It's not a cry you can hear at night, it's not somebody who's seen the light...

I have been looking forward to going to the US because being here in the city of Aftershocks and Gloom hasn't been great for the old brainpan. But my trip to Te Anau and various made me feel so incredibly good. So now I'm all "wah, I have to leave my home for two months!" It does make it better than I get my family though :D But I will miss my friends and my cats and my house and my housemates and all the things. In the long run, two months isn't too long. Just feels like it right now!

So in 10 and a half hours I will wake up and take a shower and then I will head for the airport. Then I will be in Sydney before heading to the US. I get to see my cousin in San Francisco, and then my mommy in Helena, Montana. I can catch up on writing all the things, since there are few distractions in Montana, especially in winter.

I feel so much better though. It's...awesome. I just really needed to get out of this city, even though I love it so much. Touring the south island of NZ was amazing. This county is gorgeous and I think, despite wanting to leave it for the UK for a while, I think I kind of want to stay. We'll see how things go. But I feel at home here. It's lovely.

So now I have to clean my room for Woot to move in to it for two months. I should vacuum for him too, since the floor is covered with catfood. Echo is a messy eater. I can't wait until I can come back and cuddle the kitties again though! I will miss my babies!

It is hot today. As an aside. It's gross.

Recent history being what is has been, I feel like none of my entries lately have shown my trademark silliness. This is for obvious reasons, being that it's hard to be silly when there are still soldiers barring you from entering your city, you keep having panic attacks, and you spend most of your time sleeping. But I do miss writing ridiculous things that probably only I giggle about.

So getting this out of the way, I went to sleep last night at 8 and woke up at 8 in the morning. I struggled to stay awake until about 11 when I finally gave in. I decided it would be best to have a whizz before I crawled back into bed, and I was so tired that the energy it took to go into the bathroom made me cry. So then I slept until 8 tonight. And I am still tired (my head feels too heavy to hold up) but I haven't cried yet, so that's...kind of like progress! And I have tuna melts. So it's progress with melted cheese.

Speaking of tuna melts, my housemates are trying to kill me in really subtle and underhanded ways.

Leah did all the dishes (bless her). I usually do them, but since I have been sleeping...the effect there is obvious. I think in revenge she removed the wombat-shaped oven mitt from the kitchen. This may seem like it is of no consequence, but it is of huge consequence when you have tuna melts in the oven getting blacker and blacker and you can't find the damn wombat-glove. And my sleep-addled brain didn't think to just get a dishtowel and hope it was thick enough to save me from the burning sensations. No. I ran around in circles until I remembered we had other less awesome and less chompy oven mitts. They were nowhere to be seen either. I opened the drawer where the clean things live, usually known as the drawer where nothing is. And lo and behold, non-chompy oven mitts.

So ha HAH, Leah. Your crafty plan to burn me to death has FAILED! And my tuna melts are only a little overdone, so you haven't even ruined my dinner. Muahhahahaa!

I have been reading Japanese Ghost Stories, a book I got from www.bookdepository.co.uk (FREE WORLDWIDE SHIPPING!) and have been dismayed to find that it contains very few actual ghost stories. Most of the book is about psychic phenomena, which is interesting enough in and of itself, but should be found in a book called Japanese Psychic Phenomena so it doesn't mislead unsavvy collectors of ghost books like me into buying it. And I would be more interested to read about the phenomena if the book were written by someone with an unbiased eye. Like, say, not someone who considers themselves to be a freaking shaman. There's nothing wrong with saying "hey, I'm a shaman. I will heal your ass and write books about that girl from the ring and her photographs". Call yourself whatever you want, as long as it doesn't hurt anyone (I'm a pretty airplane! Board me!). But he doesn't exactly look at both sides of the issue. So all 'facts' presented could really be bullshit, or hopes, or wishes, or ~dreams~. By the same token, I always enjoy ghost books written by randoms more than the ones written by the people with ghost tour companies, because you can never tell if those ones are making shit up to get you to go on their tours.

I wanted to read about onryo and Oiwa-san, not faith healing. There IS a chapter about modern hauntings but one chapter out of many is disappointing. Next I shall move on to my Queer Hauntings book. I am excited. And since it wasn't written by a guy claiming to be a gay ghost, I think I will enjoy it much more than this one.

I sat around all day talking to people and not freaking out. I only left the room at one point to check my email but it wasn't because I wanted to be away from people at all. This is pretty impressive. It pleases me.

Had a great time watching Russell Brand and eating curry and drinking tea. People liked my Market Spice tea, YAY! I thoroughly enjoyed myself :D

I have been getting so many emails trying to get me to send them information and they will send me 450,000 USD or something ridiculous. One person claimed to be a bank manager but their email address was something@arsenalsupporter.co.uk

ARSENAL SUPPORTER?! At least TRY, dude. Don't send me a scam email from your footy fan email address and expect me to believe you. My stars and garters, people are stupid.

I had a great day! I met Sarah at 3:30 in Riccarton and we sat and chatted for almost three hours. She is cute and gorgeous and sweet and funny and I quite like her! Even if it goes nowhere, I would love to have her as a friend because she was a delight! The thing is, I really like being single. Like...really like it. If I sang the song These Are a Few Of My Favorite Things, most of my favourite things would be 'being single'. Also cats. And cinnamon lollies. It would be a boring song. ...anyway, I'll see where it goes, because I wouldn't mind giving it a go if she turns out to be interested. She did give me a ride home and then said we should go out again next week. So that was nice!

ALSO I got several things in the post today. I got one of my books about Haunted London, which is awesome YAY. And I got my order of Market Spice Tea. Market Spice Tea is a shop in Pikes Place Market in Seattle. I was born in Seattle and my dad used to drink their signature blend (cinnamon orange) all the time. Even though I really dislike my father, the smell reminds me of childhood. And even though my childhood was not always great, it is a strangely comforting smell. And I really love the tea. I spent a week searching for cinnamon orange tea on the internet before I realised (yes, it took me a week) I could just order it from Market Spice. I R SMRT. I am so glad I did too. OMG. I also ordered cherry almond, pumpkin pie (which smells AMAZING), coconut peach, wild cherry and pomegranate splash. ALL THE TEA, I WILL HAVE IT. In the almost decade since I have lived in the US though, I have forgotten what an ounce is. I just wanted a sample of the pumpkin pie tea so I ordered 4 ounces. It is over 100 grams so that is more than the large bags of tea I ordered from Adore Tea. And then I ordered 6 ounces of the other ones, and I was thinking they would be the size of the Pumpkin Pie one. ...oops. So much tea. SO.MUCH.TEA.

Girls and tea. Awesome! Oh, and little Echo went to the vet and she's just fine. Poor little baby got all patched up. And the vet's office fell in love with her. And how could you not?! My baby is adorable.

My name is Lara and I have epic man-shoulders. I am six feet tall, so this is hardly surprising. My shoulders are so broad that I have AMAZING trouble finding a nice jacket that fits comfortably. I can always find coats, but not jackets. ...or is it the other way around? I can find the big bundly ones you wear in the snow, but not the nicer ones you would wear out to dinner when it is less cold than...snow.

Anyway, after a quick search at Farmer's today, I actually found one. It's made out of cotton so it is super comfy and it's long and nice and I LOVE it. And I am so excited to have a coat/jacket that fits that I kind of want to wear it to bed. SHUT UP you have no idea how this feels after nearly three decades of not being able to raise my arms in anything because of my stupid shoulders. I am so happy. I can stop wearing my raggedy black pullover now. YAY.

Also, if my cats could stop getting sick and wounded, that'd be nice. I am a paranoid freak, babies. I don't like panicking about you! Echo has this huge chunk out of her, probably from playing roughly with Helios. So. To the vet we go. AGAIN. Ah, pets. But I do love them so. And Echo was curled up with Ariadne today for the first time and I basically just melted into goo. And took a million photos, because I am nothing if not predictable.

Room progress continues. Will show photos when complete. Coffee date tomorrow after it was delayed last Sunday. Got a text from her today saying she couldn't wait which made me all grinny. My stomach is currently home to ten thousand butterflies. It's actually nice.

Today Alison and I went to buy slippers and other various things. I ended up with two left slippers. I am not kidding. They were tied together too, so someone was having a laugh. Or a derp. Either way, I get to take them back when I have time :| BUT we got a clothes hanger dryey thing! It's blue! And I almost got a coat. I need to think about it. I do need one though. Coats are hard to find since I have epic man-shoulders. They never fit right and I can't lift my arms.

I ordered the cats a treehouse scratchy thing. I also got myself another bookshelf and a tower for some of my DVDs as they are overflowing out in the living room. I will have to move my desk out of my room to make a place for allll the books. I love books. I ordered Sherlock Holmes with MY BRIDGE on the cover! How excited am I!?

It is cold today. *hides under heater*

We re-arranged the living room and next will be my room and Ali's room and we did the dining room yesterday too. It's all exciting! I also put together a puzzle of my bridge which is on the top of the bookshelf in the dining room. It is a 3-D puzzle which I did myself. I am impressed. I suck at puzzles. But it is beautimous.

We gave my doll of The Master a makeover too and now he is gorgeous despite his epic fruit-punch mouth. LOL Buffy humour. He is wearing a hat and a veil and...carrying an orca. He fits right in!

This house has so many books in it. It makes me so happy.

I have been so productive the last few days. I did my meeting, shopped, got my hair cut, contacted Petersgate for counselling, went with Alison to take Helios to the vet, finished over half of my essay BEFORE the day before it's due (I know, right?! and I am pleased with it, too!), did some work for my mom, did some dishes, and dyed my hair. I am about to go shopping again for other stuff we need. And wine glasses, since I broke one the other day and now we have only two (I think...) Then I will make chili and cupcakes. And the day before that I did a million errands as well. And not a single bit of it made me anxious.

Awesome.

So Ariadne got out a few weeks ago and since it was a warm day we just let her hang out and we left the doors open. Then she started scratching a lot. Cue me panicking about fleas everywhere and infestations and never ever being clean again ever. So I took her to the vet today and the vet looked at her, said she had a very mild case of fleas and that I should calm down. I like it when professional people tell me to calm down. It's useful!

So I got treatments for her and Helios the kitten (just in case!) and I got told to just vacuum and it would be fine.

I should know better than to look things up on the internet :|

That being said, today is the first day I haven't had a panic attack. And I feel relatively calm and happy. More so, now that I know my house isn't flea-infested. This might be because I am getting over my cold and when the panic doesn't come out of nowhere, it tends to be set off by cold symptoms, or it could be meds starting to work.

The counsellor I saw helped me decide for sure to drop my placement and do it again next year when things aren't (hopefully) so up in the air. But she was otherwise unhelpful and she kind of seemed confused as to what I wanted her to do. (COUNSEL ME!) So I might look for someone else, which is a bummer, since the Uni ones are free.

If this calm mood continues, maybe I'll actually get some WRITING done. I've been too on edge to concentrate on anything for longer than five minutes until today.

Alison was supposed to go to bed but she just came out here to get a drink and there is no way that we could possibly ever explain the conversation that just occurred between us, but it was epic hilarity though it was the kind where you had to be there and now my stomach hurts from laughing. It was pure ridiculousness and we both laughed so hard, and I feel like I might vomit.

And then I thought, "you know what? I think I feel like this at least once a day." I think living in a house where you laugh so hard you think you might vomit at least once a day is pretty damn awesome, no matter what else is going on in my messed up little world.

Long live the LFoD and all it's denizens, past and present!

EDIT: For more examples of why the LFoD is the greatest place on Earth, I present Alison's Overheard in the LFoD tag in her journal which is chock full of hilarity and quotes.

My head hurts from laughing.

Today I sat in the sun and I waited for a bus. I know. Amazing story. Fricking riveting. But I had on my Sirius Black t-shirt, I was listening to The Cure (greatest hits) and eating a chocolate ice cream cone and it was warm and yet windy and it was just one of those really nice moments where everything is just...nice.

Ice cream. Sun. Robert Smith. And Sirius Black apparel.

Awesome.

And then we had roast chicken and mashed potatoes and Alina was here and we watched Easy A which was hilarious and Ariadne was cute and it was all terribly lovely!