Whiskey :)

Vintage Milk Glass "Bar" Light Globe

I'm a minimalist in a lot of ways. I buy my clothes second hand. I live in a garage. I don't own a smart phone (I know, I'm practically Amish, right?). I also don't drink, or at least, I haven't in a very long time. But in the past year or so, ever since I graduated, I've imbibed more than usual, and now I can say that I probably drink a few times a month, three tops.

I'm pretty picky - I want something hard. One day, I just decided, I want whiskey. I don't know where this came from. I mean, I'm not an expert or anything. Last week, I was at a bar, and I ordered a glass of whiskey. Bartender asks what kind. I say, "whatever". This was an insufficient response. So something in my soul/body/mind wants whiskey, but has no idea what whiskey is. How strange is that?

Anyhow, I now lump this newfound love of simple drinking to the other pile of simple things I do, not because I'm special, but because I'm easily overwhelmed. And with summer coming, and only my shop to sustain me, I'm becoming more overwhelmed. But I'm going to be okay, not because life isn't difficult, or everything will turn out well, but because I myself am okay. I myself am well. And I myself can handle whatever difficulty comes my way. And whiskey is not a help or aid for that. It's like a fun amusement along the way :)

Regroup, keep movin'...*

Vintage I. Magnin Pottery - Pretty neat, huh?

I am currently sitting in a whole house, looking onto a rain-spattered patio, two needy poodles by my side, French Toast and coffee in my belly, and listening to talk radio, ensuring that my extreme liberalism is mediated a bit by the other side.

What is it about me and the fall that makes me such a mess? What is it about me that makes me such a mess? At this time last year, I was working through my final year of grad school, and it felt like agony. It felt neverending, like every day was scheduled to the minute, and I had no room to move. This is different. This is emotional exhaustion, and I'm going to sit in this chair until I figure out what to do about it.

How did this happen? Well, it was a confluence of events, really: I haven't been doing so well on reaching my goal of no more freak-outs and no more chasing men (I know - I'm sorry), and I'm dirt poor and constantly worrying about money and blaming myself for my own choice to work in a field that will never help me leave the garage, and I'm in a weird spot where my support system has changed pretty drastically and I'm still trying to restructure and rebuild.

And then there is the reality of being a grown-up, that relationships are difficult, work is everyday, and sometimes low blood sugar becomes life threatening. Sometimes I want to scream at my friends who don't see that the answers are right in front of them, but right now I'm on the other side, unsure that there are any answers or solutions to what are really pretty small problems that I have allowed to overwhelm me.

I don't believe in "God's lessons" or that somehow I'm in a complicated play where in the end, I will be wiser because everything has worked out perfectly for the best. I believe in choice, and human nature, and this morning I am really, really stuck.

I'm taking some time off from life, gonna regroup, try to make sense of it all. Peace out :)

*The title is part of a lyric from a math album I sang on in elementary school. The full lyric goes, Regroup, keep movin', don't let the numbers get you down. Classic.

Physical urges.

The ultimate question - "Is it suede?"

I've been sick all weekend, and it's made me kinda crazy. It's also completely taken away any kind of verbal filter I usually have, so I'm saying "fuck shit" whenever something doesn't go my way, which is about every five minutes.

So, I've talked about want before, want in the sense of a physical urge, a primal thing that gets fed when we're young so when we get to adulthood, we understand the process. And the over-consumption of modern wherever is probably some sort of psychological commentary on our ability as a society to effectively cope with that wanting mechanism inside of us.

Well, my want mechanism was extinguished early, so now when I want, I question feelings of want incessantly. If I want something, I try to figure out why, and if I should want it, and what it means that I do/might want it. The whole process is ridiculous, because most people just want something and then they go and get it. But I want something, and then end up cutting myself bangs or professing my undying love to one of several people. Want makes me a crazy delusional person. It makes me illogical.

All of this has to do with sex. So, yeah.

Nothing.

The thing about trash and recycling, is that there's always something there, a tangible object, a thing to feel and see (and sometimes even smell). When you throw something away, that thing goes somewhere (usually to a landfill). You recycle something, and it gets transformed and used again. The cycle goes on and on and on. It's a beautiful thing.

But with love, sometimes there is nothingness and emptiness, and "no more". Sometimes feelings disappear, and can never be found again. Where they go, we don't know. We go to marriage counseling to find them. We take lovers, hoping to feel good again. We drink. We laugh. We try to want and long and ache the way we used to.

Nothing.

I am feeling a bit empty of love at this moment, wishing and missing for what I once carried with me every day like a warm, tear-soaked, blanket.

No more love like a life force that could leap tall buildings. No more love. No more love. No more love.

Taking a lover :)

Aren't these super cool?

Don't hide your love...

Michael McDermott - "Lantern"

So if you've ever spent any kind of significant time with me, you have heard me talk about sex. It fascinates me. It scares me. It's endlessly interesting to discuss. I've been trying to work it out, figure it out, for a long time. I think I'm at a better place today than I was fifteen years ago, and even five years ago, but I still have questions about morality, sexual ethics, and the very Megan-esque question, "Should I take a lover?"

Every six months or so, for the past thirteen or so some-odd years, I ask myself this question. And several of those times, the answer was "yes". But for the past few years, the answer has been "no". I entered seminary, quickly got into a relationship, and was confronted by my spirituality and sexuality, all at the same time, in the same room. It wasn't pretty. It was scary and not healthy. I was old enough to know better, but I didn't know how to make decisions that were good for me.

Celibacy is an awful word. So much of the person I want to be is plain hard core. And celibacy is not hard core. But it's also a reflection of how far I've come in those thirteen years. At the beginning, I was sixteen, totally in love, and unable to move in my own body, accept my own sexuality and act on it. When I lost that relationship, I did a 180 and slept with anyone who would have me. I was heartbroken and confused, and it took me a really long time to work through those feelings. It took me a long time to forgive that sixteen-year-old girl who couldn't sleep with her boyfriend, the one person I ever really loved. But I have forgiven her. It was a lot of emotion for a previously unloved little girl. It was overwhelming and terrifying.

So maybe I'll take a lover, but I probably won't. I want to be with someone I love. So yeah, that's the thing I've been talking about lately, that painful, suffering, wanting. I want to be with the person I love, and it's an almost impossible thing to wait for.

A little explanation

So the past two days, I've been talking about wanting and how I've decided to want things, like things beyond the usual things like eating dinner and watching the Olympics and not dying in 110 degree heat.

1. I've been living in a garage for the past year, and I'm ready for a house, with a kitchen that I can cook in as opposed to my cobbled together faux kitchen I've made work in my little place. While housesitting this month, I've realized that I'm done living with less.
2. I want to write memoirs about my awesome life, and all of the crazy stupid things that have happened and how in spite of all of it, I still get up every morning. Mostly I just want to write them for myself. Maybe other people will read them. I don't know.
3. I used to be a nanny for this family who had three boys, and they were just so boyish, and they were always running and climbing and we'd do fun things with bugs and it was wonderful. For whatever reason, I've only ever been a nanny for boys. I love my sister and all, but I have just always seen myself as a mother of sons. Perhaps my lover (as I will call him daily) and I will use the sex-choice method, or maybe we'll just be working with fast sperm. Again, I don't know.
4. I want to be bilingual. It will make my work infinitely easier.
5. One of my books will be about my family's story in Slovenia, and it will probably take me several decades before my heart will allow me to take such a huge risk, but it's on the list anyway.
6.
7. My uncle hiked part of the trail a few years ago, and I looked through all of his books while he was preparing. I don't know if I'd even be up for it, since it's so long and all, but my heart wants to do it, so there.
8. My hips don't like to open, and my head is really far from the ground, and my torso is shorter than my legs, so this may be a lifelong process, but I'm working on it. Let's all remember that a year ago, I couldn't do this, so anything is possible.
9. Something about the North Bay beckons me with its cool weather and Goodwill outlet :)
10. She said 'yes'. We are so going.
11. There are supposed to be thousands upon thousands of used books. Doesn't that sound like ecstasy?
12. I thought that as soon as I graduated, I'd suddenly have the funds necessary to travel. That isn't happening, but the plan is still there. There are people around the world who I love and miss dearly, especially that man on the river who thought I was flirting with him when I said 'oi' [wink].
13. The Creativity and Madness conference beckons me.
14. I went to a visual and performing arts school in Southern California (magnet school), and I was a member of the first class, so we created walls of ceramic tiles with our personal artwork on them. They're displayed on the wall of the cafeteria.

Peace out mofos. You're awesome.

What I want :)

To know me is to know I love cake :)

So in an effort to evidence my desire to want more, here is what I've come up with. While I understand that these things may not all occur, I still want them to. So this is what I wrote the day I decided to start wanting things.

I want a house, with a kitchen, a kitchen window and counter space
I want to write a book, a whole book, and then another, and then another
I want sons who climb trees and get into trouble - I don't want a television
I want to learn Spanish
I want to go to Slovenia - I want to live in Slovenia, learn the language, write my book
I want to tell my mother how she hurt me, and let her know that I forgive her
I want to hike the John Muir trail
I want to do a headstand and the splits
I want to take a Northern California thrifting tour
I want to see Lori McKenna with Amy for my birthday
I want to go to the annual San Francisco library book sale
I want to visit my friends in Canada, and in Kansas, and in Switzerland
I want to go to an art conference in New Mexico
I want to go to Vista Academy to see my tile

Another day, I will explain all of these, but not today. Peace out.

Want is a terrible thing.

I wasn't much of a Barbie girl...my poor mother laments this

“[S]he believed that the Buddhists were right – that if you want, you will suffer; if you love, you will grieve.”

-Anne Lamott, Crooked Little Heart

Last week, in between watching the Olympics, reading Jane Austen, and hangin' with the dogs, I thought about some stuff. I generally try not to think too much, since I'm neurotic and thinking too much all the time anyway, but sometimes it's necessary to sit in silence and work to untangle some things in your brain. I probably have done a lot of thinking this summer, since I had no time to think the previous year. Perhaps the thoughts just backed up in my brain, and had to be processed one by one, like items on a conveyer belt coming out my ears.

When I was a kid, I didn't want things. I just didn't. I learned at an early age that wanting was futile, that it only brought pain, and that it was just easier to avoid it entirely. But when things started to happen that were outside of my control - I fell in love, and didn't know what to do about it - I was faced with the question, "How does a person want and not want, love and avoid, all at the same time?" After all those years of not-wanting, the feeling of want became unbearable, so uncomfortable, and I got stuck between the two, not being able to choose either one.

So I've decided to want things, and unfortunately (oh boy), wanting means suffering. Wanting inevitably means not having, not getting. And at some point, I might get the things that I want, the big things, or maybe I'll get different things, things that are better for me than the things I want (thank you, Mick Jagger). But I'm tired of believing that I don't deserve the things that other people have, that for whatever reason I deserve less because I am less.

Oh geez, sometimes I sound like a makeup commercial.

I love Air Supply :)

Miniature oil painting - It reminds me of my home

Perhaps some of you wonderful readers remember last summer's heartaches and long posts about love, and longing, and loss, and "Oh! The meaning of it all", as I struggled through ex-boyfriends and trying to figure out how to be grown up.

I was watching Crazy, Stupid, Love for the second time yesterday, trying to turn my brain off in the midst of familial clatter. There was a lot of stuff in the movie about "soul-mates" and how when we find our soul-mate, we should never stop trying to be with them. I don't know how I feel about this. Just because we feel a certain way about another person, doesn't mean that that person feels anything similar to that for us. I don't believe in destiny or fate. I believe in human beings and the choices they make.

I'm a huge Air Supply fan (Making love out of nothing at all). I am a lover of cheesy '80s rock ballads. I'm ready for the time in my life when I can look backwards and think, "It was all worth it". I don't know if I've completely learned that lesson yet. I'm ready to be grown-up already. When does that happen?

Thrift Share Monday :)

I've been on a belt buckle craze (solely for reselling) over the last month or so. I don't know if in the end, it will be profitable, but it's a new thing to look for, and I'm enjoying it. I really love that they take up less space. The more time goes by, the less willing I am to hold on to bulky items that aren't selling. I only have so much space in my tiny apartment.

Things I am currently looking to buy used (for myself):

1. Hybrid car
2. Kitchen island/countertop
3. Laser printer (wireless)
4. Dress form base (for my legless dress form)

What are you looking for? People in my church are always asking me to keep an eye out for them for a particular item. It's pretty difficult if you just want someone to just look, and not purchase, because I guarantee whatever it is will be gone by the time the person gets there.

But if you have someone you trust and know pretty well, it's a fantastic way to utilize your resources. Regular thrifters either see it or they don't, and it's rarely an imposition. I love my job. I am having trouble imagining a time when I will have to do something else. I'm even thinking about amping it up after I graduate to see if I can sustain a higher volume. I'll keep you posted :)

~ Linking up with Apron Thrift Girl

The double bind

I really wish I could take this lot on a beach vacation :)

The web is full of women and girls telling the world how thin they are (or want to be), how clean their house is, how awesome their kids/husband are, and how much Jesus loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. And in some ways, I'm totally into it. I like "miracle" recipes for carpet stains, and I think the female body is one of the most beautiful things we'll ever see. But I really hate it when I see anything along the lines of "You are single because God is busy finding the perfect man for you."

Maybe I'm subconsciously bitter, and taking it out on hopeful twenty-somethings who feel burnt by men. I really don't think this is the case. I just wish that all of this energy was put towards something more meaningful. Partnering is meaningful, but only to a point. There's a whole wide world out there, and sometimes it makes me sad to see loads of people playing into their aesthetic fantasies, showing off their "perfect" families and homes as if this is the point. It's not.

This isn't a finished thought. I haven't eaten breakfast yet, and I'm trying to recreate a thought that began last night after looking at Pinterest. People aren't evil, and they aren't intentionally oblivious, but sometimes they make me crazy. I can also be pretty judgmental. I'm trying to be an adult, and sometimes that feels awesome, and sometimes it feels really lonely. Here I am at the end of my education, and the beginning of my professional career, and all of my old friends are in a different place. They're happily married and nesting, and I'm living in a garage and freezing at night.

It's hard to know that I waited ten years to tell the person I loved how I felt, and he just walked away.

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?

An addiction to thrift?

 

So I read a blog post this morning that talked about thrift addiction (i.e. the addiction to thrift store shopping). I've been wondering lately if I have such an addiction, and this blog post really hit me hard. I resonated with the idea that I thrift for therapy. I go thrifting at the end of a long day: I walk the aisles; I comb through racks; I talk to my crazy thrift store friends. I freely admit it. I know I do it. I do it intentionally. And I haven't run the numbers, but I think I'm in the black overall.

Here's my take on this, if we're going to use the word addiction to describe the things we use to define us, that consume our time and energy, and give us purpose in life. The word addiction has a negative connotation, yet we all use it freely. People say they're addicted to their Diet Cola of choice, but I don't stress about that. People say they're addicted to running, to a particular sport, to a place they like to go (e.g. Yosemite), but I say that if it isn't harming anyone, then it isn't a real addiction.

Thrifting can be an addiction if it comes between you and people, if it distances you from those you love. I mentioned once that I feared that someone I loved would ask me to give up thrift entirely, and that I would be challenged to let go of something I didn't think I could live without, because it permeated every part of my life. Honestly, I don't know if I could, and that scares me. I wouldn't define it as an addiction, but I have allowed it to become something I depend on to the point of dependence.

Scary, but is it wrong?

The customer is always right.

I just completed a very large eBay purge session. I put most of my stuff up for auction, and all of the auctions began at $0.99. It was fun to watch the final twenty minutes or so. The numbers got higher a lot faster :)

I've just been getting bored of my eBay shop. I really don't know why. I think I need to do this every few months or so. It gets me excited to have space again, and just get rid of stuff. Ah...it's a good feeling.

I've decided to move all of my vintage stuff into my Etsy shop. I haven't quite figured out what specifically will be in the eBay shop when it's back to its normal volume, though.

One of the reasons for this "boredom" is the experience I've been having with eBay customers lately. I've had to suck up my pride so many times just because people want to complain. And I've learned that the only way I'm going to be successful with my business is to truly live the phrase, "The customer is always right". I never argue. I just submit. Even when the complaint is just asinine, I swallow my annoyance, and write a very nice email saying how sorry I am, and ask what I can do to make it right. Most of the time, I never receive a response.

The absolute worst is when someone never says anything, but just stews about it, then finally leaves snarky feedback months later. My new motto when I have a bad experience online is just to be honest about it, and accept what the other party has to give. For example, about a years ago, I bought a pair of pants on eBay, and they'd been hemmed very poorly and the bottom of the pants was puckered. I emailed the seller to let her know; I said I'd have to take them to have them re-altered and told her how much it would cost, and she refunded me that amount. We both thought it was fair resolution, and it was a positive experience.

Good online shopping experiences? Bad experiences? What do you do?

I need a new car.

 

I need a new car. I am done being a teenager with my old beater. I've had my youth. Now I want to be an adult. I'm tired of climbing in the back hatch because my doors won't open. I'm tired of the doors not opening. I'm tired of it being cold in the winter and hot in the summer. I'm done. It's time.

I just don't know how to make a new car happen. My meager subsistence is not enough to afford me any kind of vehicle other than my own. But to put another dollar into that damn thing will be the end of me. So I need a plan. Here are the options my friend and I came up with this evening. Option-creating is a no-holds-barred event. No option is too stupid when we're trying to develop a list of possibilities. So this is the beginning of the process. As it continues, the list will whittle down.

• Call my alien friends and ask them to send me a car
• Get a car loan from a bank
• Take out more student loan money next semester
• Find a sugar daddy

The rest of the list is not G-rated, so I won't be explicit. I need a car. I know what I want. Now I need to figure out how to get what I want.

The forgetting

So last night, I watched The Forgotten (2004). It's been on my "want to watch" list since it came out, but I was never feeling in the right mood. It's not worth trying to find a synopsis, or read the reviews. This is an experience film, a thinking film.

This is what I got out of it: We, as humans, live our lives to survive, and sometimes survival means forgetting the suffering and pain that we have experienced. We do this because it's easier. We do this because pain is painful.

But to truly be human, to accept our humanness, is to accept the pain, and not wish it away. It is to feel the full depth of our emotions and feel the horror of waking up each day with the same loss we went to sleep with.

Being human is a painful thing. There is constant loss, and the easiest way to survive is to forget and move on. We forget with alcohol, with drugs, with sex, disassociation, and a myriad of other things. Forgetting is ideal. We pray to forget. There was a time in the past few months when I considered forgetting, when I was encouraged by loved ones to forget. But each time I thought about that prayer, I said [to God], "I'd rather feel the pain, than ever forget the beauty."

I have been told that my "recycling ethic" is about more than surfacey stuff, that in addition to bottles and cans and old clothes, I also refuse to throw away my past. I refuse to stop acknowledging that my past happened, that my life has happened exactly as it has. It isn't pretty, but it's real; and I would rather feel it than ever give it up, because in the giving-up, I throw away parts of myself. And some of these parts are inextricably linked to beauty.

So I choose to not forget, even when it hurts. Because I don't ever want to be without the things that made me, me, no matter how ugly some of them are.

Less pie.

$6.27.

That's how much I spent today. I think I'm doing better not thrifting compulsively. One of the hardest things is not buying things for other people. I have a friend I buy clothes for, a teacher I buy books for, and then there is the year-long gift buying. When I find something, I get it, and then I'm always ready when a birthday comes.

Now I am feeling calmer. Instead of buying all of the vintage Vogue sewing patterns that I found, I only bought the two most valuable ones. I'm so proud of myself. That viewing of Hoarders really did me some good. I also dropped off a box of stuff today for donating.

I am not compulsive. I am healthy and make healthy decisions. But I did eat too much sugar last night and the headache I woke up with was killer.

Next step in healthy decision-making: less pie.

Loving what you love

 

Do you ever wonder why you want what you want, what makes you interested in your interests, why you love who you love?

Sometimes our desires are born from our upbringing, and sometimes this can be good. You like Christmas music because it reminds you of the holidays with your family. You love strudel because you always ate it at Grandma's house. You like to bowl, because you went bowling every Saturday morning with Dad.

But sometimes our desires are born from suffering. You love running because it makes you feel strong, and you were made to feel weak and insignificant as a child. You love eating, sometimes too much, because it fills a void you can't quite name. You become an accountant because you were homeless as a child and want to avoid any feeling of helplessness.

These are things that trigger our deepest feelings, good and bad. Oftentimes, the things that are the most important to us are the most difficult to explain to other people. If your heart could speak, it would explain, and people would understand.

I'm beginning to think that I love what I love for good reasons, and bad reasons, and I'm wondering where to draw the line. How much bad is too much?

Ayn Rand and Thrift

 

I just watched an interview with Ayn Rand, and I feel so depressed. There's no hope in Rand. There is only the end of oneself. There is no continuation beyond one's own life. I searched high and low for a quote to summarize the interview, but couldn't find it. To see her speak was a unique experience. To take anything she says out of context is to misunderstand her true intent.

Thrift is about the integration of everyone else in the world into one's own life. I have to spend energy, time, money. I have to wash, repair, upcycle. All of these things I can do by myself, but they require that I release my sense of control. I will never be able to find exactly what I want, in perfect condition. I must let go of my expectation that my desires are utmost in my mind. I begin to think of other people. Why does thrift exist? For the poor (Catholic Charities). For the needy (Thrift Stores for Military Veterans). For the jobless (Goodwill). For the addict (Salvation Army). The list goes on and on. One cannot keep from helping people in the thrift world. And the thrift world is, at its essence, in the business of helping.

There's nothing wrong with Rand; she isn't evil. She is looking for a way to happiness, and a purpose in life, and she happened to be brilliant and articulate and prolific at the same time. And she made a lot of people think. She made me think today.

But she still makes me sad.

Well, this sucks

This one goes out to my reselling peeps.

Sometimes, I find the most awesome stuff whilst thrifting. Actually, I am always finding awesome stuff. That's why I buy it, and put it in my store. But when I take it out to list it, I have this pain of longing, wishing I could keep it for myself. I keep finding awesome vintage crewel kits, and I wish I had the time and energy to complete them, but I don't. I found an old family bible in mint condition, and it would be awesome to have a bible like that at home, open to a Psalm or something equally tranquil, but no. I reject hoarding. I reject it!

Of course, eventually, the pain passes. The item goes to someone who will love it as much, or more, than I would, and my soul returns to its previous state of equilibrium.

I think sometimes this happens in other areas of life. We fall in love with someone or something, and for whatever reason, we can't keep it. I have been having to say "No" more often lately. It seems like I'm saying it more than I ever have in my whole life. It is painful every stinkin time, because every time I do it, I feel like I'm letting someone down, or I'm letting myself down. But I always say it because it's for the best. If I did everything, I would die from exhaustion. If I loved everyone the way I want to love them, I would die from a broken heart.

So my list of things I want goes untouched, not because I've stopped wanting those things, but because I'm not ready yet to have everything I want. Someday I will be ready. I hope some lucky dog is ready too.