Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

It's been pointed out to me by a couple of rather upset people that "hide under the covers and don't answer the phone" as a temporary response to the trebuchets and ballistas of outrageous fortune (well it felt like more than mere "slings and arrows" to me anyhow) uh, makes one set of people worry, and another, overlapping set of people frustrated because they want to help and I'm not telling them how. So on the one hand I got the word out, and got some helpful and valuable expressions of support back; and on the other hand I more Drama And Stress around me than I meant to. I'm sorry.

Yes, I was hurting that badly (still almost that bad, but I'm slowly clawing my way out from under the rock). I felt unable to cope with, well, pretty much any form of communication at all; starting that long entry was a challenge. (Editing it was even more of a challenge, and one I failed to meet, as y'all can probably tell.) But I did think it was apropriate for my friends to know what had happened and why I had been out of contact for a couple days and was likely to be out of touch and/or in a foul mood for the next while as well. (I know people worry when I disappear randomly, as well...) But I thought I'd make it to rehearsal despite how I felt, and that I'd be back again to post responses (mostly thanks) to the comments and maybe talk about other things as well in a day or two. I didn't mean to do a "core dump and dramatically vanish" bit on y'all, really. And I apologize. By way of explanation (a different word than "excuse", and I know the difference), I was coping even less well than I'd noticed at the time, and last night when I was going to try to force myself to communicate, dammit, I got hit with a migraine at the level of: moan oddly enough to make the cat really worried and walk around the house saying, "Explodey-head is a bad thing. Where's the ibuprofen? It was here it was here it was here. Oooh, 'splodey head not good. Bad 'splodey head. It was here, where could it go? Not fair not fair no moving for inanimate things. 'Splodey head not good. My head is exploding. It has to be here. Oooh, I've got explodey-head." Dunno if it was the storm approaching (doesn't actually feel very stormy though, despite the terminology), complete randomness, or a side effect of spending too much time curled up under the covers. Still, I'd meant to post something hours before the migraine anyhow, but didn't manage to drag myself to the keyboard.

Hmph. I'm rambling and tangential and my sentence structure sucketh; clearly I'm not "all back" yet.

Anyhow, I do have a double-handful of unrelated topics I want to get around to writing about here. I just thought I needed to get this entry out of the way first: Thank you, and I'm sorry for making some of you worry. Honestly, I'm still not coping all that well; writing this entry is easier than responding to comments (which I did read, BTW), because I'm talking about communication, not talking about cameras and theft and plans for what to do next. I did manage a couple of awkward phone calls before my phone ran out of prepaid airtime, and I've almost got the list of serial numbers together, and Fred stopped by unexpectedly on ... Wednesday? ... just to hang out and chat and distract me for a little while. (Unfortunately, between lack of airtime and the effects of pre-migraine aura, I missed a chance to see puzzledance, and I keep screwing up royally on getting together with anniemal lately.) And I'm really hoping to get to the quadruple birthday party tonight unless I chicken out on the whole social-interaction thing (or fail to solve certain transportation problems that I haven't gotten around to all week), so there's at least some chance that some of you will see me some nineteen hours hence, but I may or may not feel like being verbal, ok? Hugs good. Touching good. Feeling of community good. Words, we'll play by ear ... words maybe.

Probably the most useful bit of advice I've gotten so far is not to make any drastic decisions just yet. Much of the other advice will wind up being just as important soon, but that was the bit that most applied to how I've been feeling this week. Yeah, leaning toward "drastic decisions" was certainly a significant part of my mood much of the past week. I don't know whether I'll carry a camera this weekend or not, but I won't sell off the rest of my cameras or say "no" to the folks who've offered me equipment until I feel like I've got my head on sortakinda straight.

There's a lot of "meta" in my funky headspace -- I'm reacting to my reactions, as well as reacting to the loss. Being too self-aware can be an obstacle. I'll try to write about that if I find time while it still seems the least bit interesting. But I'll cut-tag it when I do. Omphaloskepsis at that level probably needs to be cut-tagged in general.

I will say this much: thank goodness I've got a friendly cat. Being completely alone in the house this week would've been worse, even though either way I spent most of the time in bed.

The responses do make a difference. Right now I can't begin to describe how much, so I'll settle for saying "thanks" for the time being and try to do the feeling justice when I'm handling communication better.