"Know what's written above the fountain you're drinking out of."

There's a reason I avoided getting involved in politics or charities for so many years. There's a reason why I keep my ditzy demeanor, even though it means that I am being consistently underestimated and undervalued. There's a reason why I force myself to be shallow, when everyone else is striving to be deep. This reason has recently been brought into sharp relief.

When River Tam was at that government school, in Firefly, they stripped her amygdalae. I feel like mine aren't quite stripped, but they aren't quite not, either. Once I start thinking about something this emotionally taxing I can't stop; I think and I think and I think and I write it out but I can't always get rid of it and it hounds me for days. Everything in my life suffers for it and I can't quite get anything done because my brain is so full of deep thoughts. Theories and details and patterns that if only I was studying I could write thesis upon thesis based on them. As it is they're simply things inside my head that make no sense, or rather too much sense.

The problem with having a high level of intelligence is that you can never quite escape your intellect. It sounds like bragging, but it isn't. It's a cry for sympathy, because too often I would rather be one of those people who doesn't think about anything but their next pair of shoes and the most recent issue of OK Magazine than someone who has so much insight about poverty or gender/sexuality politics or politics in general. I'm the ideas girl, which means I can't not have ideas, which means I can't not overthink things in great detail, which means I can't not connect the dots between a-and-b-and-c-and-d-and-e and finally ending up with something that would work but who would listen to me? I'm in no position to propose these things.

I'm in no position to change the world. All I can do is try.

If you lived here, you'd be home now.

Last night's escapades with insane people, hysterical women, loud banging noises at 1am and then 2 hours later, and eventual police intervention makes me almost tempted to look for new lodgings. I love my little flat, but I hate the building. The woods are full of fairies, but the suburbia is full of drug dealers.

It's times like this that I get heartsick; torn between two courses of action, neither of which will make me particularly happy. It's as though I'm always searching for the thing that will finally make me feel like I'm home, but until then everything feels like a temporary stopping point. I've lived here almost two years and still haven't hung most of my pictures on the wall; university flats had everything up within a week. Maybe it's because I'm living alone now. Maybe it's because there's something about this place that just doesn't feel quite right. Maybe I'm just ill-equipped to deal with real life and grown-up responsibilities. None of those options are particularly appealing, because they all, ultimately, mean some kind of change has to happen.

I think I know what I want; but then, this used to be what I wanted.

It's not a side effect of the drugs....

I try not to care what people think of me, but of course I do. Everybody cares, and people who say they don't are either lying or more comfortable with themselves than 99.99% of the population. Maybe even less.

I wonder what people think when they look at me; the assumptions they make about me. Right now, I wonder what they would think if they saw me sitting here: short-ish brown hair tied back in a loose ponytail with strands hanging over my face; glasses with thin, black, metal rims that have seen better days and are slightly bent from falling asleep in them too many times; two rubber music-band bracelets - one red and yellow, the other camoflage; a white gypsy top wth purple flowers; red sweatpants, less stylish and more comfy; big furry slippers; no make-up; round face; jewelleryless... All of these things make up my appearance, but none of them define me. People look at me, and they think: Girl. They think: straight. They think: somewhere between 20 and 30. They think: a little chubby, not terribly stylish, a little geeky. They think: big smile, big laugh, dramaqueen, happy.

It's amazing how wrong people can get it when they assume. And it frustrates me, because I feel as though I have to be constantly explaning who I am. If I had surgery to become a total androgyne; if I wore rainbows everywhere; if I walked around with a pensive look...maybe people would get it. If as soon as I met people I asked that they call me by non-gender-specific pronouns, if I showed them pictures of ex-girlfriends, if I could physically manifest internal tumultuousness, then maybe people would understand me better.

Sometimes I wonder if I'm a sellout because I'm so much happier not to rock the boat, to let people assume that I fall under one of the heteronormative 'normal' categories unless it specifically comes up. I won't deny it, because for me, I shouldn't have to make a big deal out of it, because no-one should assume things in the first place. But that's not how the world works, is it? Sometimes I wonder if it's worth taking a stand, once and for all, just to clear the air. To stand up for who I actually am, as opposed to who they assume I should be.

Of course, I probably won't. But a person can dream.

You can't title love....

Every spring a craving is awakened in me. As soon as I see a Japanese cherry tree, my soul yearns for the blossom. I don't feel complete until I have some in my hands, in my hair, through a buttonhole. It started when I moved to Edinburgh for university 7 years ago - Edinburgh has squares within the city which are lined with cherry trees - and the first time I saw one a part of me was filled with longing.

Once upon a time, millennia ago, there was a young Japanese woman who fell in love with a man who wasn't her husband, and he fell in love with her too. One night they arranged to meet. The man brought the woman some blossom off one of the cherry trees, and they spent one beautiful, forbidden night together. At the first light of dawn the next day, the young woman dressed, picked up the blossom the man had given her, and stole back to her room before she could be missed. She never saw him again, but for the rest of that spring, and every spring following, she wore cherry blossom in her hair to remind herself of what it was to truly love. Her love for him lasted even after death, because some loves are eternal, and once forged can never be broken.

Aishiteru.

"So you're, like, half gay?"

It's so easy to forget that people will always assume that you're straight, so you have to actively 'come out' everywhere you go.

The world is clearly filled with fail, and needs to catch up kthnx.

Beware of the monkeys!

Or, at least, limit their access to screwdrivers.

One of life's perfect moments:

Falling asleep between two people who are so much a part of me I can't even conceive of myself without them.