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unforthIt's been such a busy year!
This year I:
1. Finished graduate school, earning my degree in Library Science.
2. Discovered I could, sustainably, go to the gym. I went 5 days a week, rain or shine, for 3 months over the summer, and now I'm just waiting to be done moving to go back, and I'm pleased to discover that I'm really looking forward to it.
3. Wrote 3 grants myself and was lead partner on 3 others, 1 one of which would not have been finished without my help. Of these, 1 lost, 3 won, and 2 are pending.
4. Wrote an original novel. The fact that I think it's junk is nothing on the actual accomplishment. I also finished a game-based story that I had wanted to work on and finish for over a year.
5. Moved to Japan. Despite fears of failure, I packed up (with the acceptance that I couldn't stay in Bloomington forever no matter how much I might wish to) and moved to another country, just to see what happened. It went well, I might nice people, and I had an Adventure. This also has caused a marked improvement in my language skills.
6. Moved to New York. I suppose I'm still doing this, but it's all arranged so it's basically done. I decided to come back to help run the company, and even in the little time I've been here I've really seen how necessary this is. I found an apartment, celebrated the holidays, arranged to have my stuff moved.
7. Turned 25. This would have happened no matter what, I suppose, but it's still kind of a success - yay not dying?
8. Made new friends. There are a bunch of people who I've become close to over the past year who I wasn't close to before then, and it's made me really happy to have more people in my life, so thank you!
9. Conquered food. Though I still don't love all foods, obviously, and there are a few I just don't like, I've mostly overcome the last of my problems with food - which is very, very nice.
10. Saw the Changeling game through to the end. I consider this a sizeable accomplishment in that me and a small group of others developed a vision for the new world which we managed to get the entire game (minus 1) to agree to - it felt really good to be a part of something which had that big an effect on things. I also played in several other games, and felt like I was a valuable contributor.
11. Engaged in ambitious online projects. I organized all of my pictures in Flickr, entered and have nearly finished organizing all of my book on LibraryThing, and have been working steadily on a recipe database which has already been useful and I'm sure will continue to be so.
12. Took chances. One of my biggest goals this year has been to face my fears. I've launched myself at anything I'm afraid of, reminding myself that the worst that can happen really isn't terribly bad at all. This attitude is summed up by a trip to Six Flags I took in late July with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
buzzermccain. Every time I saw a ride and thought "I'm scared of that" I immediately decided to ride it. This resulted in my doing things I'd never dared doing before, and I'm glad I did because most of those rides were fun! This has gotten me to three countries in Asia, helped me with food, and generally made it easier for me to face things that I used to run away from.
13. Answered a long standing, nagging health question, by getting diagnosed with PCOS. This resolved years of worry and gave me the peace of mind of knowing that I can have children after all, a distinctly nice feeling after years of thinking I probably couldn't.
I feel like I'm missing some stuff, but I suppose that's inevitable in a list like this. Anyway, on to the down side.
This year I failed to...
1. Complete a masters in history. I decided, sometime in December or January, that I didn't care enough to bother. I still feel occasional pangs of regret on this, like that I couldn't cut it to get a "real" degree, which is a strange feeling since an MLS IS a real degree.
2. Get in to school in Boston. Rejection letter, nuff said.
3. Pursue bookbinding. It's an odd thing, really, because I truly enjoy it and I miss my job at the lab, but in a more abstract way. I guess it was the right thing, in the end, though I still want to integrate this in to my life in some fashion. I intend to try, anyway, but I guess time will tell.
4. Lose much weight. This makes me furious. I was 155 this time last year, and now I'm 160 or so, though I'm in better shape.
5. Find a boyfriend. This is pretty much entirely my own fault. My standards are too high, and I'm shy about meeting people, which is a piss poor combination for finding a boy.
6. Be as brave as I should have. I'm glad I had the courage to make some friends in Japan, but if I'd been more "out there" I know I could have done more. In particular, I should have tried to meet some natives, language practice partners, that sort of thing.
Again, I can't think of more, though I feel like I'm missing some of these, too.
In 2008, I hope to...
1. Increase my responsibilities in the company. This seems inevitable. I intend to take an Educational Statistics course, and improve my qualifications, and take an ever-increasing amount of the work on to my own shoulders, thus allowing mom more peace of mind.
2. Go to the gym. I don't see any reason this won't be possible.
3. Be good to Jonie the dog, which is to say that I want the dog to get at least an hour in a dog park every day that weather permits - which is to say that it's not pouring - too cold and too warm and I don't feel like are NOT excuses.
4. Make my apartment fabulous. Not in the flamboyant way, but I want to stay within my (currently somewhat limited) budget and still get what I need to live comfortably. I want to unpack quickly, and then tackle meeting the needs I have, and lastly to retrieve the things I left with folks in Bloomington.
5. Make new friends, and continue to reconnect with old friends. Thanks to folks advice, I probably will check out this Changeling game, though it turns out that the first session is on the same day as my move, so I won't be going to that!
6. Lose weight. Last year was very frustrating, because often times nothing I tried worked at all - I'd eat a reasonable and small amount and yet not lose weight. This year, I have some new ideas, but more than anything I'm trying to ease up on myself about it. I can approximate how much I eat without being strict, and if I do that, and go to the gym, I think I can do well enough, and not worry so much that it makes eating no fun.
7. Learn to cook. I've already started doing this, and I intend to continue. This includes experimenting with recipes, new foods, and ways of making things healthier.
8. Make ends meet. Probably easy enough, but I have a new expense to worry about ($450 per month in student loan payments for the next 10 years) and I consider it a worth while goal, to manage to live cheaply enough that I can do the things I want to, put some money in savings, and still have some fun.
9. Go to more live music. Warped Tour was just the beginning. :)
Most of my other goals (write, make things, etc.) are simply continuations of goals I've had for a long time, goals at which I'm succeeding for the most part, and so don't bear repeating. Of course I'm sure I've forgotten some, but that's fine too. ;)
Happy New Year, everyone, a day early. ;)
Part 1: Monday, December 24
Chapter 2: Willowgrove
I couldn’t say how long it took us to we drive to our destination, only that it was a bit outside of town. I was completely absorbed in the things that I saw, and Petros and the fellow seemed to have forgotten about me entirely, lost in conversation, which suited me fine. I fell against the front seat, thrown off balance, as the brakes squealed and we pulled to a stop.
The house which I had hardly noticed until we stopped now captivated me. It was a beautiful home, though I couldn’t have exactly described it. It was traditional American, and yet it was modern. It was huge and sprawling, yet it seemed appropriately sized and organized. It was surrounded by beautifully landscaped grounds, and was itself a part of that landscaping as if it had grown instead of being built. To one side, a willow – no, the willow – stood, ancient and awe-inspiring. The overall effect was simply wonderful, and as I climbed out of the car I felt a certainty that I had done the right thing in coming here, though the very small part of my brain still trying to cling to what I had been before screamed something frantically about the spider and the fly. I ignored it completely; the fact that it thought there was anything here to consider related to the spider and the fly was all I needed to know to be convinced that I had accepted the changes to my environment down to my bone – for how could a non-existent house be part of an allegorical story? My English teacher would have been proud of me.
I expected such a grand house to have a butler. Or maybe a maid. Butler’s always opened the doors of houses like this in stories, and I was feeling more and more like I’d fallen head over heels into a story. And there might have been a butler, even, but I didn’t get to find out, for the man – still acting like the cool cat on the block - swaggered up to the door and went in like he owned the place. For all I knew, he did. We followed behind him, Petros with confident curiosity, and me with increasing terror. I wasn’t afraid of the house. I wasn’t even afraid of the swaggering strange man, for all that he confused me. I was afraid of who might be inside the house, of meeting them, of having to speak with them.
Nothing ever petrified me quite like meeting new people. I was shy all of the time, and as long as I was around people who knew that I was shy, everything was fine. Usually, after knowing me a little while, people stopped trying to engage me in conversation, which, as I said, suited me fine, since I never had anything worthwhile to contribute to conversations anyway and so the exercise usually left me feeling like an idiot. However, meeting new people was different. New people always tried to engage me in conversation, to get to know me, and I always had to try to fumble through those early stages and attempt to answer their questions in such a way that wouldn’t convince them immediately that I was a complete idiot. I hated doing it, and I didn’t feel like I was any good at it, and so I generally simply attempted – in as few words as possible – to convince the person I was speaking with that they had done their duty by making the attempt, and shouldn’t they go and speak with someone else more interesting? Don’t get me wrong – I think I’m smart enough, and I have some artistic talent, and I’m a pretty good blacksmith. But blacksmithing is all I do, and I’d have to be really silly to think that anyone in the world would want to sit down and have a long talk with me about blacksmithing. Since that was pretty much the only topic where I had something interesting to say, and no one cared about it but me and my friend Andrew from school – my only real friend, my only close friend – well, it made for limited prospects in conversations with normal people. And these normal people, thankfully, generally caught on pretty quick. I’d just have to weather the initial enquiries, answer as best I could, and sooner or later they’d figure it out and leave me be. Maybe then I could go take a look at the forge that had been mentioned.
There was a hubbub of voices from inside that confirmed all my fears about having to meet people. Those fears multiplied as I trailed behind Petros and entered a massive sitting room which must have had at least 15 people in it. They all started greeted our devoted guide, who promptly forgot about us in the confusion, leaving us standing alone. No one noticed us at first, but that lasted only minutes. Petros was staring at a girl, and I followed his eyes and had to bite my tongue to keep from gasping very rudely. The girl was dressed like a total street punk, her hair had bright red streaks in it, and her mouth was terrifyingly huge and absolutely filled with huge, pointy teeth, some of which I was sure had blood on them. Indeed, her entire countenance was terrifying, not just her teeth. Petros stared openly, and I stared at my hands, clutched so tightly on the hilt of my sword that my knuckles stood out prominently and whitely.
“What’re you lookin’ at?” demanded the girl, getting in Petros’ face.
“Those are some really awesome gloves,” he answered easily, indicated the metal-studded leather gloves the girl was wearing.
“You think so?” she answered just as roughly as her initial comment.
“Fuck yeah,” answered my punk acquaintance. A friendship was born. The two of them began to converse happily, liberally interspersed with curses. I took a seat right near Petros, and tried to curl in on myself. Maybe if I took up little enough space, no one would notice me, and no one would talk to me, and I could…I didn’t know what this would enable me to do, since it wouldn’t get me access to the forge, and it wouldn’t let me leave, but I was too petrified by all the strange people to do anything else.
And, indeed, the people were very strange. There was a man easily twice my new height who was bright blue; there was another man, only a little shorter, who had furry, hooved legs. Another resembled a leprechaun except that his clothing was in no way green or festive, though there was something distinctly Irish about it nonetheless. A young girl sat very upright in a chair as if it were a throne, and her clothing certainly looked like it could have belonged to a queen right out of a fantasy movie. All those people, and everyone of them strange. I shivered slightly, and held back tears.
My fears were only amplified as two new people came in to the room. They had the same impossible mouths as the girl who was now comparing scars with Petros only a couple of feet from me, but where she was young, maybe 11 or 12, I thought, they were both adults. I had thought the girl – her name, I’d caught, was Diezel – was scary, but now I knew better. She was scary, but these two were terrifying. Worse, though, they both saw me, and they smiled at each other, and came up to me with a predatory grace.
“Fresh meat,” the man said, licking his lips with a tongue that was too pointed at the end. How it wasn’t ripped to shreds on his teeth was beyond my comprehension. Then again, anything other than quivering fear was beyond my comprehension at that moment.
“Aw, is the little boggan sca-ed?” the woman added in a mocking baby-speak.
I don’t know what would have happened next if events hadn’t suddenly taken yet a different course again. More new people arrived, and these were terrifying to me in another way. They were like the girl in her throne, except that they were to her as these two terrifying people were to Diezel – they were grown up, in their full power. There were three of them, all men. They were all stunningly attractive, their grooming immaculate, and there was an aura of such power around them that, though I was thankful that they’re very presence seemed to drive off my would-be terrorizers, I couldn’t say that I found them any better. I wanted to be anywhere else in the world.
One of the men came in to the room without hesitation and came towards me and Petros. Meanwhile, the second man took a position in front of the third and rapped his staff on the ground. He announced his fellow solemnly. The name was very long, very Russian, and all I caught of it was that he was a baron. I wasn’t sure what the rank signified, but it was all so impressive that I was sure it was important, and didn’t worry about it beyond that. Meanwhile, the first man had now sat opposite Diezel, Petros, and myself.
“What have we here?” he asked.
“Oh,” Diezel replied with a total lack of interest. “This is Petros. And this is…some boggan.”
The man laughed, and, to my horror, turned to me. “Forgive Diezel,” he said smoothly, “it’s just her way. I’m Sergei.” He held out his hand, trailing off in that way that demanded that I give my name.
“Kathryn,” I stammered, much worse than I had when I’d given it to our initial benefactor. “I’m Kathryn,” I repeated, for I had spoken so softly the first time that there was no way anyone could have heard.
He smiled encouragingly, and I wished I felt encouraged. “I gather that you and your friend are new,” he said to me kindly. “Has anyone explained to you what’s happening to you?”
I shook my head, and he tsked. “Well, I’ll do my best. Do you know what fae are?”
“Hey,” snapped Petros, “I am totally straight. Me and the ladies? We’re like awwww yeah.”
I gave him a look that shot daggers – or least would have, if I wasn’t so busy looking down. You don’t speak like that to people who like Sergei do, so well dressed and proper! Of course, I’d never speak like that at all. Sergei didn’t seem offended, though, he just chuckled. “It was not my intention to question your masculinity. Every one of us in this room is a fae, and that implies nothing about orientation – unless you’d care to question MY masculinity?”
“Naw man, we’re cool,” demurred Petros.
“I’m glad to hear that,” Sergei replied drily. “Up until now, you have lived in the Autumn World entirely. The world you now see – the Dreaming – has always been around you, but until your chrysalis – until today – you were never able to see it or interact with it. Now, it will be very difficult for you NOT to see it, and you will be obliged to interact with it, since it will surely interact with you. You need to be very careful,” he added admonishingly, “for no matter how impossible it may seem, it is very real, and very terrible things can happen if you are not careful.”
He continued to explain, but very quickly I was utterly lost. The words “dreaming,” “chrysalis,” “fae,” “sidhe,” “nightmare,” “red cap,” “chimera,” “glamour,” “banality,” and others swam about in my consciousness without any conceptual basis to latch on to. It might have all made sense if I’d had even little bit more knowledge, but all I knew about the word “fae” was that it was the same as fairies, and that fairies were either cute little winged things or something to do with Ireland. Since nothing in this room bore even the slightest similarity to Tinkerbell – except maybe the princess’ dress – I was inclined towards the second. Which didn’t help me understand at all. Thus, when he was finished talking – without a word about Ireland - and looking at Petros and me as if expecting looks of dawning understanding, all I had really understood was that I was now a fae, that today I had chrysalized, and that from now I could interact with something called the Dreaming which I had never been able to see before but had somehow still always been there. I assumed this was all the crazy, strange stuff I had seen today. I wished he would reexplain, more slowly, but Petros was nodding as if he understood everything, and I didn’t have the nerve to ask a question. I doubted any sound would come out even if I opened my mouth to try.
Clearly believing his mission of mercy, his gift of knowledge, completed, Sergei congratulated us both, expressed his desire to get to know us, shook both our hands – I couldn’t escape – and left to socialize. “So, who the fuck was that?” Petros asked Diezel.
“A Count,” answered Diezel as if a Count was something that should be impressive but that didn’t impress her at all. “You shouldn’t fuck with Sergei, he’s one scary son of a bitch. You should be careful of him.” Behind her, a boy I hadn’t noticed before snorted with laughter, and I watched Sergei’s back as he left. I could believe he was very scary. I kept in mind; it would be good to remember that no matter how nice someone seemed, they might not be.
I didn’t need a similar warning for the man who’d been announced as Baron, or his announcer. Both of them, dressed in severe black-and-gold, terrified me. Now, though, I realized they, too had noticed us, pointed our way by some members of the chattering group across the room. They both approached with purpose.
“You stand,” the announcer gave us both a sharp look, and I jumped as fast as I could to my feet. Petros rather deliberately rose slowly. I quailed at the extra sharp look this garnered. “You stand,” he continued, “before the Baron of Muses. Present yourselves, if you be citizens.”
Where was Muses? How important was a Baron? Was I supposed to bow? Was it a crime to carry a sword in front of a Baron? What would happen if we didn’t present ourselves? WERE we citizens of Muses? I tried to glance at the crowd for some sort of guidance, but none was forthcoming. Things had suddenly gotten very quiet.
“Yo,” Petros said as if this was a fine and upstanding way on introducing himself; to lend credence to this, he swept a very respectable and fine bow. “Petros here. I’m new, so sorry if I’ve offended, but it probably won’t be the last time.” There were some snickers from the crowd, but the Baron gave him an utterly cold look. This had no effect on Petros’ cockiness; he feel silent entirely because he had nothing else to say.
Which meant that now it was my turn. I felt the weight of every eye in the room. I felt faint. “Kathryn,” I whispered. I was glad I didn’t stutter. I was glad that my voice worked at all. I bowed awkwardly, realized half way through that I was a girl and should be curtsying, attempted to switch, realized it was stupid to curtsy in pants, completed the bow, and straightened back up, my eyes fixed firmly on the floor, my cheeks crimson. “My name,” my voice failed. I cleared it and tried again. “My name is Kathryn McCullin, my lord.” The Baron’s face didn’t lose it’s cold look, but his companion, his announcer, looked at me as if he’d never seen anything quite like me, and didn’t like what he saw.
“Welcome to Muses. In time, as the liege of this land, it will surely be necessary for us to converse more, but for now, this will do, Petros,” he said than name with disdane, “and Kathryn McCullin.” And with a sweep of his floor-length cloak, the Baron turned away. I crumpled in to my chair and wished I could burrow in to the pillows; Petros looked after with his nose wrinkled as if he smelled something bad.
“Now that one,” Diezel said with emphasis, but Petros stopped her.
“Fuck yeah,” he said, communicating in that special way that indicated that he knew what she was going to say and that it was best, therefore, left unsaid. I didn’t understand at all. I didn’t care to.
I didn’t even have the time to form the hope that that would be all, though, as Diezel’s friend came from the shadows next to her. He was like her – young, with a mouth utterly full of teeth. He might have scared me more if he was looking at me at all, but he wasn’t. He was looking at my sword.
“That’s a nice sword,” he said.
“Thank…thank you,” I mumbled.
“What?” he asked loudly.
“Thank you,” I whispered.
“Why? I’m not complimenting you,” he said nastily, “I’m complimenting the sword.”
“B….b…but I made the sword,” I explained, cursing the continued solidity of the couch as he turned his eyes on me.
He didn’t say anything nasty, though. Indeed, he broke in to a smile – if that’s what it was, with all those teeth, and exclaimed with all the enthusiasm of youth, “you did? Cool.” He looked at it again, then, before I could stop him, he reached out and tested the blade.
“Oh no!” I gasped as his finger came away red with blood.
“Awesome,” he laughed, licking of the blood. More came, and he said, “look, Diezel, I’m bleeding.” Apparently, judging from his tone, to crazy 12 year old children with horrible mouthfuls of teeth, bleeding was the coolest thing ever. Diezel was enthusiastic, and she tested the blade too.
“Did you really make thith?” she asked. I nodded, too freaked out by this surreal behaviour to trust myself to speak. I noticed, too, for the first time, that she had a lisp. A cute, bright, cheerful, utterly terrifying 12 year old. “Could you make me one? A cooler one?”
“Me first,” snapped her friend, “I saw it first. I want mine to have spikes on it!”
At this point, the two children began to argue enthusiastically about whether spikes or serrations or barbs made for a better sword (“better” here defined in terms involving maximum blood and guts, apparently) and though I was literally in the middle of the conversation, I was spared having to reply. Even more fortunately, Petros – perhaps noting my paralysis – threw in some comments, and the conversation moved back his way, with Diezel’s friend merely turning back to me and saying, “I’m Thangobrind. You’re gonna make me a sword,” before proceeding to demonstrate, with Diezel’s accompaniment, how their teeth could bite through all manner of things. It was too disturbing to watch.
My eyes instead flickered towards the once-again busily talking group of people. Right in the middle of it was the man whose identity I still had to learn. I watched him curiously. He seemed…exuberant. And still like a completely different person than he had before.
Thus, I was completely caught off guard as yet another person saw fit to approach me. “Did you really make that sword?” asked a man dressed in loose fitting black clothes and a half-length black cloak. Somehow, it didn’t surprise me that he had whiskers, or that I knew somehow that he was also a tiger. I was starting to think that after today nothing would ever surprise me again; I was starting to think that before today, I had never been surprised before; I was starting to dread what things I’d never even begun to imagine lay ahead of me that might yet surprise me. It was all disconcerting enough that I failed to answer the question.
“Hey,” he replied with defensive good nature, “I don’t bite. Much. Unless you want me to. The name’s Dante.” He thrust a hand toward me, and I managed to pry my own hand off of the sword enough to take it. My joints hurt, I’d been clenching my hand so hard.
“Kathryn,” I managed faintly. I was starting to get better at it. Better at saying my own name. Ha. “And yes,” I continued, just as faintly, but nonetheless surprised with myself that the words came at all. “I did make it.”
“Its good workmanship,” he replied, looking at it.
I could have ended the conversation. It was effectively over. Instead, I surprised myself yet again by asking, “who is he?”
“Who is who?”
“The man – the one who brought us here – what’s his name?”
“Now that,” Dante was laughing, “is a very good question. Want to see something funny?” I didn’t answer, but he seemed to take this as a yes. “Hey,” he called, raising his voice, “Hey Armand!”
“Yo,” answered the man – answered Armand.
“Oh, nothing.”
Armand shrugged and wandered away from the conversation he’d been in, towards a long book case. Dante was counting slowly under his breath. When he reached fifty, he raised his voice again, startling me. “Hey, Dino!” he shouted.
Armand – the man? – turned again, all suaveness dissipating, the very image of how he was when I first saw him. “Y…yes?” he asked hesitantly. No, not quite the image, he’d been talkative and forward right at the beginning; now he seemed…well, almost as shy as me. And he knew all these people!
“Oh, nothing.”
Dante counted to 50 again. “Hey!” he called when he was done, “Armand!”
“Hey,” replied the suaveness, “Dante.” He didn’t ask what was going on.
I shook my head in wonder.
“You should try it,” Dante advised with a wink, “he’ll do this all day.” To emphasize, he called, “hey, Dino!” With the same result as before.
“How juvenile,” sniffed the little princess in her throne. She herself, for all her poise, couldn’t have been older than 8 or 9. “Please, go away, you do not amuse me,” she waved a hand dismissively. Dante stared at her incredulously, shook his head, winked at me again (with a whispered, “you really should try it!”) and left. “You,” continued the princess, looking at me, “peasant. Come here.”
I stood up hesitantly and walked over to her, wondering if she was like the Baron. “Yes…my lady?” I said hesitantly, managing a slightly less pathetic curtsy.
“Highness,” she corrected me primly, “her Highness, Lucretia.”
Behind me, I could hear someone – no, two someones, and I knew who – sniggering. I blushed very red, assuming this was because I’d committed some social gaff by getting her name wrong, and I curtsied again. “Your highness,” I managed.
“Very good,” she yawned delicately. “You may go now.”
And she proceeded to ignore me entirely! I blushed again. I must have really committed an oversight by not introducing myself, for her to behave so. It was all too much. Counts, Barons, princesses, 12 year-olds-with-teeth, giant blue people, a tiger man, and Dino/Armand…Petros was laughing loudly at some course comment I’d thankfully missed. I needed to get out of there. Shouldering my sword, I ducked out of the room.
This year I:
1. Finished graduate school, earning my degree in Library Science.
2. Discovered I could, sustainably, go to the gym. I went 5 days a week, rain or shine, for 3 months over the summer, and now I'm just waiting to be done moving to go back, and I'm pleased to discover that I'm really looking forward to it.
3. Wrote 3 grants myself and was lead partner on 3 others, 1 one of which would not have been finished without my help. Of these, 1 lost, 3 won, and 2 are pending.
4. Wrote an original novel. The fact that I think it's junk is nothing on the actual accomplishment. I also finished a game-based story that I had wanted to work on and finish for over a year.
5. Moved to Japan. Despite fears of failure, I packed up (with the acceptance that I couldn't stay in Bloomington forever no matter how much I might wish to) and moved to another country, just to see what happened. It went well, I might nice people, and I had an Adventure. This also has caused a marked improvement in my language skills.
6. Moved to New York. I suppose I'm still doing this, but it's all arranged so it's basically done. I decided to come back to help run the company, and even in the little time I've been here I've really seen how necessary this is. I found an apartment, celebrated the holidays, arranged to have my stuff moved.
7. Turned 25. This would have happened no matter what, I suppose, but it's still kind of a success - yay not dying?
8. Made new friends. There are a bunch of people who I've become close to over the past year who I wasn't close to before then, and it's made me really happy to have more people in my life, so thank you!
9. Conquered food. Though I still don't love all foods, obviously, and there are a few I just don't like, I've mostly overcome the last of my problems with food - which is very, very nice.
10. Saw the Changeling game through to the end. I consider this a sizeable accomplishment in that me and a small group of others developed a vision for the new world which we managed to get the entire game (minus 1) to agree to - it felt really good to be a part of something which had that big an effect on things. I also played in several other games, and felt like I was a valuable contributor.
11. Engaged in ambitious online projects. I organized all of my pictures in Flickr, entered and have nearly finished organizing all of my book on LibraryThing, and have been working steadily on a recipe database which has already been useful and I'm sure will continue to be so.
12. Took chances. One of my biggest goals this year has been to face my fears. I've launched myself at anything I'm afraid of, reminding myself that the worst that can happen really isn't terribly bad at all. This attitude is summed up by a trip to Six Flags I took in late July with
buzzermccain. Every time I saw a ride and thought "I'm scared of that" I immediately decided to ride it. This resulted in my doing things I'd never dared doing before, and I'm glad I did because most of those rides were fun! This has gotten me to three countries in Asia, helped me with food, and generally made it easier for me to face things that I used to run away from.13. Answered a long standing, nagging health question, by getting diagnosed with PCOS. This resolved years of worry and gave me the peace of mind of knowing that I can have children after all, a distinctly nice feeling after years of thinking I probably couldn't.
I feel like I'm missing some stuff, but I suppose that's inevitable in a list like this. Anyway, on to the down side.
This year I failed to...
1. Complete a masters in history. I decided, sometime in December or January, that I didn't care enough to bother. I still feel occasional pangs of regret on this, like that I couldn't cut it to get a "real" degree, which is a strange feeling since an MLS IS a real degree.
2. Get in to school in Boston. Rejection letter, nuff said.
3. Pursue bookbinding. It's an odd thing, really, because I truly enjoy it and I miss my job at the lab, but in a more abstract way. I guess it was the right thing, in the end, though I still want to integrate this in to my life in some fashion. I intend to try, anyway, but I guess time will tell.
4. Lose much weight. This makes me furious. I was 155 this time last year, and now I'm 160 or so, though I'm in better shape.
5. Find a boyfriend. This is pretty much entirely my own fault. My standards are too high, and I'm shy about meeting people, which is a piss poor combination for finding a boy.
6. Be as brave as I should have. I'm glad I had the courage to make some friends in Japan, but if I'd been more "out there" I know I could have done more. In particular, I should have tried to meet some natives, language practice partners, that sort of thing.
Again, I can't think of more, though I feel like I'm missing some of these, too.
In 2008, I hope to...
1. Increase my responsibilities in the company. This seems inevitable. I intend to take an Educational Statistics course, and improve my qualifications, and take an ever-increasing amount of the work on to my own shoulders, thus allowing mom more peace of mind.
2. Go to the gym. I don't see any reason this won't be possible.
3. Be good to Jonie the dog, which is to say that I want the dog to get at least an hour in a dog park every day that weather permits - which is to say that it's not pouring - too cold and too warm and I don't feel like are NOT excuses.
4. Make my apartment fabulous. Not in the flamboyant way, but I want to stay within my (currently somewhat limited) budget and still get what I need to live comfortably. I want to unpack quickly, and then tackle meeting the needs I have, and lastly to retrieve the things I left with folks in Bloomington.
5. Make new friends, and continue to reconnect with old friends. Thanks to folks advice, I probably will check out this Changeling game, though it turns out that the first session is on the same day as my move, so I won't be going to that!
6. Lose weight. Last year was very frustrating, because often times nothing I tried worked at all - I'd eat a reasonable and small amount and yet not lose weight. This year, I have some new ideas, but more than anything I'm trying to ease up on myself about it. I can approximate how much I eat without being strict, and if I do that, and go to the gym, I think I can do well enough, and not worry so much that it makes eating no fun.
7. Learn to cook. I've already started doing this, and I intend to continue. This includes experimenting with recipes, new foods, and ways of making things healthier.
8. Make ends meet. Probably easy enough, but I have a new expense to worry about ($450 per month in student loan payments for the next 10 years) and I consider it a worth while goal, to manage to live cheaply enough that I can do the things I want to, put some money in savings, and still have some fun.
9. Go to more live music. Warped Tour was just the beginning. :)
Most of my other goals (write, make things, etc.) are simply continuations of goals I've had for a long time, goals at which I'm succeeding for the most part, and so don't bear repeating. Of course I'm sure I've forgotten some, but that's fine too. ;)
Happy New Year, everyone, a day early. ;)
Part 1: Monday, December 24
Chapter 2: Willowgrove
I couldn’t say how long it took us to we drive to our destination, only that it was a bit outside of town. I was completely absorbed in the things that I saw, and Petros and the fellow seemed to have forgotten about me entirely, lost in conversation, which suited me fine. I fell against the front seat, thrown off balance, as the brakes squealed and we pulled to a stop.
The house which I had hardly noticed until we stopped now captivated me. It was a beautiful home, though I couldn’t have exactly described it. It was traditional American, and yet it was modern. It was huge and sprawling, yet it seemed appropriately sized and organized. It was surrounded by beautifully landscaped grounds, and was itself a part of that landscaping as if it had grown instead of being built. To one side, a willow – no, the willow – stood, ancient and awe-inspiring. The overall effect was simply wonderful, and as I climbed out of the car I felt a certainty that I had done the right thing in coming here, though the very small part of my brain still trying to cling to what I had been before screamed something frantically about the spider and the fly. I ignored it completely; the fact that it thought there was anything here to consider related to the spider and the fly was all I needed to know to be convinced that I had accepted the changes to my environment down to my bone – for how could a non-existent house be part of an allegorical story? My English teacher would have been proud of me.
I expected such a grand house to have a butler. Or maybe a maid. Butler’s always opened the doors of houses like this in stories, and I was feeling more and more like I’d fallen head over heels into a story. And there might have been a butler, even, but I didn’t get to find out, for the man – still acting like the cool cat on the block - swaggered up to the door and went in like he owned the place. For all I knew, he did. We followed behind him, Petros with confident curiosity, and me with increasing terror. I wasn’t afraid of the house. I wasn’t even afraid of the swaggering strange man, for all that he confused me. I was afraid of who might be inside the house, of meeting them, of having to speak with them.
Nothing ever petrified me quite like meeting new people. I was shy all of the time, and as long as I was around people who knew that I was shy, everything was fine. Usually, after knowing me a little while, people stopped trying to engage me in conversation, which, as I said, suited me fine, since I never had anything worthwhile to contribute to conversations anyway and so the exercise usually left me feeling like an idiot. However, meeting new people was different. New people always tried to engage me in conversation, to get to know me, and I always had to try to fumble through those early stages and attempt to answer their questions in such a way that wouldn’t convince them immediately that I was a complete idiot. I hated doing it, and I didn’t feel like I was any good at it, and so I generally simply attempted – in as few words as possible – to convince the person I was speaking with that they had done their duty by making the attempt, and shouldn’t they go and speak with someone else more interesting? Don’t get me wrong – I think I’m smart enough, and I have some artistic talent, and I’m a pretty good blacksmith. But blacksmithing is all I do, and I’d have to be really silly to think that anyone in the world would want to sit down and have a long talk with me about blacksmithing. Since that was pretty much the only topic where I had something interesting to say, and no one cared about it but me and my friend Andrew from school – my only real friend, my only close friend – well, it made for limited prospects in conversations with normal people. And these normal people, thankfully, generally caught on pretty quick. I’d just have to weather the initial enquiries, answer as best I could, and sooner or later they’d figure it out and leave me be. Maybe then I could go take a look at the forge that had been mentioned.
There was a hubbub of voices from inside that confirmed all my fears about having to meet people. Those fears multiplied as I trailed behind Petros and entered a massive sitting room which must have had at least 15 people in it. They all started greeted our devoted guide, who promptly forgot about us in the confusion, leaving us standing alone. No one noticed us at first, but that lasted only minutes. Petros was staring at a girl, and I followed his eyes and had to bite my tongue to keep from gasping very rudely. The girl was dressed like a total street punk, her hair had bright red streaks in it, and her mouth was terrifyingly huge and absolutely filled with huge, pointy teeth, some of which I was sure had blood on them. Indeed, her entire countenance was terrifying, not just her teeth. Petros stared openly, and I stared at my hands, clutched so tightly on the hilt of my sword that my knuckles stood out prominently and whitely.
“What’re you lookin’ at?” demanded the girl, getting in Petros’ face.
“Those are some really awesome gloves,” he answered easily, indicated the metal-studded leather gloves the girl was wearing.
“You think so?” she answered just as roughly as her initial comment.
“Fuck yeah,” answered my punk acquaintance. A friendship was born. The two of them began to converse happily, liberally interspersed with curses. I took a seat right near Petros, and tried to curl in on myself. Maybe if I took up little enough space, no one would notice me, and no one would talk to me, and I could…I didn’t know what this would enable me to do, since it wouldn’t get me access to the forge, and it wouldn’t let me leave, but I was too petrified by all the strange people to do anything else.
And, indeed, the people were very strange. There was a man easily twice my new height who was bright blue; there was another man, only a little shorter, who had furry, hooved legs. Another resembled a leprechaun except that his clothing was in no way green or festive, though there was something distinctly Irish about it nonetheless. A young girl sat very upright in a chair as if it were a throne, and her clothing certainly looked like it could have belonged to a queen right out of a fantasy movie. All those people, and everyone of them strange. I shivered slightly, and held back tears.
My fears were only amplified as two new people came in to the room. They had the same impossible mouths as the girl who was now comparing scars with Petros only a couple of feet from me, but where she was young, maybe 11 or 12, I thought, they were both adults. I had thought the girl – her name, I’d caught, was Diezel – was scary, but now I knew better. She was scary, but these two were terrifying. Worse, though, they both saw me, and they smiled at each other, and came up to me with a predatory grace.
“Fresh meat,” the man said, licking his lips with a tongue that was too pointed at the end. How it wasn’t ripped to shreds on his teeth was beyond my comprehension. Then again, anything other than quivering fear was beyond my comprehension at that moment.
“Aw, is the little boggan sca-ed?” the woman added in a mocking baby-speak.
I don’t know what would have happened next if events hadn’t suddenly taken yet a different course again. More new people arrived, and these were terrifying to me in another way. They were like the girl in her throne, except that they were to her as these two terrifying people were to Diezel – they were grown up, in their full power. There were three of them, all men. They were all stunningly attractive, their grooming immaculate, and there was an aura of such power around them that, though I was thankful that they’re very presence seemed to drive off my would-be terrorizers, I couldn’t say that I found them any better. I wanted to be anywhere else in the world.
One of the men came in to the room without hesitation and came towards me and Petros. Meanwhile, the second man took a position in front of the third and rapped his staff on the ground. He announced his fellow solemnly. The name was very long, very Russian, and all I caught of it was that he was a baron. I wasn’t sure what the rank signified, but it was all so impressive that I was sure it was important, and didn’t worry about it beyond that. Meanwhile, the first man had now sat opposite Diezel, Petros, and myself.
“What have we here?” he asked.
“Oh,” Diezel replied with a total lack of interest. “This is Petros. And this is…some boggan.”
The man laughed, and, to my horror, turned to me. “Forgive Diezel,” he said smoothly, “it’s just her way. I’m Sergei.” He held out his hand, trailing off in that way that demanded that I give my name.
“Kathryn,” I stammered, much worse than I had when I’d given it to our initial benefactor. “I’m Kathryn,” I repeated, for I had spoken so softly the first time that there was no way anyone could have heard.
He smiled encouragingly, and I wished I felt encouraged. “I gather that you and your friend are new,” he said to me kindly. “Has anyone explained to you what’s happening to you?”
I shook my head, and he tsked. “Well, I’ll do my best. Do you know what fae are?”
“Hey,” snapped Petros, “I am totally straight. Me and the ladies? We’re like awwww yeah.”
I gave him a look that shot daggers – or least would have, if I wasn’t so busy looking down. You don’t speak like that to people who like Sergei do, so well dressed and proper! Of course, I’d never speak like that at all. Sergei didn’t seem offended, though, he just chuckled. “It was not my intention to question your masculinity. Every one of us in this room is a fae, and that implies nothing about orientation – unless you’d care to question MY masculinity?”
“Naw man, we’re cool,” demurred Petros.
“I’m glad to hear that,” Sergei replied drily. “Up until now, you have lived in the Autumn World entirely. The world you now see – the Dreaming – has always been around you, but until your chrysalis – until today – you were never able to see it or interact with it. Now, it will be very difficult for you NOT to see it, and you will be obliged to interact with it, since it will surely interact with you. You need to be very careful,” he added admonishingly, “for no matter how impossible it may seem, it is very real, and very terrible things can happen if you are not careful.”
He continued to explain, but very quickly I was utterly lost. The words “dreaming,” “chrysalis,” “fae,” “sidhe,” “nightmare,” “red cap,” “chimera,” “glamour,” “banality,” and others swam about in my consciousness without any conceptual basis to latch on to. It might have all made sense if I’d had even little bit more knowledge, but all I knew about the word “fae” was that it was the same as fairies, and that fairies were either cute little winged things or something to do with Ireland. Since nothing in this room bore even the slightest similarity to Tinkerbell – except maybe the princess’ dress – I was inclined towards the second. Which didn’t help me understand at all. Thus, when he was finished talking – without a word about Ireland - and looking at Petros and me as if expecting looks of dawning understanding, all I had really understood was that I was now a fae, that today I had chrysalized, and that from now I could interact with something called the Dreaming which I had never been able to see before but had somehow still always been there. I assumed this was all the crazy, strange stuff I had seen today. I wished he would reexplain, more slowly, but Petros was nodding as if he understood everything, and I didn’t have the nerve to ask a question. I doubted any sound would come out even if I opened my mouth to try.
Clearly believing his mission of mercy, his gift of knowledge, completed, Sergei congratulated us both, expressed his desire to get to know us, shook both our hands – I couldn’t escape – and left to socialize. “So, who the fuck was that?” Petros asked Diezel.
“A Count,” answered Diezel as if a Count was something that should be impressive but that didn’t impress her at all. “You shouldn’t fuck with Sergei, he’s one scary son of a bitch. You should be careful of him.” Behind her, a boy I hadn’t noticed before snorted with laughter, and I watched Sergei’s back as he left. I could believe he was very scary. I kept in mind; it would be good to remember that no matter how nice someone seemed, they might not be.
I didn’t need a similar warning for the man who’d been announced as Baron, or his announcer. Both of them, dressed in severe black-and-gold, terrified me. Now, though, I realized they, too had noticed us, pointed our way by some members of the chattering group across the room. They both approached with purpose.
“You stand,” the announcer gave us both a sharp look, and I jumped as fast as I could to my feet. Petros rather deliberately rose slowly. I quailed at the extra sharp look this garnered. “You stand,” he continued, “before the Baron of Muses. Present yourselves, if you be citizens.”
Where was Muses? How important was a Baron? Was I supposed to bow? Was it a crime to carry a sword in front of a Baron? What would happen if we didn’t present ourselves? WERE we citizens of Muses? I tried to glance at the crowd for some sort of guidance, but none was forthcoming. Things had suddenly gotten very quiet.
“Yo,” Petros said as if this was a fine and upstanding way on introducing himself; to lend credence to this, he swept a very respectable and fine bow. “Petros here. I’m new, so sorry if I’ve offended, but it probably won’t be the last time.” There were some snickers from the crowd, but the Baron gave him an utterly cold look. This had no effect on Petros’ cockiness; he feel silent entirely because he had nothing else to say.
Which meant that now it was my turn. I felt the weight of every eye in the room. I felt faint. “Kathryn,” I whispered. I was glad I didn’t stutter. I was glad that my voice worked at all. I bowed awkwardly, realized half way through that I was a girl and should be curtsying, attempted to switch, realized it was stupid to curtsy in pants, completed the bow, and straightened back up, my eyes fixed firmly on the floor, my cheeks crimson. “My name,” my voice failed. I cleared it and tried again. “My name is Kathryn McCullin, my lord.” The Baron’s face didn’t lose it’s cold look, but his companion, his announcer, looked at me as if he’d never seen anything quite like me, and didn’t like what he saw.
“Welcome to Muses. In time, as the liege of this land, it will surely be necessary for us to converse more, but for now, this will do, Petros,” he said than name with disdane, “and Kathryn McCullin.” And with a sweep of his floor-length cloak, the Baron turned away. I crumpled in to my chair and wished I could burrow in to the pillows; Petros looked after with his nose wrinkled as if he smelled something bad.
“Now that one,” Diezel said with emphasis, but Petros stopped her.
“Fuck yeah,” he said, communicating in that special way that indicated that he knew what she was going to say and that it was best, therefore, left unsaid. I didn’t understand at all. I didn’t care to.
I didn’t even have the time to form the hope that that would be all, though, as Diezel’s friend came from the shadows next to her. He was like her – young, with a mouth utterly full of teeth. He might have scared me more if he was looking at me at all, but he wasn’t. He was looking at my sword.
“That’s a nice sword,” he said.
“Thank…thank you,” I mumbled.
“What?” he asked loudly.
“Thank you,” I whispered.
“Why? I’m not complimenting you,” he said nastily, “I’m complimenting the sword.”
“B….b…but I made the sword,” I explained, cursing the continued solidity of the couch as he turned his eyes on me.
He didn’t say anything nasty, though. Indeed, he broke in to a smile – if that’s what it was, with all those teeth, and exclaimed with all the enthusiasm of youth, “you did? Cool.” He looked at it again, then, before I could stop him, he reached out and tested the blade.
“Oh no!” I gasped as his finger came away red with blood.
“Awesome,” he laughed, licking of the blood. More came, and he said, “look, Diezel, I’m bleeding.” Apparently, judging from his tone, to crazy 12 year old children with horrible mouthfuls of teeth, bleeding was the coolest thing ever. Diezel was enthusiastic, and she tested the blade too.
“Did you really make thith?” she asked. I nodded, too freaked out by this surreal behaviour to trust myself to speak. I noticed, too, for the first time, that she had a lisp. A cute, bright, cheerful, utterly terrifying 12 year old. “Could you make me one? A cooler one?”
“Me first,” snapped her friend, “I saw it first. I want mine to have spikes on it!”
At this point, the two children began to argue enthusiastically about whether spikes or serrations or barbs made for a better sword (“better” here defined in terms involving maximum blood and guts, apparently) and though I was literally in the middle of the conversation, I was spared having to reply. Even more fortunately, Petros – perhaps noting my paralysis – threw in some comments, and the conversation moved back his way, with Diezel’s friend merely turning back to me and saying, “I’m Thangobrind. You’re gonna make me a sword,” before proceeding to demonstrate, with Diezel’s accompaniment, how their teeth could bite through all manner of things. It was too disturbing to watch.
My eyes instead flickered towards the once-again busily talking group of people. Right in the middle of it was the man whose identity I still had to learn. I watched him curiously. He seemed…exuberant. And still like a completely different person than he had before.
Thus, I was completely caught off guard as yet another person saw fit to approach me. “Did you really make that sword?” asked a man dressed in loose fitting black clothes and a half-length black cloak. Somehow, it didn’t surprise me that he had whiskers, or that I knew somehow that he was also a tiger. I was starting to think that after today nothing would ever surprise me again; I was starting to think that before today, I had never been surprised before; I was starting to dread what things I’d never even begun to imagine lay ahead of me that might yet surprise me. It was all disconcerting enough that I failed to answer the question.
“Hey,” he replied with defensive good nature, “I don’t bite. Much. Unless you want me to. The name’s Dante.” He thrust a hand toward me, and I managed to pry my own hand off of the sword enough to take it. My joints hurt, I’d been clenching my hand so hard.
“Kathryn,” I managed faintly. I was starting to get better at it. Better at saying my own name. Ha. “And yes,” I continued, just as faintly, but nonetheless surprised with myself that the words came at all. “I did make it.”
“Its good workmanship,” he replied, looking at it.
I could have ended the conversation. It was effectively over. Instead, I surprised myself yet again by asking, “who is he?”
“Who is who?”
“The man – the one who brought us here – what’s his name?”
“Now that,” Dante was laughing, “is a very good question. Want to see something funny?” I didn’t answer, but he seemed to take this as a yes. “Hey,” he called, raising his voice, “Hey Armand!”
“Yo,” answered the man – answered Armand.
“Oh, nothing.”
Armand shrugged and wandered away from the conversation he’d been in, towards a long book case. Dante was counting slowly under his breath. When he reached fifty, he raised his voice again, startling me. “Hey, Dino!” he shouted.
Armand – the man? – turned again, all suaveness dissipating, the very image of how he was when I first saw him. “Y…yes?” he asked hesitantly. No, not quite the image, he’d been talkative and forward right at the beginning; now he seemed…well, almost as shy as me. And he knew all these people!
“Oh, nothing.”
Dante counted to 50 again. “Hey!” he called when he was done, “Armand!”
“Hey,” replied the suaveness, “Dante.” He didn’t ask what was going on.
I shook my head in wonder.
“You should try it,” Dante advised with a wink, “he’ll do this all day.” To emphasize, he called, “hey, Dino!” With the same result as before.
“How juvenile,” sniffed the little princess in her throne. She herself, for all her poise, couldn’t have been older than 8 or 9. “Please, go away, you do not amuse me,” she waved a hand dismissively. Dante stared at her incredulously, shook his head, winked at me again (with a whispered, “you really should try it!”) and left. “You,” continued the princess, looking at me, “peasant. Come here.”
I stood up hesitantly and walked over to her, wondering if she was like the Baron. “Yes…my lady?” I said hesitantly, managing a slightly less pathetic curtsy.
“Highness,” she corrected me primly, “her Highness, Lucretia.”
Behind me, I could hear someone – no, two someones, and I knew who – sniggering. I blushed very red, assuming this was because I’d committed some social gaff by getting her name wrong, and I curtsied again. “Your highness,” I managed.
“Very good,” she yawned delicately. “You may go now.”
And she proceeded to ignore me entirely! I blushed again. I must have really committed an oversight by not introducing myself, for her to behave so. It was all too much. Counts, Barons, princesses, 12 year-olds-with-teeth, giant blue people, a tiger man, and Dino/Armand…Petros was laughing loudly at some course comment I’d thankfully missed. I needed to get out of there. Shouldering my sword, I ducked out of the room.
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Date: 2007-12-31 10:18 pm (UTC)I am thinking of going to NY sometime for a mini-vacation. Would you want to get together or something if I do? If I don't get this interview in Alaska, I have decided I am still going to a few days off to just get out of town.
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Date: 2007-12-31 11:17 pm (UTC)If you come to NYC, definitely be in touch! Do you have a place to stay? I can offer couches, if you don't mind my dog - I can keep her with me, though. Would your husband be coming with you? Failing that, though, we certainly should meet up!! I hope you do get to go to Alaska, though, even if you don't end up working there.