Knotty Knickers

Teacher's Dirty Looks

Yesterday was the final day of classes, so I'll have no more of those!

Or, mostly won't unless I can't manage to keep out of the way of the tutors I had some difficulty with in class.  Outside of class I suspect they are perfectly nice, kind, friendly people.  

You might think that with classes ending and exams beginning soon I would devote time to revision and study hard this weekend.  In point of fact I am packed and waiting for Big Spoon to pick me up, take me to the redezvous place (his mate's place), pile into a car (one of two, both full of people), drive to Christchurch and participate in the big race week fun that is this weekend.  By 'participate' I hope you understand me to mean that I will be drinking copiously with hundreds of other people.    

I've got gladiator sandals (not only are they cool looking and relatively reminiscent of Xena but the 6 buckles should keep them attached to me even in the depth of inebriation), little travel size shampoo, condition, gloss and paste (to hopefully protect my hair against the wind), Bobbi Brown gel eye liner (water proof in a large degree and the single necessary cosmetic item for dress up events I believe), a nearly finished shawl on needles and two sets of gift knitting (Yarn Mama - I've had to order part of Elfman's pressie, not sure when it'll be in!), and Mirror, Mirror by Gregory Maguire (for car reading).

We'll be staying in cabins at a camp ground 800 metres from the race grounds - brilliant for stumbling home to sleep.  I've packed only the Olympus hike camera, it's water resilience seeming more important than the self-portrait option of the vanity-cam.  I promise to snap, snap, snap (taking both the batteries and the charger) and post photos when I'm back in Nelson.  PROMISE!  I know you miss photos, I miss them two.  

Massive Attack

Of stress and strain as school winds to an end.  Wasn't helped by only one document being recovered out of some 20 plus that my laptop simply decided it didn't like and erased entirely.  Even off the bloody Time Machine.  Well done, Apple, well done...you bastards! 

I didn't have senioritis half this terrible in high school or college!  Today is the last day of chemistry and I've opted out...I drank last night...I woke up in the wee hours of the night...all true...but I was going to skive off anyhow.  

Funny - the chemistry of aromatherapy was one of the topics I was very much looking forward to this year.  Unfortunately for me, the chemistry tutor is 1) not an aromatherapist and so it's not in a context I can grasp or care deeply about and 2) a Christian who believes the world is 6000 years old.  Really, can I be asked to cope with those sort of things?  No.  At least, not for one more day.  Plus, I've only missed class while out of the country or while doing medical things, and those latter were only half days.  So a bit of hooky isn't the end of the world.  Especially considering I've been working on the last big paperwork I need to hand in next week - the business plan.  Ugh.

The one file found, I'm not sure if I'm glad or annoyed.  It's got to get done...  I just would have really liked my final, beautiful, properly referenced special topic paper to be the thing that was saved.  Ah well, the business plan as is took ages to type and organize, so doing it all over would have sucked horribly.

I've decided to at least make it matter and do it as a Yoga business plan.  The program is aromatherapy and I only got confirmation and reassurance that I could write it up as any sort of business I liked about ten days ago.  It's all a bit premature however as I've got another year of school here (NZ immigration took money from me the 20th of October, so my passport and visa better be here soon - I've got Thai visas to sort and a plane to board on the 14th of December!) and absolutely not a clue what will be on the books after that.  Starting a business is definitely not a big priority.

Bizarre about the planning though, huh?  Jesse only has a plan to the end of 2010.  I can't recall the last time my future thinking was so short a span!  It's good - in the moment, taking things as they come, yadda yadda.  Big Spoon is one factor, being both the person most unconcerned with planning that I've ever met as well as winding my romantic imagination up to all sorts of levels.  Really though, it comes down to feeling a bit adrift.  I do indeed love the Pacific NW, I've just never seen myself as being settled there indefinitely.  I still want to travel.  I adore New Zealand and it pulls on my heart as strong and solidly as Mt. Rainier.  I can recognize the urges in me to buy furniture and put down roots.  And yet...and yet...  Nothing doing.  So I'll wait.  Until inspiration hits.  Until life sweeps me solidly along.  Until something.  

Something that is not happening today.  

Today, in honour of my skipping days of old, where I used to save up days off, going to school feeling half alive so that I could have a full day of health added onto a weekend and go hang out with my Granma instead of suffer high school - I called that lovely lady and had a nice long chat.  My Granma is one of the toughest, most level headed, intelligent women and I have always adored her.  She was glad to hear that I was doing a Yoga business plan and stated that she'd thought from the beginning the aromatherapy was secondary to it - I don't know if it warmed my heart more to hear her encouraging what I'm doing (both the skipping and the work) or the reminder that she has been listening all the while and knows what I'm up to as well as I do.  Yoga first.  Everything else second.  This does not include people.  The people in my life could never come second.

Now, if you'll forgive me for posting no photos, I'll be off to do some more homework.

Will This Help Reduce Study Stress?

Libra Horoscope for week of October 22, 2009

It's an excellent time to see if you can remove some of the neurotic twitches from your erotic itches. For example, you could use all your ingenuity to talk yourself out of the silly guilt you feel for having a certain idiosyncratic desire -- a desire that, if acted out, would hurt no one, and that is therefore, by definition, healthy. Here's another possibility: You could invoke the full powers of your imagination as you free yourself from things that prevent you from experiencing maximum pleasure, like old wounds, simmering anger, rank egotism, and limiting beliefs.

Grrrrrrr and Roarrrrrrrr!

Libra Horoscope for week of October 15, 2009

Were you ever a tiger in one of your past lives? If so, this would be an excellent time to tap into that power. If you have never lived the life of a tiger, would you be willing to imagine that you did? During the coming week's challenges, you will really benefit from being able to call on the specific kind of intelligence a tiger possesses, as well as its speed, perceptivity, sense of smell, charisma, and beauty. Your homework is to spend ten minutes envisioning yourself inhabiting the body of a tiger. 

After a lifetime spent in the company of felines, I think I can manage this.

Introducing Big Spoon

You can thank YarnMama for this post. I know I'll be in the soup a wee bit with it!

For those of you who haven't heard already, I met a boy at the end of a very full night out the last weekend of May. Queen's Birthday weekend here, Folklife during Memorial weekend stateside. I was searching for someone to help me get a friend home. Why I even thought I knew anyone to do that, I'm not sure. Probably just shows how far gone I myself was by then. At any rate, in looking about for assistance I made eye contact with a gentleman out on the back patio at Elsewhere. From a distance smiles a and random, but absolutely vintage Jesse, hand wave was exchanged. I walked up and asked if he'd help me get my friend home. He answered yes but if it could wait until he'd finished smoking the cigars that were helping celebrate his mate's birthday. I said sure, took a stool, and joined in with the group.

For the record, Lexi really was not in a great state, but she was safely arranged on the couches inside and not going anywhere soon without me. Or so I thought. After a bit, she texted me to say she'd grabbed a cab and was home and fine. Which left me with a bunch of strangers and in the company of a ginger haired boy who'd already agreed to be gentlemanly about assisting a drunk female home. With his group ready to head out, and the original drunk female home - I asked him to help make sure I got home alright. Cause by then I was feeling the night's imbibed goods fully.

What sealed the whole insane thing was that we couldn't grab a cab big enough for everyone. I nabbed a small cab and the ginger came after me and his friends waved us off. That was late Saturday night.

He went home late Monday afternoon.

He texted a day or so later. (I had gathered he wasn't a huge planner sort and was waiting until Thursday to communicate and attempt a weekend redezvous. Tricksy of me, no?)

We've pretty well spent the bulk of our free time together since then.

He was the reason I did not don Conquistadora gear in Ireland.

And I am not soon to pull it out again.

In old school parlance, I am absolutely sprung for the lad.

Last night we went 10 pin bowling with a handful of his friends (who I'd met before but not in a way that showed my charms off to their full - red wine and bushes were involved) at a new indoor sports place. It was very fun. Not in the least because I was one point behind the high scorer; 118 is fairly respectable for not even remembering the last time I picked up a bowling ball. I didn't get a ton of photos as the camera battery was flashing and it was most pertinent, to me, to answer YarnMama's request for images and an update.

You see, Big Spoon as I've come to call him, is not a camera fan. So - enjoy what you get and know that I'll keep doing my best to harass him with a lense!

Yes, Mr. Brezny, Will Do

Libra Horoscope for week of September 10, 2009

My first demand is that you weed out the wishy-washy wishes and lukewarm longings that keep you distracted from your burning desires. My second demand is that you refuse to think that anyone else knows better than you what dreams will keep your life energy humming with maximum efficiency and beauty. Now please repeat the following assertions about 20 times: "I know exactly what I want. I know exactly what I don't want. I know exactly what I kind of want but I won't waste my time on it any more because it sidetracks me from working on what I really really want." 

Posted After Blubbering in the Bath with Bubbly

Honestly, I don't know what the hell the below horoscope is referring to.  I thank Rob Brezny for it anyhow.  I've been in the bath about an hour crying, had a bottle of apricot coloured bubbly (reminded me of Mr. Moo and made me cry harder), and am about to go huff nail polish paint - not clear minded by anybody's standards.  And the clarity I got while sobbing in my tub?  Well - not for public knowledge quite yet.  Or maybe ever.  Though, you know, really, how 'public' is this site if it's just my good friends reading it?  In which case, if you like me enough to read it regularly, you probably get texts or actual cards regarding my falling apart.  

Oh - and if any of you regular readers/dear friends have a clue what might apply for the last sentence of the horoscope - do let me know!

Libra Horoscope for week of August 20, 2009

An epic treasure hunt will soon begin. Are you ready for it? I don't think you are. To get yourself in shape to perform at a high level, I suggest that you open your mind wider than you ever have before. The clues that will be most helpful won't resemble any clues you've ever valued in the past, and they'll be arriving from unforeseen sources. I'll give you a hint about what to look for in the early going of the quest for the magic boon: What circumstance in your life has a certain metaphorical similarity to a speakeasy during the time when alcohol sales were illegal in America? 

I Figured As Much

Libra Horoscope for week of August 13, 2009

Your upcoming adventures will probably make no sense -- unless you redefine what constitutes "sense." If you do that, your adventures could make absolutely lucid sense in a backward, upside-down way that will rejuvenate you sexually, spiritually, and emotionally. Here's another approach to understanding the point I'm trying to make: The epic drama you're about to begin may yield no apparent lesson and provide no practical guidance -- unless you empty your mind and give up hope for extracting specific lessons and guidance -- in which case you will be flooded with wise insights. 

Yoga & Calendars

It is splendid that while I'm filling out my application paperwork for the Reflexology diploma course next year I know I will have no time for Yoga workshops and trainings on top of it.  Because, while it is only August, I can't fathom the several instructors I love not having their schedules for next year ready to go and posted online.  

Me and my iCal...it's a compulsion.  Not a bad one, necessarily.  

For each person who freak at my colour coded organizational weirdness and take it to mean that I am locked in stone, as spontaneous as a headstone, there are two or three other people who not only understand and know this not to be the case and have actually witnessed the state of flux that more truly represents my calendar fixation.  I put things on.  I move them around.  I take the off.  iCal is sooooo much easier than doing that by hand on a paper diary!  And it means that I can play with more possibilities.  

Did you get that?  MORE POSSIBILITIES!  Not less.  More.  More lateral spaces and various arrangements can be considered on the laptop diary than before, and so, in similar fashion, my life is actually MORE FLEXIBLE than it used to be.  In fact, to remind me of the need to prioritize and insure that I'm living a life in keeping with my deepest values, sometimes I pile all the stuff I want to do on the computer to show the sheer ridiculousness of trying to do it all.  

And, for those that raise concerns about my seeming prioritizing of school or Yoga or other non-social life activities before my friends and social life, in the end, after I've done whatever I've done in the week, the things that are moved forward to be done another day because I didn't get to them in their original time slots - homework and Yoga stuff.  It's rarely the friends and social life stuff that I move - that I see through as fully as possible.  Friend plans get moved because someone isn't feeling well or is stuck in traffic (well, in Seattle that was occasionally the case, not here in Nelson) or couldn't be gotten a hold of to double check and it turns out they forgot or wandered off and did something else.  

Of course, I'd still like to know what all my favourite Yoga teachers are planning on doing next year!  Maybe in September they'll spill a few of the first months' worth of 2010 classes...

In Lieu of Actual Photos...

Libra Horoscope for week of July 23, 2009

I usually applaud your inclination to remain above the fray and churn out astute observations. I normally honor your instinct to distance yourself from petty partisan squabbles. But this week's different. For the foreseeable future, I'd like it very much if you dive into the pit with the other diehards and fight with hardnosed audacity for what you believe is the beautiful truth. At least temporarily, Libra, forget about your graceful talent for tactful compromise. I think it's time for you to be a warrior who's ferociously devoted to a just cause.