balance

Being a typical Libra, my life is all about balance. I yearn for it. I strive for it. I don't feel happy without it.

I feel so balanced right now. A good combo of work and play. Friends and family and alone time. New challanges and safe comforts. Exercise and rest. Yummy rich foods and salad. Light and dark.

Perhaps that's why I am in such a good mood... the amount of light that I am getting per day. I don't mean to be a negative nelly, but I am dreading next month. I know that technically June is just the beginning of summer... but it houses the summer solstice which means that the days start getting shorter. Granted, it will take a long time for them to get really short again, but it eats at my soul just knowing it is happening. But for now I have sunlight galore! I don't even mind that I am woken up early every morning, way before my alarm goes off, by the sun.

But back to balance... I feel like I have roots going deep into the earth off of my feet. Not that I am rooted in one place, just that I am solid and steady. When I feel balanced like this, it is like nothing can knock me over.

I love this feeling because there have been many times when I HAVEN'T had this feeling. When I wasn't rooted and so any little thing could unground me and ruin my whole day.

Plus my heart chakra is like BHAM! Bursting open! I remember when my phone got stolen and my heart chakra shriveled up into a little ball of black anger and I didn't like people very much. And I had a hard time connecting with my clients. I HATE that feeling. So I am just reveling in the fact that my heart chakra is so open right now. I'm going to try and keep it going as long as possible.

By the way, I just rented Black Swan and was watching it by myself in my creepy house. Bad idea. It was thoroughly freaking me out. To the point where I had to turn it off and come write a random blabbering blog post about balance to try and calm myself down!

writers

What surprises me about my writing class is how social and nice the people are. I suppose that shouldn't surprise me, but writing is such a solitary, loner activity that you expect writers to be weird little hermits. You can imagine Stephen King locked away in a room for hours, having no contact with anyone else, just writing his heart out.

I've been having a very productive writing day today. Which is great. But I also haven't left the apartment. Haven't talked to anyone in hours. It's kind of lonely.

I think the only thing that saves me is that my other job is being a massage therapist where I interact 100% with other people.

horror movie

We've decided that we need to make a horror movie in our house as it is getting renovated... because it is straight up creepy in there!

They've actually boarded up access to the front of the house so we can't get in there... which wouldn't be a problem except that is where my bedroom is! So I gathered some more of my stuff and moved it out of there. But I couldn't get everything. There is just certain clothes that I won't be wearing for the next two months I guess.

Anyways, they have completely taken out everything, down to the studs. You know me, I love having a kitchen full of studs!!! ;)

But they have also hung up cloth to help keep the dust from going everywhere. Even if I COULD have slept in my room, there is no way I would because it is just too creepy.

finding our own truths

"Walk with those seeking the truth,

run from those who think they've found it."

I get bothered when people tell me that I can't understand something because I haven't experienced what they have experienced.

I mean, yes, it's true. But that is also just part of being human. That is how life works.

Whether it be good things or bad, big things or small things.

"Well, you've never experienced my aunt Bea's potato salad so you don't know how good potato salad can be."

or

"You were never molested as a child, so you have no idea what it is like to be me."

We all have experienced different things and that's what makes us unique. But it doesn't necessarily make us better than each other, which is the attitude we give off when we say things like "You've never done such and such, if you did you would know..."

I think it is one of the most complex things about being human... we can never experience what other people experience. Even if we do similar things, like get married or have kids, our experiences are going to be completely different.

And why does it even matter?

Because these are the things that make us who we are.

If we have had something make a huge impact in our lives, we automatically assume that people who have NOT experienced that same thing are lesser and are missing out.

Having to deal with my mom having cancer three times has made me a better person. Does that mean that if your mom hasn't had cancer three times that you are not as good as me? Does it mean that you don't understand the world as well as I do?

No.

It just means we are different.

But if something major happened in our lives and made us a better person, there is a natural desire to share that with other people. We want them to get that same feeling of growth that we got.

For me, one of my biggest growth experiences was going to live in a different country/culture where they didn't speak English. I was exhausted at the end of every day when I lived in France because it was such a learning and growing experience. It changed my life forever.

So do I think everyone should do that and that they would be better people if they did it? Sort of. I'll admit that I do. But that is because it worked for me. That is because it made me who I am. But what if you have no desire to go live in France? Does that mean that you can't live a whole and complete life? Of course not. You will just find different experiences.

So when people act like they have a new insight into the universe because they are married with kids, it bothers me. I understand why they feel that way. It was a HUGE thing for them. And they want everyone to experience it like they experienced it. They can't imagine someone feeling whole and complete and being a good person without it, because they aren't a whole and complete and good person without it. It is part of them.

But be careful... don't try to force your truths on other people. It's insulting and annoying. Don't tell me what I need to do to become as awesome as you. Because even if I did the same thing, I wouldn't have the same experience as you. Nobody wants to be told that they need to find God to be a whole, good person who understands the world. Nor does someone want to be told that they don't understand because they don't have kids.

Because they might not have kids, but they might have had a ton of other experiences that you haven't that have shaped them and have been huge for them. And YOU'LL never know what THAT is like.

So where does that leave us?

Where we started, where we will never know what it is like to be someone else and experience what they experience.

But that's okay, because we can still connect and relate and empathize and love each other. We don't have to be the same. We don't have to be better than one another. We can accept that we have lots to learn from one another and lots more growing to do and we will discover it on our own time.

characters on the bus

Last night in writing class we were talking about characters and ways to make our characters feel more alive. You need to give them quirks, you need to give them habits, you need to give them distinctive speech patterns, etc.

The teacher had recommended using the people around you for inspiration. Especially the people on the bus. You've often heard me talk about people on the train. People on the bus are on a whole other level... of crazy... of weird... of please don't sit next to me!

The teacher said that if you really wanted some good characters that you should check out the #36 Broadway bus. One of my fellow students chimed in that her friend calls that bus "Farside on Wheels." Which is kind of hilarious.

I don't ride the #36, but my own bus line has plenty of fun people on it. In fact, I often wonder if the people are actors who've been hired to act weirdly just to mess with me. Sort of like flash mobs who just break into song and surprise the unsuspecting public.

Last night's bus ride started off normal enough. I caught the bus (after running down the steps of the train station) just before the doors closed AND I got a seat which I mistakenly thought was a sign that it was going to be a good ride.

Of course the woman two seats down decides that right now would be a really good time to have a super loud telephone conversation. I won't repeat the entire thirty minute conversation- just my favorite line: "Hey, how's your brother doing? Is he dead?"

Nice.

And then crazy dude got on. I couldn't see him from my seat but I could see the faces of the other passengers who COULD see him and they looked nervous. That's never a good sign.

Crazy dude was talking very slow. And confused. Was he on drugs? Was he crazy? Was he just a bit slow?

He paid his entire $2.25 fare in coins. And considering how long it took, I am guessing not many of those coins were quarters. And he kept telling the driver the address he needed to get off at.

So he finally comes and sits down a few seats from me and I got a look at his face. And I almost vomited. His bottom lip was swollen (to about four times the size of Angelina Jolie's lips!) and it was split in the middle with this yellow pus that was dried and cracked where the lip had split.

He turns to the girl sitting next to him, a Mexican girl who is reading a book in Spanish, and goes, "How you doin'? You are so pretty." She had the good sense to just ignore him. Mind you, she probably only spoke Spanish anyways.

So thankfully he leaves her alone and is all turning in his seat to look at people in the back of the bus.

At this point this young black teenage boy tries to get on the bus, but he just missed it by a few seconds, so he pounded on the door to get the bus driver to open back up. Which he did not do. So the boy chased down the bus and at the next street the driver pulled over for him (which he is NOT supposed to do) and he got on and was super happy to have made it on the bus.

So the kid goes to take a seat at the back of the bus and accidentally brushes the crazy guy a little bit (mainly because he was hanging half way into the aisle to stare at people in the back of the bus.)

So of course the crazy guy goes...wait for it, wait for it... crazy!

Starts yelling at the kid about how he doesn't care how young he is, but the young kid hit him (which apparently is what they call it when someone gently brushes you these days) and how he won't hesitate to put a cap in his head. That's right, I will take a gun and shoot you. And I has a gun on me right now. And I will take out this gun. Yes I will. I have a gun on me right now. My gun's name is Jesus.

I thankfully never learned whether this guy was bluffing or not. He settled down and started asking people for money instead and I got the hell off the bus.

But I can't write characters like that. Nobody would believe characters like that in a story. They are too big. Too melodramatic. Too crazy.

Um, have I ever mentioned by the way how much I HATE the bus?!? I hurried home for a big hug and a big glass of red wine. And Mike was waiting with a grilled cheese made with humboldt fog and suddenly everything was okay with the world again and I am willing to face the world for another day.

unhappy client

When I take notes on clients at work I often will put little things in the margins to help me remember them. Because there are a lot of things that we can't simply write in the notes. We can't write that the client is fat, so we write that you may want to lower the table a notch.

But when I saw this little scribble on the side of an old note I was scared. I couldn't remember what it meant (because it is NOT one of my normal scribbles) and so Leah suggested that maybe my pen wasn't working and that was all it was. No, if I was trying to get the pen to work I would have done it on scratch paper, not the notes. And in the notes I had written that she was a difficult client to read and was not sure that she had enjoyed the massage.

The first time I worked on her I drew that symbol. But then she came back in and requested me. I saw the symbol got scared. After I was done working on her the second time I REMEMBERED what that symbol meant--- it meant that the client was a swirling vortex, energy sucking black hole of miserableness!

She is getting a massage for Christ's sake! What's not to be happy about? And I was going all out, being so friendly and nice and trying to draw her out of her shell.

Nope. To this day I have never seen her smile.

So she came in for a third massage this weekend. A 90 minute. And requested me. Which you would assume she wouldn't do if she didn't like me and my massages, right? And she just seemed like she was miserable. And didn't smile. And I was like, "Whatever, I'll just give it my all and if she doesn't like it then she doesn't like it."

So at the end she comes out and still looks unhappy and I ask her how she was doing and she goes, "You rock!"

Yeah!!! She did like it!

I just find it interesting how some people don't express their emotions very well. Or they don't realize how they come off.

Of course, with massage it is also hard because the more seriously relaxed you get, often the less you smile just because smiling takes energy and so you would rather not put the energy into it.

But that's what makes my job fascinating and challenging... it's not just about a client's body and tight muscles, you need to deal with their personalities and quirks and moods and energy levels and a million other things (that they may or may not tell you about, say they got spanked a lot as a kid, which is why they freak out when I go anywhere near their butt, but I don't know that happened, all I know is that they are freaking out when I go near their butt.) My job is exhausting and so cool at the same time.

happy things

The sun is smiling. Spring is in the air. So let's talk about things that have made me happy in the last few weeks...

Construction has begun on my house! The contractor is coming in today but my brother and his awesome friends (not sure what he bribed them with, maybe just the ability to use awesome power tools and destroy stuff) took down all the cabinets in our kitchen this weekend. Which is fun. Fun to see the old border from the 50s that was hidden behind the cabinets and the old linoleum that was covered up. It's like excavating.

What else is fun is that I didn't have to help! I helped clear everything out of the kitchen but did not have to help with the actual destruction of it.

And soon (well, in a few months) we will have a sparkly, happy new kitchen! Yippee!

And then when I visited Mike at work I got to rock out on the drum set. His break room is soooo much cooler than my break room. And no, I can not play the drums but that does not stop me from enjoying myself.

Hi, happy flowers!!

Hi, random giant stuffed animal on someone's front lawn!

Hi, awesome zippered pocket on the side of the woman's hat!

And hi, adorable child on the el. I complain a lot about the el. Mostly about the crazies. But you see some adorable stuff on there too.