Today I Breathe

Today I am taking the time. Today I am taking the time to get some things off my chest so I may breathe a little deeper, and take steps forward. Some of this will be new, some of it repeated, all of it necessary. Today I am taking my own advice. Today I must breathe deeply and cherish all the parts; even the broken ones. Lately tiny little slivers – not wood slivers, but slivers like shards of glass… where they half crack, half crumble away from you – have been falling away from me, leaving me a little thinner, a little more misshapen, but still solid. I feel a little crumpled and a little flattened. But I have committed myself to trying my hardest to take the hollow and the sunken things, absorb them as they are, which is after all so organic and human, and release them into the universe. I still don’t entirely agree with the phrase “You are only as happy as you make up your mind to be,” but I do believe that there are some grains of truth to it. I want always to try to overcome the things that are upsetting me. Sometimes that doesn’t work and I am still sad, and that’s okay.

Today I am going to write in my gratitude journal, which I’ve been neglecting… even when I had more things to be grateful for. Today I am grateful for:

1. Alex, one of my best friends. He is awesome and I miss him. We used to hang out all the time and he’s a blast. He and I decided to go to a Halloween concert together and went shopping for costumes. I had so much fun and it put me in a much better mood from the day before. We have made plans to hang out more now that we are both totally single and don’t have other people to distract us from theme dinners and Chris Tucker impressions.
2. Not stressing too bad about the assignment I turned in late, despite the two whole nights of sacrificed sleep.
3. Knitted scarves.
Today I breathe anew and am thinking about new photo projects and getting homework done on time and dragonflies and zucchini bread. Soon will come leaf collages and wild rice soup and black and white tobogganing shots.

Here is a shot I took that inspired the series I’m working on now: Flesh and Shadow.

“I will act now. I will act now. I will act now. Henceforth, I will repeat these words each hour, each day, every day, until the words become as much a habit as my breathing and the action which follows becomes as instinctive as the blinking of my eyelids. With these words I can condition my mind to perform every action necessary for my success. I will act now. I will repeat these words again and again and again. I will walk where failures fear to walk. I will work when failures seek rest. I will act now for now is all I have. Tomorrow is the day reserved for the labor of the lazy. I am not lazy. Tomorrow is the day when the failure will succeed. I am not a failure. I will act now. Success will not wait. If I delay, success will become wed to another and lost to me forever. This is the time. This is the place. I am the person.”
--Og Mandino

Music in Motion

Here are a few shots from a series I called "Music in Motion." More to come from my newest project "Flesh and Shadow."
More about my life sometime soon as well. Until then, breathe deeply, cherish all the parts, even the broken ones, and walk through the leaves.

"Autumn is a second spring, when every leaf is a flower."
--Albert Camus

how i miss your ranting, do you miss my all time lows?

The last few days have been a rather crumpled combination of stress and delight. I have my things to worry about lately. I don’t have a place to live this semester, I got laid off from my job (the Geog/Soc Department job) and, while I am financially stable, I didn’t make the amount of money I had hoped this summer. Bigger than this, I am scared of what is to come. It seems like every day there is something that reminds me how unprepared for what awaits me after I graduate. Someone will ask me about my plans or I will talk to my friends who are all figuring out their next steps… anything really. It fills the pit of my stomach with a solid, heavy feeling
However, despite these worries tugging at the corners of my brain, for once I am actually actively doing what I can to manage things. That doesn’t mean they’ve gotten any better, but I do feel more calm and collected about it that I usually am. There have been no tears and no days spend holed up in my bed wrestling the sheets and my angst, hoping that if I don’t start the day, time will stand still. I have been productive and content. Still aware that I am trying to juggle more than I am comfortable with, but I am somehow inspired and exhilarated with the challenge. I’m not sure how long this will last, but I hope I have some steady stamina this time round.

I have been spending my last weeks in Atlanta hanging out with Julie, Victor, and Monique, occasionally Marcie, their wonderful, passionate, radiant neighbor. I have been reading, not as much as I’d like to, but reading none the less. A week or so ago I finished the scarf I’ve been knitting. I’ve never finished knitting anything before. I only just start things and unravel them whenever I dropped a stitch because I am a crippling perfectionist. But this time, I decided to invest some money on a bigger set of needles, soft, chunky, multicolored yarn (things that scare me), and start again. I did unravel it a few times, but once, when I messed up, I realized I was too far along to stop now. The scarf is about 4 or 5 feet long and I didn’t make a single other mistake the whole way though after the one. Since I’ve never finished anything before, I’d never learned to cast off. I looked it up in my knitting book, practiced on some other yarn, and voila! I am indescribably happy that I finished something I’d never been able to do before. And because of the chunky yarn, you hardly notice the one mistake. Now that it’s done, I am glad it’s there. I was originally going to send it to Nathan, as it’s winter in NZ, but I might have to keep it for myself. I must cherish these small victories.

Nights are the time when I am most awake and get thing done. I watch a little TV in the placid company of J and V and then J goes to bed. I like the small window Victor and I have at night to laugh at comedy shows, scratch our imaginary beards at historical shows, and sit open-mouthed in wonder at the science and nature shows. Other times we don’t even watch TV but just sit and talk about life. Not many people want to do this with me, and I’m grateful to be allowed that view. It has made me see him in a whole new light. I’ve always felt that I’ve known him, but more as an extension of Julie than his own separate being until now. I am glad to say that he is a fun, energetic, hilarious, and brilliant person; a friend on his own. J is lucky to have him in her life, and so am I. After he pads off to sleep I get my reading, writing, cleaning, list-making, and (little) journaling done.

I’ve been listening to a lot of music lately – I drop in and out of this habit. Recently it’s been a combination of Metric, Dylan, Modest Mouse, The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, The Pixies, and the soundtrack of Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?

I’ve also been completely into photography again. Thankfully, this phase has been a long one. I have been assigned the task of taking photographs of the staff at work for the website redesign. On top of this, and more fun, is that I have to go to different restaurant clients of theirs and photograph the food and the establishment (again, for the website). I was very nervous about it at first, but now my fingers itch to press the shutter and I am crawling over and under things, twisting and climbing to get the best shot. It’s made me think a lot about photography and what I’d like to learn/purchase. I want to get more into street photography. I am always too timid to take photos of strangers, fearing they might notice and a. perhaps ruin the shot, and b. Extract my kidneys for eerily photographing their kids at the playground. I also want to learn how to make better diptychs. I imagine learning this would be embarrassingly easy, but I am unabashedly (okay, a little abashedly) ignant. If you have any suggestions, please let me know. I subscribed to photojojo and am excited for what I can learn from this.

Here are a few of my favorites from One Midtown Kitchen.

Jitterbugging Superhero

I often find myself reiterating points in an argument several times, which no one likes. I could do without repeating slightly modified versions of my main point multiple times in a short period, and you certainly don’t want to hear me prattle on more than necessary… or perhaps at all. I know that the reason I do this is my intense apprehension that people will miss the point I’m trying to make and assume my contention is for the reason that might be most typical for the average person. I bring this up because last night I was talking to N and he said a couple things that miffed me. I was not angry, I just said that what he was doing was a pet peeve of mine and that it rubbed me the wrong way. We then proceeded to circle the drain with the “I didn’t mean to make you mad” and “I don’t want to fight with you” and “I don’t understand what I did wrong.” Really? Didn’t I just say I wasn’t mad? We’re fighting? I was unaware. I just told you what you did that bothered me. Long story short, my having to repeat myself over and over to ensure that I was understood and my attempt to assure him that I wasn’t mad, ended up making me more annoyed than the original offense. It’s an exhausting dance, and as much as I dig dance, I will always try to refuse this one.

The whole bit ended at about 1:30am, at which point I fell asleep and dreamt that the two of us lived on some farm/refuge for African animals/superhero headquarters/dumping ground for old classic cars. Anyway, we went to a museum in a huff about some other fight and the museum got taken over my Asian zombie/alien things that attacked us with killer bees and we had to begrudgingly save the day by turning into Wall-E looking robots and trapping them in a glass box with the cunning use of tribal masks from the museum.

I blame this dream plot on a. the”fight”, b. the fact that I watched Fast and Furious yesterday, and c. that Men In Black (With a Wall-E commercial or two thrown in) was playing as background noise to said “fight.” Not sure what accounts for the nationality of the villains, but… Oh well.

On a lighter note, some swingin’ 30s music was playing in the elevator at work this morning and I was caught unabashedly jitterbugging by a severe-looking woman with a lace collar and a tight bun. And what floor was that for you, Mrs. VanUppity?

--Katie “swing your partner” H., professional superhero.

Bob Dylan Thanksgiving

Went to see Joan Baez perform at the Botanical Gardens last night. It was pretty great. That woman does not age. She still has that amazing voice, too. She is funnier than I thought she’d be. I liked that. She did a mixture of old and new stuff that made me kick myself for leaving Positively 4th Street at home instead of bringing it here to finish. She also did a hilariously accurate impression of Bob Dylan during her cover of “Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright” that made me snort water up my nose. I went with B, L, and their daughter Eva. She is sweet and I like her a lot. She just got back from Chicago where she saw Dylan and others play. Envious as I may be I am reminded of when Bob Dylan’s parents moved in near mine and we went over there to welcome them with a cake or something. Mr. and Mrs. Zimmerman asked me if I would pick Bob up from the airport in Mpls as he was coming home for Thanksgiving. I said yes obviously (despite my wondering as to why Bob Dylan didn’t have someone to pick his star-studded ass up from the airport and needed to call the rents) and picked him up. So grateful were his parents (apparently I had gone far out of my way), I was invited to their family Thanksgiving dinner which ended up consisting strictly of heaping servings of fried chicken and mashed potatoes. Odd, but delicious. Afterward, Bob asked me to show him the bars in Durand and when I said I wasn’t much of a drinker and wasn’t really familiar with the bars in town, he sort of did the “Come ooonnn” and punched me in the arm until I fell on the floor. Such a fool was I, thinking I could refuse Bob Dylan. Yes, I lead a very posh, insane dream life. I woke up from that in a full squint-frown combo.

Pointless fact about me #58:

I am a list maker. I have a ridiculous amount of lists. I have the normal-people lists going (grocery store list, standard “to do” list, Christmas list, things-to-do-for-work- lists – that one is normal, right?) but then I also have an obscene overabundance of other lists about things that no one needs lists for. Things no one thinks that much about. Things no one cares about… not even me in some cases. I have a whole notebook dedicated to lists. It is not small. And almost out of pages, come to think of it.

Here is a list of some of the lists I am keeping at the moment (Ahh! The redundancy is delicious!)

1. Things that should go on my résumé (this is updated with time). Sub-column of this list: Things that I’d like to do that would be beneficial on my résumé (volunteering, classes, organizations, etc.).

2. Things that I need to buy in the short term. Subcategories to that list include: Food, clothing, transportation, office supplies, cleaning supplies, and miscellaneous.

3. Things to save up for in the long term. Similar subcategories exist for this list.

4. Songs that I plan to buy/download/steal from my friends.

5. Movies I want to see.

6. Things to remember to do at various points in the day. Example: My “Morning list” includes “Re-set alarm if needed. Make bed. Get dressed. Eat breakfast. Take vitamin. Brush teeth. Floss Teeth. Rinse with mouthwash. Make lunch for work. Set out dinner if needed." Very odd. This one is usually taped to my bathroom mirror*.

7. Places I have gone/lived.

8. Places I want to go/live. Places I plan to travel to often have a separate list of things I have researched to do, places to stay there, etc.

9. Books to read.

10. Books I have read.

11. Potential things to do/topics to cover this year for the Union of Democratic Progressives (UDP).

12. Administrative things I need to do before graduating.

13. Bills I need to pay, with dates and amounts.

14. Recipes to try

15. Potential meals to make this week**.

16. Calls I need to make and what they’re regarding.

17. Things I like.

18. Things I don’t like.

19. To Do for work.

20. To Do for homework (not in circulation now, but will be in fall).

21. Teachers that I could ask for recommendations

22. My previous workplaces and the contact information (in case of any drop of the hat job applications).

23. Potential places to live this fall (It looks like I will still be homeless come Sept. 2nd).

24. Questions to ask the landlords when they call back.

25. Photos to put on a CD to send to Nathan.

26. People to write letters to.

27. Websites to check out in researching my INTS seminar paper topic.

I also have another list book that is devoted to Big Picture lists (Things to do in my lifetime, what I want to happen when I die, what to keep in mind when buying a house – if that ever happens).

*Odd quirk: Whenever I have a list that repeats the same word over and over in the list, I cannot use the little “ symbol that signifies word repetition. I must write it all out so that it looks uniform.

**It really bothers me when lists that are related to each other (like the “recipes to try” and the “meals to plan for the week”) are not next to each other in the book. I often have to rip out a page and rewrite it next to the other. This (among other perfectionist-related ticks of mine) makes for both a waste of paper and my unending guilt over the waste of paper.

Other thing that's been on my mind of late: What up with people thinking that hooking up with people of the same sex doesn't count as cheating if hooking up with someone of the opposite sex does? I've been hearing a lot of the "if I caught my boyfriend/girlfriend cheating I would be SO pissed" in conjunction with the "oh yeah, the other night I made out with this other chick in the bathroom" or "my boyfriend and I decided that I should just hook up with girls when he's out of town" lately. What the deuce, people?!?! If making out (or whatever form of "hookup") would be unacceptable with someone with different junk, what makes same sex romping okay in the rule book? Is it seriously only people of the alternate sexualities that have this line of thinking? I say, unless it is previously talked about and confirmed with your partner that relations (HATE that word) with other people is okay, you are breaking some rules, folks. I think it undermines alternate sexuality relationships by insinuating that they "don't count." If you're not down with your sig. other getting down with anyone but you, quit treating homosexual hookups like some flippant cocktail party stunt like a keg stand or body shots that "everyone tries, but isn't the norm." And that, ladies and gentleman, is what grinds my gears.

Well, that’s going to do it for all of us here at Channel 4 News. You stay classy San Diego. I’m Ron Burgundy?

Favorites from today

1. Mushrooms stumbled upon at the side of the road.
2. Me shooting kiwis (technically from Friday).
3. Peppers at Whole Foods

Zydeco Edamame Mustache

Greetings anyone who reads this (one... two people?)

Just a few things that have been on my mind of late:

1. Upon leaving the Midwest, I basically excommunicated my radio from the car as I get increasingly frustrated trying to keep up with the ever-changing radio stations along the way to places. I have other things to do people, I mean really! That is a flat out lie. I have nothing else to do. Anyway, when I left, the radio was set to The Current. After arriving in Atlanta I turned the radio back on and 89.3, in Atlanta, appears to translate into some sort of zydeco tribute station. I rather liked it and decided to keep it there. I cannot understand about a third of what the deejays are saying, but I like it just the same.

2. I know many have heard me complain about this, but why can't I grow a beard already? I mean come on! Why should my gender unapologetically bar me from enjoying the wonders of facial hair? Truth be told, I'm quite grateful for this in some sense. On the one hand, I want to be able sprout a mouth mullet (eww... too far), but it is a sort of go for gold deal. Me saying I wish I had a beard is not a cosmic free pass for the fates to allow me a low hair quota so I and every pubescent boy on the planet can compare our sparse chin gardens. I would love to be able to start some sort of "mustache of the month" affair. One week handlebar, one week fu manchu... Why do more men not get in on this? Incidentally, in considering my mustache/beard of the week idea, I stumbled upon this mustache chart. Awesome. Some favorites of mine include: the "Dali," the "Chin Curtain," and the "Super Mario." Also, what's with the difference between the "Mutton Chops" and the "Friendly Mutton Chops"?

3. Why does the Google search for "vagabondage" not yield the hilarious hobo/whips-and-leather combination I envisioned it to?

4. I find myself winded and highly fidgety when I spring for the occasional afternoon cup of coffee. I should expect this, as my caffeine intake would measure a mere 2.0 or less on the richter scale if it could be measured by that means. So, during the rare instances in which I consume it, I feel my pulse quicken and my leg jerk. I always regret it and I need to Just Say No during the coffee run. I must find something to keep my face from plummeting into the computer in a shower of dislocated keys and pita bread crumbs on the tired days.

5. I could spend hours perusing urban dictionary. Today I found this gem. May I please note the following: a. Gross. b. What up with the sample sentence? c. Whoever has or plans to purchase a mug with that definition on it, why aren't we friends? The best part of waking up is disturbing-sexual-positions on your cup! Sorry Folgers.

6. Edamame is delicious. We are about to feast on a pile? bundle? heap? of endamame (or whatever the singular form is) and, vehicle of sea salt though it may be, I am all about that vehicle. Time to joyride.

--The Mustache Queen