guess it will officially be fall at long last. I can't even express how happy that makes me. It's time for cooler weather and nice, long nights. It's time to read Dracula and watch horror movies. It's time for big steaming homemade bowls of stew, and soup, and chili.

Then it will be time for the holidays. Last year, I think I felt like I'd finally made them my own. Not what my family, or my ex-partners, or society thought they should be, but what I felt they should be. It turned out the right approach combines religion with the same fun, cozy traditions Seth and I have developed by ourselves over the years. I am really looking forward to doing that again. My holiday season felt like it had a lot of meaning on more different levels than usual and that's something that's been missing.

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I decided I'm not really going to bother with my high school reunion in October. The main reason is the tickets were prohibitively expensive -- for me with my limited income, anyway -- and I just couldn't justify spending almost $200 for Seth and I to attend something I'm not even sure I care that much about. However, I also really don't think I feel like wasting an entire weekend socializing with people I'm not even close to just so I can say that I did it. As nice as it was to see some of the old peeps at Robert's funeral, the introverted Pisces that I am still kind of couldn't wait to leave. An hour or two of forced social interaction is about all I can realistically expect out of myself these days.

On Emotional Honesty, Priorities, and Being True to One's Self

It always seems that the more I have on the agenda for work on a given day, the more I actually feel like writing something of my own instead. A blog entry, usually, or a bunch of shorter social media updates... but occasionally a snippet of a longer story, a piece of flash fiction, or a poem. Usually, I react to those thoughts the way I was taught to -- by telling myself I need to get "the important stuff" out of the way first and then if I have time later on, I can spend what's left of my energy doing things I actually want to do.

The trouble with that approach to writing is that nothing expressive or passionate ever actually gets written. There's always something else to do that "needs" to get done or that society would label as more important. By the time I get to the point in my day when I'm out of things to do, it's the wee hours of the morning and I'm exhausted, not only physically, but mentally and emotionally as well. The last thing I want to do at that point is write some more.

In fact, I'm constantly wondering if maybe that "work first, play later" is actually the wrong approach. For me, anyway. It certainly feels like the wrong one. One of these days, maybe I'll learn that it's OK to be someone that makes decisions based on how they feel and not how good they look on paper or how many of the right people sign off on them. When I just allow myself to give the first hour or two of my writing day to something that I'd actually like to write, I don't resent having to work as much as I normally do. I resent the need to earn money less, since it no longer encroaches upon my self expression.

Partying With the Animals at the Monterey County Fair

We not only made it to the Monterey County Fair this year for the second year in a row, but we also remembered to take plenty of pictures. I'm even in a few of the shots for a change like this one I absolutely love of Seth and me. It was taken in the bleachers on our first night there waiting for Queen Revisited to take the Garden Stage right before the sun started going down. (We saw War and Journey Revisited on each of the other two nights we were there as well. Wonderful shows, all of them.)

Like most women, I'm hard on myself when it comes to my looks, so I'm not crazy about pictures of myself. I'm plenty comfortable in my own skin and I realize that I'm attractive, so it's nothing like that, but I never really see what other people claim to when they look at me. I feel like my dieting and focused efforts to take better care of my skin and hair are starting to show though and that's found me feeling more interested in my appearance than I normally do these days. I was especially surprised by how clear and smooth my skin looks in this year's fair photos. I also like that I look happy, healthy, and in love. As well I should! I am happy, healthy, and in love... and becoming more so all the time.