Sad Snowman

This is the Seattle we know and love.

Day 3. Or 4? I don't even know any more.

This can't really be Seattle...can it??

It just keeps right on snowing!

Yes, those things just barely peeking out are cars.

This isn't some rural area. I didn't stray any further than 5 steps outside my front door to take any of these photos, and I live smack dab in the middle of the city, just north of the University District.

Snow! In Seattle! And a LOT of it!

I'm living in a winter wonderland.

Ravenna, However, Is Feeling Just Fine.

Guess My Mood

Getting ready for the practica tonight...just getting over a flu and emotionally all over the map, felt like showing it in attire and make-up.

And Obama Wins...

Had an incident with Jaimes that predicated that last post. It unfortunately happened just before the election was declared for Obama.

I'm glad that Obama won.

This other stuff has got me so caught up that I can't quite appreciate the election fully, though.

Ah well, I guess there are the next 4 years left for it to sink in.

Where Do I Belong?

Starting to wonder sometimes if I'm making the wrong choice, sticking around here in Seattle. Staying home with Ravenna, living on very tight financial means, tying ourselves to Jaimes, who can be very unpredictable and at times exceedingly difficult.

I want to enable Jaimes and Ravenna to have a good relationship. At the same time, he has little to no respect for me, and so will at times treat me with utter contempt, or he act in ways that are completely inappropriate. What sort of example am I setting for Ravenna to perpetuate this?

Then there is the issue of support. So many people that I used to consider friends have dropped out of my life in the last few years, either after I had Ravenna, or when Jaimes and I split. There are some still around who have proven themselves beyond any doubt, but lately they are busier and busier with their own lives. Seattle is becoming a rather lonely place for me.

I'm not sure I like the way that MN is developing or that I have a great desire to live there again, but at least there I would have family around. That's something special that Ravenna is missing right now.

I love being with Ravenna all day every day and it would break my heart in some small way to give that up to go back to work, but I could make us a good living, and who's to say that some other daily arrangement wouldn't be just as good for her? Children often love day care and pre school and thrive in environments with other children.

I'm so torn up about it all.

What's the right thing?

Is there a right thing?

If I did something else, then she'd be missing everything she has now; my full attention all day every day, a few hours most days spent playing with her father who adores and dotes on her, relationships with several close friends of mine who are really are a sort of "family" to her...and that's all special too. She's such an amazing child, and she's really thrived so far.

Would I be happier somewhere else? Or even here, still, but doing something else? Maybe.

Is that worth giving up these things? I just don't know.

Hair Cut

Here it is! I'm still not sure whether I like it or not.


I had been thinking about cutting it really short, sort of following the line of my jaw. Chantal, who cut my hair, thought that would be really extreme -- except the thing is I've had that sort of cut many times, so it's not that drastic in that I'm already used to the way it looks on me. I've never had this cut so it somehow feels more extreme. Every time I walk by the mirror I catch myself thinking, "Who is that?"

Then again, it's only been an hour. Plenty of time still to warm up to it.

Sleep, Where Are You?

Why is it so hard to sleep when you've got stuff on your mind? Wouldn't it make more sense to drift soundly away and work it all out in your dreams? In your subconscious?

I'm so rarely an insomniac, I just don't know what to make of it. What to do with it.

I'd like to just stay up and do something mindless, clean or code or paint or cook or...something, anything, but Ravenna will wake up in the next 3-5 hours irregardless of how well or how long or how little I have slept. And oh will I regret this then.

Back to lie down, close my eyes, and wish for sleep to find me...

Success!

It is cold today!
Seattle is cold.
My house is cold.
I am cold.
Cold to the bone.
Cold to through and through.
EXCEPT -

Here I be, a proud thing, having conquered many issues with kindling, structure, starters, showing off me first made fire in this place! Success! Light! Warmpth! Heat!

Ahh, fire.

Life is so good in this moment.

Reading a Book

Another Blast From the Past

Hadn't looked at this in years. Pretty sure I drew it in about the same time frame, maybe a year or so before I got the tattoo.

My tattoo

This picture is years old, shoulda posted it when I first got the tattoo, in...what? 2004? But I'm not sure if I ever did. It's my only tattoo, and it's my own design.

Unrequited

I have a crush on a man who is, for a number of reasons, absolutely unavailable. I really like him. And it just doesn't matter at all.

I haven't really felt this way since I was a teenager. Consumed with some feeling that I just can't find the words for, not able to really convey in a way that does it any justice. Can't find the right words, the right picture, the right anything. There's a bit of sadness to it, a bit of bitter sweet, something of an awakening, a bit of a feeling that it's good to be feeling anything at all.

It's all pushing on my chest; wrapped up in a cocoon but the cocoon is too hard, reinforced on the outside, I can't break out.

New Shirt

Rested

Last night, for the first time in weeks, Ravenna was able to sleep the night through, lying down, without needing me to be sitting up holding her. The cold, the sinus infection, the ear infection, the teething, all finally managable enough so that she and I could both get a night of real sleep.

It was AWESOME.

Sleep is, like, the best thing ever.

Sickness, Hers and Mine

Ravenna's still sick. Three days now with this bug...if it doesn't break tonight, we're going in to her pediatrician tomorrow.

Nearly two weeks if you count all the stuff that was going on before, the teething fevers, the ear infections...

It's pretty brutal.

She's finally sleeping for a bit.

And me? I'm doing pretty well.

A little lonely.

I've been stuck lately. Too much time alone with a sick baby, I don't know, I've been stuck obsessing about the why's and wherefore's. Why did Jaimes emotionally check out so soon after Ravenna was born? Why did it seem to him, when we hit some rough times, that the best option was just to bail out on our life? To move on to someone else? I mean...yeah, we had our problems. But all relationships have problems. Show me one that doesn't. And you work through them, don't you? Isn't there something greater, companionship, love, friendship, that makes all of that worth it? Why wasn't it worth it?

When will I start letting go of all these questions? I don't want to carry them around with me indefinately. There aren't really any good answers. It's not helping me to have them on my mind. It's not helping anyone.

Ravenna will be better soon enough. And I'll be out and about in the world again.

Maybe that's all that I need, maybe this obsessing is my own sort of sickness, and when Ravenna breaks free from hers I'll break free from mine. Let's hope.

Worries

Ravenna has been pretty sick for about a week. First there was this cold that started around Thanksgiving...it got better, but she just never totally cleared it.

Then there's teething; she's working on a couple molars and eye teeth all at once.

She's had this on and off high temperature, likely from the teething.

Then, maybe about this weekend, an ear infection kicked in on top of everything.

We went to the pediatrician yesterday and we're working on treating the runny nose and the ear infection. All good and well. But then she got worse again last night, with a temp of 104.1 °F all morning. I talked to the pediatrician again this morning and am giving her something else now to help bring down the fever, so now it's at 102.7 °F. Not as scary, but still worrisome.

She's been so groggy, not herself, wanting to be held all the time, nursed constantly...I'm worried for her. It's a heavy feeling.

Doh!

In a fit of stupidity, I managed to delete all the playlists that I have created over the last several years I've been DJing.

And by "delete", I don't mean they're sitting in the recycle bin...they're gone, gone, gone.

I meant to just clean up space.

And something went wrong while I was cleaning, so I wanted iTunes to resynchronize itself. So I deleted the files I thought would force that to happen.

Well, it does need to resynchronize.

Because it's entire library database is GONE.

So are all its library database backups.

Doh.

On the bright side, I found a disc backup I made in June 2006.

On the dim side, that's still nearly a year and a half of playlists that I'll never get back again. Including every event I've ever DJed with Ravenna.

Bugger.