100th entry!

[dragonlady7]

just to say:

aw, crap, the birds are starting to sing. My sleeping schedule's so screwed now.

Ruminations on my relationships follow, but don't worry, it's not whiny.

I'm contemplative, which is never a good thing, but it's fun at the time. I was ponderin' on what I was gon' do for the night (to quote Tony Joe White) and then Dave came and got in my bed and fell asleep on me, and I realized that I hadn't had a snuggle in forever and had complained about it via email, so I put the computer to sleep and took a nap with him. It was very pleasant and comfy and my feet finally got warm.
He's a little distressed because his sister informs him that their mother isn't really happy that we're moving back to buffalo-- though she's been wanting Dave to move home for years, and is being all smiles to us about it, she's shared a few complaints with Krista. So over the weekend Dave was emailing extensively with his sister, debating what's upsetting his mom. Part of it is us living in sin, which is infuriating-- all of dave's friends are studiously not living with their girlfriends, and yet I would venture a guess that they have more sex than we do. Really. So it's just stupid, and ridiculous. Dave and I have separate bedrooms and we rarely if ever sleep together. We like our space, and while we spend an incredible amount of time together, we actually communicate best via e-mail, and are perfectly comfortable to sit silently in the same room for hours on end, each doing our own thing. I've IM'd Dave across the desk many a time. We both communicate better in writing.
Our relationship is based primarily on comfort. It's comforting to have a friend. It comforts me in my feelings of unemployed inadequacy to get up early every morning and pack a lunch for Dave, because he loves it when someone feeds him. It's comfortable to live together because together we can afford a nicer place than either of us could afford alone. It's comfortable to spend time with one another because neither of us requires that much attention, and both of us like to be left alone, but neither of us really wants to be alone. It's comforting to have a person you can rely on fairly absolutely, whose motivations you understand and whose friendship you don't have to doubt.

Believe me, I know. I have spent most of my life alone. I spent the entirety of my college years as either the third or the fifth wheel. I was forever the afterthought, the extra, the spare, the left-over, and yet was the reliable one everyone took advantage of. (I had a minivan, a washing machine, an enjoyment of feeding people, and a spare bed. I was tremendously useful to many people.)
The brief span of my life I didn't spend alone, I spent inextricably entwined with someone. I had one clingy relationship. And it was lovely. This person was my best friend ever. It was like our minds were actually connected. Our tastes coincided nearly exactly. It was wonderful. But I wasn't really much of a person on my own; I was more an extension of the other. So it wasn't something that could be sustained. That, and geography prevented it. So, too bad.

Anyway. It's been interesting, because Dave's never spoken to me of Our Relationship before, really. He's not the type who does. Anything serious is usually approached sarcastically. The most I've gotten him to admit before is that he eats much better now that I live with him. But before I met him, he lived alone in a dingy apartment in a horrible neighborhood, and his furniture was: a folding chair, a kitchen table, a mini-fridge, an air mattress, and assorted cardboard boxes. He bought a bed shortly after he met me, and then I gave him a couch. Then we moved in together, and the rest of the furniture is mine. Thank God, because I have so damn much furniture I don't know what the hell to do with it.
Which leads me back to OH MY GOD WE'RE MOVING HOW THE HELL ARE WE GOING TO GET IT ALL IN THE DAMN TRUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!

oof.

Anyhow, I had a lovely snuggly nap, but woke up at 2 am when dave decided to go to his own bed (where he usually sleeps), and now here I am, it's 5 am. I've been making up a playlist for a friend whose fanfiction I was beta-ing. I'm trying to get her to be more evocative of a mood in her writing, which may be misguided of me; as I recall, Tolkien's stuff wasn't particularly mood-based. So i might be braindead.
But, i thought, this calls for a playlist! So I scoured through my library and have been picking out mood-appropriate songs. I had about 200 of 'em, but have whittled it down to maybe 20, and of those, i've converted about a dozen to mp3 and have them up on my server with blurbs.

At risk of being accused of piracy, I'll post one here. Because I feel like sharing.

Raitachas na Tairngreacht, by Danú, from the album The Road less Traveled. (The vocalist's name is Muireen Nic Amhlaoibh.)

I love Danú. They're a very young band, all twentysomethings, mostly from gaelteachts in the West of Ireland. My mom and sister used to go see these guys when they were new enough to be touring in coffeeshops and such. Their bodhrán player Donnchadh Gough is fabulous. I only saw them once, and they were headlining a big Irish festival near Albany. We're glad they're getting more popular. This song, I don't remember what it's about, so I can't tell you much. But it's pretty. There's more info about Danú on this page, if you scroll down a ways, and their official webpage, which is humorously, tongue-in-cheek bad, is here.