Love In The Asylum

masterofmidgets: ...you know, whatever other criticisms I may levy at Mercedes Lackey for writing silly horse books and elves in race cars
masterofmidgets: I owe her something for coming up with a terminology that fills a gap in the three-fold goddess I didn't know bothered me
colourofsaying: ?
masterofmidgets: okay, so, the the normal form of the triplicate goddess/god (which is pretty standard for paganism/wicca) is maiden/mother/crone and warrior/father/sage
masterofmidgets: which is...reasonable, I guess, and I buy into it more than I don't, but it's not quite...satisfying. idk.
masterofmidgets but technicalities aside I don't think I'm a maiden, and I'm certainly not a mother, so where does that leave me?
masterofmidgets: but Lackey has a bunch of filk and supplemental material for the Valdemar books
masterofmidgets: and one of the songs for the Hawkpeople, who have a dualistic goddess/god cosmology, has the divisions as maiden/WARRIOR/mother/crone and rover/guardian/hunter/guide
masterofmidgets: somehow that really resonated with me!
masterofmidgets: I like the idea of a stage between being an innocent child and a nurturing parent figure, where you are independent and part of your community
colourofsaying: I like that!
colourofsaying: I feel like it reflects a more modern division of life
colourofsaying: we don't go straight from childhood to parenthood anymore
masterofmidgets: and I suppose you could map it onto the seasons
masterofmidgets: the warrior goddess is the goddess of summer, when everything is in full bloom
masterofmidgets: and the mother goddess is the goddess of autumn, of harvesting and preparing and protecting the home against the winter to come
colourofsaying: nice
colourofsaying: I buy that
masterofmidgets: I like that kind of symbolism!
colourofsaying: that's because it's good symbolism!

I hope everyone had a pleasant equinox? I found myself lacking in ritual traditions for the day, so I just kind of improvised and did spring-ly things - I cleaned my room, said some prayers about the end of winter and the growth of new life, left a honey offering on the sill, and slept with my window open. In the morning before work, I started a new writing project. I would have eaten eggs, but the chickens refused to be accommodating, silly birds, and we were fresh out. We have been eating and buying plenty of lovely spring veggies, though! And participating in the noble NM spring tradition of fixing all the things the 60mph wind gusts destroyed while moaning about the through-the-roof pollen counts. Ah, March.

Nnnnrgh. It has just finally slipped below 95 degrees, now that the sun is going down. This afternoon, while we were hiking all over the West Side, it was 99. My mom's apartment? Currently doesn't have a working cooler. The whole Corrales Bosque is closed for fire danger. Summer in the desert can bite me. I almost cried when I got back to my dad's and the sweet, delicious air conditioning.

On the bright side, once we made it to the coffee shop my mom helped me with my resume (I have an interview this week with UNM, oh god), I found some neat steampunk-y pendants at the craft store, and I bought new glasses. And yesterday there was cake!

I feel a lot less guilty about spending money now that I have a legit paying job. Which, oops, I hadn't mentioned, had I? I have a legit paying job! I was really nervous after my interview last week, since I didn't think my skill set was quite what they were looking for. But I guess their reservations were outweighed by their desperation, because I'm now a tech editor for an engineering firm. Assuming I don't fuck anything up, they should have work for me at least until their big project finishes up at the end of July, which should hopefully give me time to find something a little more permanent. And in the meantime, yay monies!

Once I get a few more hours logged in next week, I'm going to my tattoo parlor and making an appointment to have my new piece done. I've had the design set for almost a year now, I can't wait to see how it actually turns out.

ETA: Missed the news while I was at my mom's sans internet, but fuck yeah New York marriage equality! :DDD

I am so sick of this cold weather, I do not even have words for it. This is California! I should not be freezing this badly in November! I don't think I even got my coat out of storage before I came back from winter holiday last year, but I am seriously considering it this week. And I broke down tonight and bought a pair of fingerless gloves from Sock Dreams, because all the buildings in the Quad are positively frigid and I like being able to feel my hands during class.

At times like these I am really impossibly glad that I decided not to go to the University of Chicago, even though I thought it was my dream school. One Chicago winter would have done me in for sure.

It was worth freezing to death wandering around campus in the dark though, because I got to go to a concert! A very very tiny concert at the CCRMA, only about 50 people, and we didn't even have a stage. It was neat, very friendly - the singer (who is my music teacher, which is why I was there), explained the background and style of each piece before she performed it, and afterwards, kept asking the audience questions about the rhythmic structure and their emotional responses and stuff. It was neat, very friendly. And while I don't really have the patience for dhrupad (I'm working on it! I think it's fascinating and really gorgeous! It's just that my mind tends to wander during the alap), bhakti poetry = MY FAVORITE EVER. I think my professor's Khabir-love is rubbing off on me. So yeah, fun concert was fun, and now I am going to thaw myself off and go to bed early. And probably dream about Khabir.

Three Things About Wednesday:
( Tattoos and Cannibalism )

Dear New Mexico: what the hell is up with all this rain? I don't know if you got the memo, but it is NOT JULY YET. Thunderstorms belong in mid-July, not June! And this is just getting ridiculous.

Five minutes after my mom and I left the house yesterday to walk over to Michael's and go shopping, it started POURING - and of course neither of us had jackets or umbrellas. We got pretty thoroughly soaked before we ducked into Panda Express to wait it out, since rain never lasts that long out here. After we made it to Michael's (new hemp cord for stringing my necklace and some neat charms for making hairsticks next week) we stopped by Barnes and Noble to check out the new books - two seconds after we left, it started raining again. Not as hard as before, but we were still pretty well damp by the time we got home. And now it's been raining on and off all day today, with occasional Big Dramatic Thunder. Earlier in the afternoon it was storming hard enough that it kept knocking out the lights/cable, but thankfully that seems to be over.

Man, this is not on, New Mexico. You need to shape up!

Excuse me, but this is California! It is April! Why is the weather not stunningly balmy and gorgeous? If I wanted fifty mph winds, I could have stayed home in New Mexico, thank you. No, but seriously, it was so awful today. Not just absurdly windy, but also really fucking cold - I was NOT PLEASED, especially since I when I looked out my window as I was going to class this morning, it looked nice, so I left my jacket in my room. At least I always have emergency hair ties and sticks and pins in my bookbag now, so I didn't have to deal with three feet of hair blowing in my face, but still, SO NOT ON. I was almost tempted to skip my first lit section - I would have if a) I didn't know the TA would be taking attendence, and b) I didn't know we would be talking about the paper that is due tomorrow. When I was walking through the quad, it looked like a minor tornado had passed through, there were so many palm branches and giant shards of bark lying on the ground. Exciting!

Working on my lit paper (which is only 2 pages, so not a big deal) is boring, so I'm watching - well, re-watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It's a bit strange; even the episodes I've never seen before, of which there are many, just have this very nostalgic feel to them. I tend to associate some quite strong sense-memories to my media. For me, as much as I love and adore Rurouni Kenshin and Yu Yu Hakusho, they will always make me think of sitting on the floor in the back room, tv propped on the fireplace, listening to my parents argue in the kitchen. Trigun is early mornings, when I would know by the commercial breaks when I needed to get up for school. ER is days home sick, or just skipping school for the hell of it. So is Star Trek: TNG. I watched Stargate: SG1 with my aunt's girlfriend Lisa, FMA with hanjuuluver , and Iron Chef with my father in his motor home, the dog sprawled across my legs (yes, I think about this too much). I hear the Buffy and Angel theme songs, and I am immediately 15 years home, just home from the bus stop, turning on the TV in the empty house and crashing on the sofa to watch people beat up vampires.

On the other hand, I watch shows very differently now than I did back then! For example, I ship Xander/Anya LIKE BURNING - they are one of my big huge OMGI LOVE IT het OTPs, way more than any other characters on the show (I started watching it in when it was already in reruns, so I came in about season 5 or so, and thus am very unmoved by either Buffy/Angel or Willow/Oz). And yet...and yet...Xander pings my fictional character gaydar so much. I've only read about five fics, but I think I've been converted to Xander/Spike already (actually, that was way fewer fics than it took me to get into, say, McShep, but common, that's practically canon). I mean, Xander fits pretty well into my 'hapless but sweet dorky guy' archetype, so I was going to love him no matter what, but...I want slash. Slash that either writes a plausible Anya-breakup or happens after her death, but still slash. ARGH MY BRAIN.

ETA: still watching Buffy, and man, 90s plots about internet culture are hysterically funny. Those wacky kids with their new-fangled "email" and "usernames" and "floppy disks", that's looking for trouble, that is! And of course the only people who know how to turn a computer on are hostile geeks who spend all their time hiding in the lab. It's amazing how much ten years can change things on the internet, yeah? (also, how weird is it to see a show about teenagers where no one has a cell phone? SO WEIRD.)

7 DOZEN TAMALES IS A LOT OF FUCKING TAMALES, YOU GUYS.

Needless to say, what I have been doing the past two days is make tamales. LOTS OF TAMALES. It's the first time we've ever done it on our own, although of course my grandma was standing over us supervising us to make sure we didn't do something horribly wrong and kill everyone with tamales of death. Which really was a good thing because the recipe we were using? USELESS. Well, not entirely. It was good for what ingredients to use and how much approximately, but it was written by my great-grandmother for someone who has done this many times before, and thus is very not-specific in any way. No temperatures or lengths of time or anything like that. Cook the masa until it's shiny?

So yesterday we made the masa and the sauce (which includes half a pound of chili peppers!) and set them outside to chill, and today we assembled the tamales, a horrendously messy procedure even when you aren't using cheap-ass corn husks from Wal-Mart (never again!), and tonight we will eat wonderful home-made Gautemalen tamales of awesomeness!

I would share the recipe, but I don't think I'm allowed. Honestly. My grandma might kill me. It's a whole secret family recipe thing, she never gives it out to anyone who isn't in the family. And I don't want to risk being attacked by ninjas armed with knitting needles, thanks. So you will just have to content yourselves with imagining how awesome these tamales are.

In "New Mexico Weather is Schizophrenic Or Just Batshit Weird" news, I came out from the store yesterday and it was snowing. WHILE THE SUN WAS SHINING. THERE WERE NO CLOUDS IN THE SKY. WTF NEW MEXICO?

Merry Christmas Eve!

You know what is totally awesome? To have the day start out completely clear, blue sky, sun blazing - and about a million degrees in the shade, too - and then all of a sudden you look outside and the sky's black, thunder's rumbling, lightning flashing, and it just starts /pouring/ down rain for the next two hours. And then it does it again every night the rest of the week.

Damn, but I /love/ monsoon season. As long as our apartment isn't flooding and the parking lot isn't being turned into a mini-lake, that is, which it isn't, so we just have huge melodramatic storms and all is good.

Back to trying to finish all the back episodes of Stargate: Atlantis, which is not the most painful thing I've ever done. I love it so much, with its giant gaping plot holes and its nonsensical writing and its utter lack of character development and its complete, unmitigated crack! And Sheppard's /hair/, and McKay's sexy sexy physicist brain, and damn but they are just /married/. Honestly, Shep's about the least convincing straight guy ever, it's hysterical. So much love!

May apply for a new job on Monday. On the plus side, it would be closer to where I'm living (huge bonus for my family, I feel horrible about having to get them to drive me to the movie theater a half hour away), it would be easier - relatively, I mean, I'd get to sit down - work, and it would pay a /lot/ better. On the negative side, I'd have to lie about the fact that I'm going back to school in Sept - either say I'm going to UNM or that I'm not going back to Stanford - because they probably wouldn't hire me for a month and a half. I'm not sure how I feel about that. So stressing, very much stressing.