http://io9.com/5312391/torchwood-was-amazing-but-what-happens-next

I need to see this. I need it. Someone please tell me I can download it, if it is not available in the United States yet.

Yesterday, as I walked to the metro after work, a woman walking at the same pace looked at me, smiled, and said, "Hey, sweetie, cheer up. It can't be that bad." I had not realized how I must have looked. I smiled broadly at her, and she grinned back and said, "There! You have a beautiful smile. Don't let it fade." I thanked her, and we went our separate ways.
I've barely smiled in the last couple of weeks.
I feel as though I can do nothing to really please my supervisor at work. I enjoy the library work itself. I just do not think I want to work for lawyers anymore. I want to work for the National Institutes Of Health, or the National Library of Medicine, or the Food And Drug Administration, or a hospital, or a clinic, or a magazine or a newspaper or a journal, something that actually utilizes my skills as a writer.
I look at my resume and believe that I may never get beyond law library or administrative work, because I have had no jobs in my actual field of writing and editing.
Every tarot reading that I have done for myself tells me that I will be fine as long as I go after what I want and believe completely in myself and let go of my fears as much as possible.
I have no idea how to let go of my fears. I have no idea how to believe completely in myself.
My memory is not at all what it used to be.
I write the rest of my novel out of sequence, making it darker and more awful and hurting my characters, and I write short stories that I feel are no good, and I have nightmares about everything burning, everything exploding, and nothing matters, even though everything matters.

Adam rented the film Knowing and when I came home, he asked me to watch it with him, so
I could hold him during the disaster scenes, because the plane crash reflected his nightmares, and then I discovered that the train crash reflected my nightmares, and when each crash happened, I cried out and grabbed my husband's hands and shuddered. I ignored the terrible acting of Nicholas Cage and the bizarreness of the main plot.

To quell my anxiety attacks, I find myself turning to exotic aromatherapeutics more and more, specifically Vicki's concoctions: The blend of lotus, jasmine, chamomile, lavender, cedarwood, and helichrysum in the Sun Protective Lotion; the blend of rose, neroli, chamomile, and orchid in the Psyche Lotion; the blend of lotus, frankincense, rose, neroli, and chamomile in the customized Syngery Harmony Elixir spray made specially for me.

I am tired. I am so very tired.

As each day grows dark
These feathers ache
To scrape the sky
To make my mark.

As time is sewn
I long to try
To stay behind
Not break apart.

To have these senses overrun
I must have stumbled on the way
In my aversion for the sun,
I've come to shiver in the spray.

As each day grows dark
These feathers ache
To scrape the sky
To make my mark.

As time is sewn
I long to try
To stay behind
Not break apart

To find myself within this light
Of every morning's present chill
Somehow I must have lost my sight
And come a subject of free will

As each day grows dark
These feathers ache
To scrape the sky
To make my mark.

As time is sewn
I long to try
To stay behind
Not break apart.

Where do you find peace?
Where do you hold your fears?
Where do you hide the beast
As your end draws near?

Where do you find love?
In books and priests?
In gods above? Or in your
Fear that it will cease?

To take your spit upon my face
I have to close my eyes and wait
Til' you have disappeared and there us no trace
I trust in "time will tell" all fate.

As each day grows dark
These feathers ache
To scrape the sky
To make my mark.

As time is sewn
I long to try
To stay behind
Not break apart

As each day grows dark
These feathers ache
To scrape the sky
To make my mark

As time is sewn
I long to try
To stay behind
Not break apart.

As each day grows dark
These feathers ache
To scrape the sky
To make my mark

As time is sewn
I long to try
To stay behind
Not break apart.

Adam had yesterday off, and today off, and probably tomorrow off, and maybe hopefully Saturday off. He went fishing last night for his birthday. I am very happy for his happiness.

When I came home tonight, Adam announced that we would be riding our bikes to the local recently opened tavern at the local shopping center. Once there, we feasted on Yuengling beer, cheese quesadillas, and the Thursday special, fajitas, plus a slice of chocolate cake. The food was very delicious. The ride home was lovely. The Soma I took once I got home was a relief.

I have finally calmed down enough to quell the consistent general panic.

I am now reading Anansi Boys (for the... tenth? twelfth? time). Oh, wonderous.

Shy Fox

My lover is a semi-precious gemstone.
My lover, call him diamond in the rough.
Smooth on the outside, but inside,
Under the light,
He is scratched and scarred.
Little pieces here and there
Chipped away by time
Hands and hands turning him
Over the years, burning him.
My lover is the rare jewel
That sparkles in the right light,
And little chips and scratches
Make it all the more precious.
And when held in the right hands
Shines with a brightness
That makes the world shine back.




Of Lost Dreams and Fairy Tales

I am mortal, but only a dream
Gray wisp of air, a fairy ring
Carved on the doorway of a trod
Forgotten, like the changeling
Or the antediluvian Chinese fox.

You are mortal, but only a dream
Gray pulse of vapor, a willow tree
Standing never again in sorrow,
Because you said you've found me.

We are not always human, but we are eyes
And hands, and mouths, and we touch
Honeyed kisses here and there,
With limb and tongue, like
Kittens nursing
Or playing together

But closer, like the closeness
Of falling stars, or clouds
Passing over a full moon
I hope you see through my eyes.

I had some fascinating nightmares, but I did feel as though I slept decently. I woke up with several muscles in my back and legs screaming in agony. I want nothing more than to curl up with a friend and be held. I will be able to do that tonight, when my husband comes home from Bear, Delaware (I had no idea there was a city named Bear in Delaware).

I am feeling particularly hormonal, obviously, since menses start tomorrow. The panic and paranoia do not surprise me.

I have not been smiling or laughing as much as I usually do. I feel somewhat empty and pointless.

Rose has been greeting me every morning with a long, strong series of mews, chirps, and trills, enthusiastically rubbing the sides of her face against my hands, head, and legs. I love my kitten so very much.

Dear Media Douchebags and Everybody Who Bitches About Recently Deceased People Having Been Sick Freaky Creeps While Alive, read this: http://kevinbolk.deviantart.com/art/Michael-Jackson-Comic-127357800 (you need to click on the smaller comic to enlarge and read it.)

Adam is in Delaware. Today was supposed to have been his day off. He went because it's a job and it's money and he has the skill. He will be home either tomorrow or early Wednesday, but either way he should have some time to celebrate his birthday on Wednesday.

Last night, I slept for nine and a half hours. It might as well have been four. That is what disrupted slow wave sleep does best. Yay. (As much as I love alpha waves, I really do not need them butting in during my stage four sleep.)

At long last, my husband bought a PlayStation 3 for his upcoming birthday.
The Sci-Fi Channel is showing a Twilight Zone marathon.
My cats are calling, crying, and singing upstairs and downstairs.
I have a Robeks Acai Energizer with Fiberbek and Probiotics and no Soy Protein, substituting Whey Protein (I hate the taste and texture of processed soy, including most tofu products; people with sensory processing disorder will understand).
I just finished Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book.
I shopped at a hardware store with Adam and bought myself some microfiber cloths, LED flashlights, LED keychains, rechargeable batteries, and heavy-duty kitchen sponges. For future reference, I love those things dearly.
Adam and Billy put plywood under our mattress to save it for a few months until we can afford to buy a new one (does anyone have a new mattress we could buy, maybe memory foam?).
Adam will be home for at least the weekend, hopefully more. Mmm, husband.
We have the makings for kratom tea, very excellent kratom tea. Oh, yes.
Tonight's dose of Soma is doing wonderful things for my pain and tension and soreness.
I had the most incredible dream last night. I wish I could remember it. It involved a conversation with the goddess Isis.

I think I will be all right.

Adam came home around seven. I had gotten out of work at 3:30, utterly exhausted, and fell asleep on the couch during a Twilight Zone marathon. Luna and Rose slept on top of me. I later vacuumed the upstairs carpets, mindlessly, and after Charlotte and Billy arrived I took my medications. The Soma has finally loosened the spastic muscles in my lower back. We ordered dinner. Adam and Billy went to 7-11 for beverages, and brought back Haagen Dazs chocolate ice cream for me.

I still hurt. It is just not as screamingly intense. My left hand is still weak.

Enough of that.

http://lyricwiki.org/Within_Temptation:Stand_My_Ground


http://lyricwiki.org/VNV_Nation:Standing

I just thought of a beautiful, wonderful scene for the novel. I am starting to write in random chunks, disjointed scenes. Stuff is happening. I am rehashing a major part of the main storyline. It makes more sense. And I can do it that way, because of the world I have created.
Oh, characters. Prepare to be completely fucked, then partially saved. Because life is like that. Gods are like that. Humans are like that.
We are so very fascinating.

I make universes in my head. I don't want to forget that.

I found that copy of Anansi Boys. I feel better.

The Farragut North Metro station was so intensely crowded that there was almost no more room. Trains in both directions were delayed due to mechanical problems, sick passengers, and that ongoing investigation into the fatal crash last week. After ten minutes, I went back up to the streets, and I walked to the Dupont Circle station. I was able to get onto a train there. That train stopped and waited constantly, as trains ahead of it experienced technical and mechanical problems. Passengers grumbled and sighed patiently. Around Friendship Heights, I was able to sit down and realized how badly my back and legs were spasming.

I am no longer panicked and paranoid, now that my fate at work has been decided. I was placed on probation, as my supervisor had not been satisfied with my performance on certain projects. I have until the end of August to improve. Part of me feels strangely slightly relieved. I cannot connect to my boss at all. He won't encourage me, he won't sit down and talk with me, he won't chat about little things, he tells me that I had been hired during a very slow time and the work will get even faster and more frenetic and if I cannot keep up maybe this is not the right place for me, and I agree. I almost want to be someplace else. I love the job and the work, but if I feel unable to really work with my boss, I will make myself miserable and anxious, and I will put myself into month-long flare-ups. I come home every day drained and listless. I am sending my resume out. But the panic lingers, because if they do let me go, I may not find something. I don't know if I want to continue working in law firms, not large ones. I don't know. I just know that I still have a job and I probably will keep it, if my boss thinks I can keep up. This has never happened to me at a job before, but it makes me realize what I actually want and don't want out of a career.

My husband and my mother both encouraged me to trust my instincts, to calm down, to let go, to stop struggling for control, to stop feeling like a failure, to breathe, to breathe, to breathe.

A bad way to start a week: Full-on fibromyalgia flare-up, including extreme fatigue; cerebral palsy spasticity that caused every muscle to shiver; anxiety that threatened to overwhelm.
I need the week to get better. Friday is a holiday. That will help.
I feel as though this has been going on for over a month.

I just...
Fuck.

I still can't find my copy of Neil Gaiman's Anansi Boys and for some reason the thought makes me want to cry.
I still want to learn the name of the forgotten Las Vegas god in American Gods and I don't think Neil will ever say.

I am watching the movie Southland Tales for the third time and I still have no idea what the hell it is.

My husband will be home in a few days and right now that is all that matters.

http://community.livejournal.com/metaquotes/7175438.html
This kind of made me melt a little.

I didn't realize how much the seizure from my sleep had affected me until I almost slipped on the stairs. I slept for about twelve hours and have been resting all day anyway. I will be all right.

Aww, hey, The Bartman song. Wow, memories.

Apparently, tonight's episode of True Blood will feature Dr. Ludwig. This thrills me, because that means that the thing that happens to Sookie in the book that causes Dr. Ludwig to appear will happen in the show. I realized that Alan Ball will take the show in a slightly different direction than the book series, but he will at least stick to the core of it all. This is good, because Dr. Ludwig is awesome.

I woke up post-ictal again. Seizure in my sleep again.

I desperately need to calm down. My world is spinning, and my seizure threshold is dangerously low.

In the middle of the night, it rained a bit, or I may have dreamed rain. This morning the world was damp. There had also been a power outage at some point. I don't remember.

I feel as though parts of my brain are slipping. I am starting to forget simple things. I have started making little notes for the littlest, simplest things. I cannot predict what I will forget and what I will remember. It may be the most ridiculous thing that stands out with crystal clarity, while something important falls away. I called my physician about it last week, and she thinks that it is mainly due to extreme stress and anxiety that I have placed on myself, and she feels that the fibromyalgia might make it worse, with the infamous fog. I also called the neurologist, who agrees.

My leg muscles have been painfully stiff, so I have been exercising gently and slowly. I hurt all over, my mind is fuzzy, I want to scream and cry, and I have been having nightmares about my boss telling me how incompetent I am. I don't know how to deal with someone who doesn't even ask how I am before the work day starts, or in fact ask how I am at all throughout the day.

Now, I look over at the couch and see Luna curled up on a blanket, sleeping peacefully, and I wish I could just let it all go.

Oh. This made me smile. A comment on a blog about the death of Billy Mays: "Somewhere in heaven, God just bought more OxyClean than he knows what to do with. R.I.P., Billy Mays."
I do love OxyClean.

So, this made me remember the song "I Palindrome I" by They Might Be Giants, which was one of my favorite songs when I was a kid -- I had completely memorized the "Son I am able she said, though you scare me. Watch, said I, beloved, I said, watch me scare you though. Said she, able am I, Son" lyrics, and I still run them through my head when I am stressed and panicked. And then I started searching for TMBG songs and videos. My search was a bit disappointing. I want a playlist of all TMBG songs, eventually.

The TMBG album "Apollo 18" is still one of my favorite albums of all time, followed closely by "Flood."

Also, randomly: I have absolutely no desire to see the new Transformers film, but reading this review of it had me laughing so hard that I hope someone makes some sort of parody of said film. http://www.toplessrobot.com/2009/06/bonus_robs_transformers_2_faqs.php?page=1

I have been scouring YouTube for Weird Al videos. It has been very amusing.

A couple of posts back, I mentioned that when I was six years old and refusing to eat (it had to do with death and growing old, and some very strange six-year-old child logic), my mother bought me a record for my plastic Fisher Price record player (this was way back in 1985, and MP3s and iPods were completely unknown, so we had records, and cassette tapes, and can you even find those anymore? Hell, I feel kind of old; I was dancing to Muppets and Madonna on vinyl for most of my childhood in Brooklyn). On one side, there was Weird Al's "Eat It" which was of course a parody of Michael Jackson's "Beat It" - and you know, I can't remember what was on the other side, because "Eat It" was what I listened to, and I finally got the idea that maybe eating was fun after all and even if I grew up and grew old, I'd still need to eat, even though in my mind eating was what made you grow up and grow old and die (see, my grandmother and my dog had just died of old age and I didn't like that).
In any case, I finally decided to look up the video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HyfcOriVKBM
I think I like it better than "Beat It."
Also, this made me hungry: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJWSkSaLGPA

And thanks to Bri and her husband, I remember what was on the B-Side of that Fisher Price record. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d99VYhXBt44

Treating Oneself Kindly When Things Go Badly Could Be A Key To Weathering Life's Challenges, Researchers Say
Oh, I needed to read this.
I rarely treat myself kindly...

Also. I had a small seizure very last night or very early this morning. I do not remember it one bit. I recognized my post-ictal state, however. A rapid rise and crash between post-ictal bliss and post-ictal depression, followed by fear, shame, embarrassment, frustration, and violent confusion. No Alice-ness this time, since I had probably been asleep, I may have even dreamed the seizure while having it. But, you know what, Rose was licking my arm and then my cheek, and she was purring, so it was okay.

Pain and fatigue and tension and spasticity struck so severely today that several times I worried I wouldn't be able to stand up for more than ten minutes. It got better as they day went on. I am now home, satisfied from Luna hugs and Rose kisses and Jupiter conversations. I can sleep for as long as I need. I can also calm down and stop being so strangely panicked over nothing.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090624/ap_on_sc/us_sci_paralyzed_by_hypnosis
I knew about this sort of thing already. Nice to see it confirmed.

http://frowl.org/gods/gods.html
This is good to know. But damn it, I still will always want to know who the forgettable god is. Even when I visited Las Vegas, I couldn't find him. I looked.

Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book is extraordinary. It is now one of my favorite books. That makes seven Gaiman books that are on my favorites list.

I have no idea what more to say. I am exhausted, anxious, spastic, shaky, feverish, achy, and now I have a craving for peanut butter and jam on whole grain English muffins. Excuse me.

Out of all the write-ups on Jackson's death that I've scrolled through (and they are everywhere), I like and agree with this one the most:
http://cleolinda.livejournal.com/785554.html
I'm not a big fan of Michael Jackson, but I grew up with his music, of course, and I don't know anyone who does not know his name. I'll be honest, my first memory of Jackson's music was actually the Weird Al parody of Jackson's "Beat it." Mom had bought me a little plastic record player with little records, and the first record she got me was Weird Al's "Eat It" because I wasn't eating (I'd had disordered eating even at six years old). After I listened to the parody over and over (Okay, okay, I'll eat a banana!) I watched the music video of "Beat It" and from then on I watched other Michael Jackson videos, of course. The man could dance.

I have been reading posts and articles that implore us now to redefine our concept of beauty. Michael Jackson never seemed to be satisfied with his external appearance, but his voice was always beautiful. Farrah Fawcett represented great inspirational beauty. And maybe we do need to look at what we've been doing to our bodies in the name of beauty. Whose ideal of beauty are we trying to reach, anyway? What sort of standards are we supposed to meet? Why do we hate ourselves for being ourselves?


I will now stop talking, before I start reading LJ posts like "OMG, will you all shut up about Michael Jackson now, I get it, he's dead, horrible tragedy." Because of course it will happen.

The DC Metro system has been struggling to move past the fallout of that deadly crash, and I sympathize deeply. I've been anticipating the intense, insane rush of people, the massive delay of trains as they try so hard to accommodate their usual thousands of passengers.
My ride toward Shady Grove was beyond sardine-like. We were all jovial about it, though, bodily supporting those who could not reach poles or handrails or walls. The woman next to me was scrolling through her Blackberry, and suddenly she let out a stunned gasp and called out, "Michael Jackson died!" She was met with calls back of "What?" "Really? "Seriously?" "Oh my god, I'm gonna cry!" "Yeah, Farrah Fawcett died too!" "Ed McMahon died yesterday; what a week for celebrity deaths!" "Wow. Hey, Keith Richards is still alive, right?" I hadn't checked the news yet; I knew about Farrah Fawcett, but not Michael Jackson. Somehow, it seemed unbelievably unreal, as if the man was considered immortal in a way.
I did not get to the Shady Grove station until almost 7:30, an hour later than usual. Caught the 7:35 bus, was greeted by Luna who demanded hugs. I took a Soma, because I was in than much agony and anxiety. I'd messed up a bibliography search request at work, dismissing the results of one search engine in favor of another when that first search would have been fine. I am paranoid that my boss thinks I'm stupid, because the fogginess from both fibro and CP has been hacking away at my short-term memory and judgment and concentration for the last two months, but I don't want to tell him that because I don't know what he'd think, but he just told me to finish the search tomorrow morning. Regardless, I stressed myself out very badly. So I am grateful for the relaxing purr of my cats. The thing I like about the Soma is that it only works when I am in extreme pain.
I need to eat dinner, leftover pasta from last night.
Adam landed safely in Dallas this morning. I miss him, of course.
Mom sent me a fleshy pink ruched cotton sleeveless shirt that no longer fits her, which shows every curve and might work better as a nightshirt, unless I wear a sleeveless camisole underneath. It is sexy as hell, though, and would be a good birthday present for my husband.

Had an anxiety attack earlier in the afternoon, possibly spurred on by agonizing pain and cutting, searing numbness in my legs. I worked through it all, biting my lip until it bled.
Adam was preparing dinner when I came home, and we worked with it together. We wound up with a meal worthy of a Food Network recipe. Grilled chicken seasoned with lemon pepper, and a blend of fresh basil, fresh oregano, and minced garlic in olive oil, all mixed in with gemelli pasta in a creamy four-cheese sauce. Washed down with homemade green sun tea that had a hint of fresh mint leaf.
Adam will be flying to Dallas, Texas, on Thursday, returning some time next week.
The L-Tryptophan has started working. I feel slightly human now.

Yes, I'm fine. I was not on either train.
I left work at 5:30, got to the Farragut North station a few minutes later. The platform was crowded. The train that was at the Shady Grove platform was stuffed completely, going nowhere. I could not hear the announcements. I fell back on my Plan B, which meant taking the Glenmont train, getting off at Metro Center, then looping around to that station's Shady Grove/Grosvenor platform - it means that I take a less-crowded train.
Unfortunately, I realized something was wrong when I saw how terribly packed every platform was. I left the station altogether and headed into the connected Macy's store, where I would have cell phone signal. Before I began to call Adam to tell him I'd be very late, I saw two voicemails. One was from Adam, who was hoping that I had not been on "one of those trains that crashed." The second was from Charlotte, asking the same thing, asking me to call her. Puzzled, I called Adam, who had today off. He told me that he had seen a teaser on the news: Two trains, on the Red Line, had collided, killing several people and injuring dozens more. He did not know what direction the trains had been going in, and as such had panicked slightly.
I told him I probably would not see him until eight. We told each other "I love you" and then I called Charlotte. I went back to the station and waited, with the crowd, for thirty more minutes, for the next uncrowded train heading toward Shady Grove. As the train moved above-ground, I got a third voicemail, from my mother in New York, who had seen the news, called Adam, gotten reassured, and needed to hear my voice.
Oh, and in the meantime, the rear window of our car was shattered earlier today. A landscape maintenance worker was mowing the lawn across from the townhouse community parking lot near our townhouse row, and a coathanger wire got caught in the mower. The wire was spun out and ejected with enough force to completely obliterate the window when it hit. Adam immediately called his insurance agent, Burt, an old family friend. No deductible, and someone would arrive the following morning with a brand new window to install right there in the parking lot.
Adam and I are both in pain, and exhausted. My cats keep asking to be hugged (oh, how wonderful).
My heart goes out to those who were caught on those two trains, and to their loved ones, and to those who had to get phone calls that turned out to be the worst news, instead of calls that said, "Don't worry, I'm fine."
Oh, Monday.

Also, yesterday was the Solstice. Blessed Solstice-Was-Yesterday.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/22/AR2009062202508.html?hpid=topnews
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/22/AR2009062202832.html?hpid=topnews

Oh, look, the skies are clouding up again. HI, RAIN. FANCY SEEING YOU HERE, AGAIN, LIKE YOU'VE BEEN FOR THE LAST SEVERAL WEEKS.
But, hey, my blueberries are absolutely thriving out in the garden.

I found WALL-E on cable, so I'm flipping between that and "Royal Pains." Now I miss home in The Hamptons. Even the yuppie snobs. Because they were fun to watch.

A humorous take (or several) on why Romeo and Juliet is not an ideal love story, at all, ever.

Buffy vs Edward. It gets awesome after the four-minute mark.
( Buffy vs Edward )

Adam will be home tomorrow afternoon.
Then he'll leave again next week.
*closes eyes and breathes deeply*
It's just part of his job. It's the busy season for computer and equipment rentals. Lots of events and shows and conferences going on, and everyone needs IT/AV stuff. Adam is one of the best, and he he specifically requested by clients.
Still, I miss him. Of course. But we'll see each other as much as possible.

I have no plans for the weekend. I will devote most of it to writing.

fire_my_spirit has given me words to associate with, so I shall comply:

Clever: I don't know if I am actually clever. Friends say I am. I don't usually see it. I'm rather unobservant, lost in my own world half the time, when I'm not foggy from pain. But I do notice things, comment on things, understand things on a visceral level, seeing small things that I file away for later. When I make jokes, my humor comes out of left field, dry and sudden and startling. I'm good at weaving and ducking and hiding. I am definitely creative in everything.

Appreciation: I appreciate everything. I mean that. From the time I was born, I appreciated things. The world fascinated me. Oh, shiny! I knew from a very young age that I was lucky to not only be alive, but to be relatively healthy, mildly affected by chronic and painful and intense afflictions that would have left other children seriously limited. I can appreciate the depth of the color of a ripe blueberry to the point where I might wax poetic. I feel as though I was wired to appreciate life and the universe.

Struggle: One of the reasons I appreciate everything. I've been struggling forever. I don't know what it's like to not struggle. Friends tell me how amazing I am, how extraordinary, beating so many odds, just surviving and living and existing and all that. I take it all in stride because it feels strange to be told all of that. It makes me cry, knowing that people see me in that way. But grateful tears, not sad tears. I'm struggling right now, typing this, because my left hand is cramping and spasming hellishly, despite the Soma I just took.

Scents: Aromatherapy is such a part of my life that I become puzzled when people ask me why I like it so much. What do you mean, why do I like it? Smell this. Is it not incredible? My sense of smell has changed and refined over the years. I used to love sweet, happy, super-fruity scents. Now I love heady, deep florals and fruits that hold ages in their molecules. Exotic spices from around the world, flowers and herbs that could make you see gods and spirits and the whole universe if you ate them. Currently, my favorite aromatherapeutic blend is a mix of Rose, Neroli, Chamomile, Lotus, and Frankincense. Real oils. The real stuff. Yes, the pricey exotic stuff. Luckily, I know someone who can whip up that blend for me and deliver it to me in a large spray bottle. I have issues with most synthetic perfumes, so I rarely ever wear fragrance. But if a lotion or body spray contains certain essential oils, I will swoon.

Reading: Oh, I was born reading. Um. Not really. But my mother says that it started when I was just over one year old. She was in a convenience store, in the checkout line, with me in the stroller. I was getting fussy, so Mom did what she usually did when I fussed and she couldn't just pick me up: She grabbed a random book, a paperback, from the nearby book rack and put it in my little hands. It was upside down. I inspected it carefully. Then I turned it right side up, opened it, and began flipping through the pages. The clerk stared at me, dumbfounded, and proclaimed that I wasn't supposed to be able to do that at that age. My mother just smiled. Flash forward two years, and I was in preschool, gathering my classmates in a corner among pillows and cushions, reading out loud from all the kiddie storybooks every day. The teacher would set aside a certain time each day for Reading With Joanna. I was the only child there who could read at a higher level. Unfortunately my emotional maturity was horrible, and I screamed and sobbed when I had to interact with people I didn't know. I was always extremely small for my age, no matter what age I was, and people were surprised to know how intensely I read things because they assumed I was years younger. When I entered elementary school and English class came around, I was always packing my stuff and heading up to a higher grade's classroom for English. They couldn't move me up a grade in general, because my math skills were atrocious, so all they could do was move me up a grade for reading and vocabulary and such. I was tutoring kids in grammar and spelling when I was in second grade.
(And people wonder why I go quietly ballistic when I see and hear so many grammar errors nowadays. Learn to use "[Pronoun] and I" and "[Pronoun] and me" in the proper context, people! It's not that difficult! I don't give a fuck if it's "how people talk these days," it is blatantly, hair-pullingly incorrect! If you are unsure, remove the other pronoun! Unless the other person's name is actually "I" which I highly doubt!)