on perspective

I took what amounts to a weekend off this week. For the last two days I haven't been anywhere on the web; which explains the 56 email craps in my Yahoo account and the great wealth of info in Wheaton's blog to catch up on and the feeling of renewal I woke up with this morning. The email crap is easy to flush. The Wheaton stuff is always worth catching up on... especially the advice to writer's compendium that I was able to bookmark. But it is the fresh perspective that has me buzzing.
So what does a geek do on her "day off" from the Net/Web? Well, I slept in first of all. Something is wonky in the vicinity of my rotator cuff which makes me excedeingly uncomfortable mentally/physically/emotionally/financially so sleeping in with the heat set for hotter than mercury but cooler than bathing in a solar flare felt pretty good. When I got up I went to the art store and looked at all the cool ne stuff that I hadn't seen before, priced a canvas for a commission piece and drooled over a concept whose time has bee imptiently waiting: opaque watercolors from Richeson in a compact. I picked up some beautiful composition paper and a great set of tinted drawing pencils that were perfect for fleshing out this new project. New watercolor pencil colors and some new colors in the Prismacolor pencil line. Lush, rich, stunningly smooth. I shouldn't have gotten the pencil case that I did, but I refrained from buying the 40.00 leather case with the shock guard. I bought a compact tape measure at the hardware store becasue my Stanley is missing. Then I went to the Stations to sketch, made some phone calls in the peace and quiet and had myself a treat I haven't had in 25 years... lebkuchen mit Oblaten. Ella and Dieter still import the German goodies. These came from Nurmberg and they were mild and citrussy... Wunderbar! Then I went to Borders and got a book, two X-men movies for 16.00 and a new Somserset Publication. I poured over the studio book for hours and leatned some very good leassons from the ladies within those pages. And you thought I only listened to Wheaton! Then I watched Jean Grey vaporize Professor Xavier which was a trauma second only to losing Data. I cried for two hours, read an anthology of short romance stories and I went to bed early and I slept late again.
When I wqoke up this morning I felt like I knew what needed to be done and could do it. I love my blog, I love keeping up with friends on facebook. But I have had my head down (as I have mentioned before) without my nose being at the grind stone. I have been trying not to attract negative attention... mostly the brother's. I haven't really forced myself to do anything. Its like being in a fog, hearing claws scraping the pavement behind you and hoping that its just a squeaky wheel and not the Ripper getting ready to carve you like a pumpkin. But you know that it isn't a wheel. And the Ripper isn't coming up any closer... just tailing you for a long time. You know there are dead ends up ahead and fewer doors leading to safety. You can't see anything so you don't know where that invcisbile line is between the good and the bad side of White Chappel Street... you don't even know if you're still on White Chappel. The sound is getting louder.
There is a kind of tunnel vision that you get when you are being stalked. You get so focused on the survival part that you miss alot of opportunities because they aren't hands reaching from the dark to pull your ass into a well lit pub. You question everything that you did to lead you to the point where you are being stalked down a foggy street. You second guess yourself so much that the dialog in your head suddenly tells you that you deserve to be a hollow gourd on someone's doorstep on All Hallow's Eve. Then all you hear is "that alley leads no where", "that door is probably locked" and "no one will help you anyway". It becomes a futile race to a finsih line that keeps moving with an opponent content to let you set the heart bursting pace.
Breathless you either face a brickwall and wait for the stalker to pounce or you pour yourself into a wide cross road with enough people to provide saftey. You still have to go home and deal with what really happened and ehat you thought would happen. Whether one is being stalked by a figment, a person of by life's circumstances (destiny), the effect on the body and mind is the same. In the end all you see is another brick in the wall.
Thus I found myself staring blanky into the computer screen and at the half made beds wondering why I haven't been stabbed as it seems that is what my stalker has in mind. The Net/Web is wonderfully distracting when you have to not think about the problems as much as it is a tool to find and create a solution. So away from the things that I felt hunting me I have a better idea of what will an won't work for me.
I have perspective. I spent the Summer inside at a computer an not out in the sunshine. Of course I have to have limited exposure because of the rosacae. But at least I was out in the 60 degree weather in NOVEMBER! I decided to move what I couldi nto a storage unit so that I would minimize the impact of my brother's lack of coutesy and abundance of untrusion. I will stay where I am at an hope that I can make enough money to pay for storage, car, student loans. I remembered who I was with those two days. And something Verta said got much more clear to me. All in all, I have part of my vision back. it feels great. But mostly, it feels great to see that the things that scared me were just shadows of small things with which I can cope.