Recommended for libraries serving a trendy population. (original) (raw)

The few weeks after coming home from six weeks at Ragdale/west coast were a bit blurry and discombobulated, getting my bearings and catching up on neglected things, finding ground. Then I left for southern California for wearemany and drinkingstars nuptials, prior to which I was a bit concerned about my state of being, but after a quiet weekend to regroup, I flew out there and put together a fun performance and then MCed the burlesque bachelorette party and it was quite possibly the most perfect event ever. I mean, I know I was involved in it, so that sounds a bit biased, but what I mean was that the whole evening felt that way to everyone involved, simultaneously, so it had more this collective experience of creative flow. I think probably it was the confluence of love and affection in the room combined with the performances, and the occasion, (and the production talents of willagurl), and it was just one of those amazing sum-is-greater-than-the-parts experiences that I felt so glad to be a part of, in the moment and forever, I loved knowing that experience would always be there as part of the lifelong story, it was amazing to do that for someone you love, who is family, and to bear witness to similar acts all along the way the next day for the ceremony and party itself. It was humbling in a way that made me feel proud. Afterwards I cruised down to San Diego on the train and hung out with anjiyama where we sang and sang and sang and sang and had a mutual adoration fest. I'm so full of love for her, even when we are salty. Going out there and seeing Noriko, and S, and Angie, it really was a trip to see family and it felt exactly like that in all the best ways.

Then I came home and crashed. It has been a hard couple weeks, which is not to say it now feels magically easy now either, its just that the inner voice in my head has stopped being the berating awful drill sergeant and now is more like a dry but sweet british gent. He makes recommendations on what I should do next in a way that is much more charming than that other dude. I also came home with a cold, that was never severe, just tenacious and slow to heal, and the weather been very dreary here, not just grey but blustery and rainy and therefore slightly more difficult to negotiate leaving the house. The weather is still not great, there was hardly any sun today, but little rain, so I rode my bike everywhere and had coffee with the Lovely and Talented cocolola and the also Lovely and Talented IRX, then biked to the gym and over on that side of town there are huge houses on tree-lined streets that are flooded in yellow now from all the trees, the leaves depart the branches before they turn brown, they are in their color prime but drop off, since here in Chicago autumn is less of a season and more of a fortnight. (But o! what a fortnight it is.)

I have been feeling more balanced, less doomsday, it got really dreary and scary there a moment or two, and partially my condition has been helped by a new work project that had deadlines and is creative and challenging and even pays me. Some switch got flipped in the brain though, or maybe the drill sergeant got exhausted and fell asleep, but more likely I'm just realizing, nine months after leaving my therapist, that he was right, I am hard on myself. Now that it is my job to manage that, I'm seeing exactly what he means. Though I still have to trick myself into changing the behavior, I have to spin it as being kinder to myself means I can actually get it together to do whatever it is I'm browbeating over. Which, I guess isn't exactly spin, but you know what I mean. I can't be kinder to myself simply for the sake of it. That's advanced level gaming, I'm not there yet.