yesterday was kind of exhausting. i spent half of the afternoon wondering if the shooting pain in the left side of my body was something to pay attention to, or just another manifestation of stress. i think it's amazing how i can mentally feel really just fine and then suddenly my body will start telling me otherwise. so in about a week when it starts getting better outside i'm going to start thinking about running again. i have only done yoga for the last two years and i'm afraid of how my ability to run has changed. getting back into it is the hardest. i should just start rock climbing.
my financial situation is much improved, thanks to my rigorous work schedule, and that has taken a load of stress of my shoulders. i started taking saturday mornings off so no more 13 hour days! it has been a year of me working saturdays like that. an entire year. i am so much happier today.
which is, my first day off since march 14th. i have been laying in bed all morning sipping on coffee, listening to dodge street come to life, and contemplating which area to focus myself on today. there are only two that are important to me right now.
in 52 days i am going to berlin and prague. berlin to look at architecture and learn how to build a passiv haus. and prague, to stand on the top of petrin hill. i'm also pretty interested in kutna hora, the church of bones, (human!) that is a day trip out of prague. it is going to be more metal than the 8 slayer shows i saw, combined. i will have to bring a basket of kittens with me to even it out.
ok, time to be on my way.
Monday, April 6, 2009
Friday, April 3, 2009
how can i own at stereotaxic surgeries but totally fail when it comes to copier codes. i do not do spreadsheets. period.
AKLFJDKLJfa b;suT
i am going back to school again and i don't care how many people say for what this time and roll their eyes. it is for science courses so i can be an alright applicant to neuroscience programs. still studying for GRE anyway.
i have been doing EMDR and it's the best thing that's ever happened to me. i should have been doing this since probably 4th grade.
i'm going to prague and berlin for 10 days in june.
i've paid off my debt.
i'm not mad at iowa today.
what else. i really am just amazed at how much this EMDR stuff has helped me especially in a sociologically evolutionary sense and to understanding why i like being alone and hate confrontation so incredibly much. if it's not safe to make relationships and talk openly, you don't. thomas said to me last friday that i should start handing out disclaimers, "will randomly shut down". maybe that's why i identify with robots.
AKLFJDKLJfa b;suT
i am going back to school again and i don't care how many people say for what this time and roll their eyes. it is for science courses so i can be an alright applicant to neuroscience programs. still studying for GRE anyway.
i have been doing EMDR and it's the best thing that's ever happened to me. i should have been doing this since probably 4th grade.
i'm going to prague and berlin for 10 days in june.
i've paid off my debt.
i'm not mad at iowa today.
what else. i really am just amazed at how much this EMDR stuff has helped me especially in a sociologically evolutionary sense and to understanding why i like being alone and hate confrontation so incredibly much. if it's not safe to make relationships and talk openly, you don't. thomas said to me last friday that i should start handing out disclaimers, "will randomly shut down". maybe that's why i identify with robots.
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
i'm not saying this is anyone else's fault but my own, but i haven't had a day off since March 14th, and won't have another one off until April 7th. That's a long time to not have a day off, but i have successfully reached my financial goal of paying back most of my debt, so that makes me feel like it's worth it. i've been working 50-70 hour weeks since July so it's nice to see this all come together for sure.
Monday, March 23, 2009
i miss the days i used to sit back and relax. good weekend, great weekend, in fact. though i was tired as usual, it was still fun to see grantx2.
i woke up at 4am this morning and wrote out a page of ideas i want to work on. i'm still studying for the GRE, but writing/reading/working/knitting/sewing also, and I have orientation to start volunteering at the hospital on the 16th of april.
basically need to eliminate anything that isn't helpful, that being lame quizzes on facebook. mwahahhaha.
looking forward to easter because the parents, sister and her boyfriend are coming into town. first time all family together with thomas ever and especially since reincarnation. paying off billz. going to eurp hopefully in june. soon as teh boss tells me it's okay. fingers crossed.
i woke up at 4am this morning and wrote out a page of ideas i want to work on. i'm still studying for the GRE, but writing/reading/working/knitting/sewing also, and I have orientation to start volunteering at the hospital on the 16th of april.
basically need to eliminate anything that isn't helpful, that being lame quizzes on facebook. mwahahhaha.
looking forward to easter because the parents, sister and her boyfriend are coming into town. first time all family together with thomas ever and especially since reincarnation. paying off billz. going to eurp hopefully in june. soon as teh boss tells me it's okay. fingers crossed.
Friday, March 13, 2009
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Monday, February 23, 2009
Meanderings and walks, going out for a bit. A walk mirrors a journey into one's own head in many ways. You go out to walk and be isolated, to feel the outside of your being measured up against the outside world. Outside, unlike in your flat or home - where your skin starts to blend with the stuff in the room, the pictures on the walls, the letters on your desk and where everything is claustrophobically there because of you - anything might happen.
How to manufacture accidents? How to have a chance encounter?
If I walk accompanied by a map or a guide it is entirely different from if iI walk without. Without a guide my mind truly wanders, but only in the grooves and troughs it already contains. I like the part of a walk where you decide to go down a new path or untrodden place. And the bit of thinking which is like that, and the encounter in the street which is like that.
— Anna Best, from 'Occasional Sights'
How to manufacture accidents? How to have a chance encounter?
If I walk accompanied by a map or a guide it is entirely different from if iI walk without. Without a guide my mind truly wanders, but only in the grooves and troughs it already contains. I like the part of a walk where you decide to go down a new path or untrodden place. And the bit of thinking which is like that, and the encounter in the street which is like that.
— Anna Best, from 'Occasional Sights'
Friday, February 13, 2009
i know we immediately derailed with the topic of self-reliance and i wanted to bring it back around to what i began talking about. it's a relatively short synopsis of my account of working through the effects of an emotionally and verbally abusive upbringing. instead of having a conversation about it, i would just like to type out what i wanted to say (and mention i am very happy you brought up emerson, because it does apply).
borderline personality disorder. it having a title or pretty accurate textbook definition doesn't bother me, but the fact that the natural progression from there is to generalize it as a term/textbook idea instead of a rather dynamic disorder bothers me. for a person to dismiss its relevance because it's been identified as a repeated occurrence in certain populations, so much that it deems a title, strikes me as illogical. instead why not grant that while our understanding of the disorder has certainly increased, the textbook definition only covers the actions, the behaviors, and not the internal private thoughts of the person. in a purely whorfian sense, when the statement was made that a definition would make it dehumanizing, (do we not live by classification, bell curves, standardization? how do we classify humanness, intelligence, a dog, are these fair?) i ask you to not be led to assume fatalism, but instead let it be the start of an understanding. i came to this definition from the opposite side of where you did.
i do not believe that language is thought, and my experience, my upbringing was more dehumanizing than a mere title could ever be. when i finally found a seemingly unbiased account that identified my childhood as something that many others have experienced, it brought me closer to my experience, it brought me closer to understanding where i was in society, in community and what approaches i could take to reclaim the human part of me that i was forced to ignore as i lived at home. the textbook definition, by the way, describes the actions of my childhood (private journaling, hidden thoughts) pretty well also. i stress, my actions, not my thoughts.
further, two different situations in relation to BPD may very well be identical to each other by textbook definition when looking soley at certain aspects (the child-mother relationship), but the outcomes can be wildly different due to other environmental factors (which can be either a good thing or a bad thing) and here is where it is essential to pay attention to what emerson warns.
if emerson's essay self reliance sounds bitter to you, he sounds hopeful and encouraging to me. it is a testament to my experience. it is a testament to the ease at which we can lose our way, give up our voices and lose our independence in regular day society... to a government, a school system, or peers who don't hold our same values, let alone a mother who tells you to ignore what you know. it is a testament to the truths i held privately while i tried to balance between two extreme realties based on another person's whim. emerson emphasizes the importance of staying true to yourself, something BPD is a direct perpetrator against.
i respect the transcendental ideal and the importance of self reliance. that we should all be true to our thoughts and act on those thoughts is an exercise that can only bring satisfaction. i also agree that variation in a society is good... I think you were getting at the fact that there is no way of qualifying what is "right" in society, be it that it might be natural for someone to want to do things that society deems "incorrect" then slaps a label on them and tells them to go fuck themselves (essentially). The key point here is that, yes we need to hold true to our convictions, but that an unbiased gestation period is essential in order to fully understand these convictions and live them out. Not everyone is granted this. Those who get stuck with the label of BPD, the stigma, the self-damning "disorder" (i use these facetiously) were not free in their thoughts, were not free in their actions, and were not taught to express themselves in their "natural" way. In the progression of their disorder, they may have been tossed aside, but a description of their experience brings recognition and validation.
I feel I was lucky that I figured some things out, that I found books to read, that I was resilient in my ability to see the unbalanced way my family was operating. I was able to hold on to the rather confusing "ideas" i had in my head that my family wasn't acting appropriately and eventually was able to get back to that "latent conviction, (-- and it shall be the universal sense; for the inmost in due time becomes the outmost,—— and our first thought is rendered back to us by the trumpets of the Last Judgment)" and again, I think it's not that easy for everyone. There is a point where the initial thoughts and ideas are vilified far too often to ever be recognized again as valid. Children do not want to hurt their mother or strangers without cause. Limiting circumstance and increasing distance with reality (the distance between a persons ideas and the manifestation of such things) makes it easier for people to unleash their inner frustration, which in some cases can lead to horrific outcomes. That these people be integrated into society on the grounds that they are products of a "natural" desire is dangerous, naive and negligent and will only serve to continue the cycle of abuse (or should only be allowed in the case that she is an Icelandic pop singer who only knows the words "bubbles", and "feathers").
borderline personality disorder. it having a title or pretty accurate textbook definition doesn't bother me, but the fact that the natural progression from there is to generalize it as a term/textbook idea instead of a rather dynamic disorder bothers me. for a person to dismiss its relevance because it's been identified as a repeated occurrence in certain populations, so much that it deems a title, strikes me as illogical. instead why not grant that while our understanding of the disorder has certainly increased, the textbook definition only covers the actions, the behaviors, and not the internal private thoughts of the person. in a purely whorfian sense, when the statement was made that a definition would make it dehumanizing, (do we not live by classification, bell curves, standardization? how do we classify humanness, intelligence, a dog, are these fair?) i ask you to not be led to assume fatalism, but instead let it be the start of an understanding. i came to this definition from the opposite side of where you did.
i do not believe that language is thought, and my experience, my upbringing was more dehumanizing than a mere title could ever be. when i finally found a seemingly unbiased account that identified my childhood as something that many others have experienced, it brought me closer to my experience, it brought me closer to understanding where i was in society, in community and what approaches i could take to reclaim the human part of me that i was forced to ignore as i lived at home. the textbook definition, by the way, describes the actions of my childhood (private journaling, hidden thoughts) pretty well also. i stress, my actions, not my thoughts.
further, two different situations in relation to BPD may very well be identical to each other by textbook definition when looking soley at certain aspects (the child-mother relationship), but the outcomes can be wildly different due to other environmental factors (which can be either a good thing or a bad thing) and here is where it is essential to pay attention to what emerson warns.
if emerson's essay self reliance sounds bitter to you, he sounds hopeful and encouraging to me. it is a testament to my experience. it is a testament to the ease at which we can lose our way, give up our voices and lose our independence in regular day society... to a government, a school system, or peers who don't hold our same values, let alone a mother who tells you to ignore what you know. it is a testament to the truths i held privately while i tried to balance between two extreme realties based on another person's whim. emerson emphasizes the importance of staying true to yourself, something BPD is a direct perpetrator against.
i respect the transcendental ideal and the importance of self reliance. that we should all be true to our thoughts and act on those thoughts is an exercise that can only bring satisfaction. i also agree that variation in a society is good... I think you were getting at the fact that there is no way of qualifying what is "right" in society, be it that it might be natural for someone to want to do things that society deems "incorrect" then slaps a label on them and tells them to go fuck themselves (essentially). The key point here is that, yes we need to hold true to our convictions, but that an unbiased gestation period is essential in order to fully understand these convictions and live them out. Not everyone is granted this. Those who get stuck with the label of BPD, the stigma, the self-damning "disorder" (i use these facetiously) were not free in their thoughts, were not free in their actions, and were not taught to express themselves in their "natural" way. In the progression of their disorder, they may have been tossed aside, but a description of their experience brings recognition and validation.
I feel I was lucky that I figured some things out, that I found books to read, that I was resilient in my ability to see the unbalanced way my family was operating. I was able to hold on to the rather confusing "ideas" i had in my head that my family wasn't acting appropriately and eventually was able to get back to that "latent conviction, (-- and it shall be the universal sense; for the inmost in due time becomes the outmost,—— and our first thought is rendered back to us by the trumpets of the Last Judgment)" and again, I think it's not that easy for everyone. There is a point where the initial thoughts and ideas are vilified far too often to ever be recognized again as valid. Children do not want to hurt their mother or strangers without cause. Limiting circumstance and increasing distance with reality (the distance between a persons ideas and the manifestation of such things) makes it easier for people to unleash their inner frustration, which in some cases can lead to horrific outcomes. That these people be integrated into society on the grounds that they are products of a "natural" desire is dangerous, naive and negligent and will only serve to continue the cycle of abuse (or should only be allowed in the case that she is an Icelandic pop singer who only knows the words "bubbles", and "feathers").
Friday, February 6, 2009
Monday, February 2, 2009
OMGAHZ. I am TIRED. NO ONE CARES ABOUT HOW TIRED I AM. AND I WANT TO BE IN MY FLUFFY BED RIGHT NOW READING ABOUT THE INCOMPLETENESS THEOREM. Or about Obama's Superpower Cape. Or about whoever this Yoda dude is that Grant keeps blabbing about and the bull riding jedi master of fear. Whaaaat.
I like being 27. It's okay to be a recluse and just play it off as being responsible. And I get to take some things seriously without thinking I decided on something too early in the game. No fear of accidentally becoming a rock star or a famous actress anymore. Just being an adult. Not bad.
I want to travel still, always.
I like being 27. It's okay to be a recluse and just play it off as being responsible. And I get to take some things seriously without thinking I decided on something too early in the game. No fear of accidentally becoming a rock star or a famous actress anymore. Just being an adult. Not bad.
I want to travel still, always.
Friday, January 30, 2009
Two things I know:
I am going to re-take the GRE
I am going to apply to a post-bacc program
Two things I don't know:
When
Where
I guess this is where I always get hung up. I get to a point of knowing what I want to do and then actually taking the steps to get there changes the entire process. The last year... and definitely the last six months, has been devoted to alot of studying and research about various topics that I thought would somehow help me define the direction I want to go. It has helped define my focus, and now it's time to expand in that area.
I woke up this morning and looked at my sewing machines and thought about how I hadn't really made anything in three years and that probably means it's about time to put them away. Especially with the limited amount of space I seemed to have defined for myself over the years. The cameras sit on the lower shelf of a bookcase that I never use. Everything in my room is dusty and fabrics fold over themselves unused and uninspired. As I've pared down my writing and my focus, so too it is time to do away with the items I held onto for various reasons I don't need to get into.
I am going to re-take the GRE
I am going to apply to a post-bacc program
Two things I don't know:
When
Where
I guess this is where I always get hung up. I get to a point of knowing what I want to do and then actually taking the steps to get there changes the entire process. The last year... and definitely the last six months, has been devoted to alot of studying and research about various topics that I thought would somehow help me define the direction I want to go. It has helped define my focus, and now it's time to expand in that area.
I woke up this morning and looked at my sewing machines and thought about how I hadn't really made anything in three years and that probably means it's about time to put them away. Especially with the limited amount of space I seemed to have defined for myself over the years. The cameras sit on the lower shelf of a bookcase that I never use. Everything in my room is dusty and fabrics fold over themselves unused and uninspired. As I've pared down my writing and my focus, so too it is time to do away with the items I held onto for various reasons I don't need to get into.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
totally excited about the new prez, my upcoming birthday, my new book about making eggs and the super nice guy i'm dating that took care of me while i was passed out on pain killers yesterday.
not excited about the fact that while i was lumbering around my house in a doped up stupor, everything somehow became soaked with water; my camera, which now has a messed up LCD screen, my desk, my pillows, my stocking hat. i have no idea how this happened because all i was drinking was sprite. all of this liquid is clearly water. possible overly active saliva glands?
and lots of holes for it to drool out of...
not excited about the fact that while i was lumbering around my house in a doped up stupor, everything somehow became soaked with water; my camera, which now has a messed up LCD screen, my desk, my pillows, my stocking hat. i have no idea how this happened because all i was drinking was sprite. all of this liquid is clearly water. possible overly active saliva glands?
and lots of holes for it to drool out of...
Friday, January 16, 2009
four ways i like to spend my time:
writing about the seemingly immaterial
attempting various routes to define the unapparent
drinking a warm drink and visiting with friends
having any conversation with thomas
four things i see myself doing:
psychology research
writer of some sort
mom
bum
four things i enjoy and wish i could do better:
cooking
sewing
writing
drawing
four things i am doing in the next week:
celebrating human rights
witnessing history
finishing my sister's christmas present
having teeth extracted and getting braces
writing about the seemingly immaterial
attempting various routes to define the unapparent
drinking a warm drink and visiting with friends
having any conversation with thomas
four things i see myself doing:
psychology research
writer of some sort
mom
bum
four things i enjoy and wish i could do better:
cooking
sewing
writing
drawing
four things i am doing in the next week:
celebrating human rights
witnessing history
finishing my sister's christmas present
having teeth extracted and getting braces
four songs:
endless summer : fennesz
smell memory : mum
deconstruction loops : basinski
chimeras : hecker
four books:
mind and the brain : schwartz
godel, escher, bach : hofstadter
pillars of salt : faqir
the perfect egg : buzzi
four poems:
a poem for the end of the century : milosz
the second coming : yeats
good night : milosz
december 20, 2006 : gg jackson
four photographs:
valley of the shadow of death : fenton
migrant mother : lange
untitled in self-portrait with the cows going home : plachy
comedians : lusano
four statments:
the view outside was much more important than the exhibits : yamasaki
beware of over-confidence, especially in matters of structure : gilbert
everything stinks till it's finished : seuss
my favorite thing is to go where i've never been : arbus
endless summer : fennesz
smell memory : mum
deconstruction loops : basinski
chimeras : hecker
four books:
mind and the brain : schwartz
godel, escher, bach : hofstadter
pillars of salt : faqir
the perfect egg : buzzi
four poems:
a poem for the end of the century : milosz
the second coming : yeats
good night : milosz
december 20, 2006 : gg jackson
four photographs:
valley of the shadow of death : fenton
migrant mother : lange
untitled in self-portrait with the cows going home : plachy
comedians : lusano
four statments:
the view outside was much more important than the exhibits : yamasaki
beware of over-confidence, especially in matters of structure : gilbert
everything stinks till it's finished : seuss
my favorite thing is to go where i've never been : arbus
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
am...
researching alot.
enamored with bradbury, summer solstice, and daylight savings time.
crabby when tired and hungry.
almost intolerable when tired and hungry.
reading about BPD, EMRD, and DBT.
saving vacation.
walking through the snow and putting up with biting wind.
making exceptions in my diet.
going to make bacon baklava (but not eat it).
going to get braces next week.
reading time magazine.
doing crossword puzzles during lunch. the easy ones.
researching alot.
enamored with bradbury, summer solstice, and daylight savings time.
crabby when tired and hungry.
almost intolerable when tired and hungry.
reading about BPD, EMRD, and DBT.
saving vacation.
walking through the snow and putting up with biting wind.
making exceptions in my diet.
going to make bacon baklava (but not eat it).
going to get braces next week.
reading time magazine.
doing crossword puzzles during lunch. the easy ones.
Friday, January 9, 2009
kathleen is...
not going to go back to school again.
consolidating loans.
working a ton in order to pay off said loans.
looking for a new job to cover the three?? why haven't i? am i complacent? [worries]
drinking a LOT of coffee.
driving too much.
eating too many egg and cheese croissanwiches.
giving away old photographs that i don't even have the negatives of.
not completing a single damn knitting project and tearing everything out when it gets close to being done.
not cleaning my car.
cleaning my room alot.
doing dishes for fun.
throwing a lot of stuff away.
paring down my writing.
actually seeing dents in my debt. it feels manageable.
daydreaming about klein bottle houses and passive houses.
refusing to take digital pictures (maybe not if i ever get a DSLR).
eating a lot of sushi.
taking a day off tomorrow.
missed the krappy kamera contest deadline but i should google schedule myself to remember for next year.
bitter bitter bitter about the cold.
addicted to co-op summer tomato soup. dear god, i need it always.
making lots of sweet stuff whenever it's cold, cookies, brownies, cake.
not worried about my birthday or impending old age.
getting rid of some cognitive blocks and irrational fears. the dumb ones especially like not liking feet and not sharing drinks. wait those AREN'T dumb.
making sure to spend less and know why/what i'm doing when. -- trying to save.
doing an okay job being an okay person in an okay town in a less than okay world/economy. that's good enough for now.
not going to go back to school again.
consolidating loans.
working a ton in order to pay off said loans.
looking for a new job to cover the three?? why haven't i? am i complacent? [worries]
drinking a LOT of coffee.
driving too much.
eating too many egg and cheese croissanwiches.
giving away old photographs that i don't even have the negatives of.
not completing a single damn knitting project and tearing everything out when it gets close to being done.
not cleaning my car.
cleaning my room alot.
doing dishes for fun.
throwing a lot of stuff away.
paring down my writing.
actually seeing dents in my debt. it feels manageable.
daydreaming about klein bottle houses and passive houses.
refusing to take digital pictures (maybe not if i ever get a DSLR).
eating a lot of sushi.
taking a day off tomorrow.
missed the krappy kamera contest deadline but i should google schedule myself to remember for next year.
bitter bitter bitter about the cold.
addicted to co-op summer tomato soup. dear god, i need it always.
making lots of sweet stuff whenever it's cold, cookies, brownies, cake.
not worried about my birthday or impending old age.
getting rid of some cognitive blocks and irrational fears. the dumb ones especially like not liking feet and not sharing drinks. wait those AREN'T dumb.
making sure to spend less and know why/what i'm doing when. -- trying to save.
doing an okay job being an okay person in an okay town in a less than okay world/economy. that's good enough for now.
Friday, January 2, 2009
Monday, December 29, 2008
''The camel has a big dumb ugly hump. But in the desert, where prettier, more streamlined beastes die quickly of thirst, the camel survives quite nicely. As legend has it, the camel carries its own water, stores it in its stupid hump. If individuals, like camels, perfect their inner resources, if we have the power within us, then we can cross any wasteland in relative comfort and survive in arid surrounding without relying on the external. Often, moreover, it is our "hump" - that aspect of our being that society finds eccentric, ridiculous, or disagreeable- that holds our sweet waters, our secret well of happiness, the key to our equanimity in malevolent climes. The camel symbolized a lunar truth, totemized a Red Beard lesson concerning survival in the desert, the desert being solar territory, any lanscape bullied by the sun.''
Tom Robbins.
Tom Robbins.
Saturday, December 27, 2008
i miss omaha? how could that happen... i think i just miss a big city. and of course springtime weather yesterday made me miss the pnw.
i miss having niche spots.
anonymity.
bookstores and coffee houses that aren't packed all night.
variety. competition.
more than one fabric store.
more than one record store.
finding niche spots.
finding niche spots.
finding niche spots.
that aren't just parks or a spot in a tree.
oh well! it is surprising to me that i would miss omaha. it wasn't kind to me. again, i think it's more just a bigger town. i am alright in iowa city for sure. i like my house and i like my roomate and my friends and it's really okay. but BOO things don't change much around there. my numbing a little bit. my fault, really.
going driving now.
i miss having niche spots.
anonymity.
bookstores and coffee houses that aren't packed all night.
variety. competition.
more than one fabric store.
more than one record store.
finding niche spots.
finding niche spots.
finding niche spots.
that aren't just parks or a spot in a tree.
oh well! it is surprising to me that i would miss omaha. it wasn't kind to me. again, i think it's more just a bigger town. i am alright in iowa city for sure. i like my house and i like my roomate and my friends and it's really okay. but BOO things don't change much around there. my numbing a little bit. my fault, really.
going driving now.
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
You have to let go of who you were to become who you will be.
My yearly summation (or a four year transition).
It started in India, my new years was spent sober, at a dry gathering in Chennai, India, surrounded by men who did not give a second's thought to groping me and grabbing me during a nearly out of control rush at the new years first ring. Fireworks were going off only a few feet above our heads, cinders were falling in my hair and as I tried to barrel through the crowd, men would hug me and swing me around, putting me in the center of cirlces of men waving punks and singing and chanting and dancing and falling. It was difficult to not get swept up, but also being repulsed, to not heed the warnings of remembering I was a US woman and that I needed to watch my back at all times. I had some US people near me, but they were all strangers, and we left soon after the celebration, piling into a bus, where my traveling mates sang and yelled and danced and flirted. Arriving back at our hotel, everyone went to find alcohol and I stayed in my room on the balcony, pretty much astonished that this was where I found myself.
India was our sister country. That is what I learned in third grade. If you spin the globe, which is what I did alot when I was nine, and find the direct opposite side of the planet from the US, there lies India. I decided in third grade that being on the opposite side of the planet sounded like a great idea, and that someday I would go to India.
I sat on the balcony amazed that I had actually made it. I was 25 and another goal in life was to travel trans continentally in my first quarter century. I had made it by just over a month.
That night I thought about the Christmas three years ago that I had sat in my parents kitchen, reading about the tsunami that had hit the town I was going to travel to in just two days and the shivers it had given me, and the feeble attempt at expressing I wanted to do something by telling my friends to grab their golashes.
I thought about how I was dating Thomas just barely and he was a baby and I knew it, but I couldn't help but be intrigued by him. I couldn't help but wonder why this guy slept under pizza boxes in a Magic shop and drove a Mercedes and argued points that were so simple and ridiculous but maybe had a central point. The diplomatic arguments that helped me evaluate some of things I had wanted to ignore, those arguments that that began to spin communication, reaped loads of miscommunication, that turned into a disaster I still hadn't been able to let go of.
I thought about how after three years of direct counseling about my grandpa, he had finally died in June, within months of my cousin and my grandma as well. I thought about the month I spent with my mom after she lost her dad and how there were barely any tears shed over his death. I thought about how empty that was.
I sat on the balcony that night and thought about the things that had led me to Ben and how little respect we had created for each other. How frustrating my situation in Iowa City was; how mad at myself I was that I couldn't fix it, and how even though I had debilitating panic attacks, I still stuffed myself in a small plane for 17 hours to travel halfway around the world just to get away.
I was sad that night. And exhausted. I wondered if that third grader that wanted to go to India was even there anymore, or if this was a sad 25 year olds last attempt to show herself she could acheive goals albeit at the hand of desperation.
The next few weeks changed my life. I got up and didn't feel pressure to buy anything, not a coffee, not a candy bar (who buys candy bars?? i buy candy bars), not a drink. The television didn't prompt me with the notion that a faster computer was important, it didn't hound me with annoying jingle jangles that clouded my thinking, I got up in the morning, didn't have to worry about my looks, my clothes, if I had packed lunch or not. I had to eat breakfast, then get in a cab to a design house where I basically sat and thought for eight hours, about fashion and its role in a third world country, and India's up and coming role in a capitalistic world. It was the perfect set up for me to leave the over stimulating US to sit and meditate about a largely superficial mode of income and why it applied to a country like India.
I spent three weeks working with women who had lost their husbands in the tsunami and had to learn to bring income in for themselves. I sat in their homes with them and held their babies while they made tiny dolls they were so proud of. I walked to the beach with them where their husbands had left one day to go fishing and never came back. I saw the construction of the homes that had just begun to be rebuilt, three years after the fact. I thought about Katrina. I thought about the impatience the Americans felt and the rage towards a government who guides blind eyes and listens with deaf ears.
I saw the patience in the Indian women's eyes. And the pride they felt from being given a chance to put their own lives in their hands. I couldn't thank them enough for letting me come to their homes. I couldn't help but feel embarrassed when they blushed and looked away as if my thanks was far too much to say.
I told the woman I worked for at the design studio that what she did was an ispiration and she laughed at me. It was not a modest laugh. It was pointed and dissmissive all at once. It made me feel sick about my perceptions of the human condition and I regretted thinking her company was something to be idolized, and started to reshape it as a simple byproduct of being part of a community. These are concepts that are so largely swept to the side and who am I to know if they are happening all the time or not, but when they are featured, it seems novel and new and exciting. Like helping someone else is a rare treat.
I left Iowa City happier. I left with a list of New Years resolutions
Patience, yes.
Become involved with Women Initating Social Change.
Habitat for Humanity
Execute a "successful" local campagin against pollution.
Less journaling, more novella-ing.
Amongst other self and esteem improvement tricks and tactics.
which are embarassing to me now, but what my resolutions were none the less. These were all made under the idea that I would reap life lessons from them thereby feeling better about my lot in life and what I was doing with it. I may have crossed a few of these things off my list, but I learned more than I could have ever dreamed by trying to help someone else. I needed to help myself first.
I came back to Iowa City happy, but with attachments. Even though I felt like I had rediscovered an ability to give a damn about something, it was quickly put to the test. That's the thing about this city. It's a place to come to make your mistakes and learn from them, but to hell with you if you want to be able to forget them. I wanted to escape again. The harder I tried to show people I had changed, the more they told me that I couldn't. I contemplated moving back to Council Bluffs or Omaha, I got to just before final stages of moving to Chicago, before I just had to give up and look Iowa City and all my mistakes in the eye.
I did. I made the decision to stay in Iowa City and to not leave before I knew exactly what my weaknesses were. Before I tried to escape again only to get lost in the same misconceptions and ridiculous situations. Before I had a chance to give myself a shot. I got a couple of jobs and started paying down my debt. Not long after, I moved in with Shawn and found more relief. I cut back on drinking. I made amends with some old friends and vowed to be more honest with myself and everyone else. I am still trying to be patient when I have trouble communicating something to someone. I also made the decision to cut people out of my life if they weren't good for me. It was surprisingly easy to let some people go. And for others, it was surprisingly easy to welcome them back into my life.
I'm here, two days before Christmas, three days before the 4th anniversary of a tsunami that left lives in ruins, thinking about the women I met almost a year ago. They said that they were thankful the tsunami came, without it they would never have known their strength and that the tsunami transferred its powers to them. It's taken me a long time to come to understand that type of vantage point. That what I view as a loss, could always have been viewed as a transfer of power. And it's up to me how I decide to use that. It's also important to remind myself that understanding that power and those perceptions, takes time and practice. Time and practice I'm going to devote 2009 to understanding.
I am happy, right now. I have a ways to go on communicating and that's okay with me. I do have a relationship I feel very solid in and some good friends who are big enough to get it. I have a steady job and a super peaceful home to live in. Things are the best they've been in awhile and it's just beyond me to focus on the negative right now, even though there are some attempts to try and get me to do so. It's not worth it to me at all. I've been there, and I don't want to go back.
My yearly summation (or a four year transition).
It started in India, my new years was spent sober, at a dry gathering in Chennai, India, surrounded by men who did not give a second's thought to groping me and grabbing me during a nearly out of control rush at the new years first ring. Fireworks were going off only a few feet above our heads, cinders were falling in my hair and as I tried to barrel through the crowd, men would hug me and swing me around, putting me in the center of cirlces of men waving punks and singing and chanting and dancing and falling. It was difficult to not get swept up, but also being repulsed, to not heed the warnings of remembering I was a US woman and that I needed to watch my back at all times. I had some US people near me, but they were all strangers, and we left soon after the celebration, piling into a bus, where my traveling mates sang and yelled and danced and flirted. Arriving back at our hotel, everyone went to find alcohol and I stayed in my room on the balcony, pretty much astonished that this was where I found myself.
India was our sister country. That is what I learned in third grade. If you spin the globe, which is what I did alot when I was nine, and find the direct opposite side of the planet from the US, there lies India. I decided in third grade that being on the opposite side of the planet sounded like a great idea, and that someday I would go to India.
I sat on the balcony amazed that I had actually made it. I was 25 and another goal in life was to travel trans continentally in my first quarter century. I had made it by just over a month.
That night I thought about the Christmas three years ago that I had sat in my parents kitchen, reading about the tsunami that had hit the town I was going to travel to in just two days and the shivers it had given me, and the feeble attempt at expressing I wanted to do something by telling my friends to grab their golashes.
I thought about how I was dating Thomas just barely and he was a baby and I knew it, but I couldn't help but be intrigued by him. I couldn't help but wonder why this guy slept under pizza boxes in a Magic shop and drove a Mercedes and argued points that were so simple and ridiculous but maybe had a central point. The diplomatic arguments that helped me evaluate some of things I had wanted to ignore, those arguments that that began to spin communication, reaped loads of miscommunication, that turned into a disaster I still hadn't been able to let go of.
I thought about how after three years of direct counseling about my grandpa, he had finally died in June, within months of my cousin and my grandma as well. I thought about the month I spent with my mom after she lost her dad and how there were barely any tears shed over his death. I thought about how empty that was.
I sat on the balcony that night and thought about the things that had led me to Ben and how little respect we had created for each other. How frustrating my situation in Iowa City was; how mad at myself I was that I couldn't fix it, and how even though I had debilitating panic attacks, I still stuffed myself in a small plane for 17 hours to travel halfway around the world just to get away.
I was sad that night. And exhausted. I wondered if that third grader that wanted to go to India was even there anymore, or if this was a sad 25 year olds last attempt to show herself she could acheive goals albeit at the hand of desperation.
The next few weeks changed my life. I got up and didn't feel pressure to buy anything, not a coffee, not a candy bar (who buys candy bars?? i buy candy bars), not a drink. The television didn't prompt me with the notion that a faster computer was important, it didn't hound me with annoying jingle jangles that clouded my thinking, I got up in the morning, didn't have to worry about my looks, my clothes, if I had packed lunch or not. I had to eat breakfast, then get in a cab to a design house where I basically sat and thought for eight hours, about fashion and its role in a third world country, and India's up and coming role in a capitalistic world. It was the perfect set up for me to leave the over stimulating US to sit and meditate about a largely superficial mode of income and why it applied to a country like India.
I spent three weeks working with women who had lost their husbands in the tsunami and had to learn to bring income in for themselves. I sat in their homes with them and held their babies while they made tiny dolls they were so proud of. I walked to the beach with them where their husbands had left one day to go fishing and never came back. I saw the construction of the homes that had just begun to be rebuilt, three years after the fact. I thought about Katrina. I thought about the impatience the Americans felt and the rage towards a government who guides blind eyes and listens with deaf ears.
I saw the patience in the Indian women's eyes. And the pride they felt from being given a chance to put their own lives in their hands. I couldn't thank them enough for letting me come to their homes. I couldn't help but feel embarrassed when they blushed and looked away as if my thanks was far too much to say.
I told the woman I worked for at the design studio that what she did was an ispiration and she laughed at me. It was not a modest laugh. It was pointed and dissmissive all at once. It made me feel sick about my perceptions of the human condition and I regretted thinking her company was something to be idolized, and started to reshape it as a simple byproduct of being part of a community. These are concepts that are so largely swept to the side and who am I to know if they are happening all the time or not, but when they are featured, it seems novel and new and exciting. Like helping someone else is a rare treat.
I left Iowa City happier. I left with a list of New Years resolutions
Patience, yes.
Become involved with Women Initating Social Change.
Habitat for Humanity
Execute a "successful" local campagin against pollution.
Less journaling, more novella-ing.
Amongst other self and esteem improvement tricks and tactics.
which are embarassing to me now, but what my resolutions were none the less. These were all made under the idea that I would reap life lessons from them thereby feeling better about my lot in life and what I was doing with it. I may have crossed a few of these things off my list, but I learned more than I could have ever dreamed by trying to help someone else. I needed to help myself first.
I came back to Iowa City happy, but with attachments. Even though I felt like I had rediscovered an ability to give a damn about something, it was quickly put to the test. That's the thing about this city. It's a place to come to make your mistakes and learn from them, but to hell with you if you want to be able to forget them. I wanted to escape again. The harder I tried to show people I had changed, the more they told me that I couldn't. I contemplated moving back to Council Bluffs or Omaha, I got to just before final stages of moving to Chicago, before I just had to give up and look Iowa City and all my mistakes in the eye.
I did. I made the decision to stay in Iowa City and to not leave before I knew exactly what my weaknesses were. Before I tried to escape again only to get lost in the same misconceptions and ridiculous situations. Before I had a chance to give myself a shot. I got a couple of jobs and started paying down my debt. Not long after, I moved in with Shawn and found more relief. I cut back on drinking. I made amends with some old friends and vowed to be more honest with myself and everyone else. I am still trying to be patient when I have trouble communicating something to someone. I also made the decision to cut people out of my life if they weren't good for me. It was surprisingly easy to let some people go. And for others, it was surprisingly easy to welcome them back into my life.
I'm here, two days before Christmas, three days before the 4th anniversary of a tsunami that left lives in ruins, thinking about the women I met almost a year ago. They said that they were thankful the tsunami came, without it they would never have known their strength and that the tsunami transferred its powers to them. It's taken me a long time to come to understand that type of vantage point. That what I view as a loss, could always have been viewed as a transfer of power. And it's up to me how I decide to use that. It's also important to remind myself that understanding that power and those perceptions, takes time and practice. Time and practice I'm going to devote 2009 to understanding.
I am happy, right now. I have a ways to go on communicating and that's okay with me. I do have a relationship I feel very solid in and some good friends who are big enough to get it. I have a steady job and a super peaceful home to live in. Things are the best they've been in awhile and it's just beyond me to focus on the negative right now, even though there are some attempts to try and get me to do so. It's not worth it to me at all. I've been there, and I don't want to go back.
Monday, December 22, 2008
i am definitely excited for 2009. did you know i'll be 27? and that 2 + 7 = 9?
it happened in 2008, 2+6=8, and 2007, and all the way back to 2002, and will go on until 2012, when I turn 30, and then you add 1 + 2 and that equals 3, and then in 2013 I'll be 31 and that's the reverse of the numbers, and duh adds to 4. And then in 2014 I will be 32 and then add 1 + 4 and that's 5... and continue. Aren't numbers FUN.
weekend was solid. nothing wrong there. hangouts before everyone leaves for christmas, tasty sushi dinners... there was a moment after getting off the charter bus from a work trip... i was struggling with getting the frozen car door to budge (using all of my weight) when i looked to my left out over scott blvd and saw the wind carry up a hillside wisp of snow and push (or would it be pull?) it across miles of field. it happened so fast it kind of reminded me of aurora borealis, where time travel is expended before you even realize what's happening. that was nice. my fingers were frozen from a 4 minutes walk across the parking lot and the spit in my mouth had started to remind me of days i used to suck on icicles as a kid, but it was a really brilliant night. everyone running around amazed that they were surviving in it. new years might actually be fun this year though i won't get my hopes up.
not feeling too expressive lately, especially for the public forum. maybe it's because i've been busy working on honing it on paper. always knocking on wood but i've narrowed my interests down to like four things i want to get to a level of perfecting.
my writing... though perfect will never happen.
my sewing... which won't be hard to at least improve in.
my photography... at least for the short term
keeping up to date with brain science and its wacky theories... i lost a lot of ground last year.
and then the endless conquest of communication in different forms.
the goals that are just at the horizon are to use any of these things in a useful way. i haven't yet figured out if that could be through a non-profit or what exactly but it's an idea i've been playing with for about a year now since india. that is the eventual goal. for all of this me me me me me i am aware that there is a world out there and i intend to do some stuff to join.enjoy it some day.
bah, time to pack up and go home.
it happened in 2008, 2+6=8, and 2007, and all the way back to 2002, and will go on until 2012, when I turn 30, and then you add 1 + 2 and that equals 3, and then in 2013 I'll be 31 and that's the reverse of the numbers, and duh adds to 4. And then in 2014 I will be 32 and then add 1 + 4 and that's 5... and continue. Aren't numbers FUN.
weekend was solid. nothing wrong there. hangouts before everyone leaves for christmas, tasty sushi dinners... there was a moment after getting off the charter bus from a work trip... i was struggling with getting the frozen car door to budge (using all of my weight) when i looked to my left out over scott blvd and saw the wind carry up a hillside wisp of snow and push (or would it be pull?) it across miles of field. it happened so fast it kind of reminded me of aurora borealis, where time travel is expended before you even realize what's happening. that was nice. my fingers were frozen from a 4 minutes walk across the parking lot and the spit in my mouth had started to remind me of days i used to suck on icicles as a kid, but it was a really brilliant night. everyone running around amazed that they were surviving in it. new years might actually be fun this year though i won't get my hopes up.
not feeling too expressive lately, especially for the public forum. maybe it's because i've been busy working on honing it on paper. always knocking on wood but i've narrowed my interests down to like four things i want to get to a level of perfecting.
my writing... though perfect will never happen.
my sewing... which won't be hard to at least improve in.
my photography... at least for the short term
keeping up to date with brain science and its wacky theories... i lost a lot of ground last year.
and then the endless conquest of communication in different forms.
the goals that are just at the horizon are to use any of these things in a useful way. i haven't yet figured out if that could be through a non-profit or what exactly but it's an idea i've been playing with for about a year now since india. that is the eventual goal. for all of this me me me me me i am aware that there is a world out there and i intend to do some stuff to join.enjoy it some day.
bah, time to pack up and go home.
Friday, December 19, 2008
The Far East. The Great North. The Wild West. The Great Bear Lake. Tristan da Cunha. The Mississippi Delta. Stromboli. The old houses of Charlottenburg. Albert Camus. The morning light. The child's eyes. The swim in the waterfall. The spots of the first drops of rain. The sun. The bread and wine. Hopping. Easter. The veins of leaves. The blowing grass. The color of stones. The pebbles on the stream's bed. The white tablecloth outdoors. The dream of the house in the house. The dear one asleep in the next room. The peaceful Sundays. The horizon. The light from the room in the garden. The night flight. Riding a bicycle with no hands. The beautiful stranger. My father. My mother. My wife. My child.
Thursday, December 18, 2008
driving with lane in coralville, he told me i could someday live there with a toyota camry living the dream. and i got teary eyed. i am taking a moment to be sad about my 26th winter in iowa. the summer ALWAYS tricks you! i HATE winter! this is why i always think i'm moving by springtime. and then when spring rolls around i'm just too exhausted to think about how to move. i just want better things to think about than if my feet are going to be soggy and or frozen if i walk six blocks.
bitch moan grumble.
i made candy striped cookie sticks. they are kind of a doughy disgrace right now so i'm going to throw them in the oven and then afterward drizzle chocolate all over the top so you can't see all of the mistakes. shrug. cookie exchange parties are cool and all, but i spent a morning sucking down cookie batter which led to an awful sugar high and crash that affected my impatience with driving in the snow and now and afternoon sulk fest about how lame my awful life is (i don't think my life is lame and awful). and then to top it all off i am going to eat about a dozen cookies of other peoples's's leading to a sugar coma that will most likely have me wanting to puke in my sleep. which will inevitably lead to sleep puke. which. i mean. is the worst.
it's also really funny when you get really excited about something and try really hard at it, then when you're finished you look at it and think, "this is what i was into a few hours ago? it is dumb." and yeah. it's just a bunch of rolled up cookie dough with pink stripes on it.
i think at this point my only option to cheer myself up is to dress myself up in silver like an aluminum christmas tree and demand people put presents under my skirt. tricky tricky!
bitch moan grumble.
i made candy striped cookie sticks. they are kind of a doughy disgrace right now so i'm going to throw them in the oven and then afterward drizzle chocolate all over the top so you can't see all of the mistakes. shrug. cookie exchange parties are cool and all, but i spent a morning sucking down cookie batter which led to an awful sugar high and crash that affected my impatience with driving in the snow and now and afternoon sulk fest about how lame my awful life is (i don't think my life is lame and awful). and then to top it all off i am going to eat about a dozen cookies of other peoples's's leading to a sugar coma that will most likely have me wanting to puke in my sleep. which will inevitably lead to sleep puke. which. i mean. is the worst.
it's also really funny when you get really excited about something and try really hard at it, then when you're finished you look at it and think, "this is what i was into a few hours ago? it is dumb." and yeah. it's just a bunch of rolled up cookie dough with pink stripes on it.
i think at this point my only option to cheer myself up is to dress myself up in silver like an aluminum christmas tree and demand people put presents under my skirt. tricky tricky!
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
A couple of weeks ago I e-mailed my dad for advice. Advice about prioritizing and advice about keeping a wandering mind in order. He's probably the most capable person I know, who at any point is balancing a few porjects at a time (I never "got" the concept that men couldn't be multi-taskers) He built the house I grew up in. Not only did he just build it, he did the wiring, the plumbing, he hand chose every thing in that house and if he didn't find what he wanted, like the cabinets, he cut and routered and stained the cabinets himself. So he built everything, fixed everything. Had the answer to everything. He fixed my cars. Taught me everything I know about them. Between him and mom mom (does her own upholstery, interior design, clothing, quilt fanatic) they should have had a DIY television empire by now... but... anyway. I have this BRAIN, you see, that inherited all these interests and the can do it yourself attitude and it *thinks* its going to get everything it wants to get done in this life, done. But has no idea how to organize it. And be perfect at it. Because I get side tracked on to another project and then... brain confetti.
So he e-mailed me back. With an excel spreadsheet, and some good advice and encouragement. And I'm all like aw. Nice. And so now. I have this spreadsheet to organize my ways of passing time.
So yesterday I spent just about the entire day reading through the Chris Marker text page. I read everything twice and sometimes three times. I also re-read Invitation to a Beheading and worked on forming a central theme to a photographic project I want to pursue by springtime. I reconnected with Cincinnatus and his struggle with emprisonment for "gnostical turpitude". I really liked a few lines from Marker's srtuggle with memory. I think I drew a parallel between the two at, "The youth who get together every weekend at Shinjuku obviously know that they are not on a launching pad toward real life; but they are life, to be eaten on the spot like fresh doughnuts." And perhaps the immediacy of being , whereas Cincinnatus can only draw inward in order to retain his dignity, using his intangible immagination in order to do so. I don't know why I'm bringing this up. Perhaps I'm trying to pull myself out of this oneiric state I seem to constantly find myself in, and bring it out into a tangible reality. Writing and pictures are tangible, but I don't know how they apply to my or anyone else's reality. (The existential struggle powers on!) But SERIOUSLY, the second that interaction with another human being starts to happen, I start using an entirely different part of my brain that abandons the personal interests I have. I want to change that.
I don't want to, but I kind of wonder about myself sometimes. I have better things to think about, but I'll just touch on the fact that I have been feeling this sort of tension between my vacant but now extended adolescence and now, how I'm just getting up tomorrow to do the same thing as I did last Thursday, or Wednesday, or any day I've got a pattern for, and how much I really like it. I like staying in. I like working on my projects. I just don't find it that particularly interesting for others. I remember being younger and being loud as hell and a complete smartass that shot off at everyone and didn't give a moment's thought to it. I gave it up somewhere along the line and now there is a quietness about me because I must not understand how to just have a normal conversation. I sat on the phone with my dad last night and didn't say much, until he finally told me "Life is what you make of it." I thanked him for reminding me of that.
So I have this excel spreadsheet. And it's got a small list on it. I have to read some books about being mindful. I am also a MAJOR dissociator (thank you, childhood)so I've been working on not checking out the moment I get bored/frustrated/tired.
Ok. All for now. Back to work.
So he e-mailed me back. With an excel spreadsheet, and some good advice and encouragement. And I'm all like aw. Nice. And so now. I have this spreadsheet to organize my ways of passing time.
So yesterday I spent just about the entire day reading through the Chris Marker text page. I read everything twice and sometimes three times. I also re-read Invitation to a Beheading and worked on forming a central theme to a photographic project I want to pursue by springtime. I reconnected with Cincinnatus and his struggle with emprisonment for "gnostical turpitude". I really liked a few lines from Marker's srtuggle with memory. I think I drew a parallel between the two at, "The youth who get together every weekend at Shinjuku obviously know that they are not on a launching pad toward real life; but they are life, to be eaten on the spot like fresh doughnuts." And perhaps the immediacy of being , whereas Cincinnatus can only draw inward in order to retain his dignity, using his intangible immagination in order to do so. I don't know why I'm bringing this up. Perhaps I'm trying to pull myself out of this oneiric state I seem to constantly find myself in, and bring it out into a tangible reality. Writing and pictures are tangible, but I don't know how they apply to my or anyone else's reality. (The existential struggle powers on!) But SERIOUSLY, the second that interaction with another human being starts to happen, I start using an entirely different part of my brain that abandons the personal interests I have. I want to change that.
I don't want to, but I kind of wonder about myself sometimes. I have better things to think about, but I'll just touch on the fact that I have been feeling this sort of tension between my vacant but now extended adolescence and now, how I'm just getting up tomorrow to do the same thing as I did last Thursday, or Wednesday, or any day I've got a pattern for, and how much I really like it. I like staying in. I like working on my projects. I just don't find it that particularly interesting for others. I remember being younger and being loud as hell and a complete smartass that shot off at everyone and didn't give a moment's thought to it. I gave it up somewhere along the line and now there is a quietness about me because I must not understand how to just have a normal conversation. I sat on the phone with my dad last night and didn't say much, until he finally told me "Life is what you make of it." I thanked him for reminding me of that.
So I have this excel spreadsheet. And it's got a small list on it. I have to read some books about being mindful. I am also a MAJOR dissociator (thank you, childhood)so I've been working on not checking out the moment I get bored/frustrated/tired.
Ok. All for now. Back to work.
Monday, December 15, 2008
'Some people are toxic. Avoid them.'
There was in the sixties a man named Fritz Perls who was a gestalt therapist. Gestalt therapy derives from art history, it proposes you must understand the ‘whole’ before you can understand the details. What you have to look at is the entire culture, the entire family and community and so on. Perls proposed that in all relationships people could be either toxic or nourishing towards one another. It is not necessarily true that the same person will be toxic or nourishing in every relationship, but the combination of any two people in a relationship produces toxic or nourishing consequences. And the important thing that I can tell you is that there is a test to determine whether someone is toxic or nourishing in your relationship with them. Here is the test: You have spent some time with this person, either you have a drink or go for dinner or you go to a ball game. It doesn’t matter very much but at the end of that time you observe whether you are more energised or less energised. Whether you are tired or whether you are exhilarated. If you are more tired then you have been poisoned. If you have more energy you have been nourished. The test is almost infallible and I suggest that you use it for the rest of your life.
- milton glaser
There was in the sixties a man named Fritz Perls who was a gestalt therapist. Gestalt therapy derives from art history, it proposes you must understand the ‘whole’ before you can understand the details. What you have to look at is the entire culture, the entire family and community and so on. Perls proposed that in all relationships people could be either toxic or nourishing towards one another. It is not necessarily true that the same person will be toxic or nourishing in every relationship, but the combination of any two people in a relationship produces toxic or nourishing consequences. And the important thing that I can tell you is that there is a test to determine whether someone is toxic or nourishing in your relationship with them. Here is the test: You have spent some time with this person, either you have a drink or go for dinner or you go to a ball game. It doesn’t matter very much but at the end of that time you observe whether you are more energised or less energised. Whether you are tired or whether you are exhilarated. If you are more tired then you have been poisoned. If you have more energy you have been nourished. The test is almost infallible and I suggest that you use it for the rest of your life.
- milton glaser
the other day at work my co-worker wondered out loud about her daughter, saying, "I wonder if she's going to be like you." meaning, not passionate about anything. dabble in everything. that was like WHOA. to me. i guess not a lot of people really know me or what i like or whatever. that's neither here nor there for me at this point but i am making a point of being more mindful. not so much that people get to "know me" or whatever the crap that even means. but more that i know what i'm doing and why, and not just reacting or making excuses.
debt will help you stop avoiding your problems by spending money excessively and drinking them or it away. it will also slow your brain down because you can't buy everything your whims suggest. i have put everything into low gear and am just working until the red is a lot more like black. meanwhile, my boring life is a boring routine of knitting, hanging out with friends, and the occasional glass of wine.
i am living quite possibly the simplest life that i have since i moved to iowa city and my brain is the calmest and happiest its been for this consecutively long amount of time. i have some pretty awesome friends and things have just been chill and normal and really nice. i actually have time to care about the world again. and some science. and some art. which. has been awhile.
debt will help you stop avoiding your problems by spending money excessively and drinking them or it away. it will also slow your brain down because you can't buy everything your whims suggest. i have put everything into low gear and am just working until the red is a lot more like black. meanwhile, my boring life is a boring routine of knitting, hanging out with friends, and the occasional glass of wine.
i am living quite possibly the simplest life that i have since i moved to iowa city and my brain is the calmest and happiest its been for this consecutively long amount of time. i have some pretty awesome friends and things have just been chill and normal and really nice. i actually have time to care about the world again. and some science. and some art. which. has been awhile.
Sunday, December 14, 2008
it's dumb that i am the person who starts thinking of what to give people one week before chirstmas. and i am the person who is like, "fuck, why can't the airplanes deliver this to me TOMORROW or perhaps LATER THIS AFTERNOON." so i am going to make all my gifts again. WHY. because i bought my mom a stupid piece of china with a deer on it today and got really sour. cheap. crap.
last week i made gingerbread snowflakes. i don't like gingerbread but they were cute.
i am going to make a gingerbread house tomorrow.
last week i made gingerbread snowflakes. i don't like gingerbread but they were cute.
i am going to make a gingerbread house tomorrow.
Friday, November 21, 2008
Friday, September 5, 2008
Friday, July 11, 2008
Today's special event:
July 11, 1767, is President John Quincy Adams's birthday.
July 11, 1767, is President John Quincy Adams's birthday.
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
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