Hope is such a strange thing, when we don't have it, nothing in the world seems possible, no matter what our rational self thinks. When we do have it, anything in the world seems possible. Nothing is beyond our grasp.

For me, hope has been a precious commodity as of late. That tide has turned though, and I have love to thank for it. There is nothing in this world of more value than love. Those people I've recently become family with have given me the hope I need, the strength I need to go on, and to find that there is so very much joy in the smallest of things in this life.

I'm far from recovered from all of my problems, but I feel I am finally on a path out of the shadows. It really has come from a sort of moment of personal epiphany, when I came to understand that a healthy life can only be a life lived with joy and love. I realized that I set the value on each of my accomplishments, the world be damned. If what matters to me is living in some simple comfort in the company of those I love, then that is what I should work for, no matter what "potential" I may be "squandering". Life is too short to live for anything other than joy.

I finally have found hope for myself in this idea of living for joy and love, and more importantly, living to *share* love, to share joy, with anyone and everyone that I care about. The world needs to dream again, and I can help that along by doing my part, by dreaming myself, and by giving all the love I have to those wonderful dreamers I've met in my life. In them I see the most radiant souls, shining with possibility for everyone's future.

After staring at the rename token I bought a year ago for a very long time, I finally decided to rename this journal. Due to the direction my life's taking and what's become important to me, I think Aylira Tesayon is an appropriate name. It will still forward from lilyth_lindorie of course. (the new name is aylira_tesayon).

Also, I'm likely headed up to Sacramento tomorrow for about a month, trying to figure out exactly what all I'm going to do, but this is at least something. I need to figure out how to make sure my UI gets sent up there

Anyhow, still alive and still moving forward, albiet slowly.

I have a laptop I want to sell (so I can move into a new place), its an upgraded Everex StepNote SA2052T, a few cosmetic blemishes (missing hinge covers, but it works just fine), intel integrated graphics (945), 1GB DDR2 (PC2-8500), Core 2 Duo (this is a major upgrade) @ 1.66GHz. Its in complete working order, has wifi, etc., and can be imaged with either XP or Vista. If anyone's interested, I want $450 for it, here's the craigslist link too - http://sfbay.craigslist.org/eby/sys/1425199812.html

Here's hoping!

If I manage to find a place (which is looking more likely now, yay), I'll still need to get some stuff to make it livable (splitting up a household is a problem, heh), and I'll need to figure out how to raise the deposit. Consider this an e-begging (e-spanging?) post. If you can & want to help I'll greatly appreciate it, and try to get you back once I get settled in and such. I should have a job in the nearish future, I hope, I'm pursuing everything I can and have had some leads get somewhere. Anyway, paypal me @ livinglatexkali at gmail.com if you like. I hate to be doing this, but I have to, sorry if it comes off a bit too direct. Thanks everyone!

( ) Gone on a blind date
( ) Gave blood
(X) Skipped school
( ) Watched someone die
( ) Been to Mexico
(X) Been to Florida
( More under here )

Still no luck finding a job or a place to live. It seems likely things will continue spiraling down. In case I end up dropping off the net for whatever reason (not likely to happen yet but in a week all bets are off), I just want everyone to know I love you guys, I've had a nice time having a life for a bit here in the bay. I don't know where things will go after this, we'll see, but the void looms before me.

So, I'm not out of Castlefur just yet, but it seems prudent to actually start looking now.

I'm basically looking for a room in the city, I can afford a reasonable rent/utilities split type bill, probably in the 3-400/mo range, though I'm hesitant to mention numbers. I imagine since I'm looking for just a room there's a chance of this.

The catch though is I'm looking for both trans-friendly and 420-ok, but I think in San Francisco that's actually possible. I certainly hope so.

I don't figure any of my readers can directly help, but if there's any advice or whatever, I'd appreciate it. I figure I'll search through craigslist/post if possible. I've never searched for a room like this before, so I'm not really sure what I'm doing, and I really don't want to walk into this blind and get scammed/otherwise fucked with. Anyhow, at least I've got a plan and I'm getting active.

This should work for a good while if I do get it, my unemployment has another month or two on it, and I should qualify for extensions, and I also am actively job searching, and if I get such a room I can consider picking up other work too.

Anyway, hopefully things are picking up.

--Rainbow

EDIT - it would be rather required that this room is somewhere near decent transit, but in SF, almost any home is within walking distance of a muni route, its just a question of if its a good route.

Was reading a friend's journal archives, figured I'd take this one and post the results:

Your results:
You are Kaylee Frye (Ship Mechanic)

Kaylee Frye (Ship Mechanic) 95% Inara Serra (Companion) 70% River (Stowaway) 70% Zoe Washburne (Second-in-command) 65% Malcolm Reynolds (Captain) 60% Dr. Simon Tam (Ship Medic) 55% Wash (Ship Pilot) 50% Derrial Book (Shepherd) 45% A Reaver (Cannibal) 45% Jayne Cobb (Mercenary) 40% Alliance 15%

You are good at fixing things. You are usually cheerful. You appreciate being treated with delicacy and specialness.

Click here to take the Serenity Firefly Personality Test

I've recently been listening to a wonderful story recommended to me by a friend of mine due to my obsession with all things fae, and I figured I should share this with everyone else I know. Its actually my first time listening to an audiobook but its going quite nicely, the podcast setup on the iPhone is pretty nice (my first time trying it too). My only complaint there is I'd want finer grained controls (e.g. sync only unplayed of podcast X but all of podcast Y).

( More review and potential spoilers underneath )

Needless to say to most of you, this all resonates very deeply with me. For those who are new, I am otherkin, a faerie myself, trapped here for a time in a human body in the mortal realm. I suspect this will strike many as insane or arrogant, but it is as far as I can tell the truth of my life. Things like this story are great, they give me a little taste of what I feel is missing from my life, yet leave me longing greater than ever for home.

Anyway, my suggestion to everyone I know -- read this book, its good! (There's a sequel too I'm quite interested in) -- http://chasingthebard.com -- you can find more information there, or just look for the print copy on Amazon.

So, I've been struggling with some things over the past year, and one of them is the realization that I'm sensitive to the casein protein found in cow's milk (and thus any cheese, yogurt, etc. made from it). This sensitivity leads to a near-constant "hay fever" type symptom set and the constant use of antihistamines (specifically cetirizine(zyrtec) in my case), which is no way to live.

I've tried not eating the stuff before, but its very hard for a number of reasons. First off, my favorite kind of food is "american" food, the sort of stuff you find at every diner anywhere in the USA. Secondly, the actual mechanism by which it works leads me to essentially be addicted to it. I have cravings for it fairly often. Thirdly, I'm not sure what kind of quick foods I can have at home that I even like that don't contain these things. I'm used to eating pizza, mac&cheese, stuff like that. Oh, and of course casein is used in foods as a texturing agent too for some reason. I can't even eat most fake cheeses because of this. (Though luckily I *can* eat non-cow cheeses, and have found that a number of them taste good, though of course since they don't trigger this reaction they don't quite satisfy the craving).

I've decided I really need to try cutting cheese/milk out of my diet again, and I'm wondering if anyone has any ideas? Its not like I can just go veggie or anything either though because, to be honest, I'm not a big fan of vegetables. There are some I like now and then, but I'm more on the carnivore side of things. I'm really not quite sure what to do. So...suggestions?

To everyone who replied to us lastnight, both here and on IRC and anywhere else, and all those who might have if they were around, to all our friends and family, we love you all. We love you so very much. You give us hope, you give us help, you give us life. We grew up not knowing this, we grew up with a family that did not help us (they couldn't see there was anything other than letting us do something or doing it for us), we grew up with almost no friends (one or two good friends but they still weren't the kind you'd turn to when your life fell apart, and aside from that just people who pretended to be our friend to hurt us more). Our life has changed so much since moving to california and starting to really meet all you wonderful people. We have a long hard road ahead of us, that is very clear to us now, but with all of you, we are pretty sure we can make it through. Thank you. Thank you so much.

My brain's turned a bit to mush...perhaps later

( Story under here as usual )

Let me know what you think so far?

Just a few bits. First off, in Sam's story, the forest should be redwoods, not pines and firs, little mistake due to not thinking enough about it. Second, I'm considering renaming Sam because, though I drew the name from something I wrote like ten years ago, the character resembles a friend of mine a little much to hold a similar name (I don't want to end up just writing about my friend by accident). I'm bad with names though, so picking another will take me a while quite likely.

On another note, after a long conversation with a friend, I've come to an interesting realization. I wish there were more fae or even just dreamers of other sorts within my circle, specifically I wish there were *any* who wanted to revel in the "darker" aspects of glamour and dream with me. I know they are called "dark" for a reason (sidenote: I hate the dark=bad light=good thing but its common language). I know Ravaging is likely to destroy someone eventually. I just don't always care that much, and kinda figure it could be done carefully anyway. I just want to revel in the depths of my otherworldliness, set aside humanity as much as possible, for a time at least. This friend of mine has (likely rightly) chosen to try to suppress these impulses and set aside these things, so though she understands my desires, there's no way she'd be the one to join me in this. Eh, just musings.

BTW, today's writing will be up eventually, I'm behind again, I know, but I'll be catching up, I hope

Unfortunately, I failed at posting yesterday, so I'm doubling up as it were for today's to make up for it. The following is clearly incomplete but will likely be part of a longer ongoing story.

( Click here to see, its gotten a bit long )

You may have noticed I changed back to the un-courted title.

A lot has happened, and things have been broken and reshaped.

Tesayon is still a dream of mine, and an open invitation stands to all, but for the moment, it would be a bit presumptuous to claim I had much of anything that could be called a court.

I've also been saying the term 'unseelie' a lot lately, and I do wonder if this is right for me. I have stayed here out of rebellion and a desire not to be lorded over or bound to the accords, and that desire does not fade...yet some things in me suggest maybe I should consider joining up with them.

I imagine this is just a passing fancy, but it is something I wish to explore more, as well as the hope that I can become closer with others of my kind and bent, I do wish to become at least friend to other courts and similar gatherings as well as individuals, I know I cannot be the only one.

I've decided to do more writing. Specifically, yesterday, I decided I was going to post at least one piece of original writing each day for a month right here. No particular restrictions on length or theme or anything like that, just a piece I felt worth posting, likely written that morning. Should I miss a day, I will double-up the next. In the end, I hope this helps me develop my interest here, both skill and more importantly confidence. Please do comment on my little excerpts, vignettes and the like.


That said, on to today's piece. Please tell me what you think!


It was a bit of a dull grey morning down by the lakeside, but this did not seem to bother Sam, indeed a smile was on her face as she set about her day. Down at the water's edge, she has long kept a single chair and table, a place one can often find her. As the sun gently edged its way through the clouds, she found herself there once more, a well-worn notebook sitting at the ready upon the table. Her morning ritual is very important to her, and always begins as it does now, with the touching of flame to the beautiful sticky herb in her pipe, and the intricate patterns of smoke that rise up about her.

Reaching for that notebook, she closes her eyes and lets her mind drift off, her senses beginning to open to the next world over. Upon opening them once more, all around her takes on that familiar sense of being somehow more, from the towering pines and firs that circle the lake to the smallest little ripple in the water's surface. It always seems, she muses, that there is this vital energy in everything, and she speaks her quiet thanks to the plant spirit that guides her here and lets her see these wonders.

Pen now comes to paper as she begins to watch the fantastic beings skip about, standing half in the world about her, and half merely in her imagination, or so it would seem, creatures of Dream, her friends. She wasn't going to dive deep today though, no writing about the grand worlds far beyond, just perhaps a few notes on that cute little pixie skating upon the water, or perhaps that little, oddly misshapen yet somehow thoroughly adorable creature hiding under her table.

These were her friends, had been since she moved to this small lakeside home deep in the forest. She'd first seen them one day when the mist rolled in, as it was beginning to do now, a rather common occurrence up here in the mountains, and a wonderful time to see through to the otherworld. On that day she had even seen one of the indescribably beautiful nobles of that world, the shining ones, and she knew she had to capture what she saw, even if it was merely her imagination. That's when she bought this journal, having rushed down to the local town in her nightclothes, the spark of inspiration driving her.

They all simply thought her a bit mad in that little mountain town, but nothing to worry overmuch. She often dropped into the little restaurant for the evening, sharing her tales with those who cared to listen, and they all quite enjoyed her affectation of faerie style, glamorous and majestic in clothing and speech. She did not make many close friends though, seeming perhaps a little too odd with her unnaturally colored hair and fascination with lands beyond this. And of course, the town's first introduction to her was that day when she burst into the bookstore in naught but her nightdress. They say though that every town needs its eccentric, and that is a role she filled quite handily.