Who are you?

What events/circumstances/whatever made you?

These are questions I haven’t thought much about but probably should.

I dreamt of catching a leprechaun last night. I woke up thinking that the reason he was so fast was that he wasn’t completely “in phase” with this universe.

I hate when, remembering a conversation, I think I came across as fishing for compliments because what I said about myself may have been a little harsh. Usually I’m either saying it because I think it’s amusing or because I’m trying to keep my ego in check (to think of myself no better than I ought, with sober judgment). It’s probably rare for me to actually underestimate myself, so when someone tells me I’m selling myself short, I figure I look like I’m fishing.

M and I clash in two kinds of cases: when we have different ways of doing a thing and when we have the same ways of (not) doing a thing – too alike or too different, lol. I’m always trying to judge aspects of our relationship on some kind of scale, but my baseline for comparison is not another relationship – it’s how life was on my own. Naturally, things done in the context of a relationship are more complicated, and the random things that are easier are quickly forgotten. I identify things that I think might be labeled as bad or deal-breakers or unfair (or whatever) by other people, but it’s really hard to place a behavior on the continuum of acceptable to unacceptable because I have no basis for comparison. I’m forced to decide for myself what I’m willing to accept, what trade-offs work for me, where I draw the line (how awful, right? 😉 ). It’s just not really in my wheelhouse – kind of Fi cognitive function decisions.

Aaaaahhh, why does my head keep hurting?

Of course.

I love Gumball.

I’m sure I can use that as a metaphor for something.

The sun can only shine on half of the Earth at a time. – Jill Grow (and probably other people, the Earth has been around for a long time)

One of my “guilty pleasures” is reading unsentletters on Reddit. I think the main reason it’s so interesting to me is that I haven’t had many close relationships – of any sort, other than family. Much of what people talk about in their unsent letters is entirely outside my own experience, so it’s sort of… research, on the nature of people.

Around Valentine’s Day, there’s the usual mix of unrequited love, estranged bitterness, or just plain loneliness. One letter that caught my attention stated she hadn’t broken up with her loser boyfriend because she was afraid of being alone. I’ve heard that sentiment before, but I don’t get it.

Alone is kind of my default state. I’ve been married for over 10 years, and I’m still trying to get used to not being alone. My husband gets jealous over men he imagines as threats to our relationship somehow, but the funny thing is that the appeal of being alone again would actually represent a more realistic threat.

🤔 So here’s my question: what’s so scary about being alone?

Unfortunately, I’m not really feeling it. Here are some emojis who are 😍🤗🤩☺😂😜😝🤑😇🤠🤓🥂

Main character will be Hellboy, when he’s a little kid and going to school. Even though the other kids in the school are different than “normal” kids, Hellboy still feels like an outcast.

(I’m going to be lazy and just post the beginning of a story I was writing at the end of last year.)

There were 3 things that Malia knew were absolutely true: that God was all-powerful, that God would protect those who served Him, and that what goes up must come down – generally pretty quickly, in accordance with natural laws and science and such. That’s what she knew. 30 seconds ago. That last axiom, though, had come into sudden and complete conflict with the combined force of the other two when she reached the top of the stairs and found a large, empty gap where the beginning of the bridge should have been.

Now, she was stuck between a rock and a hard place. Or, rather, between a dozen angry heathens with axes, torches, and pitchforks, and a loooong fall onto a hard rocky place. Instead of her path lit by the glow of hope as she was lifted on wings of faith, Malia was seeing only visions of her mangled body decorating a wide area of the painted cobblestone mosaic below.

How hard it is to wash blood out of stone? she wondered inanely. It was a small source of comfort that she might, in death, obliterate some of their sacrilegious, idolatrous (but actually quite beautiful, in its way) public art.

*********

The two things Sketl knew for sure were that money doesn’t grow on trees and that you couldn’t count on anyone but yourself. He’d been kind of inclined to add “and doesn’t fall from the sky” to the first one, right up until today. Just as he’d settled on his usual bench to eat his usual morning snack to the usual sounds of the morning markets down the road, he had the very unusual experience of gold coins plonking down on his head like rain from heaven. Not a comfortable experience, but appealing for its profit potential. A golden shower… had a nice ring to it.

When he felt safe enough to peek up around the hat he’d instinctively thrust up over his head, for both protective and collective reasons, Sketl was treated to an even more unusual sight.

***********

One thing Dreya knew for sure: she was going to do whatever it took to make it to Citadel by Summer Solstice. She would overcome any obstacle, bear any hardship, face any demon. Nothing could stop her. Definitely. Nothing at all.

Dreya paused in the middle of her pep-talk to consider what exactly some of those obstacles and hardships might be… Transportation. Highwaymen. Lack of funds and food. And also lack of a map or any clear idea how to get from here to there. It all seemed like it could use a little planning, but planning would take time – and she’d still need resources. Where was a magic genie lamp when you needed one?

No matter. It was all going to work out. Surely Destiny had its hand on Dreya and would smooth out the path. Why, even now, she could see the solution to her transportation problem rolling this way, driven by an inattentive coachmen who probably wouldn’t even notice that he acquired an additional passenger.