Perhaps it was the placebo effect, perhaps it was something else, but I don't think I care much either way. I tried out the chain blanket last night, and I actually woke up fewer times and went back to sleep easier when I /did/ wake up, on the same amount of sedatives. The weight of the blanket is really reassuring, and the (imagined?) protection from slashing weapons is an added bonus.

I've spent most of the day curled up under it, reading.
Or been up, eating. I've really eaten a lot today.

I have generally been feeling less stressed today.

I listened to the concert of melting ice today; sitting on a bridge, washed in sunlight, over the half-sea. Listening to the scraping, creaking; the clicking of the water as it gently licked away at the ice from under the edges; the high-pitched jingling and chiming as the crystalline mass would crack.
I watched the sheets of ice drift downstream, colliding with each other and the pillars of the bridge, freeing up pools of still water without barely a wave; just ever so small ripples on the otherwise mirror-flat surface, reflecting the clear sky and buildings perfectly.

Bento boxes. I have no idea why, but for some reason I'm looking at bento boxes. Videos about how to cook for and prepare bento boxes. Searching for suitable boxes for a Pao. I really like cooking, I just rarely like eating, but to prepare food in a way that puts great weight on aesthetics as well as food might do me good.

I don't know. Bento boxes seems to be a good idea. If nothing else, it would be very convenient to have.

I can already make tiny butterflies out of radishes, with thin, delicate and almost transparent wings...

Tomorrow, I'm off to drink tea with a fellow predator and perhaps with her male and a mutual abban as well. Although I /am/ looking forward to drinking tea with her and visiting, I'm not looking forward to the actual trip there. It is a new place, and I'm quite territorial.

Today I took up playing Puzzle Pirates again. I wish I was better at knowing when and how severely I would break. Because every time I break and disappear, unable to tell people of groups and guilds what happened, it feels as if I have really let them down.

Today I drank tea with my fellow predator and her male. Our mutual abban arrived later. I stayed there a lot longer than I had intended. I was fed different kinds of tea and really fantastic citrus scones.
My abban gave me a knife, although I'm not really sure why. But it is a beautiful knife. A claw knife, for skinning vegetables and things like that.
I held it up to my ear, drew my claws down its back and listened to its song. The back was rather broad, but the song was clear.

I suspect we'll be friends soon.

spicy nutmeg and crystalline honey
walls like dusty reptilian skin
the shadows of falling leaves
dancing over the floor

fingers sticky, air without oxygen
wooden floor silky, worn down by feet
and fleeting moments
such as this

this moment is a puzzle
and it must be solved
it must have a solution hidden away
somewhere behind the arched spine
and acceleration of the diving hawk

the delicate sights
interrupts the thoughts
of anything else but them

a gigantic spider plant on a pedestal
drastic decisions to save a moment
drowning in the scent
of the autumn apples
in the room

Today I got the assessment my psychologist had written to send with the application for asking about being allowed to continue surviving. It was a bit more than half a page of nearly two, about how I try to be a good Pao and how I try to fulfill all my duties and how sad I am that I cannot live up to society's demands of getting money through work.

That she thinks the thought of me getting a job is unrealistic and would probably tear down the little stability I have managed to build up the last few years.

Sometimes I go through things I have written a long time ago (or sometimes quite recently, but that is rarer) and read them. I like some things I've written, and even pieces which I am unhappy with for different reasons usually have a line or part or description which I really love which I may use again, in circumstances that can do them justice.

I only publish a small part of what I write in any way. Sometimes, I wonder if I should make a compilation and put it online somewhere.

Perhaps others could learn from/use it as well.

Today I had a really good day. It was perfect. First I got a semla and then some really incredible yakiniku.
When I came back to Catlair, I took a nap.

There has been pain, as always, but all in all it has been a wonderful day. I spent the late evening making tiny butterflies out of rubbery cauliflower. It is surprisingly hard to make it out of rubbery vegetables. One needs a bit of stability.

Some of them were about a centimeter long with millimeter-thin wins and antennae.

Extremely pleasing day.
Tomorrow, I'll try to do orange scones.

It is interesting how sometimes I can be very happy and very sad at the same time. They are separate processes for me, and that sometimes confuses people. Even in periods when I've been severely depressed and suicidal I've laughed at jokes which I thought were funny. When they resurrected me after an attempt, the first thing I did when I came to was to ask for some sheets of paper and a pencil so that I could draw some comics.

It's a bit like that now. There are massive feelings of sadness and happiness.
And they're not even conflicting.

Last night I found a mail from the Nanowrimo-people reminding me that Script Frenzy is in April. This made me very happy, because just a few hours earlier I had thought about the novel I wrote in November, really looking forward to the next November and wondering what to do until then.

It seems like I have a plan now.

***

Today I met my Halfsister. She is about seven months old, and she made interesting sounds, hit my hat and tried to steal my face. I think I really like her.

I look forward to writing her stories later.

/The music./
It was the first thing he thought as he woke up, looked at the unfamiliar ceiling.
/The music. Oh dear, it's beautiful. What is that music?/
He was laying in a hospital bed, and he sat up. He saw some nurses look at him and talk silently amongst themselves. He couldn't hear a word. One of them fetched a doctor who looked at him seriously, wrote something on a paper and held it up.
"I'm sorry, but you are deaf."
He laid down again, listened to the music. It was the most beautiful thing he had ever heard.

I like it when a few strands of my mane have come loose and hang around my face. I like it when there are a few spots of dirt on my pants. Or bark/leaves in my mane. I like it when there is dirt under my claws from digging in the soil. The almost blood-red liquid of dark, almost black cherries trickling down my fingers, leaving stains which looks almost like bruises.

I like children who smells of dirt, grass, rain and smoke.
I like children who smile - full of life - like I do after a day outside.

Was this really what I dreamt about when I pictured myself ten years into the future when I was fifteen? No, it wasn't.
(Are things /ever/ what we imagine them to be when we actually get there?)

But I'm not unhappy with who I am now. I can actually say that with a clear conscience nowadays. There are things I miss about the prior versions of me, but I can never be that person again. It's history, and the circumstances have all changed as well.
They change and we change with them, or we perish.
That's all that is certain.

He didn't even flinch as she cut him. He had gotten used to it, knew she wouldn't cut deep. In the beginning he had thought that he was the victim, but after a while he had realised that the vampire was as well.
"Listen," he whispered to her as she gently licked the wound. "I know I'm probably just food for you, but... if we ever escape, will you go out with me? I know a great night-open cafe."
She hesitated for a moment, looked at him, almost gently, but very sad.
"Yes, please."

He died three days later.

Today has been an interesting day. And on Saturday I'm off to the forest with my father to visit his mother. I look forward to it a lot, because I love that forest. That forest is where my heart will always lie, buried between the old, deep roots of trees I know almost as well as myself. Every wild summer raspberry bush and spring glade full of lily of the valley.

I always miss that place.
That, and my old territory in Kopparberg, with the flooded mines and almost endless paths which I used to walk in the nights, sleepless.

Oh, money. I've never really cared much for money, over having money to pay for lair and food. And it is true that one cannot buy happiness for money, but not having to constantly worry about money helps increase happiness a lot. I must say that to me honest I don't get much money. And I don't understand how people can get twice what I get and still feel poor. But they do, and they do. To me, it's unimaginable. Except for when I want to travel, and I can't. That pains me, but at least I can afford food.

Joy and confusion! My father called me and asked me if I wanted to come with him to the forest. The weather cleared up, and he thought he'd go between Sunday to Wednesday. I, of course, began bouncing and affirming that of course I'd come. But it will really, /really/ mess up my week. I had planned to be back on Monday evening; give a Pao-drawn card to the good Helper who will quit this week. I really hope I will meet him on Wednesday. I'll miss him. But I /cannot/ say no to a trip to the forest.

I'm in the forest. Writing this from my father's mother's darkish kitchen, on my phone, while waiting for the tea to cool down so that I can take my drugs. Not as much drugs as I usually have to take, though. I feel better here, in the silence and calm. In the darkness, where one can actually see the stars, undimmed by all light pollution. I'm much happier here. I hurt less. Probably because I'm less tense. My muscles hates me less and thus hurts less. (I saw roes. They were two meters away or so, only separated by glass.)

Today we visited father's father (at the place where his ash is buried). I bought a paper bag full of books and a dark red leather jacket/coat. One of the books is an English/Swedish lexicon from 1800-something. Many beautiful old, lovely words. I'm quite happy with today. I saw the roe family again earlier, but they were a bit twitchy. Other books were mostly about medicine and encyclopedias, but also a scout handbook and an English translation of The Little Prince. I read it many years ago; never forgot it. I'm happy to have a copy.

Tomorrow, we are going back home to the city. Home and home, it doesn't feel like my home. I remember once, all those years ago, when it felt like if the city actually /was/ my home. But I confused the love for the abbanen and abbilen here with a love for the city itself; I did not really love the city, just my friends. But back then, I could not tell the difference, starved for love and warmth and friendship as I was. So I left the forest.

But now, happier and healthier, I know the difference all to well.

Back, in the city. The trip back was very pleasant. I was talking a lot to my father and knitting. I have missed knitting. He dropped me off at Paolair to let me dump some stuff and water the snakes, and then he drove me to Catlair.

I went out to buy food with my female, but I got paralyzed in the store. All the sounds, all the people, all the lights... it was horrible. I had no idea what to to.
I came away with some food though, and three different brands of cola.

Better than nothing, I guess.

Health check on all the rats. Also I bought more food. I can see that spring has returned, because so has all the people holding (mostly fruit and vegetables) outdoor markets.
I bought some lettuce and other things, trying the new market people out. They were really kind to me.

I bought a kilo of really small fish, mostly for the rats, but for my female as well. She likes fish. A lot.

I licked one of them, and I haven't died yet. I have tried dying, and it felt nothing like this. It is very reassuring in a way.

Sometimes, I am thinking about starting to put up reviews of books and movies on my blog. It could be of great use, both for me and my friends. But it is still just an idea, and on top of that it is an idea that needs both planning and writing down thoughts I have, when I would rather just enjoy the ride. Or was too busy laughing or being bored or being disgusted, if it was a really bad movie? Perhaps if I only reviewed really mediocre movies and books? (Those not good or bad enough to distract me.)

Mats and curtains. Suddenly, my lair feels /warmer/. Not in actual temperature, but there is a feeling of warmth here now. Cream-white, lace curtains against dark-blue walls. Blue/red patterned ragmats my father's mother has made. It made a great difference, just like that; now the bare, cold floors have been covered with soft mats silencing my steps. The empty windows are no longer empty. This has gone from being a storage area to being... what? It's still not really a home, but it is no longer just a place for me and my things to be archived.

The curtains and mats still make me happy. Tomorrow I should call my father's mother and tell her this. It might make her happy.

The livingroom will be in blue and white, the kitchen range from white to red via yellow and orange, and the bathroom white to green. But there will be things which connect them, like the red lava lamp in the livingroom, the blue bottles in the kitchen. Things like that. The green plants everywhere. Just enough intermingling colours to connect them all to a whole.

I really look forward to this.
My lair will be lovely.

Today I talked to my psychologist about murder, killing, the concept of home and the forest. I told her that I had got some mats and curtains from my father's mother, and that I had put the mats on the floors and hung up the curtains and that now my lair felt more like a hospital or a hotel room. Not a storage area, but somewhere one could perhaps stay for a while.

Just because I try to figure out what to do to make the place more beautiful and interesting doesn't mean I can ever regard it my home.

Today my female decided to make some sort of plum dumplings, and she needed crushed poppy seeds. She has no mortar and pestle, so of course Pao comes to her rescue.
What did I do?
Well, I went out into the freezing night, took a stick and started stabbing/bending out a smoothish rock from the ground, carried it indoors, scrubbed it vigorously and then put it in a pot of boiling water with three decilitres of salt.
Let it cool.
And it was suddenly a "pestle".
I used it against a baking tray, and there were crushed poppy seeds.

I'll never be a heroine in a story. I'm never a heroine even in my /own/ stories. I've never been especially Mary Sueish; sometimes when I write about situations where I might have developed certain skills, I let myself have them. In my Fallen London fan fiction, for example, I'm better at running and stabbing people. Nothing special; I can't juggle knives blindfolded, just run and stab people since it makes sense I would have /learnt/ that or died.

But I'm frequently afraid; I frequently cry.
And I'd still rather run and hide than take a fight I might lose.

Went to Stacken again. I got to see the servers again, and took a lot of photos. And a lot of photos of some stairs. And had a lot of fun. It was nice meeting some of them again, but I got a bit confused. A person showed me a game on guessing what typeface a letter was written in. It was great fun.

Dreda and I got a ride back home to Paolair by one of the people at Stacken. I had to go home because early tomorrow some people are coming to measure the airflow in my lair.