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

I just talked myself out of the sexiest shoes. They would have made me nearly seven feet tall, no exaggeration. But what I need if I am going to interviews are sensible shoes not LOOK I AM AN AMAZON.

But LOOK AT THEM!

Shoelust.

This is what I get for being an adult. Why can't I have the shoes I would legitimately wear nowhere?! Stupid logic. Humph.

They looked so good on me, you guys. I never used to wear heels because first of all I am six feet tall and I worry about towering over people, and secondly I am...uncoordinated is a nice way of putting it. But heels which are not spikey I can handle walking in. And they make my legs look awesome.

Maybe if I get a position I can get sexy shoes which are completely impractical and make me a giant. I dream big, y'all. So today instead of shoes, I bought grape soda so I could indulge in a little American nostalgia.

Nostalgia apparently tastes like grapey ass.

Didn't make three meals today, but I made two! And cake. A HUGE PIECE OF CAKE. Awww yeah! Gosh cake is an amazing invention. Caaaaaake. Cake.

Alison is coming home tomorrow. I am making chili because it has been again demanded. So I will leave the house to get rolls and wine in the afternoon tomorrow. Because I believe all are needed. And then this weekend I get to try out a new cupcake recipe. It is here. I am excite!

Also I finally put in for my refund from my student loans. Because it finally got approved and finally got here. So I should get my money in the next few days. It's nearly June. But you know. WHATEVER. :| At least it's nearly here. I shouldn't complain any more, but what a freaking ordeal. This means I can spend the money I just got from working on DVDs on the interwebs. MWUAHA!

My sleep schedule is so stupidly messed up. But I have cute kitties! And I am watching Danny Bhoy and reading about Celtic mythology. <3

My mouth is finally getting back to normal, which means it isn't drying out at every opportunity so I have to stay up all night with a water bottle in my face, dripping it on my tongue. And that isn't an exaggeration, I actually did that. Dry mouth is like...one of the worst things I have ever experienced, physically. It was worse than asthma because it made my tongue all huge and I couldn't talk right and that freaked me out so I had anxiety attacks and couldn't breathe anyway. And my mouth hurt because it dried out if I didn't drink water constantly. And I was always aware of it. It's still the tiniest bit dry, but nothing like it has been, and my tongue feels like it fits in my face now.

YOU ALL NEEDED TO KNOW THESE MINUTE DETAILS ABOUT ANXIETY MEDICATION SIDE EFFECTS. Okay, you probably didn't, but now you do anyway ;) And really, if that is the worst side effect they give me, I can deal. But I am saying that now because it seems to be over! It seems like such a minor thing, but oh dear GOD it was a week and a half of quite an ordeal.

Now there is chicken ceasar salad (oh god, I just ate so much of it which is so good) and Silent Hill, which is so atmospheric and the music is pretty and there are monsters and I have random threads to start in FS and the kitten is sleeping beside me. I feel happy and warm and loved and lucky. And calm. I feel calm.

Thank everything for that.

Now I just have to start eating more again. I still have no appetite, which bothers me. My clothes are all way too big. Like...it is impressive how much weight I lost in two weeks (yes, I am not pleased about this). So tomorrow I am going to eat three meals. I know, right? I CAN DO THIS!

Still no running water, though people on this side of town are starting to get it back so this gives me hope we'll have it soon. Our stores are still going strong though. We even have five bottles of our original stash left, and we've been boiling up the stuff we got from across the road. I am so glad it's there so we can replace what we've been using. If this goes on much longer we would have run out and we stockpiled water like mad. It just goes to show that even when you do prepare, sometimes it's not enough.

So. Guys. If you can? Have emergency kits. Even if you live in a place where you think they won't be necessary. We used to think they weren't absolutely necessary here even though we had one, because the dangerous fault lines were in Wellington and on the West Coast, not in Christchurch. And then a previously unknown fault ruptured. You just never know. If you're someone who can afford an emergency kit (and please know I completely understand that not everyone can), it's responsible to have one. It means emergency rations of food provided by whatever disaster relief happens to be around can go to the people who can't afford to have an emergency kit in a disaster and who need it far more, instead of getting used up on people who should and could have been more careful. It's just goddamn socially responsible, okay? It's caring about your fellow human beings while taking care of yourself too.

Put some tinned food and toilet paper and no-wash anti-bacterial hand cleaner and batteries and flashlights/torches and candles and matches and blankets and anything else you think you might need (including pet food) in your kit. And keep clean water around and replace it often (use the old stuff to water the garden or wash the car or...something). Hell, in Melbourne a couple of years ago, some kind of plant exploded and it left part of the city without electricity and running water for days and that was just a random malfunction without any natural disaster cause. So be prepared. Please. Be as prepared as you can be. The ability to have extra food lying around in case of an emergency is a luxury and if you can, please just do it.

Sorry. Preachy. But I can tell you first-hand how important this is. Never assume this doesn't apply to you. Be safe, lovelies. Gosh, this isn't even what I came here to do. I was going to talk about how I can't write fiction because it feels so utterly useless at the moment. And I got on my soapbox instead. Oh well.

I used to spend my life in my high school theatre. There were days I could be at school from 8 in the morning until 9-10 at night. I didn't drive until I was 21 because instead of taking driver's ed, I was doing everything I possibly could in that theatre. I ate, slept and breathed that place.

When I was in my final year of high school and I was on my way to rehearsal when I saw a little girl in the hallway behind the theatre, crying. She was about eight and I went over to her to ask what was wrong. She said her mother was supposed to pick her up a half an hour before that (why she was being picked up at a high school when she was 8, I still do not know) and she was scared that her mother had been in a car accident. I asked if her mother had a cell phone and she nodded, so I led the poor girl through to the speech office so she could try calling her mother.

When there was no answer, and the girl started crying again, I told her we should go out to where she was supposed to be picked up and I would wait with her.

I ended up waiting with her for nearly 45 minutes. I kept her calmer than she probably would have been by talking about stupid things and telling her ridiculous stories about myself and my very strange friends. Her mother eventually came by and the girl hugged me and they went on their way. I have no idea why the mother was late, or what happened, but I never saw the girl again and I don't remember her name.

What I do remember, was that I was late to my rehearsal. I knew I would be, and since one of the advantages of my crazy brain is that it traps things inside its cage of memory, I had the entire play memorized already so I figured it would be okay. The director wasn't pleased however, and he informed me of this. I told him I had been waiting with a scared, little girl, and he asked me why that was my responsibility.

You know...if that's how you think, then I guess it wasn't. My responsibility was to my cast mates and my director and despite the fact that I was never late before and always went above and beyond to help and be do whatever I could to move the production forward, I was still late this time and that had inconvenienced people. I still feel like the right thing to do was to stay with the poor girl. What about my responsibility to help out another human being; to care for someone who was scared and alone? If I had been that scared little girl, I would hope someone would have extended the same kindness to me. I just apologized and we got on with it, but I never really forgot that.

I'm not someone who can pass people by. Which is why I am the one who ends up sitting with the homeless person on the street who passed out and hit their head on the pavement so hard they are bleeding into their eyes, while they wait (for over an hour) for the ambulance to come. The amount of people who walked by that day, averting their eyes so they didn't have to see, makes me feel ashamed. I don't ever want to be that kind of person. It's why I'm doing what I'm doing, despite the fact that I am not okay. The helping people is as natural as breathing. It's not going out of my way, because helping people is my way. It's everything else that's the problem. Forcing myself to leave my home, when it's the only place that I feel safe. Forcing myself to talk to people, even though I'm terrified of it. All that functioning as if I don't panic about every little thing, that's the hard part. It makes me feel like I have no right to act like I could actually help. I feel barely human. Sometimes I feel like giving up. But I won't. I can't. I'm taking responsibility. I just wish it wasn't so hard.

I was feeling down today (LONG story) so I decided to do something constructive to take the feeling away (social work training, oy) so I wanted to make a post of all the photos of people and places and things that mean something to me. And when I started to plan it, I realised just how long it would be if I put everyone into it. And that made me feel so amazing, you have no idea...

I did it anyway deciding I would only use photos I have taken myself (or by my family since I wasn't at the reunion to take those and I didn't take the ones of me as a kid, but you get the point!) to cut down on spamming random Hugh Jackman pictures ;). Not everyone that should be here is including my friends in Australia. Woot, Peter, Laura and Ness, I have no (not blurry) photos of you!! And there are other friends who aren't on here, but be that as it may, here it is. Some of my happy things.

( To me you are perfect )