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paradox podcast

I've been listening to paradoxes to help me sleep. They have not been doing that, not exactly. Many of them seem to be about understanding the problem, not about finding an answer. 

Chasing answers isn't always the answer, is what I'm gathering from the three hours of self-proclaimed "life-changing" paradoxes. 

I don't think they can take so much credit. My life was already changing. 

Temporal Advancement Dawn (1)

I did go out for New Year's, to a lovely party at Donovan and Lauren's house. I didn't stay until midnight, because I wanted to be home in case the fireworks upset the all the dogs currently in my house. Mabel and Marceline are generally fine, and some enthusiastic neighbors already set off fireworks last night and Beth's dog Duke seemed okay. 

Wendy's dog, Roux, doesn't love fireworks. She doesn't seem afraid though; she gets very very angry. Very get-off-my-lawn. 

So they did well after all. 

I went to bed pretty late, but I'm awake now. My usual alarms are on because I've got dogs to feed. Maybe I'll get up like I'm going to work, get dressed, and see what happens. Oh, I can nap on the couch in my clothes. Just like a real adult. 

I think I recall hearing a tradition about  the first day of the new year setting the theme for rest of it. If that's true, I suppose I'll be filled with longing and hope, and be surprisingly rested despite not sleeping enough. And maybe I'll be writing. 

Okay. Here we go. 

If there was a tenet for this year, I believe it would be "To be loved is to be changed."

What can we give up, what burdens we can bear, and how far can we walk without looking back. 

Slung over my shoulder is a hollow horn, in which I carry the embers of joy, and of delight, and I will use them to make a warm place. 

Someone is setting off fireworks already. New Year's Eve Eve, I suppose. They sound massive. Reminds me of the cannons. 

Ours is not to reason why, and all that. 

Quantum-entangled. 

Orpheus climbed out of the underworld, and he looked back, and lost everything. 

Noob. 

Goodnight

As I'm falling asleep on a kitchen table, it occurs to me that maybe I'm not entirely normal. This isn't a troubling thought, except that perhaps sometime in the future I'll probably feel the urge to remark on the behaviors of others, to classify them as odd, and then I'll come back to this moment. 

It's quite cozy. 

And I'm not sleeping on a bare kitchen table; it's the kitchen table I had cut the legs down to make it a giant coffee and/or gaming table. It's a really nice, sturdy table. At least it was. 

It's about a foot and a half high now. It was always cumbersome as a table in my not-very-large house, but it turns out it's the exact right size for a twin mattress. 

The table is 37.5x78 and a twin mattress is 38x74, so almost the exact right size. Very nearly perfect. 

And the queen-sized bed in the next room sits empty. 

My plan for slipping into an austere lifestyle is progressing quite nicely. At this rate, I expect to be insufferable by March, and completely impossible to be around by mid-summer. 

It's cold enough to wear my big grey coat and mope around. 

Finally!

note to self

Something I wrote to a friend who's dog died and I wanted to remember it.

I'm so sorry about you losing your dog. When you wrote that he was like your soul, that resonated deeply with me. It hurts the most, in my experience, and when that pain lessens, you may find, like I did, that it feels like their soul never leaves your side. A little velcro spirit of joy.