I keep forgetting which time zone I’m in. I woke around 6:30 CST yesterday to get to the airport for an 11:00 flight. We got there around nine – could have waited another forty minutes very comfortably.

Plane was packed, and I was stuck in a middle seat, but I got LUCKY and the aisle passenger never showed. We were the only row with an empty seat, and it was nice to have the extra space.

We landed about twenty minutes early, which meant I didn’t have to rush, but could use the restroom before trekking to baggage claim. Clay and I had already talked. SJC has a cell phone parking area, where people can wait until their arriving folks call and say, “Got my bags, start driving.” I think this is very cool.

We went to lunch at Restaurant where he made me a yummy dry cappucino and I had ravioli con zucca, or pumpkin ravioli with a sage walnut sauce. Yummy. Unlike Pasta Pomodoro, where they use butternut squash instead of actual pumpkin, this was real, authentic, and NOT SWEET. Yay for not sweet.

Bummed around the new and improved Eastridge mall. Barnes and Noble is lovely. Bought nothing. Well. Bought a chai at the courtyard Starbucks. We talked about improv and inspiration, and such. Saw Clay’s house for the first time. Got a quick net fix. Then we drove up to Fremont for dinner at the Elephant Bar with Jeremy and Linda. Much fun, and too much food, but oh, soo good. (I had the macademia nut crusted mahi mahi, if you must know.)

Tumbled into bed at hotel around 11. Woke at five, then six, then finally gave up trying to sleep at 6:30.

Had breakfast (eggs, bacon, home fries, juice, COFFEEE) here at hotel, and am killing the last ten minutes before my ride to work arrives.

Kind of weird being in hotel literally around the corner from where I used to live. I miss this neighborhood so much. But I don’t miss the stress and the expense. Not at all.

Ta.

…but the Pedigree Adoption Drive commercials with all the pound puppies, always makes me teary.

Maybe it’s because Zorro was discarded by his original family, due to his epilepsy.

So consider this a PSA: Until there are none, adopt one, and please spay or neuter your pets.

Writers aren’t exactly people…they’re a whole lot of people trying to be one person.
— F. Scott Fitzgerald

I found the above quotation in a signature file on, of all things, a Buffy/Spike fanfic forum I was browsing in a brief period of not hiding from light and sound over the weekend. (Oh, don’t mock. I’m sure most of you have guilty pleasures that are just as silly.) It’s sort of been rattling around in my brain all day. Well, first there was a mental click, then there was rattling.

I’ve often described myself, to myself, to close friends, as having a sort of multiple personality disorder. Unlike the actual clinical variety, it’s not a case of dissociation from trauma, but a sort of rich inner landscape in which several aspects of myself interact. Maybe it’s stronger because I’m an only child, maybe it’s just a facet of being a creative type, but a side effect is that I’m rarely bored, and while there are times that I do crave the company of others, I’m generally perfectly fine on my own. With clinical MPD the eventual goal, I’m told, is integration. With me, the goal is to give each voice permission to speak, and to turn off the over-seeing editor voice while they do so.

The mental click was not quite so strong as a personal epiphany or paradigm shift, as much as a sudden key to understanding the way I process things. It explains why I read so cyclically, why I can happily dabble in dark topics like vampire lore, and then do an 180-degree shift and play with contemporary romantic comedy with just as much interest, and even why my taste in television includes not just Heroes and The Dresden Files, but also both Stargate series, and anything Star Trek-ish, as well as The West Wing, Studio 60, and House. (Or, for that matter, why my music collection includes show tunes, soul, jazz, blues, rock, pop, folk, classical, and even a smattering of country and rap.)

Here’s another writing quote I found today, this one from Francoise Sagan:

Writing is a question of finding a certain rhythm. I compare it to the rhythms of jazz. Much of the time life is a sort of rhythmic progression of three characters. If one tells oneself that life is like that, one feels it less arbitrary.

I think I’ve got a new mental portrait of my writing self – or writing selves, as the case may be. It’s a jazz combo, but as well as singing lead, I’m also playing all the instruments.

I hope the end result is more joyous chorus than jangling cacophony.

A demon named “blinding and nauseating headache” took up residence in my head mid-way through Friday night’s CSz show, and has been pounding on my brain almost constantly since then. I’m forcing fluids and taking stuff for it, but I feel pale and pathetic, and the most taxing thing I’ve been able to do today is fold some laundry and wash towels.

And battle the other kind of demon, the six-legged crawlie kind known as ants, which took over part of the kitchen and the shower this morning. I’m fairly certain I should not have been playing with RAID while my head was still pounding, but Fuzzy’s been working all day, and seeing the creatures makes my skin crawl.

I’m in one of those “curl up and cry” moods, which is just really unhealthy. Just emailed church we won’t likely be showing up for choir practice or mass tomorrow. Hopefully rest and darkness will let me feel human enough for workshop.

From The Farmer’s Almanac:

Full Snow Moon – February Since the heaviest snow usually falls during this month, native tribes of the north and east most often called February’s full Moon the Full Snow Moon. Some tribes also referred to this Moon as the Full Hunger Moon, since harsh weather conditions in their areas made hunting very difficult.

It is a bleak and damp February 1st, today, and I’ve been writing from bed all morning, unwilling to venture forth even for tea, or to shower, the latter of which I really must manage to do before the day is out. The nice thing about working from home is that I can engage in all those unhealthy writer/artist behaviors that involve sleeping when I want, writing at all hours, and stretching the limits of how often I have to wash my hair, although, as most of my friends know, I can deal with tired, hungry, cold, wet, thirsty, or having to desperately pee, but I hate not feeling clean, so my limits are much smaller, in this area, than one might think.

Tomorrow is the full moon for February, called the Snow Moon or the Hunger Moon, both references to the horrid weather that the agrarian communities in the USA generally suffer at this time of year. I find that my creativity tends to wane about now, as well, and while I don’t really have SAD issues, the bleakness tends to grate after a while. I love stormy weather, but it’s appreciated all the more when interspersed with bright sunny days.

Fuzzy’s father celebrates his birthday tomorrow. We will make the ritual phone call asking if he’s seen his shadow, which is hardly original, but is expected. There’s comfort in such familiar behaviors, they become tradition, but they also become mile-markers on the calendar of life.

My mother’s birthday is in three weeks, which means her present needs to go out before I leave for California next week, so it has time to get to her in Mexico. (I add this line as a reminder to myself.)

Today, I will shower, and drink tea, and write, and perhaps make some banana bread, if we didn’t throw away all the old bread pans. If we DID, I suppose banana muffins will be the order of the day. We shall see.

I’m out of books again, and hungry for more. Suggestions, please?