Very pleased to meet you, New Year, very pleased indeed.
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Camp Mighty Recap: The Disclaimer
19 NovWOW. It’s true, I am still in full-on wowzer mode from Camp Mighty and as I know do, I am also verrrry slow to process. Much like a Thanksgiving turkey, I need to respect the time it takes to roast in all the goodness and that means keeping the oven door shut!
I met incredibly talented women (and a few mens!) at all stages and ranges of their creative power and potential. I listened to some very smart and successful people and companies tell their stories. I swanned around (and some did quite literally) the gorgeous Ace Hotel in Palm Springs. I wore sequins. And a bikini. I laughed my ass off. And shocking no one who knows me/knows me, I cried. Also, I might have gotten a little emo-blurty and possibly gave bad impressions. Oops.
In my current moment of reflection, I am hearing that old bastard Shame, singing his lament to the losers, and it’s loud and incessant and it’s drowning out the superawesome goodness. I will get there, and demand that he turn the volume down. That’s not the issue. It’s just that this is my process, and like Jenny Lawson told us on Saturday morning when describing her need to take a month off mid-book tour due to some very relatable shall I call them, FEELINGS, when that happens you just have to let yourself be where you need to be, trusting that this too shall pass. This is especially important when you feel like a crazy, loudtalker loser and everyone else is fantastic. Even though you know it’s not true.
Since I tend to rely heavily on humor to mask the fear of rejection keep serious things like my extreme vulnerability light and funny, I give you the cinematic version of how I see my relationship to the superawesome women of Camp Mighty.
Dear Mike from Swingers, don’t ever change. You’re so money and you don’t even know it.
Warm Fuzzies For Water
1 Nov
I love mail.
Something I have been trying to do for myself is to be a more disciplined goal setter and maker. I am incredibly lazy and distractible and I have reached epic heights of sloth. The latter is due to a combination of busy-ness and exhaustion, and a dash of isolating thrown in too. I started 2012 off with some good intentions for goals to attain in health, emotion and spirit, finance, intellect, creativity, love and adventure.
And then one of my dogs died. On January 9th.
And then my grandmother died. On February 11th.
And then it was March. I don’t like March. (Except for St. Patrick’s Day, but copious amounts of Guinness has not failed to temporarily solve what ails me, pretty much ever.)
And then, I did not write about any of these things even though I wanted to, but I succumbed to the malaise.
Now it is November, and I realize that I have pressed on this year, doing things and not doing anything and having fun and hiding out and working hard and having some successes and some stresses, but mostly I have never been able to shake that feeling of disarray and disorder from just after getting home from my grandmother’s funeral. And double mostly, I am tired of living my life this way when I do have so much I want to do, see, be and enjoy.
Enter Camp Mighty. On November 15, I will be joining the fine Go Mighty team for a weekend retreat in Palm Springs devoted to acknowledging and making real plans to achieve goals. These Campers are also do-gooders, which is partly why I am so attracted to this kind of support network. Despite my stubborn habit of being a bit of an isolationist and an expert practitioner of the Irish Goodbye, I believe deeply that we are all in this thing together and that we must and we can help each other out along the way. Part of the participation requirement for camp is to raise a minimum of $200 each for a wonderful cause supported by Go Mighty called Charity:Water. I think I have a genius idea to raise my (at least!) $200.
I am asking for individual donations to be made in the amount of $20 directly to the campaign and in exchange, not only will you be funding a water project for the Rulindo District of Rwanda, you will be receiving a personal, handwritten Warm Fuzzy from me to you. I know the best way for me to feel whole again is to help someone else feel whole, and that is something I can do in a tangible way by writing it down for you and mailing it to you so it is not just another #loveyameanit moment.
A word on Sandy and donations you may be making to the Red Cross this week: I am quite aware this is possibly a bad time to ask for a donation to a cause you are just now hearing about, and is in Rwanda not New Jersey, and is are-you-kidding-me yet another ask for your money. Let me meet that objection by telling you that I understand just how hard it is to part with another 20 bucks. I understand that $20 is half tank of gas and $20 is lunch money and $20 is a few groceries in a pinch and $20 is a merciful bottle of wine but mostly, I know and respect it’s your hard-earned $20. That is why I want to give you something back in return for it, something I usually give for free, but today, let’s do this $20 transaction of goodness to put a little more power and intention behind doing these things to make everyone be healthier and happier and feel less alone. (Feel like you really want to help but can only part with $10? Send it in and I will still Warm Fuzzy you. Someday soon I will find the courage to tell the story of my financial undoing and rebuilding. Receiving the donation and writing you a Warm Fuzzy with empower me.)
Will you please help me?
Send me your home address via email and in the section for a note on the donation page of Charity:Water, put down you are trading water for a Warm Fuzzy and I will get the credit toward my $200. And of all goes well, we’ll raise a little more and spread a little more warmth.
Thank you my friends. Thank you.
Crying On The Returns
28 MayStaring at the blank screen when my head is so filled with a tangle of thoughts and my gut is churning with so much emotion and my physical exhaustion is nearing its tipping point is a special kind of torture. Normally, I’d bust out the Moleskine and blast out a diatribe or so, but I forced myself to open the blog machine to impose some structure on the internal rough drafts. I have no idea how that’s going to go.
I have just returned from a quick weekend trip home both with and to see family, and mostly, it was a fine trip. Family is complex and mine looks like a Manhattan Project equation. What I can always count on, and especially when returning from home, are some intense emotions that usually well up right after I get out of the car at curbside. I keep my sunglasses on and my head down as I make my way through security, then pit stop at the bathroom for a muffled stall cry in an attempt to get it together before getting on the plane. It’s not without precedent that I cry once settled and the plane is suddenly speeding me off the ground and back to reality. I have always done this; my expectation is that I will always do this, and I am fine with it, but today’s episode reminded me how sensitive I am.
A wise person once told me, “Sensitivity is a superpower.” I know she is right and it is time for me harness it once and for all.
However, I am terrified. Not of Success – I am ready for some more of that to get here – but of rejection and humiliation and abandonment and all the painful things that I have already experienced showing up for a repeat performance. I am not looking for pep talks by sharing this, because my previous rejections and humiliations and abandonments were mostly the result of abuse, the extent of which I have only just recently begun to understand. At least now I feel confident I know how to spot that well ahead of time. (With the exception of some recent fumbles of my own making and then endless fixation on them.) What I don’t know how to do is actually open up enough to let the light in.
My most effective defense strategy and stalwart enabler is procrastination. I am the Four Star Generalissimo of Procrastination, a lot of it now achieved by too much “screen time” and while I do have an iPhone, I have a cumbersome, work-brick laptop and a TV that was state-of-the-art… in 1997. I dilly-dally and dawdle and putter and preen and run late and feel harried and then, like dysfunctional magic, I am failing just like Procrastination promised. (Yes, I am aware of the Mean Voice in my head that is telling me I am doing it wrong.)
Here is where the Return Travel comes in to play: I am in a vulnerable state, not here nor there, yet totally present in the limbo of airports and time zone jumps. And that’s when I realize I want so much more…
I want that light. And that love. And that success. And that serenity. And that fun. And that magic. And that energy. And that security. And that passion. And that confidence. And that warmth. I want that light to get in. To nurture me. I want that.
This was a start.
Mail Call
6 MayIt turned May this past Tuesday. I happen to be a huge fan of May, what with it’s elongating days and perfect weather and general good cheer. I have been wanting to embark on another 30-Day Project and one that did not specifically involve any type of cleanse, because I know that in May, I like to have cocktails. Of which I had far too many last night, and am now already behind on my intended 30-Day Project for May 2012: Write A Letter A Day.
I am only behind for Saturday and Sunday and I will catch my self right back up, because as we know, it only takes 21 days to form a new habit and I have 25 left in marvelous May. And see? I have some proof that I started. When brain cells perk back up, I will actually explain this project. Must now sleep. Make that, sleep now.
May The Odds Be Ever In MY Favor
30 Mar
Yes, I’m one in 175 million and I don’t care what all the odds say that I have a better chance of dying from flesh eating bacteria than winning this lottery, the five minute daydreams here and there about what I would do with all that money bring me such sparkles of joy, play I say, play!!
Besides the practical, responsible financial planning and legal protections I’d obviously do first, oh man, get me to Barneys ASAP.
Exercising New Muscles
28 MarFast-walked the two mile loop again tonight. Wow, that’s three times this week. With a sore throat and everything. (Oh, made the appointment with the acu for Saturday, can.not.wait.) Took the iPhone again, on mute, and stopped for a few more homework snaps. These two are my favorite.
You can see that I still insist on wearing my florescent yellow running (stolen from the cycling department) vest. Safety is sexy. But what you should really be looking at is my excellent composition <ahem>. How cool does this look with the tilt-shift blur??? I love it.
And this one is just neato. Even though it is so California Spanish Mission, it really makes me miss New Mexico. And the civics geek in me loves that it is the town, I mean, city hall.
Vernally Equinoxious
26 MarApparently, spring arrived on March 20th. I had it in my winter-numb skull that it was getting here on March 22nd this year, for no other reason than it has been on March 22nds of the past and that seemed like the day it should be on. I can shamelessly admit to a high consumption of Irish alcoholic beverages on the 17th, so perhaps that is what threw my brain off. Also, all the non-running. (On the recovery front, have been introduced to THE sportie acupuncturist to cure me, booking a round of treatments is on the agenda for this week.)
I did do the two-mile walk loop tonight though, and brought along my iPhone which is rare. (It only comes with me on trail runs and stays on mute the whole time.) And so, I snapped some pictures. Am involved in a little project that I am enjoying so I needed to do my homework. Here’s a few shots. Yes, I picked totally forgiving subjects and bow down to my Instagram filters. What can I say: I’m just a girl going through a photography phase. In springtime.
Enjoy.
On The Broncos, Manning, and Tebow
21 MarBeing a Denver Broncos fan is something like being the rodeo cowboy who rides these wild horses. You try to hang on for just eight seconds while they thrash and buck, an almost willful intention to disappoint you and break your spirit, if not your ribs. They can’t ever seem to just do what we want, be consistent and win, but we keep climbing back on for another set of downs, another season, another ride.
I have been a Broncos fan for as long as I can remember, a willing enabler in our codependent relationship because I just keep hoping they will get it together THIS time. (And what is being a football fan, or sports fan in general without recognizing that the agonies are actually why we watch?) However, I have had stronger boundaries with my team the past two seasons because they clearly needed the space to work out their issues and me mine. I kept tabs on this whole Tebow mania, but have never once felt that he was the answer to the ongoing quarterback problem. The fact that the media went into groupthink overdrive about his religion just made me more nuts. (I’m in favor of a mandated separation of church and sports as well, but seeing how that’s working out in our public institutions, I recognize it’s an uphill battle.)
Enter Peyton Manning. My close friends with whom I regularly exchange football banter and actual discussion know that I’ve called him a robot, boring and have dismissed him with a few other more colorful phrases. (These same people are also not afraid of my very aggressive and actual screaming of profanities at the television during Bronco games.) I’ve watched Manning destroy defenses with his considerable and quantifiable skill as a QB, not just the wild thrashing and prayers of the young Tebow. I am now very intrigued as to what he still has left in him while part of my favorite team. Maybe I’ve mellowed with age too, but I’m willing to give him my Bronco love.
Here is the great article that caused this little rumination. And I’m totally for keeping Tebow as a running back or a tight end. A QB he is not. Time to saddle up…
Update: Tim Tebow is now a NY Jet.
Update #2: Oopsie! Contract problems!
