| Update: Situation Abnormal But Everything's Okay |
[Jul. 20th, 2011|07:03 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | update | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  okay | ] |
I have said more in locked posts, but for those who may have heard rumors through the grapevine and who follow my LJ but don't have access to those posts, here's a general update:
I have recently had a personal crisis of the mental health sort. I am in treatment (which seems to be going well) and at present feel almost entirely (a) safe and (b) like myself. In order to give both myself and ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=92.1) fiddledragon time/space to sort things out, I will be crashing elsewhere (presently with carpenter) until things settle down.
All of my overlapping circles of friends have come together in an amazing way to support me and fiddledragon, and everyone who has chipped in deserves the highest degree of gratitude. I am presently Okay, and plan (and hope, and (tentatively) expect) to remain so going forwards. I am also happy — I would like to remain so, but happy tends to be a more transient condition than Okay, so we'll see.
I think that's all I want to say on an open channel at this time. Thanks for all the support. |
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| Revenge is a dish best served with honey |
[Jul. 5th, 2011|07:53 am] |
(being a tempting taste of a Harry Potter fanfic currently under construction, based on an idea developed by orawnzva, fiddledragon, and batshua)
Hogwarts, two years before Harry Potter's return, sorting day:
"Sly... no, wait..." I could feel the hat searching my mind, my heart, tasting me. "Your desire for power is great, but your heart is as sweet as your name, Melissa."
The whole school held its breath.
"HUFFLEPUFF!"
The Slytherins gasped. The Hufflepuffs murmured in distress. And then time stopped. I saw my father — what was my father doing there?! — speaking harshly with Professor Snape, but everyone and everything else was frozen. When he had finished with Snape, father turned to the assembled students and raised his wand. His anger was terrifying. I still don't know what kind of spell he cast — was it a memory charm, a compulsion, a curse? "This never happened!" he cried, actually losing his composure as I had never once seen him do in public. Finally, almost as an afterthought, he turned to me. "You are no daughter of mine!" And then he vanished.
Time resumed. The Hufflepuffs cheered, all but one, an older student with brightly colored hair, who made no sound but whose eyes fixed me with an almost frightening look of grim, protective determination. The Slytherins seemed unperturbed. And I would later discover that most students would thereafter claim not to have clearly heard the name by which I was called up to be sorted.
Very well, father. A Hufflepuff stands for loyalty, and you have betrayed me, while I have merely been myself. As you have renounced me, I renounce you, and your name, and your bad faith. From this day forward I will be a honey-fairy princess, all sweetness and light. I will put on yellow and black stripes. I will make real friends, loyal, warm-hearted, and true. I will enjoy my classes. I will bake cookies. And I will wait, patiently, for the day when I can summon my loyal friends to my side to swarm and destroy you. For remember that the honeybee fills its hive not only with sweetness and light, but with venom.
— Melissa Melfée |
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| Klingonberry sauce |
[Jun. 26th, 2011|09:37 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | food | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  hungry | ] |
Every time I walk past the lingonberry jam at an IKEA store, I make some kind of joke about "Klingonberry jam", and then I try to figure out what would be in it. This time, I remembered that we do have something in our spice drawer that's actually labeled as Klingon — Auntie Arwen's Klingon-in-the-alley hot jerk seasoning.
Yes, I've been trying to figure out how to make Klingonberry sauce for years just because it makes a good pun. It's also really, really tasty — I tried it on pasta with fake textured-protein "chicken", but I'll bet it would be at its best on real poultry. Considering that lingonberries are a lot like cranberries, this stuff may be making an appearance at future bird-carcass-family-occasions. |
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| The official U.S. time |
[Jun. 2nd, 2011|08:39 am] |
I decided to look up the exact time online so I could reset our clocks accurately. The site I found (by searching for [time reference]) contained a Java applet, so while it was loading, the page seemed to be saying "The official U.S. time is [a coffee cup]." That's not as precise as the information I was looking for (which did eventually appear), but it is extremely accurate. |
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| The wiser man hides when the Thunderer comes... |
[Jun. 2nd, 2011|08:02 am] |
I was trapped at Walgreens by an epic thunderstorm on my way to fill a prescription for a new medicine that should help with my mood swings. I spent most of the time talking with Persephone (by which I mean the goddess Herself, not any human acquaintance of that name). We stood at the entrance looking out at the continuous lightning. (She says: Whoa, Dad, what's going on?) There was torrential rain blowing horizontally for a bit, but no hail or (thank G!d(s)) severe vortical activity.
We're fine, the most cleaning up we're going to have to do after this storm is putting away some stuff that usually lives outside but was brought inside so it wouldn't blow away, and resetting the clocks on some appliances that don't need to know what time it is anyway. But this was a biggie — there are people out there, whether or not there is any personal connection to them from this corner of the Internet, who are not fine. My heart goes out to them.
On the phone later:
scifantasy: I saw Thor—
me: No, you saw "Thor: The Comic Book: The Movie". I saw Thor.
That was fucking awesome. Can we not do that again for a while, please? |
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| Ritual: The Apple of Concord |
[May. 5th, 2011|08:44 am] |
The rite of the Apple of Concord is a spell for achieving balance among the different areas of one's life. It represents a tikkun of the Greek myth of the Apple of Discord — you know, the one that started the Trojan war? Within the circle, participants re-enact the story, but this time a more sensible Paris does the right thing, war is averted, and everyone lives happily ever after. I especially recommend this ritual for students and alumnae of Bryn Mawr.
You will need a ( large, crisp yellow apple... ) |
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| WHOA!!! — I know who I am |
[May. 5th, 2011|05:04 am] |
I think I am, finally, done inventing my religion and ready to start living it. Details to follow.
Also, I think I'm ready to get an official diagnosis and medication for my cyclothymia. Hypomania is fun, and may even be necessary in order to download this much epiphany all at once, but it would sure be nice to get a full night's sleep some time this week. |
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| Old songs, new songs, and a NEW song for the Festival of Sandcastles |
[May. 2nd, 2011|01:59 am] |
( I'm way behind on posting songs, but I'm working to catch up )
This newest song, however, I want to tell you about right now. I started writing it yesterday at MASSFILC and finished it today.
Remember the Hymn for a Festival of Sandcastles? That song was inspired by the ritual of a Tibetan Buddhist sand-painting which was created and then ceremonially destroyed at Swarthmore College as part of a cultural festival. ( Some day I want to actually host a festival of sandcastles... )
"Hymn" presents the festival as a meditation on impermanence as a truth that humans must wrestle with. It doesn't imply a cosmology beyond the simple fact that things end, certainly it doesn't introduce a fantastic setting. I always imagined it as a holiday belonging to our world that simply hadn't been done yet in that particular form. But then the idea of the festival came into contact with the idea of recursion, or of seeing small terrain features (like moss-covered rocks, or tidepools) as miniatures of larger landscapes, or scale-independent fractals, or At the Mountains of Madness, or something by Borges, or whatever, and the shape of the world from which the festival ultimately comes became clear to me.
The liturgy of the public event known as the Festival of Sandcastles makes no mention of any of the disturbing cosmological musings which follow. Little children learn nothing of them. Adults will not discuss them, even though they all know of them. It is teens who initiate their younger peers into the mystery, at the edge of adolescence where the playful life of a child meets with the capacity to take life's big questions seriously. In surreptitious retreats, they organize their own, secret Festivals of Sandcastles. Different stories are told, different songs sung, secrets taught that may only be spoken by firelight, on the beach, in the evening, when the tide has begun to come in and wash the sandcastles away, and even then only in whispers.
So, if you wish to learn, imagine yourself there. See the twilight, hear the breakers crashing, smell the wood smoke, feel the sand between your toes, taste the roasted marshmallows. Today you created a world with your hands. It was good fun, and good exercise, and you feel exhausted but refreshed in both body and mind. You created a world— and now, you realize, you are watching it die. At last you are ready to learn ( the secret mythology behind the Festival of Sandcastles. )
( Read on for a more in-depth commentary on the secret... )
Coming into being at this moment in the history of our own world, this song is dedicated to the people of Japan, for whom the image of human civilization being swept out to sea like so many sandcastles is not a fairy tale. If it touches your heart, consider making a donation to support the ongoing relief effort. |
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| Waterbending for muggles |
[Feb. 23rd, 2011|10:05 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | game, plan | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  excited | ] |
Sarah and I have been watching Avatar: The Last Airbender on Netflix. It's amazing — well-drawn, full of plot and character development and world-building and nicely done fantasy martial arts action. I've heard and can well believe that the bending disciplines are based on various (distinct) real martial arts.
Meanwhile, I've been realizing I need more exercise, and specifically more martial arts, in my own life. I studied karate in middle school, and the moves are still there in muscle memory. In terms of a real dojo, I'm probably extremely rusty, and was never very highly ranked to begin with. But, in terms of keeping myself active and working out nervous energy, I remember the forms enough to run some (improvised) kata in the living room when I get twitchy, and I plan to make a habit of that.
And that got me thinking... if we can have muggle Quidditch (well on it's way to becoming a "real" intercollegiate competitive sport), ( why not muggle bending disciplines? )
Which brings us to water. I can think of two basic divisions of muggle waterbending, depending on whether or not the water is contained. (In-world, the water being bent is contained by the bender's will and skill until released, but we can't do that.) That leads me to two "waterbending" forms I call splish and splash:
( Splish )
( Splash ) |
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