Finally got that fucking Etsy shop up and running ... I think. Still no idea what I'm doing. I'm terribly afraid of fucking something up. This is all in the real world now. 

Damn. Grief is such a bizarre state. My brain keeps concaving.

Really really strange days these days. Horrible, really, on multiple fronts. Some inspire serenity, some make me break things, all cause deep sadness and I'm wondering if it was just one, would it be this heavy, or is it heavy across the board because of the one? Sometimes you just can't stop the world from spinning out of your control. :/

:'/

Beach Bum? Nuh.

Tried watching the Beach Bum, but I really didn't get it. It felt like someone was trying to re-make Big Lebowski, but all of the main actors got terribly stoned just before the shoot and it was just cringy.
So, this guy is supposed to be this popular stoner bum on Florida Keys, but he's actually rather mean - he kicks a trombone player off a pier for no reason and then laughs about it right away .... I mean ... why?
He's supposed to be super bum-like, poor and disheveled, but in truth, he's super rich. Like we've never seen that trope before.
He's fucking nameless hotties and gives his wife oral in front of the maid (while she blabbers on about completely boring stuff that's supposed to be contrast or something?), but when he finds she's cheating, he gets upset. Then he drunk-drive kills his wife at his daughter's wedding.
He writes Pulitzer-Prize winning poetry, that I saw zero trace of in the film.
All of the attitude, dialogue, even how the actors MOVE feels impossibly forced.

I just didn't get it.
I can think of five movies who take on this exact same premise better, with actors far less A-listy.
:/

Hm. Bit of dark news today. Haven't fully taken it in yet. Feels like a weird bad dream..

.. I keep feeling like if I ignore it hard enough, it totally won't be true. If I am not aware of it, it can't be true.

Paint tests :)

I can't seem to adjust to the heatwave. It came too sudden, too hard. Most of my energy goes to keeping calm and I feel down and heavy. What little ambition for adventure I may keep on the shelf, is staying there. We have very careful, slow sex and I fall asleep after every one. I sleep most afternoons and stay awake at night. The doggy walks start before five in the morning. Cold salads and ice-cream are food, coffee is ice-coffee. Showers are cool. Had to buy new sandals, my old ones fell apart. Both fans are running full speed most of the time. Then again I am one of the few people who refuse AC. I get the feeling that if invite an AC in my house, then stepping outside will fail as an option entirely. 

I got an invitation to a river hike and I've been thinking ... I want to try the hammock version. I have a wonderful hammock, though it is heavy as fuck. But. Hammock removes the need for a ground tarp, mat, blankie, the sleeping bag and pillow. It just leaves a need for a sleep blanket. Taking that into account, it may not even be a kilo heavier. I don't know. I wanna try. It may be wise to bring the top tarp along just in case of sudden rain or simply to make shadow. The one I have is battle-tested and great. Fuck I'm anxious for this heat to pass and I can start moving again. Even if all my dreams have been full of snakes lately. 

Uu, a meta dream! Haven't had those in a while.

I don't often stack three dreams one atop of the other, but when I do, boy-o. Good times.

       None of these are fiction, they're just arranged dramatically, for the brain to make most of it's right to go crazy. Our neighbor has geese, hence those. And my dad has terminal PTSD and has been known to be violent in his sleep, so, there's that.

       In the first layer of dreams, several white geese warn me about my dad. I wake up to the mid layer - fully aware of the geese dream - and we're all next to a forest chopping wood, but dad has dozed off and in his unconscious state has confused us for some imaginary enemy: he's coming my way with a cleave. He strikes at me several times as I try to get him to snap out of it. He gets me in the side of the head and the shoulder and some other massively painful, but not really fatal places. I do my best to try to overpower him, although we are approximately the same weight and though he is much older, he's also a little stronger. Plus there's only so much you can do to a very old man to try and best him in battle without actually risking harming him. 

      The pain from the hits causes me to shut my eyes really tight, refusing to acknowledge almost certain death, which usually wakes me up, but this time it only woke me up to the third and final layer of dreams, which lingered on the border of wakefulness a little while and then slid back to a more relaxed sleep-topia. Still, I was fully aware of all three dreams and the proximity of my wakeful state the whole time. 

       Trippy. 

Took me three fkng days to finish this damn "exercise in consistency and precision " ... Bloody hell I hate exactness :/

Ugh, G woke me up from a nightmare too roughly today. He shouldn't have done that and he knows not to, but he got home with warm food and barged in, shouting: get up, get up, yumm yumm! Normally I'd just wake up and be grumpy, but happy soon enough, aww, man. Not this time. The brain just wouldn't let go.

     It wasn't an active nightmare, no particular movement to it, it just involved a small sense of urgency (I couldn't find a proper place to park my bike and was worried it would get stolen.) The nightmare bit was a fact I was visiting a friend who lived in a very very tall skyscraper, the tallness of which became a problem as soon as I started considering it. First, I rode in the elevator and the anxiety set in with every floor we ascended, then once I stepped out, I could see how high we are through the windows and the stairs were such you could see way down through the railings. All of these bothered me so intensely, crippling me, my knees completely weak and my chest in a grip, I had to sit down and sort of crawl towards my friend's apartment. I have to do that sometimes, go on all fours, if a hill I am climbing is too steep or just too tall. Even if there is no need to worry about falling, I simply don't want to add to the hight of my situation. (But that happens rarely. I avoid steep slopes.) When G woke me I was at the core of the tension, practically paralyzed in spot, like when you're sports climbing and you get so scared you lock into position and refuse to open your eyes and move again. It wasn't horrible, it was just intense. He should not have woken me at that moment, and then insist I get up before the food gets cold. It felt like all of the serotonin in my body just turned to salt.

Is it legal to say I've never been a fan or orgasms? They feel like such a validation of an effort.

I mean, sure, ye, they're awesome, they feel great, I love having them. Can't I just skip them from time to time and get some more of the plateau phase? And I don't mean edging, I just mean the array of fun bits people do when they're going to town on each other. 

Based on a V.F. Sterrett illustration, a paint test

Marowit came upon the most beautiful tree. But he was not captured by the perfect fruit it bore, instead an old memory of gems, strung between the branches, which somebody once intentionally tangled there. ‘What is that?’ the prince inquired, as if the old steward knew everything about everything.

     ‘They are old words, your majesty,’ said the steward.

     ‘What do they say?’

     ‘Nobody remembers, my lord.’

     ‘They’re beautiful.’

     You are beautiful, thought the steward, but said: ‘An air full of song, your grace. The color of dreams.

Five different kindsa' gold. (And ten green ones.)