Thursday wasn’t that bad, actually. Just kind of normal.

Friday’s hexagram was 49, ko (revolution): A revolutionary change made forcibly, brought about by yourself alone. Transforming into 40, hsieh (liberation) – but the liberation/relief is from releasing others from your own rigid expectations. The first half seems to be right on the money, since Friday was the day my blood-draw phobia came to a nasty head, and I ended up getting squeezed in at the doctor’s to get some medicinal help. Because I sure as shit needed it. I didn’t even have a bad blood draw Monday, but my anxiety had been getting steadily out of hand from Monday on. Therapy Wednesday just stirred shit up, and Friday I realized it was time to get some help. (And waiting over the weekend wouldn’t really work, since I had work stuff scheduled for Monday that I really needed not to skip out on. So I couldn’t see if it got better, and then go in if it didn’t. Plus, who wants a whole weekend ruined? Not me.) Now we’ve got a better idea of the scope and nature of it, and a game plan for getting me past it. I was given some Xanax to help me calm down after being in full-on panic mode for most of the week, and to test out and see if it will help me calm down for future blood-draws, without making me too loopy and woolheaded to drive myself to the appointment and back. (It will be more of a pain in the ass if I have to get Greg to take off from work and drive me to and from the doctor just so I can have blood drawn, so I’d rather not take the loopy-making meds. The downside so far is, Xanax doesn’t seem to do much for me at all. But I’ve got time to work that out.) I’ve also got some sweet, sweet lidocaine numbing cream (actually, lidocaine and prilocaine) to apply to possible blood-draw sites about an hour to an hour and a half before the procedure, so I won’t feel any pain. I’ll still feel the wiggly, vein-moving-around feeling, but no pain. I think that’ll help alot, actually – I suspect that the intense pain of that one handstick only reinforced my negative experience, and “taught” me that I was right to be panicky. If I can calm down, and not feel the pain, I can get past this phobia. Or that’s the idea. I don’t know where the hsieh comes into it, though, because everything I realized Friday (and since), and in therapy Wednesday, seems to be more about working on myself. I don’t know that rigid expectations of *others* play into my phobia. But who knows. Also, I get to work on the phobia more in therapy, but I knew that. And I don’t need to check on my liver until June/July, so I’ve got time to figure out if Xanax will work, or if I need to do something else.

Saturday’s was 15, ch’ien (modesty): extremes are being tempered; but modesty and moderation are still the keys to success. It transforms into 46, shêng (upward mobility): progressing inch by inch towards certain success. Sweet.

Sunday’s was 64, wei chi (the end in sight): resist rushing to completion, and impatience. “These are the Good Old Days.” Amen to that. That is definitely something I need to learn over and over, and get out of my perfectionist tendencies, and just enjoy being in the present. There were no changing lines, so no transformed hexagram. Only wei chi. I should probably get that tattooed on myself as a reminder, actually. (Although I’ve been toying with getting “éphémère” on the inside of my wrist, to remind me that everything is, duh, ephemeral, and I need to be more present. So, that and wei chi might be a little repetitive. On the other hand, maybe I need repetition to get this through my thick skill. And since I tend to like paired tattoos, I’ve been thinking about getting “metta” on the inside of the other wrist, or something similar but “metta” seems to resonate the most so far, to mark the importance of compassion, and remind me to extend it to all things, sometimes including myself. Hippy tattoos, but the ideas just kind of feel right.) Anyway, Sunday, bellydance started back up in Hillsborough, and I loved it. I’m also going to start taking the CORE level classes in Durham on Saturdays. (I think they’re more in line with what I’m looking for right now, and my teacher thinks they’d be the best fit – but I already signed on for the Sunday classes, my friend Jen takes those, and honestly I’d really enjoy taking two classes a week, and that’s all to the good. More bellydancing, more happy, and more exercise that I actually love and isn’t a chore. Bring it on, say I.)

Monday’s hexagram: 53, chien (gradual progress): adaptability plus integrity yields steady, calm progress. No changing lines. Interesting, because it bodes well, but then yesterday ended up being a bit rough for me, personally. Upsetting. (But then I’m not really expecting the I Ching to be much more for me than the tarot or the horoscope or anything like that: an interesting diversion, with occasional apt synchronicities.) I also pretty much failed at Goth Monday last Monday. I overslept, and on top of that, forgot that we had to leave even earlier than usual because not only was I attending the Monday meeting, Greg had to tape it – so he had to get to work even earlier to get the filming equipment set up on time. I wore jeans and a black tshirt. I had packed some goth-y makeup the night before in my makeup bag – but I washed my makeup brushes and then LEFT THEM AT HOME. So I couldn’t even do that. Just lipbalm. (Delicious, Aromaleigh lipbalm – wonderful stuff – but clear and not upping the goth quotient of my outfit.) I didn’t even take pictures, it was that lame. But at least I wasn’t too cold. And we had D&D Monday evening.

Today’s hexagram is 40, back to hsieh (liberation), and transforming to 38, k’uei (estrangement). Apparently this means not necessarily estrangement – you’re working at cross purposes with another, but you can reorient your perception to find a solution that allows for more than one winner. And then you address your needs and theirs, without compromising your integrity. Pretty interesting, and actually spot-on, although I’m not going into it here, since I haven’t really talked about it with everyone concerned, because I don’t want to hurt feelings, and that’s about all discussing it would accomplish. It’s more of an upsetting recurring pattern, and I tried facing it calmly and front-on and talking it out, and that failed abjectly. So I’m not interested in doing that again. Nothing got fixed, and I just went back to my usual: repressing until repression fails. Which, when it fails, it fails spectacularly and I blow up in a very unpretty and shameful fashion. So I’m looking for another option. Haven’t come up with much yet, but….shit happens.

And tomorrow’s forecast is 31, hsien (attraction): supreme success. The main interpretation of this is all about some getting married. I don’t know if the I Ching didn’t know, but I am already happily married. So…yeah. Some of the vaguer interpretative stuff seems to apply to circle of influence, and interpersonal relationships, so maybe it just means I’m going to be having my way with bitches – I mean, persuading wonderful people to come around to my way of thinking! Of course. No evil plot for world domination here. Move along. It transforms to 62, hsiao kuo (lying low): don’t try too hard; success is being content with oneself, being sincere with no pretense or posturing. I can get behind that.

I’ve also been on a HUGE 1930s kick lately. Got Carnivàle, got some vintage patterns and am anxiously awaiting their arrival, registered with The Fedora Lounge, have been re-watching all the Thin Man movies (not all from the 30s, but love that Myrna Loy!), adding a bunch of old films to my Netflix queue, dvr’ing shit on AMC/TCM/whoever is airing it. My drooling over a Mucha tat/possible sleeve is on hold for the handstick thing, but I’m back to drooling over a Myrna portrait and trying to decide what source image to use. (If I get an arm tattoo that’s large enough, it might make my veins even less visible, which would send whoever’s sticking me for my hand veins even faster. So I’ve got to get a handle on that before I can do the Moon tat/art nouveau sleeve I’ve been considering. Which, honestly, is a better incentive for me to work on this phobia. I know “because your health could depend on it” should really be a motivating incentive, but 1-I’m not that big a hypochondriac, I know it’s not that dire, and 2-it really isn’t. Learn to live with handsticks so I can get handsticks? No, thank you. Learn to live with handsticks so I can get a sweetass sleeve? Yeah, okay.)

And now for some more Emilie Autumn pictures – also, hopefully the Asylum book will be in my little hands shortly, squee!:

And that appears to be all the EA pics. I could have sworn I took more. Maybe they’re hiding somewhere. Or maybe that’s really it.

I’ve got some video from the concert that I need to upload, too. But it’s more effort than pictures, and I’m not sure whether the vids are worth anything really, since I would start recording on the spur of the moment, and then probably more often than I realized, stop recording at a non-intuitive/non-good-stopping-point for fear of killing the batteries and not being able to take pictures later. We’ll see. I’ll get them up eventually, even if they suck. (Well, because even if they suck, it’s my filming that sucks, and not the awesome show. So it’d still be like, two to five minutes of awesome Emilie Autumn and the Bloody Crumpets.)

I’m very close to finishing up the lovely, squishy cashmere scarf I’ve been knitting, as well as sewing a hip scarf (very simple, so, it’s like “FINALLY!”), and going to fool around with knitting/crocheting some belts and scarves for practicing, so i should have pictures of those soon, too. Oh, and sewing stuff, once I stop waffling over which vintage/vintage-inspired pattern to whip up, and what to do it in, and whether to do a muslin first or not (so impatient!).