In which I cover the good stuff and the hard stuff in my week, trying for the non-preachy, non-annoying side of ritual and self-reflection.
And you get to join in if you feel like it.
Wow. I mean, wow. This week was quite a ride.
I may have to chicken a good part of this chicken in code.
Anytime I mention butterflies, this is a good thing. At least I think it is. I have not entirely figured out the code yet.
The hard stuff
Not knowing what I want.
That’s always hard.
Knowing exactly what I want.
Wait, sometimes that’s way harder!
Encountering a whole colony of sad, scared selves.
At first it looked like another collective of monsters, but actually (like with most monsters), these were parts of Me From Then who were in a lot of pain and still hurting.
I found a giant gaping hole of accumulated vulnerability and perceived lack.
I met the me who believes that “being vulnerable is death”. Oh, sweetie. Oh, sweetie.
I met It’s All Going To Blow Up In Your Face.
I met You’re Ruining This By Being You.
And I uncovered a whole band of versions of me who believe that the only way to be safe ever is to Not Show Your Cards.
The good news is that I was able to use all the destuckifying techniques and things we practice at Rally, and come to peaceful resolutions with all of these lost and forgotten aspects of me. But man, it was hard and scary and took up some middle-of-the-night hours.
A lot of old pain. Hi, guys. We’re still here.
Sunday night I skipped a ritual.
And that made everything harder.
Adaptation to change.
It’s one of my superpowers (agility! activate!) but that doesn’t necessarily make it easy, you know?
That one is kind of hard to explain so I’ll just leave it at that.
Falling into old patterns.
I want to eat everything, all the time.
Hormonal ridiculousness that really needs to stop.
The project that was the project of doom.
And then not making anywhere near as much progress on it as hoped.
Lacking the words for a thing that needs words.
Frustrating.
Deliriously short attention span.
Cannot. Focus. Distractor mouse!
I blame the moths and the mice and the roses and the secret conduits and June being delicious.
The gigantic nightmare that was installing air conditioning at Stompopolis.
Basically it took all week and it was loud and horrible. Also it was supposed to happen outside of working hours but it had already been months and we couldn’t wait any longer.
Hellish.
Oh and we had to put all the (incredibly ugly) units on the wall where the stage is, because the neighbors are vindictive asshats who have a grudge against the owner of the building. Long depressing story, but that’s the end of it.
The good stuff
Roses.
This is a proxy and also secret code but also literal truth because OHMYGOD the roses.
Seriously, the roses.
They’re intense.
Being in the sun.
I spent more time in the parks this week and exploring secret neighborhood passages than ever before in my years of living here.
So that was the plus side of having no attention span.
Incoming me is a genius..
Thank god for that.
The door is gone.
There was a door that didn’t need to be there, and it’s been there for years and now it’s gone.
This happened swiftly and easily, and it was the right time.
Also, even though this was a physical door that was very much in reality, it feels like a VERY symbolic thing for other situations.
Tingling.
Everything is tingly and anticipatory and magic, and I am so over the top enamored of June, and everything about June.
Lusciousness! I asked for it and it is here and it is big.
Invisible progresses are still real.
There has been so much movement in the soft, and while it can’t be seen yet, it can be felt.
This is important. This is beyond important. It is vital.
Surprising coincidences.
Much sparkly unlikeliness.
I am enjoying it.
The distraction is a good distraction.
Last week I was also distracted but I was distracted by thinking about a thing that I don’t like.
This week was all about marvelous distractions.
UEFA euro cup.
Everything about that, basically.
Also, in basketball, watching the Heat lose the first game of the finals.
Oh, and did you catch the DNN power rankings for June? Yeah baby. Rose City!
And I didn’t even mention the most astonishingly beautiful thing ever, this article doesn’t even begin to convey how precious and impossible of a day this was. A perfect game. Matt Cain. Unbelievable.
Marisa!
One of my favorite people ever is a) coming to visit me and b) coming to stay!
10:27
And all the 10 27s.
Discovering more about what I really and truly care about.
I’d kind of thought I was an expert in this, but oho!
New discoveries.
Buoyancy.
And sweetness.
Holy crap the Shiva Nata this week.
I did insanely insane things (of insanity!) and the epiphanies were EPIC.
I can’t even talk about how deeply things are coming apart and then coming together better. It’s kind of terrifying. But in a really good way. Shiva Nata. Shiva Nata. Shiva Nata.
Playing live at the meme beach house — it’s the Fake Band of the Week!
Background? Ez and I make up bands. Stu (retired Bolshevik-fearing voice-to-text software) once translated “people will hate me and be jealous” to “they’ll hang out at my Meme Beach House“. It’s just one guy.
This week’s band is a) awesome and b) comes with a story:
Ray and the Liottas
Yes.
So here’s the story.
It was too beautiful a day last weekend to be on a bus or inside, but I had errands to run so I decided to compromise: I’d walk from the Playground to Fremont (maybe twenty minutes?) and then catch the 24.
At the bus stop I met a young man who had been waiting forever for the bus. It then turned out that the bus wasn’t going to come until…a few days later. So he and I walked together for forty five blocks and during this time I learned all there is to know about him, his skateboard, his likes and dislikes and his childhood in Arkansas.
He told me that his roommates have a band called Ray Liotta, and then explained to me that Ray Liotta is an actor. Me, straight-faced, “You’re kidding. What are the chances?”
(And then Henry Hill died, it was kind of a week like that).
Anyway, I pointed out to this kid that his friends’ band has a google problem: namely that no one will ever be able to find them ever.
He was dismayed, because somehow this had not occurred to them. And he said maybe they could change to the Ray Liottas. And I suggested Ray and the Liottas, which is really terrible but he thought it was awesome. He was awesome. Seriously, if I were fifteen years younger I would have totally invited myself to the show.
But of course we all know that …. it’s really just one guy.
Hallo Hallo! I am saying Hallo Hallo. Announcement time.
Picture me wearing that crazy hat…
Come to Rally (Rally!).
It will change EVERYTHING. And yes, that is as scary as that sounds but only before you do it. Because what will actually happen is that the most extraordinary shifts and changes will happen in the unlikeliest ways, with smoothness and grace and whatever else you plant for it at Rally.
You can still make it to Rally #22 (July 23-26) or :there’s one more Rally this year (September 10-13). Next year there will be only two Rallies. And actually one of those might be a Floop Rally, we’ll see about that next week.
Anyway, RALLY! Rally is the most extraordinary thing that I know of. It is otherworldly but you get to take that other world back with you. So. July or September. That’s your only chance until February.
Prices go up next month by kind of a lot. We gave a six month grace period for the in-between prices, and now, astonishingly, that’s almost over. Rally!
That’s it for me …
Join my Friday ritual in the comments if you feel like it. Or call silent retreat!
We let people have their own experience. We’re supportive and welcoming. And we don’t give advice (unless people specifically ask for it).
Wishing you a glorrrrrrrrrrrrious day, a restful weekend and a happy week to come.
Shabbat shalom.
p.s. It’s fine if it’s not Friday anymore. There’s complete chicken amnesty — join in whenever (or not) and it’s no big deal.
Follow
I am astonished by how much I’ve had this week. My things… are coming together. The hard was manageable using my self-belief and my words, and the easy was easy, and the good was great. Making my art and writing my blogs and helping my children to educate themselves and being at home in the town where I live… great strides and much comfortable settling, this week. And a leap or two.
Ray and the Liottas story = awesome. Everything about it, including the telling.
Chicken!
The Hard:
Friend drama. The kind that makes me Silent Retreat and go and find that post about how not everything requires a response (best post ever!) and read it and just be quiet. And then more quiet. And more quiet.
Messy work thing. That was kind of my fault and screwing things up for someone else and then for more people and then getting yelled at and trying not to yell back and hopefully resolving it by the end of the conversation but still having that yucky feeling in my belly.
The Good:
One year of abstinence from that Boy. Zero contact, not even to drive by his house and lob a brick at a window or crank call his new girlfriend or sit in his driveway sobbing hysterically. This calls for lots of quiet remembrances of refraining and cheers.
My cat. Remember when I got my cat? I still love her to bits.
My race tomorrow. Obstacle course and mud and running and fun.
My meditation practice.
Your post about how not everything requires a response.
http://fluentself.com//blog/personal/not-everything-requires-a-response/
And realizing that it is actually true. When someone is lobbing a ball at you, you don’t actually have to catch it or scramble through thorns to go find it and throw it back. You can just let it lie there. And sometimes that makes every thing so much better. And even if it doesn’t, you haven’t said something that was misunderstood or misinterpreted or taken badly or that will require another response from them until every thing is just bad and worse.
Knowing that I’m better off now, going days without remembering him, and knowing that being sad cannot kill me. And knowing that being sad without someone is so much easier to bear than being sad with someone.
Yay for code!
Hmmm, I’m going to have to think hard and consult my calendar to even figure out what happened.
Hard:
– Lots of my old pain. And how painful it is when I try to make other people take responsibility for it.
– Lots of other people’s pain. And how painful it is when I take responsibility for it.
– Honestly, it was probably about the same level of sovereignty/unsovereignty I always have in my life, but the increased awareness is hard.
– Dreading the awful awful thing that had to happen on Tuesday.
– Various things are not as done as I’d like them to be.
– Having my site hacked. Or more specifically, how I lack even the basic technological skills to know how bad that is, much less fix it.
– So much of my identity seems to be in parts of myself that are changing. This week it is my bellybutton going from an innie to an outie. Disorienting+uncomfortable.
– I can’t feel the baby. I want to feel the baby. I am supposed to not be worried about not feeling the baby. Mostly I feel like I’m having a conversation with someone who won’t respond.
– Supposedly I haven’t gained enough weight (since I haven’t gained any weight), and there’s so much stuff about that. Worried I’m not eating enough. Annoyed that I want to be heavier because eventually I will be and then I’ll be mad at me from now… It’s like fifteen-year-old-me is running the show.
Good:
– The awful thing I had to do on Tuesday is done.
– This week was way way way better than the week before.
– I did so much work (in hard and soft) on so many different things.
– Got to hear the babylet’s heartbeat! Love that sound.
– Came to a firm decision on the ultrasound/find-out-gender question.
– Wedding stuff is mostly done!
– Massages are the best thing ever.
Cheers Chickeneers!
The Hard:
– fighting off a summer cold
– having to do the boring parts of a project
– HOW IS IT POSSIBLY JUNE 15TH ALREADY?!?!?!?!
The Good:
– very gentle morning yoga
– academic paper ready to send to a journal
– hiking in the Flatirons with a friend and her dogs
– buying a killer pair of gold aviator sunglasses
Hello Friday ritual! It’s that time again.
The hard:
– Um. Oh, yeah, I lost my dental appliance yesterday evening, which made it hard to talk clearly, let alone eat! But then I found it so that wasn’t hard for very long.
– Some pain. First recurrence of a familiar pain that has been gone for two weeks.
The good:
OMG, there has been so much! MrB. Our son. Teaching. Wonderful weather. Sitting on the porch practically all the time. Activities of great pleasure. Hanging out with friends.
I found two versions of the dress I’ve been wanting for a year. Both fit and look good. Both were incredibly inexpensive, on sale. I bought both.
My son wouldn’t let me buy him a microwave even though he needs one. A friend of mine found one at a yard sale for $15 and he is going to pay her back.
Life feels almost stress-free. (I think if someone would go to the grocery store for me, I’d say it was totally stress-free.)
I had the astonishing realization that in the past when I’ve been in a calm period, I’ve made it stressful by trying to use the time to Get Things Done and take on Another Responsibility. Or at least by trying to make myself do so. This time, I’m simply relaxing into it. Which is kind of a benefit of feeling too depleted to take on anything.
And floating along feeling happy.
Wishing well to all of you. Hugs for the hard and yay for the good.
Where has this week gone? There is too much. Let me sum up.
Hard:
–Every Father’s Day advertisement is like a little stab at my heart. Sometimes it’s a pinprick, sometimes it’s more of a knife. I miss my dad, damn it.
–I’m not comfortable giving details on this one, but awkward situation, and I feel I ought to be able to speak up and address it, but can’t quite bring myself to do so.
–Patterns, you are stubborn. I suppose you just want to live, as most things do. Living things do change, though, you know? We need to talk, patterns.
Good:
–My daughter had a lovely birthday, and I had the privilege of helping to make it happen and sharing in her joy. (She is thirteen now. Wow!)
–I set some gentle, doable biggification goals for myself, and met them.
–I am learning to help myself fall asleep — peacefully, pleasantly, and consistently. I am learning, more and more deeply, the extent to which a good night’s sleep changes everything. Oh, yes.
A FLOOP RALLY !!
All incoming me’s to the batcave! We have to think about buying a round-the-world-trip and factoring this into my 2013 crazy travel plans. BUT HOW WILL WE DO THIS BETWEEN GRADUATING AND TRAVELING TO ASIA TOO We don’t know sweetie-pie but we’ll oodle it and it will all be dandy one way or the other.
Also – hugs for the hard and cheering for the June Lusciousness. I also particular love the Ray and the Liottas story. That young gentleman sounds fantastic.
The Hard
– Things are shifting. They are shifting in good directions but change hard! I ran into me-who-loves-surprises and me-who-has-been-blocking them. This was all interesting. Also this process takes time and energies and it feels like there might not be enough. Also known as: no progress on stuff I needed to do.
– There is to be an [evaluation] of my work… by a person who previously unrespected my boundaries and pushed all the buttons. Scared!
– Had to have a hard conversation about stepping out of seomthing. Actually, it was a good conversation because of [good friends] but at the same time I always have a hard time stepping out of things because of [my stuff of wanting to help].
– In short: there was stuff! to deal with.
But Now Is Not Then.
– Wanting something badly. No patience! Lalala! feeling done with what i am doing now and ready for the new thing.
– vulnerability coming up. its probably a good thing in that context but still HARD
The Good
+ My friend Eefje will join me on my Turkey Spiritual Retreat Try-out. So excited. So incredibly excited. Because she gets it and she is amazing.
+ Iguana’s got sorted and done. That was hard but I did it. And now I have my gym time back!
+ I am declaring a Weekend of Super Safety. There is floop support. I am loving it already.
+ Dating! there is dating. and it is nice and warm and wonderful and appreciative.
+ I am excited about my work. Even if I am also done with it… I feel there is stuff I can do and this optimism was missing for a while.
This week has flashed by. Keep realising it’s almost midsummer and am all ‘what? where has the last 6 months gone?’. It was also a lot more pleasureable and less angst filled than the last three weeks – thank goodness!
The hard:
Noise stuffs. Interupted sleep. A very strong feeling that where I am living now is no longer right for me.
Suddenly seem to have taken to waking quite a bit later than I have been. Realising I prefer waking earlier, and also that I prefer not waking to an alarm.
Beloved cat is nibbling herself, removing large chunks of her coat and making her skin sore. Not sure what to do to help her.
The good:
More people signing up for Notes from a Shaman’s Path. Stoked!
Roses – so beautiful. Stopping to smell them.
Easily solving the noise thing that was resulting in uniterrupted sleep.
Even though right now I have NO idea how I will get what I want with my living situation, I know what I want and instead of being all sadface about not being sure how it will happen, keeping myself open to possibilities. This could be easy + simple.
So much clarity about what I’m doing in my business and within different parts of it. Lots of ideas for new stuff. Starting to noodle through these ideas + enjoying the process instead of freaking out about how it’s not all done already.
Walks – in the countryside and by the beach. Soul balm.
And I’m sure there’s some other things, but for now, time to dive in to Saturday! Love to all. xo
Chickening again and feeling this is becoming a good habit 🙂
The Hard
Strange pains that brought out a Monster of Doom, which really wasn’t, it was Little Me. Much processing later all was OK but it was hard.
Preparing, or rather freaking out about NOT preparing enough, for the Spanish Inquisition, who then really didn’t arrive.
Scary rumors at work about next academic year.
Wanting to buy something,(not even a big something like Rally or the Floop!) from Havi but having the Money Monster get in the way. Still working on that. Maybe I need to invoke the Science Committee. That might help!
The Good
Getting things done by using proxies. Lots of things just got done. By me. Without any fuss or bother.
Talking to Slightly Future Me about the rumors at work about next year. That was a very surprising conversation!
Oodling – still a baby OOD but working on it feels good.
Walking in the sunshine with my sweetie looking at gorgeous art at Kew Gardens.
I have a woodpecker family feeding on the bird feeders in my garden.So pretty!
One VPA gloriously answered with help from one of the comment helper mice. I’m still basking in how good that feels!
Cluck!!
Hards
– old pain, other people’s old pain and worrying about whether old pain is there and if they’re confusing now with then and old dynamics and toooo much roundy roundy head chatter old STUFF! And wishing wishing wishing things had been otherwise. Especially wishing I had been otherwise. Which is POINTLESS but was hard to stop.
– read (!) a book (!!) on sensory processing issues in ASDs, especially Aspies, and feeling grateful, like we dodged a bullet, like a selfish, judgmental, pompous, ablist bitch, daunted, guilty, furious that this stuff isn’t more widely understood especially in schools, sad, inspired and like a BAD MOTHER. All at once. It gave me an insight into how chaotic and painful and confusing and ill-fitting the world must feel to people with disordered sensory processing, and hell, if it was reeeeeally bad I’d probably get completely absorbed in a wheel going round, and round, and round, and round again, nicely, calmly and predictably for a while before I had to look up and try and deal with a world that feels aggressive and intrusive and demanding and painful. 🙁 And I hope that it embedded some extra patience and curiosity in my response to Little Lad and anyone else I meet who receives information differently from me. But ouch, walking a mile, even just an imaginary, inaccurate mile was a bit blistering….
– ALL my VPAs went to shit and now I’m pissed off at self-sabotaging me who is really just a two year old who needs looking after but I already have kids to look after and my poor mum is getting old and I DON’T live in a village so i cant share it around and it’s TOOO HAAAARD!!!! Waaaaaaaah!! My plate. It is full. And I’m tired.
– Little Lad being very resistant to going to kinder on Friday. Trying to figure out what’s going on inside him when he doesn’t have the words to describe it. Also I’m sure he’s losing weight, although it might just look that way because he’s getting taller. And I don’t know what to do to fix it. Probably because it can’t be ‘fixed’ only be ‘as supported as possible’. Fear. It grips my heart.
Good stuff happened too though!
+ nice night in with my mum talking her through my General Theory of Porpoise-ful Living and moving up from two ‘product’ ideas to about twenty! She liked it all and we didn’t argue and we even laughed about her habit of doing X instead of fighting about it. That’s two good things in one entry! Productivity! And pleasant, close time with my mum! Yay.
+ wrote some social stories for Little Lad and I think they might be resonating with him. He’s asked me to read them a lot at least. We’ll see how we go at kinder drop off on Monday! Also got halfway through his Book of Him that I’ll be sending him off to school with next year so his teachers have got something to refer to when the normal way of going stuff is going awry for him. Take THAT You Are A Bad Mother monster! Plplplplplllll
+ our specialist paediatrician said Little Lad is a poster child for early intervention and told a story about another kid who’s eight now and apart from a few idiosyncrasies you’d be hard pressed to identify him as ASD on meeting him, and I think she was hinting Lad might be on the same trajectory. And not because he’s learning to ‘fit in’ but because he’s learning how to navigate the world and revel in his superpowers and support his vulnerabilities enough that he doesn’t need some of the coping techniques that make it easier to spot some spectrum kids, and he can just be living his life and digging on his music and playing Gotye two hundred and forty seven times a day or whatever the latest passion is and be (in his own words) ‘warm and cosy and happy and safe. And if we can get him able to find that place most of the time, then I will feel like I’ve done an okay job. Warm and cosy and happy and safe. Yes. Me too please!
+ I think old stuff/dynamics/pain is mostly in my head rather than in both our heads…. fingers crossed.
+ I figured out how to make my clotheshorse twice as efficient. Don’t laugh this is really big stiff for me! I have a baby (instantly triples your laundry) and we don’t have a tumble dryer and it’s winter and usually too damp to hang clothes on the line outside. Anyway, it was good for me.
+ car is pretty much back in action. Yay.
+ oh, everything I guess. Even the interesting bits. I’m glad to be here.
xoxo
PS. @Rhiannon- I lost five kilos (10 or 12 lbs?) in my first trimester in both pregnancies so if they’d measured my weight I would have come in ‘under’ throughout. In Australia they measure bub’s progress by checking the fundus is growing by a centimeter per week (ie. 14weeks = 14cm, 34 weeks = 34cm etc) and that’s it. Our own weight is kind of irrelevant because our bodies react so wildly variably to pregnancy, some people stack weight on, others not so much. Y’know? Hopefully this helps cross one thing off your worry list!
@seagirl: kitty!!!
@VickiB: 🙂
@everyone: xoxo
Hard:
* allergies + exhaustion + infection = distraction + depletion
* which means not enough attention to spare for so many people and projects and other things I feel called to tend to…
* and having to say no to movies+bbq with husband and people I’d like to meet because I have deadlines to meet
* and dreaming about people I miss (and recognizing that it’s more important to me to concentrate on the people still in my life, but still wanting to revisit…)
* ongoing dissatisfaction with various machines and vendors, but can’t spare the time/$$ right now to pursue remedies/replacements
Good:
* finally prevailing vs. [corporation] in my efforts to close my mother’s account. (She died four years ago.) My genetic disposition to be stubborn pays off now and then. 🙂
* income coming in, and making arrangements with a new client
* didn’t feel like tackling Garnier Ridge, but hiked it anyway \o/
* yummy meals with beloved and friends (including a trout-potato-capers crepe. Om nom nom nom…)
* my minister is smuggling a banned book into Arizona. She’s getting an extra kick out of the fact that she was asked to bring a book published by the University of Arizona Press.
* receiving fan mail for fic I posted six years ago
* White Sox still leading their division, at least for another couple of hours 😉
* receiving my contributor’s copy for The Moment of Change: An Anthology of Feminist Speculative Poetry
Wishing everyone comfort and abundance in the week to come.
Lots of love for everyone’s Chickens. Support and understanding for everyone who has Stuff around Father’s Day.
I have a ton to process, but this is gonna be short, because: pain! I have a lot of it today!
The Hard:
-Wow. A lot of pain today. Normal ankle stuff, plus my right wrist is hurting and I don’t know why, plus I did something weird to my back this morning which made me incapable of doing anything more strenuous than rolling around on the floor for a few hours.
-Then I took my medicine, which made me very loopy and didn’t actually take away all my pain. So I didn’t go out to help my friends with the laundry, and I felt lazy and useless.
-Oh, I almost forgot! Friday afternoon/evening I got super super sick. I had an unwise combination of kombucha that had been sitting in the car for too long, diet soda, and sushi, which resulted in hours of nausea, then feeling fine, then sudden onset puking. It was the worst.
-Because of all of this, and other things, I’m really not happy being in my body.
-Feelings of inadequacy about clothes.
-Interview on Toozday felt like a giant waste of time.
-Not enough medicine.
The Mixed:
~New experience X. Not sure how I feel about it just yet.
~Water. Water has been saving me the past few weeks, but I also need more of it. More drinking it, more being in it, more looking at it.
The Good:
+In Oakland this week. Loving the people, the atmosphere, and a few things that I silent retreat on. Yay!
+Free Bookstore trip! I got 20 books (the limit is 100 per person per day). I gave myself permission to do this even though I still haven’t read all the books I got last time.
+I’m taking so much better care of myself on this trip than I did on my last trip.
+Getting to see B and some Buddhist friends while I’m in the Bay Area this week.
+Prayer always makes me feel better, and when I do it consistently I get into a rhythm that makes everything easier.
+Volunteer opportunities with the Obama campaign.
+Some jobs I’m gonna apply for while I’m down here this week.
+I get steady internet this week, which means that I get to catch up on my shows.
+A lot of internal movement. It’s important and it helps more than I can see right now.
Cluck! And love to the chickeners.
the suck:
-the high country in flames
-the normal suck of REcoverie, ongoing
-feeling unSovereign because of people scolding me re: pushing too hard during Recoverie. it’s true, but still, pound sand
-because hey, y’all could have been helping me BEFORE someone shamed you into it
-being intensely annoyed by my FIL. have to feel gratitude for hsi assitance here and there but…ugh: the hovering, the smoking, the deathrattle of 5 weeks of untreated bronchitis, the smug Xianity that does not include not laughing at a family member in pain. seriously, WTF?
-migraines.
the good:
-a dear friend comign to visit
-salted caramel (in moderation, because sugar is not our friend)
-good food
-safety
-rest
-yummy books
-getting clear enough in my head for writing
-the Summer Solstice!! hooray!
-usig my Art of Embarking capers. helps so much.
-being able to do Shiva nata even if other things are off limits
Well hey there, Chicken!
HARD:
+having too many things to try to do all in one weekend
+conflict with [friend], and i’m still not entirely clear about what ze’s upset about or whether i’ve actually done anything wrong
+procrastinating because i can get away with it
+the store is out of canned pumpkin AGAIN and without it i cannot make a pumpkin tofu scramble!
+pushing myself physically a bit more than was fun or good
+wet paint in my apartment building, UGHHHH
+having to miss the [awesome] concert because [of physical limitations]
+finishing a book that I never ever ever wanted to end!
+soup I was excited about came out kinda ucky
GOOD:
+deciding not to go to any of the parties to which I was invited
+having a baking party with myself instead
+singing with my wonderful amazing a cappella group!
+World Changing Writing Workshop!!!
+forming my sweet little writing accountability group
+Tarot client
+becoming okay with having regrets [about stuff]
+[embarrassingly awesome entertainment]
+new library books!
+practicing Spanish
+hanging out with [friends] after rehearsal on Wednesday
+people [in my life] who are just so freaking awesome about supporting my commitment to veganism
+working at Quaker conference office!
+busting my ass to finish [a project] and getting it DONE so people were pleased with me and their lives were made easier and I totally ROCK!
+experimenting with the expansion of the boundaries about [some body stuff]
+experimenting with different daily writing practices
+cupcakes!
+[Crush!!] loved my muffins!
+[some health related stuff I’m trying]
+reading Borderlands/La Frontera which is an amazing book and everyone should read it, as soon as you’ve learned enough Spanish to understand the parts which are in Spanish
Hello hello Chicken and Chickeneers! Belated chicken sneaks in after cavorting all weekend, its feathers askew and glitter in its comb.
Much love to all the chickens here so far.
My Ouch Hards:
– Shoulder pain on Sunday the 10th that kept me from sleeping that night.
– Tuesday phone woes – alarm went off without sound, then jumped out of my bag before I got on the bus and
shattered its screen on the pavement… shedding miniscule glass splinters all over as I tried to work with it.
– When screen was replaced, it broke two other things inside the phone, which cannot be fixed. I now can’t answer
calls or type the letters e or s.
– Not enough money to replace the phone.
– Having several days, 5 hours straight, of problematic meetings at work.
– Being absent from so many gorgeous moments due to work preoccupation.
– Illness woes on Saturday the 16th.
– Another chunk of back pain on Sunday the 17th.
– Not yet feeling connected to my writing self.
My Whee Goods:
* Becoming art.
* Movie night on Saturday the 9th! HOLY COW so so much fun.
* Lovelyman waking up in the middle of the night Sunday the 10th because I couldn’t find a comfortable position,
and rubbing my back.
* Two happy weekends.
* Baby steps in regards to inviting my writing self back.
* Baby steps in regards to forgiving myself.
* Swan maidens. Mmmmm.
* A great team at work.
* Excellent food all over the place!
* Anticipating this coming weekend’s Mermaid Parade.
Sending loads of love to every Chickeneer, wherever you all are in your process.