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.

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 ;)

Oh Canada.

I love finding unique little vintage oil paintings - and sharing them :)

I want to go to Canada. Last year, I wanted to go to Bolivia, or maybe that was the year before. I love traveling. Not the sightseeing though. I like to go far away and stay in one spot. Maybe I'll walk around a lot, but I'm not a schedule-the-whole-trip kind of girl. I get so tired. Mostly, I just want to see people that I love, and when they live in another country, I want to go to that other country to see them. Also, I like to eat. So yeah, you can feed me if I visit. I won't argue.

I haven't been shopping a ton lately. I mean, in comparison to other times, I feel pretty light right now, even though my shop is full. Maybe I'm hitting some sort of thrifting stride. Or maybe I'm hitting a life stride. I dunno.

My real job ends for a while in several weeks, and then I'll have the summer to thrift and lounge by imaginary pools, and probably eat a lot of frozen yogurt. Last night, I finally traveled to a far away place to find the one-and-only place in town that has soy fro-yo. The flavor yesterday was peanut butter, so I had that with chocolate cookie crumbles on top and watched men with ZZ Top beards walk by looking rugged and manly.

That's it. It's Saturday, and I'm exhausted.

So yeah, this is me.

Vintage Crewel Embroidery Kit :)

I feel alone right now. I feel alone in a way that is new, not terribly painful, but strange nonetheless. I have, for the past twenty-some odd years, sought to demand love from other people. I have done this in a variety of ways, and have failed, miserably, time and time again. I have wanted desperately to fill holes in my heart that were never filled, holes that make me feel weak and vulnerable, scared and crazy. I have tried to get other people to fill them for me. Let me be perfectly clear: this does not work.

Now, all that "love yourself first" and "self-love" bullshit is true. I believe it. I call it bullshit because I think people use it to avoid pain sometimes, to mask a carnal dependency we all have as human beings. We all need other people. We all need relationships. But we cannot make other people love us if they don't. We just can't. I can't. I want to, but I can't. I want the people who I love to love me back, to feel as deeply as I do, to cross that relational barrier that divides us all. But this doesn't always happen. It actually happens very rarely, and that's okay.

The answer to that is not to turn inward and avoid befriending, coffee time-ing, and generally reaching out to other people. It may be appropriate to take a moment to deconstruct the reasons why a relationship didn't work out. It may help to make stronger decisions in the future. But it doesn't mean that we quit loving others, ever, or that we avoid the intimacy that got us tangled up in the first place. I've fallen down so many times now in romantic relationships that I don't want to get back up again. I don't want to bother. I'm a big fat failure, and I want to turn in my "coupling" card. I want to stop pouring my heart out to people who don't love me. I want to stop loving people who can't love me back. I want to stop obsessing over things I have no control over.

I think loving yourself means filling up your own damn holes, and then reaching out again to find someone who honors them.

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.

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.

Goodbye false hopes...

So yeah, I am back in the mire of my own brain waves, trying to figure out how to be 30, how to be me, and how to accept the life that I am currently living (without hesitation).

The wonder of it all is that my life is better at this moment than it has ever been. I am happier, more content, and I have more pure joy than I ever did before. But with all of this extra awesomeness comes this new unsettled feeling of, "Is this it? Is this the terribly romantic life I'd planned for myself, full of angst and resolution?"

Maybe those dreams, those hopes, were all just necessary along the way, keeping me alive long enough to get to a place where I didn't need false hope anymore. The idea that somehow, I have to cast aside (throw away!) false hopes that no longer serve me, significantly darkens my countenance.

Lisbeth would have none of these concerns. She'd just be a bad ass.

BIKRAM #2 (and #3)

 

So Tuesday, I went back to the hot yoga studio. There was a different instructor, and she suggested that I sit out one set of each posture (they do two sets of everything), so I did. After an hour, I thought I was going to die from the heat and I couldn't slow my heart rate down, so I just laid on the ground for the last twenty minutes and willed my breath to keep me alive. I succeeded.

Wednesday (i.e. yesterday), I went again, this time not because I had something to prove to myself or anyone else, but because I really wanted to go back. My job can be stressful if I allow it to be, and it's really nice to look forward to a time where I can let out all the bad stuff that's hanging out in my body. I'm not a big believer in toxins and all that jazz. I'm not going to buy a cleansing kit that does horrible things, nor am I going to go crazy and do the cayenne/lemonade thing. But a regular thing that makes me feel good every day? I think I can get behind that.

I know. I know. Now I'm a crazy Bikram convert. But seriously, I need something to look forward to that is different from everything else. I need something that doesn't mess with my spine or my blood sugar. So, for the time being, this is going to be it. Deal with it haters.

On another note, I moved back home last night. At one point, I had dirty laundry, clean laundry, food, all my eBay stuff, my briefcase, toiletries, and my post-yoga mat and towels all in piles in my super small living room. If the lighting were better in my apartment, I would have taken a picture. It was scary stuff.

Then I cried about turning 30 and laughed while watching Bachelor Pad. All in a day's work.

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.

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.

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

I have to be perfect--I have to.

As my future perfect self, I will wear awesome vests like this one.

I am experiencing a new kind of anxiety: the anxiety of being responsible for another living being, and not living in a vacuum.

Pretty much constantly, for the past few days, I have been worrying about how my decision to get a dog affects other people. How long will she bark after I leave? Will my neighbors hear her? How long will my supervisor be upset for my bringing her to a meeting? Will my landlords be upset?

It's an awful feeling. I can't wait until it ends. Of course it will only end when everyone loves me and I stop making mistakes. I will only be truly happy when I become perfect.

There will always be more garbage.

Remember the last time you got to swim in a clear blue swimming pool, enjoying the cool water, and loving the way the water felt against your body, making your muscles work in a way they can't do on land?

Remember the huge lump of dog hair or garbage or kid urine that suddenly got in your way?

Yeah, that's life. But it doesn't mean you should stop swimming or that you should begin focusing on the garbage. Toss it aside, and move along. There will always be more garbage. You can't control that.

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."

What do you see?

You know those moments where you think to yourself, "Gee, this isn't the way I thought it would go"?

Yeah, that never stops happening.

Bootstraps, anyone?

 

This story kills me.

People offer us love, and we deny it. People offer us help, aid, and we throw it away, saying we'd rather find it ourselves. I have an image of a toddler in my head, practicing the art of independence-"Do it myself!"

There's a TED talk on vulnerability I'd like to watch today and perhaps respond to tomorrow.

Sometimes I say "yes", when I want to say "no", not because "no" is the right answer, but because I know that I am resisting the love of another person, wanting to avoid attachment. Sometimes we need to accept the love that is offered to us, even if it comes in a form that is unpleasant (e.g. I give my neighbors meat even though I don't believe I should; I buy Hershey chocolate because the man that put up my shelves asked for it, even though I believe that they practice slavery). Sometimes I think we need to take more time to make decisions. Sometimes those decisions will end up bringing us closer together.

And we need eachother. Life is tough, remember?

No one asked for this.

The following statements may make you shudder. I don't know you all that well, so please bear with me. This is a personal thing for every person, a decision that no one does or should make lightly. The decision is whether or not to have children, or more specifically bear children.

When I was a child, I learned about overpopulation, and it seemed like a perfect time for me to decide not to have kids. After all, from my experience, families weren't all that great, so I'd be doing myself and the rest of the world one big favor. Well, I was a kid, a kid without hormones. And now I am an adult, one big grown-up, and boy have things changed. Could I care about overpopulation? Not much.  I figure that a couple won't hurt anyone. But that's not true.

For every child that I bear on my own, I have to raise: feed, clothe, emotionally support, etc. That child, once brought into the world, is in it. They didn't ask to be, but they are, and it will be my responsibility to care for them. Now that's all well and good. I want children. I (hopefully) have the capacity to bear children; great. But just like my vocation, I choose my personal familial set-up based on a higher ethic. I do not only think of myself and my own needs when I bring a child/ren into the world. My faith informs me that I am not an island, and in knowing that, I lose the blasé attitude that what I do doesn't and shouldn't matter to anyone else.

There are children in the world who already need homes, and they aren't all in China, or Ethiopia, or Guatemala. They're around the corner from your house. They're living in a broken foster care system whose only hope is the faithful action of millions. It may not be a childhood dream of mine, but it's the reality I face as an adult. And right now, I'm not in a place to have a child, but when I am, this reality will weigh heavily on my decision.

You can read more here about people who make this same decision, but for other reasons.

For more information about foster-adoption in your area, search with your specific state or county.

Thank you Sugar :)

I'm having a difficult moment; it will pass. I have difficult moments sometimes, and they always pass eventually. I made someone sad today on accident, and I got a new job, and I got hit on a lot. It was a busy day.

I talk a lot on my blog about wanting things: the nature of want, the appropriateness of want, etc. And in my mind, I keep coming back to it. I want things that I cannot have. I do not have things that I want. I tell myself, "God will give you everything you need", but that doesn't seem like a very long list. The list gets adjusted all the time. One minute I think I have something because I need it, and then it gets taken away, and I think, "Well, guess I didn't need that after all." I don't want to be the kind of naive person that thanks God for things that God couldn't possibly be concerned with, like my gas tank, but sometimes I wish I were. Today I ran out of gas at the gas station-way better than the freeway during a flash flood, let me tell you.

I wish I could live in the same city as all the people I love. I wish I could see my loved ones more often. I wish that some of my loved ones were healthy enough to have frank and honest conversations with, but that just isn't possible. I want things. I want.

"Most things will be okay eventually, but not everything will be. Sometimes you’ll put up a good fight and lose. Sometimes you’ll hold on really hard and realize there is no choice but to let go. Acceptance is a small, quiet room."

-Dear Sugar (full letter here)