Feeling scattered at the moment. Lots of things in the works, but it's all very inconsequential and boring. I was working on this very long post about it and windows took the initiative to reboot the laptop, which is probably for the best, so now we will sum up.

- Spouse's mom took his dad to the doctor and he has viral pneumonia. Spouse's mom is still deep in the "vaccine bad" wormhole. She's frustrated with spouse for being pro-vax. Lost a lot of respect for that lady. Alaska's out of ICU beds and that's especially bad because the next closest hospitals are Washington and Oregon, a ~4 hour flight away. Of all the states, Alaska and Hawaii should be the most concerned about the pandemic. Hawaii seems to have handled it well but Alaska has that squirrelly independent streak that is a double edged sword. Alaska: progressive enough to be one of the first states to legalize pot and approve ranked choice voting, but will also freak out over the right to avoid modern medicine and die alone in a dry cabin. DON'T TELL US WHAT TO DO, L48!! So backwards sometimes. Everybody knows it's not safe to get drunk and go out to fetch the mail in winter, but apparently a pandemic has us on the same intellectual level as texas. Fantastic.

- Finally caught Other Cat going outside on the balcony. I was starting to think she'd been permanently traumatized. They cut down the dying tree in front of our apartment building and sadly this has eliminated the cheeky birds putting on their cheeky bird show just a few feet away. The outdoors is suddenly not as interesting.

- I've started the cats on this "hunting" feeding system where you hide their crunchies in these mouse toys. They hate it. They don't understand why there's no food in the bowl. We're having a cold war about it. It's supposed to help with all kinds of naughty cat behavior like scarf 'n barf and boredom. Basically Cat's entire personality. But they clearly do not see crunchies as part of any kind of reward/play activity. I just think they're not hungry enough yet.

- I bought Cat a different sort of gravy treat by the same company that makes the wet food he likes and he didn't like that one either. God! I got another whole chicken and we're going to try homemade gravy round 2.

- I found a bargain $10 weird sweatshirt dress that I like way way better than I anticipated. I bought 2 of the weird sweatshirt dresses and this other plain olive green dress for under $35 total, which makes me very smug even though they're probably made by children in a sweatshop. Debated thrift shop vs buying material and making it yourself vs taking advantage of potentially unethical bargains. Pretty hard to get on a high horse properly these days. I have these dresses now and I know I'm going to get a ton of wear out of them, and I figure that's the best way to justify the whole mess.

- I'm feeling heavy again. Spouse and I went out for a nice anniversary dinner and I wore the new dress and you know the feeling when you don't look as good as you could/should. Lots of going off diet in the past months. I hadn't been fussed about it because so much has been in the toilet lately. Also the hot, humid summer weather is not very enticing for walks. (There's no fresh air here. It's like living in a used wet washcloth.) But the vitamins seem to be working so that means it's time to smooth out the diet and exercise, get back on track. Not interested in beating myself up about it. Mental health trumps body aesthetics any day, all day. It's too hard to sustain motivation levels when you get randomly clobbered by 3 days of pain. And there's that nasty little part of your brain that reminds you that people learn to paint masterpieces with their toes and work through all sorts of serious ailments with just pure willpower and you get knocked out by some headaches and basic life stress.

This guy had his hands paralyzed by polio and he painted some of the most recognizable military paintings.

Well, shut up brain. Shut up.

It's been a lot of sitting around trying to figure out what actually is important to me versus what I've been told is important to me. I just stumble-bumbled from high school immediately into working full time and then once you're paying rent and bills you have to keep paying rent and bills. And all of a sudden a pandemic happens and I get to take this break and think about my direction a bit more. But I've got my whole adult life's worth of bandaid habits and messed up priorities weighing on me. I keep throwing myself at various projects to feel like I'm worthwhile and getting tripped up by basic foundational problems. The headaches have been a problem for 20 years, but the effect was somewhat limited by the noise of everyday life - working full time, social activities & related drama, neverending chore drudgery. It didn't stop me from going to work, it just made it miserable and sopped up precious free time for recovery. I could never say if the headaches were caused by stress or eating habits or whatever for sure, because the wheel never stopped long enough to pin it down. I tried a lot of different things but there's only so much energy to give the problem before you give up and accept that it is what it is. Sometimes, randomly, you're gonna get the hammer. And your expectations and mental outlook have to be tempered to that reality.

So it's equal parts exciting and horrible to think about a future where I can control the headaches. Like, who am I, without 20 years of psychological workarounds to get myself from treadmill to treadmill? Who was I, back in my 20s? If you tell yourself you can't run fast because your leg is broken, and then your leg is healed ... what if you still can't run fast? What if you can't adapt? What if the reality is you're just garbage at running and the broken leg let you save some face? Ugh.

I chose to dress up for this anniversary dinner and in the process I looked through the closet and picked out jewelry and heels. I've been living in a fraction of my wardrobe during the pandemic - mostly leggings, plain tank tunics, sports bra, zip up hoodie, flats if I go somewhere. Stretchy, practical, nondescript. I have forgotten what clothing and accessories I own, frankly. I keep my shoes bagged and my jewelry in a case and everyday clothes go in the dresser, not hung up in the closet. So it was almost like stumbling into a little pocket dimension stocked by someone with my exact taste. Wow, this is great. These shoes are amazing! Who was this person, they have great shit!

Me. I was that person. I picked out all this stuff. I used to go out and do things.

But a lot of it was aspirational. Like the burnout velvet jacket I wore to dinner that I've had for four years and this was the first time I got to wear it. I've collected items but they're more like costumes for a dress up character. In everyday real life, I've worn boring generic clothes, not bothered with makeup, etc. Then I wear the nice clothes and it's like I don't belong in them, like the clothes are wearing me instead of being an authentic, honest expression. Does that make any sense? I've been chewing on this for the past few days and this is the best I can come up with. Like I collected all this stuff for the person I wanted to be, but not the real me that had to wash dishes and go to work with a headache. The real me couldn't quite keep up with the hamster wheel. Always slightly behind, always tired, always suboptimal.

In my astrological chart I have a lot going on in my 1st and 12th houses. I was born at sunrise, the day before an eclipse, so my sun, moon, ascendant and NN are all in libra. When people talk about their sign using their birthday they are just talking about the position of the sun. 365 days in a year, 360 degrees in a circle, sun is present in each degree roughly 1 day a year. Other important features, like their moon and ascendant, are very likely to be scattered in other signs, making them a blend of different signs. Also, depending on the exact time of birth, the sun could be in any of the 12 houses which represent different areas of life and that will change the expression. But with sun/moon/asc/north node in libra (sun in the first house), I'm almost as solid a libra as it gets. If my venus were in libra I'd be, like, ULTIMATE LIBRA. I unfortunately haven't figured out how to reap the benefits of having so much libra because my rising planet is pluto, and they don't pair well. Pluto is a secretive, obsessive, dominating sort of energy, all about fears and taboos. The people I mesh with tend to have a strong pluto in their chart somewhere, or a lot of aquarius/uranus. Prickly weirdos are my favorite kind of people.

Because I've got uranus in the first house. So, sun in libra (sign of partnership, justice, arts & refinement), scorpio uranus (unconventional, independent, revolutionary) filtered through the lens of pluto (transformation, obsession, secrets). That's my first house.

The first house represents the self. It's about basic personality, individuality and how we present ourselves to the world. It's about appearances. So with such a strong first house emphasis, it's not that surprising to me that the older I get, the more important it becomes to have the outsides match the insides. It makes me a complete person, all in tune. When I was growing up I had a tough time with presenting myself, because of limited resources and because I didn't want to be noticed. I was far more comfortable feeling camouflaged (pluto) because I got it in my head that what someone highlighted visually was a giant blinking arrow pointing at their internal vulnerabilities (pluto being pluto, your internal fears get projected outside yourself). Like I was all about hyper survival mode and making myself as opaque as possible. It works but it cripples growth. Especially if you get fixated on a "smart girl" identity like I did, it feels like a huge betrayal of self to make an about-face and put emphasis on your appearance with makeup and clothes. Felt like unwarranted vanity and putting on airs, being fake. I was very stubborn about the idea that (in a rational world) appearances shouldn't matter, quality of work and communication should matter. If you're dating, (in a rational world) you should be measured by your personality and accomplishments and not by how nice you look in your clothes. But I eventually grokked that we don't live in a rational world, and much of the time, the person who knows how to play the social/appearance game has a huge edge. When I was a kid I was absolutely certain it was better to be smart than pretty. Banked my whole identity on it. Then as an adult, I realized that was a lie, and being pretty is valued more than smarts. I wish it weren't so, but it is. Brains alone aren't worth much - there's a ton of incredibly smart people in the world, way way smarter than me. Brains are cheap. Brains and social skills - that's a lot more rare - that's the sweet spot. If I had a child, I would educate them about maximizing their appearance the same as maximizing their intellect, and give them the superpower of being comfortable with their exterior. This isn't a girl/boy thing, this is a complete articulate self thing.

So I didn't play with makeup or think much about my hair or what I wore until I was in my mid 20s, and it took longer still to get into piercings and tattoos. Being a tattoo artist feels like an organic extension of that ascendant/first house emphasis, because it's like my purpose is to facilitate the first house expression in others. Who are you? What are your self aspirations? You want to ink it in your skin, to see every time you look in a mirror? I would absolutely love to help. Like, there is not much better than encouraging individual expression in others. It really lights me up. Your outsides should match your insides, because your outsides don't exist to validate other people. Your outsides exist as a manifestation of a conversation you are having with yourself, an aligning of your talents and purpose. Sneering at bright colored hair and piercings or whatever is popular and really those people should shut the fuck up and stop assuming ownership over whatever reflects light into their eyeballs. Fucking HOA mentality. "Everybody has to have a beige house so I don't feel insecure about my beige house!" I cannot express how angry I get about people policing other people's exteriors. 1) genetic stuff is out of our control and 2) body shape is way more complicated than just what someone eats and 3) making changes to your exterior takes courage and these assholes want to stomp all over someone for trying to manifest a bit of cheer in their life. Total dogshit garbage person behavior. Tacky and rude and unimaginative.

(There's nothing wrong with no makeup, no tattoos, clean shaven, khakis and polo types either. Nothing wrong with being comfortable in a respectable plain beige house. Beige houses make the world go round. Just let other people choose their house color(s) for themselves.)

I've gone way off on a ramble. The point is, I went to dress up for this anniversary dinner and the process of going through my old clothes and shoes and jewelry was almost like exhuming myself. It's a treasure trove of relics of who I was or aspired to be, just quietly waiting. I've been having this really strange multilayered emotional response. Disappointment and joy and regret and excitement, worries and hopes. Remembering things that had been forgotten, but also the awareness that I wasn't quite "ready" when I collected those items. I wanted to be something but I didn't know how to get there - I could only gather the trappings.

I feel like how I imagine a tree might feel in winter, when the temperatures are starting to warm and the daylight is returning, but spring is still weeks away. After the exhaustion of autumn and the deep slumber of winter, the tree begins to remember the joy of fresh green leaves, and starts preparing for spring.

If I've got the tools to manage my headaches now ... there's nothing left in my way, is there? I've thrashed around and bushwhacked and got lost and found and lost and found and complained and tried and failed and complained some more. How come life hasn't worked out for me like it has for other people. Who knows. Would I be happy if I had the middle class trappings and the beige house and the french manicure? Would I accept it? Would I be secretly miserable but telling myself, "I have all the exterior bits so I should be happy internally now"? Or have I arrived at a personal place where I can say, "I am happy and at peace, and I show that through my exterior"? I'm not expressing this very well - do the exteriors dictate one's internals, or does one's internals realize the exterior? Are you wearing the fancy dress or is the fancy dress wearing you?

There's a weird sense that I am exactly where I am meant to be, like I've been a marble in a rube goldberg device and nothing makes sense and I'm getting kicked here and dropped out of a bucket there and then the pieces of the maze move and click into place and here we are. Exactly where we should be, for the start of the next run.

Spouse leaves for training in a week and then I've got 5 months all by myself (with the kitties). Then we move.

I have a magical precious universe gift of 5 months to get my shit in order and realign myself. When I got dressed for the anniversary dinner it was easy to tell that I wasn't matching up to my ideal version of myself, physically. I don't like focusing on weight loss because it's such a tender topic for so many, with good reason. A person is more than a number on a scale. The number on the scale is an expression of genetics, mental health, emotional support, free time, food access, wealth. So much outside of the measure of a person. I'm not sorry about what I've eaten or what exercise I have or haven't got recently. I ate it and it was darn tasty. I walked if I felt like it and didn't when I didn't. All good. But that scale number is now a problem. Maybe my fussy, superficial, vain libra is showing, but I do not like it. At all. Nothing to do with my feelings of self worth, everything to do with how I wish to represent myself in meatspace to others.

So I'm feeling the pull of a lot of first house stuff - clothes and physical body and presentation. I got those new dresses and I have plans to remake/upcycle my wardrobe and I want to take some care with my physical body. I want to step into a true physical avatar for myself. I want to be an honest version of myself inside and out. I want to own the four square feet under my shoes wherever I go. I was too insecure and fragile when I was a young adult to do this. I didn't want to stick out because I was too sensitive to the opinions of others. And I didn't have the skill, frankly.

I've got the gift of 5 months to realize myself.