I am a field lying fallow right now.

I am working on completing some projects. I like starting things much more than I do completing them, but if I don't complete them, they hang over my head an whine at me until I do something about them.

so, currently, I am sewing together the last of my chapbooks. I've been working through them slowly, watching movies as I do so, because I'm actually hand-sewing together every single one of them, punching holes and waving the thread through, tying it off and attaching beads to the leftover string.

I've promised myself no more books, no more art until this is done. It's a bit of a larger project than I originally thought it was going to be. When I'm done with the first 50 books, I'm going to take a break for a few days, and then I have a bunch of books I want to make. I'd like to get better at the small coptic stitch books before I take on the larger coptic stitch project I have in mind, and the only way I'm going to do that is by making five or six books.

But right now, I am afflicted with my annual case of the Januaries. The holiday season is over, so there aren't any distractions. The sky is grey, the weather is cold and rainy, the days are still short. I'm hoping to propel myself through by giving myself a lot to do, preparing for projects for the summertime.

Alone time has helped, as well. I've not done much socially since about the 4th, and I continue to not have much going on in my life until Friday. My house is clean, I've been cooking, my projects are getting done, and except for some work stuff that I won't go into, my life is remarkably low-stress at the moment. I've been enjoying it.

There's just something about this time of year. My resilience is not what it is most of the time--stress hits me harder, I get ill more, my allergies kick up and make me miserable. I have to cut down on social activities in the winter.

But at the same time, when I'm not stressed out, I truly enjoy the season. I love the silver of the Sound as it reflects the white sky. I love the fog that rolls in in the morning into downtown. I love the wind, and the rain, I love the excuse to wear sweaters and stay inside and drink tea and read. I'm terribly productive in the winter. In the summer, there is too much sunlight for me to want to be inside, but in the land of short days and drizzle I am working on everything that I was too distracted to do all summer.

And soon, it will be time for more people. I can feel the tugs on the ties that keep me in this world and don't let me wander away into wherever it is that I go when I'm gone.

Not yet. But soon.

I finished forty of my chapbooks, and am calling it good enough for the moment. I really don't think I'm going to run through my supply of them that quickly. I have about five or so to send out, and five or six more to give away here, and then if you want one, you'll be able to buy one from me.

It feels good to have them done. Signed, sealed, and numbered, they are a jangly, tinkly pile. (I've tied beads onto every single one of them.) I've written the number I stopped at on the outside of the box they're in, in case I get out to buy some more materials, but for the moment...all done.

It feels good to be done, and there is so much else that is calling me to it. It feels good, to be doing these things for pleasure. It's not always perfect. but I'm starting to figure out that nothing ever really is. at least, not in my life.

I've been offered an opportunity lately, and it's gotten me thinking a little bit about my reactions to things.

I still flinch when men touch me. It's my first response, that quick-as-lightning twitch away. Usually, it's imperceptible. Sometimes, i don't quite catch it in time.

I am not opposed to being touched by men, these days. I think it would be good for me, as a matter of fact, to go into a place where I've been hurt and reclaim the places that are scarred, the places where I have no feeling. I'd like to take the ruined spaces and lift them up and make them sacred again, let the energy flow just as well for men as for women.

I'd like to do that. I really would.

I'm just not sure i'm ready quite yet.

Of all the things I give Chris credit for, the first and foremost thing is that he was patient. It took him two years of inching ever closer to me, touching and testing my boundaries one by one, finding ways over and around them or sometimes just pushing right through them. He is amazingly sensitive to me as only someone who's known me for ten years can be. He knows when I'm about to freeze, when the panic rises, often almost before i know it, and has raised heading fear off at the pass to an art form.

Unfortunately, in order to let him close I had to remove him from the "boy" category in my mind, put him in the "other" category. I can't generalize from him to other males; and even if I did, there are very few that I find attractive these days.

I don't know. I might want to take advantage of the offer that has been made, but at the same time I'm not sure if it's time yet. I'm not sure if I'm ready to walk the tightrope by myself just yet. I am too much difficult terrain, still.

I need to think about it some more, I think.

And now...it's started pouring outside. It's not quite apocalypse out there, but for a little bit it was getting close.

I need to go to bed. The rain is telling me so.

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