Me.

[Error: unknown template qotd]

Problem-solving skills are top of the list. Next is the tendency to express affection through playful mockery, and criticism with care. The people who have become closest to me the fastest, and who have stayed there, all seem to have these things in common. 

I don't think it's a good idea to live each day as though it's your last. But I do think it's important to remember that we never have as much time as we think we do.

There's been a death in my religious circle, and while I didn't know her, there is this proximity to mortality that gets you thinking, you know? You get within the blast radius and stuff starts coming to mind.

I don't live each day as though it's my last. If I did, I'd be racking up insane credit card charges to visit everybody I know online before I go, taking time off work to go to Japan to see the Takarazuka Revue, and robbing banks so that I could give all the money to charities I care about (so that I can simultaneously build a legacy on philanthropy and crime!)

I don't like putting things off, though.

I work a job that may or may not have awesome long-term prospects for me, and may or may not actually be stable. But I'm where I want to be right now, and if I knew my time was coming, at least I'd be able to tell myself I wasn't sitting in some veal-pen for wage slaves waiting for the time when I'd have the money and time available to really do something I felt needed to be done. At least I'll know that I didn't waste time putting off what was really important.

As far as my personal life, I live with a wonderful man whom I would marry in a heartbeat if it wouldn't break my heart to have my little straight-pride parade in a state where a woman wouldn't have the recognized right to marry me no matter how right we were together. As it is, I want to have what legal recognition I can get, and I want it now. I can't have it now, and this is the one area of my life where I face insurmountable delays due to external circumstances. He needs to remain a dependent student until the end of the year, and it's only after that that we can get on the same insurance.

It bothers me, though. It bothers me because if something were to happen, I would regret that it had never happened. I don't like leaving room for regret. I want to take every opportunity for happiness that comes my way, and I don't want to miss anything.

Plans. I am capable of planning things in exhaustive detail, an ability to which anybody who has watched me masterminding various social situations can attest. I just don't like making plans, because making plans means investing time and effort now in a future that isn't guaranteed. I don't want to plan to be happy. I want to be happy.

I don't want to plan to have a life. I want to have a life.

I don't want to plan to make Brian my legal partner. I want to have it now.

I want the world. I want the whole world. I want to lock it all up in my pocket; it's my bar of chocolate! Give it to me now!

You get the idea; I don't want all my joy to be in the future.

Plans are such difficult things, and it's always later than you think.

Five years.

Brian, you're awesome. Never doubt it and never forget it. My life is completely different because you're in it, and the list of things I've accomplished with you at my side (many of which could not have been done without you) grows every year. Thanks for being there, and thank you for loving my success every bit as much as I do. I'm very lucky to have found someone like you to share my life with, and before I even hit twenty.

Here's to more of the same. *tips her generic bottled latte in salute*

Monday I start my training for Ye Olde New Jobbe.

The hours are great for me personally, and I won't actually miss my favorite time of day (evening) by being stuck inside the whole time. However, the hours are going to mean serious changes in routine during the week for archmage_brian and me. He works at eight in the morning, which means that except for the time when we're in the car after he picks me up... we won't see each other during the week.

I'm going to miss cooking. We've made pho, and various kinds of seafood pasta, a couple kinds of lasagna, hot and sour soup, pork tenderloin with parmesan polenta, and just tonight we had breaded perch (with panko crumbs because they're what we had). Cooking together is important, and we've got a lot of new recipes we're enjoying (not to mention the prospect of leftovers to enjoy as well, which is a damn good way to stay fed through a couple workdays a week). We'll even have to shop less efficiently to account for the fact that we need to buy more ready-meals and fewer meal components.

If you know archmage_brian and me, you know we're pretty much velcro-couple all the time (which I'm still proud of considering we'll hit five years in September). I'm such a sissy about not seeing him for a day or two, but I know that being completely destitute is also something of a strain on us. If we can handle that, I'm hoping we can handle a different strain that nonetheless brings a measure of security.

It's a year at most, until he's done with rotations. Until then, I need to take care of us and make damned sure if I can that there's an "us" to come back to when I'm done.

I'm sure I shouldn't worry so much. But it's hard to keep myself from doing so. Like I said... I'm a sissy about these things.

Monday I start my training for Ye Olde New Jobbe.

The hours are great for me personally, and I won't actually miss my favorite time of day (evening) by being stuck inside the whole time. However, the hours are going to mean serious changes in routine during the week for archmage_brian and me. He works at eight in the morning, which means that except for the time when we're in the car after he picks me up... we won't see each other during the week.

I'm going to miss cooking. We've made pho, and various kinds of seafood pasta, a couple kinds of lasagna, hot and sour soup, pork tenderloin with parmesan polenta, and just tonight we had breaded perch (with panko crumbs because they're what we had). Cooking together is important, and we've got a lot of new recipes we're enjoying (not to mention the prospect of leftovers to enjoy as well, which is a damn good way to stay fed through a couple workdays a week). We'll even have to shop less efficiently to account for the fact that we need to buy more ready-meals and fewer meal components.

If you know archmage_brian and me, you know we're pretty much velcro-couple all the time (which I'm still proud of considering we'll hit five years in September). I'm such a sissy about not seeing him for a day or two, but I know that being completely destitute is also something of a strain on us. If we can handle that, I'm hoping we can handle a different strain that nonetheless brings a measure of security.

It's a year at most, until he's done with rotations. Until then, I need to take care of us and make damned sure if I can that there's an "us" to come back to when I'm done.

I'm sure I shouldn't worry so much. But it's hard to keep myself from doing so. Like I said... I'm a sissy about these things.

So, we didn't make a big deal out of things like birthdays when I was a kid. Generally I'd get a gift and that was awesome, but we didn't have massive hootenannies involving great piles of lavish gifts. And of course, I was a kid at the time, so I wasn't really expected to give anything myself. Military families are poor, and their kids even more so.

As a result of this, whenever I can do something for someone's birthday and it works out I am absurdly pleased with myself. I feel like I've mastered some part of my own culture that has eluded me my while life.

You see, Brian's birthday is toward the end of next month, and still a good ways away. However, I don't get out much and don't ever have a lot of money, so birthday gifts (while richly deserved) are often difficult things for me to give him.

Today I fed him bacon chocolate.

Yes, chocolate with bacon in it. And he didn't die!

Turns out I have yet to find something with bacon in it that Brian won't eat. It really is some kind of magical faerie-food that's good no matter what you do with it, at least if the person eating it is a man. As our friend John once said, "We're men! All men have a love affair with BACON!"

I found him a birthday present and it was a bizarre idea. But it was good! I did it right!

Brian should be back home in an hour or so.

It'll probably be until the middle of July until I see him again. In the meantime, I can still smell him on me. My shirt, my hands, my room... they smell like Brian.

Just when I was getting used to the idea of having him around again, just when I was remembering how to relax, it's over. I used to hate going a week without seeing him. Now I count myself lucky if I can even see him for a week.

I'm sorry. I shouldn't complain. A lot of people have it a lot worse than I do.

I haven't been doing much, but I thought I'd let people know it isn't all angst and drama up here. Well, when I hang out with my parents it kind of is, but I've found ways of entertaining myself.
I've rediscovered computer graphics. I'm trying to resign myself to the fact that Procreate Painter 7 is just not an option. I have to make due with photoshop and imageready.
I've also begun to be slightly more active on deviantart. This means not just using it as a free image-hosting service, but actually looking at other people's artwork and having opinions on it and stuff. Good times.

I've been plotting as well. Evil GM plotting. I never thought it would be enjoyable to gamemaster, but I'm finding that it gives me a good 'evil calculating bitch' fix. I thought initially that it was something I'd never ever want to do, but now that I'm more familiar with D&D I'm more comfortable working within it. It's not as arduous as I thought it would be. As long as I know where I'm going, I'm all right. I just hope that people who play in my campaign(s) have fun. I'm trying to make things interesting.

Just another few days until I see Brian again. That'll help. I'll have something to do where being myself is a good idea. He likes me. I don't think I'll ever understand it, but he does.

I'll be back in Plymouth in a little over a week.
I'm wondering who I'll see. If I'll get to introduce Brian to my arch-nemesis who really isn't as much of a threat as a nemesis ought to be. She certainly shouldn't be my nemesis anymore, but hey. Love fades. The hatred you felt for love's crack dealer will never die.

...but I always lie.

There's nothing inherently wrong with lying. On the other hand, it could be considered the only real evil in existence.

Chibikeriana and I are having a conversation about sincerity in terms of being accepted at school. Here's my unabridged rant in all its glory:
I never thought of it as fear of negative reprisals, but rather in terms of the potential rewards of manipulation. A little prevarication here, a few windows washed there, and teachers don't question anything else they see. All they want is to believe that kids are okay. If you can help them do that, they'll get you anywhere you want to go.
I figure it's better to live a lie than sit at home for the rest of my life contemplating a sincere suicide because I'm sincerely dissatisfied with the way things have gone for me.
A lie is often better than nothing. As much as I value the truth, in my experience the only ones who know what it is are the ones who are forced to contrast it with something. As much as you can apply the laws of economics to abstract concepts, the more scarce truth is, the more people realize how important it is.
I tell the absolute truth to one person. Everything else is a lie. And I like it that way. The way I live is the way I live. I lie. The sooner people accept that, the sooner we can all live in happy bunny peace and harmony.