home sweet home?

[elvendoll]

its startling how much being here does not feel like being at home

i made very good time here last night.
left boston at a few minutes before 3, after success in 3 out of 4 errands, and made it here at 7, after taking goat to her house.
i'd expected to get stuck in traffic and isabel, so i gave my parents an estimate of 8:30 for my arrival, to make sure they wouldn't worry if/when said delays happened - getting there at 7 surprised my stepdad and my sisters.

abi loves my hair : )
she touches it whenever she can, tries to make it into ponytails, and sits very close to me and on my lap a lot : )
unfortunately, i'm working from home today, and without really asking, my mom left me to babysit for a couple of hours in the morning. i was so put off by it, and being crowded when trying to think/work that i came very close to snapping.

debbie, on the other hand, told me the braids are yucky, which doesn't really surprise me.
'sides, my mom likes them : )

my mom was also super excited to see BM pictures - it was really really cool to show them to her and watch her reactions : )
my stepdad's mom also invited herself over for tonight's dinner when she heard that i'm going to be in town, and called last night to ask me about the trip.
and, i told my mom i'll be going to vegas for thanksgiving, and why, and she just nodded, without any attempt to talk me out the expense *bounce*

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my moods are starting to rollercoaster again.
i feel the SAD... both in the swings, and in the lack of support netting even when the swings are heading up.
in the spring and summer, just looking outside cheers me up. now, even thinking about the vegas trip isn't really doing it.

Comments

[iluxa.livejournal.com]

hey. i added you as a friend. hope you don't think i'm too forward - we only met once after all. ;)

i didn't go to boston today as you can imagine. how was concert? hope you enjoyed it! i had a nice day here in NY instead - saw the 14th Lama, which was rather great. and then went to the beach. oh, and i found out delirium is playing here tomorrow! so i'd say it was a good day

so i think i'm gonna go to that. but thanks for entertaining my offer to have myself driven by you to boston, it was rather generous of you, on a first meeting and all.

take care. nice meeting you. perhaps sometime again, when i'm up in boston or you're down here.

[elvendoll.livejournal.com]

hey. i added you as a friend. hope you don't think i'm too forward - we only met once after all.

heh, welcome to my ramblings : )

the show was good. the delerium singers were rather disappointing, as they had less then stellar/appropriate stage presence, but the bassist chick was way hot, hearing the music was great and just being at a concert was just what my weekend needed.

so i think i'm gonna go to that. but thanks for entertaining my offer to have myself driven by you to boston, it was rather generous of you, on a first meeting and all.

*curtsey* that falls into the evil temptress part of my personality - always there to do what i can to encourage someone to fall into temptation : )

enjoy your concert tonight, too : )

[iluxa.livejournal.com]

started reading your journal. a bit compulsively i guess. i like it. it has a nice homey feel to it. i guess you probably don't mind or even care, it is a public journal after all, but somehow i almost feel like i'm intruding - i only met you once. i hope you don't mind.

moodswings are very annoying. i guess they're partially a matter of strengh of will and perspective on time. especially in retrospect. but when you're under it, it's not very pleasant. like you said somewhere, you just feel a complete void where excitement or anticipation or something used to be. i used to contemplate mine on lj a lot when i first started it, but then it all somehow compresses together and you don't give yourself account of the individual things that are going on. but that's not good either.

listen, i guess what i'm trying to say here is that i am happy that i so unexpectedly met you - i think we talked sufficiently long that i feel like i have some measure of.. what's the word.. compassion, connection - affinity i guess, affinity and appreciation of you as a person. (a very surface one, most likely, seeing how it was only for about an hour.) but i like reading your journal as i can see a real person behind it, or at least i'm probably imagining a whole person that is likely quite different from what you really are, but it is far from reading just a random journal i find through the "random" button on the homepage. (I do that sometimes when i'm bored - can find some interesting people, in a brainless sort-of way though it is.)

that's one of the reason why livejournal doesn't seem to click so well for me. i seem to have picked up the supposedly american trait of having (almost exclusively) only people i know in real life in my friend list (at least that's what some of the russian-speaking lj users claimed). and that's because i find it troublesome to be able to connect to people over the internet. never made a single long-lasting friend through the 'net, even though i've engaged in more 'n my share of online activities - recovered from heavy mud addiction, irc, icq, all that junk way back. but anyway, bid you good night and heading off to sleep.

[elvendoll.livejournal.com]

i hope you don't mind.

nope; thank you for the compliments

that's one of the reason why livejournal doesn't seem to click so well for me. i seem to have picked up the supposedly american trait of having (almost exclusively) only people i know in real life in my friend list (at least that's what some of the russian-speaking lj users claimed). and that's because i find it troublesome to be able to connect to people over the internet. never made a single long-lasting friend through the 'net, even though i've engaged in more 'n my share of online activities - recovered from heavy mud addiction, irc, icq, all that junk way back.

thats an american trait? ...i just figured it was part of being busy
for me, it takes a lot of effort to forge an emotional connection with just online interaction, and i'm just too busy to put in that type of effort into situations that may or may not prove satisfying in the long run and have little to no desire to read the journals of people i don't know at all. sometimes, i will read the journal of someone a person i know IRL has spent time telling me about, but even then, i usually lose interest quickly.
with people i "know", though, its almost a compulsion to read.

as for mood swings, yeah, they suck.
i'm in adjustment period right now; i started a BC that gives me hormone spikes on tuesday afternoons...
SAD is a bit different from mood swings. (not sure if you know) it stands for seasonally affected depression, and starts off with swings of bad/low moods, but then lowers my overall baseline to be in a fairly negative place. there's things that i do to fight it, and i'm hoping that the contrast between now and two weeks ago is making it seem worse then it is at the moment.

[iluxa.livejournal.com]

hmm.. well, i agree with you, that's how i feel about my lj as well - for me it only really works to connect with people i already know as a way for me to keep up with a bit of their inner life. it's difficult for me to do that with people whom i don't already know. but i guess it differs with your attitiude towards lj - or more likely your level of addiction! i guess the thing about the russian/american dichotomy was more of a specific case with that person's friends, but it just so happens that the main lj friend that i have who's in russia is also way more into lj than most people i know here - so everyone from russia that i get exposed to through her is the same way. they all use lj to read poetry of people they don't know and all kinds of other random stuff and use it for inspiration and meeting people. but it doesn't seem to work for me here. would be fun to do more of that, though.

it's sometimes very calm and pleasant to read some new person's journal, see something of them, see what they create and what's important to them. and interspersed with that are little bits of someone's ordinary mundane life with its little quirks and visits to the parents and apartment problems and what not. sometimes it makes you feel connected and you remember a bit of the original wonder of finding lj and being able to connect with the lives of people all over the world.


as for SAD, you're right, i didn't know about it, and didn't realize what you meant when you capitalized it. sounds harsh to say the least, although i don't know anything about it. it's nice to see that you have a rather realistic positivist view of it, it seems. rather than be swept by your low feelings, it's very useful to understand what causes them and where they come from. like i said before, it's sometimes hard when you're under their effect, but some perspective on it is very important to keep. i hope you start to feel better. i know this is no simple matter, but perhaps you should think about moving to somewhere with a milder more level clime like (where else!) southern california. it's easy to say that of course, a person builds up a whole life where they are, but i think i can understand a hint of what you go through. everyone is affected by the weather at least a little bit, and the fall/winter seasons here can be pretty bad. no sun and cold outdoors for days on end really gets to me sometimes too, kills your desire to go anywhere and sometimes to do anything. i was thinking of moving to Washington state a while back, and one of the reasons I didn't do it is because their skies are overcast like 3/4ths of the days in the year (not quite, but their winters are pretty bad). that's pretty terrible, much worse than us - i know it would really get to me. well, feel good.

i've rambled too much about nothing again. ;)

[elvendoll.livejournal.com]

my head isn't connecting for a full-length reply right now, but...

how long has this person been on the internet? ...i find that people have such attitudes when they first start exploring the 'net, and that it fades with exposure time - for me, that took 2 years, but everyone's mileage varies.

and moving west is in my 5 year plan, but i've been hearing mixed reviews on seattle - as of right now, it is on the list of possible destinations.

[iluxa.livejournal.com]

well, let's see. i'd have to say a couple of years. her lj calendar lists Nov 2001 as first entry to LJ. But she's an ex-cs major (of sorts), so it's not like she hasn't been exposed to internet before.

I see your point, though, that's what happens to me as well, except a lot faster than 2 years even.. I was _very_ exicted when I first discovered irc way back when, and of course first IM usage, and same with LJ for a while. But it wanes with me quickly. For some reason, this person (dontwait, by the way) has really taken to lj, and I think it takes a very central part of her life. At least that's what she's told me about it. So I guess she's a bit of an anomaly rather than a common case.

As for seattle, it is a mixed-review sort of place. But it does have a damn lot of nature and trees and greenery and mountains on the horizon. And you can see a friggin horizon. That's one thing that I really liked about it - go to a neighborhood park and you'll see the whole sky above you and mountains far away. I really miss that sometimes here. (This wasn't in seattle proper, though, but about 20 mins away in the suburbs.)