another wonderland :: six impossible things before breakfast

Alice laughed: "There's no use trying," she said; "one can't believe impossible things."
"I daresay you haven't had much practice," said the Queen. "When I was younger, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."
- Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass

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1.1.09 :: My house will smell like bacon forever.

I really need to be washing my dishes. I think I used every single plate that I own last night, and the kitchen is an absolute mess. But I had a *fantastic* New Year's celebration. I rang in 2009 with the new group of Knoxville friends I met via Twitter, and it was ever so much fun. I invited everyone over for Breakfast food, where I cooked pancakes and French Toast like mad, and my brother volunteered to prepare bacon for everyone, and one of my guests brought a weird Jack Daniels syrup concoction which was actually quite delicious. There were tarot cards to be read, and wii games to play, and copious amounts of drinking, of course. Various conversations about William Blake and Germany and ghosts, and I made my version of the Moon and Stars drink for everyone who immediately became addicted. It was quite possibly the biggest, most successful party I've ever thrown, and I was so very pleased to be surrounded by awesome people. And ringing in the New Year with a long, romantic kiss wasn't half-bad, either. ;-)

I spent the day doing laundry at Thomas's house because my washing machine is still broken, and his family fed me black-eyed-peas with hog jowl, so I can be sure to keep the good luck and fortune I've so recently found. His parents also played the most terrible CD by a local couple and Knoxville that... I don't even have words for, honestly. It's one of those things that's so terrible it's almost awesome -- I think Thomas is planning on sharing via blip.fm sometime soon. Much laughter and much lazy.

Tomorrow, I'm bringing Ais into work with me for part of the day. Hopefully she'll be patient with me through that process.

All-in-all, I couldn't have asked for a better New Year's Eve or New Year's Day. Feeling happy and good about pretty much everything right now. Here's hoping everyone else's 2009 has started off on similarly happy notes.

Labels: friends, good days, happy, holidays

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29.12.08 :: laughing at the christmas lights

Life continues apace. Holidays came and went. Several major stories over the past few weeks, including but not limited to: the discovery of gallstones in my innards, my family & several close friends meeting my new beau, and my place of employment playing Santa Claus and gifting Aisling and I with a wii. I was fortunate to spend good quality time with both Dustin and Erin over the holidays, which I was grateful for, having missed them both so much, and I also got to spend a lot of time with my mother and grandmother, which was also good. Last night, I bought myself sushi, drank the last bit of the Lambrusco, turned on all my Christmas lights, and watched the last episode of Nobuta wo Produce (the Christmas episode) all snuggled with Thomas on my living room couch. New Year's Eve, I'm inviting several peeps over to my house for breakfast foods and champagne -- and drunken wii games, more-likely-than-not.

As per the most recent trends, I am happy, loved, petted, well-fed, and in constant amazement of the serenity I feel.

I've done so much with my life in 2008. Found house and home, found self, found love. Together -- really *together*, for perhaps the first time... well, maybe ever, but definitely in years, at the very least. Here, approaching the end of the third decade of my life, and finally settled comfortably into the good life I've made for myself -- good house, good job, good love. Still not always *completely* convinced I deserve such blessings, of course, and still somewhat frightened that I'll do something fabulously ridiculous to spoil it all, but -- less so than before, much less anxious now.

I didn't keep a single resolution from last year, and I'm not entirely sure what I would change in my life now. So happy, the way things are moving, the way my life looks. I suppose that I hope that 2009 is a continuation of the same happy, excited calm. I wouldn't change a thing, even if I could.

Labels: good days, happy, holidays

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7.12.08 :: Batman is *totally* a ninja.

Aisling and I have been spending the weekend with Nathaniel, and it's been a rather nice one thus far. I brought China Pearl from West Knoxville, which none of us had eaten since I moved from Farragut last year and it was *delicious*, and Nathaniel caught me up on Big Bang Theory and Naruto, forced me to watch the movie Hancock (which was actually not entirely terrible), and revealed to me that he had the Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe game for his XBox 360, which provided hours of amusement. (I heart Mortal Kombat, even if I *do* totally suck at it and only subscribe to the Pushing All Of The Buttons school of play.) We also finally got through the rest of On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness which is such a completely brilliant game. (Robot Monkey Fights -- that's all I'm sayin'. And serious kudos to Nate for waiting for my return visit to finish up the game.)

We dug out Christmas decorations and put up Nate's tree, and Nate tried to make his famous family custard as I baked chocolate chip cookies. Aisling also demonstrated more of her potential film-making skills, and I believe she and Nate watched the SEC Championship while I was out and about this afternoon. As an added bonus, I also got to finally catch up with Meghan for the first time in ages, and that was an extremely happy thing. So... all in all, a pretty good weekend so far.

There is, of course, still a certain amount of inevitable awkwardness and unfamiliar distance between Nate and I, now, as we adjust our dynamic to allow for the fact that I've fallen for somebody else. It's difficult to navigate through at times, but it's completely understandable. To be perfectly honest, all things considered, we're actually doing an incredible job of getting along and "keeping things normal" in spite of everything -- but it's to be expected, really. We do have a rather strong history of maintaining friendship in spite of changes to our dynamic, after all. And I am so very grateful for that.

Labels: domestic, family, friends, holidays

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5.12.08 :: like the air of december

There is a strong possibility that, as Christmas approaches, I may spontaneously combust from the combination of my usual holiday high spirits and the intense amount of twitterpation I am happily suffering from right now. ♥

Last night, I met Thomas's family. I was, as per usual, ridiculously and needlessly nervous about the whole thing, and they were, as Thomas had promised, absolutely fabulous. Thomas's house was full of turtles (decorative *and* live ones), and the door frame to the storage room documented the heights of the household the way my grandfather's kitchen doorway documented mine, and my brother's, and later Aisling's - in horizontal marks, labeled by year. As such, I felt a sort of odd comfortable familiarity with this house I'd never seen before -- despite the fact that Thomas's dog *totally* wanted to kill me.

It struck me, at some point last night, or early this morning (the difference between those two times of day is becoming increasingly blurred for me) that while I have had periods in my life where I felt very calm and still, and periods where I was intensely and ridiculously happy, it has always been a novelty for me to experience both simultaneously. True to my Gemini nature, the calm has often inspired feelings of intense restlessness, and the amplified happiness has generally been accompanied by a nervous energy and a generalized anxiety that happiness is always transient and it's just a matter of time before the world comes crashing down around my ears.

I am happy to announce that here, in December, I am ridiculously happy, yet simultaneously calm and still in my own heart. And I am walking through my life without looking up, with absolutely no fear that the sky might fall at any moment. And that's a great place to be.

Labels: good days, happy, love

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4.12.08 :: We're back *here* again...? Wha...?

Yes, I know -- I have a problem. *sigh*

See, here's the thing. I go through phases where I completely want to divorce myself from the entire history of my life. This is immediately followed by a wave of nostalgia where I spend hours flipping through old website pages and terrible teenage poetry, and then I become frustrated that said history is not easily accessible, indexed, and readily available for any interested parties. Best I can figure, I'm basically the same way Thomas describes the Nintendo wii -- I'm just a vessel for nostalgia; I can't help it.

Best summed up in the most famous Devon Koren quote of all time:

"I like shoes! ... No, I don't."

So, yet again, I've decided to live my life in the public eye, Devil take the consequences. And once again, I will attempt to resurrect my entire body of work -- fiction, poetry, and journal -- beneath the "another wonderland" umbrella.

I swear this is not just some elaborate compensation because I'm secretly terrified that, as an artist, my Best Days Are Behind Me.

*cough*

Yeah, okay -- that's *totally* it. But! As far as the Art of Living is concerned, it looks as if my Best Days are right in front of me. So... there's that, at least. XD

Labels: happy, website

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24.9.08 :: Me and my impulsive tendencies.

I had a fantastic day yesterday. Work went smoothly, Aisling was in a good mood, I ended taking an extended lunch hour to watch WALL-E again with my new friend Thomas, I found a four-leaf clover, and I took Aisling out to eat at Leo’s Cafe. I forget sometimes that, when I am left to my own devices, I am a highly impulsive creature, and really the only thing that keeps me in check is the fact that Aisling operates so much better when my life is going according to schedule.

I worry about this sometimes. As soon as I was free of my mother and grandparents’ rules and regulations during my first year of college, I went a little crazy with freedom, and flew through those early years of my official adulthood being rash and impulsive, making poor decisions and never thinking about the consequences of my actions. Now, those impulses are kept somewhat in check by my need to maintain a stable and secure environment for Aisling, but I still nearly explode when I have the least amount of freedom to move (for example, the absolute lush I become each year at DragonCon) and my impulsive behavior rears its chaotic head in the form of random purchases and last-minute outings — which may help explain why my bank book much too closely resembles that of the big players on Wall Street. Of course, they get the opportunity for the government to bail them out of their messy debt. I, on the other hand, have to figure mine out on my own.

Last night, I revised my budget, trying to figure out a way to pay off credit *without* living off credit, which has always been a tricky business for me. Obviously, I have to stop eating out, taking so many road trips, purchasing things I really don’t need (like my tendency to buy random soundtracks from iTunes), etc. But also, I cut corners to a greater extreme. I have this fancy cable television that I really don’t need. I watch it because it’s there, but there are few things I actually really thoroughly enjoy that I couldn’t find elsewhere (re: my $6 a month Netflix account) so now I’m down to the cable modem and the television that comes with that, and cable-phone service which I feel I need for security purposes, and Aisling. I’m cancelling my membership to the RUSH - I only actually make it to the gym on average once or twice a month, and the rest of the time I work out at the gym downstairs at work or at home. I’m also going to cancel Aisling’s piano and gymnastics lessons, at least for the time being. She doesn’t enjoy them anymore (she always calls Thursdays the Worst Days Ever) and in addition to the cost of the lessons, I have to pay the high gas prices to drive all the way from North to West Knoxville and back once a week, plus a fast-food purchase on the way home because it’s much too late to prepare dinner by the time we get back. Those four changes alone will save me nearly $200 a month, and if I can be mindful about my daily purchases and use coupons, etc., I could likely save even more.

The biggest issue for me is to simply get away from this mindset I have of being “entitled” to luxuries I can’t afford, and also to further keep in check my rather impulsive habits. Or, at least, to find more creative and “free” ways to have impulsive adventures. Instead of driving to the Zoo, for example, taking Aisling for a walk around the neighborhood to explore things. Throwing last-minute parties around my house. Because, like it or not, I *am* impulsive and spontaneous at times, and those tendencies only become more pronounced the more I try to supress them.

Labels: finances, friends, navel gazing

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22.9.08 :: It ain't as easy as it looks.

At times, I feel as if I make the whole Being A Single Mother and Raising an Autistic Child gig look pretty easy. On most days, Aisling and I have entirely too much fun, and I simply find all of the “oddities” and “quirks” that are “symptomatic” of autism endearing personality traits. And true enough - if I keep her to a schedule, if I keep all of my promises, if I own up to my end of the checks-and-balances that I’ve carefully constructed over the years, then the machinery runs smoothly, and she follows my lead with little fuss.

The fatal flaw in this system, however, is the fact that it demands for my full-time 100% best foot forward. And even the best of us have bad days. And I am by far not the best.

This was definitely an “off” weekend for me. I sailed across Thursday and Friday on a manic social high, and immediately crashed upon waking Saturday morning, in a crabby mood that was further exacerbated by the terrible Tennessee/Florida football game and my MacBook’s decision to lose access to its operating system. As such, I spent most of the evening on the couch, drifting in and out of sleep, and spent much of the next day doing the same — which resulted in Aisling playing too many video games, and neither one of us actually getting out and doing anything constructive, worthwhile, or fun. Aisling had already been thrown off balance by my decision to throw a Spontaneous Pirate Party on Friday night, and on Saturday was in a poor mood because we could never confirm an invite for her best friend, Chase, to come over and play, and when we went to rent games for our own “slumber party” on Saturday, we discovered that our local Blockbuster does not carry DS or GameCube games.

At any rate, fast-forward to this morning — where I woke up queasy (probably from too much pizza this weekend) and did not feel like doing my workout. This has become part of Aisling’s morning routine, as well, since she requests I wake her up to watch my workout. Again, this threw her off her routine, and then I realized as I was packing her lunch that she had homework she needed to finish over the weekend (I didn’t check on Friday because she usually doesn’t have homework on the weekends) and I became frustrated with her for not telling me about the homework, and for not being able to dress herself in the proper clothes (I laid clothes out for her but she ignored them and immediately pulled on playclothes for school while I was taking a shower.) I was trying to correct her behavior, when she immediately started crying — and I got angry with her for crying, one of those carry-over traits from my own upbringing that I really, really wish I could shake, but for some reason can’t seem to manage it. At any rate, it was a bad morning.

I’ve been doing this long enough now, of course, to understand the factors that cause bad mornings such as these to happen, to know what I can do to correct them, and also to understand that it’s not the end of the world if we happen to have a bad day here and there. I understand that I can’t be perfect all of the time, and that it does take an extreme amount of energy and discipline on my part to keep the world running smoothly for her. I also understand that I can’t keep her insulated from the chaos that is the Real World forever, and sooner or later she’ll need to learn to regulate her own life without the artificial scheduling and security that I attempt to provide. Still - mornings like this are difficult, no matter who you are.

Labels: aisling, autism

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