A new month! That seems very exciting somehow. And Marith reminded me of The Speckless Sky, one of my favourite Jane Siberry albums, and now I desperately want to listen to it. No can do, however, so I'm trying Robert Miles -- and not even the Robert Miles CD I meant to listen to (it wasn't in its case! I think it's still in the CD player at home), but the other of his I have (23am) which I may have to give up on shortly because all the whispery voices are screwing with my head. And it doesn't help that I've been reading survivor websites for the last hour either, not at all. How do I get myself into these places? You'd think I'd know better by now than to read that stuff at work.

Okay, no, definitely no 23am when I'm feeling triggery. How about Cyndi Lauper? I'll give Hat Full of Stars a try. Yah, this is good stuff. I bought a 3-CD set of her stuff at Tower on sale a year or so ago, and I *so* do not regret it. It's good stuff.

Why do I smell citrus? Grapefruit, I think, or maybe orange. Is this a sign I should go get a can of no-lemon-juice-added lemonade? I think so.

I now have Country Time Lemonade in a can. The citrus smell seems to have faded while I was gone, but I thank it for helping me notice my thirst. It's nice to interact with the environment like that, and for me it happens so often. This is why I like Nicola Griffith's writing; all of her characters are so very sensual, in touch with their senses, in touch with the world. I have days like that, sometimes, although not very often -- and when I do it's not even precisely the Griffith sensuality, but rather days in which things stand for other things. Oh, how can I explain this?

I call them my shoujo days, because shoujo manga & anime is so filled with environmental symbolism -- rain when people break up, cherry petals for sadness or beauty, birds flying... I'm sure one could write a very nice paper or ten about it. I don't have these days very often, but when I do they're marvelous; everything is so much more real than it usually is, and things mean something, but at the same time I know it's really all in my head and so there's an incredible sense of safety to it, intensity of meaning turned playful, a palette of colours to brighten the world with and then put away when I'm done. I had one of these last week, when I walked to lunch with David and Lee and we talked about koi, both fish and love, and then after eating Lee had us walk back a different way, taking us by a small Japanese garden between two office buildings; a small stream running between rocks and plants, with a few little waterfalls and in the center a pond with a wooden bridge over it, and dozens and dozens of koi swimming happily around. It was just so beautiful, and I really felt it all, the sunlight warm on my skin and the wood of the bridge sunwarmed against my back and the koi all orange and white under the sparkling water... I have this so understanding and feeling of beauty so rarely, I always cherish it when it comes.

After all that I hate to turn prosaic, but the build is still broken, so I can't do any work, and David just went home, which surely indicates I ought to do the same. I can play Asheron's Call (this very mud-like online game that Gretchen got me hooked on) while I'm waiting for Jim to come home, and it's been raining all day so the plants should be watered. Maybe I'll try some of the orchid oolong tea, to see how I spent my money.

I'm trying, again, to catch up on Liralen's journal. She lives like my shoujo days, I think -- or at least reading her journal is like living one of my shoujo days in abstract. Which is why her entries are always so inspiring and sometimes so unbearably much to read.