The devil made me undo it

Last night, I dreamt I was watching 2 criminals being hung beside each other. One accepted his fate without any fuss. The other one fought like a cat being put into a bathtub of water. He was still struggling against the noose and evading all efforts to be subdued when I woke up.Which leads to the below update.

That feeling of glowing relaxation turned out to be a fake out. Or maybe I was actually relaxed, but my subconscious freaked out from the crazy new feeling and decided to wind me back up. However, however, I fought the law and I sort of won. What I mean to say is, the past 2 weeks have been a Mexican wrestling match between my propensity toward being tense and my desire to feel relaxed. I won't recount the damn details but I think I beat being tense down to a whimper. It's still knotted up somewhere in my small intestine but that will do for now.

I've got to say, I have been enjoying the Christmas season. I've been keeping very busy, mostly making and remaking a certain present about a thousand times but I got that little bugger right finally, today actually and I say Hurrah. That's the last of the presents now. All done, all wrapped and all good. I had some mania yesterday and made a skirt out of nowhere, and it's actually not bad. I'll wear it at Christmas and take a photo in case you are even mildly interested. If you aren't, you can avert your eyes at that point, I'll warn you before hand.

All that's left is a little baking, some packing and then Saturday, the new adventure of an 8 hour road trip with a very active cat will begin. Our cat's new official name is El Diablo. It's suits him very well. We still call him Kitty mostly but officially, his full length name is Prince Diablo Hotdog Zanzibar. I stole part of that from Family Guy. It comes from an episode where Peter takes up writing erotica. He names one of his characters Captain Leroy Hotdog Zanzibar and it is one of the funniest things I have ever heard on TV.

So what else? Well, else-wise, ain't nothing else. Happy holidays hotdogs!

Glowing core of okayness.

Ahhhhh.

That's the sound of me uncoiling my tightly, uh, coiled psyche.

So how has it been, being unemployed, so far? Deeply, profoundly appreciated is one way to put it. Every couple of hours I feel myself un-clench a little more and think, wow, I'm really getting close to relaxed here. It's like getting in a hot bath that somehow, magically, gets more relaxing every few minutes, as if that initial feeling of "aaah, that's nice" keeps happening but makes you one layer more relaxed each time. It's very strange. Onion peels of tension and anxiety coming off one layer at a time.

I take nothing for granted. Sleeping in past 7am, having time to prepare breakfast, lunch AND dinner, seeing the afternoon light and being able to walk in it...

I've been keeping pretty busy. Tidying is a pleasing activity. I have time for it now. I've become quite efficient at building a fire (in the stove of course, I've not taken up pyromania(the disease or the Def Lepard album)), I'm learning to play a Bach Minuet (Menuet BWV anh. 16? I don't know what the hell any of those letters stand for) very very slowly, knitting certain things for certain people, playing with my spoiled and rambunctious kitten, and enjoying a snifter of brandy here and there. Not really that last one. I have rather developed a taste for Kahlua and vanilla soy milk though. Such a girl drink. I'm okay with that.

I have the tree decorated. It's tiny and high up on a shelf but still irresistibly tantalizing to kitten claws, so I had to stuff pillows around the base to keep him from accessing it. Does the job all the same. Oh evergreen, oh evergreen, how true are your boughs. (Oh, I'm also learning the words to O Tannenbaum in German. What a weird song.)



I'm getting there. I am learning to chill - slowly, slowly unwinding. I can feel a glowing little core underneath all the layers. Getting to it is a pretty decent feeling. Kiss my ass stress. Seriously, I've dealt with you enough for a long while now. I'm getting in this bath of free time and stress and guilt can kiss my ass.

So I'm going to go listen to Buck 65's new radio show on CBC and have some of that aforementioned Kahlua and continue knitting a certain item for a certain person...all while I get closer and closer to being okay. A warm, glowing okay.