Peaceful obsessive-compulsive things.

I was going to write about stuff, but instead my computer sat on the side table all forlorn as I wrapped myself in my blanket against the cold and began picking hairs out of it one by one. Long hairs, short hairs, stringy hairs, squiggly hairs, thick hairs, thin hairs... all black, and caught in the furry fleece softness of my blanket. It was kind of like a zen thing, just completely blanking out and feeling so at peace and calm, like a nice sleep, going through the folds and pulling out hairs one by one with my human fingers, and putting them in a corner of a shelf at my bed-side. I could have kept going on, and then maybe feel a little sad when there are not ore hairs to pic, but I got too tired, so I wanted to write something and sleep.

I thought it was kind of like preening. One of many possible analogues. Sometimes I also stroke my hair a lot in a certain way, to get stuff out of it, and enter a zen state of doing it. But I also thought it could be a stress response.

On that note, I also like to stim by rubbing my toes together, scraping the corner of a toenail against the next toe. It feels so nice it's interesting... human body parts, especially the parts less often used consciously like the toes, are so intriguing. The sensations. I could do nothing and think nothing, except feeling my toes rub against each other, for a long time. It  could lull me to sleep. Some things never get old.

What I actually wanted to write...

Okay, but actually, before all that preening, I wanted to make a note: As part of my job today I was going to walk down a dirt road with a lot of grass on both sides, and then forest, basically a large path cut through the forest for some pipe or power lines with a maintenance trail down the middle. I was wearing a rain jacket because it was raining, with my hood up. I was paying attention to how much skin surface I was presenting to mosquitoes, basically just my hands and my face. Then, a thought popped into my head and I suddenly wished very strongly for a bird mask, like the missmonster one Tsu has, or even a dragon or wolf mask, and claw/talon gloves. I imagined myself walking with my bird head instead of a human face poking out from under the hood, and scaly digits clutching the gps in one hand, in my rainjacket and work pants and tall rubber boots. I imagined, if some people were to just be walking or offroading on this dirt road in the middle of nowhere, and see this anthro bird boy walking towards them, their possible reactions... actually, I had a brief stab of fear at being shot if I was seen, haha. But I was so focused on the idea I think it triggered very subtle and partial phantom shifts and mental shifts. I could feel my snout/beak, sometimes both at the same time, and for the rest of the day I was very animalistic and very happy that I could be like that even during my human job, as I ran through the thick forest following almost invisible paths a lot more silently and without losing my balance, crouched over and not touching branches or obstacles, just knowing where my next step should be, alert to any sound or movement in the forest all around... My co-worker could barely keep up or see where I was going, had to keep getting her bearings... eventually we decided to split up and she would do the tasks close to the dirt road and I would do the ones deep in the forest. (Our job was to record plants, the project wanted to answer why plant communities change when big permanent paths like pipelines and power lines are cut through the woods.)

Anyway, it was a nice little thing. But  wish I could have something to wear to fit what I feel, to be more like what I am, not for attention or whatever - probably nobody will see me really - but just for being. I think it would be strange to a lot of people but I don't think it's so strange that I shouldn't do it.

And, a mask and claw gloves would hide the last pieces of my human flesh from mosquitoes, a mask with good harder shape would even be a safety thing against running into branches and spruce needles tall thorny stems and stuff, and gloves would make me less afraid to use my fore-arms in a quadrupedal way. A mask would limit my field of view though, I wonder if they make super-realistic masks but where the eyes still have full field of vision because of optics or special placement or something...

Also, I talked to some ravens when my co-worker was away. And I was talking to one, just general banter, but then she heard and yelled through the forest "was that you?" which was very jarring in the peace of the forest and I really didn't want to talk using human words so I just shut up and pretended I didn't make any sound or heard any sound... I didn't dare to talk in raven any more right then even though the raven tried to talk to me more over the next little while before giving up and leaving. Made me feel a bit sad. I haven't had a nice chat with a raven for a long time.

Update: I'm remembering Tsu's post, it's a monster day, and it's a thing of inspiration. I don't mind being monster. I wish I could be. Even just for a day.