The most disgusting thing ever

Had to wait for a long time, Monday night in Center City Philadelphia, for my bus home after an excellent meeting of our scriptwriters' group. It was snowing such huge flakes! One could see them coming at one's face from up in the sky. We caught some on our tongues. My co-writer had very kindly and unilaterally decided to wait with me. The snow changed to smaller flakes, almost rain. Someone driving a car drove too fast and too close to the bus shelter and disgusting dirty water splashed my white down coat and my mouth. I kept spitting to get the salty fetid taste to go away. Truly nasty. On the bright side, haven't yet come down with a hideous malady.

Looking at the upbeat nature of my previous post, I wonder who that person was. I put off moving as long as I could, in shock, not actually living in my new home until the day before Christmas Eve. The first several days there was no heat and the temperature outside was in the 20s, so I dressed warmly and made grateful use of the cold-weather sleeping bag my co-writer had lent. I cried a lot, and have been continuing to do so off and on. My sleep cycle was knocked so far from normal it was almost completely reversed, with days when I woke up at 7 pm. That recently began to improve but was set back recently when I couldn't sleep until nine am.

After moving in, I had the house to myself until the third week of January, as my housemate dealt with family issues in the Midwest, to go through the worst of the shock and hurt. By no means do I imagine myself safe, yet, on the other side. I think the fact I'm writing in this journal is a good sign. Also have decided not to seek a relationship with any of the loa at this time, nor participate in building a new faith around theistic satanism principles; nobly as they have been expressed, they are too abstract for me. While I support every faith's right to Constitutional free exercise, and the Constitutional preclusion of any single faith's being favored by the state, at this moment it would be fairest to say I'm agnostic. Without knowledge or pretense to knowledge. Not without hope. Getting through each day as well as possible. Plan to resume the Sanskrit and Hebrew language studies that in the past were going so very well, but reluctant to put anything on a schedule. First priorities are sleep, healing, caring for my dog. A new name has begun recurring in my dreams: "Shan" as short for Angela; it sounds nice, has associations with a nice girl I knew in junior high, and "Shani" has good resonances in Hebrew. Perhaps like the deathly ill Jews who would change their names to Chaim or Chaya to elude Death, I can help my spirit outfox this emotional malaise via adopting Shan(i) as a nickname for Angela. I do believe I will succeed.