A troll! From Norway!

Vintage Nyform Troll from Norway - without hair ;)

I have found throughout my adult life, that in large groups, when I speak out about something, I leave feeling unacknowledged, or unheard by the larger group, only to have several people approach me afterward and say in a whisper, "I feel the same way you do".

I recognize that part of this process is my feelings of inadequacy. Perhaps I say brilliant things that make people think. Perhaps I contribute in great ways, and people want to acknowledge that, but don't feel like they can contribute in the larger conversation. Or maybe I'm an idiot, and people are placating me. I dunno.

I'm really struggling with this right now, these feelings of inadequacy. I was told for so long that I wasn't enough, that my hair was wrong, my clothes were wrong, my face was wrong, etc. So when I get up and go to work every day, I'm stuck figuring out how to integrate my adult self with this little kid who can't move a muscle without being reprimanded.

I'm working on it - don't worry about me :)

No dog love :(

1994 Bergschrund Honey Bear Mug

I'm drinking coffee at this very moment. It took over an hour to make it happen. I am housesitting, and there's a dog, and the dog is depressed, and that makes me feel depressed, and wishing that I was a dog psychologist and I could whisk his worries away. I also wish that I too could get into a small contained space like he is right now, in a dark hallway in his crate, voluntarily.

I have to keep myself from bugging him to come play with me. I tried to cuddle with him, but he went into his crate, so here I am, feeling rejected and not wanting to do anything, and just generally feeling like ass. I get so used to dogs loving me and wanting to constantly be with me, that I get confused when a dog meets me and doesn't automatically want to be bffs.

I did some thrifting yesterday, and maybe found some good stuff. I got into a long conversation with an employee/thrift friend about him working on getting his GED. He has a neck tattoo but I like him anyway. I think this is a first for me. I am pretty anti-tattoo, as a general rule. There were a bunch of new workers at the store. They were pretty energetic, and obviously hadn't seen a woman in a great while. I love it when that happens. Aw shucks [insert blushing grin here].

Wasteland.

Joanne Sibley watercolor print - She often paints the Caribbean area.

Wasteland (Almega Projects, 2010), a documentary largely conceptualized by artist Vik Muniz, is about trash and landfills in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It's interesting in many ways because of Rio's focus on general cleansing (e.g. running gangs out of the slums) as they prepare for the 2016 Olympic Games. The documentary focuses on the people who work and survive on the landfills, recycling all of that which can be recycled (as Rio has no separate recycling pick-up services), and even using the food to feed themselves (in very impressive, and non-disgusting ways, I will add).

This film sat on my Netflix queue for ages, as it seemed like something I would like (i.e. it was about trash, and my fantasy destination: landfills!), but I never got to it. Every time I considered it, I felt depressed, and found something funny to do instead.

Eventually, I watched it. It was that moment, when you've been waiting to do something for ages, but just waiting for the right moment. And it was beautiful, full of real human experience and emotion, and the deep raw-ness of working with trash, of being trash, and what that means to a person's soul. It's a beautiful film, both emotionally and aesthetically. Philosophically, it brings the hidden secret world into view, and exposes it for the truth it truly brings to the world and the human experience: those who live off the landfill are the most beautiful people you can find.

I don't know if the experience of these filmmakers could be recreated across the world in other landfill worker colonies, but I'm glad that they took the time to really see the people they researched. They made something beautiful in a dirty, ugly place. They found beauty that was already there.

Rat's ass, flying f***, etc.

Vintage scarf with a design I thought was cool, and now adorns my office :)

I've decided that not giving a fuck is like, our calling in life as human beings. Now hear me out please. I'm not suggesting that we hurt other people, but that we stop having freak-outs over all of the things we think might happen, or what people might think, or might do. Maybe something will happen that is difficult, or even unmanageable, but let's get to that when it comes, not years before. Think of all your wasted anxiety on things that never came to be, how much sleep you lost, how little you ate, how much you cried, etc, etc, etc.

So I may, or may not, have had a seizure a couple weeks ago in yoga, and this possible seizure has created a whole host of problems for me, the least of which is the totally inappropriate time at which this all happened. It seriously has put me over the edge. Suddenly, I have to deal with all of these tests and doctors, unexpected medical bills, rescheduling a whole host of appointments for work, and it's all a pain in the ass.

But here's the deal: all of the things that I've been stressing out about at work have fallen by the wayside. Suddenly I have no room for the extra anxiety of thinking about what people might be thinking about me. I think it actually makes me do my job better. Suddenly, I've stopped giving a fuck, and it's a wonderful thing. I keep imagining that this is what eighty-year-old women feel like.

Also, my hair just keeps looking awesome, so that helps too.

Peace out :)

Actually, you're pretty awesome.

We all have baggage. We've all made decisions we regret. I mean, if you're over the age of 30, you've had lovers, haters, and maybe even some pregnancies. You've been drunk one too many times, written one too many poems on your arm, and made out with the wrong person in front of a room full of people.

You've dropped out of school. You've broken up with the love of your life, "...because while he was sweet and sexy and basic, you were afraid you wouldn't be able to discuss Russian novels together (The Deep End of the Ocean, Jacquelyn Mitchard)." You've listened to more Phil Collins and Taylor Swift than you care to admit. You have a tattoo of someone's name that treated you badly. You've loved other people, taken care of other people, more than you've taken care of yourself.

You've hurt people on purpose, and said nasty things that still haunt you. But you deserve to be loved unconditionally, with abandon, just like everyone else, no matter what you've done.

Taking a lover :)

Aren't these super cool?

Don't hide your love...

Michael McDermott - "Lantern"

So if you've ever spent any kind of significant time with me, you have heard me talk about sex. It fascinates me. It scares me. It's endlessly interesting to discuss. I've been trying to work it out, figure it out, for a long time. I think I'm at a better place today than I was fifteen years ago, and even five years ago, but I still have questions about morality, sexual ethics, and the very Megan-esque question, "Should I take a lover?"

Every six months or so, for the past thirteen or so some-odd years, I ask myself this question. And several of those times, the answer was "yes". But for the past few years, the answer has been "no". I entered seminary, quickly got into a relationship, and was confronted by my spirituality and sexuality, all at the same time, in the same room. It wasn't pretty. It was scary and not healthy. I was old enough to know better, but I didn't know how to make decisions that were good for me.

Celibacy is an awful word. So much of the person I want to be is plain hard core. And celibacy is not hard core. But it's also a reflection of how far I've come in those thirteen years. At the beginning, I was sixteen, totally in love, and unable to move in my own body, accept my own sexuality and act on it. When I lost that relationship, I did a 180 and slept with anyone who would have me. I was heartbroken and confused, and it took me a really long time to work through those feelings. It took me a long time to forgive that sixteen-year-old girl who couldn't sleep with her boyfriend, the one person I ever really loved. But I have forgiven her. It was a lot of emotion for a previously unloved little girl. It was overwhelming and terrifying.

So maybe I'll take a lover, but I probably won't. I want to be with someone I love. So yeah, that's the thing I've been talking about lately, that painful, suffering, wanting. I want to be with the person I love, and it's an almost impossible thing to wait for.

Summer house-sitting

Vintage Italian Race Car tie

I am often asked to house-sit, since I'm single and people assume that I will jump at the chance to live in a real house (or maybe they just know I love dogs and central air, and know that I won't have to get a housesitter for my own house, seeing as how I live in a garage and carry all of my valuables with me when I leave).

It's pretty difficult for me to leave my bed for more than an afternoon (it's really an all-purpose piece of furniture: desk, chair, kitchen table, sleeping mechanism). So my experience this summer of housesitting has been a really positive one. I was able to pack up my stuff and drive away, and I was super proud of myself for just doing it, without planning to go home every day to check on my store, but just putting it on vacation, and saying, "I'll mail it Tuesday". I'm proud of myself for getting out of bed, for weeding the garden and playing with the dogs, for taking the opportunity to walk down to the river and stumble upon a pack of super-tan cyclists on some sort of long-distance jaunt with bike trailers. And I'm proud of myself for being the kind of person that people trust to leave their dogs, cat, and schools of fish to care for.

And finally, I'm proud of myself for figuring out how to use the coffee maker, because that kind of failure would have been tragic.

Love them anyway :)

People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered.
Love them anyway.

If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives.
Do good anyway.

If you are successful, you will win false friends and true enemies.
Succeed anyway.

The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow.
Do good anyway.

Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable.
Be honest and frank anyway.

The biggest men and women with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest men and women with the smallest minds.
Think big anyway.

People favor underdogs but follow only top dogs.
Fight for a few underdogs anyway.

What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight.
Build anyway.

People really need help but may attack you if you do help them.
Help people anyway.

Give the world the best you have and you'll get kicked in the teeth.
Give the world the best you have anyway.

 ~ Kent M. Keith 

When I was in high school, and going through a pretty difficult time in my life (parent in the hospital), my school found it prudent to send me to a sports psychologist. Whatever. That was the last thing I needed at the time. They might as well have sent me to an accountant. I was sixteen, and my life was falling apart. I did not need to talk about swimming.

But he was a wonderful man, who really wanted to help me, but who, because of his credentials, could only do so under the auspices of sports psychology. Now that I'm older, I know that he could have done it differently and still have been ethical, but I guess he did the best he could with the information he was given. I admit that I was a particularly difficult teenager, who probably said that nothing was wrong, so I really can't blame the guy for trying.

My heroes were Ralph Waldo Emerson and David Thoreau. I was a romantic, a dreamer, at my core. So when he gave me this poem, it became incredibly formational in my approach to life. The ideas spoke to me in my I-refuse-to-be-cynical view of the world. They told me that there was power in my choices. It gave me hope to think that there were other people in the world who fought as hard as I did.

That thought still gives me hope :)

Got anything layin' around?

Do you have something around your house that takes up a lot of space, but has no purpose? Read this article (or just glance at the title) and watch the accompanying video. You may be inspired.

Of course, this was an interesting story to me because I live in California, and when one flies over pretty much anywhere in our lovely state, one will immediately recognize the number of swimming pools we have in our backyards. When I lived in San Diego County, our neighborhood had a shared community pool, and it was big and deep and always the perfect temperature. I think there was also a spa/jacuzzi. It was fun. It was a place to see friends. I enjoyed it.

I'd like to see more communities planned in this way. Obviously, in my old neighborhood, we swam at the pool year-round. Where I live now, pools are used less often because our winters are not conducive to winter swimming. We lie at the extremes, temperature-wise. So here's my thought: why not put that space to good use, like the family in Arizona? Why not create more shared spaces, and fewer individual spaces that can't be shared neighborhood-wide?

This is just a thought. I don't know how I can make this happen. I have a negative amount in my bank account. What do I know?

Until we are called to rise...

We never know how high we are
Till we are called to rise;
And then, if we are true to plan,
Our statures touch the skies--

The heroism we recite
Would be a daily thing,
Did not ourselves the cubits warp
For fear to be a king--

Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)

Chchchch...changes

Yesterday was an amazingly long day, but I think I helped some people, so it was absolutely worth it. Unfortunately, my schedule this semester is feeling pretty smushed, crunched, limited, etc. I'm starting to think that I am going to shift my thrifting a bit. I don't think I have the energy anymore to go every day. I'm thinking more about a weekend gig with focus on estate sales. I will try it out this weekend and report back to you with how it went. I think I avoided it last semester because I wanted the weekend to rest, but I think I can arrange it so that I still get rest and get sufficient shopping time.

I am not an alien.

 

When I was seven or eight (or nine?), at Sunday School, we were asked to draw what our life would look like when we were 26. I wrote that I would be a professional ballerina. That was what I wanted to be; I worked like a maniac to be that person, and it didn't work out. My body didn't have what I needed to go as far with dancing as I wanted to go. Then the same thing happened with swimming. My body didn't have what it took.

So now my life is different that I thought it would be. The faces are different from the old faces. The people who were in my life at ages seven, eight, and nine, are no longer in my everyday life. Not a one. And that is strange. I don't have all the markers people commonly have that remind them who they were, and how they became who they are. That disconnect is jarring sometimes. It's normal for a person in my situation, but it's still jarring.

I talk about this stuff a lot, because it's central to my everyday functioning. Sometimes I have to remind myself daily that I'm still real, that I'm a person. I am not an alien. I am not invisible.

Final post of the year :)

I closed my Amazon book shop. I've been selling books on Amazon for the past three years. I had some good times, but in the end, it wasn't worth it. I think I've mentioned this before, but for low-volume sellers, one negative feedback (no matter how ill-conceived) can ruin a shop. So I was ruined, and in the meantime, I had to make up for the downturn in other ways. I started selling on eBay, and added vintage items to my Etsy shop, where I'd only previously sold my personally-authored zines.

I am taking a couple weeks off for a vacation. I don't know how it's going to go with my shops. I'm keeping both of them open, and making it known to customers that I will not be shipping anything until I get home.

Today is Christmas Eve, and this year has gone by so very fast. I don't quite know how to end it. I think I may take a blog break. You may not have noticed, but I'm slowly petering out energy-wise. The everyday thing can't work forever, before I lose that special something we all know and love.

Loving what you love

 

Do you ever wonder why you want what you want, what makes you interested in your interests, why you love who you love?

Sometimes our desires are born from our upbringing, and sometimes this can be good. You like Christmas music because it reminds you of the holidays with your family. You love strudel because you always ate it at Grandma's house. You like to bowl, because you went bowling every Saturday morning with Dad.

But sometimes our desires are born from suffering. You love running because it makes you feel strong, and you were made to feel weak and insignificant as a child. You love eating, sometimes too much, because it fills a void you can't quite name. You become an accountant because you were homeless as a child and want to avoid any feeling of helplessness.

These are things that trigger our deepest feelings, good and bad. Oftentimes, the things that are the most important to us are the most difficult to explain to other people. If your heart could speak, it would explain, and people would understand.

I'm beginning to think that I love what I love for good reasons, and bad reasons, and I'm wondering where to draw the line. How much bad is too much?

Take good care of yourself, please.

I am miserable. I am sick and feverish and miserable. I can't sleep. I can't eat. This day sucks. But as I write this, tomorrow is Monday, and I have to be present to my life. Being sick is not an option. So right now I am eating whole cloves of garlic. What do I have to lose?

I am a huge fan of herbal remedies. I've probably tried everything in some desperate moment. From age 18 to about 25, when I was diabetic and didn't know it, I was sick all the time. I was constantly trying to not be sick. Unfortunately, that didn't always work with infections and concussions. I became a huge fan of major doses of Vitamin C, and if tonight goes as planned, I'm going to add "eating whole garlic" to my daily health regimen.

It's really ridiculous to be sick, to know you're sick, and to have no one believe you. I'm just now starting to not feel sorry for myself every time I get a cold. I'm just now starting to not feel abandoned when I have to spend the whole day in bed sleeping. My life is becoming less determined by my moment-to-moment feelings, and more determined by my chosen path and chosen relationships. Also, I've learned that even when no one else takes care of me, that isn't a reason to not take care of myself.

Sorry, but the mucus in my head is keeping me from pontificating on what could really be high quality subject matter here. I will say this: Just because you're a hypochondriac doesn't mean you're not sick. It might, but not always. Listen to your body. Give it what it asks for. And even when you're alone and miserable, take the best care of yourself that you possibly can.

"Heal the world...make it a better place..."

Yup, I'm delirious. Peace out.