The Zen of Moving
Posted on November 17, 2008 - Filed Under adventure, brain farts, breathe
I know that most people hate to move, and I am certainly among them. You get used to being in a certain space and surrounded by certain familiar objects and material possessions. Even if you aren’t particularly happy in that space or with those possessions, there is a security in the constancy of it.
When you decide to move you introduce change into the scene and even though it will be better for you in the long run, the short term does get to you. There is all the initial having to move things around, boxes, trucks, yard sales, all the not so fun stuff. Your once peaceful space becomes chaos and it’s easy to feel like your life is chaos too, even though it really isn’t. It’s simply changing.
No matter what people say or think they think, the truth is, we don’t like to change, not if there is any effort involved. We like things to stay the same, stay predictable. I know in my case that is true - at least in my living arrangements. I like that sameness and not having to think about it much. It enables me to go and do other things, things I deem more important and interesting. Know what I mean?
However, there is another aspect to all this change and moving that is interesting to me. I find that once I get through all the effort of getting my butt into gear, get into action about things, that a kind of nice change comes over me. A sort of zen experience if you will. There is something good for the soul, I think, to every now and then get rid of everything that isn’t absolutely essential in your life. It’s very freeing and you can even feel physically lighter. As though you have much more mobility and aren’t tethered or harnassed. And I have to say that’s a pretty cool thing.
And as I now am rapidly approaching the actual move date and I’ve condensed my belongings down to one pretty small pile, I feel myself lightening up. Feeling a bit freer and more open to change and new adventures. In this case, for me, that certainly will be the outcome.
Sure there will be more effort - the drive, moving all our stuff into the new place, finding stuff that we need, arranging and rearranging and then the settling into the safe predictable space once again. But for now, I’m grooving on the zen and it ain’t bad. Ain’t bad at all.
Please Buy My Crap
Posted on November 16, 2008 - Filed Under Just For Fun, adventure, brain farts
So, yesterday was the big garage sale. The fact that it was the the hottest, windiest day of the year and a forest fire was blazing just five miles away didn’t stop me. Nope, I was up at 5 am and dragging crap around in front of the house.
Now there is a special way to lay out a garage sale when you’re in 25mile per hour winds. Have to be extra careful of glass items and God forbid you don’t anchor the clothes to the trees, just right. You know? So much for a nice display. I was just trying to keep everything from flying over the hill onto the freeway, lest I be the inadvertant cause of a 20 car pile up.
I was encouraged when I got some early birders who bought stuff right off. But there were long lulls of dry winds and nobody coming by. I listed the sale on Craigslist (everybody knows craigslist, right?) but I doubt any of the people who came by had anything to do with that since you end up so far down the list so fast that it ain’t funny. Luckily Roomie was in a good mood and made signs and kept going out to scout new places to hang them. I’m sure that’s the only reason anyone came off the beaten path to check out my wares. And he kept me company too (for part of the day anyway) which helped.
What was really strange is what sold. I expected things like furniture to go quickly but it didnt. In fact, most of my weirder stuff sold. Like the little elf suit I bought my dog last year so I could take pictures of her in it for xmas. A cheap clip on lamp - my old boom box, purses, costume jewelry, vhs tapes and cassettes.
To my utter shock and dismay nobody bit on the furniture - nobody needed a desk or a hutch or bookshelves, apparently. I guess if it wasn’t weird they didn’t want it. Go figure. God Bless Roomie for loading all that crap up in his truck and dragging it down to the thrift store for me. I have a trunkful of odds and ends to drop myself but there you have it.
Considering few of the ‘big ticket items’ (if one can say such a thing of a garage sale) sold, I did okay. I mean, what can you expect? You are essentially asking people to buy your crap and well if the weather isn’t nice and you’re not on a freeway off ramp, it is rather inconvenient for them to come by and pick through your possessions like black crows on a roadkill, you know? So, I got some pocket money and some gas money and I guess that is something to be grateful for.
The funny thing is that even though it feels a little weird to sell your stuff and sit on the floor in a nearly empty room, writing a post with the keyboard in your lap, it is kind of freeing to let go of all of it. Something about being down to few material goods does something for me every now and then. And really how hard is it to replace things that have no true sentimental value to you?
Though by the time 1 o’clock rolled around I was exhausted and every muscle in my body ached. I slept nine hours last night, which was good since I really needed it. I still feel a little creaky and that I’m too old for the crap but I’ll get over it.
Today, I clean and clean and then clean some more. Yay, one of my favorite activities. At least I’ll have breffy with Zelda first and a quick trip to Target for moving supplies. I love field trips, don’t you?
Anyway friends, I’m that much closer to kissing L.A. goodbye and moving onto my new life. And that’s a good thing.
Bad Dreams
Posted on November 14, 2008 - Filed Under Dreams, brain farts, really stupid shit
So, here I am at 1 AM plus sitting at my computer keyboard cuz I had a dream that scared the bageebers outta me. Luckily I was smart enough to wake up or I could be lost in the depths of a bad plot about a doctor going crazy on my ass. You know? But you have to love dreams, don’t you? For all their Alice in Wonderland, crazy plot twists and casts of characters. This one, which thankfully, I vaguely remember was about some doctor who was lecturing me about stealing from him and he was going to ‘get’ me and somehow an old boyfriend figured into the scenario too but he had something to do with critiques on flavors of candy he had invented as well as sleep remedies. And somebody must have been beating me with a stick too because my neck is killing me. Aside from the old boyfriend, I have never met any of the people in the dream, which is freaky cuz man they seem real, so maybe it’s just a novel I need to write that is calling to me from badfuckingdreamland or I shouldn’t have eaten the cheese cracker thingies Roomie offered me last night?
I do (and have often) wonder where these kind of dreams come from. I know there is much psychobabble dedicated to dreams and their ‘meanings’ which for the most part I think is a bunch of hogwash. I mean seriously, how much can you trust the ‘unconscious mind’? It’s unconscious for a reason, right? You don’t trust unconscious people, do you? So why would you put any stock in a mind that was unconscious and what it was trying to tell you? Like babies and puppy dogs, while they are amazingly cute and lovable, if they were giving you advice, would you listen? I think not.
I do, however, believe in premonitions that sometimes come in dreams, as some of those have really hit the mark for me personally. I wonder if there is a difference? There must be, otherwise they’d be as nonsensical as the other dreams, wouldn’t they?
Like my dream, I’m probably not making any sense - or maybe I really can write in my sleep - I guess I’ll let you be the judge of that - but again, what is up with these dreams anyway? Are they just from stress or a string of weird thoughts, snippets of television shows and bad cheese and crackers? I think they are. I think the body just can’t take what we deal out often in our daily lives and so it revolts at night when we aren’t paying attention by causing us to hallucinate about non-existant jobs, trips and blind dates. It is ‘its’ way of getting back at us for not taking good enough care of it. Not feeding it right, pushing it to the point of exhaustion and then forcing it eat and drink very weird stuff (as far as it is concerned anyway).
I have no real point here, I am simply jabbering in the hopes the last vestiges of the dream melts like cotton candy and I can go back to sleep. Any thoughts?
Road Trip Part Deux
Posted on November 13, 2008 - Filed Under Random Thoughts, Road Trip, adventure, brain farts
The last time I took a road trip was when I had a huge mental lapse and decided to move to Florida. I did write a post about it but I think I was still suffering post traumatic traveling syndrome when I did. Let me give you the Reader’s Digest version. Bad break up, needed a ‘change’, hey, Florida sounds good. Sold everything I owned, including two antique cherry dressers that I refinished myself, my favorite impressionist print of all time, a great chair and blah blah blah.
I cried when I got to Florida and pretty much cried every day until I left. To say I hated it was putting it mildly. My conclusion about Florida was that it was simply a swamp that the critters were trying to reclaim and as far as I was concerned they were doing a damn good job of it. Did you know that mold grows on everthing there? Seriously. My butter even grew mold on it. That’s just scary.
Anyway, so I quickly put everything in reverse and went running back to California and practically kissed the ground when I crossed the border. I decided at that point that the next time I left California (as I knew I would) that it was going to be for a much better reason - and so there is.
Although there are some similarities, such as I’m selling most of my stuff - hey if you ‘re in the neighborhood, drop by the garage sale - although nothing treasured, strictly utilitarian stuff. I am driving but in a much better, more comfortable car and have a driving partner. There are are a lot of ‘unknowns’ about where I’m going. Never been there - don’t know a thing about it, not really. Of course my trusty pets Maggie and Boodie will be coming along, so I’ll have at least two other friends.
The differences of course, are many. For one thing I’m not running away from anything (except maybe smog and bad drivers). It’s not about becoming invisible, it’s about enriching my life, making my life bigger, better. I’m not surrendering, I’m celebrating.
I have a feeling this will be no repeat of Florida actually it’s more than a feeling - I know it won’t be.
It will be a road trip to remember, punctuated with funny stories, new sights, snap shots, and joy. I can’t wait.
Cha-Cha-Changes…
Posted on November 11, 2008 - Filed Under adventure, brain farts, changing seasons
I don’t know about you but I hate change and yet I love it. I love the newness and the excitement and honestly the whole mystery of it. What will it be like, where will I go, who will I meet, what will I see? On the other hand, being the lazy slug that I am, I hate changing anything - sometimes I don’t even change out of my pajamas, especially if it’s cold and the coffee is good and I get involved in something…I can go days just sitting in front of my computer. It’s pathetic really, I didn’t even know who’d been elected until Roomie came home and blurted it out before I could stop him. So see we have your classic love/hate relationship going on with change here.
So what is that all about? Is it simply comfort? We get comfortable with where/how things are and are loathe to alter things because we might have to actually put on our shoes or brush our teeth? Talk to another human being? Have I (we) become incurable couch potatoes? In my case, I suppose the answer would be yes, typically.
However, if I really think about it, this entire year has been all about change for me. Which could account for all my whining and sissy-assed behavior. Things that I always thought would be the same, weren’t. The unthinkable happened to someone I dearly love. Wonderful, surprising things happened that I never could have guessed in a thousand years or believed had someone told me it was going to happen. But more than anything my outlook has changed, it’s definitely more positive and filled with much hope and joy for the future. There is a whole lot more activity going on in the old gray matter - which has sort of had the affect of making me seem like Rain Man’s older sister or something. I laugh a lot more and smile a lot more. Which is really pretty amazing when I consider that a few months ago things seemed awfully glum, terribly sad and even hopeless.
So perhaps I have become an advocate for change. Not just for the sake of the change, I mean I could rearrange the furniture for that - but for new things, good things.
I know most of you are probably scratching your heads and thinking, ‘wtf is she talking about?’ that’s okay too. Maybe I’m just thinking out loud. Bottom line is that one thing, one incident can change everything and maybe that’s the way it’s meant to be. If you ask, it is.
How about you, any good changes happening for you?
Wake Up People, It’s Monday!
Posted on November 10, 2008 - Filed Under Life, brain farts, mixed bag
Hey Guys!
So, did you miss me? I missed you too. Well actually, there were times when I didn’t even think about blogs or blogging or any of you because well I was thinking of other things - but I didn’t forget you.
So let’s see…okay, first of all we are suspending Theme Fridays for the time being, probably til after the 1st of the New Year. All of us have various things that have us swamped and distracted and so after much discussion and deliberation we’ve decided to suspend for now. I will however, probably still do some sort of fiction thing on Fridays, it just won’t be a group thing with reciprocal links.
My friend Kelly, who you may remember was in a bad car accident last Spring is doing much better, so much better in fact that her doctors have agreed to put the part of her skull that they had to remove when she had the accident, back in. It will be a late Christmas present and the surgery will be at the end of December. We’re all excited because then she will look really good in hats again. (She thought that was funny, come on, people, lighten up). And to celebrate she sent you this vid:
Quite a little toe tapper, ain’t it?
You’ll all be delighted to know I have refined my chicken vegetable soup recipe to perfection. Feel free to email me for a copy.
I pulled a hamstring because I had the good sense to decide to exercise in an attempt to decrease the size of my fat ass. Feel free to send flowers and chocolates. It’s all better now though.
I came up with a brilliant business idea which I think will be tre’s cool and make us a lot of money (I have a partner) and I’m working on the website now.
And…let’s see what else? Oh yeah, I’m in love and going to be moving to the east coast soon.
Okay, that’s about it.
Have a great Monday.
Heads Up
Posted on November 5, 2008 - Filed Under brain farts, excuses-excuses, heads up
I’m late, I’m late, I’m very, very late…. Oh my ears and whiskers…
Okay, so perhaps some of you have been wondering what the heck I’ve been up to lately - rightfully so, I’ve not been by your blogs (my bad) and haven’t been power posting much lately either… Well, sorry not going to tell you the specifics, but suffice to say that I have some plans for the future which are demanding my time right now, so I’m taking the rest of the week off of blogging (probably, unless I get a hair up my ass kind of post I can’t resist writing). Which means that we won’t have a Theme Friday post either (although Panther may do one, so check her blog out).
I have been a bad little blogger and I will someday make it up to one and all - but not this week.
I will try to get around to some of your places, if time allows - but I absolutely must get these things done if I have any hope of reaching my target for the thing I’m not telling you about. You see? Aren’t you glad I clarified that? I know I feel better.
So, wish me luck and I’ll see y’all next week. Otay? If you get lonely for me and my rapier wit, feel free to email or just dig through the archives - you might at least find a recipe you like, eh?
Love you guys.
Welcome to the People’s Republic of America
Posted on November 4, 2008 - Filed Under Election 2008, Politics, brain farts, little rants, rest in peace, sarcasm, yoiks
Okay, America if this is what you want, then I hope you’re happy. I for one, will be stuffing my mattress with money and stocking up on those MRE’s and survival gear. If you think the last eight years was bad news I don’t think you’re prepared with what will be coming our way over the next four (my prediction). Apparently, all it takes to become president of this once great country, is to put on a helluva campaign. I wonder if I could become CEO of GM after 13 months of selling cars in their backlot. (Heck maybe I could even run for Prez, once the implosion happens.)
I know a lot of you out there, love this man and I have never really been able to figure out why - but I hope the love affair continues - but I have my doubts. Serious ones.
Oh well, at the very least it should be good for some blog fodder, providing political descension is still Constitutional come January - there’s always Grit’s farm I suppose.
Congrats to those who wanted change - I just hope it’s the kind of change we all want. Somehow I doubt it and I’m certainly not holding my breath. Anybody got change for 10 Euronote? I need a drink.
Family Affair…
Posted on November 4, 2008 - Filed Under Family, Humor, Just For Fun, brain farts
I don’t know about you but family has always been a very strange and mysterious creature to me. Perhaps I don’t have the standard family gene or my ideas about family are just flat out strange. Which quite possibly is saying the same thing in two different ways. Anyway, my family is I suppose like anyone else’s, a combination of sitcom, soap opera and amusement park rides (E ticket of course). I love my family but I have to say I’m not very much like them. Like not at all.
In fact, Mom used to say that I was a gift from the mailman. As a young child this confused me and I seriously wondered if I was mailed to them and maybe because they had an extra room they decided to keep me rather than pay the return postage. Though Mom also used to say I was born 40 which really made me wonder why I wasn’t a C section and why I wasn’t allowed to have my own apartment - but I digress…
I find the whole concept of family just a little strange. Here you are born into a group of people with whom you may or may not have anything in common (beyond the genetic pool and markers) and yet you must love them. You must have holiday dinners with them, remember their birthdays, call them on the phone occasionally and forgive when they do some really shitty things. It’s about love and all that. But there is no other relationship on Earth where you are not allowed to choose it, right? I mean you choose your friends, they aren’t just given to you at birth, are they? And we choose our spouses/significant others, yes? Even your co-workers and neighbors you choose (at least a little) and if it turns out you don’t like them you can quit your job or move. With family not so much.
With family you take what you get, right? If you have a crazy Uncle Joe who likes to play the national anthem on his empty Budwieser bottles, you’re kind of stuck with him. Can’t exactly go to the uncle exchange store and swap him out for a nicer more likeable model. If Mom is all twittery, you can’t drug her and make her like Mrs. Cleaver, you just have to live with twittery. And parents can’t trade in their evil little hellraisers for sweeter Beaver Cleaver models either. So you learn to live with it - or you disown them en masse or individually. Though honestly, that really doesn’t work because for whatever reason there is that pull - that invisible silly string that tangles you up with them somehow in way that no other group of people can tangle you.
They can try to devour you on a daily basis, blame you for the sky falling and give you the worst Christmas presents ever, yet still….that pull, that magnetic force that binds you will not release you. Even if you separate yourself from them physically, you can never do so mentally or emotionally. They all sit in the back of your head arguing over the Christmas dinner table, while you’re dodging the mashed potatoes and gravy. Face it folks, their yours and you’re theirs. And no matter how many battles, laughs, tears or whatevers ain’t nothing ever going to change that. Weird, huh?
Is This You?
Posted on November 3, 2008 - Filed Under Humor, Just For Fun, bad hair day, brain farts
Is This You?
- Feelings of inadequacy?
- Suffer from shyness?
- You sometimes wish you were more assertive?
If you answered yes to any of these questions, ask your doctor or pharmacist about Margaritas.
Margaritas are the safe, natural way to feel better and more confident about yourself and your actions.
Margaritas can help ease you out of your shyness and let you tell the world that you’re ready and willing to do just about anything.
You will notice the benefits of Margaritas almost immediately and with a regimen of regular doses you can overcome any obstacles that prevent you from living the life you want to live.
Shyness and awkwardness will be a thing of the past and you will discover many talents you never knew you had. Stop hiding and start living, with Margaritas.
Margaritas may not be right for everyone. Women who are pregnant or nursing should not use Margaritas. However, women who wouldn’t mind nursing or becoming pregnant are encouraged to try it.
Side effects may include:
- Dizziness, nausea, vomiting, incarceration
- Erotic lustfulness
- Loss of motor control
- Loss of clothing
- Loss of money
- Loss of virginity
- Table dancing
- Headache
- Dehydration
- Dry mouth
- And a desire to sing Karaoke
WARNING: The consumption of Margaritas may make you think you are whispering when you are not.
WARNING: The consumption of Margaritas may cause you to tell your friends over and over again that you love them.
WARNING:The consumption of Margaritas may cause you to think you can sing.
WARNING: The consumption of Margaritas may make you think you can logically converse with members of the opposite sex without spitting
(H.T. to my friend Jenny from Texas - Have a good Monday, folks!)
