That one time I tried to buy myself a house plant and couldn't even tell it's plastic ...

 ... In my defence, succulents always look plastic, even when they're not. 

'Tis the season, sunny Sunday, when I finally managed to get my bike back - 'it's been parked on G's parents' farm thorough winter. So there I am, pumping uphill, awakening muscles long dormant, when I spot a dark SUV parked in the forest not too far from a road. Inside a scary-looking man and a confused-looking dog. The general had literally driven and parked halfway my route to make sure I'm okay. (I was okay, just thirsty.)

Honestly, that man. I told him the other day that should I suddenly die, he must understand since I knew him, he's kept me impossibly safe, free, happy, satisfied and he's bought me everything I could possibly ever want: look, look at this. I mentioned I want to carve my own kuksa cup and he bought me a set of Morakniv chisels for whittling! I've started practising right away, on a spoon of course. My sister cut down most of the trees around mum's house, so I had plenty of almost dry reddish plum and cherry stumps to grab from. And yes, before you ask, I did manage to stab myself in the hand within the first fifteen minutes :D 

Slowly starting to look like a spoon :D

While for some reason I am fascinated by the Scottish website tracker for salt/gritter trucks, today is the last day of my solitary confinement, the weather is magnificent and I am really, really restless. Had the General not been such a stickler for rules, I'd be on a hike already. Or just anywhere that is not indoors. thank the Gods for Warcraft and we've just had Anduin gone full Arthas and slaughter someone. General asked how is it possible such a mighty creature was so easily killed and I said: individuals burdened with that amount of guild don't even fight back anymore. 

He's gone uphill to see to two decrepit hives (mould got to them) and feed the others with a sticky mesh of sugar and pollen we've ground into cakes - even though we still have no idea what we're doing right or what we're doing wrong, almost all of the colonies survived the winter. Ironically, our strongest family perished - the one from our best construction. It's just uncanny. But it is starting to seed ambition in G again and he's plotting to have a lot more next fall. We agreed on ten. Granted, since we make our own boxes and now have all the space we need, there is no reason not to have as many as we want. My homework today is finding all the plants we can plant to keep the little fuckers fed and fuzzy. 

As always when something is going well, I worry something bad will happen or I'm missing something. I can never tell if that's just experience or anxiety. Since thinking about not having anyone to inherit all my books and craft material, I've become truly worried about dying. Last year has been financially awesome, but also dad died, so all these books I've purchased and never had the chance to open, they are haunting me a little. "Some day, when we've built our own wee house somewhere, I will have all the time in the world to read..." Baaaaad strategy. Of course, I've always been paranoid about the sand running out of the hourglass. So no new stresses there.

I spent yesterday trying to waste 100 bucks online and I genuinely have nothing else to buy. I've plateaued in my desires and that's not good. There are a hundred online orders in transit on the way to me, so until I receive samples, it makes no sense to order more of what I think I will like. I bought an astounding-looking bookmarker on Ali Express, yet until I receive it and see if it's any good at all, buying more like it is senseless. There should be new hiking pants somewhere in the future on my list, but I hate buying clothes. Ultimately I alternated between a Lush vibrator, an Irish whistle and spoon-carving chisels. G knows about these things, so he ordered me three Morakniv curved knives. It's more than likely I will slip and stab myself in the palm on the first day, but carving your own hiking cup just seems like something everyone should try at least once. What we really need, though, is small woodworking saw. We have one for straight cuts, we need one for smaller, shapely ones. And a proper table to set it. We haven't been purchasing any wood-working tools for months, because the lockdown made it pointless, as our workspace is usually set under G's parents' barn on a nice sunny weekend. He makes drawers and trays and bee stuff and I read in a hammock, weighted down by kittens or pups. 

Good thing I know how to keep busy :D

 

The General gets so upset if he gets sick, he asked me to go to the grocery store, gave me the car keys and the credit card and then asked: are you going to be alright?

 I have been savagely conflicted about something. Often, when browsing shops like Etsy and the like, I am drawn to stacks of vintage book pages. I like old paper and those all seem so very cool. Well. 

        There are plenty really old decrepit books outside bookstores, free for the taking. They look deliciously battered and vintage. I could collect several over the next month or two and tear them up and offer them as bundles of various vintage paper pages as well. 

        I got one today. An old Oddysey. 

        I just can't do it. It feels dirty just touching them with the intention of hurting them. I'll fuck the corpse of a penguin, but hurt a book? I just can't do it.

Not diabetic after all

My mother and my husband finally chased me down, cornered me, and stabbed me with the world's smallest needle, to draw the smallest imaginable droplet of blood from my finger, to measure my blood sugar. To explain: I asked them to do this - I am ridiculously afraid of the idea of being stabbed by something small (says someone perfectly familiar with self-harming or being beaten with a rope or belt during sex play - but needles, fuck no.) - and third, I was almost absolutely certain that my dizziness is a symptom of developing diabetes. Namely, because I eat A LOT of sweets, or at least I had until recently, at which point... probably since my father's death and his gangrenous diabetic legs ... I am becoming oddly averse to glucose. The evidence of this may be a pilling of sweets in the fridge and my cookie box: I still buy a lot of them, out of inertia, I just don't eat them. I used to eat the wrapper, too. 

But I don't have elevated blood sugar. In fact, I have it oddly low, 5,5. I was convinced it's something like 17 or such. Even the General, who was forced to demonstrate the procedure before I stopped karate-begone-satan fighting them off, is within totally normal, even though he had sweet breakfast an hour before. My regime is effective.

So, on the plus side, no, I am not diabetic. But I am still hella dizzy. And may or may not have an ear infection, but that is difficult to tell in my case, as I am always half-deaf, always have oily ears due to ear pods and am already dizzy. 

I wonder if it's my notoriously low blood pressure ...? I used to be able to boost it by taking long fast walks and strong coffee, but lately I get dizzier when I'm upset? Guess we're back to wondering whether it's a brain tumour or psychosomatic. Considering my psyche, the head ought to have fallen off or have exploded by now. Have you met me? 

Ah, the General is so cute when it comes to my devious brain :D I said: If ever I run into Viggo Mortensen, I'm sorry, but there is no way I am not having sex with that man.

     And the General replied: If he agrees to it, sure.

... Yes, because raping Aragorn is just the sort of a thing I'd do. LoL. 

 Such a weird day. Almost pleasant, if it wasn't a sick day.

It is so rare for me to have migraines - I think this is the third one in my entire life. I thought it was a sinus inflammation at first, but then none of the painkillers took and I started getting all vomity, walking around with a plastic bag. I couldn't really sleep, I just sort of drooled into a pillow for most of the day. Really really weird feeling. Mum asked if my tummy aches from not eating and all the pills (as four is about 3.5 more than I usually take if the pain gets ghastly.) and I muttered it's so low on my list right now, I wouldn't even notice. 

Consequently, now that it's evening and I am feeling a little better, my brain just won't start. There is virtually nothing I can do, as I have zero concentration to speak of. Reading or watching a movie is out of the question, editing, writing, drawing, even answering correspondence from my clients. Luckily, today is not an important day and can be easily missed. Still, I had plans, simple plans, pouring gold, making some swatches, promoting some new wee palettes ... The furthest I got was watching a video on whatever happened to Balin after Hobbit. 

Brexit is annoying me, I miss Book Depository and Jackson's. I hate having money on my 'fun spending' account and having nothing to spend it on. Although Josie discovered a German company much like Jackson's and we should probably test that one. Although, what I really desperately need are new slippers. I have worn mine to literally flakes. I keep leaving bits around the house. If there was a way to order the exact same pair, I would have ordered two. Alas. Handmade, damnit :D

Did I tell you about a pretty day G and I spent trying to light a fire in the wet forest? It's snowing and melting and raining and freezing and snowing and thawing almost every day: everything is so wet, even the dry things are moist. The lesson was how to light a fire in the least favourable conditions. In theory, he and I are super ninja survivalist scouts. We watch A LOT of YouTube on the subject :D 

Now, any cucumber can get a fire going on a pretty sunny dry day. I can do it without the spark stick thingie even. But this time we took the spark stick thingie and a knife with us, and set to find some favourable kindle. There are no bitches in our forest, so G cut off a dry pine branch at the trunk, where turpentine settles the most, and he cut some shavings - onto a makeshift dry spot first, later I found an old stump and managed to pull off a large tray of dry-ish surface. Of course snow kept falling on us from the trees, getting everything wet again. 

Nothing worked. Nothing. We shaved the spark thingie and you could see how it WANTS to ignite, but nothing was dry enough. Sappy bark, needles, dead branches, nothing. I tried to dry them in my pocket, in my hand - and they did DRY, but not to igniting mod. The furthest we got was perhaps a few seconds of flame. After an hour we gave up and decided to cheat a little, tearing up an old kleenex, which, again, started to burn a little, but then just stopped. Ultimately we just decided to see if at all today is a fire-making day, we rubbed hand-sanitising gel onto an old paper crossword from the bottom of my bag and set THAT on fire - and it burnt up, leaving the bark and the pine needles and the branch shaving a little black, untouched. 

The lesson here, kids, is: always carry the damn kindle box with you. There is nothing as moist as a winter forest after a week of rain and snow.