Defeat.

Super cool original ceramic replica of a Polaroid Land Camera :)

"We shall find no enduring strength until we first admit complete defeat."

Twelve Steps, Step One

This inspired me this week, the idea that there is strength at the bottom, strength in brokenness. I struggle to hold on to his idea, even though I'm sure lots of people who know me would say otherwise, describing me as vulnerable. But the truth is, I like to look good. I talk big talk about trash and recycling, but deep down, I want people to think I have it all together and I want to look good.

I want to be a winner. I want to be the best. I don't want to admit my faults or flaws. I don't want the world to see the ugly parts of me.

It's easier to be vulnerable when deep down I think I have it all together, and the vulnerability is a nice persona. It's harder when it's the real thing, when the vulnerability is raw and needy and broken because that's where I am.

Defeat.

Quote of the day :)

She did not believe that she could ever stop hating Nicky and Lee, until her pastor told her that when God was going to do something wonderful, it started with something hard, and when God was going to do something exquisite, He or She started with an impossibility.

Anne Lamott, Blue Shoe

Pyrex mystery!

Meanwhile, whilst thrifting...I have a bad habit of finding things mysterious to me and trying to identify them. Yesterday I found this small round clear glass piece of Pyrex, marked "France D". It has a sloped base, but sits flat on the taller rims. It has a semi-circle notch on both sides, opposite to one another, that almost look like ashtray ridges. I've looked everywhere. My best guess is that it's some sort of obscure laboratory part. I'm interested in selling it when I find out what it is. It's my current mystère-du-jour.

I'm sitting in bed eating cinnamon toast and listening to talk radio. It's election day and boy do I not give a flying fuck. I am sick of the constant phone calls, the mail full of glossy attack ads, and the general vomit of political signs all over town. I am done done done. No matter how much I care about the issues, come election day, I usually feel this way. The whole process makes me hate to participate, hate to vote. I'd rather pretend to not care than participate in the orgy of power. That being said, I will step away from the computer and go vote, because I need to shut up about everything if I'm not willing to do the easiest thing available to me.

Cheers to all! Happy thrifting :)

Linking up with Sir Thrift-A-Lot's Thirftasaurus :)

Update: A friendly comment from a reader revealed that this is a milk saver! Thanks readers!

An imperfect life.

I ridiculously love Degas, and have since I was a kid

I've been trying for a long time to have my perfect life, to be the perfect me, to get to the edge of my potential. Is it possible that I've been trying so hard to be awesome that I've neglected how awesome I already am, just as I am?

I've recently learned that I'm a pretty attractive person. Heretofore, I still held the beliefs bestowed upon me as a child: that I was annoying, dressed like a man, had terrible hair, and just generally looked horrible all the time. So naturally I assumed these things meant that I was ugly, and unlovable. Funny thing is, I'm not ugly, and I'm pretty damn lovable. All of that time spent believing the lies made me create a persona to cope with the ugliness. Everything I wear is an attempt to not look decrepit. I avoid certain hairstyles because they accentuate my utter awfulness. I exercise and eat healthy because it keeps me from looking horrifyingly ugly.

But now I know these things are a lie. Every. Single. One. So now what? How do I find out who I really am under all of the things I've put on to keep from showing the world the ugliness underneath? How do I become someone who is completely herself whilst still communicating health and well-being in my professional life? Where is the perfect middle and how do I get there?

And what happens if I stop striving for perfection altogether?

Marry me. Own me.

Thank you, Mr. Rochester, for your great kindness. I am strangely glad to get back again to you: and wherever you are is my home—my only home.

― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

My big term paper in 12th grade AP English was about Jane Eyre, specifically the concept of love in Jane Eyre. I've been trying to create my home my entire life. I never had one place that I could call home. I had a smattering of locations, and all of them together just wasn't home. But I found a home inside myself that I carried with me everywhere. It was safe. I made forts with pillows and blankets and my pink depression glass lamps I've had my whole life; and I would read The Boxcar Children and Nancy Drew. I don't remember a lot of snacks, but my mother often bought graham crackers, so those I remember more than anything else. That was my "home".

I was told that my real home would someday be with a partner, a husband. He would give my life meaning. He would take all of the idiosyncrasies about me and somehow create meaning from them. He, this unknown person, was the only way I could become whole and complete. He was the only way  that someone would care about me the way I imagined was possible. He would care that I hate watermelon and love swings at the fair. He would listen to me when I wanted to talk, because it would be his job to listen and care. In sum, my future husband would love me the way no one else could.

Well I'm 31 years old, and I'm not married. I've never been married. I haven't met this amazing person who is going to save me, change my life so completely I'll finally be whole. So I've had to learn along the way that life is too hard to wait for this person to arrive. Life is too long to wait for someone that may never come.

Whatever the truth, I've learned that one person doesn't "complete" another person, and so to even strive for that is a futile occupation. Don't I deserve to be complete all on my own? Don't I deserve to be loved all on my own? And don't I deserve to be fully known without a spouse? Yes, yes, and a resounding yes.

So I find my home all within myself, and I carry it with me wherever I go.

Making good choices.

I believe that I am the master of my own destiny, that I in fact can determine the course of my life merely by making decisions that point me in the perfect direction. This is flawed logic. See, I can't predict what will end well with 100% certainty. I can guess. I can use past experience. But I can't emphatically know what will make my life as awesome as possible.

Seriously, I don't even know why I keep trying. All it takes is one bad decision to royally fuck it all up anyway, as the protesters at Planned Parenthood remind me every morning on my way to work. Life is not a series of equally significant moments. Life is a series of benign, uninteresting moments, interspersed with crazy important ones that change the entire trajectory of one's life. Yet I continue to believe that I can be more powerful than I am, that I can predict the future, and thus completely avoid pain. And it is these times, when I have set everything up in such a way that absolutely nothing can go wrong, that everything goes wrong, and I am painfully reminded of how small and helpless I am in the face of an infinite universe and unpredictable people.

So I eat more chocolate chip cookies, because I predict that they will be good, and then they are, in fact, very good. Nothing else matters. I have control over nothing else.

You don't understand.

Taylor & Ng has an entire collection of animal orgy mugs - classic

There is something that happens when a woman becomes the only single person she knows. And the secret is that she knows plenty of other single people - they just don't count. I have been through season after season of seeing all of my friends get married, and having to make new friends. Now it's been about a decade, and a new normal has set in, a realization that this is my life. There's a good reason that the men I date are still single in their thirties. There's a good reason I'm single, I suppose. Girl can't take a hint.

After a while, after a breakup, I make a decision to just stop already. It's the smart thing to do. But then I go and do it again: open myself up, let my heart stretch and hurt and soften in ways it never has, and then I get to today, the morning after, and remember why my life is the way it is, even if it hurts sometimes and is lonely in a way that other people cannot possibly understand.

I wonder why God chooses some people to have lives of stability and love and family. I wonder why God hasn't chosen me for those things, why I'm different. I'm pretty tired of fighting it. Fighting God is futile. And the hope of beauty is only crushed when reality steps in and shows its ugly face.

I love presents!

I'm not much of a holiday gift giver. Yes, I may give you something for your birthday or for Christmas if it's already in my stash, but mostly I'm an everyday gift giver. I love giving presents so freakin' much - sometimes I can't stand it. I get giddy and smiley and I am so excited until the moment. Today I found the greatest thing, and I'm testing it out right now, and I'm dying to text the person to tell them that I got them an amazing present and I don't know how long I'll be able to wait to give it to them (no, it's not for you, or you, or you).

I don't think I really came into my own as a gift-giver until adulthood. I mean, I've always had the skill, the unusual talent, but I don't think that I appreciated how awesome it was, or realized how awesome it might be for other people until I'd reached my early twenties. I went through a period of time of giving lots of money away secretively. That was fun, and maybe too extravagant for that time in my life, but I did it. I gave lots of money to various ministries I supported and causes I believed in. Sometimes I gave because I felt like I had to (i.e. "God loves a cheerful giver"), but over time, I've stopped giving for that reason.

I was taught to tithe to the church, and I struggle with that. I thought that God would give me everything I needed, and then I would tithe out of that. But when I started to not have enough, I stopped giving to the church. Maybe my financial dire straights (not really dire, just full of debt) are due to this, to my lack of faith. But then I think back to all the times I gave so much to people in need, out of my own abundance, and wish that I could somehow receive that back in kind. Money is funny. That's all I'll say.

I might last another 24 hours. This thing is so perfect, I can't stand it.

What is love?

Love opens a person up to new things, or so I thought. I like country music and Led Zeppelin and poetry because some guy who loved me liked those things - the list could continue on and on. I am who I am because of the people I have loved, because of the people who have loved me. And I'm happy for that. I'm glad for these things.

But I'm beginning to wonder if true love, the best kind, makes us like new things, or if true love makes us more like ourselves, who we truly are. I don't know that I've ever asked myself this particular question, but I'm beginning to see things in myself that make me think that I am my best self when I'm in relationship to another person who doesn't try to change me.

When I was a kid, everything about me was wrong. Trying to change me was a full time job. So I grew up to be an adult who didn't know her ass from a hole in the ground. I didn't know who I was. I was a stranger to myself. And I've spent the last decade or so trying to get to know this person I am, trying to love her as she is, and not as she should be.

Anyhow, part of this struggle is in surrounding myself with people who affirm me without telling me what to do or who to be. It's difficult to choose these people wisely. It's difficult to love myself enough to choose people who treat me well. But somehow in the wondering is the answer. Somewhere in the mess of my own heart is everything I'm looking for.

That's all I got.

Painting share :)

It's Christmas and I'm thinking about my goal of making the world a better and more beautiful place. Did you know this about me? At some point in my early youth, my favorite book was Miss Rumphius, by Barbara Cooney (1982). Miss Rumphius was a lady who made a beautiful life in her work, in her travels, and in her scattering of lupine seeds on the hillside.

Miss Rumphius never married, and when she was old, she retired to a cottage by the sea. I don't know if I imagined my life the way it is today, single in my little cottage, perfectly content. I lived in the jungle once. I've seen some pretty cool things in my life, and my soul is fed by the work I do each day. These all seem like things Miss Rumphius would be proud of.

The holidays are a difficult time for me. I am reminded of the brokenness in the world, and the brokenness in my own life and family. But then, without fail, I am never alone in these feelings. A woman in yoga shouts "I hate Christmas" at the beginning of a class last week. I am welcomed into people's homes and families in ways that shock me with an abundance of love.

Tonight I will read several long passages of scripture at my church's annual Christmas Eve service. I was practicing just now. Think about how you say the word "homage". I've decided to say it like an English speaker, and not the francophone that leaves deep inside me ;)

Fun quotes of the day from fellow thrifters!

1. Great Expectations? I heard that's a terrible book. Sans irony, people. Sans irony.
2. Well, whatever turns you on, right?! In response to someone who enjoyed fantasy novels. Not romance novels. Fantasy novels. Poor man, publicly shamed for asexually enjoying Star Trek.

Painting share :)

I love buying original art, even if it's less-than-perfect. Last week, admittedly, I did pass on a terrifically terrible Starry Night "replica" from Salvation Army. I just couldn't see myself selling it, though I did want to buy it just to smile. When I was a kid, I went to a visual and performing arts school, and in my art class, we, as a 5th grade class, recreated the famous Van Gogh piece by chopping it into parts, and then piecing it together like a puzzle. Good times.

I think if I had more space in my apartment, I'd create more. I'm no artist, but I do enjoy making things. Maybe I'd be more DIY. It's been a while since I had my sewing machine out in the open and quick to use. Maybe I'd bake more.

Honestly, I haven't written a poem in ages. I quit writing anything from my heart, from the deep. I know I'm protecting myself from being in love. I'm protecting myself from the great abyss of not being in control and everything being confusing and scary. I think it's better where I am, less interesting, but better.

Is it time for my sabbatical yet where I move to another country for six months and write in a quiet room? I sure hope so.

Be well :)

Avoid extremism!

Holy freakin' shit! Didn't know what I bought - listed for $250 on eBay.

When I meet new people who also love thrift, I often get asked the question, "What's the best store in town?" And, unfortunately, I can never offer a succinct response. "Well...it depends," I say, knowing that everyone thrifts for different reasons, and I can't possibly predict what's perfect for you. That being said, I'm beginning to recognize in myself a distaste for labels. What does best even mean? It certainly means something different to you than it does to me. I find that I make more friends when I allow every person I meet to have their own favorites, their own tastes.

Um, solid brass Eiffel Tower? So cool!

I'm an extremist by nature. I have to catch myself, watch my behavior, make sure I don't start living on green smoothies and doing yoga constantly. Because that's the goal, right? We're all supposed to be walking towards more perfect versions of ourselves? Meh, I don't agree. In fact, I disagree quite strongly.

I think we're all okay just the way we are, that of course over time, we will all grow and change, but that doesn't mean that we are worthless or not good enough as we already are.

Egyptian-ish choker collar necklace

So yeah, it usually takes me until after 3 o'clock to eat lunch, even though I'm hungry before that. I am oftentimes too stressed about something small to get a good night's sleep. I cried at a party yesterday for no reason and constantly say inappropriate things in polite company.

There are a hundred other things that make me imperfect, and one by one I work on them over time. I've been doing this my whole life, working on becoming the person that I want to be. I don't expect that person to look anything like anyone else or to save the world or be everything to one other person. I recognize that I am human, and flawed, and imperfect, and I'm quite okay with that. I'm okay with eating dinner with my small group when there is milk and bacon in the soup (omg. Best clam chowder of all time), not because I'm all awesome and hospitable, but because damn, even I have to let go of my rules sometimes. Of course, this is probably scarier than the other option, to create rules for everything so I can always feel safe. But it's that kind of safety that gets terrifically overrated, that people strive for so that nothing ever changes, so they feel no pain. But change is constant, and pain is a reality, and we're all in this together. Blah, blah, blah. Speech over.

I needed to give myself a pep talk, so I wrote it down - cheers y'all :)

Big work day :)

Large Vintage Boat Painting on Wood - One of Two

Occasionally, I don't get a lot done. Overall, I am incredibly productive, but this also includes time that is not always filled with activity. Today has already been an incredibly productive day, and it's not even two o'clock yet. I got through a ton of merchandise that has been waiting to be photographed and listed. I feel like a bad ass.

Vintage Hermes on the Lyre Needlepoint

My friend Van over at Thrift Core always talks about branding and doing what nobody else does. Every time she says something about this, I think about what I do differently from other eBay sellers. I have yet to figure it out. I want to be unique, but I also make money from selling things that aren't so unique, like Anthropologie and Lululemon clothing.

Maybe it's because I make so much of my purchases at thrift stores. My store reflects thrift culture in that it is a cheap(er) way to be unique, stand out, but also to wear designer clothing if you don't want to be different. I sell 7 For All Mankind jeans because I know there are teenage girls out there who want to be like everyone else.

Vintage Kitchen Decor - Kitschy Art

More than ever before, I want to make money at what I do, not gold shoes money, just gas and groceries money. I think I've finally come to a place where I think I can make more money doing what I absolutely love. Maybe I haven't figured out how to describe it per se, but I'm figuring out how to do it better every day.

Close friends of mine still don't really know what I do, and that's okay. I haven't talked a lot about it until recently. I think I was embarrassed to be someone with an eBay store. Even when I tried to be vulnerable, I felt like people shut me down with negative statements. I have had to learn to be okay with what I do and who I am regardless of what anyone else says. If I take this position, and actually talk about my life with people I'm close to, I have more positive interactions than negative interactions. I've learned who in my life likes to hear about my shop, and who doesn't really care. Now I have friends in real life who get excited with me when I have a big month.

So all y'all online friends, thank you for all of your support. Sometimes I need your kudos more than you know :)

Huge eBay Sale!

Vintage Kitschy Milk Glass Mug - gotta have 'em :)

Note: In honor of this Tennessee coffee mug, here's a couple "I heart TN" songs to enjoy :)

My shoulders have been really tight over the past couple weeks, even after I went to my favorite $19 massage place (where I've realized that they act confused every time you ask for the special, and try to change your mind so you pay more money - not gonna happen). So the tight shoulders made me think about stress, made me think about clenching my teeth, made me think that I left my bite guard at home a month ago when I started housesitting, and maybe it's time for a new one. So yesterday, I bought a new one. Good work, Megan.

Some sort of whiskey + coffee recipe on the back :)

I've been really stressed about money, like constantly worrying about it, and I imagine that this has contributed to the stress I'm feeling in my upper body. I've been worried about the month of July for like six months, which is crazy, right? I've been worried that this July will be like last July, where I made like $500 and couldn't pay my bills. Well, for whatever reason (pure brilliance, perhaps?), I looked around my super-crowded apartment (on a quick trip home to send orders) and realized "Holy shit! I have a lot of stuff in here." I've been working so hard to increase the base number in my shop that I haven't really sifted through the lot to get rid of stuff that hasn't sold.

Anyhoo, I decided that July is the perfect time to have a huge sale in my eBay shop, and clear out stuff that just hasn't sold. And it's been so great! I'm getting rid of stuff. I'm getting momentum, eyes on my stuff, people browsing around. I love it! I'm realizing how necessary it is for me to clean out the attic, so to speak, to clear out my shop, my head, my body, to be willing, at least once a year, to make a change in the status quo, and grease the wheels of my gosh-darn life.

Thanks for stopping by - come again soon :)

Does failing make you a failure?

Original Framed Oil on Canvas Painting

Today I am considering the idea that failing does not inherently make me a failure. I'm a person who wants to make everything right, do everything well. I don't consider myself a perfectionist. I am capable of letting little things go, and not agonizing over little trifles, but in the great land of "Being an Adult", I am finding that these skills only need to be amplified, strengthened, continually over time. It's not like a plateau we reach, where everything after that is straight ahead without potholes.

Perhaps I never would have identified this as a characteristic in myself, but I have been acting as though I'm finished as a person, that everything should be perfect now that I'm a fully functioning adult. I've been living in an imperfect body, with an imperfect mind, and wearing clothing that is imperfect, even selling things that are imperfect. Yet I have been expecting more from myself than I expect from anyone, or anything, else.

Now I'm going to sit in a pile of my own imperfection and hope it melds with my thrifty self. See you later :)

Vacation is no party.

1980 - Small Vintage Portrait on Particle Board

A few days off have put me into thinking mode, one of my all-time favorite modes, as it were, and I'm sifting through my brain, trying to decide where to go and what to do next in my life. I wish I knew, truly. Today, I'm thinking about opening a thrift store. As yesterday's thinking revealed, dreams are sometimes only images flashing across our brains, without any structure to hold them together.

I wish I could step confidently into the dreams I've had for so long. But what I've found in my life, over and again, is that dreams are never what you think they will be. You fall in love, only to discover the hollowness of the other person. You buy an old car, only to realize that you aren't the hobby mechanic you'd hoped to become. You take a job you'd only just imagined in college could exist, only to find it radically conflicts with who you are as a person.

So I've become a little scared to dream, hesitant to take another step forward only to see a nubile dream die with a thud. I'm scared to discover that being human is really as difficult as it seems to be, full of failings and hardship, slim glimpses of true beauty, followed by slippery hope in something more, something big enough to hold, something more substantial.

I think I've stopped trying to find someone to fall in love with because I've realized it's impossible to manipulate, that some things cannot be made to happen, that some things really are out of our control.

Peace, friends :)

Megan's Thrift Hotline :)

Vintage Better Homes & Gardens Magazine: Fun Outdoor Play Structures :)

Wouldn't it be great if there were a thrift store hotline for your city/area? You could call it if you were looking for something specific, and then make a more direct route to your goal. Some places are just not good "vintage" places. Some places have no jewelry. My hotline will be popular because it will save people time and it will make secondhand goods more accessible because they'll be easier to find. Or I'll just say "check eBay". Sometimes that really is your best bet. Thrifting is a consummate art.

I was thinking of this today whilst thrifting, and some cops came looking for watches. I pointed them in a better direction only to find a farmer (i.e. overalls) looking for "a 1920s suit" ten minutes later. He also needed pointing in the right direction, but in that instance, I didn't want to intervene, reminding myself that sometimes I need to mind my own business. Well, most of the time.

I've been acting like a turd lately, a real ass hat, a tool. I'm trying to stop doing that, to stop apologizing for it, and to just keep being better in general. I fail a lot, fall down a lot, and generally just get into ruts and feel stuck. I keep thinking that I've reached some state of adulthood where I stop making stupid mistakes, saying the absolute wrong thing, and pressing send when I'm angry. But being 30 does not an adult make. Being an adult requires hard work, determination, and a hell of a lot of humility. Unfortunately, I'm oftentimes missing the latter.

Peace out.

I fix things.

Vintage GE Mist-Condition Hairsetter

So in the past year or so, I have fixed the following: my toaster oven, a blender, an aquarium, and a very fancy coffee maker. I believe that in some way, I broke all of them. And when they broke, every single time, I had an absolute freak out. Then I decided to fix them, because what the hell else could I do?

Fixing appliances is a lot less scary than some people think (or maybe a lot of people are like me and enjoy fixing things - I dunno). I'm a clumsy mess sometimes, so am left with the reality that this clumsiness will continually end in some kind of mess.

But in the end, nothing is unfixable. Injuries heal, appliances can be repaired, relationships can be rekindled, and diseases, well, those raw foodies have something to say about that. Perhaps if we admitted to ourselves that things will break, we'd be more open to doing the dirty job of fixing them, sewing up those socks, filling in those holes in the wall, going to see a therapist. Maybe if we acknowledged that we ourselves are all broken, we'd be more okay with the brokenness of other people, and the inevitable brokenness of the world.

Thrift store conversations.

You can be a mommy, beauty queen, cowgirl, artist, nurse...

Two female thrift store employees, one seasoned (always acting like a know-it-all), one a newbie (with Megan's internal monologue).

Seasoned: So you're in school?

Newbie: Yeah, I'm going to [local community college].

Seasoned: What's your major?

Newbie: Oh well, I dunno. I'm really not sure what I'm doing. What's your major?

Seasoned: Oh! Psychology. I love it. Dear God no!!!

Newbie: Oh! I want to look into that. No no no no no no no!!!

Seasoned: Oh, it's great. You should take a couple classes and see what you think. Um, no, you should choose a major that will get you an actual paying job so you can pay off your loans.

Newbie: Yeah, but what jobs can you even get with a degree in psychology? None, run away now. Get a degree in engineering. Math classes, physics, etc. Do it. Do it now.

Seasoned: Oh! So many. You can be a psych tech in a hospital. Um, no one does that in California dear. Or you can do research, or you can, well, there are a lot of things you can do. I'm going to be a counselor, like in a school.

Newbie: Oh, how long do you go to school for that? Um, a really long time. And you'll go into a lot of debt, honey. Get an employable degree.

Seasoned: Oh, you can get a masters degree, but you don't have to. Um, yes you do. In order to be employed, you absolutely do.

At this point, Megan has to leave, as to avoid getting into a conversation with twenty-year-olds wherein she acts like a crazy person, eavesdropping and interrupting. Crazy moment averted. Score.

Rummage Sale Planning - Part 2

This is possibly the most beautiful photograph I have ever taken.

So planning events is not something I am awesome at, not because I don't have experience. I have loads of experience. It's just the energy, and the neurotic stress I typically take upon myself. Stress makes me lose sleep at night, and then crash after the event for days, wishing I'd been more relaxed.

Now I have the opportunity to do that, to relax more, and stress less, to truly and fully adopt the persona I've been faking for so long: that I truly believe that everything will be okay, turn out well, etc. This involves not constantly thinking about said event, letting other people imagine things they would like to contribute, and not obsessing over the details. Because in the end, the purpose is to raise money, and that will happen. We will also add another life cycle to a piece of clothing or furniture.

Last but not least, we will raise awareness of a part of the world that has been largely forgotten (I mean, if we're not paying attention to our own wars, it makes sense that we wouldn't pay much attention to those we're only loosely affiliated with). So on that note, you can read here about what the sale will be supporting.

Love to all :)