Thoughts, or Not
30/5/03 19:18![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eredienI've been reading and thinking a lot about otherkin lately.
On that note, I will leave my musings away from this place 'till they have had the chance to gel some, and tell everyone all of the other interesting things that are going on in my life.
Work is good. I'm working on several projects--an interactive article thing, a webpage for a set of policies for conducting ethical scientific research, and (this last is most exciting to me personally) an interactive kind of presentation of a Book of Hours manuscript from the 15th c. or thereabouts. I get to see it at 10 on Monday 'cause it's in BMC's specially good Archives department.
Goodness, do I love old books.
I've been learning to use new things like Flash as well.
Khava: thanks for those Javascript and HTML books you gave me earlier on in year. They're coming in extraordinarily handy now.
This interesting little manuscript project has got me thinking again about redoing my website. (I know, I know, I'm always thinking about redoing my webpage). But now that I have a little more content to add to it I want to redo it in the style of a manuscript or manuscripts, complete with illuminated borders &c. I've always had that idea for my site, but I may be close to realizing it. I'm wondering how exactly to make it easy to navigate and how to integrate the already-existing art gallery so that it looks like each illustration will be framed by a nice border, but those are slowly being turned over in my mind.
As are three other, more personal matters.
The death of my Grandfather: I was only mad when they called him "William" during the mass--no one ever called him that. I reread Watership Down on the train home, and now think it propituous. That book seems to have been a touchstone in many ways for my life. I mourn like the rabbits
Rabbits (says Mr. Lockley) are like human beings in many ways. One of these is certainly their staunch ability to withstand disaster and to let the stream of their life carry them along, past reaches of terror and loss...Would that the dead were not dead! But there is grass that must be eaten, pellets that must be chewed, hraka that must be passed, holes that must be dug, sleep that must be slept.
I've been, to some extent, always like that. Recently I have occasionally caught myself thinking:
It seemed to Hazel that he would not be needing his body any more, so he left it lying on the edge of the ditch.
My grandfather died like that, sleeping. It was good.
Something I think is interesting about death (I use the many values of interesting fully always) is that no one has ever had any concept of it, really.
Think back. To your first memories. Beyond to that brown-black blur where occasionally you remember something from when you were one, or think you might have.
There's nothing there, but there's absolutely no doubt that you were alive. You have pictures if nothing else, and you have your own constant presence to reassure you. You can't encompass the thought of being dead--being dead is thinking nothing, seeing nothing, not breathing, not feeling, not being.
But you've always been, just as the sun has always risen, the clouds have always been blue.
There is no other way to be.
What a trick of time.
I am glad to see, Arcturax, that you've started going on medication. Watch yourself and be careful. I know you're not ignoring me; don't worry. I don't talk to you yet for the same reason. When we're ready then we can talk. I would much rather it be a bit late than much too soon.
I've been examining my emotions lately. I used to say that I thought too much and felt everything. I've been reexamining this. In some ways it's been discussion I've been carrying out with myself. In some ways it was sparked by a conversation with Khava that I had a year or more ago that I've been musing on. I have come to the thought--never call it a realization, goodness no--that I cannot distinguish clearly anymore between thought and emotion unless overcome by some great thing, in which case my brain apparently uses a kind of Robert's Rules of Order: a great deal of emotion all at once unsullied (?) by thinking, and then a great deal of thought and analysis afterward.
My emotions and my thoughts are deeply intertwined, so that I can honestly say I cannot feel emotion at times without thinking deeply about why I am feeling it at the same time, and cannot think without emotion.
I am unsure if this is good or bad.
I am also reminded of discussions with thespooniest and the discussing-of-emotions therein. I wonder if this is a way that I try to shut mine off.
I will be doing much art. Already doing much writing--going back through things and editing if nothing else, and later will try to hunt down a roll of butcher paper from the HA and do a mural so that we'll have something up on our wall. Will write stories about John Tiddlywinks and perhaps finish up the Cassatt story and work a little on "Breakup Girl" or "Degen" or the other many story ideas I have. (That last sentence was as much for my benefit as yours...a running tally of sorts). I'm glad I got my writing for the House of Clocks mostly out of the way so I don't feel like I'm letting them down.
I will also do the picture of Raki I've been thinking of doing, and do some more preliminary designs of L's tattoo.
Already my poem is on its second submission. Only a little while longer to wait as it went out a few weeks ago now.
I dreamed last night very vividly.
I was outside some kind of library--I had the feeling that I'd been there before, both in dreams recent and not-so-recent. The library is an entirely ambiguous place. It seems quite full of interesting things to do and read but somehow unwholesome and..."sharp", for lack of a better word. By "sharp," I mean that this building's edges and insides are overly defined enough to make me uncomfortable, in both an abstract way (for instance, the way the books are organized troubles me) and a physical way (the way the edges of the roof stand out against the sky is somehow deeply disturbing).
A trouble to me, actually.
I was trying to get some kind of school or food aid for my younger brother (note to those not in the know: I don't have one), who was either ill or needed some kind of special care. They--the beauracrats at the small folding fake-wood table--wouldn't give it to me, and I was upset even though the land all round was green with ferns. There is something confusing here, as I seem to remember seeing myself as having a tail...I woke up feeling particularly dragony and it took me a few moments brushing my teeth to remember why.
I also had a dream with my uncle and a tiled room and a small owl, which was a segue from an earlier and entirely fun dream that appeared to be set in Kevin Costner's Waterworld but was leagues beyond it in plot. I was someone from that world (a girl, dark hair and brown skin and a cowrie-shell necklace, dressed in an orange and yellow wrap/skirt thing) who had a great skill at using these kind of combination hovercraft/surfboards/sandsurfing boards. I went out from the top of the land-mass (the top of Mt. Everest, you will remember, was the only thing not covered by water, and was a tropical paradise) and slid down on the moss and skimmed across the beach into the water to do something. I think I was delivering mail...
Thinking muchly about what I will do after college. Hoping to go to Bostonwards--it would be good to live among friends. Shall call people in BMC area this evening to talk about carpooling to Otakon. All the webcomics I read are only getting more excellent. Perhaps I shall discuss the comic idea more with Rabidfangurrl this evening, or work on the Hellsing-themed AIM skin. Should eat now.
On that note, I will leave my musings away from this place 'till they have had the chance to gel some, and tell everyone all of the other interesting things that are going on in my life.
Work is good. I'm working on several projects--an interactive article thing, a webpage for a set of policies for conducting ethical scientific research, and (this last is most exciting to me personally) an interactive kind of presentation of a Book of Hours manuscript from the 15th c. or thereabouts. I get to see it at 10 on Monday 'cause it's in BMC's specially good Archives department.
Goodness, do I love old books.
I've been learning to use new things like Flash as well.
Khava: thanks for those Javascript and HTML books you gave me earlier on in year. They're coming in extraordinarily handy now.
This interesting little manuscript project has got me thinking again about redoing my website. (I know, I know, I'm always thinking about redoing my webpage). But now that I have a little more content to add to it I want to redo it in the style of a manuscript or manuscripts, complete with illuminated borders &c. I've always had that idea for my site, but I may be close to realizing it. I'm wondering how exactly to make it easy to navigate and how to integrate the already-existing art gallery so that it looks like each illustration will be framed by a nice border, but those are slowly being turned over in my mind.
As are three other, more personal matters.
The death of my Grandfather: I was only mad when they called him "William" during the mass--no one ever called him that. I reread Watership Down on the train home, and now think it propituous. That book seems to have been a touchstone in many ways for my life. I mourn like the rabbits
Rabbits (says Mr. Lockley) are like human beings in many ways. One of these is certainly their staunch ability to withstand disaster and to let the stream of their life carry them along, past reaches of terror and loss...Would that the dead were not dead! But there is grass that must be eaten, pellets that must be chewed, hraka that must be passed, holes that must be dug, sleep that must be slept.
I've been, to some extent, always like that. Recently I have occasionally caught myself thinking:
It seemed to Hazel that he would not be needing his body any more, so he left it lying on the edge of the ditch.
My grandfather died like that, sleeping. It was good.
Something I think is interesting about death (I use the many values of interesting fully always) is that no one has ever had any concept of it, really.
Think back. To your first memories. Beyond to that brown-black blur where occasionally you remember something from when you were one, or think you might have.
There's nothing there, but there's absolutely no doubt that you were alive. You have pictures if nothing else, and you have your own constant presence to reassure you. You can't encompass the thought of being dead--being dead is thinking nothing, seeing nothing, not breathing, not feeling, not being.
But you've always been, just as the sun has always risen, the clouds have always been blue.
There is no other way to be.
What a trick of time.
I am glad to see, Arcturax, that you've started going on medication. Watch yourself and be careful. I know you're not ignoring me; don't worry. I don't talk to you yet for the same reason. When we're ready then we can talk. I would much rather it be a bit late than much too soon.
I've been examining my emotions lately. I used to say that I thought too much and felt everything. I've been reexamining this. In some ways it's been discussion I've been carrying out with myself. In some ways it was sparked by a conversation with Khava that I had a year or more ago that I've been musing on. I have come to the thought--never call it a realization, goodness no--that I cannot distinguish clearly anymore between thought and emotion unless overcome by some great thing, in which case my brain apparently uses a kind of Robert's Rules of Order: a great deal of emotion all at once unsullied (?) by thinking, and then a great deal of thought and analysis afterward.
My emotions and my thoughts are deeply intertwined, so that I can honestly say I cannot feel emotion at times without thinking deeply about why I am feeling it at the same time, and cannot think without emotion.
I am unsure if this is good or bad.
I am also reminded of discussions with thespooniest and the discussing-of-emotions therein. I wonder if this is a way that I try to shut mine off.
I will be doing much art. Already doing much writing--going back through things and editing if nothing else, and later will try to hunt down a roll of butcher paper from the HA and do a mural so that we'll have something up on our wall. Will write stories about John Tiddlywinks and perhaps finish up the Cassatt story and work a little on "Breakup Girl" or "Degen" or the other many story ideas I have. (That last sentence was as much for my benefit as yours...a running tally of sorts). I'm glad I got my writing for the House of Clocks mostly out of the way so I don't feel like I'm letting them down.
I will also do the picture of Raki I've been thinking of doing, and do some more preliminary designs of L's tattoo.
Already my poem is on its second submission. Only a little while longer to wait as it went out a few weeks ago now.
I dreamed last night very vividly.
I was outside some kind of library--I had the feeling that I'd been there before, both in dreams recent and not-so-recent. The library is an entirely ambiguous place. It seems quite full of interesting things to do and read but somehow unwholesome and..."sharp", for lack of a better word. By "sharp," I mean that this building's edges and insides are overly defined enough to make me uncomfortable, in both an abstract way (for instance, the way the books are organized troubles me) and a physical way (the way the edges of the roof stand out against the sky is somehow deeply disturbing).
A trouble to me, actually.
I was trying to get some kind of school or food aid for my younger brother (note to those not in the know: I don't have one), who was either ill or needed some kind of special care. They--the beauracrats at the small folding fake-wood table--wouldn't give it to me, and I was upset even though the land all round was green with ferns. There is something confusing here, as I seem to remember seeing myself as having a tail...I woke up feeling particularly dragony and it took me a few moments brushing my teeth to remember why.
I also had a dream with my uncle and a tiled room and a small owl, which was a segue from an earlier and entirely fun dream that appeared to be set in Kevin Costner's Waterworld but was leagues beyond it in plot. I was someone from that world (a girl, dark hair and brown skin and a cowrie-shell necklace, dressed in an orange and yellow wrap/skirt thing) who had a great skill at using these kind of combination hovercraft/surfboards/sandsurfing boards. I went out from the top of the land-mass (the top of Mt. Everest, you will remember, was the only thing not covered by water, and was a tropical paradise) and slid down on the moss and skimmed across the beach into the water to do something. I think I was delivering mail...
Thinking muchly about what I will do after college. Hoping to go to Bostonwards--it would be good to live among friends. Shall call people in BMC area this evening to talk about carpooling to Otakon. All the webcomics I read are only getting more excellent. Perhaps I shall discuss the comic idea more with Rabidfangurrl this evening, or work on the Hellsing-themed AIM skin. Should eat now.
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30/5/03 22:50 (UTC)