fur coats, reminders, and my personal version of fact vs. fiction

Fiction: You can "simply decide" to "be happy".

 

Fact: You can make conscious choices to be a better version of yourself, but these changes will take time.

 

While you can decide to change elements of your thinking, (trying to focus on the positive, mentally letting go of things, etc.) it's just not possible to sit down in front of a mirror, look yourself square in the eye, and declare that FROM THIS MOMENT ON, you will be unwaveringly and completely happy. First off, no one is 100% happy 100% of the time. Secondly, while your brain is pretty effing awesome, there is no switch to automatically control emotions. Immediate happiness isn't a thing, guys, and expecting magical results and not receiving them will only make you sad...which, in case you didn't know, is sort of the polar opposite of happy. You can't expect yourself to become an entirely new person overnight. You're not the inside of a junky house; you can't just slap on some paint, clean the windows, gut the basement, and be instantly perfect. Cut yourself some slack, gorgeous.

 

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Fiction: You have to wait for a sign to start doing something you love.

 

Fact: If you know you love something enough to want to do it, THAT IS YOUR SIGN.

 

Whole-heartedly wanting to do something is all the proof from God/the Universe/your mother that you ever need. I know I've talked about this idea of doing exactly what you want to do simply because you want to do it, but I'll repeat myself until I'm blue in the face. YOU BEING YOU is the only reason necessary to kick life in the nards. Or cut all your hair off. Or switch careers. Or flirt shamelessly with the sexy barista at the coffee shop you go to that's cuter than Starbucks, but doesn't have chai quite as good.

 

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Fiction: Love is never having to say you're sorry.

 

Fact: What? I just. What? I'm pretty sure love is caring enough about the other person and how they feel to apologize when you're a jerk.

 

And we're all jerks, sometime or other. If I cancel on friends, (or my loverrrr in the night-times), I do appreciate a certain level of understanding because they like me, but that doesn't mean I don't offer a genuine sorry. Just because someone loves you inside and out doesn't mean you can stop doing things considered basic courtesies that demonstrate how much you respect them as people. Love isn't a free pass to be an asshole unapologetically to the people you care about. If anything, the L-word grants you permission to step outside your comfort zone and do just a little bit more to remind those around you just how absolutely exceptional they are.

 

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Fiction: I only update every Sunday so I can yell, "SUNDAY FUNDAY," from the top of every proverbial rooftop that has ever existed ever and also wear my pajamas all the live-long day.

 

Fact: I UPDATE WHENEVER THE HECK I WANT.

 

Which is usually Sundays. But I'm moving this weekend (hooray!), so here's my self-promised weekly rambling a few days early. Thursday Fursday? Do people still wear furs? Would I feel okay wearing a fur? Would I feel okay even wearing a fake fur? HOW DID THIS TURN INTO AN ANIMAL CRUELTY POST?!

huffy muppets, makeovers, and a reminder of how wonderful you are

Personality is a terrifying thing. Too little, and you'll disappear into the porous woodwork of people who laugh at exactly the right volume or have the perfect haircuts or can walk around without looking like a huffy muppet. Too much, and you're the vulgar one. The outspoken one. The one who maybe drinks a little too much or makes that one joke that toes a line.

I have, and never will be, a balanced person. I go through phases of obsession, with foods, (CLEMENTIIIIIIIIIIINES!) clothes, (a magenta blazer I recently bought) and TV shows (I'm looking at you, Doctor Who). When something becomes my favorite, I think it's my favorite thing of all time...until I find my next favorite. I'm not very graceful, but as the boyf says, I'm built for durability. I like to think this means I'm like a super-industrial, stylish piece of Ikea furniture, but also I just want to have bedhead and wear the huge t-shirts with dogs faces on them forever and ever.

I'm not the best at meeting new people. I'm perpetually worried that I'll cross a political line, offend someone with my many words for vagina, (that's what happens when you write erotica), or be the annoying one.  After awhile, I stopped being myself not only in public, but in private, too.

That internalization of worry and insecurity literally manifested on the outside. My hair grew out to a length that made it fall flat and faded to a weird mousy brown. I wouldn't wear eyeliner because it made my eyes look too big. I kept my shoulders slumped and I struggled to make eye contact.

But then it sort of dawned on me that the only thing worse than being all of yourself is being absolutely none of yourself. Because at the end of the day, I'm a force to be reckoned with. We all are.

I've yet to meet someone who doesn't say something off-color that's both wildly hilarious and strangely moving. We are all so powerfully flawed and gorgeously messy, and those little divots and splotches on our personalities (and bodies) are what makes grabbing drinks around a piano bar, or reading blogs, or talking to the woman behind you at Target so incredibly fulfilling.

So often, I find myself censoring a comment/tweet/blog post/text/joke because it's TOO me, and I know I'm not alone in this. WHAT ARE WE SO SCARED OF? Forging connections? Going from anonymous to noticed? After all, noticed means people will talk, and not everything they say will always be nice.

But ultimately, all we can do, each and every one of us who are TOO [insert adjective], is to live in the way that sets our eyes alight with excitement, and love, and hilarity.

Wedging myself into the little gray boxes of anonymity was so fucking exhausting, you guys, and it's nice to be out and breathing. All I can say is I'm ready to adventure.

Come with me?

llamas, braininade (brain marinade?)​, and an outfit any kei$ha would envy

I grew up being super into performance theater. In one of my improv classes, we were told to alwaysALWAYS say yes to the love. The bottom line is that in a scene, and, yes keeps momentum going, allowing stories to feed and grow as the people progress.

 

"What are you doing?"

"Shaving a llama."

"Where did you find a llama on Valentine's Day?"

 

Yes, you have a llama, and...?

 

Similarly, it was taught that saying no is an immediate shut-off valve for progression.

 

"What are you doing?"

"Shaving a llama."

"No, you're not."

"...oh."

 

This makes sense on a very fundamental level, and I'm not just talking about improv.

 

As long as I can remember, I've always been so particular about what and who I allow into my world, making automatic pro-and-con lists on nearby bits of paper to calculate everything from whether or not I should move across the country to what I'll have for lunch.

 

Scribbling frantically in fits of unwarranted panic, the worries and excitement would spill together in a blend of undiluted fear and excuses. The slips of paper, scratched nearly to death with over-thinking, would get put in a pile. Some lists would be duplicates. Some would be assigned point values in order to supply concrete, quantitative data for my racing and unpredictable emotions.

 

Often, the outcome was a resounding NO! NO WAY. NO HOW. NO. MOTHERFUCKING. THANK YOU.

 

I couldn't because I was too scared of what might happen.

I couldn't because I was too scared of how I might feel.

I couldn't because I was too scared of mights.

I couldn't because I was too scared.

 

Saying no to conversation, opportunities, advice, and adventure had been keeping my very conflicted and very busy brain locked up in the confines of my skull, marinating in the isolated crazies and steeping in uncertainty. My yes, and's were getting slashed to bits before they even had time for tea.

 

And then, slowly, I began easing the solid NO!'s out of the way. I had to push at first. But eventually I peeked my toe out, (driving to places I'd never been), then a foot, (going to the aquarium), and a leg, (designing and publishing my first-ever professional website).

 

To avoid a huge long list of terrible body metaphors, let's just say that in the last three months, I've seen more of people I wanted to see more of. I've written recklessly and am nearly finished with the rough copy of my third book. I went to a mixer for creatives where I mingled in a room full of talented people, knowing almost no one, and kindling the start of what would become a very passionate love affair with Leopold Bros gin.

 

And most recently, I've registered for an [un]conference in Vegas. I'll fly alone to a city I haven't seen since I was seven to be greeted by strangers, all with powerful stories and contagious personalities. I'll wear clothes I never thought I'd own, hug people I never thought I'd meet, and embark on one of my greatest adventures to date.

 

There's something so liberating about cranking on those say-yes-to-the-love floodgates, about throwing those doors open wide and letting myself experience the pure exhilarating terror that comes with consciously welcoming newness into my very routined brain. So, I'm a woman with a BA in poetry kicking ass in finance. I'm changing every day. And in May, I'm going to go make 75 best friends in Vegas wearing a skirt that has disco in the name.

 

Um. YES! And?

dramatic italicising, resolutions, and the unlikely title of my comic book

Ah, New Year's Eve. Whenever a new year comes and goes, I'm reminded (and almost unbearably so) of The Lion King, Simba held poignantly up into the sky, the expanse of majestic land sprawling beneath him. Circle of life, blah blah, all that. Mostly, it just really makes me want a baby lion.

It's no mystery that the start of a new year is all about resolutions. Tomorrow, people will start running, start organizing, start packing lunches. But tomorrow, I'm going to stop. 2013 is my Year of the No, which could also totally be a subtitle of a comic book featuring yours truly, but instead will be my personal brand of the New Year's Resolution (dun dun dunnn).

Basically, I'm a yes person. I agree to stuff almost constantly that I have absolutely no interest in doing. As a result, I find myself cancelling often, hawing around with a vague and relentless sense of guilt that's just heavy enough to make me feel like a worse version of myself than I was the day before. Why do I do this?

Bluntly put, I want to please everyone. I want every single person on the entire planet to like me, and as a result, I'm not making anyone truly happy, not even myself, and that's where it all begins, yeah?

And thus, today begins the momentous occasion of No. I'm taking all of that energy I've used coming up with lame excuses, fending off nagging guilt, and scraping the bottom of the proverbial barrel for some semblance of inspiration and investing it all back into myself. Because I can't do everything, but I can sure as heck delegate where the bits and pieces of myself are going.

Saying no to bullshit commitments means I'm giving myself permission to say yes to so many other things: my writing, my metal sculpting, and my relationship with the sexy BAMF known as my shmoyfriend. Saying no let's me say yes to new friends, to spending more time with old friends, and to continue excitedly in the pursuit of figuring out exactly what it is that makes me furiously happy.

I'm not waiting until January first to put this plan into action because I don't want to. For the first time in my entire life, I'm confident enough to know without a doubt that I'm worth my own time. I'm worth an hour in my favorite coffee house to write a new chapter. I'm worth a nap in the sun with my cat. And most importantly, I'm worth the amount of bravery it takes to deliver a polite but firm, No. No fucking thank you.