so... after tests, blood work and a very thourough ultrasound...the diagnosis is... healthy.

I have spastic colon ( often known as brain-gut disorder or IBS) My guts hate me.... but everything else is NORMAL!!!! so... all that panic and freaking out was a waste of energy. Thank god my GP is an internal medicine specialist who is one of Switzerland's top Ultrasound specialists!

The panic attacks are also being dealt with and there is nothing to freak out about any more.

So we can head up to Germany with the knowledge that I am okay.  It means I have tomake some life style changes but they are all good changes and nothing I don't mind doing.

anyway... all's well... now if I can just convince my brain this... and if I can start dealing with teh delayed stress and the delayed mourning and the incredible internal sorrow i seem to carry around with me... I guess I will be just fine.

love you all, thanks fo all the nice emails and comments of support, they really really helped.

now back to regularly scheduled blogging

until then be excellent to each other.

   this is the left side of the Albion Story written out

   The laurel scroll

         the close ups and different lighting. and the entire albion story scroll

So after the weekend from hell and the Monday morning full of panic, pain and fear is a slowly fading memory. It isn't my appendix andthe prelim tests all showed nothing wrong, so further blood work and an ultrasound still to come.

The Doctor, an awesome doctor by the way, didn't think there was anythings erious going on, and like the doc I saw last year figures it is IBS. (Irritable bowel syndrom) that and my over active brain. A week of pain leads me to think of all possible worst case scenarios and I go into freak out mode. Panic attacks one after the other on the weekend sent me into a tail spin. Once he heard about the panic attacks he figured out that maybe it#s more panic than anything else, notthat the pain isn't real but the mind makes it worse.

So now I have some new tools ( read meds here) to help me, I feel better...I feel like me again. My brain is working again. I am functional again. I know the panic is there but it never quite makes it to the end of the line. It's a relief actually. Someone took my descriptions of panic attacks seriously and did not say that all too famous line 'It's all in your head' or 'you are just too stressed"...

Once we get all this shit under control I can set about sorting out the things that triggered this episode in the first place. I need to exersize more, get out of the house more, learn Italian, meet new friends... get out of the house ( Oh wait I said that already) I spend too much time alone and now a year and a half after we moved the delayed stress of that move and all its implications has finally hit me.

We moved and I never blinked. We uprooted and came to another country, with another language and all that crap that goes with moving. We left behind a huge city where we had everything at our fingertips, I had a job I loved, and we were doing good. I wasn't the happiest I had ever been but i wasn't miserable either. We went from a city of millioins on our doorstep to a teeny weeny village that reminds me of St. Anthony... that is hell in the middle of nowhere. This was the 2nd big move I had made in 3 years. ( Canada to Germany, then Germany to switzerland) that's an awful lot of stress.

So we moved and I never thought about it, never cried, never blinked. Now all the things I miss I mourn. How strange is this? I never let things go. But the last two days I have cried more than I have in years, and it feels good to be honest. Ya gotta let shit go.just let go...

On another cooler note this is the month of ghosts. In the Chinese calander. So I will be doing a small ghost feeding  ceremony for my dad. It's always good to keep the ghosts happy. I wonder sometimes if after so many years I am finally able to mourn his passing as well. Seems strange to keep that all bottled up inside but I know I do. I lock everything up inside of me.Learning to let go is the hardest thing ever.

So for now we have calm waters again. I am more or less back to normal happy do laundry sit and write storys self. I am lonely but now at least I recognize it. Next week we head up to Germany to spend a week in Ahrensburg, which means people and city life and getting out. I wonder if my mum went through all of this when she left home and moved so very far away from her family?I never understood how brave she was to do all of that till now. My mother rocks!

so now today is about mundane shit like house work, and sorting out what we'll need for the week and so on.

Will be good to get away.

so... that's my crazy life atm.

Until then, be excellent to each other.

well this was an awful weekend. I have been feeling incredibly sick and don't know why though we suspect my sometimes very low BP and my very high anxiety has had a great deal to do with it. Feel better now but will go to the Doc's this week. Make sure everything is working as intended.

My husband is the greatest nurse anyone could ask for and I owe him big time for bullying me to eat, making sure I had cold water to drink and being there when I was scared out of my mind.

will fill everyone in when it's not close to midnight. :)

Until then, be excellent to each other. 

 We were woken up by a HUGE thunder and lightening storm last night at after 2 am. It was a doozy, and had us scurrying around the house shutting down windows and closing doors. Usually I can sleep through these big storms but this one was loud and bright so I ended up shutting the blinds right down and closing the bedroom door because the glass roof thing we have lets a LOT of light in and the constant flicking of lightening when one is trying to get to sleep.

I was just tense yesterday. My head felt like it was in a vice after my stressful morning and then slow unwinding afternoon after the visit to the obgyns doc. She was really nice and this was probably one of the most relaxed annual alien probe visits I have ever had. It helped that she spoke english and we talked for about half an hour, putting me at ease. She was great. The things I was worried about are all nothing to worry about. And for the first time I got given something natural for PMS and not the usual take aspirin pep talk. So we'll see if it works. It is supposed to help quell the paranoia as well as most of the other pms symptoms.

So now I am slowly trying to get back to normal head-space. and today mostly I am just tired after a long eventful stormy night! So I think it will be a slow, headachy day today, but that's okay. I'll take a headache over panick any day of the week.

Until then be excellent to each other!

It is a lovely wet day today. Clouds skirt the mountains and every now and then it pours. I suppose most people think that rain on vacation is bad but we don't think so. The rain is a welcome change and we have had lovely sunny weather during our holiday at home, as well as cloudy days, cool days and wet days. It has been nice.

We have spent muchof the time off doing nothing, the typical holiday thing except that our doing nothing involves sitting at the computers looking for and at stuff.  We have been looking into joining up with a star wars club, in switzerland there is a 501st group. While the costuming restrictions are strict I welcome that. They go for authenticity which is really cool. So we are now on the hunt for how to get it right. Marcus wants to do a TIE fighter pilot and I will probably go for maul - Sith outfit as I am TOO SHORT for a storm trooper. I think it will be fun, a lot of work and worth it. The 501st is a world wide organisation that does a LOT of cool stuff. You can take a look at their web site here

501st Vader's Fist

There is a swiss group with people near us so it might be a nice way to get to meet new folks with common interests within travel distance. Star Wars fans are a bit nutty and that suits us just fine. Both of us have been serious SW fans for a long time. well since the very first movie hit the world by storm.

So today we'll go exploring to find an army surplus store near us so M. can find a black flight suit, and maybe some other things that will move the costume process along. I mainly need tons and tons of flowy black fabric. Probably the best option is raw silk. It has nice weight and is easy to work with. I made a gorgeous 11C norman style gown from it two years ago. There are a couple of sites out there with really good HOW TOs for the Darth Maul outfit, it won't be that hard for me to sew it will just be VERY time consuming. The hardest part of that costume will be the bald-head and horns cap and the eye contacts. But one step at a time... clothes first makeup later...

It's exciting actually. I have been to a few Sci-fi cons and they are just whacky crazy fun. I think it's time to get back into that. We are so far away from the SCA at the moment, and events are really hard and expensive to get to so we need to find a new play ground. And the costuming thing is not new to me either. Between the SCA and the 18th century polonaise ddress and many other things... my sewing machine and I are well aquainted...so is the fine art of messing about with patterns. If we do this... I will try to keep a photo record and keep you all up tp date...so far we are in the research and think about it stage.

In the between time, I will be suffering through my usual miserable crampy 1st day of that time of the month ( this sucks but anaprox is a wonder drug). Glad to start though, it means the end of my cranky pms week, which poor marcus suffers through.  He deals with me in this up and down state with a fairly cheerful nonchalance. He's used to it.

So on this rainy wild Saturday I am now off to soak in the tub before we go off in search of army surpluses.

Until then, be excellent to each other.

so after a me whining about my toothach we decided it was get mouse out of the house...so we went into Lugano and did some shopping. Theraputic.

I got some cute Italian kiddies books. A new electrickery toothbrush, scentless bubble bath that I can add my own scents too ( yay)  and some other non essential things...like hand cream.

was a nice walk about the lake in the rain..

then on the way home we stopped at the co op near us and there is a dentist in the same building. marcus will test run him next week. yay us

until then... ya know the drill

We decided to not go to Zürich. It's at least a 3 hour drive barring ANY complications and with the Gotthard tunnel there are ALWAYS complications so after a long talk about it we decided another time. Besides the weather is pretty cold and wet for a day out in a city we don't yet know. I am not that dissapointed, I don't really want to spend 6 + hours in the car. We settled on driving out to Foxtown, this huge factory outlet mall thing. Not that we want anything but it's getting out and looking at stuff.

On Monday Marcus will check out the nearest dentist. This is good as I have toothaches. receding gumlines have left me with hot spots on some of my teeth and one of these little sensetive spots has now become a large ( for a tooth) hole in the enamel and it hurts. Not bad bad but annoying nagging achey tooth pain. Pisses me off truth be told because I do everything I am told to do. I floss, I brush regularaly with a toothpaste designed to counter act this gum line thing, I use expensive and specially designed mouth wash and I use a flouride treatment 1 a month and I still get rotting teeth. I don't even eat that much sweet stuff... so you know... It sucks. Oil of cloves is my friend atm.

It's bucketing out side as well. I don't mind though, am happy with rain and we need it. June and July were very dry so a soggy august is fine with me.

I apologise for the lack of interesting anything written here, truth be told I can't be bothered... there isn't that much going on and i am in the blahs.

until then, be excellent to each other.

It's a rainy morning. The sky is playing hide and seek with the mountains and everthing smells like clean...wet earth. I love days like this. It reminds me of Scotland and Newfoundland. I think tomorrow we will drive up to Zürich and explore a bit,get out of the house.

It has been an interesting week so far. I am coming to terms with my high strungness. The panic attacks get worse but so does my realisation about why and how to stop them. It has been really good having Marcus home all day :) company and someone to talk with, hold on to, be with.

I got my two scrolls done and wil mail them today. We need to find a good dentist and I need to get my annual alien probe done. I loath doctors and I have a terror for dentists but that's not a surprise. Freezing my mouth is an impossible job and after 2 root canals I felt every step of the way, just the sound of a dental drill makes me dizzy. Now I need drugs before I sit in a dentist's chair... dope me up, and gimme my cd player. Brrrrrrr. But I have a hot tooth and it needs to be seen to soon.

so not much to write about, and I am not feeling terribly poetic, blame that on PMS. My creativity goes out the window when my body needs to gear up for its monthy biological function....

So a nice wet wednesday. I look forward to our daily walk, I like walking in the rain.

Until then, be excellent to each other...

and have a nice day.

Most people I know get all energetic and bouncy during a full moon. Not me I get tired and moody. My up time is the black moon.. and while I don't know why, it's always been that way.

The last few days has been a bit of a battle. My body doesn't like me much at the moment and my mental state leaves a lot to be desired. I am so tired of these panic attacks. I have lived with this pretty much since I was 13 years old but now, this year they have been really bad. I don't know where all this wretched anxiety comes from and although I have been working hard with Fulvio to try and work some of this crap out. I am fed up of it. I am fed up of waking up feeling scared and not knowing why, annoyed with the sensation of being scared of something I cannot define.

I read this this morning and pretty much everything I read is what I experience. The question is how to deal with it? I don't want to start any sort of pharmaceutical treatment, I am pretty sure that would not only dull the anxiety but also my creativity as well. I am trying to re learn how to breathe, to re learn how to relax. But how does one fight something that is so intangable?

I try not to let this get to me. But it wears me down. It's depressing.

Marcus thinks it is partially because I am lonely, with no real outside contact. I am all by myself all day, I think far too much and I worry too much. Every small hurt, or twinge becomes magnified and terrifies me but i have no idea why. The fear is faceless, nameless and it engulfs me.

We were talking about maybe finding a new way to meet people, joining up with some of the Swiss sci fi fan clubs and geting together with people who have similar influences and likes. We are too far away now from the SCA stuff and we miss our friends but it is unreasonable to consider travel to events that takes 2 days here and there. So now we need to find something to fill the space. Our interest in star wars, star trek etc... is pretty vast so it seems fairly logical to try and find others in a like minded community.

Today, we just do nothing much, relaxing and hanging out. We have some plans to maybe head up to Zürich for a couple of days, take in some civilization! I miss that, I miss shops and the hustle and bustle of a big city. We got spoiled living next to Hamburg and now we miss it dearly. Of course some of this peevishness is due to me being in full bloom PMS. Woot! my favoutite thing in the world. (NOT)

Anyway... that's my day so far. Kinda blah.

Until then, be excellent to each other.

sometimes I go web window shopping. these are a few of my favourite things to look at at long for. :)

gentle giant Vader statue
Side Show Darth Maul
Side Show Darth Vader
Attakus Darth Vader
Kotobukia Darth Vader

Imperial shuttle

yeah I know whimsical and sort of useless, but I like them anyway it's harmless to look.I'd be a serious Darth Vader statue collector and shuttle collector if it wasn't so damned hard to find thes ethings from here :)

:)

until I have more interesting thisng to babble about...

Be excellent to each other. 

or how the SCA scroll thing tends to work...

 When I was around 20 years old and living in Ottawa, very good friends of mine dragged me on a camping trip to Cooper's Lake in Pensilvania. Little did I know what was in store for me. This wasn't just a 'camping trip' it was a trip backwards in time.

The Society for Creative Anachronism is a world wide non profit organisation that is essentially a bunch of folks who like to pretend they live before 1599 AD. (That's the explanation in the broadest sense.) to learn more go here:

Society for Creative Anachronism

As with all groups of people who get together and do stuff they eventually felt that good deeds had to be rewarded and these rewards were done by the giving of awards accompanied by "scrolls".

A scroll is a bit of paper that is usually but not always a work of origional art done in a medival style which cites the reason and the award with some sort of text, usually done in period style calligraphy and illumination. Call it the official doccumentation of said award. Proof of purchase :).

It should be noted that scrolls as the SCA does them are not actually accurate in how grants of arms ( for example) were given out. The SCA scrolls have a tendancy to resemble pages from Books of hours rather than writs or what ever.

How it works:

King and queen X, after being badgered by the populace decideds that person Y has done a ton of work ( ie cleaned up after every group get together called "an event", or helped organise a billion things, or made clothes for the entire shire ( you get the idea). King or queen X writes to his/her signet clerk ( the person who organises the making of scrolls) and says I want to give person Y an award at this event.

The signet clerk then goes and fins a scribe ( SCA-medieval word for the artist) and says can you make this? Scribe A says sure no problem and goes off and works for X amount of hours on said award, which is then somehow delivered to King and queen X who can then give it out to person y at said event. There was much rejoicing all around.

It should be noted that scrolsl are done on a volunteer basis. These artists do not as a rule get paid for their work, their materials or their time. In fact more often than not uness they are actually present at the event were the award is being given out, they often do not even receive thanks.

The range of work is huge going from amature to professional. usually the higher the award the more fancy and larger the scroll although this is not always the case.

Here are some of the various Kingdom sites to show you what is what.

Australia: Kingdom of lochac
australian SCA scribe/

The East Kingdom East Kingdome signet site

The Midrealm The Midrealm signet site

My friend Mi's scribal site ( well her shire's but she organized it) Castlemere scribes

I have a bad habit of reacting first and thinking later. I go with my gut and simply react. Especially if what ever has set me off ticks me off.

The most recent incident of act first think about it later came after I got an email about a scroll from a scribe. This scribe wrote that the King had asked her to do a particular scroll which he had already sent to me to assign. This made me furious because I have already given this assignment out which meant had the scribe not written to me there would have been 2 scrolls for this person and I hate when work gets doubled. It is incredibly bad form.

I based on the last 3 years of experiences working with a variety of royals assumed the fault lay entirely with the king and wrote a panicky email asking essentially wtf??? He was just as confused writing back letting me know that the scribe approached him and asked to do the scroll, he was the one who sent said scribe to ask me, since he knew it had already been placed in my hands.

*sigh* So this is the second time now I have assumedthe worst and gotten a really straigh forward and honest answer back. I need to learn not to assume the worst. This king is great at communicating with me and I really appreciate it. I am the one who needs to calm down a bit and think first not react. What I don't like is the way I feel as though I got played by the scribe.

This happens fairly regularly. People circumnavigate the signet clerk office and work ends up getting doubled or worse. It ticks off the scribes and it makes me look sloppy at my job, which while I question what I do all the time, I think I do okay at it. I suppose this crap is normal when one works with many differnet people on a volunteer basis but I don't nderstand the game playing myself. If we were all straightforward with one another and communicated a whole lot better this crap would not happen.  

 So, while I beat myself up for over reacting, at the same time at least I bring these issues up right away, catch the mistakes and the problems before they become unmanageable. It teaches me valuable lessons, and after my termis up I will never do this again. I don't like being lied to and taken advantage of. I especially do not like the feeling of being used or what is worse ignored.

I try to do the very best job I can. I try to make sure that people who want to do scrolls for the Kingdom get to do work, but I won't run around begging and asking, searching for scribes who want to work. I do what I can to get the word out that there is kingdom work to do, it isn't my job to run around like a mother hen chasing everyone I think might like to get a scroll done. By the same token, the backlog of stuff that has been assigned for years is like trying to chase down ghosts. Why is it so hard for people to keep in touch and send a little update? If you take on a scroll you have a responsibility to get it done, keep the signet updated or pass the assignment along to someone who can do it.

This job has shown me the very best of people but also the very worst. (Including in myself)

The latest lesson is that sometimes I need to think first and ask calmly afterwards....

Until then, be excellent to each other.

If you purchased a product from a well known company, then for said product paid a monthly fee. After 1.5 years of using said product, happily, the product was suddenly, without any warning altered in such a way that the last  X amount of time spent creating the thing which this product is used for was rendered useless. Ten months after this event the company finally apologises for the WAY in which the revamp was implimented but the actually damage done has not been recitfied. How woudl you feel?

for more and a possible rant I'll be postingin the ghosts of flesh and bone blog. ( link at the side)  becasue I am trying to keep this blog SOE free.

Until later....

Thanks to Windows system restore my computer is now working within normal specified parameters.

 yay.

Never let your husband install untried new fangled server to desktop file transfer programes on your system.

having computer 'issues'...

stay tuned.

My insides hate me. That's all I am going to say about this.
---

Weather report: Brittle clear blue skies. ( If you want to know how blue Jryki's eyes are look at the sky here. Blue enough to break your heart. Crystal clear sunlight making everything around sem ultra sharp and close enough to kiss. And the wind is Nordföhn, coming off the mountains where on the other side of the alps, interesting things are happening. It has that 'autumn' look to it but it's realyl a lie. August is usually the hottest month of all, although it has started with a nice caress of under 30C weather.

You can tell when autumn comes, because it crawls down the mountains. Autumn starts at the top and works its way downward. Unlike spring which starts here and slowly walks its way Up the mountain. But the wind has 'that scent' on it because the isotherm level dropped and this week fresh snow fell on the higher peaks. Frost on the wind, while we won't see it here for a while yet.... it's coming. I am grateful for cooler air. I love summer but too much heat is not a good thing.

The Lizards are happy with the cooling down a bit and I find them sunning themselves on the terrace in the AM. I try not to move too much near to them because they are easily scared and I like the lizards to feel comfortable in this LIZARD safe zone! They are small and cute but do not underestimate the desire to stay alive...last year while

While trying to rescue a little guy from the car andthen from being in the house I discovered that while they don't have teeth they can sure as hell bite. So here I was trying to rescue a lizard that was trying to defend itself by biting me. It must have been funny this little lizard hanging off my thumb. Thankfully as an AHT we are taught not to shake a biting animal off so I just kinda gritted my teeth and get him outside some place safe without scaring him even more. I am quite sure there is a lizard out there who is seen as a fearless warrior, having attacked the GIANT and lived to tell the tale. While he was a tiny thing, his bite had some ouch to it. He never broke the skin but I had a bruise. Mucho respect for the little dude... that's being brave.

Not much else, it's friday so there's a new mini-chapter up. I keep writing.... the latest bit had merly explaining to Thrawn why she undressed Boba Fett. (giggle) this is such a fun world to play in you know. But this chapter won't be public for a while yet so I won't say more. Am looking forward to the weekend, then after Wednesday next week marcus has holidays and we get to hang out together and relax. Maybe make some day trips and enjoy doing bugger-all. This is a nice holiday on Balconia , as the germans say.

So I have scrolls to get done, hair to henna, clothes to wash and words to spill. Life, aside from the unhappy guts which I am getting used to, is poodling along at a pleasant pace.

Oh.-... and my birthday ( which is officvially in feb) happened this month so thanks for all the wonderful presents and cards. I kinda like this 6 months later thing truth be told!!!! My mum ( love and hugs) sent a gorgeous hand made quilt, among other wonderful things ( reminders from home, cat hair free of charge!!!) and Andrea sent origional art, ( it's beautiful and I love it) the coolest books and other exquisite things plus a card that had me laughing. You Rock so much and I love you dearly!!! I love getting real mail in the mail... so I will try to be better at writing real letters. I am such a glutton for that insta fix though...

Have a great weekend y'all!

Until then, be excellent to each other!

One of the things I loved about living in St. John's was the way the fog came and went, how it shifted around the ills just like the Carl Sandburg poem. I loved the secrets it brought with it, the scents and the whispers. In North Germany, where it was flat flat falt ( you know like Holland) I missed that kind of fog. Fog doesn't happen that often, mostly spring and autumn when the ground to air temp changes radically, then it is this weird snakey fog that sits on the land in the dark and early morning only to mysteriously vanish with the morning sun.

Now I live in a place with mountains and hills and a higher altitude. There are days whenthe sky comes down to say hullo. Clouds, heavy and soggy shift restlessly around the hills visiting each nook and cranny. Those three magic words spring to mind. RAIN DRIZZLE FOG. = home.

Today the sky is visiting. Wrapping itself around the world about me like a gauzy chiffon veil.  It is also from time to time raining, heabvily, then drizzling just for the hell of it. The air has that scent of damp living things, wet soil, wet pavement, wet leaves. The clouds bring their versions of the Mountains' stories, highly exaggerated because clouds like to feel bigger than they are. Their lives are fleeting and in constant motion where as the mountais rarely move. Without the clouds and their love of words, the tales from the mountains would grow old, stale and be eventually forgotten. Even the crows would stop telling them to their children.

When the clouds come to visit the temperature also drops. The sun, having fiercely kept its grip on this part of the world for over two months now is sulking. All that hard work drying up everything ruined by a few delinquent clouds. It will be petulant when the clouds sacurry off to their next appointment, disguised as vapour and gas or rivers and lakes.

The plays a part too, chasing the clouds about , dog after cat. It's just a big game though, the wind is fickle about its friendship, and would just as soon play with the trees or one's hair as the clouds. Mostly wind is about having a good time and spends its life flying from one party to the next, drinking up the heady nectar of nature. It tends to cause havoc when it gets drunk, then gets the spins and goes out of control. The best thing to do when you are in the middle of a drunken wind party is hunker down and play cards. (Keep bottled water and a flash light handy) Mad wind doesn't care what it does, it just does it. Like cats shortly before midnight, it gets the rips and has to move, very very fast. Direction??? pah ...

In the end like most temper tantrums and drunken rampages, it will die down, exhausted by the sheer expendature of energy. Then, in an attempt to make up for the damage done, it will caress with gentle breezes, whispering its apologies that tend to fall on deaf ears.

Today the sky has come to visit, and the wind has tagged along. 

The Fog - Carl Sandburg 

The fog comes
 on little cat feet.
 

 it sits looking
 over harbor and city
 on silent haunches
 and then moves on. 

The Wind - Robert Louis Stevenson

I saw you toss the kites on high 
 And blow the birds about the sky; 
 And all around I heard you pass, 
 Like ladies' skirts across the grass-- 
 O wind, a-blowing all day long, 
 O wind, that sings so loud a song! 

I saw the different things you did, 
 But always you yourself you hid. 
 I felt you push, I heard you call, 
 I could not see yourself at all-- 
 O wind, a-blowing all day long, 
 O wind, that sings so loud a song! 

O you that are so strong and cold, 
 O blower, are you young or old? 
 Are you a beast of field and tree, 
 Or just a stronger child than me? 
 O wind, a-blowing all day long, 
 O wind, that sings so loud a song!

It is bad enough I have been writing pretty much non stop of well over a year this ridiculous star wars fan fic epic... but now my crow story has resurfaced. ARGHHHHH It's bad enough I have Thrawn, Vader , Merlyn and co cluttering up my otheriwse blissfully word free ( I am such a liar) brain but now Tadwyr, Kavi and kernow among others are starting up their yammering too. I am quite certain that writers write because if they didn't the voices in their heads from the chatter of all the characters would drive them utterly mad.

I have tons of stories, some of them have been told, some of them are finished and some of them are somewhere in the middle... I don't often finish the books because I am a slow writer and I ponder a lot and I lose my way and my characters annoy me... I did get Raven's Requiem done and Andrea read it, surprising me with the fact that she liked it and wanted me to flesh it out. I go to sleep with these conversations in my head and I wake up continuingthem alongthe way... argh!!!!

That one will have to wait though, I have a hrad time dealing with whiney characters and Sparrow whined a lot. 

So I am debating what to do with the Crow story, which actually isn't called the Secret Life of a Crow girl, ( though maybe it should be) in fact as of yet it doesn't even have a working title. But where on earth do all these words come from. and why am I the one who is being asked to spread them out and put them on paper. ( oh yes, they are all on paper, hard copies are the only thing that make words real!) I don't know that I want to set up yet another blog, but I like the method of posting to let others read ( that helps me write) so what to do... hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

in the mean time... the weather is coling down some... and we got house work done today... so clean floors. We had a slithery visitor to the house yesterday, a snake, around 2.5ft long. marcus thinks it was some sort of Viper and it was hiding in one of the window wells that sheds light into the basement. Very pretty greenish looking snake. Quite cool. We have multiple wasps trying to build nests on the house ( sorry guys but that's a no no) billions of ants trying to invade the kitchen and livingroom...and lizards ALL OVER THE PLACE! there is that line from Madagascar which goes... 

"NATURE... IT'S ALL OVER ME... GET IT OFF ME!!!"

 well that's me folks. But since I like snakes a lot and this garden is LIZARD SANCTUARY, and I have a peace pact with the wasps, give shelter and honey to wayward bees ( I have pictures of this if anyone is interested) we are providing grapes for the birds free of charge and for the most part have a fairly harmonious nature life going on I even wait for the house spiders to scurry out of the way before I vacuum in their vicinity .. I figure it's not so bad.

The critters got a right to live too, so long as they leave me alone I will afford them the same courtesy.Besides they are the closest thing to company I have during the day.

on that note. I am going to bed to dream of blue boxes, german swamps, the blue skinned man, crows who can talk and lost love and snow covered forests that carry the scent of spring... this is as good as it gets folks. talk to you tomorrow.

Until then, be excellent to each other...

Okay!!!!

---rant start...

I weep for the future of this world.  

There are no limits to the stupidity, cruelty and sheer idiocy to human beings and this has never been more evidant than when one moderates a forum primarily populated by teenaged american boys who think its a good idea to slag off and slander everyone and everything using the crudest methods possible. The use of crude language and pornographic images to hurt others only makes you look even more stupid than you actually are. 

Grow the fuck up already.

---rant end!