Making good choices.

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

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

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

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.

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...

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 :)

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.

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.

Operation "Sell Car"

I just returned from the shop. It's my engine mounts, and front axle. $1000. I know I've said this before, but I am done. I am so done. I need a new car, like today.

Operation "Sell VW" commences today.

Online Dating Update #4

Sandra Boynton mug :)

Okay, so I haven't given an online dating update because I suddenly feel very vulnerable writing about what has been going on. Suddenly I'm extra nervous about people reading my blog, and people finding my blog. A few months ago, I found out that a very unpleasant person was reading my blog and then using it to manipulate me. That was enough for me, but now this is different. This is new and scary and should I have a pen name? Should I change the name of my shop and blog so that I do a better job concealing my identity? Yikes. Ack! Anxiety! Waking up at 6:30 every morning with dark circles under my eyes!

Phew, okay. That's all you get.

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.

I make a bad first impression.

I am in a rut today. I got some feedback from an eBay customer that was not very favorable, and I'm taking it to heart, but for a good reason.

I'm wondering if I need to pay more attention to the way I package my items. Honestly, I don't really think about the way it looks as much as I do about the safety of the item. "Is it going to break?"-that's the only question I ask. Who cares if it doesn't look pretty? I'm not trying to win a shipping beauty contest. But then I started thinking, what if the customer really is always right, and that I should make a bigger deal about shipping?

I guess "The Recycling Ethic" means that I use what's available. I see it as a pioneer activity. I'm not just trying to run a a business-this is a way of life for me, and I want to reflect that in the way I operate. Unfortunately, I think that this looks like laziness to people who only have a single interaction with me.

So that's where I'm at. I am challenged, and I think that this interaction has given me an opportunity to grow. It's uncomfortable, as always. And I have to mediate the self-hatred with the desire for growth, which is quite the balancing act.

If you have any pointers, I'd sure love to hear them. Also, if you have any ideas about how I can be frugal, thrifty, not wasteful, and at the same time aethetically pleasing, that would be awesome.

"Stay classy, San Diego."

Please don't suck it up!

I hate passive aggression, hate it. It makes my cheeks flush, heart races, blood pressure goes up, brow furrows. None of these are good things.

Instead of coming out and saying, "I'm not happy with you", the passive aggressive person waits until you're not expecting it, long after any uncomfortableness has passed. They lie in wait until you're innocently drinking from the stream like a young deer, enjoying the fresh cool water, the blue blue sky, and the gentle breeze blowing over your fur. Then POW! You're shot in the heart, and proceed to die a long slow miserable death, choking on your own blood and gasping for air. All you want to know, before you are gone, is "Why?" and "What the hell is wrong with you (i.e. passive aggressive shooter)?"

A few years ago, this was the only aggression I knew and understood. Then I met a wonderful person who wonderfully told me how she felt at the exact moment she was feeling it. Then that particular anger-inducing incident was over, in her mind. I would of course grieve for days about the loss of our friendship, and come crying to her to take me back, which she always would. But she was never stewing. She was just sad that I had to be sad for so long. She had never even considered not being my friend (Thank you God. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I never deserved that amazing gift).

Phew. This relationship lifted the heavy load off of my back that I'd been carrying for decades. Now, whenever some idiot wants to come and return the heavy load, or give me a new one, I can't even stomach it. The idea of taking it back makes me sick.

My motto is: Don't make your problem my problem. Tell me how you feel and be done with it. If you don't, you'll still treat me (and possibly other people) badly, probably unintentionally, and you don't want that.

Tell 'em how you feel, no matter how bad or shameful it seems to you. Your feelings outside of your body are better than your feelings inside your body eating away at all of your organs.