Oct 23

The Climb Out

Charlie Sheen Sloth

If only we could all be as full of awesome as this sloth

So, it’s honesty time.

Shit got bad this weekend. Shit started going bad last week, but Sunday was the lowest point I’ve had in a long time.

The feeling of being a worthless fuck-up kept snowballing from Thursday. It was so huge, by Saturday I was one deep, barely contained panic attack. I fought it. I tried to ignore it. I tried to logic my way through it. I tried to fix it. I made plans.

By Sunday morning, I had a plan. I had my steps to help fix things, and I was finally ready to talk about it. Let’s say shit didn’t go well and leave it at that. Things kept piling on, and I was sure I wasn’t up to it. Everything I had done to try and fix things had failed. I felt alone. I had tried to reach out to a few people, but I’m no good at asking for help, and I didn’t feel right reaching out to the one person I knew would hear my call for help. She was busy, and I felt the need to fix things by myself. Sunday night, I found myself wishing I could be numb. I wanted to step into someone else for a little while.

For the first time in years, I thought about death. I wasn’t thinking about committing suicide, even at my lowest, but I thought about not existing. I thought about who would be hurt. I thought about what I would miss. I thought about how much I truly love life. I knew things would get better, and I just had to hang on.

I looked that shit right in the face, and I chose hope.

No matter what anyone says, I have that.

I choose to be happy, and I choose to fight.

Yesterday when I woke up, things seemed more manageable. I knew things would be okay. It was a gift.

I know it seems like an odd thing to say after everything I just wrote, but I am a happy person. Even at the darkest moment, I grabbed on to that happiness and hung on to it like a life raft. I almost didn’t write this because I don’t want to be thought of being a sad, negative person. I want to focus on my happy and my light. But, I have these fights. They are part of who I am.

Instead of feeling weak or embarrassed because I got depressed and like I’m somehow broken, I’ve decided to feel strong and bright because I kept my hope, and I kept my fight. I’ve decided to take pride in choosing hope. I’m a happy, positive person, even at my darkest.

Things get better, always, if you hang on long enough.

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Oct 18

One of Those Days

Mustache me

I feel this awkward inside right now

I think because I’m sick with whatever bug is going around (seriously, I’m beginning to think I WILL be patient zero for the plague that wipes out the world), and it is that time of year where I get depressed, I’m having one of those days. I feel ugly, useless, whiny, and like a waste of people. I start to doubt my dreams and believe maybe I should give up and be more realistic. I feel like anyone who cares about me or thinks I’m special is going to peek in and see that I’m a fraud.

Honestly, I feel kind of worthless. Its hard to admit, but it is exactly how I feel right now. And I know it is just a short term thing. I will start to get over it very soon. In the words of the venerable Bloggess: depression lies. It just sucks right now. I’ve went through it much worse than right now. I think most people around me wouldn’t even guess I was having these emotions. I could continue to fake it, and no one would be the wiser. In fact, that would probably be the smart thing to do. We all know my relationship with the smart thing.

It’s all silly. I know I’m smart, friendly, kind, loving, funny, and, yes, beautiful in my own goofy way. I know it is chemicals in my brain flipping out. I know I will cry a little bit after I finish writing this, and then I will refocus on one of the things I’ve got going on and continue to claw out of this crap.

I have a wonderful life filled with love and happiness. I’m lucky to have so many people who take me as is. Loving is easy; learning to be loved is the hard part. Feeling worthy of the praise and affection of those who care about you is difficult. Like I said, I always feel like a fraud. I can’t be that person people tell me I am: you guys can’t possibly be seeing the real me. Most of my friends have stuck with me for years now, through many incarnations of Selina, which is plenty of time to see the real me. You’ve stuck around, so it must mean I’m not a fraud.

I don’t know. I need a nap and a night of writing. Things will be better. They always are after I start writing about them.

Thank you guys for being here with me.

Pretty

When you feel ugly, it helps to see yourself through the eyes of someone who loves you and thinks you are gorgeous. Tina does this for me.

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Oct 16

Should Do and Are Doing are Often Two Different Things

Please Don't Flash the Octopus

Octopi are the prudes of the ocean. Dolphins are all like “tits or GTFO.”

I find my amusement where I can.

 

I feel like I have been a whiny sack of whine on here lately. I would pretend I haven’t been, but I kinda have been.

Last week I was just not doing it. I don’t know what my issue is, but it just wasn’t happening. I would think about writing a blog and cringe. Sometimes, I just don’t feel interesting or funny or even mildly entertaining. I sure as shit haven’t felt poignant or inspirational. Mostly, I’ve felt hibernation-y. I normally get really bad depression this time of year, but it has been held off by a magical combination of medicine, birth control (I use it to regulate my hormones. Eat a dick, Rush Limbaugh.), and pure unadulterated happiness and swings of crazy caused by some sexy manbeast. I think the little rut I’ve been in with my writing is this years incarnation of my seasonal crazy crap.  I’ll put on my big girl panties and get back into it.  (Like the title says, should do and are doing do not always mean the same thing.) I have a book to write and a world to change.

I probably shouldn’t admit so readily that I believe I am going to change the world. I just happen to believe anyone can change the world. We might not make huge waves we can see in the news, but we have the ability to change the world in a billion small ways every day. These small things are just as important as the big things.

People matter. Happiness matters. Sometimes we look down on things which exist for no other reason to make people happy. We think making people happy is not enough. We feel like everything and everyone must do something, must be productive.  Making someone happy is doing something valuable. Doing small things to be happy is a productive pursuit.

Being happy is valuable. Making other people happy is a valuable pursuit. If you can make people around you smile and laugh, you’ve changed the world. It might only be a little bit, but that little bit does matter. If you can help people around you feel less alone, scared, or hurt, you’ve changed the world. Helping one person is changing the world. It isn’t grandiose or likely to get us remembered by history, but it is important.

I have to remember that myself sometimes.

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Oct 11

Thoughtful Consideration is for the Birds

I’m going to be completely honest with you guys: Tuesday my give a shit was damn near broke. I had a billion tiny things to do, and my sinuses and allergies were kicking my ass too bad to do them with any flare. And, if I were really honest, I would admit to myself, missing a blog day wasn’t world ending, especially since it would have been a little whiny one. If things go as planned and I’m lucky, I won’t be writing a blog Saturday either.

On that note:

Gnome with a gun

I present you a bad ass mother of a lawn gnome. I bet nobody steals this guy.

I realized I’m sort of impetuous (awesome word). I was just typing out the words “I used to be very cautious and thought about every decision and agonized about every choice,” but I realized that was some bullshit I made up in my mind. I’ve always been the type to rush full force into things.

I believe thought and consideration are good. I think weighing your options is smart. But I think there it can cause entropy and fear of action. I think somewhere a long the way I developed a fear of fear. I never want to not do something because I’m afraid of it. It has led to me putting myself into some strange situations. It is also responsible for most of the forward action in my life. That fear of fear drives me to be who I want to be.

Also, at a young age, I realize that I will make mistakes.  I watch people petrified by fear of doing the wrong thing.  I want to sit with them and assure them they are going to fuck up. Everyone fucks up. Fucking up is not the end of the world. You learn, adapt, and try not to mess up in that particular way again.

Mind you, I’m not suggesting we rush willy-nilly through life without ever contemplating our actions. That is the sort of thing those YOLO douches promote. I’m saying at some point in time you have to put thought and ideas into action (one of my personal failings) and realizing some decisions don’t need to be agonized over. Never again will I stress out over something in a video game. It’s like falling in love; the worst thing that happens is you end up with a broken heart (if you make good decisions about other things) and the best thing is you end up with someone wonderful.

I don’t even know what I’m talking about anymore… You guys know what I mean.

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Oct 06

Either/Or

Rat playing the pipes

Something about the song of my people.

I’m going to apologize for being so heinously boring lately. Things have been all wacky like, but in a good way.  I’ve also come to understand I am far more interesting when I write angry blogs over happy blogs. I’m generally happy and too tired to brew up a healthy head of self-righteous steam.

Look at it this way though: in a month the political bullshit should calm down some. I promise you I will prolly have some awesome rants about what happens between now and then, but soon the politicians will stop talking to us and go back to talking to each other, and we can forget what kind of out of touch ninnies run our country.

I think it is imperative for the country’s homeostasis that our citizens forget that politicians have no clue. When there are big contentious elections like this one, all of the politicians feel the needs to speak, and we suffer because we realize these are the people who are running our country. For some of us, it is even more upsetting to know our fellow Americans are willing to vote for someone who calls evolution “lies straight from the pit of hell” along with “legitimate rape” (both folks serve on science subcommittees, AWESOME) and one Arkansas state politician who called slavery a blessing in disguise.

Anyway, soon the election will be over. The dust will settle, and politicians will go back to their business of doing whatever it is they do, and we can become good little consumers again. We will regain our homeostasis and go back to being pissed about Facebook changes and reality television. (I know that sounded snide and pretentious, and it was a little of both, but I am the Facebook a lot and I watch some reality television like everyone else, so I was being snide and pretentious about myself, too.

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Oct 04

So… Tired….

Here’s the thing; my life is wonderful. My life is so wonderful I actually gross myself out with my happiness sometimes. I’ll take it.

It’s been about a month since I have slept on a regular pattern, and at least several weeks when I did something more than nap. Writing and allergies have seriously whipped my behind. I’m done with my third draft of my novella, and I have sent it out to several people to read. Maybe, I can rest. I have decided to take a few nights of guilt free video gaming and hopefully lots of sleep.

Maybe soon, I will get back to writing enjoyable blogs. We can hope.

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Oct 02

Bleary

So, I’ve been busy working on my third draft of my novella, and I haven’t been sleeping much. Okay, I have been sleeping same amount as normal but in two hour segments. My days are beginning to blend together; normal writing frenzy stuff.

I know I’m supposed to be pouring out my soul on these electronic pages, but mostly my soul wants to be simultaneously napping and writing. My soul is an overachiever trapped in an underachievers body. They say that sort of angst and conflict is good for my creative forces. Mostly, my soul loses out because it is smaller than my body and less powerful than my deep abiding laziness.  So instead of a real blog, I am going to post some funny pictures of animals instead.

A friend’s mom posted this on her Facebook, and I felt the need to download it to my desktop. So, For a few months I’ve had a picture of a dead badger on my desktop. I’m not analyzing what that says about me.

cranky penguin

This me on Sunday. I was all kinds of cranky.

food coma

An accurate depiction of my random mini-comas.

Oh the horror

Holy shiv, dood, warn me before you let one rip like that. My mouth was open and everything.

Red Hot Mess

I think this is a human. Maybe?

Okay, now to cook a meal then take a nap.

 

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Sep 30

I Really Don’t Mean To

My dad called me a radical feminist today. He was mostly joking.

I have been trying so hard not to feminist rant. I really don’t want to be a “radical” anything. I don’t want to constantly feel like I’m pointing at things and crying, “Not right!” I don’t want to be any of those things people sling around when someone stands up for women’s rights, like a killjoy, angry bitch, or oversensitive feminazi.

But

I also don’t want to live in a world where women are called bitches for not being pleased as pie when any leach hits on her. I don’t want to live in a country where people who run for high political office can say things like “legitimate rape” or spew completely erroneous biological bullshit to support their anti-woman policies or are willing to tell a woman she has to die instead of aborting a doomed pregnancy.

I want to live in a country with gender roles and identities that are much less janked the hell up.

I get pissed off about the female issues because I see them. I get pissed off because I didn’t see them as issues before, and when I grow to see how they are issues, I feel a new level of betrayal. I thought the Republican”War on Women” was a bunch of political grandstanding until I started paying attention. I rolled my eyes at campaigns to end street harassment, until I started thinking about it. I would read an article about the small ways we degrade women and devalue them, and I would think of it as reactionary crap until I paid attention.

Here is the truth of it: any governmental restrictions on a woman’s right to contraception is an attack on her freedoms. It is an attempt to take away a woman’s control of her own body. It is a tried and true historical tactic for keeping women disenfranchised. (By the way, I love it when men say “if a woman doesn’t want to get pregnant, she shouldn’t have sex.” I find it charming, enlightened, and wonderful. It takes all of the responsibility for pregnancy away from men.)

Women have the right to be treated with respect while walking down the streets. We have the right to tell a man who is hitting on us we aren’t interested without being verbally assaulted. We aren’t being bitches when men are “harmlessly flirting” with us, and we want it to stop. If a woman indicates she is uninterested in your advances, banter, compliments, leers, or catcalls, you should have to stop.

My wonderful friend Kathleen linked me this Ted Talk:

The thing is, we really do associate a lot of what we consider female with weakness and inferiority. This pisses me off. I don’t feel like I should have to expand on why it does. Women are different from men, but we sure as hell aren’t weak or inferior.

I don’t want to be angry. I don’t. I want it to change. I want us to teach our girls and our boys to be better. Our problem doesn’t stop with the female half of society. Men have some sad and terrible gender expectations on them. We can’t fix one without fixing the other. I want to be in a world were people can be who they are without bullshit gender training.

I want to have no reason to rant.

 

(Also, I can’t be the only one stunned and saddened that there is controversy of contraception in 2012. It is like some twilight zone crap.)

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Sep 27

The Nature of Magic

Grains of sand magnified

This is sand. It leaves me filled with wonder.

I believe in magic. I don’t mean illusions or parlor tricks, or Harry Potter. I mean wonder.

I live in a world of stories and images, real and imagined. My life is a collection of moments of intense emotion, good and bad. I have boring normal times, like everyone else. Actually, I bet I have a life filled with more mundane than most people. I think it helps me see the beautiful vivid times in my life.

I am truly, deeply lucky.

I believe we all need magic, or wonder. I think it is like faith. We turn to science or religion to help us fill our need for wonder or imagination. I’m not saying this is bad. I think exploring other planets and looking at the tiniest particles of earth is a fantastic expression of wonder. I also think that religion, unless taken to the point of harming others, can fulfill a need basic to every human. I think they fight and are afraid of each other, but I believe there is room in the world for both. But the magic and wonder I am talking about isn’t about science or dogma, it is something similar but separate.

Magic is looking up at the play of light and dark in the trees, or  a cancer survivor giving his lottery winnings to charity or a woman looking at the nastiest part of the internet and showing it love and beauty. Magic is the feel of the Viking’s arm hair and soft skin and hard muscle all under my fingertips at once. It is something nothing like me and distinctly him, and the memory is so vivid and sweet it is almost painful to think of. Magic is those small, unexpected things that move us.

Magic is real and all a matter of perspective. Maybe, if I am really lucky as a writer, I will get to show the world some magic.

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Sep 25

Product of My Surroundings

Picture is unrelated

Saturday I came home from Tina’s house. Tina was kind enough to pretend she wasn’t happy to be rid of me, and my mom managed not to tell me she was happy I was home because the floor needed to be vacuumed. I know the score, though, but I am grateful for the ruses.

My Tina-cation has paid off already. I’ve started my third draft. I knocked out the first 20 pages last night.  I’m finding strange little difficulties, like reading my novella out loud while listening to music. If my focus slips a bit, I will start singing the songs on Spotify instead of reading the words, and I get all lost. If I don’t have music on, I totally lose focus in about three sentences. I’m convinced if I didn’t have focus issues, I would rule the world.

Speaking of things that will get me put on even more government watch lists, I went shooting for the first time Sunday. I know, I know. All good dirty hippies are supposed to hate guns. I’ve never been a good hippie. I like showering too much.

Anyway, my goal was to be less afraid of guns. I had this strange terror I would manage to accidentally kill everyone around me simply by picking up a gun. If you take in to consideration I broke my ankle walking from my kitchen to my living room, it doesn’t seem so far fetched. Some of the people around me love guns, though, and I felt it was far more dangerous for me to be ignorant and scared.  I decided to bite the bullet (har har gun pun) and strongly encourage my dad to teach me about guns. Saturday night, he taught me about the guns we would be firing and gun safety, and Sunday we went to a range.

I’m not going to lie, I was terrified. I am far too accident prone and flighty to be trusted with an instrument of death. We got into the lanes, and I spent the first five minutes jumping at every single BOOM. There was a woman watching us through a window, and she laughed at me. Dad shot the first couple of clips, and I slowly calmed down.

Finally, it was my turn. The first gun up was a tiny thing. I approached it like I would somehow look at it wrong and make it go off. I picked it up gingerly and slowly loaded the clip, cocked it, took aim (badly), and squeezed the trigger. The motherfucking hammer bit my thumb, and that gun and I became friends. With the next clip, my aim got even better. I had so much fun, even with the other guns I was bad with.

After we were done, I felt like I do after I bake; focused, centered, and exhilarated. I had no choice but to pay full attention to what I was doing. I was fully present. I spend most of my life with at least a small part of my mind elsewhere, thinking of other things, and it was so strange to spend so much time fully focused on my actions and my surroundings. Now, I just have to pester the Viking to take me again soon.

Now, if I could just get my sleep “schedule” back under control. I had a wonderful exciting two weeks, but this daylight crap is overrated.

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