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.

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?

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.

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 :)

Oh the heat :(

I just found out that there's a new, super awesome, biannual flea market in my area, and they're having the first event in less than a month. First thought? Omg. Omg. Omg. I have to do it! Second thought? Oh shit. I can't. For several minutes, these two thoughts fought, but in the end, the second one has won out.

My body shuts down in 100 degree heat. And coincidentally, the past few days have been hellacious. So I'm not feeling very hopeful about the coming summer. I'm concerned that I'm reaching some kind of physical brick wall in relation to my ability to live in a super hot place. It frightens me to think that my body cannot live in the place where I live. Or maybe I'm overreacting, and the past few days have just been a strange response to a strange May heat-wave.

We'll see. But I don't think the flea market is going to happen. The rummage sale was possible because it wasn't hot. Also, there's a big three digit fee to have a booth, and I'm not rollin' in cash. Ok, I'll try to be more positive from here on out.

Cover your damn mouth.

Awesome old Starbucks mosaic coffee travel tumbler :)

My friend, who works at a thrift store (to be distinguished from my thrift store friends, an entirely different category), has had an unfortunate number of encounters with fecal matter in her work. From people pooping in dressing rooms, to finding poop in donated clothing, working at a thrift store is a neverending battle with possible disease and the ever-present possibility of upchucking.

I've experienced vomiting children several times. There's nothing like walking into a thrift store, and smelling vomit. Lately, I've been on high alert for coughing children, the ultimate disease carriers. I'm trying to avoid the flu, and every time I see a child coughing, I immediately feel afraid and try to avoid them. And unfortunately, there are a lot of sick people around these parts. When I went out into the country last week, there were signs everywhere warning of a scabies outbreak.

I don't think of myself as a germaphobe, but I think I might be becoming more aware of how susceptible I am to illness, and how important it is for me to protect myself from infection, viruses, etc.

Anyhoo, hope you weren't eating just now :)

Green Smoothies :)

Casualware "Avocado" Green Knives - A first for me :)

I believe that there are receptors in our body that crave green nutrients, fresh raw green nutrients. I also believe that eating all raw is crazy. I had a moment a month or so ago where I found a website that told me that eating all raw would cure my Type I Diabetes, and I was consumed by guilt that I wasn't willing to do it. But I got over it when I remembered how short life is, and I think that we all have to make decisions about our health that allow us to survive and thrive. Being limited by a diet limits one's entire life. I learned this when I was initially diagnosed with diabetes, and I ended up living on lettuce and protein bars. I was miserable, and sick, and I couldn't fit in anywhere.

It took me a long time to try every diet for diabetes, and choose one that worked for me. Veganism works for me. I've figured out how to make it work, take care of myself, and not go crazy. The latter is probably the most important (see earlier comment on lettuce).

Anyhoo, the most recent way I've figured out how to flood those "raw green" receptors (maybe they're in my gut somewhere) is to make green "smoothies". You throw some green stuff in a blender with some fruit and some sort of liquid (I use water), blend it up and drink it. I know it sounds gross, but there is something about it that makes me feel really good, and that makes me want to keep doing it. It helps me eat a lot of spinach too, which I know is good for me, especially since I don't eat meat.

Anyhoo, there are a ton of rules about how to do it, which I don't follow very closely, because too many rules makes me less likely to do the thing I'm trying to do. And seriously, if you go from no spinach to a glass of green every once in a while, that can only be good, right?

Making friends :)

I can't wait to sell these boots! They're really cool :)

So now, around town, I feel like a wise old thrifter. I have seen so much. I have patience. I have an appropriately furrowed brow (oh dear, this expression will age me quickly). I am the best thrifting resource you will find, if you only have the time to look around and see if anyone is paying attention to you. I am present. I am smiling. And yes, that color would look great on you.

I used to hang my head and mumble, say "thank you" and never attempt conversation. But something in me has changed over the past year. I think my life has smoothed out to a more steady pace, and I'm able to take moments, full minutes in fact, to speak to people, look them in the eye and talk to them. It's been a trip, really, because it has made my thrifting hobby into something I do, not just because it gives me mindless time (which I need on a daily basis), but it also gives me social time to talk about nothing of any importance. I don't have to give a lot. I can just be me, and enjoy the experience, and smile and let go of the heavy burdens I often put on my own shoulders.

So maybe I'm endearing, and that makes it easy for people to talk to me. Or maybe I'm weird and eccentric, and I don't stand out much (let's all remember fake baby lady from a few weeks ago). I don't know what people think, because sometimes I'm wearing my normal clothes, and sometimes I'm wearing my professional clothes. Maybe they call me something like "weird tall lady" :)

Anyhow, I'm having especially enjoyable times thrifting lately :)

Boo. I'm unwell.

Ovenex-style Cake Mold - Starburst Pattern

I really wanted to go out of town today to hit up some stores I don't get to regularly. But I was in the office for thirty minutes when I realized that my energy was very low. I've been feeling lethargic the last few days, with a sore throat, but I haven't actually tried to do anything. So I was sadly disappointed when I realized that there would be no awesome thrifting today in a town far away.

I'm a big fan of listening to your body and giving it what it needs. Sometimes this means not doing something that you really "should" be doing, doing less when you want to do more. But as I always say to myself, "Do you want to be like the celebrities in the hospital for 'exhaustion'?" I even recently spoke with someone who had gotten into such a state that she had to be hospitalized because she'd been running herself ragged.

Anyhoo, it's cold and flu season. Prevention, prevention, prevention!!! That's my motto :)

Tennis balls :)

C'est vrai, mes amis, c'est vrai.

Tonight, the stars aligned and I remembered something my yoga studio does, and I did it at home. We often bring tennis balls along with our blankets, blocks, etc. and use them in class as weird pain-providing devices of torture wherein we place them under particular parts of the body (tight parts), and lie on top of the ball, allowing the full weight of our bodies to press down on the ball, creating a pressure to break up the tension. It can be quite painful, not in a bad way, but in a "this-part-of-my-body-has-never-felt-this-much-pressure" sort of way.

I went into the garage, knowing deep down that I'd seen a tennis ball somewhere. And alas! I found it! And I laid on top of it, with the ball beside my shoulder blades, and I swear to you, I can't remember the time my body felt so relaxed and just good.

Anyhow, you should try it. Peer pressure. Do it. Do it now. Or tomorrow. Whatever.

Books are awesome :)

These old mugs are super fun, not for any particularly funny reason though :)

So having school be the top priority in my life over the past five years, I have whittled my life down to the bare necessities: eating, yoga, occasional sunshine, writing, and paying the bills. These things have kept me sane in a very rocky, turmoil-filled time, and I made it! Yay! But now, all of that stress and constant need-to-perform is over, and I'm left with this emptiness in my life that I have to figure out how to fill.

It's not that my life is bad, or that I'm lacking in love or nurturing in some particular way, but some other inertia that I no longer have. I no longer have an ever-present goal I'm reaching for. And that creates a displaced feeling in my soul that I can't quite rid myself of.

So I've been reading The Hunger Games trilogy like a madwoman. I stayed up 'til midnight last night reading like my younger nine-year-old self. I'm funny that way with kid books. I do the same thing with Nancy Drew. When I lived in the jungle, I stayed up so late, I had to use a flashlight in bed to keep reading. Nerdin' out. Like a mofo.

Life is pretty awesome, after all.

These vintage 3D latch hook kits are awesome :)

Sorrow prepares you for joy. It violently sweeps everything out of your house, so that new joy can find space to enter. It shakes the yellow leaves from the bough of your heart, so that fresh, green leaves can grow in their place. It pulls up the rotten roots, so that new roots hidden beneath have room to grow. Whatever sorrow shakes from your heart, far better things will take their place.

Rumi

Everything in my life is so crazy and mixed up at the moment that all I can do is laugh and smile, and listen to songs on repeat.

Life takes some sharp twists and turns sometimes, but in the end, somehow, everything will be okay. Somehow, in the midst of neurological craziness, and health problems up the wang, and emotional overload, and missing people like crazy, it just stops mattering. Somehow, I'm alive and loved and I have joy in my life, so I really can't complain. And I'm gonna celebrate by wearing my favorite red pants tonight, so y'all can look forward to that.

So no complaints. Life is pretty awesome :)

Ack! Good lord, what's wrong with you?

Vintage Salvatore Ferragamo loafers

Okay, so picture this (maybe you can close your eyes and have it read aloud to you): I have electrodes taped and glued all over my head and chest, wires attached. There is a stretchy knit cap (like a stocking - if I put it all the way over my face, it looks like I'm about to rob a bank) that goes over the wires. I usually have big hair, and it's all plastered down under this stocking, and electrodes and hairs are poking out all over the place.

The stocking cap makes me hot during the night, so I have this weird, "I've been sweating a lot" look to me. And of course, I have no bra on, so there's that. Then, on top of it all, and the whole, "Hey, I just woke up look",  I'm carrying around this fanny-pack-thing with extra wires and it's probably holding up part of my shirt.

You're the mailman, and it's Saturday, and all you want to do is hand me bulky mail that won't fit through the slot, so you ring the bell, and then I open the door.

It's only 9am. Good lord, what did you do to deserve this?

Everything is okay. I'm not insane.

Thrift store oil painting - there's just something about it I love :)

I had a less-than-wonderful day yesterday. Maybe it's the pending end-of-the-world. Maybe it's the fog, or the rain, or the fiscal cliff. Maybe it's the holiday season. Maybe it's the last month of unnecessary and expensive medical tests. Maybe it's female hysteria.

Whatever it was, it was something I'd done before, and something I'll do again. So I went and hung out with my favorite teenagers and the dogs. I went to bed early. I left work early. I wandered my favorite thrift store until Bruno Mars came on the radio and I had to flee. I took pictures of inventory in my driveway. I made jokes to make myself laugh. I reflected a wee bit about the source of my bad feelings. I listened to talk radio and Madman Across the Water. I did the things that make me feel better, bit by bit.

So that's life sometimes, and it's okay, to be sad and a little crazy sometimes. I'm probably a little crazier that most people, but I'm pretty fond of myself most of the time.

Hope all is well with you. Peace out mofos :)

Change is scary...

When we are no longer able to change a situation – we are challenged to change ourselves.

Viktor E. Frankl

I saw some Oprah thing recently, Oprah's therapist-guru-friend, Iyanla Vanzant, goes to some woman's house and confronts her in her kitchen about her "racket" and how she's a "hustler". It was weird. But it also stuck with me, so this is what I've been thinking about (after the minute of footage that I saw, so this is obviously my own opinion, and probably nowhere near her therapeutic method - fyi).

Some people work incredibly hard to keep from getting real help. They manipulate, and complain, and victimize themselves to avoid getting help, to avoid confronting the things that they've done and the things that have been done to them. It's nasty ugly stuff to watch, but it's also addictive, this vicious cycle of "Help me! Go away!" One can get lost in the circular logic.

I don't know how to stop people from doing this. But I think it might have something to do with accepting that life will not change, and that we must.

Peace out :)

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 :)

I'm gonna eat some pizza now.

Vintage Barbie poster - hellz yeah!

When I was young, and something didn't go my way, I immediately felt like all was lost and nothing would ever get better. I would bask in my misery and cry myself to sleep. And that was okay.

But now, I don't have the emotional room to give to freak-outs the way I used to. Maybe I've trained myself to get through all the feelings speedily, or maybe I'm more patient and loving, which is just doubtful (I'm an imperfect person, after all). Maybe I'm well-medicated. Maybe when I prayed for ECT, it actually happened and I have no memory of it. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

Sometimes it takes what feels like forever to get what I want. I want to sell the Rabbit, and yet it sits in my driveway, unsold, for over three months. I want my spine to be straighter, but it takes years of daily work to make it so. And finally, I want a proper immune system, but that's not gonna happen, like ever.

Yeah, so now the making of the pizza, but with marinara sauce, because I wasn't paying attention at the grocery store, and I'm just going with it :)

Macaroni & Cheese

I'm thinking about getting myself a personal masseuse :)

So I'm sitting here drinking wine. I can't remember the last time I bought alcohol with the intent to actually drink it, but here I am, quite happy.

Last year, at the end of the day, it was sometimes hard to go to yoga (maybe it'll get more difficult when dumb daylight savings happens) after work, but I'm starting to need it to get through the day with enough energy to do another one tomorrow. I've got to hand it to the annoying adults in my life; I really didn't know what was coming. Being whole and present all the time is awesome, but it also means that I have to get up every morning and go to work. I have to show up every day, the same way I did the day before. It can get old after a while, the sameness of it.

My childhood made me very comfortable with chaos, with freaking out about little things. But now, there is no room to flip out about the little things. I have to spare my energy for the important things, the people in need, and my own health. So when I had health insurance troubles for the umpteenth time this afternoon, I didn't have room to lose it. I had to keep moving forward, keep going to meetings, keep doing my job, keep being constant and stable.

But after all of that, I went to yoga, and admitted to everyone that yes, I was feeling "poo poo" about everything. Then I made macaroni and cheese (I still haven't stopped being in love with Daiya), wrote a poem, drank some wine, and now I'm done.

Peace out.

Forever with me.

Vintage Silhouette - Made in Austria

I've written a lot of poetry in my life, lots of terrible wonderful poems about love and loss and longing and anger with God. I'm sick today, and feeling lonely in my sickness, because being sick is always a lonely occupation, isn't it? And I'm trying to figure some stuff out, so I start looking through the last two years of poems to try to get some clarity on my feelings and how they've remained constant in some ways over the years, how my trajectory has, in spite of all obstacles, stayed straight and sure.

Vintage Liz Claiborne - Totally make me think of the early 1990s

I've figured out something really important. My love for other people, my deep unfailing commitment to what some would (and have) declared delusional, has carried me through my life like a bright shimmering string of hope, woven through the mess of my life, inextricably linked to who I was, who I am, and who I will become. These people did not earn that love, nor did they provide it to me. It was something inside of me that kept it going, kept that fire stoked through many stormy times.

Those people can never give me that love that I've created for myself with their names on it. They can never live up to the hype I've given them, because they're human, and I made that hope inside myself so I could keep living when I didn't want to. I deeply want to show these people what they have, with their mere existence, given to me, but it seems to be an impossible task. How do you really love another person? How do you give a person, in a few moments, a decade of hope that you have forever inside you because of them?

So I love them, not because of anything they did, but because at one time, they loved me. And it was everything to me.