I spent a couple of hours today shifting books from hallway to library, moving Celtic books I'll likely be needing for my filidecht and geilta books into the hallway bookshelf. I also moved an immense stack of books in addition to the hallway books into the library. At some point I want to go through what I have and get rid of some of the ones I don't want anymore -- stuff like the Castaneda paperbacks that I read before I really got started with serious Pagan studies. I'll haul them over to half price and trade for store credit or something, I suspect.

Thanks to many fine and discerning people, I got a nice royalty check today for my ogam book. This means I will end the month comfortably in the black for the first time in quite a while and I'm celebrating by having teriyaki for dinner from the place next door. I didn't get a statement, so I don't know how many were sold, but it was a nice check regardless. I'll email Storm later to ask for the statement.

Tags: books, life
hearing/reading: Pilgrimage: Dark Skies

Originally published at Reflections. Please leave any comments there.

About 8:30 yesterday morning I decided to risk driving into the lake that Lexington St had become in order to drive through the parking lot to the other side. I almost made it too, but some asshat in a pickup went careening by me, sending a wave over the top of my car–and I stalled. My car was literally floating around in the wake of this guy’s truck, and the wakes of other asshats that insisted on driving through the lake despite seeing several stranded cars. I called AAA and was on the phone with them for a good20 minutes as the water is pouring into my car–it got as high as my front seats by the time I was done, but the rain was coming down too hard for me to want to try getting out while still talking to AAA.Getting out of the car proved to also be a problem–the water was actually rushing, and it was almost up to my waist. I’m not going to lie, I was pretty nervous and incredibly stressed out about the whole thing.

Fast forward an hour and a half of chatting with the plaza employees, other stranded motorists and the fire people and AAA picked me up. The tow guy told me that the 40 of them on duty couldn’t keep up with all the calls–and they aren’t the only tow people in town! It was a mess out there, and was for a long time. I had him bring me to work so I had a nice safe, dry place to talk to the insurance company and worked out all the details.

Thank the gods that my insurance is covering the damage (minus my deductible), and my car is currently at the shop (I’m waiting to hear from them regarding the damage and estimates and all). When I finally got into work my boss said that I have the worst luck with my car. I’m starting to agree with her and am seriously contemplating getting rid of it when I get to grad school if I can get a live-on position.

Tags: boston, massachusetts, my car, teh stress it burns, whining, wtf

Tags: music
feeling: indescribable

• 09:16 So my car is submerged...life kinda sucks. #
• 11:18 At work, calling the insurance company. #
• 15:32 My fabulous floating car is on Channel 4. #

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• 11:40 Sweet, I'm officially the co-adviser of the A-B Yearbook. Stipend and all. #
• 16:04 Stolen from @stephaniemar: tinyurl.com/55adfq #
• 16:07 It's a miserable day in the neighborhood, a miserable day to live. Won't it clear up? Won't it clear up? #
• 16:40 Anyone have a mini SD card I can borrow? #
• 23:21 Guacamole butter...yum! #

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I know I've been talking about reviewing some of the books I've read lately but I've been remiss in actually doing so. I've got several in different categories but I wanted to start with the one I liked best because I think it's the sort of thing that quite a few of you might enjoy for a variety of reasons. ( clicky! )

Tags: book review
feeling: contemplative

lupabitch passed on a link about Ecuador proposing constitutional rights for the environment. Amazing -- the nature of this action, if passed, could change the political landscape in so many ways. What a wonderful thing to see!

Tags: activism, politics
feeling: enthralled

I wrote a poem to a prompt on the Neos Alexandria list tonight. First poem I've written in a while. The idea is that a prompt from an ancient text is posted, and people (if so inclined) reinterpret it into poetry. ( Poetry game )

Tags: poetry
feeling: quixotic

• 11:18 It's kinda hard to get work done when the reports won't run. #
• 14:01 *hugs* @spotlessminds They have to go home eventually. #

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Finally, the paint work was done for the incubation chamber. It is now a lovely dark sagey latex green and is drying happily so that I can put the place together in a day or two with appropriate altar stuff and a good place to nest for the journeying/vision work. I've been thinking about exactly what needs to go in there and why, so that'll be at the forefront of my mind for the next several days. I have a little folding shelf to use for part altar, part storage and we'll see what happens.

Earlier today alfrecht and I went over to the new Pagany place in Everett, A Gathering Grove. It's a nice large space, light, with comfy couches, wireless, and a nice if still sparse collection of books on various types of spirituality. The guy who owns it seems pretty nice and it doesn't have anything like the slightly creepy atmosphere that Moonflower Magicks always had. They've only been open about two weeks and it's not really in a location where they'll necessarily get a lot of walk-by traffic, but as word gets around, they should start getting more business. We had chai (they carry Travelers) and pastries, and I bought a copy of The Essence of Shinto because (a) I wanted a copy of it (it's on my wishlist) and (b) I think it's good to support indy bookshops and such.

After that, though, I'm pretty tired. I've got the dropcloth in the washer right now but will probably be heading offline soon to relax and read for a bit. Tonight's Netflix selection -- Jesus of Montreal.

Tags: film, life, ritual
feeling: happy

Rather than painting the closet/incubation chamber, I made chole and washed the kitchen floor. Oh, and I read a little. I talked to my brother a bit online before he went to bed -- things seem to be going okay for him at the moment. This pleases me.

I'm feeling very tired (but not sleepy) and a bit cranky. The cramps aren't helping.

*curls up to read some more*

Tags: life
feeling: apathetic

Saturday I had been thinking of going to Floating Leaves for their party but didn't really have the money to be doing it, so I stuck around. alfrecht came back with his mom and her husband and a U-Haul full of his stuff. They were worried that it wasn't all going to fit, despite that my garage is rather larger than said U-Haul and that both alfrecht and I have a fair amount of experience with packing and moving things. There was some mild dispute, but eventually they agreed to leave aisles where we told them to and (miracle of miracles) stuff actually did fit, just like we said it would.

After that, yiaya called and I went over to her place. We walked over to the park near her place to pick berries. There were several varieties that were ripe, and the red huckleberries will be ripe in a day or so as well. We at first weren't sure we'd get enough for more than just a handful or so but we ended up with enough mixed berries for a lovely cobbler. We also indulged in some of her lovely elderberry brandy that she made several years ago. What a lovely flavor! It was very very mellow, almost like port.

Today I went down to Seattle and talked to a young couple about doing a handfasting for them next May. It seems like we'll work together pretty well and they were very organized about what they needed to do and how they needed to do it. I'm looking forward to helping them out with it. I'll also be sending one of them some resources to help her get hooked into the local Seattle Pagan community, as she moved here a couple of years ago and doesn't really know anyone or where to find things yet.

Did a little more housework today and am probably going to paint the incubation chamber tomorrow if I can enlist alfrecht's help. That should really get done this week so that I can set the space up and start working on ritual and trancework. Finished reading another book today that I'll need to do a review for, but am not sure how to tackle this one. I need to drop an email to lupabitch later this week and talk to her about it.

Picked one of my squashes today. It looks ripe but is only about 3 inches long. None of the tomatoes seem to be fruiting either. This could be a variety of issues, but I'm not really going to worry about it too much right now. The lettuce and beets are doing really well and I'll probably replant some lettuce next month when the box is thinned out more. I've had a few lovely salads out of it so far, so that was nice.

Tomorrow will be another at home day, probably spent reading, maybe a little writing if I can get motivated. I need to start on the animism article beyond just a title. I'm feeling so lazy lately it isn't even funny. Not sure what it is. I'll just have to hang on and see what happens. My last Brighid shift was a pretty good one, so I feel all right with my ritual work at the moment. This, at least, is a good thing. And I've been doing a lot of cooking. I guess mostly it's just the writing where I'm feeling lazy right now.

Tags: food, garden, life, writing
feeling: lethargic

I folded the tent today and cleared out the central area of the garage in readiness for alfrecht's stuff to arrive tomorrow. That also entailed sweeping the garage floor, which is covered with white dust of unknown origin that's been there since I bought the place. For the moment, it's sitting in a small pile on the corner. I'll get it into a bag and into the trash another day.

After that I started a load of laundry and folded and put away several loads worth of previously-done clean laundry so I could clear up a big part of what I have of a bedroom floor (the king size bed takes up most of the space in the room). I folded towels and sheets and blankets and quilts and put them either away (if they had a place) or out of the way (if they didn't). I also folded a bunch of clothes and put them away. That was rather a bit of exercise. I then swept the floor. I'm contemplating dishes and washing the kitchen floor though I'm uncertain if I'll have energy for that today. The new load of laundry is currently in the dryer.

I spent a few hours trolling the intartubes for material on Suibhne Geilt for my book and noting articles and books that I want to either acquire or read (I probably already have several things here in photocopies). Some is at the UW library, some will probably have to be found by other means. There's quite a bit of material out there.

I'm also starting on the review copy of Ecstasia that I got down in Portland. I have a lot on my mind and I suspect that this will offer a few useful notes for my own work. I'll be sitting down with it again here when I'm done with this entry. Tea. Tea will be nice.

Tags: books, geilta, life, writing
feeling: accomplished