Not Havin' It

Perfectly illustrated scenario c/o CartoonStock.com

If you are married or have been in a committed relationship for quite some time, I beg you to back me here:  Sometimes, he's just not having it, is he?  And when he's not having it, you suffer right along with him.  My mom used to complain that my father definitely was going through some kind of male menopause when I was in high school.  Although I heard what she was saying, I did not understand what she could have meant. 

Flash forward two decades- I. Finally. Get. It.  

Just too excited

How I am feeling...  excited, but a bit crazed!  source:google images

I just started the Alt For Everyone series yesterday and have to say how glad I am to have signed up, even though I am such a freshman (preschooler even) compared to everyone else in attendance.  Well, I need SOMEONE to look up to and SOMETHING to strive towards, so why not play with the big boys and see how I can learn, if not keep up?  Yesterday I learned how to stay organized and how to style nice original photos.  Today I got good tips and networked with some great bloggers I admire at the 8am meet up.

It is amazing what happens to a person when an interest is piqued and the fuel to turn it from thought to action starts to kick in.  I sometimes think that all of the ideas and possibilities that go through my head are occasionally to my detriment.   In starting a new plan for my blog, I sit on the couch with my pencils, notebook, and calendar.  I start reading through the notes I've taken and email addresses of bloggers I would love to get in touch with and some ideas I have and questions for collaboration.

I start clicking through the blogosphere and remember my husband wants crispy tilapia for dinner tonight, not just browned from the broiler.  Hey, if this means he'll eat fish, I'll make it crispy.  After finding a suitable recipe, I go through the pantry to start a list for what more I might need, and then I think about looking in my closet for the scarf I want to wear to dinner tomorrow night before I forget, then see the color on a random shirt that reminds me of a sock, whose pattern brings back the memory of some ribbon that I know I have hiding somewhere in a special box, kept under a pile of card stock behind my unopened glitter collection in the back of my husband's closet (of course I don't have space in mine).  Some stamps are then unearthed, and then I look for some new ink pads I stuck in a drawer, then write a post-it to go back to Paper Source to exchange the unused rose for harbor, then start to look for the receipt and then remember the card I have yet to make and attach to the gift I haven't wrapped yet because I can't decide on how I want to design the packaging for my friend's daughter who I will see next week in Austin, so why don't I just make that card instead for my cousin's birthday on Monday since I am already knee deep in paper... but wait, where are my envelope lining templates, and that printed out picture from our London vacation last fall that I promised to send him?   Oh, I still have to download the group shot from our visit last weekend at A's new house and email that to her first..... 

I think of this, that and the other, only to become overwhelmed, scattered, and a bit crazed, and nothing but a good rest on the couch will do to help me recover.    Oh.... it's 10:40am, there goes my alarm.  Time to learn how to make an iMovie.  Yeah... I have no idea how this will relate to any of my current abilities, or my blog's content, but why not? 


Wait... maybe I am a preschooler.  I do have a long way to go.

No Middle Ground between Oreos and Working Out

I like yoga.  I really do!  I enjoy a good stretch, getting my oooooommmmm on, and even the trembling of a dormant arm muscle now and then.  I've also been known to enjoy higher intensity workouts because they make me feel strong, energized and are AMAZING for the complexion.  Do you know what else I like?  Feeling blissed out after eating a stack of Oreos.  My friends know how much I like cookies, especially the Golden Oreos that didn't even make it to my photo shoot this afternoon.  Originally there was a really big pile of them for the intended picture for this post, but by the time I got my camera out, there was just a stack of five.  Oops... like I said...   I really like cookies.

During a catch up phone call with Dramanut,  I told her I needed to get off the phone after an hour in time to get changed and make it to Burn.  As the minutes flew by between laughs and anecdotes, I said, "Oh, I am going to miss my class!  Never mind.  I'll just kick back tonight and have some Oreos."  "Hmmmm," she replied doubtfully, "I guess there really is no middle ground for you between oreos and working out!" Maybe this where the concept of balance comes in.

The way I indulge my sweet tooth and the way I follow a proper fitness and eating regimine that suits me is truly, madly, deeply.  I go all the way, with no middle ground.  I will not stop devouring Kit Kat bars until I am left with a bowl filled with empty wrappers, and once I bite into one cookie, I am already holding on to the next.  When I come home from the farmer's market, it is often with three bags full of produce that I am able to prepare and eat tirelessly over the course of only a few days.  I will plan my work availability around daily fitness classes, but if that doesn't pan out, I find myself doing muscle work not through the use of leg springs, but by way of midnight calf raises and overhead stretches to reach Easter's leftover peanut butter eggs that are hidden in our highest cabinet. 

 

Is it balanced when my mind files through my pantry and refrigerator to determine what type of sauce I can make for a heaping plate of spaghetti during utkatasana  at 9 am? 

Have I found middle ground if I monitor the amount of calories burned on the treadmill so that I may decide on how much of the snack sized Famous Amos bag I can rightfully consume afterwards?

Aren't I at least integrating the two worlds more, allowing them to coexist?  Am I alone in this quest for middle ground? 

Finding My People

 

Today as I was heading home, I had the great fortune of running into Ms. Mint. She is someone I have always liked and known for three years through work, but more recently became friends with after a casual instance of small talk one evening revealed we had an important interest in common.  I mean, is there really any other way to make an instant connection than that?  Since we hadn't seen each other in several weeks, we caught up as quickly as five minutes would allow this afternoon, and talked about getting together next week before parting ways.  I immediately felt really really happy.  I remembered meeting certain other friends for the first time, and how some needed a definite warming up period before hand, while others were straight up laughter, confetti, and banana splits from day one (mutually felt of course).  It's that synergy that occurs when we find our 'people'.  So I dedicate today's Be Happy blog hop to the power of instant connection. 

As I am writing, editing and rewriting this post, I am starting to see that with the way of modern socialization,  this delightful phenomenon goes the same way for bloggers.  I never thought it was possible to actually connect with people through the internet in the same way as one would a live person without appearing desperate, creepy and stalker like.  (That is still a total possibility, and am sure does happen out there, but I would hope more positive relationships form than scary ones.)   I am expanding my perspective of what blogging means. Though I already adore the blogosphere, I had always seen it solely as a venue for other people to showcase incredible talent and share their ideas with an audience.  To me, it was a high tech magazine to browse through and turn off when I was done.  They are there, I am here.  Period.  I became interested in blogging so that I would have a place to write on my own terms, with no judgement, even if nobody reads this.  It is only now that I am seeing how one really can connect with another person through blogging, and being an active participant in this virtual, but very real world.  Where else can my different interests be so specified and narrowed down until I find those other gals who think, feel and dream JUST LIKE ME when it comes to the extremely varied parts of my life and compartments of my brain to which I seriously thought nobody else had the key? 

I may prefer to live my life off line, but being able to find 'my people' out here,  livin' it up, shaking things up, and making FUN and creativity happen in their lives, makes me nothing but happy.  

 

Taking the time to not be so crazy

Kristen Wiig-ging out in BRIDESMAIDS... it's too good

Something occurred to me.  I decided to cut back at work, from full time to heavy part time two years ago, and now from heavy to light part time starting this week.  I can't explain to you what is meant by heavy part time, if only to say, imagine being in the same place you meant to leave in order to get some head space and to make room for big changes in your life, only to still be there, two years later, not doing your old job at 40 hours, but doing bits and pieces of six other ones instead, with the same emotional and mental intensity that burns out your adrenals 30 hours a week.  Imagine self inflicting guilt on yourself to stay.  Imagine a trusted ivy league educated therapist who has worked with you once a week for three years reflecting back to you your own words describing an unconscious desire to move on from this job... but still staying.  Yeah.... crazy. 

So this week I am giving myself a break and raising the white flag.  It is hard to admit when something so comfortable no longer fits.  It is terrifying to have to go back in the dressing room to try on  new styles and unknown brands of jeans with a blindfold on, just trusting that you'll emerge wearing the one that flatters you most.

I take full responsibility for my choices.  I understand that only I can stand in my way.  I completely get that if I do not actually limit my time at this part time job I will never have the time or reason to move ahead, and if I remain too afraid to move ahead, I will always be slightly less happy with myself each day and a little bit closer to taking it out on a giant f*%king cookie.  I think taking the time to not be so crazy should count for something.

So...

So I have been gone. Not anywhere without Internet or a computer, just not present online, if you hadn't noticed. I do this thing where I get completely excited about something, plan, research to some extent, and then the anxiety and self doubt creeps in with a sprinkling of laziness, then things (in this case, writing on my blog) go into hibernation. I have been writing everyday in my head. I have seen and experienced a wide variety of things since last we met, yet here I am, months and months later, with nothing to show for it other than this: A desire to come back home. I am the prodigal daughter, and I will throw my own feast. Stay tuned...

Belief in Believing Mirrors

Do you like hearing your own voice being played back to you?  When I hear my voice on a video recording, or on my outgoing voice mail message, I almost cringe.  I feel like too many videos I've shot of my sweetie pie baby nephew have gone from priceless to worthless just by having my pitch-y, nasal-y voice in the background.  So undignified.  We hear ourselves differently from the way the world hears us.  Does that also mean that the world isn't judging the sound of my speaking voice the same way I am?  In the break room one day, Music Man said to me, "You have a nice singing voice, you know?  It's just the right tone and melody for the children."  I was incredulous.  Are we hearing the same thing?  Might he be going in too far with the Qtips? 

It's the same thing with wearing a bathing suit last week.  Yes, I am going there.  Now I know it is near impossible to look like the 1980s the Ban de Soliel girl no mater how much cardio one logs in a week (unless you're "HER"),   and honestly, I am all about being comfortable in my own skin - no apologies.  But I was unprepared when I emerged from the locker room in my swimsuit, looked at myself and realized in disbelief, "gasp... Is that what I look like?  I have a TODDLER body?!?!"  Big belly, full bottom, round thighs, flat top....  you know - a 5'5" toddler body sans bobble head.  Being the steadfast friend she is, Miss M said to me, "Stop that.  Just stand up straight.  You're fine!" 

Even when working out isn't enough, I should at least still work it, toddler physique and all!

Is it the work of our super-egos that keep us in check?  Perspective is so different depending on whether I am the one standing here or there.  Just today I was talking with P2, a bit down on herself for 'looking pregnant' in recent pictures, when in fact, she looked so pretty and happy.    Yes, she IS pregnant, and in the pictures anyone would see that, but I don't think she realized that that's what makes the pictures beautiful, just being natural and in the moment, belly and all.   What she sees is not what I see.  Having a circle of people who can sincerely take you for what you are and still see you more favorably than you give yourself credit for at times is a fortunate thing.  You are really blessed when your circle is willing to remind you to get over your neuroses and quit whining. 

I believe now more than ever, in the importance of what Julia Cameron calls Believing Mirrors.   As I continue to develop my creativity and ability to write, I dug up an old copy of The Artist's Way over the weekend to guide me along this summer project that I touched on here.  One of the tips mentioned in the book is finding a person or two in my life who can be a Believing Mirror.  Ideally, these people are generous, supportive, and nurturing; reflecting back to you the artistry and potential he/she sees in you.  A Believing Mirror will give you the gentle push needed towards your creativity.  I definitely think I already have a few Believing Mirrors in my life.  At some point, I hope to become my own.

 "A “Believing Mirror” is someone who reflects back to you your genuine possibilities as an artist. Optimistic, enthusiastic, and generous, such people are friends to our work. They bring us courage to go forward."

  Julia Cameron Interview- WOMEN ON WRITING