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i just heard this man on t.v. say that on its packaging, his company uses "the international symbol that says we don't use child slaves to make this product." there's an international symbol for that? is it like a baby in shackles with a line through it? i want to know.

i have been working on my resume all day and answering job history questions that i sent to a friend who is trying to get me a position with a gimungous software company that shall remain nameless. o how i hate writing about myself. i need this, because i owe the government money, and just got laid off from a regular gig and, you know, need to eat and stuff.

but i'm also scared shitless because i haven't worked full time in, oh, maybe 15 years, and for the past six i've worked for myself. 40 hours a week? Eek.

and i haven't gotten my visitor this month. yeah, i'm actually being delicate. and no, there's no possibility of that. what it is is the beginning of the end of all that. for the first time in my life i'm not sloughing (what a word). it's extremely strange. i mean, surely i'm not going to actually miss it, am i? and i'm not buying into other people's definitions of what my life can be now, right?

it's just, there's not this vastness of time before me, like it's always felt like before. time feels finite for the first time. i do best with feelings of expansion and abundance, so limits, well, they don't sit too well at all.

people say a time comes when we must put childish considerations aside.

nuh uh. they're not the boss of me.

someone i love is down by the big fire. the witch fire came within a couple miles of her house. the sky was a gold and orange haze and the wind was thick--she said it was like the end of the world.

her house and family were spared. a couple they know lost everything. they thought they were in the clear, and then found out later that day their house had burned to the ground.

how does that change you, i wonder?

fire leaves charred and unlovely places. things that are underneath get exposed. the pain when it touches skin is indescribable, beyond unbearable, and the scars don't ever entirely heal. dirt can put it out. water, if there's enough. and a little breeze can bring it roaring back to life.

it's elemental.

my body is hot. not in a "you're a babe" way, more temperature-wise. my head and face run with sweat when i get even a little warm--and it's always been that way, at least since i was a teenager. i have a disease that gives me bouts of out-of-control inflammation--my body interprets its own cells as other, and works up an internal fever to flush out the intruder. hey, body--that's me, hon. i almost went blind in one eye once, because the temperature in it rose so quickly and I forgot to tell the doctor about that pesky gene marker that makes me burn so unreasonably.

in my astrological chart, the sun, the moon, mercury, venus, saturn, uranus and pluto (does that one still count?) are all fire signs. my ascendant is an air sign.

it makes me wonder.

and yeah, there's the up side--fire is cleansing: "fire purifies" - fire is passion: "I burn for you." it's enthusiasm and energy and warmth and fireworks. gotta love fireworks.

but the intensity of it, you know, it scares people. they don't forget the destructive part. never.

so even though it's cozy to sit in front of and fascinating to gaze into, wariness remains.

danger here.

my mom's ashes sit in a tibetan urn. my sister the dream seer found it in new york. it's beautiful.

she sits on a shelf where i can see her, surrounded by old pictures--her and my dad, me and my sister. there isn't one of the four of us together.

i guess someone has to take the picture.

we sprinkled part of her in the garden outside. but i somehow like it that a part of her is on my shelf.

i've tried to feel her, sense her, reach beyond life and death. i don't go too far though--i always pull back, a little.

along with the grief and the curiosity, ambivalence remains. i want it but i don't want it.

kind of chicken shit, considering what a mind blowing experience it would be if i actually went somewhere.

but, you know.

danger there.

hey, my ability to seem normal appears to be broken...

not like the kind of broken where you drop one of your Mom's good plates--you know, the "good china" with the tasteful green and violet pattern--and it breaks clean, and you can superglue it back together.

more the kind like it's your favorite shot glass that fits in your hand just right and has a reassuring weight to it, like a good chess piece. and it slips from your grip and falls, hits the floor just right and completely shatters into a bazillion pieces. so you squat down and pick up the big pieces, and you vacuum, but you still keep getting random slivers in your feet for weeks after.

so you didn't just lose something irreplaceable, you actually broke it, stupidly, carelessly, in an unguarded moment. and you forget it's gone until you reach for it or the fucking glass stabs your toe.

so, my normal is broken tonight.

and i'm watching cowboy bebop and it's the really sad episode where spike's old love julia dies and it's bumming me out. and spike collapses. cue the angels singing.

lulu is curled between my feet. soft and mushable. i got pissed at her about pissing earlier, but we seem to be jake at the moment.

ah, inuyasha will lift my dark a little. maybe. even if the episode is called "trapped in a duel to the death." good times.

i hope i can sleep tonight. keep dreaming of big old houses, moving in with ex-loves, contemplating other people's furniture and plotting to it change it all. my sister the dream seer would have fun with it. i'm just grateful to be able to spend time with somebody i love that i can't ordinarily hang with. dreams are kind that way.

ok, mystic_savage, i posted for you, baby! i sleepy now.