Bleh. I'm running.

Several months back, I asked my younger brother to choose something he'd love to do with me and we'd spend a weekend together. He chose a "fun run", an 11k. It's not solid - we're not signed up or anything - but now I'm committed to doing it and I'm running again. I haven't run in years, so it's pretty painful to watch (and do!). I have a running partner who is 100% positive though, so that helps. Mostly I moan and say "fuck" a lot. It's unpleasant.

The funny thing is how my body is responding. I don't wake up sore the next day. I'm tired, sure, but mostly the pain is in the doing. It hurts my heart and lungs. My throat feels likes it's closing up. It's the most asthmatic I've ever come close to feeling. I've approached wheezing on several occasions. But all-in all, it's going well. It's possible that eating afterwards helps a lot, which I haven't ever been able to do. It's also possible that insulin helps move energy to my muscles, which has also never happened before whilst running.

I'm currently drinking coffee from a Peace mug with a white dove. I brewed the coffee with Pumpkin Spice since I ran out of cinnamon. Yesterday I spilled a cup of boiling hot coffee all over my linen top only thirty minutes before work. I sat outside at Starbucks in a wet shirt looking like a reluctant wet t-shirt contest participant. Luckily I had a scarf and linen dries quickly.

I swear I'm not a hot mess.

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.

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.

Writing a book.

For the past several years, I have been slowly working on a book. Slowly is an understatement. This book might never be finished. But it is a part of me in a way that I cannot quite express, and therein lies the purpose of the thing. I write because it is who I am, and the book is my way of trying to figure out who I am. It's a weird circular thing.

Seeing myself is difficult, like running-an-ultramarathon-in-the-desert-difficult. I've spent most of my life seeing myself the way other people have described me: melodramatic, annoying, crazy, ugly. To challenge those messages, some of them a lifetime old, is a daily struggle, a work in the deepest primitive part of my brain. So to reach inside that part takes a different kind of energy than the day-to-day walking-around kind of energy.

Anyhow, the book is about my family and the reasons I am the way I am. But it'll probably take me the rest of my life to make something I'm really proud of. So in the meantime, it will be something, a hope, that sustains me.

Peace.

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 :)

The Bachelor.

Vintage boobie shirt- a real winner :)

So as we all know, I love to talk about what I think, and reality television allows me constant fodder for discussion.

This season of The Bachelor brings us much more of the same: people stuck into unrealistic situations, manipulated to produce false romantic feelings, and constant drama and tears. Private islands, diamonds, and couture, do not a real relationship make. Which is fine, I mean, loads of people meet under strange circumstances, and somehow manage to eek out reasonable relationships. But life isn't perfect, and truth is stranger than the falsehood of false celebrity. So by the time the show is over, and everyone has fallen in and out of love, the reality of true life, real ugly human life, shows up, and no amount of célébrité is going to rewind the romance back to the bright lights and giddiness of the television show.

So every time the producers interview some woman who hasn't gotten a rose, and she's asking "Why? Why? Why?" and "What is wrong with me?" and "Why does this always happen to me?", I am screaming at the screen, "There is nothing wrong with you!!!" and "This has nothing to do with who you are - you are beautiful and wonderful and this isn't real!"

Anyhoo, all y'all bachelorettes out there, keep the faith and don't accept anything less than the absolute best.

Thus endeth Megan's brief fore into romantic advice columnist-mode.

Fin.

Happy Christmas!

Ceramic outdoor bird feeder - I just think it's pretty :)

I got the best Christmas gift ever: a wonderful, laughter-filled day with a bunch of my favorite people. Who could ask for anything more?

Oh, Canada...

Shout-out to my Canadian peeps - wish I were visiting :)

Last winter/spring, my best friend and I took a few weekend "writing retreats" where we holed up in a hotel room, and other people's empty houses, to write our senior papers. And I loved it. My paper didn't turn out amazing like I'd hoped, but it said something, and people read it, and they either loved it or they hated it, so all-in-all, it was a success.

I remember thinking to myself, "Let's make this a tradition". But when I mentioned this brilliant idea to said friend, she acted like she'd rather die. So, I think I'm going to write by myself. I have post-it notes on my computer, documents on Google Docs, and a senior paper on my desktop, that either need to be written, or heavily edited for publication. Maybe I'll even get a thrift store zine finished for all my faithful followers out there.

So I'll be sitting in this big empty house, with my laptop, enjoying the silence of vacation, and hopefully getting some things done.

Peace out :)

Thrifted gifts?

Kid-friendly and appealing vintage Yosemite mug? Made for me.

Dear germophobe friend (you know who you are), stop reading. Do it. Do it now.

Thanks to Van over at Thrift Core for being awesome and vegan and thrifty and cheap, and inspiring me to be less lame and a total downer (as I totally have been lately, admit it), and talk about some recycling.

Thrifted gifts? Yay? Nay? My ethic of gifting is finding the perfect thing, the thing that says "I know you, and I see you, and I love you as you are." Oh my gosh. I'm cracking up right now, because after writing that, I realized what a weirdo I am. But anyhow, there are no guarantees. You may get a thrifted gift from me, or you may get a poem, or a framed piece of art, or a framed original comic (I am an excellent single-pane comic artiste - no joke).

So yes, that does mean that I have a stash all year long that waits for birthdays and Christmas to get used. It also means that my goal is your happiness. So selfless of me (meh. I'm just trying to buy your love like everyone else).

You will not get something gross. Because if I couldn't think of anything on the way to your house at the last minute, I will bring you alcohol, or cake. And that will make you happy.

Peace out :)

Theology...blah, blah, blah

I presented my senior paper for the second time this morning. It's about the theology of place and how land and places and buildings and dirt can be knit into our souls. Blah, blah, blah. I reread parts of it last night, and became fairly convinced that I was stoned when I wrote it.

I kept thinking about people though, this morning, when I was sitting on that step stool looking all smart and shit. I kept thinking about the people that are knit into my soul, the people that feel like home to me. I had to stop myself from talking about things that I shouldn't have been talking about though, because there were only 45min, and I could have talked for hours about the places and people in my own soul, and the love and commitment found therein. My own brain is scattered with all the houses I've ever lived in.

I know I've talked about this before, but it's been hitting me in a whole new way, this idea that other people change us fundamentally, and that we cannot truly leave another person. We may not speak to a person for ages, but some people really do leave marks on us, proof that they were there. And to be sure, some people naturally leave deeper marks than others: parents, childhood friends, first loves, siblings. Good, bad, it's all there. There are some people you will just love forever (or hate forever, if you choose to do so).

Peace out :)

100% Dog Person :)

So yeah, there are two kinds of people in the world: cat people and dog people. I've found that cat owners who own dogs, and vice-versa, still have a favored species between the two.

Well, I was raised to be an animal-hater. My mother allowed us to have animals because my stepdad loved dogs, but the dogs in our house were not treated very well. We weren't allowed to love them, and so I grew up not really caring too much about them. Dogs are meant to be loved and played with and cuddled with.

When I was about twenty-five, I met this dog, and that girl changed my heart, opened it wide open, and made me a crazy, talks-to-strange-dogs-on-the-street, dog lover. And when another dog came into the house, I thought my heart couldn't possibly open up to a whole other animal, but it did, and I fell in love a second time. They taught me how to love unconditionally, and they showed me that I was worth loving. It was a very symbiotic relationship.

I don't live with those two anymore. We were inseparable for a few wonderful years though, and I still go to visit them when I can. When I first got my car, we went to the beach, because one of my dreams in life was to see them see the ocean. It was all I had dreamed it to be :)

I can't ever be with a person who doesn't love dogs as much as I do. It's at the top of the list, along with some other things that I imagine a list should contain (like more than one thing), but nothing is springing to mind. It's entirely possible that that is all I really want in a partner. I'm a simple girl.

30, here I come :)

Oh, the cliché! Oh, the pain!

I think I've spent the past decade trying to pay for crimes committed in the previous decade: friends hurt, men poorly treated, siblings bullied. So now that I'm entering the next decade, I think I'm going to turn a new leaf, and stop apologizing. I've put myself out there, with all of my warts, said "I love you" and "I'm sorry" to those that matter, and now I'm going to turn around and just let life happen.

I've been a beggar looking for scraps. I constantly espouse the need to compost (the necessity, I should say), the benefits of thrifting (it's fun!), and my deep love of recycling, but I've emphasized those things because I, at my core, believe that I'm not worthy enough to have what other people have. But I think I'm done with that. I think I'm done waiting for other people to tell me how amazing I am, and start telling myself, and treating myself, the way I want to be treated.

Look out world!

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.

Olympic Swimming :)

French Lead Crystal Goblets - Pompadour Pattern

I am having so much trouble watching the Olympics. It makes me really sad. I had to have a talk with myself this afternoon to get over the disappointment. I had to figure out why I was sad.

When I was a kid, let's see, over the past almost 30 years, I have seen many Olympic games. It was always a beloved thing in my family, and every four years, we sat together and enjoyed the solidarity and beauty of the games. As an adolescent, my swim coach brought a television to the pool and we'd watch in between sets. National-level swimming got me through high school, in a way. The idea of somehow rising to that level kept me motivated to train for years on end. The Olympics were like some far-off dream of all that swimming was meant to be. They inspired me to think big, even when those who believed in me most told me I'd never measure up.

And I didn't. I was a mediocre swimmer at best. I was the hardest worker in the pool, and certainly formidable as a high school swimmer in a small country pond, but as a year-round club swimmer, I was always in the middle of the pack, usually on the slower end. The Olympics make me sad because they represent the idea that we each have greatness inside of us, that we each have the capacity to be "The Best" at some thing. But now that I'm an adult, and my competitive swimming days are done (and I'm glad about that), I don't know how I'm gonna find greatness in my life. I don't know how I'm going to prove to myself that I'm good enough. I thought those letters after my name would help, but they really don't.

I imagine that at the end of the day, gold medals aren't that awesome anyway for those who win them. I imagine that they feel amazing for a while, as well they should, but then life goes quickly back to normal, and the winner still has to face their own humanity. That's how life seems to work out for me anyway.

There was a time, a moment in time, that I was crazy fast (crazy stupid fast). And when that moment passed, I was done swimming. I proved to myself that I had it in me, and then I was done. I got out of that pool, and never looked back. So when I have moments like this, like I'm having right now, wishing my life had turned out differently, I remember that moment, and it's all worth it.

The truth hurts.

1974 Vintage (Tattered) Holly Hobbie Doll

So I'm listening to Taylor Swift on repeat. It's a beautiful thing. I don't know why I get hooked on stuff, but she is definitely my current fave. I'm also hooked on having lots of thinking time. 108 degrees will do that to a person. Don't you wish that thinking actually helped a person? That somehow we could think our way out of problems? But no. It doesn't work that way. We have to talk, communicate with others. We have to be in relationships with other people, and that's where it gets tricky.

Yesterday, I received a lovely email from a relative telling me what a terrible person/daughter I am, etc, etc. Now, unless you begin to fret, I'll let you in on a secret: I've received at least a hundred of these things in my lifetime, and do not intend to have a freak-out on account of other people's misplaced anxiety. That being said, 100 of these nasty things can make a girl tired, and in 108 degrees, just done. So, even though I usually throw them away and move on with my day, this one stuck with me, as they tend to do every so often. And in a rare moment of clarity and temperance, I responded.

Nasty emails should not always be responded to. I find that filtering my email (along with various other accounts), allows me to completely avoid the nastiness that other people like to send my way. But sometimes the truth is necessary, and needs to be said. And you know what? Oftentimes the truth hurts, because the truth often just sucks. And that's just the truth.

But use with discretion, like alcohol.

My weekend :)

1. The restaurant Lyfe, with a veggie burger and vegan chocolate chip cookie
2. So many pregnant women in form-fitting stretchy dresses
3. My brother taught me how to breathe for a didgeridoo
4. I ate a lot of green vegetables
5. I walked all over the Stanford campus and felt inferior
6. A lot of antibacterial handwashing, and then some more
7. Hours of good thinking time in my car
8. Twelve hours of sleep last night on a friend's lovely hide-a-bed
9. Canada Day :)
10. A crazy evening of Magic Mike (at least I didn't cry this time) and a new-found personal commitment to support Matthew McConaughey for the supporting actor Academy Award (the Academy is typically very welcoming of my many educated and varied opinions)

Ingrate.

A mug depicting Picasso's 1954 bullfighting poster

You know when your friends are the biggest jerks in the world, and you feel like such a martyr, but also an awesome person because you forgive them and continue to love them? Yeah, that's you being an asshole, and by you, I mean me. Because it feels like shit on the other side, to be that friend who is a humungous jerk, who didn't do it on purpose, who felt completely justified in the moment. Oh man, I'm remembering all those times I felt like a pious martyr, bestowing grace upon my poor ingrate friends who couldn't hold it together long enough to treat me well.

Well, it doesn't feel so great on the other side. It feels really scary, scary because your friend might decide that enough is enough and call it quits, or they might treat you as you deserve to be treated, like the asshole that you are. Or they might just be the bigger person, and forgive you. Man, life is hard, and not at all black-and-white. It takes work to not throw people away.

My Spanish vocabulary words for the week are pundejo (asshole) and junta or reunion (meeting). I have been working really hard at watching seasons of Weeds to learn Spanish, and listening to people talk to one another in thrift stores.

Mira, Mama, mira!

Helga.

My parents have a cleaning lady. She is disorganized and is constantly misplacing important things. The conversation goes, "Oh no! Helga will be here in 15 minutes. Hide your stuff!" Seriously, it's ridiculous. I have told them a dozen times that they need to let her go, that she isn't doing a good job, and they shouldn't be paying someone to do such a terrible job. Yet she remains.

I just spoke with my mom, and the issue of Helga came up. She is up to her same old shenanigans (though she is not Irish), and I think I'm now reconciled to this reality. She cleans the house. She does a bad job, but she does it, and they need the help. They both work constantly, and need someone to come in regularly to make sure that they don't get buried beneath student papers.

This woman is unemployable in any other situation. It's a gift to allow her to be herself and not demand that she change who she is, or become a person different from who she is (Don't even get me started on how she doesn't bring her own cleaning products). Anyhow, the moral of the story is to allow people to be who they are. I don't exactly believe it in this instance, but I do appreciate the fact that my parents are far less judgmental and stingy than I am.

Hyphy.

A wonderful vintage quilting book with really great ideas :)

I'm a little hyper right now. When I don't get enough sleep, that tends to happen. Whatever. I finally started cleaning out my clothes, so I'm using it to my benefit. Maybe I'll put this energy to good use and walk to the grocery store later (two birds baby).

An ongoing conversation I'm having has hit a road marker for me. I've had to state very bluntly my position on drugs, and I don't know that I've ever had to do that before with anyone. It's interesting what becomes a part of one's internal identity mapping. I imagine that some people feel this way about other things, very different things. Maybe some vegans put veganism on the line for a person they love; maybe some vegans put love on the line for the cows. I believe in compromise, and shared results, and it is my hope that someday my crazy will be just spunky enough to be attractive without being overwhelming. I think I may be hitting my stride right about now.

Survive the best you can.

Don't you just wanna feed it bugs?

Doo-bee-doo-bee-doo. What a day. It began with a night of terrible insomnia, followed by interactions with the police after I found my friend's home had been broken into overnight. What a day -- not one I'd like to repeat anytime soon. My friend's already antsy, loud, and annoying dog was on point today, yelping all over the house, letting me know that something was terribly, terribly wrong. And it was.

Why do people steal from their neighbors? Why do people steal at all? My experience last year with a home robbery was traumatic in a way, and I don't ever want to experience anything like it again. But seeing the drawers opened all over the house reminded me that bad things happen to good people, and there are no warnings to the crap that happens to us sometimes.

All I want to do is help people survive the crap they get dealt. But when I see the perpetrators damage in front of me, tangible evidence, I feel a little loss of hope. Then this afternoon, I came home in the middle of a gang territorial confrontation on the corner by my house. It feels like there is no hope, like this is life, and all we can do is survive the best we can.