meara, on my last trip abroad (alone) I was so incredibly lonely. Usually when I travel without Tom, it's for work, but even with work stuff to do, these days I find that the charm has gone out of traveling alone. (For me.)

This article about women in Angel hit me in the feels: [link]

Oh, god, the Angel and Spike article that's linked in there! The trailer! I miss them so much!

And I'm glad Whedon is generally in the "Eww, icky" category now. Elements of all his shows make me give a serious side-eye.

That was a painful read. Particularly reliving the horrid Cordelia arc.

Yesterday's weather was perfect. I spent the whole day shooting photos. Today was cloudy and grey; I spent the whole day scanning and editing photos. I feel nourished after taking photos. I feel drained after editing.

Taking photographs is like having sex. Editing photographs is like giving birth.

Taking photographs is like having sex. Editing photographs is like giving birth.

Yikes! Also, looking forward to seeing what your sexy (and painful) days produced.

They're just snapshots. But I suffered for them. Suffered!

Timelies all!

Went to the FSGW's annual retreat. Not enough sleep, mostly due to Mr. S and my own stupid brain.(Friday night he wouldn't go to sleep until past midnight, and I kept waking up last night.) Got to some fun workshops thanks to one of the members who ran kids activities Mr. S could join in.. Also took turns with Gary in watching him.(plus a girl a little older than Mr. S whom he played with. Alas they kind of fed off each other's behaviors.)

Now Gary's on a business trip until Tuesday. sigh...

I did an Actual Social Activity with a friend! Went to a new-ish restaurant/bar called Adventure Pub, which has a large library of board games and so on. I got to play Exploding Kittens!

Oh, yay, I still know how to do this! I can still log on and post and all!

(And I didn't even have to stare and think about it, before my fingers started typing, as if they knew on their own what to do, as if they didn't need ancient forgetful old me to bother them with any sort of thing, because they still knew exactly what to do, no matter how long it's been since last they've done that. Like typing a bike? But I digress.)

Um, I'm not entirely sure if the Natter thread even is the place for this (not that I have any idea where is - Delurking, maybe? When it opens again this current October?), and I already apologize that it's once again in a skipping-lots-while-ignoring-ongoing-conversations-and-poking-my-head-for-a-short-time manner, but it's that time of year again, and, yeah, still (and probably forever) in a risk of sounding a bit strange:

On Tuesday evening (as most of you clever people probably already know) starts the Jewish holiday of 'Yom Kippur', which means 'Day of Atonement'.

This is a day of soul searching, of trying to better define our faults to ourselves, and try to accept it upon ourselves to become, at least a little, better people. A day of repenting past wrongs we did, looking and finding it in our hearts to forgive wrongs done to us, and trying to remember to learn from this process in the rest of the days of the year. The holiest day of the year for practicing Jews.

On a rough division, there are two kinds of wrongs people can do: against G-d, and hurting their fellow human beings. In Jewish tradition, if the person committing a sin against G-d is truly sorry for what they did, repenting and taking it upon themselves to try and avoid repeating it, G-d forgives those sins.

The deeds which hurt other people, though, are not so 'easily' and personally forgiven. If somebody did anything to harm another person, they would not be able to cleanse themselves from that deed, no matter how much they'd pray and be sorry and repent and try to do good in the future, unless they make amends with the person who was hurt by that deed. As long as peace between people is not achieved, the 'sin', so to speak, is not 'erased from the books' above.

Regardless of the date in the year, I'd hate to think I'd offended somebody, anybody, in any possible circle of my life, in so many circumstances. I don't think that the attempts of becoming a better person than one already is, is something that needs a date or a certain holiday for it, of course. It's just that, for me, having a certain day in the year to stop my daily runnings around, and think of nothing else but the really important things, is a good reminder of the order of priorities I'd like to have in my life.

(Well, I wish that were true. Frankly, I spend more time thinking about how much a sip of water would be just what I need, and wonder how long I have left until the fast is over and I can start hydrating again, than about the actual important stuff. And in between comes the whole being responsible for two still-too-young to fast and still-way-too-young-to-entertain-themselves-on-their-own-for-long-streches-of-time very lovely kids, so mostly the important soul-searching stuff has to be pushed aside by the practical and urgent stuff. But still.)

So, since Wednesday will be, for me, this day of at least trying to perform some soul-searching, of trying to create a new start in my on-going effort of 'becoming a good human being, or at least a slightly better one', I would like to ask all of you here, if I offended anybody, or hurt any of you lovely people, to tell me about it, and give me the opportunity to apologize, fix it if possible, and also learn from my mistakes, and try to not repeat them (there are so many new ones to practice, why repeat old ones, you know?).

In case I offended anybody, and can't communicate directly with them about it (for whatever reason, especially with my ongoing absebce from the computer in the last few - I'm not even sure how to call it, years? ice-ages?), I can already say that I'm truly sorry. I (continued...)