On the period as the traveling salesman of cockblocking, by Tex Morgan, age 28.

In honor of my uterus having read me the riot act, I present to you:

Texmorgan:

I like to think of a period as a traveling salesman of cockblocking. It makes sense though. When women get together, all their periods sync up because the salesman wants to loop them all into the sale. The period is a lazy and cranky salesman. Sometimes he like the house a lot and stays a little longer, other times he doesn't like it so much and just wrecks everything then leaves quickly. And, of course, birth control is like a security system; it lets you see on the security camera screen when he's coming so you can plan to have the house all tidy and decide when you want to let him in or not.

( Yes, there's more. )

AND GUYS, HE MADE ME OLD BAY COOKIES.

In related news: Owwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww. Uh, to the whole uterus thing, not the cookies. Which were... interesting. Kinda like weird ginger.
In non-related news: Lost blew my mind last night, yo. Plus, 8 hours of sleep for the win!

Operation: Best Version of Me.

As I was walking home yesterday, I had one of those odd little breakthrough moments: I'm happy. Really happy. Not fake-happy, not fake-it-'til-ya-make-it happy. I'm genuinely happy with where I am in life right now. And it's not rose-colored glasses. Things aren't perfect, but there's no drama and lots of growth going on. Considering where I was five months ago, it kind of shocked me a little.

In true navel-gazey fashion, I started thinking about what brought on this change and my mind kept wandering back to my annual birthday tarot reading. I'd gotten it about a week after my breakup, and I was still verging on tears every ten minutes or so at that point. And one thing she said rang really true: if you're going to be happy, you need to do your homework. And for the past few months, that's exactly what I've done. I got a counselor, I cut negative and untrustworthy folk out of my life, and I poured my time into things I was passionate about. I did it all with deliberate intention. And the result is that I now feel more centered and fulfilled than I can remember ever feeling.

( Headspace. )

Anyway, I got pretty rambly there, but overall I just wanted to document my little happy moment on a relatively quiet walk home.

On the design front, yesterday was a banner day. I kind of went to bed in shock. Pleasant shock, but yeah. Shock. Step one is to pack up all the ready-to-go stuff. Step two is to do commissions-- of which I got four yesterday. Step three is to buy more supplies. I won an auction for more clock parts, 'cause I enjoyed those bits so much. Also, after sitting down and doing my taxes last night (omg, real adulthood!), I've started working on budgeting out bigger expenses. My refund will cover the BR Winter Fire weekend, then I'm going to start ordering precious gems in higher quantity, which works out to a better value overall. That said, I anticipate $70 leaving my paypal account for one strand of beads being kind of panic-inducing. But hey... that's a definite sign of growth. And after all that? The saving begins for my tattoo.

To that end, I've contacted neopolaris, who will be designing it. The idea is going to be about an 8" art nouveau-stylized flowering vine along my right oblique, with a big stargazer lily and some other flowers as well, like maybe morning glories. I want greens and pinks and little touches of purplish-blue. My next update will likely go straight towards paying that off. Having a reminder of blooming potential on my body feels like the right thing.