Aviator

when i was younger, i used to know some boys that i didn't actually like too much, but for reasons had to sort of stay friends with. i didn't have any reason to hate them, they were just kind of douchey. their uncle had a really lovely house out in the countryside, with land and horses and so on. he was in movies and had a lot of money. and a couple of times, we went to stay there. the first time, it was when i was in my stupid gothy phase, and i went out to a cemetery that was on the land and played my violin out there. it was the first time i'd played outside, definitely the first time i'd played in such still, quiet air. regardless of the ~woo gothy~ thing, it was fun, and it was beautiful. i also never ever ever had time to play for myself, for fun. i was too busy practising for concerts and competitions. it was liberating. i wasn't used to the countryside at all and it was an awesome experience for me. i mentioned it the next day and one of the adults overheard me, causing everyone to flip their shit. i felt and still feel that this was retarded, as nothing happened. 

interestingly, my father praised me for it, and said he thought it was adventurous and fun and he was impressed that i was brave enough to do it, that i probably shouldn't do it again. 

a little while later, when i was growing out of that phase, we went back. at this point i was a little closer to one of the boys, not in a romantic way at all, but just in terms of being able to talk to him. i wanted to go out at night again. i was just learning about that, honestly. about the magic there is at night. it was new and exciting, and impossible to do in the city. but out on that estate, there was so much space, and so much silence. i suppose there was a vague possibility that someone dangerous might have been out there, but there was an equal possibility that someone dangerous might have broken into the house. it was cool and the moon was so bright it cast shadows. i was in love with that place. there was a lake with a boat that i never got to row, and it was so beautiful at night, so mine. there were no distractions, no company. it was just me and my friend and our thoughts and the stars. 

one of the kids had heard me saying that i wanted to go out again, and the little weasel went to check up on me. and then he woke up his parents, and everyone went out and searched in the wrong direction for me, making it seem way more dramatic of a search than it really was. everybody was furious with me for 'ruining' the trip, and they never invited me back after that. 

i remember being so disgusted with everyone's behavior. the way everyone prized theoretical safety and obedience over an experience that moved me and has stuck with me forever, something i could never have done anywhere else, something that made me happy. i wondered if i was being as immature as everyone said i was, but honestly looking back, i've never once been sorry for it. i still hate that cowardice, that refusal to experience things because it's out of the most narrow realm of socially acceptable behaviors, because there is a miniscule safety risk, because someone told you not to. that whole mentality honestly upsets me. i want to be whimsical, i want to do what i please on my own time. everything is dangerous. you could be mugged in broad daylight. you could be killed in your bed. you're absolutely guaranteed to die someday. i want to live to the fullest before i do, in every tiny way, all of the time. 

jesus christ i am so jittery 
i don't even know what's wrong with me i mean i'm getting everything done i just feel so unfocused and dazed.... my instinct is to get through it with coffee but i'm gonna try and do it with tea and water instead. days like this are how i ended up with the headaches and stuff in the first place. 

on the bright side, weights and stuff are being Set In Action and hopefully within a week me and noa will be getting mad fit! i am just hella excite.

i joined kickboxing last week, but literally the day after my first class i hurt my foot (not a bad injury, just tore up the back of my heel a little) and couldn't go in for a week. well, yesterday i went back and it absolutely kicked my ass. i was so exhausted by the end of it that someone i'd never met before was concerned about the possibility of me dropping out; which is NOT going to happen, it's one of the coolest things i've ever done. coach chris (referred to in class as sir, and at home as captain) is a major badass. the temperature in the training room has got to be at least 80 degrees, and after about 15 minutes of brutal cardio (basically, doing hops and shit along this kind of rope-ladder-looking thing he put on the ground, and if anyone fucked up such that the rope was moved, the whole team had to do 15 squat-ups), i realized that i was having an asthma attack and suffocating, and spent probably another 15 just sitting in the benches with my inhaler and my waterbottle, trying to breathe and trying not to throw up.

once the cardio stopped and the kickboxing gear came out, i got back in, but by this point i was shaking all over, swaying on my feet and profoundly nauseous. captain had us doing drills of 1 minute 1/10 and 2/9s (basically punch/kick combos on either the left or the right side), 1 minute 'flying knees' which was a crazy difficulty curve from the previous minute - basically, you plank, skip to the side, and jump up to knee the pads, which is some ninja shit i would barely have been able to do if i hadn't been dying - and then 1 minute of skips, locking your gloves behind your partner's neck and just kneeing the crap out of him. i would not have been able to do it if my partner hadn't been such a massive sweetie. he was literally pep-talking me through the last half, reassuring me and encouraging me the whole time, which given that i wasn't actually sure i could get through it without either passing out or throwing up on this nice kid, was something i really needed. i used to be a runner, which was tough but it was always aerobic and if i was having a bad day for my lungs i would just slow down. i've never pushed myself past my limits like i did yesterday.

i disappeared off to the bathroom for the first round of his turn, and i felt bad for leaving my partner but i would have felt worse if i'd lost my lunch, and i got back for the last two rounds. holding the pads was waaay easier, and i recovered myself a little bit then. after that it was just laps and calisthenics, and all things considered that wasn't as hard as the kickboxing was. even so, it took me about a mile of walking home before i felt even remotely normal again. 

my father is usually a huge disappointment to me in every way, but recently he's really come through. i know WHY he did it, it's because he lost some weight and is in a good mood, and when he's in a good mood he's golden. he felt bad about my inheritance still not fucking coming through, and he sent me 500 GBP - which is about $800 - just because. this is the same guy who kicked me out of the house a year and a half ago. whatever, it doesn't cost me anything to accept it and i really need it, and it IS nice of him. i woke up having a nightmare that he called me to say that the bank needed more details from me, and then was incredibly rude about my brother, so i had to hang up on him - and realized i had probably lost the money. i can't describe my relief when i woke up and realized i hadn't actually fought with him! i went downstairs to check my bank and lo and behold, the money was in my account! he came through for me! 

so now noa and i can order the weights and bench he wants tomorrow! just a few days' shipping, and then... we'll be able to lift heavy! i'm SO excited. upper body strength, here i come! 

i woke up in the am, my kitten is sleeping on me and purring, i have money and a cup of hot tea, and my body is still recovering from the killer workout i did yesterday. life is so good right now. 

getting steadily more productive. even my sleep is fixing itself. i woke up at 8am today and got out of bed at 8:45. 

time to redo my profile and icons, im'a think. 

do i get a plastic waterbottle with blossom or do i get a stainless steel orioles one some questions may never be answered

ETA wow okay what

apparently someone at my husband's work made ~comments~ about him and i pretty much want to go to the mall and murder them with my hands 
where the fuck do these arrogant bitches get off behaving this way i just can't fathom it 
you know what's easier? shutting the FUCK up and taking care of your own shortcomings. i'm not religious, but "let he who is without sin cast the first stone" might be my favorite piece of life advice ever when it comes to talking shit about other people. 
i mean it though i will kill a bitch. ugh ugh ugh i just want him out

sigh. also the weather has finally made me admit that shorts and a t-shirt just aren't cutting it anymore. it really is fall now. so i changed to a nice knee-length skirt with two layers of lining and a sweater top with elbow-length sleeves
alas these shirts have not been taken care of properly and the zipper at the back is all fucked up ._.
why don't i own an ironing board? 

i'm in bed with music, my laptop and a cup of tea, writing fanfiction with my kitten sleeping on my feet. i'm warm and it's sunny and autumn outside. 

perfect can happen. 

even though september 1 isn't really the end of summer, it kind of is for me. due to a misconception i only learned last year that summer wasn't considered to be june, july and august, and actually had specific starting and ending dates... sigh. however, it's definitely been getting colder the last few days. so i stick by my method. i like it better anyway. 

strangely, i find myself not minding. even though i get cold easily and always used to hate the colder seasons, this last year has actually left me appreciating every season for what it has to offer. sometimes i catch myself thinking 'i can't wait for fall' and thinking about all the special feelings and changes that only ever happen in fall, and i like myself more for it. 

i stayed up all night again to watch the dawn. i love those moments when everything becomes completely dark for twenty minutes, and then gradually the sky starts to turn blue. i can feel so much promise and change, and it makes me feel at peace. i often think about how nice it would be to be woken up an hour before dawn, in a warm house while it's cold outside, to take a hot shower and be bundled into some warm clothes and given a nice hot cocoa or, even better, a peppermint mocha, and to take a walk outside and watch the sun come up with someone i care about. while feeling at peace as a wonderful thing, sharing that peace and promise is even better. 

feeling inspired and soft and lovely and ready for winter. even though i barely got my closet sorted with my summer clothes... siigh

okay, tonight i'm REALLY going to stay up through the day without sleeping to the middle of the afternoon again. i can do this thing. i'll drink lots and lots of tea and go outside and stay active and eat plenty of carbs. 

i think one of the reasons i'm so given to dreams is the same reason i'm often resentful that i was born so late. i often find myself 'between generations', although not always - my family, of course, are around my age although i am the youngest, and my brother's only one year older than i am - like with my dad's friends whose children were in college when i was still in single digits, or noa's siblings, whose parents are younger than mine, but around whom i still have to actively remind myself that i'm an adult just like they are, and whose kids are still too young for me to actually interact with (although there's sometimes an overlap of interests which makes it even more confusing). i'm finding myself more and more often to be the 'adult' in fandoms, when i always used to be the kid. it feels ridiculous to say that you're between generations when people are born every day of every year, but it's a situation i keep running up against. 

i also feel like i missed out on a lot of things, and if i'd been born ten years earlier which would have been entirely possible given that my mama was in her late thirties and my father was 45, i would have gotten to be there for the good times. my father talked a lot about when my mama opened her restaurant in the early 80s, and how people were waiting in line around the block for hours, but i only have the one really hazy memory of even being there with her. he also talked about having people over for dinner and him and my mama cooking all the time, or going out to dinner with their friends. i barely remember a few of the dinner parties he threw, which were mostly stressful and involved clearing all of the papers and mess out of the living room and into another room (his or mine) and keeping the door closed until everyone left. the atmosphere i was raised in was so cold and lonely compared to the things my father told me about that he'd done in just the decade before. 

there was also yasuo ichinose, who was a japanese violinist who i met only a few times. he coached the chamber orchestra at the music camp i used to go to, and once i went to his house to play chamber music. my dad was late to pick me up, so yasuo gave me orange juice and talked to me about music in his kitchen until he showed up. he wanted to play a lot more chamber music with me, and was very encouraging and had a lot of plans for the future. i adored him. he was so easygoing, so kind, and really passionate about music without being obnoxiously competitive which was the thing i craved back then and could hardly find anywhere else. not long after, when i was fifteen, my violin teacher took me aside after our lesson and told me he'd died of a heart attack the night before. i skipped my next class because i physically could not stop crying. it seems silly to say about someone who i only met a few times, and never really did anything with beyond that one time at his house, but i never really got over losing him. i still miss him and the things we could have done together so much. he wasn't like anyone else i ever met in music before or since, and i still often feel like if he'd stayed alive - or if i'd known him for longer before he'd died - i might have stuck with music and taken it somewhere beyond a hobby. but everyone else pretty much shattered my faith in being able to be a professional, or at least regular, musician without it being mean, competitive and difficult. i didn't go to his funeral because i didn't know him well enough and i would have been out of place, there was nobody to invite me and i was too shy to invite myself, but i still miss him so much. 

i guess that's really why i'm so grateful to the people i do have. specifically david and riley. even though i was pushed away from music by the horrible atmosphere, david opened up physics and math for me which was something i didn't have from anyone else. i don't know what i would have done if i hadn't met him. finally there was someone who liked me, took an interest in me, cared about how i was and how i was feeling, and actually stuck around. didn't die. taught me things i loved without being paid to do it. i always used to be so scared when i stayed at his house, with all my usual anxieties related not to not being a problem for people, to the point where i was too afraid to ask for food even when i was hungry, and it took me years to get over that. i remember when i rode the bus up to oxford to see a movie with my friends and i was really really sick, vomiting every half hour, and even though i was done with the vomiting part by the time i got to david's house i felt wrung out and terrible, and he immediately squeezed oranges for me so i could have hot water and orange juice to make me feel better. i can't think of one time that he didn't cheer me up even when i started out sobbing and crying, make me laugh, reassure me, and give me strength when i needed it. he taught me to be generous, which is definitely something i didn't learn from my conniving, machiavellian father, or any of his equally conniving friends. he's one of those people that i know i wouldn't be half as good a person now if i hadn't had that relationship with them. 

which is why he's one of the two people i respect the most, along with my brother. if david taught me to be generous, riley taught me to be tough, and to stand up for myself - again, not something i ever could have learned from my father. it feels almost strange to think about it so much, but now that i know i'm going to become a pilot, i'm thinking all the time about how amazing it will be when he gets his military wings and i get my civilian ones. somehow for us to have that difference and that sameness too is just so right, so appropriate for the people we are and the way we are around each other. 

these people are part of my family too, and i'd do anything for them, anything in the world. it's a shame that they're both so far away now - i really, really miss being able to just walk across town and be at david's house. sometimes when the light is just right i wake up here and it feels like i'm in oxford again and maybe i'll go see david today, and then i remember i can't, and even though i'm not sad to be where i am it does make me miss him a lot. and even though i've never been to riley's house sometimes i really, really miss hanging out with him, talking about stuff with him, the way i feel completely invincible when i'm with him - i do miss that. i love it when he and mac are with us, and i can't wait until i can leave the state - and until i can fly - so i can go visit them.

i'm so grateful that there were people in my childhood who i loved and who loved me like family, who didn't go and die on me, and instead made me a better person and are still family today. that's more than can be said for 90% of all the people who should have been there for me, and should have taught me how to live well. honestly, when i think about who really raised me, i'd have to say it was david and riley. my father gave me food and clothes and a roof over my head and an education, that's true, but i didn't mature with him. i matured with them. so who did i grow up with? who raised me? well, it sure as shit wasn't my father, or anyone related to me by blood. they just let me down. i count myself goddamn lucky that not everyone did. 

so after my father hit on the brilliant plan of telling my uncle to hand my inheritance papers off to his accountant to put in order - a plan that took the combined minds of four grown adults three months to put together, i'll add - it seems like i'm finally getting my inheritance. which means, along with buying a new car and finishing our work on the house, that i'll be able to go to fucking college at last.

i've been tearing through class schedules and such, and i'm beyond thrilled to see that they have an aviation maintenance class. they actually have a whole degree in aviation maintenance which partners with the airport i'm going to get licensed at, paine field, but i won't be pursuing that degree. i will, however, be taking aviation maintenance 101 - formally known as applied science for the aviation technician - which covers things like the theory of flight and materials and processes. so cool. i'm so jazzed for it. i won't be able to take it right away, since i need to pass math 75 (which should be a cinch since it's arithmetic, algebra, geometry and applied trigonometry) first. so i guess my first quarter (whether that's fall, winter or spring) will be math, either italian or japanese, and some other class - maybe a physed class, or english to get it out of the way/for an esteem boost. or maybe i should save that for when i'm taking aviation maintenance and will have to roll around with physics. 

i'm also super excited about taking italian with noa. i've never learned a language with my family before, and i know he's really enthusiastic to do it. i'll get to speak it at home~ augh so excite. 

i've been so happy lately. i have my beautiful house and my beautiful family and my awesome brother and i have things that matter to me and my education's all planned out. i have a perfect kitten and a perfect snake and our dog smells nice. i take pleasure in the little things every day, i appreciate good food and i have the best friends anyone could ask for and there are trains and flying and concerts in my future. even the things that have been upsetting me aren't getting me down, they're just motivation for me to think more laterally and come up with more solutions. 

yep, i'd say i'm pretty delighted with what my life has become.