Confessions

My dear friends and fambly, I'm sorry I've neglected my blog for so long. While I originally began this bloggy venture as a way to keep my widely scattered loved ones in touch with the goings-on in my life, I long ago decided to keep it fairly non-personal. Meaning that I didn't want to lapse into long descriptions of my emotional state, and that I wanted to keep the negativity at bay and only write about the positive happy bits. The downside to this Pollyanna-ism is that when I'm having a low spell, you folks don't hear from me.

This past month has been a combination of extremes: I have alternately been horrifically depressed and weepy and manically busy finding things to distract myself. I have had more than my share of low blows lately, some of it financial, much of it just ongoing wretchedness that began months and months ago. Life is definitely an uphill struggle for me right now, but I'm still plodding along. My largest obstacle at the moment is that when I was finally healthy enough to go back to work full time, there was no work to be had. Financial chaos has ensued. Combine this with my already volatile emotional state and you have a recipe for a very despondent Kathryn. However, I do, as I have mentioned many times before, have a large number of very good friends who have been doing an excellent job of providing me with shoulders to cry upon and with numerous excursions to distract me from my woes. Thank you so much to those of you who have helped me keep my head above the water. With that said, here is the original post that I wrote a week ago (plus a few improvements) but was feeling too morose to post:

In addition to my dance troupe practice once a week, I am now taking belly dance lessons once a week. My friend Lisa (of the gorgeous jade-colored eyes) got me into this class and I love it. In contrast to my dance troupe, where we have to put in a lot of serious practice for upcoming performances, the belly dance class is pure fun. It's also very much needed for me--there are several basic belly dance maneuvers that I still have a difficult time performing, and given that my dance troupe is having our first performance of the year in a week and a half, I really need the extra practice. The instructor is great, too. She's always telling us how hot we are and that we need to flirt with ourselves. She's a blast.

On Presidents' Day Weekend I took my first road trip in years and took off to Arizona for another one of my Medieval Nerd Conventions, otherwise known as an SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism) event. This particular gathering was a war, where you have hundreds and hundreds of people--not just men: remember the "creative" part of their name--out on a big field dressed in full armor and bashing the hell out of each other with swords and spears and axes. It's a great spectacle of noise and color. Other than that, it was just a bunch of wandering around dressed in cleavage-enhancing period clothing and enjoying the freedom of being totally separated from my normal life. I spent most of my time shopping at merchant's row in the daytime and carousing in the evening: wandering from fire to fire watching drumming and dancing, and tripping over the agricultural berms and falling in a heap with my friends. I took K with me; actually, he drove, so I suppose it's the other way around. He had never been to an SCA event before, and this particular war is a great place to start due to its size. There typically are 6-8,000 people attending the war in Arizona. I'm pretty sure K had a good time. What's not to like? We got to start drinking at noon, sitting around camp in our period outfits eating fancy bread and cheese and just generally reveling in our indolence before the serious carousing began. A good life.

In other more serious news, I finally have a roommate. For real this time--he's actually moved in; he's been here for a little over a week. I am still fairly leery of this whole deal and I'm having a somewhat difficult time adjusting to having someone else in my living space, particularly a boy, but in general, I know it's a good thing. I definitely needed the help with rent, and after all, he makes delicious smoothies for breakfast. I can't complain too much.