What I did when there were no blinky lights on the router

No internet for almost a week! It was an awfully quiet week, with me spending most of two entire days (not consecutive, thankfully; that'd have driven me even more bonkers than I already am) in bed.

But all that left me with a lot of time to think, and it was a rather bleakly eventful week, too, especially Tuesday, which I wrote about in an e-mail laboriously typed on my phone to a friend the next day (hey when you're stuck in bed all day, the slow progress of words across the screen doesn't seem such a barrier to composition).

I continue to be utterly relieved about not working. I expected a lot more angst about laziness and uselessness, but I am overwhelmed lately even without work. I really have gone back to bed, though with an audiobook and of course this phone.

It shouldn't be surprising, perhaps, that I'm tired after yesterday. I went with Andrew to his uncle's funeral. He was not close to the uncle, but thinks a lot of his wife (who is a sister his dad is close to), so was there for his dad, his aunt, and his cousins. And I was there for him, knowing his extended family hardly at all. It is such a huge one (everybody breeds early and often!) that people only bother with the ones they like. Andrew doesn't like many people :)

The service was in a lovely country church, sunlight streaming through stained glass onto very old stone; I think there has been a church there since Saxon times. I rarely feel so American as when I find myself marveling (inwardly, in this case!) at such things that those around me accept as a matter of course.

Andrew's family are not religious (he said this is the fifth time he has ever been in a church) and I am not now but I grew up Catholic. This was my first brush with Anglicanism, and I confess I was interested in that despite the solemn occasion. I liked the notorious lack of religiosity; the talk of heaven and resurrection was light, and the emphasis was on taking this opportunity to share loss and grief. It was explicit that the vicar (a woman! Such a novelty for a Catholic girl) did not expect many of the people there to share her professed beliefs in the afterlife and so on, which I found fascinating if deeply alien.

Most of the funerals I have been to have been Catholic, and they were -- regardless of the person they were for -- heavy and distant and ponderous where this was welcomely warm and light and close. Even with the light dusting of Christianity over the top.

Our wait at the train station and the ride home left me time to nap before going to Biphoria, which I'm glad I did though I was worried about seeing my erstwhile boss, at a time I'd have been in work if I hadn't quit the day before. But I reminded myself that not working doesn't mean I can't do other things (that i'd needed a nap at the time i'd have started work that day reassured me that it was indeed not a good job for me!) and it was fun to see my friend Emma on a high having just finished the last of her exams to qualify as some kind of accountant. We talked a lot about BiCon too and it reminded me I have complicated thoughts about that (though I am indeed now definitely intending to go for a day, to help Emily out with a workshop). But I can't articulate them yet, and this e-mail is long enough as it is!

I managed to write down some aof those complicated thoughts about BiCon yesterday, for some research I volunteered for after seeing it mentioned on Twitter, again about the experiences of bisexual women. (Always with the bisexual women. A friend of mine who helped out with the last thing like this said she asked that researcher why the focus on women and was told that there is more data on women. I know dissertations are about other people's work as much as they are your own, you need quotes and references, but it does seem to be a pretty vicious catch-22 circle there.)

Anyway, I'm liking this research better already; it's more long-term and open-ended, and it's already sent lots of thoughts swirling around my brain after only a couple of days. My relief at not going to Cardiff BiFest (Saturday ended up being one of the days I had to spend in bed) was ridiculously blatant, again without a shred of the usual regret or second-guessing my decision to not try to have fun.

I think I am very cynical still about BiCon and its little baby siblings, the BiFests, because it still seems as much an excuse for people to see friends who live far away as much as anything else. Which is fine, it's a good thing to do, but I am so, so painfully used to being on the outside of those groups that I'm still a little weirdly sensitive now. While also being aware that the only way to not be a stranger is to go to stuff and talk to people and not just be a whinging mentalist all the time, yes. (Not to say that bisexuals won't be friends with whinging mentalists, but if it keeps me from going or keeps me from having fun, that isn't going to make me easily likeable to them.)

My other major preoccupation of the week (greyeyedeve will know what I'm talking about!) is not fit for LJ, so I think I'm done here!