The Boys from Brazil

I realized this week that every movie that I watch that has violence, provides me with some sort of implicit social commentary on the nature of violence. If this were intentional, it seems like peace would be easier to achieve. If the Hunger Games trilogy is so popular, shouldn't we be seeing a peaceful revolution developing right in front of us? Some part of me thinks it is on the horizon, that somehow generations are being formed that will shift global consciousness towards peace and reconciliation. Or maybe I'm too hopeful for my own good.

Yesterday, I watched Red Dawn (1984), directed by John Milius, and starring a young Patrick Swayze and Charlie Sheen, and at the end of it felt like I'd watched a commentary on present-day Afghanistan. Young people are driven out into the wilderness during an attack on the US, and they become like cave-dwellers in the mountains, paranoid and hungry, willing to kill anyone who crosses them, even their closest friends. Isolation mixed with fear can produce some pretty nasty consequences.

Today I watched The Boys from Brazil (1978), directed by Franklin J. Schaffner. World War II themes combined with 1970s era South America? It sounds like a recipe for my perfect movie. Also, Steve Gutenberg was pretty hot as a young twenty-something ;) It answers the strange and wonderful question, "Should you kill baby Hitler, if you knew he was Hitler?" Fascinating movie about social engineering and evil intent.

I guess the more violence I see, the more senseless it becomes. Perhaps that's just my special brain working. I don't know any better; it's the only one I've ever had :)

I'm afraid of new things.

I'm pretty much on vacation right now, focusing on my store, resting, considering the possibility of reading a book instead of watching old Law & Order episodes on repeat, and just generally attempting to re-center, ground myself for the pending new year.

I have this new thing in my life, this new person, and as I move through the unknown of this relationship, I am faced daily by all of the things I try to avoid most of the time. I'm recognizing how much I avoid risk, perhaps not risk in the standard sense (I'm not risking my life or anything), but risk in terms of my own heart and soul. See my thrifty heart is a frugal heart. I calculate and recalculate. I weigh pros and cons. I anticipate potential problems so when they come, I'm not surprised. I know when to throw in the towel and call it quits. Thrifting is the way I control my life. Thrifting is the way I make sense of my own soul.

But nothing new and wonderful can come out of something known and understood, at least not intentionally. I've made a lot of choices in my life for the wrong reasons, and they ended up being for my benefit in the end, but I couldn't have orchestrated that; I couldn't have known the future.

So yes, I dig for treasures, but I don't know what I'll find. I don't go looking for particular things; I find wonderful things because I open myself up for them. I spend time preparing, and at the right time, I know what I'm looking at.

People are like that, in some ways. We become people who know what they're looking for, so when we see it, we'll know. I guess I'm wondering if I know what I'm looking for, after all this time, if my years upon years of singleness have taught me anything, or if I'm still just my naive sixteen-year-old self in a grown up woman's body.

Only time will tell, because only time can do the hard work of growing up. Being a grown-up is hard.

The Bachelorette returns...

Vintage NKOTB pillowcase :)

Due to my lack of a television (not because I'm some uber-hipster, but because I'd have nowhere to put it), I don't have cable. This means that I'm one day behind the blogosphere in terms of commenting on The Bachelorette. I know. I know. I've failed my strange niche of reality television/theology/recycling-loving crowd, all two of you. My apologies.

The first episode of this new season was the first time I was able to really start seeing pathology right off the bat, to trust my gut, to allow myself to say "something's not right with that guy". Of course, this is all hyperbole, since I'm not on the freakin' show, but nevertheless, I'm learning to trust myself. Creepy comes in all shapes and sizes. Sometimes, it can be really attractive on the outside, but it shouldn't take long to reveal itself. It's shallow and self-centered, needlessly self-deprecating and hyper-focused on flaws. Creepy people make you feel "icky".

My love of pop occasionally feels shameful ;)

I felt "icky" several times this evening, as I ate my favorite homemade vegan mac-n-cheese. Shirtless dude took too long to find a shirt. Dancing dude had zero ability to laugh at himself, and stared a little bit too intently - ack! But then...Bikram guy had the potential to be too intense, but was successfully able to be chill in stressful situations. And this guy looked like he was holding back tears as the final roses were being handed out and he was roseless - perhaps overly emotive, but able to be real in a strangely stressful situation.

The whole thing is a cluster-fuck of emotional absurdity, yes. But it's also an opportunity to do some self-reflection. While watching the Bachelorette meet her men, I'm wondering if I would be pretty enough for a group of men, or if they'd think I was weird and crazy, and if I'll ever be running through an orchard, holding hands with the person I love, who simultaneously loves me, and wondering at the beauty of sheer existence.

So many things to think about. What a great summer show - I'll keep you posted ;)

Being bilingual :)

A rare find from a local artist :)

Not being bilingual in english and spanish makes my life difficult pretty much every day, and for a long time, I've berated myself for it. But last summer, I made the decision to start learning, since I had more time after graduation. I watched videos on YouTube, listened to Spanish radio, and started to pay attention to people speaking Spanish in thrift stores.

I found that I knew a lot more than I thought I did. I didn't take Spanish in high school (I took French because of ballet - whatever), but I grew up in California and have always had a lot of interaction with Spanish-speakers. My stepdad spoke Spanish because of his work. My college roommate dated a Spanish-speaker. I traveled to Peru. Somehow all of these things, though brief and seemingly insignificant, have created space in my brain for Spanish. And since most people in thrift stores are talking about simple things like, "Does this good on me?" and "Can I have a toy, Mommy?", I'm able to get some momentum with my Spanish.

Anyhoo, I think it's important for people to be able to communicate, and I know how important it is for me in my community and neighborhood to be able to communicate in Spanish, not because it's necessary (I could avoid it if I wanted to), but because in some ways, I think it shows respect to people who would otherwise assume otherwise from someone like me.

Making better decisions :)

From Happiness is a Warm Puppy by Charles Schultz

At one of my favorite stores, there is a "25 cents" rack. I thought the rack was full of rejects, so I never spent much time going through it. Then yesterday, I had a wild hair, and ended up finding three pairs of pants in really good condition that are now in my shop. The cashier was proud of me. She's super friendly, so I've been doing my best to reciprocate. It's important to be kind to people in retail.

Actions like this have reduced my thrifting expenses drastically over the past month during my hard core "Debt Reduction Diet", which will last as long as it needs to (until my car is paid for and my credit card balance is $0). It means I don't buy everything I want to buy for my shop, and it means that I buy weird things that are cheap because no one has been able to identify them. I have the time to do the research. I have more time than money, and I need to use my resources in effective ways. That's my rationale. I sold a lot of stuff in January, and I plan to continue stocking my store like a mofo in February.

In other news, I'm having some perspective changes in my life on relationships, and on politics. I think I'm becoming more and more of a libertarian, a libertarian who believes in socialized medicine. It's a complicated business, politics. It involves the delicate dance between how we see ourselves, and how we see other people. I think this year, one of my main goals in life will be to empower others to change their own lives. I am working on allowing people to find their own ways instead of telling them how to do what I think is best. Teach a man to fish...

Haiti relief - Part 1

This has been lookin' pretty on my dress form lately :)

There's a This American Life episode about Haiti (written transcript here) I reference frequently. It's about relief agencies, mission organizations, and NGOs working in Haiti over the last several decades, and how it appears to have affected the nation. In sum, Haiti's economy has gotten worse, significantly worse, as the number of aid organizations in the country has increased exponentially.

The problem is that missionaries, for many years, have given to people what people should be able to provide for themselves. For whatever reason, the served became unable to serve themselves (war, famine, disease, etc.), and very well-meaning people come in to help. But the mere act of helping changes the very human dynamic of day-to-day life, and over time, changes the way people function overall, changing their beliefs about themselves and their own abilities and capacity.

After the 2010 earthquake, billions of dollars from around the world went to Haiti. But relief was slow. It was almost as if the nation itself could not rebuild, because they'd been trained not to. The following excerpt from the TAL episode describes the ideal solution:

...You teach the people of Haiti how to do all these things. You use this rebuilding process to give Haiti the ability to build itself...This option, capacity building, do I even need to say it? It takes a long time and it's really, really hard. You need foreign money and you need Haitians to believe in the projects and to participate fully...

It's a complicated problem with an equally complicated solution. Change is difficult. A doctor is interviewed in the episode. He does the very hard work of allowing Haitians to fail in hopes that they might learn from their mistakes (as many of us do), and that these failures would result in greater systemic strengthening. Worst case scenario for this doctor? People die.

Haitians are not the victims in this situation. We all play a part, and Haiti's situation is cloned around the world. People feel sorry for other people...and so it goes.

Have you spoken to a child lately?

Like really, seriously and intentionally, had a conversation with a child? Children, who I often refer to as aliens in this world (because everything is new to them), are extraordinarily brave and authentic. I often feel thankful when I remember that I spend a lot of my days working one-on-one with children, children who want to be heard and seen. And it seems like such a small thing, my entrance into their lives, such a small, insignificant thing.

But then I remember how I saw adults who took time for me when I was young. The smallest things changed me. When I was about nine years old, a friend of the family picked me up unexpectedly from ballet. I don't even recall why, but she was going to take me to her house where I'd wait for my parents to pick me up. And on the way home, we stopped by this little burger stand and she got me a burger and fries, and for some inexplicable reason, this seemed like a magical gift to me.

I'll never forget that moment, and how I later felt when she died, that she had seen me in this really sharp, powerful way, and gave me something to hold onto when life continued to be rough. I think that maybe, deep down (because I'm tearing up right now, just thinking about it), she really cared, and somehow, deep down, I could feel that. So every time I see a child, I know how important it is for me to see them, and acknowledge them, that small things that seem insignificant to me, might seem huge and life-changing to them, and I won't let those precious moments go by wasted.

Anyhow, thoughts of the day. Peace out :)

Yeah right you're moving to Canada.

I've been keepin' this in the bull pen for today :)

People love to threaten to move out of the country if the candidate of their choice doesn't win the presidential election. Whatever. Seriously? Your life is that tenuous? Your life is so tied to your external environment that you wouldn't survive with a [insert opposing party here] president in the White House?

Well, here's a hopeful note from someone who's lived with less than she's wanted for a fair bit of time. Get over yourself. The world is not going to end tomorrow if you don't get your way (nor will mine - I have feelings too). Take some time today to remind yourself of all of the things that you already have, that comfort you in the bad times, and remind you of how beautiful life is in all of the other times. And maybe eat a cookie.

I'll be drinking beer tonight watching the results, maybe probably disenchanted, and maybe eating some sweet potato fries, because those are sounding pretty good right now.

Peace out mofos. See you on the flip side :)

Good Sunday to you :)

Do one thing every day that scares you.

Eleanor Roosevelt

A great thing happened today: I went rock climbing (at a climbing gym) for the first time ever, and I went all the way to the ceiling! It was awesome, and I thought you should know. It seems like the scariest thing ever, since you're hanging onto a wall with your fingertips and the side of your foot, but then you just take one step at a time, and eventually you're there! My friends who took me go all the time (they're fiends), so they were super positive and encouraging, and I felt really supported. I figured out that I don't like being told what to do when I'm in the middle of doing it. I need to be able to focus as much as possible on the task at hand, and voices calling out to me where to put the foot I can't see (on the 2" rock I also cannot see) are simply not helpful to me.

So that was good to know about myself. I hadn't quite put those two things together before. See how much I love personal development? I think everyone should do things that scare them just for the heck of it, and we'd all be better people. Unfortunately, I think that a lot of people do drugs and join gangs in an effort to confront their own fears, and this isn't usually a good idea. So maybe the ethos isn't perfect, but it's worth thinking about.

Peace out.

Ah, gardens :)

Five LP Set - Very Good Condition - An Uncertain Purchase

So I took a trip to the Bay Area over the weekend, not for fun, but it was enjoyable in some ways. I got to hang out at the pretty cool Stanford campus, and eat healthy veggie-rich food from the hospital cafeteria. A huge oatmeal (with toppings!) was $1.70. Oh my goodness. I sat in the cafeteria Saturday morning, eating oatmeal and reading the Chronicle, and it was really a lovely time. Later, I got to walk around Palo Alto (and drive, which was way worse) with my brother, while we practiced circular breathing (see yesterday's post) and watched the ducks in the fountain.

I really do love college campuses. As I walked around on Friday, I was thinking, "What if I went back to school someday to be a professor? What if a place like this hired me? I would need to learn how to be a better academic writer. I am a decent one, but I really need to work on solidifying my zany ideas so that other people can get a better grasp on them".

Oftentimes, the best thing about college campuses is how environmentally conscious they are. The hospital had a very easy-to-understand system of composting/recycling/trash, and all of their disposable utensils, plates, to-go boxes, and cups were compostable. Now, of course, this stuff does take time to compost, but it just made me so happy to be able to participate. Also, the portion of the hospital I was primarily in was covered in gardens, which could all be seen from inside, and enjoyed on benches when one decided to enjoy the outdoors (which was far cooler, temperature-wise, than my lovely home). All in all, I enjoyed being with loved ones, and getting to see a new place. Also, I was duly inspired to increase my gardening, so props to Palo Alto for that :)

The death of the hybrid dream...for now

I listed this as a political tie :)

I had some not-so-fun talks yesterday about the car situation. I had to be told, first by a friend, then by my dad, that I need to let go of my used hybrid dream. It's not possible in my current financial situation. It hurts to hear the truth. It really does, but it's the only way to move forward. I've been stuck in the dream, and it's kept me stuck in the Rabbit, which I discovered last night is full of black widows, not because it doesn't run, but because the tree in our front yard has an entire ecosystem existing inside of it.

So instead of the $8000 range, I am now looking more at the $2000 range. Hey, moving from 30+ to 20+ years-old is a move in the right direction. I found an '87 Honda Shuttle that I really like, but the owner hasn't responded yet to my query. A very eager man came to look at the Rabbit last night at 9:30, and wanted to take it right there, on-the-spot, cash in hand. But it was late, and I had blood sugar on the lower side, so I wasn't willing to make such a huge decision. Also, it was dark, and everything looks different when the sun comes up.

My dad says I need to get a Honda. I told him that they get stolen more than any other car. He didn't believe me. I told him that it felt ethically wrong to lower my mpg by buying a new car. He quoted Lenin. That made me feel better.

I'm hooked.

House of Lloyd - 1988

I'm currently drinking out of a mug that says You're Sensational with a rainbow shooting star. I figured I needed some more positive energy with my morning coffee. The news just isn't doing it for me.

I think I went on a thrifting binge today. Three stores. $50. If it helps, I donated a huge box of stuff I'm done with. I really need to go through my clothing. One of my drawers is way too full. I think I've accumulated more clothing that I like and look good in than I have in the past. However, I just saw a photo of myself and it was not so great. I think I need to figure out how to just deal with what I look like. It's a lifetime of work.

So there's this guy that I'm talking to from my online relationship forays. We've sent several emails back and forth, and I kinda like him. The process is making me more of an adult. I'm usually more like a horny child (see here-oh no, now I've distracted myself with SNL). I don't know what it is. I'm trying to figure it out. I think it has to do somewhat with preconceptions about the process and how it works. We act as if we care. We put forward our best selves because that's what we want to be seen. Yikes, this sounds like dating in general. Maybe I've underestimated my own abilities, or maybe I'm reaching some sort of synergistic epoch where all of my wisdom and knowledge are working together for the first time in synchronicity instead of some sort of haphazard experiment.

I'll be in touch. Stay tuned.

One fatal flaw

Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.

Maya Angelou

I am obsessed with keeping my computer clean and orderly. And in the past two weeks, this has come back to bite me in the ass, and not in an ass-scarring kind of way, but an ass-maiming kind of way. I lost an editing job I spent a day working on. Tonight, I lost a page of notes from meetings that cannot be recovered. I just spent the last half-hour going through the recycling bin and putting together the puzzle pieces of the printed copy I'd torn up (the details really don't matter).

I can't keep living this way. I can't keep obsessing about "computer baggage". I need to start holding on to things, not because they're important, but because it puts me in the mindset to hold onto things so that when something actually important comes around, I don't act like a dipshit and throw it away.

Dear self - In an attempt to protect yourself, you've created a world where you leave no trace, where you quietly enter and exit rooms so that no one notices you. And for a time, that was a good skill. It kept you safe, and you did a really good job staying safe in very dangerous and ugly situations. But now, life is different, and you don't need to cover your tracks anymore. You can leave footprints. You can be visible. It's going to take some time, but this is a first step. Buying a jump-drive is probably sufficient, but you might need to purchase an external hard drive. I'm sorry that this lesson has been so painful and stressful. Life lessons often are. But don't beat yourself up over it. You did the best you could. Now, you know better, and you're gonna do better. Much love. - M