To be announced

But just in case anyone else missed it:

Bullies pick on people who fight back incompetently.

So damn obvious that I knew it, but I never brought it far enough forward in my consciousness to actually *articulate* it.

A bully needs you to get upset. A bully needs you to cry. A bully needs to ruin your day and suck the joy out of things you like just because you like them. A bully needs to make you feel embarrassed or ashamed or regretful.

They get off on it.

Yes, no? Yes but?

I have to admit to you people that I have a problem.

I can't stop thinking about yarn. I'm crazy. I have this knit along I'm going to do in conjunction with Black Phoenix Alchemy lab, and I'm going to make the girliest little capelet ever and name it Peony moon

because I bought pale pink lace weight mohair. WTF? pink? me?

I have a problem. but I'm going to knit a cute and girly capelet that will not go with anything else in my wardrobe because my aquisition brainstem activated at the sight of it.

so! YARN DIET!

I may need to find one more ball of mohair for the capelet, I don't know, but NO MORE BUYING YARN until I finish Durrow! IMEANIT!!!! I will allow myself to buy size 0 addi turbos for my stupid stupid fiddly little sock but that's just more Yarn diet because no more buying yarn until those stupid socks are done! IMEANIT!!!!!

I mean, I have stash. Stash, folks. it's not enormous stash, but I have enough yarn to keep myself amused, at least.

oh and

there's something that I would very much like to do, so I'm going to say it here.

I would like to take an evening class at Bow Valley College. Specifically, Biology 20. I think they might force me to take science 10 because I took Chemistry 10a and Physics 10a but I didn't take biology (I didn't have enough room in my grade ten schedule to take all three sciences, and I didn't know that I would grow up to be more interested in the life sciences than how to build a trebuchet out of popsicle sticks. shutup.) but I think I can jump it at Bio 20. I dont know. I'll ask.

it's just that the courses are self paced but in a classroom environment and the course costs $140 which isn't really a lot of money. I'd go twice a work and work until I was done and then go on to Bio 30 and - well okay, I'll take pure math 20 because I flunked it BAD and then get my 30 level pure math and then go beat English 30 into the FLOOR because it cannot withstand my rhetorical might...

and then?

Why, then I would have true prerequisites for university application, instead of "yo I'm 37 let me in!"

But that's going really far ahead, kids. For now, I'm just eyeing that Biology 20 course. Because it would be interesting. and I spend that much on yarn anyhow, so why not? *sneaks up a little closer*

my paper journal is going well. I see all the scans on embodiment and people have these wonderful jornals with their own handmade touches, and I have a 6x9 Hilroy 350 page spiral notebook.

Teh fuglee. but I wrote in it yesterday and I wrote in it today and I'm trucking along - I mean I filled up pages and pages. I went off on a screed.

and there is already a to-do list.

next I need to angst about how I dont know what's supposed to happen next in a story, and then jot down a phone number, and the darn thing will be complete.

Every once in a while I catch mentions of a community called poor_skills and I decided to go check it out.

I read the last 20 entries, and maybe that isn't enough to get an idea of what the community is really like or anything but even after combing through the memories I kind of blinked because I didn't see a lot that had to do with the sort of things that I've picked up as mad poor skillz.

A couple of years ago, matociquala sent me a box. She mailed it to me all the way from 'merica. It made me cry. It had one of the nicest bean mixes for chili I've ever had, lots of red beans, some ramen pride, peanut butter oreos (because face it, you need treats) and all kinds of last-forever staples in it - plus a bottle of 100 vitamin pills that were basic and no-nonsense.

I was in rough financial shape, rough mental health shape. stillnotbored completely saved my bacon with a cash injection that wended its way through makeshiftdaisy to get to me, just when I needed it to get to me.

But I've had a lot of years of experience being poor. squeezing a nickel until it shrieked. and I know lotta you have been there too. and lotta you have crawled out from under debt. But the thing about poor skills is that sharing them is wealth, and I want to spend a bit of time talking about the poor.

Here's my first question:

When you hit a month where you aren't going to have enough for everything, what things do you do to make things stretch a bit farther?

( I always worry about where my next meal is coming from. )

What do you do?

...and so copperwise wrote a post that reflects on why you shouldn't be depressed on Valentine's day just because you're single

...and now I must make a confession:

A few days ago, I read He's Just Not That Into You, by Greg Behrendt and Liz Tucillo, writers for Sex and The City. It was sitting on the toilet at legacyofty's neighbor's house, and I picked it up and started reading it...

And said HEY. waitasecond. this book is thin, but it's not precisely fluffy. It's a real kick in the ass, quite frankly. It starts out gentle, with He's Just Not That Into You if He's Not Calling You, and drags you in deeper and deeper into awful epiphanies.

awful, that is, if you've ever spent time screwing up your gorgeous brow trying to figure out just what is up with that guy - if he's confused, scared, in a bad situation, torn, etc. - and find excuses for his behavior and wait...

or stick with not so good because it's better than being alone...

or tell yourself that he'll break up with her any second now...

Hard truth! He's just Not That Into You, and the faster you clue in and move on, the closer you will be to the guy who is into you.

For me, there is no more wasting time on guys who are confused, or don't know what they want, or are in a bad situation, or who have broken dialing/email fingers.

Of course, that assumes that I want a boyfriend at some point in the future...