Live and Learn – Page 11

Monday June 23, 2014Life, Live and LearnOne comment so far

I had a conversation this weekend about when it’s appropriate to call it quits on a relationship with someone. At what point do you decide that a person causes more grief and drama in your life and you gracefully cut them loose. I find that I have a three strikes and you’re out policy. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me three times, I’m done. To my thinking, life is too short to spend it with people who repeatedly hurt you, continually criticize you or expect you to be somebody that you aren’t. Quite frankly, if you can’t accept me for who I am and show me the same respect that I show you, then I don’t feel the need to spend my time or energy on you.

On the one hand, I wonder if this attitude means that I miss out on good things because certain people are no longer actively in my life like they used to be. But on the other hand, I spent a good portion of my life forgiving any and all trespasses against me, and all it got me was repeated heartache and the belief that embracing who I am was wrong and inappropriate. I don’t know that the former has enough draw to make up for the latter. So does that make me an emotionally stunted, unforgiving person, or does that make me an emotionally healthy person with enough respect for myself to set clear boundaries? I’d like to believe that it’s the second, but sometimes I really don’t know.

As I’ve gotten older I’ve come to realize that I don’t enjoy drama. On the stage or in a book it’s great, but I don’t like it in my everyday life. I don’t need to have some sort of crisis to solve or problem to figure out to make my days exciting. Quite the contrary, I prefer things to run smoothly and easily. Now that’s not to say that I’m afraid of or avoid conflict. I’m one of the most bull-headed people I know and will step up to a fight and argue a point until even a two-year-old would back down. I’m stubborn and I like to win, but I don’t thrive on the conflict. I don’t need it to feel good about myself. So spending my time with people who continually bring that part of me out is exhausting and vexatious. What do you think? When is enough, enough?

Thursday June 05, 2014#100HappyDaysHappiness, Life, Live and LearnOne comment so far

I recently came across the hashtag #100HappyDays and was intrigued. So I investigated. I enjoy a good motivational article or program, so I figured, let’s see what this one is all about. Turns out that it’s this initiative for people to sign up, and every day for 100 days you’re supposed to take a picture of something that makes you happy and then post it on social media tagged with #100HappyDays, or some other personal variation that you come up with if you don’t want it easily searchable by the masses. What a fantastic idea! Focus on the positive. Even on a bad day, you have to come up with something that makes you happy. They had me hook, line and sinker. I signed up. May 1^st I was going to start my 100 days of happy. I didn’t make it. In fact I don’t even think I made it three weeks before I gave up completely. On the Happy website it stated that the #1 reason that people quit was because they claimed that they didn’t have the time. This was not my reason for quitting. It also was not because I had a lack of happy things to photograph and post. I quit, because I realized that it had become work. I had plenty of things that were making me happy, the trouble came from the fact that I wasn’t interrupting my happiness to document them. I enjoyed the things that made me happy and then I moved on with my day. Which meant that at the end of the day I was stuck manufacturing some photo for the project. I had actually begun to plan out my photos in advance. Staged happiness. Which seemed a little counter intuitive. I realized that I didn’t need the reminder that there is something to be happy for every day, because I was happy every day. In reality #100HappyDays was a success for me, just not in the way that they would measure success. It helped me to realize that my life is full of everyday things that make me happy, so anything above and beyond is icing on the cake. I realized that my furry babies give me endless amounts of happiness. The endless funny things that they do. The way Bubba will “talk” to you if you’re not giving him the attention he thinks he deserves. The way Zoey will crawl into my arms in the middle of the night because she needs a snuggle. They make me happy.

Puggle Sandwich

I realized that my friends give me endless amounts of happiness. Whether we’re being goofy or serious, doing something planned or impromptu, their presence is comforting. They make me happy. I realized that crossing things off my to-do list, fresh produce, a glass of wine, a good book, a cool shower on a hot day, watching water lap up on the shore, good theater, finding something on sale, and abandoning all of my plans getting a pizza and staying in to watch a movie all make me happy. I realized that it wasn’t complicated, it wasn’t some grand mystical thing that is always out of reach. Happiness is easy. It’s a choice to focus on the good things instead of letting yourself get bogged down by the bad. I realized that I don’t need 100 pictures to remind myself to be happy. I am happy.

Monday June 02, 2014Couponer, Extreme CouponingLive and LearnLeave a comment

Over the weekend I decided that I was going to dip my toes into the crazy world of extreme couponing and see what that was all about. Okay, so it was really more like moderate couponing, since I only went to one store and didn’t come home with 50 of any one product. Because let’s face it, I live in an apartment with no extra storage, where would I put 50 tubes of toothpaste? Not to mention, wouldn’t most of them go bad before you had a chance to use them? How much toothpaste can one person go through? I think these thoughts should have been my first clue that I am not a “couponer.” I don’t know if that’s how they refer to themselves, but it sounds good to me.

At any rate, I sat down and strategized. Instead of figuring out my meals for the week and then shopping accordingly, like I usually do, I looked at what was on sale. I painstakingly looked through what was on sale and what coupons there were. Is that something that I normally buy? Is it something that I occasionally buy? Is it something that I never buy, but could find a use for? I made lists, I wrote down prices, compared savings between products and made note of quantity limitations. Then I divided and conquered. After all, I had two coupons that would get me $20 off of a $75 purchase. So I needed two trips that would add up to $75 each so that I could save $40.

Then I hit the store, and despite the fact that I had a very detailed list, my trip took twice as long as normal. I became that crazy person climbing into the freezer to the get to the stuff in the back because the product that I had a coupon for wasn’t on display in the front. I was the person triple checking between the package sizes on the shelf and what I had put on my list, “Damnit! My coupon doesn’t cover the 10 oz, I need the 13 oz, where is the 13 oz!” At one point, I actually asked an employee if they had a particular size in the back because they were out on the shelf. I’m pretty sure when he turned around to go check he rolled his eyes at me. I don’t blame him. I would have rolled my eyes too, because I’m pretty sure I had that manic, “But I have to save 30 cents” look on my face.

That’s when the manic took on a whole new level; they were out of one of the things on my list. Which of course meant that my calculations would now be off, because I had added everything up to reach the golden $75 mark. I’d given myself a little bit of a cushion, but I couldn’t remember how big of a cushion, and after all I was supposed to be buying six of this particular product so that was gonna take a chunk out of my total. I was paralyzed, I was standing in the store paralyzed trying to decide if I should just double up on something else on my list, or if I should start going through the aisles until I found something else on sale that would be an equivalent price, or should I just chance it and hope that it all worked out okay at the register and not be forced to scramble to find something really quick to make up the difference of $4 that I would inevitably be short of my $75 mark. Argh!!!!!!!

I have never been so stressed grocery shopping in my entire life. It was ridiculous. It was beyond ridiculous. By the time that I made it to the register and watched as the dollars fell away with each new coupon I realized that I wasn’t even enjoying it. Usually I think it’s very fun when I swipe my Vons card and watch as the amount goes down. But this time all of the fun was gone, because I had already done the math and I knew how much it was going to go down. I got some satisfaction from the fact that I actually made a dollar on one product, but beyond that I was just glad that it was over and I hoped that everything would fit in the kitchen.

All in all, I saved right around 50% off of my groceries. Like I said, moderate couponing. But if I really look at it and calculate in how much extra time I spent preparing for my grocery shopping trip, and how much extra time it took to do the grocery shopping – remember two trips on top of the extra time to get the exact right products – I’m pretty sure I actually paid about 125% for my groceries. I work freelance, so all of that time that I spent I could have been working and making money. Huh. I think I’ll be sticking to normal grocery shopping from now on.

Thursday May 22, 2014Live and LearnLeave a comment

I just finished a book in which a saying was repeated several times, and each time it really rang true for me, “It’s not my tale to tell.” A person that I hold dear was given an unwelcome diagnosis last year. And despite the fact that it has completely rocked my world and affected me deeply, I have kept as quiet as possible about it, because it is not my tale to tell. It is not my tale to bruit about the internet. If this person wants to keep it to themselves then that is their prerogative and I have to respect that. I’m only bringing it up now because it is a required piece to the tale that is mine to tell.

Ever since I found out about this diagnosis my own health has deteriorated. Which isn’t overly surprising as some of my pre-existing maladies are exacerbated by stress and there has definitely been an overabundance of stress in my life lately. However, the paranoia and worry that has started to border on hypochondria – that every ache, every muscle twitch is a harbinger of doom – is most definitely not normal for me. If I had a dollar for every time I went onto WebMD to look something up over the past seven months I could take a week off of work with no pay. It has grown into the ridiculous.

Then I was talking to a friend and she said something that stopped me in my tracks. She was recounting something from her own past, and I don’t think that she intended to be giving this bit of advice, since it wasn’t the point of her story, but she recalled that someone had once told her, “You aren’t the one who was sick.” In her past, she wasn’t the one that was sick, and right now I am not the one that is sick. I can’t think of a single other thing that I needed to hear right now more than that phrase.

I am not the one who is sick.

Therefore I need to stop acting like I am. I need to stop worrying that I might be. I need to stop fixating on the worst possible outcome. All I am accomplishing is driving myself absolutely insane. So check that off of the to-do list and move on with my day! If only it were that easy . . . but then again why can’t it be that easy? Who says that change needs to be long and drawn out? Why can’t it be more like a switch? Make a decision, have a realization, flip the switch. Flip – new way of thinking. Flip – new mindset. Don’t dwell, don’t hem and haw, don’t second guess, flip the switch and be happier. It’s a goal.

Monday May 19, 2014Anti-Depressants, Mental Illness, StigmaDepression, Happiness, Life, Live and LearnView all 2 comments

I recently made the decision to put my dogs on Prozac. They’ve always been high-strung, especially Zoey who has had separation anxiety since she was a puppy. Because of this I have a very set routine for when I leave and when I come home. I’ve done thunder shirts, calming phermones, blanket over the crate, blanket that I slept with in the crate. You name it, I’ve tried it and kept the things that worked to maintain our precarious balance of momma being able to leave without the puggles freaking out.

However, back in December, for no specific reason that my roommate or I can come up with, they started to howl and cry every morning when I would leave for work. For a while my roommate would come out tell them to knock it off, give them a treat and they would settle. But after a while that didn’t work, and on days when she wasn’t home they would cry for hours annoying all of our neighbors. Sorry! I took them to the vet, clean bill of health. I tried to identify something that was causing the upset, no luck. I tried all of my old tricks and read a bunch of new articles that gave advice to do all of the things that I was already doing. I tried everything that I could think of to avoid putting them on medication, but nothing worked. They were miserable and strung out and so was I.

Then one day it occurred to me. Why was I okay medicating myself so that I felt better and could function normally, but I was hesitating to do the same thing for my dogs? Before this realization if you would have asked me about the stigma of anti-depressants I would have told you that I’ve gotten over it. After all, I now openly admit and talk about the fact that I take them and that I have no shame about that. That wasn’t always the case. For a very long time I felt ashamed about taking them or admitting that I have clinical depression. Because of that I wasted years feeling horrible because I felt like I was less of a person if I succumbed to my depression and took meds to lift my mood. I had this asinine belief that I was strong enough to do it by myself. That I was fine. That somehow having clinical depression made me weak and I had to fight against that. Talk about expending your energy in the wrong direction!

It wasn’t until I looked at my depression from a different angle that I was able to get over this belief. If I was diagnosed as diabetic, I would try everything in my power to control my blood sugar through diet changes, exercise, etc. However, after trying that, if my doctor told me that it wasn’t enough and that I needed insulin, I would take the insulin. I wouldn’t need to think twice about it, and it wouldn’t make me feel like I was weak or less of a person. It would mean that I had a disease and thankfully there were drugs out there that could help me function normally. So why would I treat a diabetes diagnosis different than a depression diagnosis? They’re both diseases that have meds to help diminish the effects and symptoms so that your body can function normally, so what’s the difference?

That’s when it occurred to me, that a stigma was keeping me from feeling good. The stigma against mental illness and all that that entails was preventing me from living my life to the fullest. How stupid is that? So I got over myself, said screw what anybody else thinks, I’m going to feel good and be happy. Four tries later my doctor and I landed on the right cocktail of meds and I no longer spend my free time curled up in bed hiding from life. It has made a HUGE difference – both my happiness and my productivity. Being depressed is really time consuming! I’ve come to accept that I will probably be on meds for the rest of my life, and I’m okay with that. It’s what is best for me.

So if it’s good enough for me, why did I hesitate with my dogs? The incredulous look that I got from one of my neighbors when I told her about my choice reminded me why. She acted like I was giving up on them and committing them to a looney bin because I didn’t want to deal with them anymore. There it was, the mental illness stigma rearing it’s ugly head, and if she reacted that way about giving prozac to dogs, I can’t imagine what she would have said about me taking meds! Needless to say I ignored her and made the same choice for my dogs as I did for myself, and good lord I wish I would have made that choice a long time ago! My dogs are still their crazy, hyper lovable selves, but the nervous energy is gone. They can actually lay down and fall asleep without waking up and freaking out about every noise they hear. They can meet and say hi to other dogs without getting really anxious. I can leave the house without them acting like the world is coming to an end. It’s amazing, and the best part is that they seem to be happier. So stigma be damned, we’re all a bunch of nuts in my house and I’ve got the meds to prove it!

Thursday April 24, 2014Laugh at Yourself, Laughter, Self-Deprecating, Sense of Humor, WitFathers, Humor, Life, Live and LearnView all 2 comments

I take great pleasure in the fact that I can make people laugh. The more they laugh, the more I want them to keep laughing, so I keep cracking jokes. More than one person has asked me if I do stand-up. That’s on the bucket-list. Until then I keep my act much more spontaneous with smaller audiences. I think I’ve always been so drawn to laughter because of the power it has. Laughter is therapeutic, contagious and can diffuse some of the tensest situations. I definitely use laughter as a self defense mechanism. If a mood is too dour, or a conversation begins to drift into unwanted territory there’s nothing like laughter to distract and redirect the focus. My particular brand of comedy is self-deprecating. I generally make fun of myself or my situation . . . or word play, which I’m sure is a huge shock to everyone.

I credit the development of this particular brand of comedy to my father. He is very clever and gets seemingly endless joy from jerking people’s chains. Well as an inquisitive child I would bombard him with questions about anything and everything. Most of the time the teacher in him would come out and I would get a detailed answer. Generally much more detailed than I was actually interested in. However, every now and then, when the mood would strike him, he would answer questions like this:

Kat: Why is the sky blue?

Dad: Because it would look weird green.

Kat: What does the ‘H’ stand for in Jesus H. Christ?

Dad: Henry.

No hesitation, nothing but confidence. Then he would walk away or go back to doing whatever it was he was doing, conversation closed. Now is a good time to add that on top of being inquisitive, I was also very gullible. So I would believe him. After all, he was my dad and 98% of the time his answers were absolutely correct. However for that 2%, his answers were complete bunk and I was left to figure out which were which, and I did figure it out. Generally in a very public, loud fashion.

I have a very underdeveloped filter – okay, it’s not underdeveloped it’s overworked keeping me from swearing like a sailor at all times – which means that thoughts tend to jump straight out of my mouth. I don’t pull punches. I also say stupid things with full confidence because I learned them from a “reliable” source. So on more than one occasion growing up, I would announce things to a gathering of classmates like, “No, the ‘H’ stands for Henry. Jesus Henry Christ.”

Then they would all laugh at me.

You’re probably laughing at me right now. In retrospect, it’s pretty funny. So I was faced with a decision. I could either get really embarrassed, hate my life and slink away to hopefully never show my face again, or I could laugh with them. After a couple of these incidents it occurred to me that maybe this was my lot in life, so I should go with the flow. I started to laugh with them. That’s when I discovered that not only could I laugh with them, I could make them laugh more. I really liked that feeling. I could transform from the butt of the joke, to the joke, to the joker. It’s a powerful feeling, and there is nothing like the rush you get from brightening someone’s day and putting a smile on their face. I am completely addicted to it. They’re all gonna laugh at me, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Monday April 21, 2014Benefit of the Doubt, Judge not lest ye be judged, JudgementLife, Live and LearnView all 2 comments

I didn’t realize it until later in life, but there were quite a few influential people in my childhood who spent a large amount of their time judging other people. Judgements like:

You’re fat, you must be lazy and not care about yourself.
You have tattoos, you must be a delinquent and do drugs
You’re children are running around the restaurant, you must be a bad parent
You didn’t go to college, you’ll never amount to anything

And so on and so forth. They had an opinion about everybody and everything and the good opinions were few and far between. So obviously, hearing this as a child I believed it to be true, and worse yet I learned that it was my job to pass judgement on other people as well. Which I did. However, as I got older and was exposed to more people with varying ways of thinking and approaching things, I discovered that this was not how everybody went through their days. There were actually people out there who would see people and instead of instantly leaping to what was “clearly” their shortcomings, they found something good in the person. Or gave them the benefit of the doubt if they were acting poorly. I instantly liked this way of thinking much better and felt uncomfortable and mean whenever my brain would automatically start judging people.

So I began to attempt to change the way that my brain thought. If I saw someone that was out running but going really slow, I would instantly say to myself, “With how slow you’re going, why are you even running, just walk and stop pretending.” Then I would feel bad that I had thought. Then, for the first time in my life, I would actually let myself feel bad instead of squashing that emotion down. Then I would correct myself and say, “No matter how slow they’re going, at least they’re trying. Good for them!” Despite the fact that no one else knew that these thoughts were going through my head the very act of calling myself out on it and consciously changing my thought made me feel better. After a while I started to get better at this, but every so often there would be a bad day and the judgments would come out in full force. By the end of the day I would feel dirty inside and not like who I was. So then I would spend the next couple of days trying to repair the damage.

It was like a constant war going on in my head. I’m sure that at times I must have either looked like I was completely crazy, or that I had a migraine because I was so busy arguing with myself. Luckily, most of this was going on in high school and at that point I was so depressed that if I wasn’t actively engaged in school, work or theater I was usually alone. Actually, now that I think about it, that probably made it worse . . .

Any who, it’s been a battle that I’ve fought for a long time, and I’m now almost exclusively on the winning side. I find that I’m happier when I look for the good in people instead of the bad. However, I slip up some days more than others and Judgey McJudgerson rears her ugly head. That’s what I call her. I imagine she looks something like this.

Recently I’ve discovered a pattern for when I slip up the most. Whenever I’m feeling bad about myself, Judgey McJudgerson has a lot to say. A LOT! It’s almost as if she pops up to put everyone around me down in order to make me feel better. Why do we do that? Why do we think that pushing someone else down will pull us up. In reality it just sinks you down further, which causes you to pull others down more, which sinks you further, etc. It’s a vicious cycle, and it’s certainly not a good way to live. I for one feel significantly worse at the end of the day when McJudgerson has held sway in my head space for most of the day.

I just finished reading, The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal – which is a fantastic book by the way – and one of the chapters that stood out to me the most was the one in which a woman is being drug out of the city to be stoned and Joshua stops the guards, picks up a rock and says something to the effect of, “Let he who has not sinned, cast the first stone.” Now I’m not the least bit religious, which I’m sure is abundantly clear from the fact that I’m quoting Christopher Moore instead of the Bible, but there’s really something to be said for that sentiment. Who are we to judge others, and doesn’t that judgment really say more about ourselves than the person we’re judging? Maybe it’s our own actions that we should be examining before turning our eyes and thoughts onto someone else. It’s a work in progress.

Monday April 07, 2014Cleanse, Detox, Flush out Toxins, PoopLife, Live and LearnView all 8 comments

For all those that know me, I’m sure you’re surprised that this hasn’t come up before. Well the wait is over, because here it is: a blog about poop. So if that is the sort of thing that upsets your delicate sensibilities – my sister – I suggest that you skip over this post and read some of the poetry below. I promise, they are poop free. For all the rest, forge on my friends.

I just finished a cleanse (or a flush, or a detox, or whatever you crazy kids are calling it now a days). I didn’t do this to lose weight, or because it’s a great fad or anything like that. I did it, because after being on and off again sick for four months a malaise seemed to have settled over my body and I felt like I was just full of gunk that would not, could not go away. Therefore, flush it out! I’ve never done this before because I have three diseases/disorders of the digestive track. So to say that I have a sensitive tummy is the understatement of the year! So I tend to avoid anything and everything that puts undo stress on my already precarious digestive system. But I was at the end of my rope and was willing to try anything to lift this fog that I had been living under so I threw caution to the wind and gave it a try.

For the first few days I thought that I was going to die! Holy crap did I feel horrible! It was like I had a little mini flu that I’d given to myself. I didn’t feel better, I felt much, MUCH worse. But the instructions said that that might happen, so lord knows why, I kept going. Probably because I was too weak and delirious to do anything else. Then on about the fourth day, something magical happened. I took the biggest dump that I have ever taken in my entire life. It was epic. It was more satisfying than some of the sex that I’ve had – which seriously calls into question some of my life choices, but that’s a conundrum for another day. After that, I felt better and finished out the cleanse . . . and did lots more pooping.

That’s when I deduced that cleanse/flush/detox all mean “poop until your insides are on the outside” in Latin. Trust me on this, I looked it up.* I mean seriously, this is definitely the part of cleanses that they DO NOT advertise about. I can understand why, but a little warning would have been nice! Or at least the advice to stick Tolstoy’s War and Peace in the bathroom. I’m pretty sure I could have busted through that tome.

The one thing that I can’t quite wrap my head around though, is that people do these all of the time. I know someone who “cleanses” twice a year. Good grief! Don’t get me wrong, I felt better afterwards and the fog has cleared, but that is not something that I want to do again anytime soon. So here is the question to all of my “cleanse” friends – Is this really what cleansing is all about, and if so why do you like it so much? Maybe you all appreciate a good poop more than I do.

*Definitely didn’t look it up.

Thursday March 20, 2014Awe, Bad-Ass, Earthquake, Mother Nature, WonderLife, Live and Learn, MothersView all 2 comments

As many of you probably already know, unless you live under a rock, an earthquake hit Los Angeles early Monday morning. This is not the first earthquake that I have ever been in. However, it is the first earthquake that I have:

1. Not slept through – my sister still gives me shit about the one I slept through in Alaska – and

2. Realized that it was an earthquake before it was over instead of just assuming that I had the shakes from too much coffee.

Therefore, I felt that it warranted a post. Especially since I seem to have my earthquake reaction all wrong. During the quake I called my dogs to me and they snuggled under my arms and stopped barking. I guess they figured that if I wasn’t upset they could calm down. Which my number one question for them is, why doesn’t that work in normal life? They will bark and howl their fool heads off regardless of what my demeanor is or whether their under my arm on any other day, but by God during an earthquake they are monkey-see, monkey-do! Maybe the next time they start barking I’ll pick them up and shake them really hard . . . well, that’s probably not the best idea . . .

At any rate, during the quake I was totally calm. Then after I looked around my room. A couple of things had fallen over or fallen off their perches, but other than that, no damage. My roommate poked her head in my door and once we had ascertained that nobody had been crushed by a falling object, we both went back to bed. Yes I went back to bed, and yes I was able to fall asleep. Really my only hindrance to sleep was that Bubba was still a little skittish and wouldn’t lay down until I grabbed him in a bear hug and made him lay down with me. Then he fell asleep too. No muss, no fuss, 4.4 is not that big of a quake.

By the time that I finally drug myself out of bed I had to rush to make it to work on time, where I was met by an onslaught of social media about people freaking out about the earthquake. Freaking out and doom and gloom about “The Big One!” I didn’t get it, we live right along a major fault line. Aren’t earthquakes sort of expected? Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t sit around gleefully waiting for an earthquake to strike, but I guess I figure there are better things to get freaked out about than an earthquake that didn’t even cause any damage. Or so I thought until I got home from work to discover that the big brick planter in our courtyard now looks like this:

Crazy right! Then I went upstairs and really took a look around my apartment. In addition to the couple of things that I knew had fallen, every picture hanging on the wall was now crooked. One of them had fallen off completely and was lodged behind the bookshelf which is quite a feat since there isn’t enough room between the book case and wall for it to fit. Which means that the bookcase was rocked out from the wall far enough for the picture to slip through. How cool is that?!?! That’s when I really started to look around and discovered that everything on my desk had shifted almost half a foot. Look!

Yes, I know, I’m a horrible housekeeper. I have better things to do than dust, and quite frankly if it weren’t for my bad housekeeping we wouldn’t have this shot! And yes, I have dusted since then, so all of you in the peanut gallery can keep your comments to yourself. The point is that I am so in awe of Mother Nature right now. She is a certifiable bad ass! Beyond bad ass! It’s like she sits on her throne – does Mother Nature have a throne? I’d have a throne if I were her. Were gonna go with throne. – and laughs at all of our pathetic attempts to prove that we humans are greater than our surroundings. Can outwit and humanize the natural world around us. So every now and again, she throws down something like this just to prove that she’s actually the one in charge. Now that I think about it, she kind of reminds me of my sister. How every now and then she’ll knock me to the ground and pound on me a bit just to remind me that even though I’m half a foot taller now, she’s still the big sister. It blows my mind and humbles me. She is so amazing. Mother Nature I mean, not my sister. Well my sister’s pretty amazing too . . . and has a mean shoulder throw.

http://www.murphyillustration.com/

Thursday March 06, 2014Be Yourself, Great Teachers, Speak to the Soul, Virginia WoolfInspiration, Live and LearnLeave a comment

When I was in college, the first time around, I took a women’s lit class. Cause that’s what you do as a young woman studying at a Liberal Arts school! For the most part I found my classmates, who were English majors not theater like me, wholly pretentious, elitist and out of touch with any sort of reality that I was familiar with. Yes, I realize the irony of me calling someone pretentious and elitist, but that should give you an idea of the attitudes of these girls! I would have completely hated the class, had it not been for the professor. She was amazing, and secretly I think she felt the same way about most of the class. Whenever they would go off pontificating about something completely ridiculous she would always look to me to wave the bullshit flag. Which I was more than happy to do, and whenever I would voice my opposition she was right there to back me up as the entire class would lash out at me. She made it safe to disagree, to step away from the majority and think on your own. Lorna was a great professor!

However, I will always remember her as the person who introduced me to Virginia Woolf, specifically A Room of One’s Own. I LOVE Woolf’s writing and sitting down with A Room of One’s Own I felt like she was speaking directly to me with every sentence she wrote. I don’t usually write in books, but this one I had to. It was a compulsion, a need. I had to engage, lay down my thoughts next to hers; make it a dialogue instead of a monologue. Underline the sentences that spoke to my soul and block out the passages that gave my heart reason to sing. All I wanted in this world was a room of my own and a desk to sit at for hours. I read it cover to cover in one sitting, and then I read it again. At the time I was studying to be an actress, so I don’t think I quite comprehended why it spoke to me so completely. Now that I’ve hung up my character shoes and lost myself to pen and paper it makes perfect sense.

I’ve been thinking about Woolf this week. Not because I’ve picked it up to reread, but because I finally cleaned off my desk. It sounds stupid, but trust me it was a daunting task! So this week I’ve been writing tucked away in my corner with my little lamp on, instead of kicked back on the couch with a computer on my lap and a puggle on each side. It is truly astounding the difference that this has made. That desk, that corner has only ever been used for writing, so sitting there has a purpose. The simple act of scooting the chair in triggers a mechanism in my brain to start thinking in prose. To become characters and allow their stories to unfold before me. It feels right, because it is right. No distractions, no excuses I’m there to write. I haven’t quite gotten to a room of my own, but for now I’ll settle for a corner of my own.

Clear

A Room of One’s Own – Tammera – http://www.redbubble.com/people/tammera