Date: 2009-11-07 22:02 Subject: (no subject) Security: Public

Jemmy's been complaining of headache ever since I put him to bed. It's driving me a bit mental, really--he keeps getting out of bed to fuss about it. I'm just trying for a moment's peace before I lie down too.

( Private )
I'm so tired. That doesn't seem a bad idea now. I can't think well enough to write.

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Date: 2009-11-03 20:52 Subject: (no subject) Security: Public

I was on the wall this morning and Palan just dropped right in front of me. He started coughing, then he couldn't breathe. It was terrible, really.

I've still three hours left in my shift but I can't stop thinking about it. It really put the whole day off to a bad start. I hope he's alright.

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Date: 2009-10-03 20:54 Subject: (no subject) Security: Public

I got a letter from the military and I don't honestly know how I feel about it.

I suppose I'm going. I haven't got any choice if I want them to hear me. They bloody well haven't listened in the past - all I can hope for is that these men will be different.

Though, if we're being honest, it bothers me that they're all men.

Is this world going to be the same as the last?

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Date: 2009-09-26 09:45 Subject: (no subject) Security: Public

It's been a while since I tried to remember a poem. I suppose this one isn't reflective of anything, although it does remind me of someone that I know.

( ((Poetry cut)) )

I have to make a choice about the militia soon.

I can either try to push my way back into the thick of it and do something more than walk the walls, or I can accept that my term of service is almost over and finish it out on the walls.

And I don't know what I want, really. I was never good at any of the things I did in my life except, I think, for being a mum. I just did them because I could, because it was a way to earn money and to support myself and Jemmy without having to ask Dad for help. But I don't actually know if I liked doing any of it. Is the militia so much worse than anything else then? There really isn't much else I could do, is there?

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Date: 2009-09-19 20:22 Subject: (no subject) Security: Public

( Privately warded )

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Date: 2009-09-19 09:21 Subject: (no subject) Security: Public

Though my mother was already two years dead
Dad kept her slippers warming by the gas,
put hot water bottles her side of the bed
and still went to renew her transport pass.

You couldn't just drop in. You had to phone.
He'd put you off an hour to give him time
to clear away her things and look alone
as though his still raw love were such a crime.

He couldn't risk my blight of disbelief
though sure that very soon he'd hear her key
scrape in the rusted lock and end his grief.
He knew she'd just popped out to get the tea...


I feel as if I have I'll have that kind of love someday. And the poem is awfully grim, really. But yet, it's lovely for what it means.

( Privately warded )

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Date: 2009-09-13 15:39 Subject: (no subject) Security: Public

I think I'm having salad for dinner. Cucumbers, carrots, maybe a large zucchini. I hear banana's supposed to be lovely also.

Merlin, this potion I'm on is making me bloody dizzy. It's a bit like being drunk, really.

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Date: 2009-09-07 11:31 Subject: (no subject) Security: Public

I've gotten two apologies in two days for something that I didn't think was a big deal, really. And both of them far more public than they really needed to be.

I'm so tired. Jemmy's still coughing but he does seem to be over the worst. Now he's on to the fitful stage, where nothing I do entertains him and nothing seems to please him. It's even worse, since we can't just go to the grocery and find anything nice for his throat. I miss things like pudding and popsicles. His fever's gone on far too long and I ran out of aspirin this morning.

So it'll be baths next. And pumping water and sopping cloths and I am so fucking tired.

I know I ought to respond to that apology and I will but I have to go make lunch.

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Date: 2009-09-05 22:05 Subject: (no subject) Security: Public

( Warded against Pritchard )

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Date: 2009-09-03 22:52 Subject: (no subject) Security: Public

Sickness seems to be contagious around here these days.

Jem's got something that I can't figure out and he's coughing and wheezing to the point that I called in my shift tonight. Quather wasn't sympathetic at all. He made this horrible big deal about it, really. Apparently, he feels that I ought to have taken the single parent exemption if my "son was just going to fucking get sick anyhow."

Some days, I hate the way this place runs.

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Date: 2009-08-26 21:09 Subject: (no subject) Security: Public

The masque was far different than I expected.

At least, I wasn't able to guess anyone, really. I didn't find Justin or Andrew and I think that I might've run into Ash but I'm really not sure. I realize that this was meant to be an event where people went wild and acted other than they were but I just didn't manage it.

Then again, I'm not quite sure I'd appreciate it now if I had.

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Date: 2009-08-20 20:09 Subject: (no subject) Security: Public

( Privately warded )

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Date: 2009-08-18 23:28 Subject: (no subject) Security: Public

( Warded to Hufflepuff alumni... and Andrew, Romilda )

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Date: 2009-08-10 23:44 Subject: (no subject) Security: Public

The working girls in the morning are going to work--
long lines of them afoot amid the downtown stores
and factories, thousands with little brick-shaped
lunches wrapped in newspapers under their arms.
( I feel a wonder about where it is all going )

I've been called to go and see Quather, the head of the militia, about something tomorrow. I assume it's about the suicide murder death. I'm not sure what to think of it, really. On one hand, I wish he would censor me so that I'd be forced to consider something else with my life. On the other, there's a piece of me that actually likes the work.

And what would I do otherwise? Ambulators aren't nearly as useful without Apparation, nor was I ever nearly as brilliant on a broom as some. There's no shops to work in, not really. The structure of things fell apart and never did get put back together.

I suppose, that would be a start, wouldn't it? Figuring out what a structure might look like and going at it.

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Date: 2009-08-02 17:01 Subject: (no subject) Security: Public

I've been trying to find a poem for Geoffrey all morning, to read at the funeral. I feel as if there ought to be something - the other funerals that I've been to here haven't had much of anything at all. A few words, then the burial.

I suppose that we ought to be thankful that there's anything at all.

I can't help but think that it would be the end of us as human, if we forgot the need for burial rites.

I wish I had that poem.

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Date: 2009-07-29 22:33 Subject: (no subject) Security: Public

It's odd, really. I've all these poetry books around me now and I'm simply not in the mood to write it down.

I feel as if I'm waiting. I couldn't tell you what for, or even if it is a what. It might simply be a lifetime of waiting for the other shoe to drop, though I hate to think of it that way. There has to be a point at which things get easier, I always thought. I think I still do think that. I'm just not sure it's now.

( Private )

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Date: 2009-07-23 21:32 Subject: (no subject) Security: Public

( Warded to Theodore )

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Date: 2009-07-19 19:23 Subject: (no subject) Security: Public

I think that the idea of going after harpies with nets of any kind isn't a good one. Are you all very sure that you want to do this?

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Date: 2009-07-14 18:58 Subject: (no subject) Security: Public

Here, on the farthest point of the peninsula
The winter storm
Off the Atlantic shook the schoolhouse.
Mrs. Whitimore, dying
Of tuberculosis, said it would be after dark
Before the snowplow and bus would reach us.

She read to us from Melville.

( ((Cut for poetry)) )

I wonder, sometimes, what kind of world we'll be in twenty years or what kind of world we are, even, if we were to go out and live outside those walls. Far outside.

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Date: 2009-07-05 11:02 Subject: (no subject) Security: Public Music: "Wish you were here" : Pink Floyd

I almost prefer walking the walls. At least you know where you stand there.

Here's a poem.

( ((Not warded, cut for length)) )

( Hexed so that anyone trying to break the ward who fails will have purple fingers for a week. )

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