The generosity of strangers :)

St. Lucy's Day - December 13th in Advent

One of my favorite things in my reselling/dealing work is in unexpected emails from strangers sharing information about my items. To me, the above item was a pretty Christmas hanging, possibly of Scandinavian origin. But to someone more knowledgeable than I, it was a lovely homage to St. Lucy's day, a festival of light celebrated in countries around the globe on December 13th, often featuring young girls dressed as angels.

I've benefited from the kindness of strangers countless times. Yes, I occasionally post things on my blog (e.g. milk saver of not so long ago), but most of the time these things go unnoticed. I misspell Cathrineholm and someone lets me know, and tells me more about the lotus design and its designer, Grete Prytz Kittelsen. I have no idea what a painting is, and someone sends me an eBay message letting me know it's a famous landmark in Canada. What a gift!

Funny thing is, I saw a painting on eBay over the holidays of Notre Dame in Paris, France. I recognized it, and was so excited to be able to tell the seller something that might help them sell the painting for more! But I got no response, and the item went for very little :(

Of course I can't possibly know everything about everything (though I typically think I should - le sigh). I love being able to share what I love with other people who also love it. It's a hidden web of vintage lovers around the world :)

Relief efforts :)

Vintage A House Blessing by Arthur Guiterman

This year, I held a rummage sale at my church to raise funds for Syria relief. Money, raw paper money, is what people in crisis situations most need, because it allows them to obtain exactly what they need.

Unfortunately, when tragedy comes (war or tornadoes or tsunamis), people want to feel like they can do something. They want to help. They long to help. So they send things. They send clothing, and devotional books, and toilet paper. And this stuff cannot possibly all be used. It usually creates new problems for the people in need, because now they have all of this extra stuff to figure out how to store.

Vintage Desiderata on wood

We often see other people's tragedies as we would see our own, and we block out all of the unknowns (because they're unknown - duh). We forget that there's a mess to clean up, that there are lots of people and organizations nearby that are set up to help in these situations. If your neighbor lost their home, there would be other neighbors to help. People are helpers. People like to help.

So take this time to figure out how to make cash out of the things you want to send. Maybe you sell them on eBay. Maybe you have a garage/rummage/yard sale. Maybe you need to do that to get the $5 or $10 to send to the Red Cross or Mennonite Disaster Service. Maybe cash just isn't obtainable, so you go donate blood today (hey, you get a cookie, and juice!). Maybe take an extra minute to create space in your life to help more the rest of the year, when there isn't a huge crisis to focus on. Find a place to volunteer once a week. Find a kid who needs some unconditionally positive adult attention. Find a way to create a world where love overwhelms people 365 days of the year, not just one.

Rummage Sale Planning - Part 3

Very unique vintage square dance skirt - just sold :)

When I was in college, I was really interested in event planning as a career. So I got into large-scale athletic events, events that get planned all year long, take a lot of human power and time, and are fun to participate in. I ended up on my knees one year in San Francisco, taking ankle monitors off of hundreds of open-water swimmers as they came out of the water, freezing and exhilarated. That was a good hair day, the last one I can remember clearly. I think it was the salty sea air.

Rummage sale planning is very different. There isn't a lot of "planning" that I'm able to do on my own. I have the idea. I execute the idea. People come alongside me to help, and somehow it happens. If I were more organized, I imagine the sale would be more organized. I don't know how to make that happen. I'm sure that other people do. For the time being, people will bring things to church this week, I will spend Thursday and Friday organizing the donations, and several hours on Saturday trying to sell it all. That may not be enough for some people, but it's enough for me.

Last night, while running an errand for a friend, I happened to pass by one of my favorite burrito places. The sign was down and the place was empty. I haven't eaten there in months. I guess unbeknownst to me, I'd been keeping them in business ;)

Haiti relief: Parte Deux

Stoneware mugs made in Romania - Eastern Europe, hollah!

Sometimes I get a pain in my chest when I wish that I could do something that I cannot do, and it usually has to do with helping someone, or teaching someone something. When I have that special moment of realization that I cannot control other people, or change them, or teach them adequately what no one but Life has taught me, I sit in a pool of sorrow, with the chest pain.

The world can be a horrible, awful place. And in my life, I have seen a lot of that awfulness, and I've had to reconcile with it, look it in the face and acknowledge that it exists. This has made me the awesome person that I am today, but it also makes me like eighty-years-old. And I walk around with this knowledge every day, hoping that I could save people from it, save them from war, and murder, and rape, and incest, and the deep lasting wounds in families and people that last for generations. I wish I could save people from ever knowing, because it's an awful thing, this knowing.

But it is in the knowing (about all the bad awfulness) that true peace and understanding can be found, where that inability to control that we all have, can be accepted and owned, and truly felt deep down in our bones.

When we try to spare others from pain, sometimes it backfires, and our best intentions are like water in a bucket full of holes. Sometimes the best things we can do for one another, are to stand in solidarity, to acknowledge pain, and to comfort those who mourn.

Too abstract? Whatever. 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 :)

I can't think of a title.

Shimano shoes - simple style, but very useable :)

I went to the city this weekend with my bff, saw Lori McKenna (ah, bliss), and had a silly time being away from home and getting back on solid ground.

Last week was really hard. I was faced with my professional inadequacies, and that was painful and difficult to work through. Somehow I thought graduating would make me more of a pro, and less like swiss cheese, but ah, 'tis not to be.

Have you ever told yourself (or someone else), "Yeah, I've dealt with that" or "That's not an issue for me anymore"? Well that was what I thought about my own struggles. I probably never realized that I was believing that I was whole and healed (and perfect), but my actions spoke otherwise. I've been behaving like someone who looks the part, but doesn't have all the skills yet. Yeah, teenagers can have sex, but should they? It's like that. So now that my humility has been sufficiently restored, I can go back to the business of helping people with my ego somewhat wounded, but my general safety improved.

I saw Ghandi yesterday, and now I'm reminded how he beat his wife, and how being human means being imperfect, and learning and growing and changing, becoming better, stronger, and wiser (hopefully).

Peace out :)

Saving the World

I am super frustrated today by people unwilling to budge a little to admit a bit of responsibility and do something to solve a small problem.

It is my belief that I am an unexceptional (though awesome) human being, and that everyone cares about other people and systemic functioning as much as I do. But time and again, I am proven wrong. Should I trust people selling me their used car? Probably not entirely. Should I assume that other people want to help as much as I do? Probably not. Perhaps I should pay a little less attention to global problems and a little more attention to my own.

I didn't become this way on accident. I was raised to depreciate my own health in the interest of the well-being of others, and this seems to be an issue I'm still working through. Now, my occupation is evidence that I care a lot about other people, and it offers me opportunities to continually manage boundaries, but it is also evidence that my "helping others before myself" attitude is not easily ignored - it's something I deal with regularly, and something I often have to keep in-check.

Call me a fascist commie, but I think that we, as human beings, need to pay attention to one another a little more, and ourselves a little less. We need to think about how our actions affect others a little more, and our smart phones a little less.

eBay customer rant

Stop eating people's old French fries, pigeon. Have some self respect! Don't you know you can fly?

~ Tracy Jordan (30 Rock)

I receive offers weekly where potential buyers literally beg me to sell them an item for a particular price. Now, I have a "Best Offer" feature on most of my listings, and I welcome offers, but I hate these interactions. Each of them is more insulting than the last. I reject them all, regardless of the amount. I am not your savior! You will not die if you don't have these shoes, or these hair clips. It is not my responsibility (as a stranger!) to take care of you. Do you go to the grocery store and beg the checkers to sell you groceries for less than the asking price? Is begging via eBay really your bottom? Do you need to debase yourself to feel worthy? Seriously, if that's all you've got, that's all you've got, but own it already! Be who you are without apology.

Rant over. Peace out.

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 :)

Makin' things work

Vintage knit suit from Vivanti for Neiman Marcus

So after the car blow up yesterday morning, I went to town on listing my vintage clothing inventory. There really wasn't a ton of it, but it takes more time, blah, blah, blah...I complain about it too much. I am working diligently, listing everything I have. I reduced some big ticket items, hoping they'd sell faster, and now I'm just trying to be calm and not think about it too much.

I called my veggie oil friend, and he said he'd do some research, see if the car is sellable, and what I could do to make that happen. He said I might be able to get $2000 for it, and even though that's what I paid initially, it feels like such a small number now. I know that I don't have a lot, but what I do have is quite a lot of wonderful people in my life, and that's really all that matters to me.

Today I will be doing the same thing I did yesterday, taking a lot of photographs and listing a lot of my inventory. It will be a good day. I'm currently going through books, and enjoying the wonderful selection that I have. Perhaps I will share some with you tomorrow when I have some photos.

Geysers are big.

Yellowstone postcards from 1931

Oh wow. I've gone off the deep end. I've lost track of the words that are coming out of my mouth, and my mouth has taken on a life of its own where it operates without the presence or direction of my brain. Bad times, my friends. I am in trouble.

Bipolar disorder runs in my family, and I have only ever run on the severely depressed side of the mood spectrum. I've been having a lot of different weirdness going on in my body, and I'm not feeling like all is well, or as it should be. Tomorrow is a holiday, and I work all day on Tuesday, but I'm calling my psychiatrist as soon as I can. Whatever is happening is abnormal and not at all okay. Maybe it's nothing; maybe it's just a ton of anxiety, but I am not going to let it continue.

That being said, if you have any kind of mental health issues/diseases/conditions, please know that there are always people willing to hear you. Whether it's a suicide hotline, or a teen crisis line, or a domestic violence hotline, people want to help you. Sometimes all we need to do is reach out from the frenzied clutter of our brains and tell other people that we need help, and we gain a new chance at freedom. So I'm gonna do that, before things get worse, while I still have a chance of turning this train around.

Belt buckles - Booyah.

Mim Di N (what does that even mean?!) belt buckle

This afternoon, my nurse practitioner, who is in charge of my diabetic care (obviously second in command), told me that something has happened to me that is so interesting, she is going to bring it up in her next case conference! How cool is that?! She said that one of the doctors at the practice is a diabetes nerd. I said, "I'm a psychopath nerd". She laughed. She got it. We had a moment of shared understanding. It's weird to have to be in school so long just to do what I want to do, the thing that my soul knows how to do.

Solid Brass-Made in Israel.

I made a thrift stop on the way home and have already listed everything I bought! How awesome is that? I was so productive today. I cleaned the yard for my party. I had help. We were amazing. Me and my tall friend made that yard our bitch. I was so proud, I had to keep going outside to look at it. There was so much dust, I kept blowing my snot all over the place. Disgusting. I was sneezing like a mofo.

Just to emphasize the awesomeness of this feat, I did not, as a rule, do yardwork until about a year ago when I found that it was cathartic. So me, doing yardwork, and getting injured (I got a palm thorn stuck in my hand) was some kind of proof to the world (and my parents, who am I kidding) that I'm not a loser. I'm a grown-up who does yardwork.

Booyah.

Not enough makeup

Time travel with authentic Jacobean embroidery!

So over the past five years, I have worked myself into a continual semi-conscious state by putting myself through school - by myself. I never payed a cent for tuition; unfortunately, my government loans did all of that (ack, repayment!), but I did do the rest mostly by myself (minus some dollars here and there from scholarships and loan overflow). Boo-yah.

Unfortunately, this doesn't feel like such a big deal on the flip side. Now it feels like I'm some sort of hippie dreamer who wears used clothing and got a masters degree for fun. I don't wear enough makeup to be taken seriously. I swear everyone's teeth were whiter than mine at the ceremony on Saturday. I had a weird growth on my eyebrow. And then when it was all over, I ate a burger made of beets.

It really just couldn't get any worse.

Coping with inventory

Being done with school is so strange, I just wander around thrift stores aimlessly. I pick up some cool vintage hubcaps, or a set of Czechoslovakian glassware, but then my hands get dirty, or I imagine the glasses breaking, and I leave without getting anything of value.

I look through shoes with a hint of melancholy. I look at books hoping the guy who works here will talk to me already, but he doesn't even look my way. I look through dresses hoping I'll find a fun one for a friend, but sigh and my vision gets blurry.

Life is funky right now, but I'm getting through it. I went through my matches tonight on eHarmony and answered the questions people sent me. It felt productive. Tomorrow, I'm paying someone to come over and work for me for a few hours. The piles in my living room/kitchen have got to be dealt with, and I can't do it alone. I'm going to have her go through patterns to make sure they're complete, take photos of them, then seal them in clear pattern-sized sleeves. If she enjoys that, then I'll move on to something else. I have a load of stuff to work through, and it's worth it to me to pay for the help. I'm snowed under by inventory with no place to go.

A thrifty Thanksgiving :)

Ways to be thrifty this Thanksgiving:

1. Cook the turkey carcass and make soup stock (no-brainer)
2. Use real plates (dishwashing time is my favorite)
3. Play lots of non-electronic games
4. Have deep conversations with people you have shallow relationships with
5. Dance or walk after dinner
6. Compliment everyone's cooking (no matter what)
7. Bring something to share, even if it's small
8. Talk to someone you avoid every year
9. Find new things to be grateful for
10. Be yourself. Sometimes in the midst of old patterns, we switch to old personas. Be you, the adult you. Inject newness into old relationships. Don't fall back on old patterns.

I hope your Thanksgiving is warm and enjoyable. I know mine will be.

Please, please, don't throw those away

There is a lot of information on the interwebs about recycling shoes. Over the past ten years, I've been sending old running shoes to some place in the Midwest. It feels kinda funny, now that I think about it. I don't know how I got on that kick. I was really into running (ridiculously), so I would wear out a pair of running shoes and send them on to someone who would then send them on to Africa, I believe. This was pre-TOMS, and specifically for running as a sport.

Shoes are very bulky, and if they are synthetic or rubber (Is that synthetic? It grows on trees.), they don't break down in landfills. I've seen a lot more labels lately that boast the shoe's biodegradability. In my dreams, I get to go through landfills in a spacesuit and find stuff that could be recycled (yes, yes, I know that people do this to survive).

You can go here to make your own decision about how to recycle your unwanted shoes. Nike has a large-scale recycling program that breaks down shoes into raw materials to build with.

I know that this is a lot of information for your already overloaded brain, but whatever you do, just don't throw them in the trash. If you need me to come to your house and deal with them, I will (but most likely I will just talk you through the process over the phone, because I'm really busy and you need to be empowered to do it yourself).

We've been downgraded

So, we've decided to leave some things behind in Iraq. You know, the usual stuff that's difficult to ship via the US Postal Service: guns, tanks, port-a-potties. This seems like a good idea to me, giving to those in need and all. Although, I do hate guns (hate them) and don't think it's any good to just pass them along to someone else. But Iraq is going to maintain a military, no? So it suffices to think that they might be aided by our leaving some essential supplies behind. Or maybe we don't want to bring the mess home, and we're trying to leave it behind for someone else to clean up. That would be a horrible idea. Don't make your problem someone else's problem.

Like I tell the kids when they're "so bored" and start following me around with puppy dog eyes. "Don't make your problem my problem. Don't pout in my face." Come to me for help, or go spend some time thinking about different ways to solve the problem. Don't dump it on my doorstep (Wow, so harsh).

Yeah, leaving things behind is often a difficult task, especially if you plan to do it well. We all have to move on at some point in our lives; change comes and we have to embrace it. I am in the midst of some pretty darn humongous changes right now in my life, and I'm not embracing them, no sirree. I am digging my heels in, hanging on to the past. I know what's coming after graduation and it is not pretty. After the excitement wanes quickly, the depression and unemployment will set in; the loan officers will start calling, and I will still have the rest of my life to be single and help other people with their marriages (Oh, haven't I told you? I'm planning on being single for the rest of my freakin life, or until I turn sixty, whichever comes first.). Yippee!

These are dark days my friend, dark days. I wish someone would leave a tank in my backyard. Not really, since I wouldn't know what to do with it, but all the same, it sure would make me feel powerful for a whole five seconds.

I can't ask for help

So in my fierce stubbornness, I am occasionally unable to ask for help. Usually it's for parental things (i.e. things that I couldn't ask my parents), like money, or help with a project, or a ride somewhere. Well, this is really never a good thing. I still have piles of boxes in my front room because I've reached the end of my own competence and I can't ask for help. So I'm just stuck.

This isn't entirely childish of me. I used to do everything by myself and never needed anything from anyone. Now, I realize that it's unhealthy for me to live that way, but I'm also still stuck asking the wrong people over and over again, people who don't actually help, who just give lip service to it. I don't know why I keep doing the same wrong thing.

It's so shameful to ask for help. It means that I'm weak, that I can't do everything, that I need other people. But when I ask for help, it means that in order to actually be helped, I have to listen to advice oftentimes, advice that I don't want to hear. So until I'm able to get over my own pride, I'm going to be miserable, being vomited on by a sick crying child, on a bus far from home, because I wouldn't accept the ride I was offered (ah, great metaphor).