Things only Susan cares about.

There are a few people who still follow me here, and a few people who I think would like to know that I'm engaged to be married.

Big stuff!

It's a little strange to be doing something to resolutely heterosexual, but there you have it. He's a good friend from college so he knew me during some of my least attractive times. I'm in a much healthier place now than I've ever been. I'm following my dream job and I've fallen in love with someone who is kind, generous, smart, funny, and wants to walk with me on this roller-coaster we call life.

So it's looking like I'll be a married woman before October is finished.

Ummm... Hi.

So I dropped off the face of the planet internetwise for a while. I've been around. Been reading like crazy, but Big Things were happening that I just couldn't deal with in front of an audience and couldn't post updates without hellacious work arounds. 

I've been fighting some major ups and downs with depression and disordered eating. Mostly downs, but some really nice is quiet ups in the last year and a half. I had a very kind sweetheart. I had the nicest, gentlest break-up in the history of break-ups with said sweetheart and learned some lessons there that I really needed to learn.

I realized that I haven't talked to anyone from high school in over a year now. And I had only been talking to one person for years before that. I talk to two from college. Neither regularly. I'm embarrassed about who I used to be. I *know* I've changed. Isolation and self absorption tainted everything about who I was in high school. Depression and mistrust colored college. I have no idea how people from my past saw me because my perception was (and to some extent still is) colored by that twisted fuck of a thought process that comes from depression. 

Depression *sucks.*

But, you know, I'm getting better. I'm trying harder. And you know what? Things are looking up. I know there are a few of you who probably wondered what happened to me when I fell off the face of the planet. Well, there was the loved and lost thing, I kept going to midwifery school, I moved a few times, and I wished I was at a good place in my life to have a cat. (I fell head over heels in cat love with a housemates cat and got to cat-sit her for a few months while her parent was in Hawaii. This cat was the bomb, ya'll. I miss her.) 

The big news though? I got a midwifery apprenticeship. I'm about to start 18 months at Bella Vie birth center down near Salem, Oregon. Happy news! I'll be living with my folks (it's fine, we get along pretty well now that I'm not a teenager) in exchange for housekeeping, and really truely following my calling to help folks bring new folks into the world. Very very good news indeed! 

Much love to all of you, and many apologies for those I left without a word. *shameface* 

Well, I just lost my job today. I have been an in-home caregiver to the elderly, specializing in folks with dementia. It was mostly due to some clerical misunderstanding. Technically I was fired, but my boss is willing to be a personal reference, so that's on my side.

It does, however, pretty much puts all my summer plans to a grinding halt as I try to find a new job. Those days off I had planned to go on mini-vacation? Gone. I'm trying really really hard to focus on the positive. This is by no means the end of the world, but life just got a little more complicated. Which I'm really not all that into. 

Never been fired before. Hope to never be fired again. For those of you who have never had the experience... avoid it as long as possible. it sucks balls.

John and Rodney of Stargate Atlantis so very very clearly traded "OMG what the hell was that someone just died in front of me buddyfuck comfort" handjobs right after The Defiant One. They didn't talk about it or anything then, but that was totally their first time. While I enjoy other interpretations this is clearly a part of canon. Atleast my personal canon.

I'm also pretty sure I know when John/Ronon started and roughly when Teyla/Rodney started. I'm somewhat sketchier on when John/Teyla and Ronon/Teyla started. Ahhh, the logistics of having a OT4some.

You really should be watching this show with me. It's awesome in my head.  *hearts show*

Dear LOST,

in the 1970's and 1980s an unexpected breech presentation (babies coming out ass first) was not call for an immediate c-section. I know it's considered SOP now, when doctor's aren't being taught how to help breech babes come out on their own, but on a REMOTE OUTPOST where I'm gathering MAJOR ABDOMINAL SURGERY isn't routine (if they send them off the island to pop out a kid do you really think they perform appendectomies there?) there is no fucking reason for a breech breach babe to be a c-sec unless there is a prolapsed cord or other major issue.

No love,
Susan

Drive by posting for the new year.

Spent Christmas down with the folks and promptly got snowed in with no power for just under a week. A WEEK. With no power, no internet, trying to save cell phone battery... bad news bears.

In good news I am gainfully employed and training starts on the 8th. I am picking up some babysitting gigs between now and then to feed my poor belly. Due to that I am working tonight taking care of a super sweet if precocious four year old girl. Not exactly fun city, but it's fundage. I would much much much rather be doing something else Even if my options were 1.) drive roughly forever to be with someone super dear who is not exactly thrilled with me at the mo. or 2.) watch my housemates try not to make out too much in front of me while we watch movies it would still be a New Years of my choosing. 

Much much love to all of you. I have a ton of catch up to do, a bit of writing that may take place, and oh so many thoughts on Stargate Atlantis I may just explode. Look forward to it.

<3

*waves shyly*

Hello all. I do in fact exist, and have continually existed since I last posted in August. Hi.

A few of you have been asking about how school has been going. Quick answer? Pretty damn well. This term I'm really able to put things together in a much more cohesive way. Well woman gynecology and gynecology skills are <i>awesome</i> classes. I'm learning so freaking much and loving it. ( Cut for discussion of girl parts and examinations of said parts )


Since I last posted I started to do my winter depression. Joy. However, this was cut short by a pretty fucking powerful spiritual experience in Meeting (also: I've started attending unprogrammed Quaker meetings again which is stunningly good for me) and St. John's Wort. I cannot reccommend this little plant enough. I've been taking 2 dropperfuls every day with a little orange juice and it has been my saving grace. I am still struggling with depression, but it is mostly situational. The difference between situational depression and seasonal/chronic depression is so vast it's almost a relief to be this kind of depressed. 

On that note, the situational depression is almost all job related. I don't have one. This has been a huge stressor on me and I'm having a hard time keeping my chin up and convincing myself that I am a good worker and should be hired. Finances are becoming quite... gone. It's tough but I'll get over it.

I am still in full lust with Stargate Atlantis. the fact that the writing is often painfully bad and the in character behavior fluctuates so wildly between episodes cannot dull the fact that at any moment a giant orgy could errupt. This is less true for the current season, mainly because they aren't doing as much Team stuff, but still... I certainly have my pairing preferences, but honestly, there are very few pairings I can't see working in some way or another. It's pretty freaking great. I would also like to join in agreement that seasons 2-3 are probably the best, but each season has its high points.

There has been some weird stuff going on with interpersonal relationships, but mostly alright. I am currently living with a classmate (who is almost always wandering around the peak of awesomeness) and her sweetheart in a house in Portland. Our fourth roommate will be moving out, but that is a good thing. We need to find someone else. but it will be good to find someone who actually wants to spend some time hanging out with the coolness that is us.

So that's the last few months in a nutshell.

Holy transitional period, Batman!

So I haven't posted in ages. Bad Susan. I'd suggest spankings, but that won't really teach me much now will it?

So in the next two weeks I will be:
*Moving (Which I hate more than almost anything in the world)
*Changing work situations (same company different place at the moment)
*Starting the second term of my second year (Holy Shit! That's half way through midwife school folks.)
*Figuring out what to do with my broken laptop (cracked motherboard, but the hard drive is fine)
*Cutting my mid-ass length hair for the first time in years. First time since my mom lost all of hers to cancer. I'm hoping to let go of some baggage with it. Yes, yes, there will be before and after pictures.

Oh, also running lines for a play I'm in which goes up on the 20th of September. Not one cast member is off book. We rehearse 2 times a week.

I'm so stressed out I can't keep from giggling manically every five minutes.


*manic giggle*

*I love midwifery. I am a raging ball of frustrated anger at midwifery school this term. One of our classes was taken over (while the usual instructor what our nursing twins) by a naturopathic doctor who clearly understands the material, just not how it applies to midwifery or how to share that information in a way anyone can retain.

*I may have an apprenticeship opportunity coming up. Interviews are being done this month and I want it SO BAD. I just need to finish up some paperwork before I can get an interview.

*Living in the city is for the birds, y'all. I want crickets and frogs and to see the freaking stars.

*I'm sorry I haven't been posting. RL has been... fraught. It looks like I'll get to take a little trip down therapy lane pretty soon, which is good, but intimidating.

In more awesometastic news I am completely in love with the song Draco and Harry by The Whomping Willows. Now, I don't ship Harry/Draco at all. I find it hard to overemphasize my boredom with the star crossed "two houses, both alike in dignity" blahblahblah. That said this is the most awesome love song in my world right now.

Go! Listen! http://www.sendspace.com/file/74o957

Did you know that putting a fairly large piece of steel through your nipples kind of hurts?

Well I do.

Today I took a road trip to Seattle with two of my lovely friends and classmates. One of them got a haircut, then we all went to a lovely shop called Pierced Hearts to get our flesh punctured. Two of us now have nipple piercings and the third got her clitoral hood done. After that we went shopping for sex toys at Babeland. All in all a very good day.

So yeah. I now have two lovely horizontal barbells in my tits. I'm feeling both faintly badass and totally awesome. It hurt like a son of a bitch, but actually less than I was expecting. I watched my roommate get hers done first so I had some idea of what to expect (mainly a lot of pain). Afterwards when I was feeling like I had done pretty well for a big whiner the piercer (a woman named Chuck who I would recommend in a *heartbeat* she was just awesome) told us that nipple piercings are the most painful of the piercings. My roommate said hers hurt way worse than when she got a genital piercing (her triangle) done over a year ago. After hearing that I didn't feel pretty good, I felt freaking awesome. I was a ninja.

I'm pretty super happy I got them done, now it's just the long 4-6 months waiting for them to heal 100%.