Candide, Or, Optimism

Today we celebrate the death of the dark and the (re)birth of the light.  Today is the darkest and shortest day of the year.  From here the days become lighter and longer.

Well, that's one of the reasons Winter Solstice was a religious holiday in ancient days.  It's also the main reason that Christmas is celebrated now rather than in Spring where it almost certainly belongs (Shepherds don't spend their nights keeping an eye on their flocks during the cold Winter.  Both shepherds and flocks would be inside where it's warmer.).  I'll skip the lecture on the co-opting of Christianity Winter Solstice both for its symbolism of the Birth of Light (Jesus) as well as for letting converts continue to have a holiday  converting people who celebrated today as a religious holiday by letting them keep their holiday under a different name...

As for me, I celebrate it not as a holiday but because I just hate dark days.  So, I wish all of you a very Happy Winter Solstice!

Rather than complain about how crappy I'm feeling about things right now, I figured I'd curse everyone with yet another one of my frequent quiz-takings.  Colour me unsurprised by my results.

Your Aura is Blue

Spiritual and calm, you tend to live a quiet but enriching life. You are very giving of yourself. And it's hard for you to let go of relationships. The purpose of your life: showing love to other people Famous blues include: Angelina Jolie, the Dali Lama, Oprah Careers for you to try: Psychic, Peace Corps Volunteer, Counselor

I no longer live in Raleigh.  To understate, I am not happy to leave Raleigh and North Carolina, where I've lived for over a decade now.  It's my home.  Tomorrow afternoon all my things will be on their way to Virginia.  After staying a few weeks at a friend's place, I will move into an, ugh, apartment in Blacksburg.  At least I will have a place to live.  Some day I will feel like I have a home again. I just wish it were already true.

Obviously I was more exhausted than I thought.  Since my mind/body/whatever demands I get enough dreams when I actually do sleep, I woke up today at 3PM!  Yeesh.  Oh, well, at least it was dreaming and not nightmares.  The one right before I woke up had to do with figuring out which '70's-era terminal wires plugged into which connections so that users, including my dad, would be connected to the right mainframe.  Bizarre, yes, but oddly refreshing.

So, high-ho, high-ho, it's off to Blacksburg I go as soon as I finish playing with LiveJournal.  Two days of home-hunting missed out on and driving a twisty, mountain road in the dark.  Not a problem for me, but means the other drivers are more likely to be even more idiotic and/or dangerous.  Whee.  But that's life when moving from the big city to the small town.  At least I still get a day, maybe two, in of looking at places and dealing with the inanities that develop when people are used to renting to young college kids instead of actual adults.  OK, I admit to looking forward to the possible fun of dealing with places that don't seem to understand that Income and Employment are not synonymous terms.  I do so enjoy the expression of people who just don't understand simple concepts.

Well, we'll see what, if anything, comes out of all this.  Of course, my cat is being petulant about me leaving, as usual.  Wouldn't want this whole exercise to be any more fun than it already is.

As some of you may or may not know there has been a very recent question of whether or not I'd be able to move back to Blacksburg in the recent near immediate future.  Things have changed again, as they have a tendency to do a lot and often for me, and so it looks like I'll be able to move back as soon as:

1)  I actually have a place to move into and therefore live (whether in Blacksburg, my preference, or nearby enough like Christiansburg so people don't bit..., ehr, complain that I'm forever away.  (The whole concept of just what is nearby continues to amuse me after living in a metropolitan area for over a decade!)
2)  All my stuff is packed up and ready to move, which should occur later this coming week.

So, again, I beg of anyone in the Blacksburg/near-Blacksburg area for suggestions of where to or not to live.

Hanging with snidegrrl:  snidegrrl was incredibly cool and kind to take off the day from work to spend time with me.  Started off the day by finding out that she had spontaneously produced a year-old baby during the night!  OK, so it was really her boss' baby who was so well-behaved and entertaining that it was fun to have her around.  I admit to a very brief moment of thinking it would be cool to have one before sanity reasserted itself.  snidegrrl showed me a 1974 (I think) Genesis concert such that I'm now probably going to end up a raving Genesis loony, at least as far as the Peter Gabriel years.  Not only were their songs the kind with lyrics that actually tell a story, but Peter's costumes and theatricality really appealed to me since I grew up in theatre.  Need to work on getting a working time machine so I can actually attend their concerts (among other things)...

Anyway, I won't bore people more with us talking more about common passions, interests, and all that.  We finally realised lunch was a good idea and so, with me showing my usual decisiveness, went off to eat at Don Pablo's.  Our poor, incompetent waitress was on her third day so snidegrrl had a bit of a challenge getting her food, but the waitress was so apologetic and obviously trying hard that I couldn't be upset with her.  During lunch we realised that if I was going to not end up parked on the Beltway driving home, I had to leave right afterwards.  So, after getting the bill mostly straightened out, we went back to her place, I grabbed my stuff and left firmly setting it in my head that I need to make sure to have a guest room a nice bed so I get to see snidegrrl (and other distant friends) more often.

Driving Home:  Wasn't too bad.  Only had to completely stop on the Beltway and I-95 10 times and only for about 5 minutes altogether.  We'll just ignore the many more times we slowed down to under 20mph for no good reason.  I kept enviously looking over at the HOV lane.  To make a dangerous trip short, I managed to not crash the car from being exhausted (Been sleeping poorly for months so 2 good nights didn't really help much).  Driving I-85S was the biggest challenge since until about Butner, North Carolina all you see is your direction of the road with thick, tall pine trees on both sides of the road.  Fortunately I located one of my eclectic upbeat driving tapes that let me survive it.  After the 5 hours to get home (for a total of about 15 hours of driving in three days) and completely exhausted I still had trouble falling asleep!  But at least I dreamed well once I did.

Quick Summation:  I had a blast, enjoyed seeing everyone, wished I could have seen them more, and everyone helped me feel a lot better than I've been feeling.  Now for my next trick, I'll move to Blacksburg with no effort.  Heh.