too tied to fiction

What happens when stories make you feel more than real life does?

“That was definitely a thing that happened.”

So much has happened. So much. I thought things would untangle over September; they really didn’t. They tangled further. So dot points, because I can hardly think in a straight line.

Let’s start with the medical shite.

  • the cancer scare has been downgraded to “if the next exams come up clear, you’re all good!”, which I am endlessly, crazily, gloriously grateful for. Not just for my own sake, but for everyone who was worried about me. (Apparently my Dad took it very hard; I feel horribly guilty about that, which is stupid and I know it, but…there it is. :/)
  • we have an answer to all the symptoms: ME/CFS. (Sod the CFS, actually, I’m just using “ME” because that’s what it was originally called, and is far more accurate a term.) I have myalgic encephalomyelitis. I’ve probably had it since I had COVID the first time.
  • this means that all my future plans — turning my life around and becoming a doula+midwife, which I was so serious about I cut eight inches off my hair to mark, y’know, a decision made seriously and happily and with hope — are now in the bin. I don’t have a big enough ‘energy envelope’ to go back to university studies. Any of them.
  • I’m going over everything I do on the daily to try and get better at knowing where my limits are, what triggers things, what helps, what hinders, etc etc etc. It’s important, and knowledge is power, bluh bluh bluh, but it’s just…so frustrating and trying to condition myself into basically stalking myself is unfun. Yeah. Unfun. And saddening.

Emotional shite.

  • It’s really fucking difficult to cope with people you admire and dare I say, love, associating with people who purposefully went out of their way to hurt you, for god alone knows what reason. (Clout, I guess.)  But I’m not like She Who Must Not Be Named; I don’t dictate who my friends can and can’t be friends with. It just…hurts. To see layouts by someone and links to someone who didn’t even have enough honour in them to come directly to me with their problem, but instead spread it all over a certain forum. Lying.
  • Sometimes I just wish I’d never started making fanlistings whatsoever. I’ve quit absolutely now, and quite frankly find a lot of the staff members outright dismissive of problems I brought to them, in good faith. I am done with the vileness that is T(A)FL; but I just wish I’d never started, back in ’16. The community is a pit of vipers.
  • I just realised; fanlistings in general are probably one of the things that exacerbate my ME symptoms (because yes, emotional and mental turbulence also sucks up your energy).

And we’ll end with the far more palatable Things That DON’T Suck!

  • Our local pale-headed rosella couple have decided to start nesting…in my brushtail possum’s box. Poor Eustace has been essentially evicted from his former home and Helyanwion and Vilyaranel have moved in. Eustace essentially shrugged his shoulders, and just moved “over the road” to the first possum box. Bothered? Nah mate, that takes too much energy. XD
  • It’s absolutely delightful to watch the rosella couple go in and out of their new nest, peeking outside when a sound worries them a bit too much or just out of curiosity. I think Vinyaranel has already laid eggs, or is going to very very soon. ♥
  • Recipes for my family that have the tick of approval: Mum’s Teacupcakes, and mulberry muffins. Also, Dad declared that my peanut butter fudge is better than his favourite lollies. I just about passed out. Gonna have to do a pantry restock very soon…and pick more mulberries!
  • I’ve almost perfected my microwave cinder toffee. Almost. And semi-successfully made a cake-in-a-mug into really tiny cupcakes! No idea where I found those tiny little muffin papers, but hey!
  • Started beta-testing a cute game called EverGrove Idle: Grow Magic. It’s just your regular sort of idle game, I think, but…I’m kind of in love with a couple of the characters already? The visual-novel romance part of the narrative unrolls as your reach certain levels, and I’m just like…(⁄ ⁄•⁄ω⁄•⁄ ⁄)⁄  when can I ask Seren to marry me she is my silver sparkling star she is EVERYTHING?! And can I kiss the Warden if only to see him smile? fdjskalfdja;j
  • Playing all the Tsuki games now, but still loving Odyssey the best. I’ve unlocked the area between Momo’s teahouse and Bobo’s ramen cart, FINALLY! First thing I did was put up a row of very bushy trees between the two, plopped a waterfall beside Bobo’s cart (ambience, y’know?), and as a sign of trying to keep the peace…we have a Peace Lemon tree. It belongs to both of them — because lemon is a common tea accompaniment, and Frith alone knows what Bobo puts in his weirder creations, so. They both share the fruit of the tree and try to get along, as far apart as possible and with a line of greenery between them. XD Sigh. I wish I could create a bedroom for Pipi, or put more elegant things in Scarlett’s loft…(I need to do a whole stupid post about Tsuki nonsense, don’t I? XD)
  • pondering starting up a new Stardew Valley game, seeing as there’s going to be a lot of sitting around and stuffing energy into an envelope desperately in my future.

Murasaki Shikibu was wa-la-wa~, change my mind. Not sure where to put that, so it’s here, and also, you’ll never change my mind. ♥

think of it as a world without end

I finished “The Fairy Tale Museum” by Susannah M. Smith, and I have no words for it. As I said on the bird hellsite, that wasn’t a book, that was an experience. I can’t explain it to anyone; you’ll have to experience it for yourself. So have some words from it, instead, to tempt you to do so:

“What are you doing, little fox?
With a sideways glance and a flick of its tail, the fox might answer, I am in the thicket, now and always. I am the jewel in the obscurity.”

“People say it’s about the journey, not the destination. Dialectical thinking has its limitations.”

“Same moon. Different birds. How is it that libraries are so beautiful? The square at night. Narrow streets behind the cathedral. Books in different languages. You get lost. You find your way.”

“I felt the whispers of thousands of stories pushing up against me.”

“Things are not as you have been taught.
What you thought was blood was a metaphor for vital energy.
What you thought was scary was simply important.
What felt haunting only wanted you to be present.
Your instincts have brought you here.
Nothing is broken that cannot be repaired.
Remember who you are.”

“I don’t want to live without the sparklers, the brightness. Without that feeling of lying flat on the ground, pressed down with barely any blood or breathing and barely even any bones. What good is living without that? Only TV and TV and TV.”

“She can feel the future with all its colours.”

“Use your imagination. Wear your crown on the inside.”

“As if there had never been any reason for unhappiness.
As if all you had to do was believe in what you wanted
and it would happen.”

“Is the castle off in the distance,
or is it just behind your sternum?”

“When I’m awake during the night I use whatever scrap of paper is nearby. I write words, scribble, and jot. I burn holes. I take whatever comes. I trust my unconscious. There are always coloured pencils and pens and boxes of matches in the cupboard beside my bed. I am never without my supplies.”

“Is surrealism unfashionable? Is psychological inquiry embarrassing? I don’t care. I don’t pay attention to trends. I do exactly as I please.”

“He sees the bushes at the edge of the field and senses the blue fox in the underbrush. Its silken body glitters with jewels, hidden at the edge of the park.”

“A voice in his head tells him: You’re building a city. Each poem is a spire. The spires cluster together. Soon bells will ring. He smiles. Knowing that the blue fox is out there winking in the dark brings him happiness.”

“…all those damn rock stars with their dreamy poet eyes and tattoos.”

“Sometimes when you live by yourself, you need a bit of company; you need to make something out of nothing to know you exist.”

“Listen here. Yes, you. Don’t sleep with a clock radio beside your bed. It isn’t good for your electrical field. Same goes for the cellphone. You may scoff, but I still dream my own dreams. Do you?”

“A diamond. His heart was that hard. And yet, it shines in him. He can feel it.”

“If a star shines in the forest and no one is there to see it, is there any coruscation?”

“She was everything good about me that I hadn’t yet become.”

“She drew lingering looks from men and women she passed in the streets. She was like that. A rare thing from another world.”

“I’m almost who I want to be.”

“You’d been let go for dreaminess and are out on a mid-afternoon lark. Sometimes a person’s got to put the stars back in her eyes.”

“You stand in the doorway on the edge of the night. The edge of your excursion. You wait until the pathway is deserted and then, with a sudden decisive movement, you turn up your collar and move forward into the glow.”

“This is where everything happens. This is where worlds unfold. You settle in, turn your face to the screen, and close your eyes.”

“I’ve held you in my mind as I’ve skated through multitudes, as I’ve gathered all these specimens and turned them slowly in the light.”