Regina Noctis

…when you go to the job you hate in order to relax from the wonderful, relaxing (not!) weekend.

It wasn’t until I got to work… on the busiest night of the month, I might add… that I felt the knots in my shoulders start to give way.

Drama weekend. That’s what it was. And none of it was my drama.

It began after I got to work on Friday, and marched its merry way throughout my weekend. Despite constant reminders to various and sundry that it was all NMP. NOT my problem.

I tossed all the residual stress from the weekend into doing my job. I tore through files in an insane hurry. And it helped.

Now I need to find a way to wind down, so I can go off and do it again on New Year’s Eve.

*grumble*

who’s your gothic daddy?
brought to you by Quizilla

your gothic daddy is oscar wilde, and thankfully, you never lived to see a bunch of whiny wannabe vampires using your poetry as a fashion statement.

Woohoo!

Size, History, Visibility, Pride: What Fat People and Gay People Have in Common, and Why it Matters

(link stolen from )

has begun the new set of Very Secret Diaries on her journal. They will eventually make their way to the collection on the site where they are being collected.

So far, part two of Aragorn’s Very Secret Diary, and Theoden’s Very Secret Diary.

But at least Aragorn bought Legolas and Gimli matching poke bonnets at Gap of Rohan. *giggles*

While I was at work the other night, I got a call from . She let me know that she’d finally ended things with Synthia. All of the sudden, the tension headache I’d had for some time just vanished without a trace. Dev said something about the migraine she’s had for the last two weeks also doing a vanishing act as soon as she said the words.

Thank Goddess. Thank Dev. Thank anything and anyone that contributed to Synthia being out of the picture. I’ve been gritting my teeth and bearing it. I’ve tried not to gripe much about Synthia to Devon, though I haven’t always succeeded in keeping my mouth shut. I figure that it’s fair if I keep my bitching to myself… Dev did the same for me when I was seeing Lynx, and she was getting to like him less and less every time she saw him.

Apparently, one of the last straws for Dev was when she found out that Synthia would follow me into my room when I retreated there to have some alone time, or when I was getting ready for work. She’d follow me and find some pretext to cry at me and try to get me upset. My favorite conversation of this type went something like this…

Synthia: I can’t stop crying today.

Me: Happens sometimes.

Synthia: I stop for maybe twenty minutes, and then it comes back.

Me: Happens sometimes.

Synthia was silent for a few minutes, obviously not getting the response she was looking for. You could see her building up to a fresh burst of tears, the way a baby will wind itself up for a good cry. Then, as she burst into tears: You know Devon isn’t always going to be with us.

Me, thinking I don’t want to start hunting for a new roommate when I’ve got one I really enjoy having here: You mean she plans to move out?

Synthia, crying more: No, I mean Devon’s not going to be with us forever.

Me: You mean she’s going to die?

Synthia, nodding and sobbing: Yes, someday.

Me, in mixed disbelief and irritation: We’re all going to die someday.

Synthia: Yeah, but it could happen anytime to her.

Me: It could happen anytime to any of us. I could get into an accident when driving to work today and die. Or I could live another sixty years. No one’s given any guarantees.

Synthia, laughing and crying at the same time: You’re funny.

Me: I’m serious. No one has a guarantee to be here for any time. Stop worrying about tomorrow and next month and next year. They haven’t happened yet, and you’re already trying to live them.

Synthia, tears slowing down: But…

Me: No buts! Worry about right now. There’s plenty going on there. Tomorrow never arrives. It’s always today.

Synthia, again not getting the response she wanted of me being upset too, starts building up to tears again, then: But I don’t know what I’ll do if she dies!

Me, putting my shoes on fast so I can get out of there as the newest bout of crying starts: You’ll deal with it, that’s what you’ll do.

Synthia: But…

Me: Sorry, gotta get going. I’m almost late.

And I left, 45 minutes earlier than I had to in order to get to work on time.

It was so obvious that she was trying to provoke some drama. And I’ve had plenty in my life without looking for it. I don’t create drama, but it has a way of insinuating itself into my life without my wanting it there. I wasn’t about to let her start it. Things have been relatively quiet lately, other than her. It’s been nice. I could use the vacation from drama, and I wasn’t about to let her ruin that.

And that was just one example. The one that irritated me most at the time. It wasn’t the first time she’d followed me around, trying to create some drama.

And I’m very grateful to Devon that I won’t have to put up with that anymore, and that she cares enough about the spoiled drama queen making my life miserable that it was a large part of why she gave Synthia the heave-ho.

I was expecting to have a miserable Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. I was positive that, after having to work Christmas Eve, I’d have to come home and deal with Synthia for the rest of the night and all day Christmas Day.

Instead, I had a short night at work. I got a Cajun cookbook from my secret Santa at work (who turned out to be one of the hotties who works there. Yay for gifts from the resident eyecandy.) I came home to a houseful of people I love and no Synthia. I got fed by them, and we laughed and talked and opened gifts and played endless rounds of silly games. We broke out the glow-in-the-dark silly string and attacked people with it. We shot party poppers at the tree, so it’s covered in coloured paper streamers. We played punk Christmas songs (leave it to this household to have Oi to the World playing, or Christmastime for my Penis.)

I forgot, even for one moment, to be sad because I wasn’t able to be with my family on Christmas Eve, all thanks to the people who were here tonight and the lack of Synthia.

So thanks to Dev, , , , and Ross for the gift of having a good Christmas Eve for the first time in several years. It was the best gift I could have gotten, bar none.

Well, okay, unless someone wants to go drag Javier, the eyecandy from my work, over here and tie him to the wrought-iron four-poster for me. :D

No sign of the friend from last night. I wonder what happened to her? I was up far later than I wanted to be/should have been. I was too worried by her lack of an appearance. I just couldn’t fall asleep.

Now I have to get ready for work, and spend another Christmas Eve working. This is one of the things I hate about my job. We get Christmas Day off, but not Christmas Eve. And my family lives far enough away that it makes no sense to try and drive there and come back in a single day. I’d show up, wave, and turn around and get on the road for home almost as soon as I got there. Showing up on Christmas Day, even if I had time to stay around for a while, would be pretty useless anyway. My family celebrates on Christmas Eve.

We are, mostly, a very non-religious bunch. We don’t celebrate in what people think of as a traditional way. We’ve got our own family traditions, mostly centered around the pretty things of Christmas (like spending a night driving around, admiring the lights on the houses and singing carols) or showing the people we care about that we love them.

Someone once asked me how it is that I can celebrate Christmas and sing Christmas carols and such when I’m not a Christian. I wound up explaining that, before Christianity, there’d been the Pagan celebration of Yule about this time of year in honor of the Solstice. And that Christmas carols, for all they’re fairly simple songs, are just pretty. Listen to the melody divorced from the words.

It makes me depressed not to be able to be with my family on Christmas. It makes me sad to miss out on all the little things that we used to do around this time of year. I miss the little family traditions.

So this year, rather than just give into it and sit alone in my room, feeling sad, I’ve been trying to build my own, can’t-be-with-the-family traditions. This has been helped along by , who is herself trying to keep the holiday spirit going. She has her own reasons to be unhappy at this time of year. I don’t know whether or not I’ve managed to help her have a good time this year and enjoy the spirit of the season, but she has certainly helped me. I’ve had a few minutes of being sad that I’m missing out on the family stuff, but mostly I’ve been enjoying the silly little things we’ve done, the decorating, the early Christmas dinner on Sunday night. I’m very glad that Dev moved in here.

Happy Christmas, roomie. Cool Yule. Kickin’ Kwanzaa. Whichever you prefer.

Okay, I’m off to get the final Secret Santa gift wrapped, and then off to work. Everyone have a wonderful Christmas Eve.

Busy night. Not a good day to be short on sleep. Good thing that one of my co-workers did a coffee run. The HUGE iced mocha with six shots of espresso was about all that kept me going today.

And somehow, I think I’m going to be short on sleep again tonight. There was a friend who had some problems, and was supposed to be spending the night here. A safe haven for the night while she deals with things. She wasn’t here when I got home. I don’t know where in the hell I put her cell number when she gave it to me several months ago. I’m worried, and don’t have a way to track her down. And she knows not to call here, since has to be up at 5 in the morning to get ready for work.

Aargh.

I don’t want to go to work. I got a lot less sleep than I needed, my head hurts, my hips hurt, my throat is feeling like it’s thinking about hurting. But I can’t afford to stay home. I can’t afford to get sick. I refuse to admit that I’m getting sick. When the headache started making its presence known a little bit last night, I decided then it was a tension headache. There’d been enough stuff during the day to account for it. But it’s still here. I’m still telling myself it’s a tension headache.

Just got to get through today and tomorrow, and then I have a day off for Christmas Day. If I’m still feeling rotten then, I’ll cancel the plans I’ve got to be at three Christmas parties, and just stay home and sleep. Sleep’s all I want to do right now.

Oh well. Off I go to finish getting ready and then head to work. Taking the antlers with me today.

WANT!!!!!!!!!!

I mentioned this in a reply to one of ’s comments on an earlier entry…

What does everyone think of convincing him to be Prancer? :D

*ducks*

Since Vixen wandered off to a movie, and Dasher had her best friend over to watch a movie, I went out with Comet. It was rather like 17 years ago, when she and I used to wander all over the South Bay all night, except that I was driving. We attacked my favorite Mongolian Barbecue place, hit the store and picked up Comet’s and Dasher’s antlers, discussed going to a movie and instead hit a different store to pick up cheap clothing we didn’t mind getting thoroughly chlorinated, and then wore the cheap stuff to hit the local by-the-hour hottub establishment.

And yes, I thrilled and amused people by wearing my antlers to dinner. I particularly fascinated one little girl, who couldn’t stop giving me the look of, “You have to be the nuttiest adult I’ve ever seen in my life.” If she’d been old enough to understand what I was saying, I’d have told her she had a long time yet to come, and she’d probably see loonier adults than me many times in the years to come.

There was a time, and not so long ago, that I would never have worn a set of antlers with small Christmas ball pendants hanging from the horns out in public. I’d have been goofy with them around the house, and maybe a couple minutes out on the street, but I wouldn’t have been wandering around restaurants in them. Sometime this year, some inner switch clicked over, and I just didn’t give a shit anymore what a bunch of strangers thought. I went to Denny’s in pajamas, or painted blue with stars. I wore antlers to go out to dinner. I played backup dancer to various karaoke performers, and not even all of them were people I knew. And you know, reaching this version of not giving a shit has been great fun. Who cares what people I’ve never met, don’t know, and never will know think about my goofiness? I sure don’t anymore.

I reached the point where I was wandering around the restaurant, or around the parking lot after we got done eating, shaking my antlers to make the decorations on them swing, and singing a sappy Whitney Houston song from the 80’s, because it was played over the restaurant’s sound system while we were eating and got stuck in my head. Comet wound up joining me, and we even got complimented for it all. It was fun.

I believe the children are our future
Teach them well and let them lead the way
Show them all the beauty they possess inside…

Yeah, like I said. Sappy Whitney Houston. But in some ways, an interesting synchronicity, with the bits about learning to depend on me, and not walking in anyone’s shadow. After all I didn’t see anyone else who was a big enough goof to wear antlers and sing in the middle of a restaurant. Hehehe

Comet and I may go out to catch a movie after dinner tonight. And since I don’t want to block the screen for anyone sitting behind me, I’m going to leave the antlers at home.

Time to get out the Santa hat! Woohoo!

And come Monday, the antlers are going to work, and I intend to let Rudolph know that she doesn’t get to join any of the reindeer games. :D

I’m such a goof.

Vixen went off to see a movie with one of her girlfriends, and it won’t get out until something like nine. Jabba the Schmuck will almost definitely be at the show. I don’t really feel like dealing with him, especially without Vixen as backup. I’m not feeling as Blitzen at the moment as I was yesterday. (In case you were wondering, it’s not just about the antlers. Since Donner and Blitzen are Lightning and Thunder, they’ve always seemed like names of strength to me. Yesterday, I was feeling very Blitzen. Today, I’m feeling barely Blitzen. This is subject to change without notice.)

Maybe I should go wear my antlers some more and see if it makes me Blitzen again. There’s a thought.

We went out to buy a small hand mixer so could make Christmas cookies.

We returned with wrapping paper, Santa hats, and reindeer antlers with bells and Christmas bulbs attached to them.

Tis the season to be silly.

Now excuse me while I go head-butt Devon, the other resident reindeer.

Getting ready for bed, and got hit by a case of the hiccups that just won’t quit. Dammit.

*hic*

The loudest roll of thunder in the world made the apartment rattle a couple hours ago.

It woke up . She wandered through here long enough to inform me that, according to some email she got, the Phenomenauts will be playing this Saturday just a short distance from here.

I’ve listened to the Phenomenauts CD that Dev has several times, and I love their stuff. But I haven’t been able to see them, since there hasn’t been a show in the area that happened when I wasn’t at work.

After Dev went to bed, my first thought was to contact and see if she wanted to go with us. And then I remembered, dammit, that she doesn’t have both weekend days off. Her days off are Sunday and Monday. That makes me pout. I’d love to drag her out of the house and off to the show!

That does it. The Phenomenauts must have a local show on a Sunday night, so I can drag the Sniffle!

And the Secret Santa, Day 2 report is this:

The bracelet was deeply loved and is being worn as I write this.

What I got from MY Secret Santa is the same thing I got yesterday.

Jack and shit.

We’re doing the Secret Santa thing at work all week. Each one of us has a stocking hanging in our cubicles, each stocking has the name of the person it’s for written on it in glitter glue.

Today was the first official day of the Secret Santa gift exchange. We all drew names, and we’re supposed to put little things in the stocking every day until the final day, when we bring in the real present.

I was unsurprised that I got nothing in my stocking today. Half our crew are fairly young guys, and while there is some definite eyecandy among them, and they aren’t idiots, they’re memory-impaired. I’m sure one of them drew my name. I know who Sara got, and who Virginia got. That leaves out the two people on the night crew who’d have been most likely to remember. I figured from the start that I got one of our absent-minded boys. It was one of the reasons that I didn’t particularly want to participate. I knew that the boys would be all enthusiastic on the day it was decided… and then oblivious thereafter.

I, on the other hand, got fed up with the waiting game. Even though the thing wasn’t supposed to start until today, the stockings went up last week. So I did a test-sneak over to the stocking of my designated person and dropped a quarter in it last week, just to see if I could get away with it when everyone was there. Not only did my designated person not see me do it, no one else in the office did either. I figured I’d be able to get away with it. I walk silently in the office anyway. This has been proven on many occasions, when Sara has nearly beaned me with a file she was throwing into one of the processing piles, because she didn’t know I was walking past on my way to the printer or the copier. It’s happened more than once. I also tend to scare people because, big as I am, I don’t seem to get noticed until I open my mouth to ask a question… and get a jump and a shriek in response. I get walked into by other processors all the time. It’s not something I try to do, my invisibility, but I seem to be very good at it while at work nevertheless.

I was so thoroughly fed up with the waiting game for the thing to start, and so sure of my ability to sneak over to the stocking, that I started planting gifts on Monday. A bag of chocolate coins then. Tuesday, a pair of party poppers. Today, a golden-brown, white, and black silk hair scrunchy. Tomorrow, a friendship bracelet in the earth tones that she favors. The day after, a hand-beaded Christmas tree garland. If I don’t include the glittery scarf that the garland is wrapped in day after tomorrow, then that will be Monday. Then Tuesday will be the “official” big gift, the one that’s supposed to fall in a range between $15 and $30. That I have to shop for this weekend.

The amusing part was that the cow-orker got a tampon in her stocking today. That alone would have been funny enough, but the first thing I thought of when I saw that was the story told me about tampons where the cow-orker is concerned. It was very, very difficult to keep myself from going beyond the small laugh that the “gift” should have given. I’d have been asked what was so funny if I’d been rolling on the floor the way I wanted to when I saw that in her stocking.

Cow-orker’s Secret Santa knows the story, too. She wasn’t thinking of that when she put the thing in the stocking, but I reminded her of it later, and we had a good laugh in the copier room, where the copiers would cover it up.

I just wish that Figbash had been there to see the gift, and share the laugh.

I always miss having my here in the area. I miss being able to run over and see him anytime we both have an hour or two free.

For the last couple weeks, it’s been particularly sharp. I really, really miss my Sylvan. I’ve even logged onto YM far more often than I usually do, in case he’s around. Thus far, I’ve missed him every time.

There are people I adore. People I adopt as family, that mean the world to me. Sylvan, somehow, has always been something more than that. I never made him “family,” which I suppose he might have taken as an implied insult somehow. But it’s not. He’s more to me even than family.

It’s not something I can describe easily. My feelings about Sylvan are as strong as if he was the ultimate love of my life… without any of the implications that you could expect from that. I’m not in love with him, I don’t feel sexual attraction to him. Though both of those should be “anymore,” since I did have the biggest crush on him years and years ago, before he stepped completely out of the closet. I’ve even been known to get jealous, though not of his boyfriends. If I feel the green-eyed monster rear its ugly head, it’s usually because of his closeness with his other faghags. I know it’s ridiculous to feel it, and I repress it, but still, I do feel it.

This isn’t the first time he and I have lived far away from each other. Last time, we were farther apart than we are now. But it’s not any easier for me this time than it was last.

There are only four other people I’ve ever cared about with something close to this much intensity. One was a full-blown, madly-in-love thing, and is over, and I have little to no contact with him anymore. One I have only come to care for with that level of intensity over the last few months; we’d been friends for a long time, but now I adore her. The other two are my mom, and a “sister” that I adopted as a sibling before she became one of those bright stars.

But my Sylvan outshines them all. I haven’t always been very good at showing that, to him or anyone. But it’s true, nevertheless.

And right now, I really, really miss that beautiful bright star in my life.

When I got home from work tonight, both and were still up. I was deeply stressed when I first stepped in the door… work had done it… and for that first moment, I was irritated that I didn’t have solitude. Right that moment, being alone was what I wanted, to try and unwind and get past feeling ill. I’d spent the last two hours of work feeling dizzy and weak, almost faint. But I toughed it out there, figuring that it was stress that made me feel that way and I’d feel better once I had the chance to unwind alone at home for a while.

I suspect now that it was actually the heat in the office, since it’s cold by wimpy Californian standards and they no longer run the air conditioner in the office. Now, it gets broiling in there at night if the air conditioner is off. Imagine what it’s like when the heater is running, as it was tonight. And, of course, I have a problem with heat.

A couple minutes in the much more relaxed atmosphere and comfortable temperature at home, and I was feeling better. So, rather than hide in my room, I headed out into the living room and watched the ending of the movie that was in progress when I walked in.

Once the movie was over, it was time for ritual space.

I’d mentioned that, once upon a time when we all lived here in the triplex and we were the Blair Witches, , , , and I had made ornaments. Clear glass balls, that we filled with ribbon. Written on the ribbon was a wish or goal or accomplishment that we wanted to try and achieve in the coming year. Then we decorated the glass ornaments with paint and glitter glue, tied more ribbon to the loop in the top, and hung them from the Christmas tree. The ornaments were reminders to ourselves of what we were trying to accomplish, so every time we saw them, we’d pour energy and thought into the goals we’d each chosen.

The goal I wrote on that ribbon was something I’d been struggling to come to terms with for years, and failing. It had to do with setting and keeping boundaries. I had reached the point where I could sometimes set a boundary, but the first person I cared about that came along could trample it with hardly a whimper from me. And I felt like a bitch for even thinking I had the right to say that something was not okay with me, and making it a boundary.

That year after we made the ornaments, 2001, was a year with much upheaval. There are many things that happened that year that I would not care to repeat. But they were lessons I needed to learn at the time. Because you see, those upheavals taught me how to set boundaries, how to keep them, and that I wasn’t automatically a horrible person for doing so. I achieved the goal I’d set for myself when I wrote on the ribbon.

After I told all of this to Dev and Synthia, we talked a little about doing something like that this year. We talked about it off and on for several days. And then the subject got dropped. But they remembered.

Tonight, we made our ornaments. They are stuffed with coils of ribbon, and the paint is now drying on them. Tomorrow, we can hang them on the tree.

The four of us, the first time I did this, shared what goals we put on the ribbon. This time, no one mentioned what they wrote on the ribbon. Either is fine. We know what we put on those ribbons, and we have our wishes to work toward for the coming year. I chose a goal, once again, that has been out of my reach up until now. And I’m sure that, by this time next year, it will be a reality. It’s a goal suggested to me by the largest upheaval in my life this year. And it will be another step toward living a healthier life.

It seems it was just the tonic I needed tonight, too. The knots I was carrying in my back and shoulders are gone. My heart rate and blood pressure, both elevated by the stressors today, have dropped. And, for the first time in a long time, I’m tired before 6 or 7 in the morning.

Sleepy time for this one. As soon as things are quiet again in the other room.

Nighty night. Or, based on the sounds through the wall, naughty night.

Counterstrike is over. Kleidon’s is closing, after months of talk about it ending.

It was the place I learned that I could dance again, because of him.

It was the place where he put out every effort in his dancing to impress me, and wound up in pain for it, but still considered it to be worth it.

It was the place where I took out my anger at the abrupt end, and beat the stone wall into submission.

Goodbye, memories. For which I’m both happy and sad.