Birds, bit more general stuff.

content/core/009.md

@@ -25,7 +25,7 @@ Later.
 
 I took a sleep aid. I'm not getting into this now. I was all prepped to write about poly stuff, but you started banging on the door.
 
-[Read](https://writing.drab-makyo.com/blog/omens-and-portents/) [what](https://writing.drab-makyo.com/blog/on-ritual/) [I've](https://imgur.com/gallery/fkrQc) [already](https://writing.drab-makyo.com/poetry/bruise-vision/) [written](/page/8).
+<a class="pulse" href="/birds">Read what I've already written</a>.
 
 > I was there when you wrote those.
 

content/core/029.md

@@ -0,0 +1,38 @@
+---
+date: 2019-08-19
+weight: 29
+---
+
+Is it weird for me to be streaming writing like this?
+
+> I don't know. Does it feel weird to you?
+
+I guess. I feel like maybe it's weird to be writing for an audience (even if it's only theoretical). What sort of information can be gleaned from watching someone write in a word-processor? Method? Insight?
+
+> Entertainment?
+
+I don't know about that.
+
+> Validation?
+
+That's more like it, I suppose. It's a way to prove to others that I actually sit down and write these things. That there's someone there.
+
+> That there's someone behind a memoir? How novel.
+
+Well, yes. But that they take time, that they take energy. That it's a process and not a product.
+
+> Is there some sense of validity that is lacking from simply publishing? Posting?
+
+I don't know.
+
+> You set up analytics on this site. And on your writing site.
+
+I set up analytics on a lot of sites.
+
+> But these in particular. Do you need to see that others see you?
+
+I suppose I do. It's important to be recognized.
+
+> Are you also doing this to get me to leave you alone about heavier topics?
+
+Yes.

content/core/030.md

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+---
+date: 2019-08-19
+weight: 30
+---
+
+> If Matthew died on September 6th, 2012, was Madison born then?
+
+No, I don't think so. Madison was born some years later. Maybe at some point in 2014. The years in between were a sort of liminal time.
+
+> You found yourself in a place between.
+
+I did. There was this time in my life when I was figuring out gender. I was figuring out poly. I was figuring out working. I was figuring out not being at school and moving away from music and learning to write and all the interstices of alcoholism. Those little nooks and crannies you never know about until you start drinking in earnest.
+
+It was like a second period of growing up. Something more refined than a rebirth. Something less grand. Something subtler.
+
+> You also learned the term 'hendiatris'.
+
+I have a style, alright?
+
+> Right.
+
+It's the time when I started [a][s], the time when I started to look at my life in earnest, to give thought to the fact that one might actually enjoy things, have opinions. It was the time I started to let go of irony, bit by bit.
+
+> It was the time you started to own yourself.
+
+Maybe. Maybe not. I'm still working on that one. It feels like an ongoing struggle.
+
+> What's the old saw? You'll finally perfect it six months after death?
+
+I think that was about when men leave puberty.
+
+> Let's talk about TIASAP.
+
+No more, please.
+
+> Let's talk about puberty.
+
+That first exploration? I don't know if I'm ready for that, yet.
+
+> So what **are** you talking about?
+
+Well, I was going to talk about that liminal phase, but you seem to have other ideas.
+
+> That just means you're unfocused.
+
+Well, yes.
+
+> Tell me about that place in between, then.

content/core/031.md

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+---
+date: 2019-08-19
+weight: 31
+---
+
+Shortly after we learned that Margaras died--
+
+> Less than twenty-four hours. That's pretty short.
+
+--I wound up in Montreal on the first of many work 'sprints'. These were to become a common fixture for the next six years. After all, working from home only gets you so far. Gotta get together, actually learn how the others on your team work. Meet.
+
+> You had just started at Canonical. Are you sure that wasn't the death of Matthew? Or maybe it was getting married? Creating Younes?
+
+Matthew was sick for a while. Can we put it that way? He was struggling to hold on, his time was at an end, he was looking rather pale.
+
+> He was fading.
+
+Yes.
+
+> And Madison faded in in 2014.
+
+I was a transparent person. I was less than real. I was empty, unable to contain an identity. I was a fetch. I was held together with Blu-Tack and paperclips. I was not myself.
+
+> Are you now?
+
+Held together with Blu-Tack? I like to think I'm moderately better put together these days.
+
+> No, yourself. Are you yourself yet?
+
+Six months after death, remember?
+
+> Fair. What did you do during your two years as a half-entity?
+
+Failed. Like, a lot. I failed like it was my job. I failed friends when we moved to Loveland and effectively disappeared from their lives. I failed work when I burned so hard that I burnt out. I failed at communicating. I failed in a lot of ways.
+
+I drank, too. I stopped composing.
+
+> Was it so negative a time?
+
+No, of course not. I'm still here. A lot of that failure was the valuable sort. I failed my years at university when I stopped composing, but found that I could still be creative when writing. I failed work when I burned out, but I also learned how to pace myself better (something I definitely hadn't learned up until that point). I learned how to talk, how to listen. At least, how to listen better, how to express myself better.
+
+There's a lot of folks to whom I could credit those being successful failures, if there is such a thing. In a round about way, my boss from the job prior kicking my ass and making me go to therapy, even if not to the ideal therapist, set me on the path to learning how to slow down when I needed to and speed up when that was called for. Writing got me better at putting my ideas --- and, at times, emotions --- into words. Friends, countless friends, helped me become who I am.
+
+> What's that I'm tasting? Sweet'n Low?
+
+Is it really that saccharine to be able to look back and say that you sucked, and that you're getting better?
+
+<div class="verse">She wears a pendant of stamped brass
+    Saying "Non sum qualis eram."</div>
+
+Like, obviously, it sucks to get that regretrospect feeling of looking back and realizing that you were a terrible person, but it's also a good sign that you've improved. If you don't like who you were, at least it's good that you're not that, now.
+
+> Unless you don't like who you are now.
+
+That's a different problem. Same class of problem, maybe, but a different problem.