and then life happens (redux)

and we are forced to realize that life is messy and we are all imperfect beings, that the most important thing each of us can do is try.

Disclosures occur and sometimes what is revealed to you by the universe, your mother, your handsome friend, or former roommate causes you to reframe your own assumptions. One of the things that I know I forget is how complicated people are. Even people we know well...people whom we have believed we have "figured out" can surprise us, in both unpleasant and utterly wonderful ways. Other times information must be weighed, measured, and processed to determine it's relevancy to the whole.

I'm having a processing day; the reframing is happening slowly. But, happily as I'm processing, I'm realizing that what hit me first as a major piece of information is major not in and of itself but for what it reveals of the one who gave it voice. As is most often the case, gentleness and compassion are the most appropriate responses, no matter how difficult those may be.

and then life happens

in this case resolute beginnings were upstaged by the holidays, and strangely a new romantic interest...I met this boy, Eric, via internet dating site.


Let me explain my internet dating experience. It goes like this:

1. I am single and just fine with it (or at least I've tricked myself into believing so.)

2. I become single and bored. I consider how to remedy the situation, lesbians offer assistance. I ignore them, this is not a good solution.

3. I become so bored I attempt internet dating. Insert whitty "ads" and carefully cropped pictures here.

4. Strike up "conversation" via carefully crafted emails and use these emails as a screening test in order to pass the test the potential internet date must correctly use all forms of "their, there, and they're" AND "your and you're". No, I'm not kidding.

5. Arrange date.

6. Hate myself as I'm getting ready. A STUPID amount of thought goes into the getting ready process. I hate this part. I feel literally sick and hate that the only way I can get a date or any possible interest ever is via this forced dog and pony show. It is so not me; sadly I've done it enough times that I know how to do it. This doesn't help.

7. Go on date. Endure awkwardness. Hate myself and the universe.

8. Decide that this whole thing is not worth my time, figure out how to tell date that it's just not going to go anywhere....repeat from step one.


Sure, there have been some notable exceptions such as the gay guy and the dude who'd lived his whole life in the Portland metro area but spoke with nostalgia about visiting Seattle...really, go! Get in the car, it's RIGHT THERE.

And yet, I find myself dating. Now, full disclosure dictates that I mention that steps 1-8 still occurred...with a strange twist at the end. I decided that, while he probably wasn't worth my time, he might be worth a second date.

The story of the second date deserves it's own post and I'm running out of time anyway.

It took seven dates for me to decide I liked him; with a chorus of pep talks along the way, and now I'm quite certain I do. I have no idea what that means, and I'm convincing the crazy girl in my head that at the end of the night, I don't have to know anything besides if I want to see him again. So far, the answer has been yes.

I suck at this.

This summer has been supremely weird. I've been here and there and had amazing guests and acquired a new dog and my mom and her husband are still here.

Being myself is quite difficult with an audience. No, that's not quite right, being myself with no personal time to regroup is not easy for me. That is a more accurate description of the situation. I am not a person who does well with no alone time. This is not a new revelation. I've understood this about myself for a long time. This fact actually can be helpful when I try to organize my time and determine what is really going on with me when I am feeling out of sorts. And that's probably the best way to put it. Having my parents here makes me feel out of sorts.

They are great house guests, helpful and easy to get along with, however the adage about old fish and guests....yeah, try three months and six days (Who's counting?). We are all tired of it. So much so that they have gone camping for the week to give me a break. I would feel guilty, but I need it so badly I could not actually protest when they informed me of their plans. So, it's me and the dogs. (Insert contented sigh here.)

Oh, and since I may be closer to myself this week, I may have the energy to post. Possibly even pictures of all the work we've done on the house.

Existential crisis, crisis of faith and Rolling Stone

Of late, my attitude has been awful. Really, really bad. Spiraling inward, my frustration and anger have been paralyzing. So, I decided, I’m over it. The issues that were bothering me have not gone away. They’re still here, but I’m tired of letting the anger have any power. One of my core beliefs is that happiness is a choice, the world has power and influence, but we have the ability to choose.

So, I am currently on day three of my self-prescribed attitude adjustment and as I drank coffee and read O Magazine (more on that in a second) I realized that I haven’t written anything in months.

Not just in this particular vehicle, but anything at all. Writing centers me. It is also crucial to my own definition of self (if you surf you are a surfer right, the same is true of writing). As I think about it, I realize that I can judge my own level of contentment by how prolific my own writing is (quality is not part of this particular gauge), it is not surprising that I posted as often as I did over the summer. Not only did I have more time, but I actually felt like writing. I actually felt like creating and felt like examining the world.

An interesting experiment would be to see if by making myself write, I could maintain a more positive attitude. Writing could be the tool…(on a metacognitive note, this is interesting to me because this is not the post I sat down to write, didn’t consider this until I put myself in front of the computer.) So, over the summer I wanted to post every day. I did much better when I was alone, my parents came and it got harder, mostly because I allowed myself to be annoyed by them. As I just said, when I’m annoyed, I don’t write. But, I’ve also been thinking about the idea of will power, in terms of weight loss, but what about will power in terms of self-improvement. I’ve also been thinking about resolutions and goals for this upcoming year. (I always write some down just to be able to see them and help me keep things in perspective). I have not done this yet.

So, here’s what I’ve come up with, (honestly, sitting here in the last 20 minutes) this year, I will focus on writing, as a tool. Some of it I will post here although I know not all of it will be fit for public consumption. But, let’s put some numbers on this. I would like to see if I can write everyday. I’d like to see if I can post almost as often. It is January 23. There are 342 days left this year. But, I know I will not/cannot post on everyone of them. So, I will give myself 23 skip days, meaning I am going to attempt to post 319 times between now and the end of the year. Notice, I’m counting number of posts, not days. Let’s be realistic, it’s one of the hallmarks of good goal setting.

I know this is not an original goal, but at this moment it feels good.

So, here goes:
Post: 1 of 319
Days skipped: 0

Oh, and I’m going to have to save my Rolling Stone rant. But, it seems I’ll have plenty of time to get it done.

It was not my intention...

...for any part of this blog to be a forum for me to work out ideas that are currently inhabiting my WAY TOO obsessive brain. But, some of what I'm writing this summer is an attempt to do just that and since my writing and this blog WERE supposed to be supporting one another, I'm posting what I'm writing and writing what I'm thinking about.

So, I don't know if you've heard of the Fat Acceptance movement or the fatosphere, basically a bunch of websites/blogs devoted to reminding people that fat people are in fact people. I read a few of them, I ignore a bunch of it, but much of it ties in with a lot of feminist ideas that i definitely believe in.

So I read this post: http://www.therotund.com/ , the one about Limbo and now I'm thinking... i can hear you "oh god, when will she go back to school and get a life" and the answer to that is, not yet, but soon. (I'm kidding, anyone reading this may roll their eyes at me out of love and but always ridiculously supportive of me, more than I can imagine that i deserve, but more on that later).

But, there are a few parts which bear consideration: (The italicized parts are direct quotes from the post.)

Fuck deserving it. Okay a good starting point. Who decides what we deserve? obviously we do. And the answer we give ourselves is based on a million factors from major (I worked for my degree I deserve to get a job i love) to minor (I look like shit today, of course the checker at the store was a jerk). But, and she goes on to discuss this but, how do we get to that part where we aren't continually judging ourselves.

Questions of what we’re worth, what we deserve…. They seem oddly religious in foundation to me. Or going back to the old reward system. You can only love yourself if you deserve it. I know the ideas of karma i was playing with earlier this summer do not take into account the idea of deserving, in fact that's almost contrary to what i was talking about earlier, but it is related to the idea of projecting an idea of yourself and what you deserve out upon the universe. How often do we overanalyze events in order to find a REASON they took place, and more often than not, we blame ourselves.

The other idea here is that it is a fundamentally religious question. Do we "deserve" love, of a god figure, of a partner, of our friends, of ourselves.....and if we do, how could we possibly believe it. Maybe I am speaking too broadly here. Too generally, but so often self love is so damn hard, the other people in our lives have so much more forgiveness than that which we offer ourselves. And it is so much easier to forgive someone else than ourselves.

She ends with advice: So, here’s my advice for the limbo period: You don’t have to have come to any conclusions, you just have to table the matter. And then treat yourself the way you would if you already loved yourself. Treat yourself well. And kindly. And treat other people the same way. And it will sink in. So, the answer, according to this beautifully written piece, patience and faith. Really? That's it....Oh good, I was hoping it would be easy.

Part of what I like about this post, and some of the equally well thought out and written comments is that it acknowledges that so many people are trying to work out the same ideas and issues. I think framing it in the idea of Fat Acceptance is slightly limiting. It's a human issue, dealing with ourselves and the ugly parts we have a difficult time forgiving. When it is letting go of those labels and living and thinking and writing and being (or whatever your particular thing may be) is the only way we are going to move forward to whatever we might hope to become. and really, the continual process of becoming sort of seems like the most i can hope for.

It's a good thing I generally sleep well

Laying awake last night from 4:30-6:30 I was toying with the idea of karma. Because, it has been suggested, that karma is in fact, fucking with me.

Karma in abstract, because this morning while I was unsuccessfully trying to fall asleep I my working definition of karma was sort of a universal tit-for-tat. You do what is right and good and moral and your world will reflect those life affirming thoughts and actions.

The internet expanded my working definition a bit and I’m now no less uncertain but can see that the pop-culture idea of karma on which mine is based is, not surprisingly, an oversimplification. Most interestingly, I read that in the Buddhist tradition that karma itself is a force, equal to natural forces and that karma is (and I got confused here and may have screwed up some details) divorced from the individual doing the act and the act itself. If I’m understanding it right, it is more the will to do the act, either good or bad.

Most importantly it is not a sense of fatalism, quite the opposite.

Now, this ties into the other idea I was playing with this morning, instead of sleeping: control. In my case the need to constantly, affect change to bring circumstances of my current life in-line with my desired existence. How does a person maintain balance between these two mostly conflicting ideas. I guess the quick answer is that they cannot be aligned. The need to control would seem to interfere with an idea that what you do will somehow be reflected in your own life, but I wonder if the problem is with the negative connotations I have just associated with the word control.

Yes, I should control my life. It’s mine. I take ownership of it and I dictate what happens. There’s nothing wrong with that. The problem therefore would be in being overly concerned with the results piece. If I am living my life (being in control) in the ways and means I believe to be correct, then I should not worry about the outcomes because they should naturally and (if one were to go along with a Buddhist thought pattern) reflect back on me in a “good” (not an especially inspired word choice) way.

To break it down: karma may be fucking with me, but I shouldn’t stress too much about it.