( Fun stuff, weird stuff, and sad stuff - yep, 's been a weekend in the Starfireverse )

Tags: 'dite, 100-book challenge, attitude, books, goodbyes, growth, movies

John Scalzi - a gentleman whose writing I have huge amounts of respect for - wrote this column to mark the fact that the State of California started issuing same-sex marriage licences this week (w00t!)

The comments he makes are every bit as relevant to couples who are getting married / civilly unionated who are straight as they are to those who are gay (and there are at least 3 - possibly 4 - of you lot - straight and gay couples - on my flist that I can think of at the moment).

So seriously. Go. Read the man. He knows whereof he speaks! Also, he has made me sniffle happily and soppily while reading the column, and given the funk I've been in about the BCoD, this is no mean feat.

Hugs (and congratulations - I know I've already said it once, but it doesn't hurt to say it again!)


starfire

Tags: 'dite, weddings
Current Mood: soppy

This post came through my RSS feed today. It's a roundup of specific, conscious techniques that can be used to help turn around a negative mindstate. And since I've noticed quite a few folks on my flist have been having a tough time emotionally recently (as well as because this kind of thing interests me generally), I wanted to link to it.

Just a wee word of note - especially for any flistmates dealing with clinical depression. Just because any of these techniques *can* work on a given emotional state doesn't mean they will work for a specific person at a specific time. There is no 'should' about any of them - but one or more may be worth trialling if you're ever looking for actual techniques to experiment with in the moment.

I know that the hardest thing (for me anyway) when I'm feeling angry or frustrated or ugly or useless or self-hating or just generally not-good-enough in whatever way it strikes me at the time, is actually remembering, in the moment, that I have any kind of option or power whatsoever in the matter.  Just because I have a library of techniques that may help me doesn't mean I have the energy or presence of mind to actually *use* them when I need them.  Also, (again, for me), states sometimes go away on their own, so it's entirely possible that when I think a technique has worked, the mere fact that I'd rebalanced enough to remember to try it just  means I was on my way back up anyway, and it would have sorted itself out on its own.

That being said, I'm still a fan of sharing knowledge I come across in the hope that *someone* out there might find it useful, so in that spirit... here be the article. 

Tags: 'dite, balance, mindfulness, self-knowledge
Current Mood: tired

For today, the website - that project I've been working on fairly solidly for the past 3 months (and on-and-off for three months before that) is now done. Almost completely.

I have now handed it over to allova with instructions to try to break it - or at least to find any dead links, links that go to places they shouldn't, bad descriptions of links, and of course, the all important spelling mistakes and sentences that no longer make sense.

*blinks*

Seriously... I cannot believe the damn thing is within coo-ee of being finished. My brain is finding this way too difficult to comprehend. Of course, being a website, it's never *truly* finished. There'll be constant ongoing maintenance and stuff, and I'm relatively certain I'll be responsible for it... which I'm all good with. But the actual creation of it will be over, and I'll have actually completed a frakking project in this job. Happy Starfire iz *Happy*.

Other good stuff happened too. Peoples at work were verbally appreciative of things I'd done for them, and of my l33t writey/formatty/graphicky skillz. We discovered we get to keep allova for another 6 months (which, OK, technically I already knew, but it was confirmed officially and everything, and for which YAYYYYY!!!!). I had a yummy, healthy salad with all kinds of interesting stuff in it for lunch.

And finally, I had a good, honest conversation with a good friend about some communication that had gone awry between us, and everything was all worked out and resolved with no bad feelings. And now I have yet another piece of experiential evidence to add to my growing pile - evidence for the position that I already intellectually hold, but often have difficulty putting into practice, that avoiding acknowledging things because they might hurt someone's feelings or cause conflict is often far more painful than taking the risk and trusting my communication skills and the willingness of the person I'm talking with to listen and want to resolve the issue every bit as much as I do.

See, in the Starfireverse at least, it's one thing to know that a certain communication behaviour is desirable, that it makes sense, and that it's only fair to all parties in the communication. It's totally another to be brave enough and compassionate enough to actually *demonstrate* said behaviours on the spot when they're needed. But I'm lucky enough to have wonderful friends with pretty amazing communication skills themselves that I can learn from and model (albeit learn from slowly... this is an ongoing lesson-in-progress for me, and I'm not looking like I'm going to be graduating class any time soon) And this time, at least, it all worked out well.

So yes. Yay. Today were a good day.

May tomorrow be every bit as good.

Hugs and going-to-bed-now blessings



Starfire-the-somewhat-tired

Tags: 'dite, communication, sarasvati, work
Current Mood: accomplished

( Thoughts on love, loss and inevitability: What happens when Starfire can't sleep on her anniversary )

Tags: 'dite, celebrations, sleep
Current Mood: blessed

( This epiphiwhatsit is brought to you by the colour blue )

Tags: 'dite, healing, priestesshood, self-awareness
Current Mood: thoughtful

This? Has been a *good* weekend.

So many reasons, I don't know where to start.

Stuff that's been wrong and bad and out of balance for going on 18 months now is suddenly that little bit closer to being back *in* balance again. It's not all good and right and perfect (and hey, this is life - it's never going to be, so I'll settle for just snatching the moments that are while I can, and appreciating them for what they are), but yeah. It's wonderful, and I am a happy Starfire. May it continue as long as it possibly can.

Had a lovely best-friends afternoon just chatting with orannia too, discussing life, the universe, everything, and (of course) books. Ahhhh, books - my friends :-) My reading tower has once again become taller than I am, so when I have the final version of the Assignment o' Doom off to my tutor, it's about time I got some real reading in (not just the dodgy fic I'm reading and beta-ing now - fun as that may be)

Speaking of the final AoD, I got comments back from my tutor on it while I was in the Microsoft Partner marketing seminar from hell on Friday (and the less said about *that* the better - I came out of it hanging onto sanity by the skin of my teeth, and reminding myself over and over that making lifechanging decisions about quitting my job or slitting my wrists was a *bad* move when I was existing on 3 hours' sleep). Feedback was mostly positive, which is good; but the suggestions for improvement were even better - targetted and sensible enough to make me feel *really good* about the other two assignments where she only had good stuff to say, plus grateful that I get a chance to fix the issues with this one. And yeah... if I don't manage to hopelessly screw this assignment up (which I'm not going to, am I, starfirebrain?), then I may actually be on track for another pretty "way to go, u haz wun teh Intarwebz!" letter from the Dean to add to my collection.

So yeah. Good weekend. And it'll be even better if I get this damned assignment out of my hair.

Wish me luck, people.

This is Starfire, signing out ;-)

Tags: 'dite, books, sleep, study, work
Current Mood: blissfully happy

I was just wembling through the village to pick up some lunch and the watch I left with the jeweller last night for a new battery - drifting along in my own little world, when the person passing me suddenly greeted me.

It was pretty_instructor - but out of context, and out of his standard anti-glamour gymwear, I barely recognised him until he smiled and waved. In fact, had he not said anything, I would have probably breezed on past without realising. Oh, and he didn't have the anti-glamour up this time either.

*Blinks and attempts to look innocent*

*Fails miserably*

There's a reason I call the lad "pretty_instructor". He really, *really* is. Even with the anti-glamour up. Without it though? *grins evilly*

Hey - we take our workout motivation where we can get it, right?

And with that thought, I suspect lunchtime's over.

Hugs and vaguely lech-laden blessings



Starfire

Tags: 'dite, humour
Current Mood: amused

( Oh MY )

Tags: 'dite, gymwork
Current Mood: amused

Tags: 'dite, tv
Current Mood: hormonal