First World Problems

And another-- Dec 9, 2010, incomplete

I am here to complain. I am here to complain and also to acknowledge that I would miss the very things that I complain about, were they taken from me. But I am tired of having to acknowledge that. I'm tired of pain and suffering just on my own level here in priveleged upper-middle America. I'm tired of thinking about how I'm such a selfish person for even thinking I have any level of suffering here.

For instance: Dear Internet Explorer, I will condsider hating you less if you will consider crashing less. Sincerely, Katie.

Dear Katie, isn't it nice that you HAVE internet explorer? A computer? Fingers to type search words? A mind to think of search words? An education to have formed that mind? Isn't it great that you're sitting in your warm apartment worrying about any of this instead of somewhere wondering where your next meal will come from or how you will clothe your child?

The lost art of napping

Oh, look. Here's something I wrote 2 years ago. Finding all kinds of drafts...



I read an article on napping the other day. It was a wonderful article all about the pleasures and joys of sleeping in the light. Indeed, the medicine fields are telling is more and more how good napping is for us (and sometimes not, because nothing can be clear cut) but this article is about the simple down-home, good feeling, deliciousness of a nap.

That said, I must argue just a teeeeensy bit with the author. She says that, "a nap is not a nap without light." As far as I'm concerned, sleep when one is not supposed to be sleeping, or when it is not a full night's sleep, is a nap.

Consider: Snoozing on the airplane on a one-hour 9 pm flight. Hunching down at your desk behind the towering inbox to catch a catnap. Skipping lunch everyday to, instead, sleep in your car in the parking garage, blanket and pillow at the ready. Or one of my personal favorites: falling asleep on your bed without getting ready for bed, thinking maybe you'll get up and finish a few more things. These things do not happen with the lovely afternoon light dappling your face through freshly bleached linen curtains. But, O! Those sweet long blinks over tired eyes. The slow relaxation of muscles in the face of "this isn't the time," or "this isn't the place, " or "no, not yet..." This is the stuff of naps.

Pain Management

Today I started a program through Kaiser called Pain Management and Rehabilitation. It is for people with chronic pain to retrain our nerves. I'm off of work for the 6 weeks that I'll be participating in the program.
Everyone was very welcoming and there was nothing at all awkward about walking into a room full of people who knew what they were doing. The ladies next to me were perfect about helping me to know what to do. We started with a little Qi Gong, which was ok. I'm sometimes inwardly rolling my eyes when things get a little too eastern, but am trying to keep an open mind. And the movement felt good. Then we did Feldenkrais for a while and that was really impressive! You can trick your brain and body so easily. Silly. My mouth actually dropped open. And the instructor was funny, which made everything more relaxing.
Did I mention that there are yoga blocks to put your feet on when you're sitting? So if you're short, like me, your feet are not dangling ridiculously. You can do all the exercises from whatever position you're the most comfortable with. There are blankets and pillows provided and you can get up, lie down, move around, stretch... do whatever you need to at whatever time to be the most comfortable. I wish every environment was like that.
After Feldenkrais we had group time where we just talked about what we had been feeling, what our frustrations are, what works well for us, etc. It was helpful and didn't feel like stereotypical group therapy. Then we went for a walk. Man, it was a short walk. I wish we had walked longer, but I had a nice chat with two of the other girls and my case worker. We chatted about shoes and pizza and I was invited out to lunch on Wednesday with everyone.
Tomorrow we do Yoga instead of Feldenkrais and I know I will miss the phase 2 people who only come MWF.
I'm encouraged by my first day. I hope I will want to move even more outside of class.

I've had a migraine almost every day for the last week. Don't know what that's about. I had been doing so well. I'm on a diet that excludes the 6 major migraine triggers-- caffeine, cheese, chocolate, msg, nitrates, and red wine. So I dunno about this one.

I could use another white chocolate Kit Kat right about now.

Mmm, yeah that's all.

Happy 4th Caliversary

This is from sometime in November-- the 8th? I just found it in drafts when I came to write something new, 9 months later.



Today I decided to move to my fourth Bay area home. I will also be attending a new church and looking at the possibility of a new job. All this from a girl who hates transition. I like my cozy apartment, but am going crazy not having my own space. Sharing a one bedroom, sleeping in a bunkbed, and not being able to control the mess is just not working anymore. I love my job a lot of the time, but am increasingly frustrated when my coworkers throw tantrums, the head office disregards our needs, and my efforts are not appreciated. I could use more money, too. I love my church and my community there. But I love my boyfriend and our relationship is stuck as long as we attend different churches.

What feels most immediately painful to me is leaving my church. Though he did not ask me to. He doesn't know that he could. I offered to do it. It's not just the leaving, either. It's the stepping into the unknown and the imagined of his church. I feel safe and loved and nurtured at PBC. But NHCSC scares me with its similarities to Psycho Church and I know how the healing process is going to hurt and wonder if it's going to work at all or just be painful with nothing to show at the end. What if I start feeling better and safer at NHCSC because I start believing the very things that make me nervous now? Then it will be like I've been brainwashed or something. This sounds paranoid, but if you had come from a corrupt cult-like church, you'd be nervous too.

Also, I have so many friends at PBC. 99% of my social life exists because of my church. People at NHCSC aren't like me. They're... charismatic. I'm so nervous and scared and sad. But I love him. I will try and I will pray and I will think and pay attention and I will try. And I will be brave and I will hold tight to God.

On a happier note

If you recall January, I couldn't even get off the couch to do... anything. Eat, do laundry, talk to people. It is such a relief to be me again. It turns out I'm still here! The silly, slightly cynical, unique me is still here under all that depression and I can be productive! Not all the time, mind you. It was quite the battle to get some stuff done today and I still have things to do. Every day is still a battle not to fall back into depression but it's 3 million times easier than it was. Already today I've been to the gym, ate, cleaned the shower, put a bunch of laundry away, unpacked from a trip I took last week, made a playlist on youtube, and several other things that months ago I would have had to dig deeeeeep for the ability to attempt. I can't even count the gold stars.

Now it's off to the tailor and the grocery store before a good meal with protein, and evening walk, and some time to read. If only every day could be this good (sigh, work.)

Go, Katie! You can do it!

I must be careful not to be seen as I cross the parking lot from the drugstore to the alley where I'll duck in the back door to work. Once there, I'm happy to share my loot but as I dodge fashionable moms, grad students, and Jewish grandmas I'm glad that I changed my mind and got a bag to carry my purchase. It's one thing for a skinny chick to be seen carrying Oreos and milk. Even other skinny people think something along the lines of, "Gawd, I bet she can eat anything. Ugh, look at her and her stupid skinny legs." It's quite another for the fat chick to carry the Oreos. It's like a greedy little Gus the mouse in Cinderella trying to carry too much corn-- only not so cute. Even the other fat people look at her disgustedly thinking, "Doesn't she know how she got that way?"

Yup, I know I how I got that way. Instant gratification. I want milk and Oreos. I want it now. I want it more than I believe I can be skinny in 6 months, so snack time wins. Actually, it was lunch, but whatever. A meal by any other name...

Of course, there's a million and one ways I got this way. When I was 10, my metabolism got all freaked out because I nearly died. I hate exercise and always have. My knees are bad. I have fibromyalgia. I have no discipline, I have low frustration tolerance, and I cannot, for the life of me, actually see how I will be skinny in a few months unless I change everything. And I can't change everything. So I eat Oreos and hope my boyfriend still loves me and hope that I still love myself.

I wish a doctor would tell me that I have to change. But so far none have. Doctors have gone really soft these days. My last doctor visit was to a neurologist for migraines. She gave me a list of medications and told me that I should choose a couple and let her know what I wanted to take. Since when, I ask, am I the doctor? What do I pay her for? The problem with the weight/eating issue is that I can't tell a doctor to tell me what to do or I won't feel like they really have that authority over me.

In the meantime, I will probably continue to be consistently inconsistent at the gym, embarrassed to be seen in public, and will eventually look back at myself at this time and wonder how I was ever this skinny. How depressing.

Bullet Point Blogging

10:30, Wednesday night. I'd love to go for a walk, but I don't have a big dog. Or a boyfriend. Or a pocket knife. Even the flashlight on my keyring broke.

I don't know if I can make sense of all the things I want to say today.
Maybe bullet points would be better.

• I have reached the level of weight gain where I am embarrassed to be seen walking down the street.
• I had to be No More Mr. Nice Katie (Ms. just doesn't sound the same) at work today when a coworker decided she wasn't coming to work.
• Someone told me today that I only like boys who are just out of reach. I'm afraid that she is right.
• My first boyfriend is engaged. I don't know why this has any effect on me whatsoever.

If I were not so extremely tired (and did not have benadryl in my system) I would elaborate on these things. It is not to be.
Goodnight.

Use it up, Wear it Out, Make it Do, or Do Without

Unfortunately, this is a different age. This is not the age my grandfather,the hoarder, grew up in. I do not want to keep using my laundry bag with the large hole and pokey-out wire. I will, but I grudge it. I do not want to use my dirty, holey tennis shoes. Well, I don't use them, actually, since I don't go to the gym. So never mind. I do not want to wear the sweatshirt that is uncomfortable at the collar and has a stain on it and isn't flattering. Ah ha! Pay-dirt.

Early in my life I had to wear hand-me-downs. Cheap is what mattered, not style or comfort. Then I got into comfort and I was always in trouble for lack of style. Baggy sweatshirts did not impress my mom. Why don't you wear something more flattering? Of course, now that my body is not-so-little I wish I had taken advantage of it, but I thought I was covering up my "fat" as it was back then. And as soon as I wanted style I could not afford it, my body would not allow it, and it turned out that style, comfort, and affordability were long estranged friends or, rather, sworn enemies.

Use it up? I'm trying to think of something I wouldn't normally use up but now do because it's uneconomical not to. I suppose I use stale flour, but that's only because you can't really get fresh flour in this humid state. OH and I definitely used some not super-fresh eggs in a cake recently. And as long as we're actually supposed to be talking about style here, I definitely use makeup products longer than I probably should because I can't afford them. It's too bad, too, since makeup and accessories are the only flattering things left to me.

Wear it out? My socks have holes in them that, in a previous life, would have had my mother tossing them in the garbage. My underwear has strings of elastic hanging pathetically by my thighs as if to beg the question: which has lost more youthful tautness and sex appeal?

Make it do? I stopped buying expensive Nordstrom bras and Target was getting me by for a while. Lately, though, my shirt is all kinds of not-human shapes in that general area and I spend half my day discreetly or not-so-discreetly yanking the straps back onto my shoulders. I blame the notcheap, notexpensive bra from the Gap. Oh, and my size and shape. Oh, and the fact that I have to wear one at all. Sure, I'm making it do. But it ain't perty.

Do Without. I don't even want to talk about it. I don't want to talk about what I do without that I shouldn't. I don't want to talk about what I should do without that I get anyway. I simply do not want to talk about it. The end.


I'm not going to be my grandfather. I will not save the rings from around the cap on the milk jug. I will not wash ziplock bags or flatten foil so they can be used again. (I think that means I will also not be my father.) I am not going to save the condiment packages from the restaurant so that I can save on groceries. My life is already run by this thing, whatever it is, in too many ways big and small.

I'm not saying that these are not good things to live by. I'm simply saying that I would like to be skinny and have money to buy things to dress my skinny self and not have to worry about saving milk-jug rings.

Not that I have any milk.

Everything Starts in the Middle

Whichever it is, or whichever one wins out... All I can say is that I think last time I felt this way I moved to California. Sigh. Oh, please, please don't let it be anything like that. I don't really have the energy to do anything big right now. Sure, part of me wants to be open to whatever God is up to and sure, he had to drag me half-way 'round the world to beat it into my head that he was gonna have his way. But... But... Sigh.

I feel like it's 2 in the morning and it's only 11:26 pm. I haven't eaten dinner (that is an entirely different discussion) unless you count the four Thin Mints and the five or so High Chew candies.

I feel like the week is never going to end and when it does it will only be the weekend for a brief flicker of glorious light. This weekend, in fact, will be eaten up by women's retreat at church, which by definition should be restorative but won't be.

Even as I write this incredibly imperfect post (and think that there must be a much better word, something literary and eloquent, something like "dithyramb,") I think of how much else there is write and how I shouldn't post this because I haven't written the other things. But I am learning: Everything starts in the middle.
That will be the title for this post EVEN THOUGH I would rather use the title for some other, better piece. Ah, dear.

Finally getting sleepy. Another night on the couch, where it is ever-so-slightly cooler.
Here's to tomorrow, the almost almost middle of the week.

Should

I've found life to be a bit overwhelming as of late. The other day my friend called and found me crying. I hung up rather quickly and wrote him this email trying to explain what was going on.


Hey Friend,

In order to not be crying while I tell you all of this, I thought I would just email you.

I'm just, as usual, totally overwhelmed with my life. With my pain, I don't know what is too much activity, when to go home from work because I don't want to be the girl that goes home and I don't want to be the whiner who stays at work and I don't want to be the girl who stays at work through the pain and then grudges the people who go home with a cold.

I don't know when or how to ask for help. I don't want to be needy (you've heard this from me before). For instance, one thing I often need is a massage. That is a particularly hard thing to ask for as some people are just plain bad at it, but more importantly, sure everyone wants a massage.

I feel like if I skip things, I'm skipping because I can, not necessarily because I should. Sometimes I don't know my own motivation. Because I am not practiced in taking care of myself? I don't know. Even the phrase "taking care of myself" feels loaded and selfish. Sorry, I can't, I have to take care of myself. It makes me feel like people are resenting me just sitting on the couch, curled up under a blanket. Maybe I resent myself. Maybe at those times I feel like I could do more. I probably could, but what should I do? I have no idea. *

And there are so MANY shoulds in my life. It is a wall. I should go to the gym. I should eat vegetables. I should drink a lot of water. I should keep better track of my finances. I should tithe regularly. I should read my Bible every day. I should work in a soup kitchen. I should go on a mission trip. I should trust God. I should reach out. I should read more. I should not buy so much. I should not have so many books. I should floss every day. I should be more private. I should play guitar. I should play piano. I should think I'm smart. I should love better. I should be more like Jesus. I should weigh less. I should do my physical therapy. I should change my eating habits completely. I should have a better vocabulary. I should journal more. I should write poetry. I should go to bed. I should use my CPAP. I should be on time to work. I should use less sarcasm. I should figure out how to get married. I should give that up and let God figure it out. I should learn more about my camera. I should back up my photos. (Are you getting the idea?)

I should delete some email.

I should keep in touch with people.

I should visit some places.

I should save better so I can travel the world, or even just visit a few friends.

I should take lunch instead of buying it.

Okay, I'm stopping.

And in the mean time, I wonder how on earth anyone will ever want to be with this person when she cannot even figure out how to deal with life? I'm 28-freakin-years-old and cannot manage my own life. Thus counseling, etc. But still. How am I supposed to find someone that's not terrified by that? First they have to not be bored by me and then they have to not be overwhelmed? And all by meeting me online? What are the chances of that?!?!

I've enjoyed the last few weeks of a slower pace. No rehearsal, no small group, no teaching, no YAF, no counseling, no community group... man, it's been great. But if I were to give something up, how would I choose? There's no way. Anything I give up, I give up community. And I'm just too relational to do that. It's hard enough to think about the relationships I'm not building, but to give up continuing to build the ones I have... I can't even think about it.

And so I cry. I'm overwhelmed by sickness and life and relationships.

All there is to do is take it one second at a time and hope I get to the next sleeping time. Which I will do soon. Unfortunately it leads to a waking time. Alas.

There you go.

Also, men are stupid.
That is 70% of it. And my life being overwhelming is 87% of it. I'm aware that doesn't add up. The heart disregards math, which I appreciate since I think math is difficult.



*post script written at the time of this blog post
Am I just being lazy? If I'm going to go somewhere do I also have to put out the effort to be helpful and social? If I'm going to a friend's house can I arrive and hunker down instead or should I have just stayed home?

Christmastime song

Jesus, Jesus, baby Jesus,
your cries echo our own.
Precious savior come to comfort
those of us who mourn.


Lived to die and died for Life,
risen now above.
Help us see your spirit here,
to live and breathe in love.


Christmas lights and bright white snow,
but you're the reason we
gather now to sing your praise
around the Christmas tree.

Stick it to 'em

Like any good teacher, I've got stickers to put on my students' piano assignments. I use them as an indication that they've passed that particular song. The problem? The stickers are a little too affirming for what I'm trying to convey. While "Terrific!" "Fantastic!" and "Way 2 Go!" are definitely nice sentiments, I'm looking for something more honest. Something along the lines of, "Well, at least you hit most of the notes." Or how about, "I'm feeling generous today." Even better: "I have some unidentified feeling that could be generosity but could be laziness or even apathy. Here, kid, have a sticker." Maybe, "Wow, you must have practiced at least once this week!" Perhaps the most honest of them all could be, "I'm tired of this song, let's move on for my sake." I think my personal favorite (as it is my mother's outlook on housekeeping and I therefore apply it to life in general) would be, "Better is good enough!"
Where are the honest stickers? Oh well, this is the post modern world, right? Everyone's a Terrific, Fantastic, Number 1, Way-to-go Winner with a gold star on top!

ThanksTAKING

This has been one of those days that just takes all the gratitude right out of me. I don't mean it to be that way, and if I thought about it, I could count my blessings.

I've had a migraine since Saturday. After being in bed for two days straight I couldn't fall asleep last night until 3 am and proceeded to sleep through my alarms this morning. This made me extra late to work and I didn't get a shower. Because I was extra late, my coworker was extra grouchy. Also, my headache is not gone.
I had to leave early from work to go the doctor. I had directions, sort of. But there are two locations in close proximity and it was very confusing. I called the main line to try to find out if I was in the right place and they thought I was... but then I wasn't. So I was very late for my appointment, which I really couldn't afford to be. And I was trying hard not to cry because that would only make my headache worse. The doctor was very nice but I was totally overwhelmed by all "help" available to me. I managed to have time to go get a hot chocolate which tasted funny (it always does from that Starbucks) and was expensive (they charge extra for a peppermint hot chocolate this time of year because now it's a "holiday drink"). Also I got a tough, crusty bagel. Yum yum.
Anyway, after several more hours of engagements, I stopped at the grocery store. Mistake. We are two days away from Thanksgiving. Apparently that's when people do their shopping. I just wanted milk. Oh, and flour. Oh, and... so I was there for a while. I piled up stuff in my arms. They didn't have the oatmeal that was on sale. They didn't have swiffers. They didn't have small blocks of Velveeta (obviously the only reason you would buy Velveeta is if you were so poor you couldn't afford real cheese so you buy gargantuan blocks of yellow goo... but wait! the price of Velveeta is so high these days, that doesn't make sense either. I give up.) I finally got in line. No express lanes open, no. That would make too much sense. The nice couple in front of me let me put my stuff down on their cart. And then just as they finished checking out, I saw the cashier bag a carton of milk for them. MILK! Nooooo! I didn't pick up the milk! Whatever. I so don't need milk. Who drinks milk anyway? (whimper) I can totally do without milk till after Thanksgiving (lord knows I'm not going back there till then). (Aaaaaack, I need milk!) How did I manage to remember a freakin' red pepper and not milk? Man. Oh well. I paid my $15 and change, shoved my inherited cart into some other semi-returned carts and grouched my way back to my car which was carefully parked between three non-returned carts.
Here at home I've been gnawing on, no, nomming down in quick succession, lemon Starburst. Lemon are only third best, which really means they are second to last. I was eating them quickly to get them out of the way for the one pink one that turned up. How annoying.

And though this rant has been sort of satisfactory, I know it does not measure up to some of the past. See? Even my ranting is below par today. Ugh. Did I mention that it is cold and my neck is tighter than... something really tight? But it's not as cold as at home, in WA. So I can't even complain properly about that.
Whatever. I think I'll go to bed. And maybe even wake up for my alarm in the morning. Time shall tell. (insert something witty about time shall tell and alarm clocks).

Goodnight.

Oh, and somewhere in there I might have eaten three doughnuts. Oops.

Coffee

I always hated coffee. I would avoid that aisle at the grocery store so that I wouldn't have to smell the beans. I remember one year at Thanksgiving, the only time of year we ever pulled out our coffee maker (green, 70s style) my sister poured herself a cup claiming that she liked to hold it and smell it. Huh? But now I understand. Since Starbucks and such places took over the western world and everyone "meets for coffee" (I meet for hot chocolate) I've grown accustomed to and even enjoy the smell of coffee. Sometimes it's too strong. Sometimes Peet's coffee grinds make me want to throw up. But sometimes, when my roommate has been making coffee in the mornings, my apartment reminds me of my grandmother and of Thanksgiving, and that is nice.

Much

Hello, writing.
There is much on my heart. Much.

Things like how much of a failure I am and in what ways, how much ache there is in the world and those I love whom it affects.
But also, though not as much, how much beauty there is in the world and how simple yet complicated it is. Yet how I don't see it and how it is somehow unattainable.

I so do not live up to my potential, and I don't know which ways to stretch myself. Should I learn guitar or drums or relearn piano or clarinet or voice? Or none of those things? Or ALL of those things? Should I write more or read more or sleep more... or exercise, drink water, eat better, feed the homeless, serve everyone, be an artist, take classes, organize, clean, or budget? ALL of these things or none of these things? In what order? To what extent? Should I get back in touch with people/ keep in touch with people? Should I take more photographs/ organize photographs/ edit photographs/ print photographs/ scrapbook photographs? Throw out clothes, buy new clothes, rework my current wardrobe, return those red shoes, buy new shoes, go back to buying nice undergarments, change out my jewelry... or just not care and hope someone marries me for my charmingly obsessive personality?

Ache ache ache. Affairs and death and cancer and suicide. Unrequited love. Fear, failure, physical pain. Loss of hope. And even beauty can be painful, for oh the recognition that my mind is feeble to understand it. And also, it connects so deeply inside of me, to some long-forgotten God-image-- why does that hurt? For the disconnect? For the pain of healing? For the minuscule recognition of what was meant to be? Oh, beauty you are a mystery. Life, you are a beautiful, painful, aching mystery.

Meditations on meditation

I'm told to meditate. The eastern idea, at least as I understand it, is to sit still and calmly, and see what comes to you. As something comes to you, deal with that and then you can set it aside and move on. As I'm slightly annoyed that the eastern religions have an apparent monopoly on meditation even though the word meditate comes up time and again in my very own bonded leather, binding-breaking, hi-lighted and written in, words-of-Christ-in-Red, stuffed with years-old church bulletins Bible, I shall endeavor to take it on myself.

Let's begin:

Deep Breath.
Ahhh.


This is nice.

What comes to me?
Hmmm.

A cookie!
Oh dear. A cookie? I don't think that's right. But there must not be a right and wrong. This is meditation. A cookie is what came to me and I must deal with the cookie. Well, there are a few ways to deal with a cookie. One is avoid it. But I'm fairly sure I'm not supposed to be avoiding things. No, the therapist would not be happy with that. The other is to eat the cookie. Well, there IS a cookie over there. One left from a few days ago and probably not that good anymore. But what can one do? In the name of expansion and clarity of mind and spirit....
Okay, yeah, that was good. Chocolate chip. Thanks, Safeway.

Indian position. I mean cross-legged. (Yipes, I'm not good at this. Do you have to be PC to meditate?)
I wonder if I should find a yoga mat. That seems appropriate. Hey my sister once had some comfy yoga pants she liked to wear on the airplane.
Okay, thinking.
Mmmm.
A Nap!
Well, there we go.
Okay, Go take a nap. I'll meet you back here in... wait, won't alarm clocks interrupt the nice calm setting we have going here?...


While you were napping I got a cat. I know. But a cat came next in my meditation, after I woke up from my nap. (Hm? Oh, it was lovely thanks, how was yours?) Perhaps it was "cat nap." Or maybe I just really like cats. She's a nice cat. Except sometimes I am sad and cats do not care.

Dinosaurs!
Uh oh. How shall I deal with dinosaurs? Perhaps there is a deeper psychological meaning behind the dinosaur. Something really big is bothering me? I feel old like a dinosaur? The Ray Bradbury story "A Sound of Thunder" has been haunting me since 8th grade? I felt abandoned when I sat at school watching "The Land Before Time" as a latch key kid? Oh look, a dinosaur transformer toy. Maybe that's why people often close their eyes while they're doing this stuff.

****

Shift. (Yes, that word has five letters, what have you been reading?!) Apparently, if you hold down the shift key for 8 seconds, you would like to turn on the filter function. In my little meditation world, however, holding down the shift key for 8 seconds means I am thinking. Thinking about writing down the things that came to me and how that was the only way to think about them at all. If I had been working with my actual stream-of-consciousness I would not be able to keep up and much more meaningful things would pop up, but I wouldn't be able to follow them at all. My mind is much to busy to even follow itself let alone with writing or speaking or even meditating-- calmly or otherwise. I suppose holding down that shift key was, in fact, turning on the filter function. I was filtering my stream of consciousness into something I could write about.
Well, that was fun or educational or something.

Now about that nap...

You are Too Much and Not Enough

Mmmm, I love my blog. I don't use it near enough. Here, lovely space, is where I can say what I truly feel. On my gmail status I have to write in code lest someone see how I really feel and run away. In real life I must catch them first, trick them into being my friend and then someday show them the real me and see if they stick around. Supposedly one of them will marry me that way. It's a good method. So my current status code is: "i t o t p. r i t m. a w w w h i i t t t t r o. y t w g w." I don't even remember how to break it. I think it says something like : "I'm too overwhelmed to purge. Room is too messy. Also wondering what would happen if I told them the truth right off. Yeah that would go well. " See but codes are dangerous too. Someone is bound to wonder about that and I can't be cryptic about it or they still know something is up. Or wrong. Or... goodness, the English language. How can "up" and "wrong" mean the same thing? On a barely-similar note, I think it is sad that I buy beautiful journals but write better when I can type so I can get my thoughts out at a decent speed. Alas.
ANYWAY.
1) I hate that I'm lying in bed instead of purging my clothes and listening to music on my new speakers, but what is to be done about it? Ugh.
2) See? What if I just put it out there, on my eHarmony profile or wherever, that I'm NOT a driven person, that I'm NOT cheerful all the time, that sometimes I'm pessimistic (mostly realistic, really, and the optimists have a slightly skewed view) and that I'm certainly NOT passionate about being physically fit! I'm just barely holding on to TRYING!!! Which, by the way, I'm trying to tell myself is an accomplishment so that I don't spend the rest of my life continuing to wallow.
3) You know why I don't just put it out there? Because I have to catch them. Trick 'em. Like a half dead worm wriggling around on a barbed hook... line and sinker.
4) In a book I'm reading I have learned that I believe I am too much and not enough. That is the phrase and I find that I believe it very firmly and deeply.
5)It is very frustrating to know that possibility and life are in you and not be able to gain access.

Communication Studies

Who invented mail? What a terrible idea! Mail turned into telegraphs, which turned into telephones, which turned into fax machines, which turned into emails, which turned into facebook and texting. At some point, one must have been content to stay in one's own community and communicate (see that? community/communicate? Oh fail, I can see already that the definition of community will come into play here...) with those right around them. Instead now we have to be friends with people clear across the world. And even if those friends were once right around you, you can't be satisfied to have crossed paths with them and move on. No, you must keep in touch! There ain't no excuse these days not to.

And you know why we have to? Because of relationships. And you know why we have to have relationships? Because God made us that way. Why? He's relational and he wanted us to experience that too, so he made us in His image. Thanks a lot, God. Srsly. Okay, yeah, I know, it's not your fault we took that free will and threw perfection out the window. Sometimes I just wonder about the value of autonomy. I'm usually wondering when I'm in pain.

Look, it's not that I don't want to keep in touch. It's not that I don't love my friends and I am ridiculously aware that I'm made as a relational being. And yes, I believe my community can be defined in different ways, one of those ways including people I need to keep in touch with long distance. I just get so overwhelmed, practically obsessed with my email and facebook and cell phone... It may even affect my health and possibly the Most Important Relationship and our communion (there is it again!). I won't go to bed without checking every single facebook update since I was on the night before, looking at my email, and seeing if the love of my life has contacted me yet (I don't know who he is, but he could have-- you never know...). And when I can't get back to people, or I forget to, I get little pangs of guilt. Two nights ago, I didn't open my computer before bed. It was a bit of a breakthrough. Of course, I had twice as much to go through last night... and then went to bed late and didn't wake up this morning to go to a brunch where there was a discussion on... guilt. Hah! Life is so funny.

Mail, as it was, wasn't so bad. Who doesn't love getting personal mail? Something thoughtfully written? I would love to write letters again. But in this day and age, with such up-to-the minute communication going around, I hardly feel it's worth it. I could send a letter and the news is not news by the time it arrives. And when would I have time? I can't even check my email till late at night. On the other hand, as such an all or nothing person, it's nice to be able to drop just a little note to someone. They know you're thinking of them. If only snail mail were available to me, I'd never get around to writing a letter because I'd think it would have to be more than "Hey, I was just thinking of you today." Where facebook or even email is perfect for that.

Someone said the other day that at some point in American history the porch moved from the front to the back... how sad it is. People should sit on their front porch and drink lemonade and strum their guitars and say hello to the people passing by.

The days I do have time, I don't spend it writing real letters, or even catching up on email. I certainly don't spend it outside with some lemonade looking for neighbors to talk to. And I don't spend it communing with God. I spend it compulsively checking my facebook and email waiting for... something. I don't even know what.
Something must change.
But I leave you with no real conviction that anything will.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mail

On Wealth

Sometimes the need to write comes at inconvenient times. Like in the shower. When getting ready to attend your six-year-old niece's birthday party. Guess she'll have to wait.

Why is it that I can totally love my job and have no money? And a surgeon can love his or her job and have tons of money? And then she can go off on fabulous vacations and see wonderful amazing parts of the world and I cannot. The surgeon's job is obviously very important. But if the surgeon wants to read anything, my job is important too. And actually, I have no qualms about my job. I feel it is important and I love it. I love the new part I'm learning about ordering books and I love being on the floor with the customers. And I believe we are almost equally intelligent. Almost. I mean, I could have been a surgeon. I just would have had to work my butt off. Still. here I am a bookseller who has not read Little Women, Moby Dick, Fahrenheit 451, East of Eden, or for that matter any Stephen King, Agatha Christie, or Kurt Vonnegut. And I will not have the chance to on any long airplane rides to Italy or the Galapagos.

So how can I go about enjoying life in the same way? How can I enjoy the freezing cold Pacific ocean since I can't even put a little toe in it when other people are splashing blissfully in the spa-like Atlantic? How can I enjoy EPA with it's bars-on-the corner store while others OOoh and AAahh and the Louvre? For heaven's sake I've even only been to Disney Land for 1/2 a day when I was 9. I can't even afford to go to camp with my church up state this summer because Who the Heck can take vacation? A mountain lake?! Please! Choose me!
I just long to enjoy life with friends and I take all the opportunity I can, but I end up burned out and broke. And even that is just from enjoying life here in three local Nor Cal towns.

Aiya. (Yes, I've turned Asian, also. What I meant to say was Uff-da.)
On that note. My headache and I are going to Amy's martial arts birthday party (I keep typing martian arts, which I think would be more interesting) for pizza and cake and the most beautiful thing the world has to offer-- happy children. (I'm actually not convinced that's true, but I'm trying to wrap this up on a happy note.)
I'll probably continue to "write" in the car, so maybe more later...

Have returned, and must say that now I want a martial arts birthday party too. Peter, the kids' teacher, always amazes me because he engages them so well. I've never seen anyone work with kids as well as he does. He also had my tough little girl sitting on his motorcycles revving the engine. It was a great party.
I'm home now to enjoy the feeling of a full tank of gas, a good book, and a voice mail from good friends (That's YOU, dear Choates! I know you read my blog!). That is how some of us feel rich, I suppose.

one hot Saturday evening...

I wonder what perfect weather is. 72 degrees? Slight breeze? Evening? Whatever it is right now, is not it. Of course, I haven't been outside all day, but whatever it has been for the last several days and whatever is making my house too hot inside... that's not it. I'm sitting here half dressed in front of my fan (not convenient when the very good looking young man comes rings the doorbell to talk to me about measure J) reading two chapters at a time of my book, sleeping, and compulsively checking my email because I'm convinced that it's too hot and humid to even go buy raspberry lemonade at the Safeway 1/2 a mile away. I could maybe risk it soon. According to the ever-reliable interwebz, it's currently 76, wind at 13 mph, and humidity dropped to 45%. Not sure raspberry lemonade is worth it though. Maybe if someone wanted to hang out. But all my roommates are out of town and everyone I've tried to get a hold of it MIA. I might be reduced to cleaning out my closet or filing paper. Or, more realistically, thinking about cleaning out my closet and filing papers and really reading two chapters of my book and then finding something worthless to watch on Hulu. Ah, Saturday. So many things I should do and so little motivation.
Does anyone else need people for motivation? I could always clean my room more easily if my mom came and kept me company. I need to make a dessert for tomorrow night, but I'd rather do it with some company. I need to get rid of a bunch of my stuff. But I'd rather have someone to run those decisions by. I should probably clean the whole freakin' house... but it's so freakin' hot!
So. Oh well. I certainly couldn't be accused of not taking a day of rest this week. The attitude might not be exactly right on, but it's a step.

Wow, I just lost this post and thankfully found it in drafts. Thank goodness for autosave. I mean, it's not like there's anything important or philosophically deep here, but I was sad when it was gone anyway.
Alright, I guess I'll post it now. I know everyone's dying to read it.
:)