Spouse had a tricky part of the interview process this week and he wasn't happy with how it went. He's gotten through it successfully a couple times, but it's never a sure thing and it does weed out applicants. Now he is anxious, so I'm anxious. I hope they were just trying to intentionally rattle him a bit. We have started thinking in terms of *when* the new job happens, not *if*, so it would really really suck to come so close and not succeed. It's been so many years of waiting and stress, stress and waiting, just to get to this point. Wish they hadn't scheduled it right before Christmas.

I have caught a cold bug. Not covid, pretty sure, just plain ol' cold. Sniffles and sinus pressure, hint of sore throat. Felt run down and napped a lot past few days. Strange twisting dreams. Apparently I have passed it on to spouse, hooray. On the upside, nice to know it wasn't just laziness or depression.

Got all the supplies for Christmas including the rum for the eggnog. Today I brine the turkey, prep the dishes, make the eggnog. I think it's supposed to rain today. Too warm for snow.

We have a guest for Christmas, a friend we know from Alaska years back. He is studying at the naval academy, so we are in roughly the same corner of the world. He stayed with us for a month back in the spring when the first shutdown happened and his campus closed, and he's been our only visitor since. Disappointing year for him - some educational things were completely cancelled due to covid. I want to show him my raspberry pi and pick his brain while he's here. Sometimes it helps to have someone talk you through concepts. He wants to be an astronaut so he's always learning or doing something cool and people like that are good to be around. In exchange for actual interesting knowledge, spouse and I fill in the gaps in his pop culture reference library. We usually end up with a list of movies/shows to make him watch. This visit we have already figured out he hasn't seen a Knight's Tale or Flash Gordon, or any of season 2 Mandalorian, so we will for sure be watching those.

Yesterday I started a Star Wars marathon (chronological), always good around the holidays because there's plenty of lore to discuss and lots of things to hate and love. Episode 8 drives me bonkers. I don't even know how it's possible to make space battles that dumb post-Battlestar Galactica reboot. How can you be employed making Star Wars movies without having seen BSG? If you've seen BSG, how do you manage to write space battles with strategy that awful and boring and universe-breaking? It's like an MC Escher brain twister come to life. I end up spluttering and unable to make coherent sentences before they get past the batshit idiotic opening "bomber" run. WHO OKAY'D THOSE INCOMPETENTLY EMGINEERED BOMBERS? EXECUTE THAT GUY, HE WORKS FOR THE ENEMY. But I still watch it! And I end up ranting about it every time, like now ...

Have to say, I've been better in the mental health department. I really hope when I look back at 2020, I can see where the seeds were sown that grew into better things. But right now it just looks like an ugly dead field. Pretty down on myself, just so many things that are limitations of the physical or mental variety. My fault or the world, the end result is the same. I do trend toward optimism, but some days I have to work a lot harder for it than others. I keep telling myself I'm doing a lot of mental work right now because basically nothing real is being accomplished. I can't even keep the house neat. My big art struggle has been figuring out a voice. What do I want my personal work to communicate. I envy "real artists" because their themes seems to come to them naturally. They have an emotion to express or an idea to champion, and they do it fearlessly. I have a shy streak when it comes to emotions, and it's a real struggle to let deep personal expression out. It's defensive, I suppose, because my childhood wasn't great and I learned not to give people anything that could be used against me. You make yourself feel proud for holding it in. One day you realize you've only turned the cycle of abuse inward, not stopped it. In the battle between the rational and irrational, choosing the side of the rational is so much easier. It's easier to approve of making art when it has a purpose, when it's for a particular audience, when it's intended to be sold for profit. That art is easy to rubberstamp. Non-artists get it, see the value. But the irrational art, the personal art, the weird art, the dark thought clutter you hide because you know it'll get rejected, and maybe you're too fragile to watch that happen. That's the stuff that makes you real. That's what I've been reaching for - or maybe it's been reaching for me.

I'm tired of being half a person.

It's like learning how to speak aloud when you've only read about conversations in books. What's the language of symbology I want to use, and what do I want to say with it? I'm probably overthinking things so painfully. "Real artists" would just make art, they wouldn't dissect and analyze and navel gaze. I have always had a stubborn, obsessive nature, which is advantage and disadvantage in turns. Everything is work, everything must be measured. I'm just so very tired of the struggle.

Pinocchio, with the Blue Fairy. "Make me a Real Artist."

We've passed the winter solstice, so the days are getting longer. Alaska taught me that the winter solstice is better than Christmas. Even though the growing daylight wouldn't be truly noticeable for another month, it always made things feel better just to know the sun was coming back. Saturn is an interesting symbol. The start of Capricorn is the winter solstice, and Saturn rules Capricorn. Saturn is about transmuting lead (the dross of the soul) to gold (wisdom), about the harsh taskmaster who teaches the most important lessons in life. Saturn is about the passing of time, the knowledge of mortality. Saturn is the anchor of reality and limitations. You can't really make friends with Saturn, but you can learn the value of mutual respect.

Here we are at the end of 2020, watching so many hard lessons play out in the world. I hope we end up wiser for it.