What's in the gallery?
We dissolve stuck and rewrite patterns. We apply radical playfulness to life (when we feel like it!), embarking on internal adventures (credo of Safety First). We have a fake band called Solved By Cake. We build invisible sanctuaries, invent words and worlds, breathe awe and wonder.
We are not impressed by monsters. Except when we are. We explore the connections between internal territories and surrounding environment to learn what marvelously supportive delicious space feels like, and how to take exquisite care of ourselves. We transform things.* We glow wild.**
* For example: Desire, fear, worry, pain-and-trauma, boundaries, that problematic word which rhymes with flaweductivity.
** Fair warning: Self-fluency has been known to lead to extremely subversive behavior, including treasuring yourself unconditionally, unapologetically taking up space, experiencing outrageously improbable levels of self-acceptance, and general rejoicing in aliveness.
What's in the gallery?
We dissolve stuck and rewrite patterns. We apply radical playfulness to life (when we feel like it!), embarking on internal adventures (credo of Safety First). We have a fake band called Solved By Cake. We build invisible sanctuaries, invent words and worlds, breathe awe and wonder.
We are not impressed by monsters. Except when we are. We explore the connections between internal territories and surrounding environment to learn what marvelously supportive delicious space feels like, and how to take exquisite care of ourselves. We transform things.* We glow wild.**
* For example: Desire, fear, worry, pain-and-trauma, boundaries, that problematic word which rhymes with flaweductivity.
** Fair warning: Self-fluency has been known to lead to extremely subversive behavior, including treasuring yourself unconditionally, unapologetically taking up space, experiencing outrageously improbable levels of self-acceptance, and general rejoicing in aliveness.
Bolivia.
I am thirty three years old and have not once seriously considered moving to Bolivia.
It’s weird, because normally I wouldn’t even mention that.
But here we are. Most women do end up moving to Bolivia.
And by my age, you’re pretty much expected to have already moved there or at least you’re supposed to be trying really hard to get there.
To be clear: I have nothing against Bolivia. It seems like a lovely place. Just not one that pulls me. It has never called my name.
And even though I don’t talk about my relationship (or non-relationship) to Bolivia, we will talk about it today.
Because I have words that need to be said about loneliness, power and the extremely problematic word: “choice”.
Loneliness.
There is so much of it when it comes to this hard topic of Bolivia. Or maybe it’s not so much loneliness as isolation.
Every woman has her own experience, her own relationship with moving or not moving to Bolivia. These relationships are often painful, challenging, hard to express.
So you have the women (like my dear friend E.) who are desperate to get into Bolivia. They wait in lines, jump through endless bureaucratic hoops, do what they can.
Sometimes dying inside from the frustration of seeing how other women end up there with such ease.
Then those women — the ones who weren’t even planning Bolivia — they’re isolated too. An extra glass of wine and bam. Welcome to Bolivia.
There are women who aren’t in Bolivia and are happy. Women who aren’t in Bolivia and are unhappy. Women who wanted to move to Bolivia but now wish they hadn’t. Women who didn’t want to move to Bolivia but are now delighted to be there.
And the ones who don’t know if they’re going, but determined to be happy either way.
It’s hard for us to find each other and talk to each other, because each of us is having such a different experience. It gets lonely.
“Choice.”
This word. I have no more patience for it.
I feel frustrated and helpless when people ask me why I’ve “chosen” not to move to Bolivia because I don’t know how to answer.
And I feel uncomfortable when people support me, saying they defend my “choice”, because I need to know support is there even when choosing is irrelevant.
What choice? There has never been a question of choosing or deciding anything.
This concept makes no sense to me.
I didn’t choose not to move to Bolivia.
I didn’t choose not to move to Bolivia any more than I chose not to become obsessed with traditional Armenian embroidery.
I didn’t choose not to move to Bolivia any more than I chose not to take up water polo.
It’s not that anything is wrong with life in Bolivia or Armenian embroidery or water polo.
It’s this:
If it were not for the fact that so many of the women I know are either moving to Bolivia or talking about moving to Bolivia, it never would have occurred to me to even think about it.
The only reason I think about Bolivia is that so many of my friends now live there. And that so many people have opinions about me not being there.
But to say that I chose this life of Not Living in Bolivia? Impossible.
What is choice?
To me, choice generally implies at least some of the following characteristics:
[+ consideration]
[+ giving active thought to something]
[+ both sides have to be appealing or compelling in some way]
[+ caring about the outcome]
[+ weighing the odds]
[+ pros vs cons]
[+ following intuition]
[+ being pulled towards something]
[+ wanting]
It isn’t that I decided against Bolivia. That never came up. It didn’t need to.
There was no decision-making process, because Bolivia exerts no pull over me.
I heart Bolivia.
The food, the culture, the art. The warmth and friendliness. Yay Bolivia.
And I know a lot more about life in Bolivia than I’d ever planned to, now that so many friends and colleagues live there.
To be honest, certain aspects of life there sound pretty distressing to me. But then after they tell you about the awful parts, they gaze at you intently and wish it for you.
So who knows. It must be like when I lived in Tel Aviv for a decade and people thought it had to be awful when actually it was sublime. So I can be pro-Bolivia. And still not feel the desire to ever move there.
Things that are hard about not moving to Bolivia.
The social pressure. The assumptions. The way people ask you when you’re moving to Bolivia and you explain that you aren’t and they say “Oh, I’m so sorry.”
As if you’ve just said you were dying when you are actually expressing completeness.
Losing friends. Some of my friends who have moved to Bolivia are amazing. Like Pam and Naomi and Jen.* You can talk to them about Bolivia but also politics and business and art and creativity and seven thousand other things.
* Other neat people in Bolivia: Jesse and Amber and Jenny the Bloggess!
Other friends are full-time evangelists for Bolivian life. And while I’m happy to spend an hour looking at pictures or admiring the landscape, I can’t do all-Bolivia-all-the-time. I miss the opinionated, curious, hilarious women I used to know.
And the vocabulary of choice. The way it has to be about “decisions”. I don’t want to identify as “Bolivia-less by Choice”. Where are my people who also didn’t choose?
The pull of Bolivia.
I know this mysterious pull that Bolivia exerts on women must exist, because I keep hearing about it.
My biologist friends insist it’s a thing. Maybe.
Maybe a biological thing that not everyone is susceptible to, plus cultural programming and expectations that people are mostly unaware of. I don’t know.
All I know is that I have never felt it.
And that I have girlfriends who are considerably older than me and who also have never felt it.
And that they, like me, heard those hollow words over and over again: “When you’re older, you’ll change your mind about Bolivia.”
Without the pull, there’s nothing.
“Changing your mind” is another one of those choice things. Like decision. As if all I have to do is stop being so determined not to go there.
But I’m not “determined”. I just don’t understand why I should. And I’m pretty sure that if it were about choosing, and I weighed the pros and cons, my non-Bolivia life would win every time in the categories that matter to me.
Of course, if I had a burning desire to be in Bolivia, those other needs wouldn’t matter as much. They would pale in comparison.
And I’d find a way to make it work. Believe me, if I wanted to live in Bolivia, I would move mountains trying to get there.
But since there’s nothing that instills in me a desire to move there, it’s not about choices and choosing. It’s about living my life.
I’m living my life.
And loving my life.
Not because I made a choice. But because I’m here, and here — for me — is good.
And comment zen for today.
I’ve been wanting to write this post for years. And not wanting to at the same time.
Because I know that some people are not really capable of encountering a different way and still understanding that we are both allowed to have our way. Of knowing that my way doesn’t imply that your way is wrong.
I get my way. They gets theirs. Also, the entire culture supports the way that isn’t mine, so trying to tell me I’m wrong in what I know to be true for myself? Not cool.
Anyway. All that to say that this is a hard, sensitive topic. With so much potential for pain, misunderstanding, distortion.
I hope it is clear that I have love in my heart for women who live in a variety of ways. And that I am not picking on Bolivia. All places have their own charm.
We all have our stuff. We’re all working on our stuff. We let people have their own experience. And we don’t give advice, unless someone asks for it.
What I don’t want: “I support (or don’t support) your choice”. This is not about choice for me. It’s about mindfulness and trust and many other things, but not choice.
What I’d love: Your stories. What you know about isolation and about completeness.
Copywriting advice courtesy of me-from-9-months-ago.
From my journal. About three weeks ago — shortly before the Rally (Rally!).
This was right when I was getting ready to write the HAT (Havi Announces a Thing) page for my Week of Biggification program this November.
And I knew I needed some mental and emotional preparation for this. So I decided to a) claim sanctuary in a blanket fort and b) talk to the person who knows how to write the copy, and also to the person who doesn’t want me to write it.*
* Yes, both of those people are me.
Anyway, it’s somewhat bizarre. No big surpise there. But useful.
And we begin.
It’s me from now. And the me who has issues and is scared, carrying all sorts of stuff from the past. She is … still in the past somehow. Past me.
I look around. We’re in a cave.
It is mostly round, with a remarkably high ceiling and four small shafts or openings in it that allow for light. The air is cool.
The ground is covered in thick layers of woven rugs that seem to have been casually thrown on top of one another but make for a floor that’s comfortable and stable.
There are candles. And a fat fireplace in a rounded corner, like a New Mexico adobe.
The messengers.
We have messengers. Apparently.
They’re kind of like royal assistants.
One brings us each glasses filled with mint leaves and a pitcher of hot water to pour over them. Another brings us plates of dates and figs.
Somehow we’ve moved from New Mexico seamlessly to the middle east, and I am equally happy in both. Edge of desert to edge of desert. I like the edge of the desert.
Me from then needs reassurances.
Me: It looks like you’re hurting. Tell us what you need.
Past Me: Need?
Me: I don’t know. What would give you comfort?
Past Me: I am so worried. So many worries! You can’t possibly want to hear them.
Me: Oh, sweetie. Of course I do. Anything that concerns you concerns me.
Past Me: But I need to know that my worries are legitimate. And they’re so tangled and intertwined I can’t keep track of them, it’s a neverending litany. And I’m so afraid you won’t like me anymore.
Me: Honestly? No one is judging you for having worries. You have lots of experience with things that give reason for worry. It is perfectly acceptable that you would have worrries based on that experience.
I don’t promise to take on your worries, but I respect your your experience, and appreciate you for being you. I mean, for being me.
The litany of worries. Here it is.
Past Me: So far you haven’t really made money at any of your live events and at most of them you’ve lost money, and you’ve spent crazy amounts of time working on them and planning and recovering from them, and that’s not even factored into the losses.
So it’s really like you’re not just losing money but losing everything.
But you can’t charge more because it’s already too much, and [A-lister friend] said she’d never charge more than what she does for X, even though she also makes no money on that event.
And by the time you factor in travel + car rental + hotel + staff time + reading applications + email back and forth + copying flyers + itinerary + creating the schedule and so on and so forth, you aren’t getting paid for the content or the actual time teaching.
But there’s pressure to fill the event, and pay the Inn. So many ways you can lose money on this! I don’t even know why you’d want this headache and heartache again.
Me: You’ve experienced a lot of headache and heartache, and you want to prevent a situation where that happens to me too.
Past Me: Yes!
Past me gets to help and give advice.
Me: I appreciate that. Thank you. You are very sweet. I also want to avoid headache and heartache. If you can help me plan effectively to avoid those, I would appreciate any advice you can give.
Past Me: Okay!
Me: You sound really cheerful.
Past Me: I didn’t think you were going to ask for my help. But now I have lots of ideas! If I’d known it would HELP you, I wouldn’t have minded all that pain so much. Helping!
Me: Alright. How can we avoid headache and heartache? Give me advice.
Her first piece of advice: everyone needs to pay in advance.
Past Me: At the Destuckification retreat, someone decided not to come. And didn’t even tell you she was canceling until it started. So you’d already paid for her room and food, and then you had to negotiate with her. Unpleasant.
It’s August now. People come in November. Three months. You need a higher deposit so you can pay the Inn from the participants tuition.
Otherwise it’s not a healthy, sustainable supportive way to run things, and it doesn’t help you do your best work.
Me: Got it.
Her second piece of advice. Calculate in EVERYTHING.
Past Me: Including your time. And the time of everyone who works for you. And the time you have spent so far finding the place and negotiating, which is close to 30 hours.
Not to mention the cost to your business of not working for a week, plus recovery time. You lose three weeks to each big event.
Obviously it ends up being like seven million dollars per person and you won’t actually charge that, but at least you’ll know what they’re getting and the copy can reflect that.
This may take time but it doesn’t matter. Everything!
Not just food, lodging and renting the space. Tissues! Gifts and swag! Photocopies! Worksheets. Staff tips. Whatever the center charges for serving water and whiteboard rental. Hiring consultants.
And write a blog post about how you calculate it and how you sit with the price until you get resonance. So they know what they’re paying is in a sense a symbolic price.
Her third piece of advice. Minimal payment options = less agony.
Past Me: Either your people pay everything at once (by paypal or check and get a bonus something) or they can do three monthly payments. Do not end up with fifteen options.
Last time your staff spent months negotiating payment options and invoices with a different set-up for every participant. Stressful!
Remind people to note which credit card they use because that’s the one that gets charged. And triple-check the email reminder system because last time it didn’t work and they (totally understandably) were upset. We can’t have screw-ups like that.
Her fourth piece of advice. The rooms.
Past Me: We went over the arrangement 700 times last time and it still came out wrong. This needs to get an entire dedicated Drunk Pirate Council.
And a chart for the office wall. So we can be extra clear. And not pay penalties.
Trash the application process. You don’t need it. Do something fun. With pickles!
Me: Okay. These are all really good. What other things do I need to look out for?
Past Me: I can’t remember. I’m getting a headache. Can I lie down?
Me: Of course, sweetie.
And then past me got to go on retreat.
Me: Can I say something else? Even though I am soliciting advice from you and I hugely appreciate everything you’re telling me, you do not have to run this program.
Pirate Queen me is going to run it with, along with many capable helper mice and with many forms of support, both visible and invisible.
You don’t have to do anything. Your hard, scary, stressful time is over. You get to retire.
Past Me: I do? Yay! What is retirement like?
Me: I don’t know, honey. What would you like it to be like?
Past Me: I want to be at the Week of Biggification! But not to participate.
I want to stay at the beautiful Inn and sleep in the soft bed and look at the mountain.
And I want to take the elevator down to the room and up to the lobby. I want to sit in the underground spa pools all day. And eat that one really good sandwich.
And drink cold beer and watch the sunset. Yes yes yes.
But she still might have a consulting gig.
Me: Go for it. We’ll get you a room.
Past Me: But I can still give you advice now? Like a consultant? And if I remember something else later?
Me: Absolutely. Not a problem.
And then she took off. And I realized it made sense that I’d been avoiding the copy. And remembered that avoidance is normal. Again.
Then I had an absurd conversation with the me who had already written the HAT, and promptly wrote up five pages of notes. Awesome.
Thank you, Past Me. Beer and sandwiches and sparklepoints for you!
And comment zen for today.
The thing is, talking to past versions of us can be … challenging. And even intimidating. It’s definitely one of those things that takes practice.
Some of the principles I’m trying to keep in mind while this is happening:
I want to acknowledge her experience, and the legitimacy of her pain/worry/fear without taking it on, or having it be true for me.
This lets me access potentially useful information without having to adopt any of her stuff — she can have her insecurities and I can know that these aren’t true for me.
Anyway, it’s a practice. Like everything.
We all have our stuff. We’re all working on our stuff. We let everyone have their own experience, which means not giving advice (unless someone asks for it).
p.s. You can totally share disastrous planning stories of your own or anything else you’re working on. Kisses.
Sally the Rally. The recap.
So I promised to tell you more about the spectacular projectizing Rally (Rally!) and then forgot.
The Rally (Rally!) was completely inspired by this post, which in turn was inspired by scooter rallies, and which I was inspired to write about because of my gentleman friend.
A rally, if you’re wondering, is several days of intense projectizing (working on your stuff and also on your stuff) at the Playground, my pirate-ey center of silliness and wonder. It was a wild zen rumpus of the best kind.
And despite the fact that we, the Rally-ers, could not decide what to call ourselves, we managed to have the most brilliant, hilarious time ever.
Rallying is now my new favorite thing, and I’m working on my 2011 calendar to make room for more rallies. In the meantime …
Some of the realizations people had while rallying.
And by people, I mean the Keepers of the Rally. The Rallyconteurs. The Rallyganders.
“That my project wants me to visit its different parts in a non-linear fashion, which was really surprising because that’s not how I do things. It’s time to bring in more non-linearity and this is exciting!”
“Not going online while projectizing is hugely beneficial. I knew this intellectually but this was experiencing it and everything is different now.”
“My project wants a letter written to it!
“My project is a sentient being that needs to be treated with respect, autonomy, love, reverence.”
“There’s a lot I’m not in charge of. And this is a good thing. Oh.”
“It is possible to keep working on your project even when there is a scary thing happening with it that you don’t understand.”
“Now I’m working with my project instead of on my project. This is so much better.”
“Biggification is connected to rest and play! Resting and playing! That’s how I’m going to biggify — not from pressure and urgency.”
Some of the fabulous superpowers we discovered we had.
We being the Rallions, of course.
Fast typing!
Clarity. Patience.
Shape-shifting.
Focusing. Inspiration.
Victory dance!
Play. Rejoicing.
Closure. Completion.
Some of the actual things we got done.
We? The Rallyscallions of Doom. Each of whom I am now madly in love with.
Jesse got eighteen thousand words written on her novel.
And not just words but good words. Without the pressure, agony and abuse that can sometimes come with writing.
And Emmanuelle managed to get months of work done in our three days of rallying.
Someone showed a story that had never been shown.
Someone planned a world.
I wrote and wrote and wrote and wrote. And planned the timetables, content, copy and everything else for our Week of Biggification in Asheville in November.
Some of the experiences with Rallying.
From — in Jesse’s words — the Rallyites! The Rally Cabal! The One True Order of the Rallions!
One person described experienced EXTREME FOCUSING after a long time of not having access to anything even remotely like it.
Someone else had laser clarity that lasted two whole days, and turned everything around.
One person talked about the experience of not forcibly silencing the body anymore, and what a difference that makes to Projectizing.
We were inspired like crazy. It was like mainlining pure undiluted inspiration.
Someone else talked about what it was like to experience productivity without struggle, strain, pushing … probably for the first time in her life.
One person wanted to have more of herself in her project, and discovered that this was less complicated than she’d imagined it to be.
Some of the ways our projects wanted to be put to bed at night.
Our projects! Or missions, if you don’t like the word “project”, which is fine by us.
One project wanted to sleep under the stars.
One project wanted to have a pillow and sleep at the Playground.
One project wanted songs sung to it all night.
One project wanted extra snuggling time.
One needed to eat something orange.
Mine now insists on being put to bed every night.
Quotes from the Rally.
“You can take the girl out of the Playground but you really can’t take the Playground out of the girl.”
“Shiva Nata is like falling off a really complicated log.”
Q: You see a Queen, Flowers, Ziggy Stardust & Shiva’s Horns sitting in a circle & the Pirate Queen walks in…where are you? A: The Rally.
“Victoryyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!”
Favorite bits from the Rally.
Some of what the Rally mice mentioned:
The mad epiphanies from Shiva Nata, of course.
The chronicling (my techniques for processing the process).
Having trusty companions.
Not feeling alone.
Blanket forts.
Dedicated time and space.
Getting things done that you didn’t even think you needed to work on.
And all the other incredible things that happen when you’re in a supportive environment with warm, loving, zany people.
That’s it for now.
Usually when I review an event I’ve done (like I did with the Destuckification weekend in North Carolina or the week of destuckifying in California), there’s all this stuff I have to say about the things that went horribly wrong.
Not with the actual event, of course. We always have a crazy great time, and everyone gets phenomenal results. That’s a given.
But with the planning. Administrative crises. Things costing more than expected. Crossed wires with the retreat center. Stuff like that.
I have nothing to say about the Rally that isn’t completely positive. This is new for me, and I’m enjoying it.
In terms of comment zen for today? I would love cheering and appreciation for the wonderful thing that is rallying. One day we will get you to a rally somehow.
Or I will come to Australia or whatever far-away place you are, and rallying will happen there.
In the meantime, adoration from me and much enthusiastic waving from the Playground (while wearing fairy wings that Cairene gave me yesterday, of course).
Very Personal Ads #61: advanced wishing!
Personal ads! They’re … personal! Very.
So my itty bitty personal ads made me realize that it’s time to make a regular practice of trying to feel okay asking for stuff.
Even when the asking thing feels weird and conflicted.
Ever since I posted the first one asking my perfect house to find me, which united me with Hoppy House, I have been a fan of the madness that is personal ads.
And now it’s my Sunday ritual for clarity and remembering and stuff like that. Yay, ritual!
Let us dooo eeeet.
Thing 1: The Week of Biggification!
Here’s what I want:
So I’m teaching a thing that is quite possibly the most crazy-inspired brilliant life-changing thing ever, and I am far too excited about it.
It’s eight days of Biggification* in Asheville, North Carolina. November 3-10.
* Biggification! Mindful biggification! Growing yourself and your thing in creative, fun, hilarious ways, dissolving fears, making things happen, coming up with the most genius plan possible.
Even though this program is already more than half full (because my clients insisted on first dibs), it would probably be a good thing if I put up the copy and announced it and stuff like that.
Right now I cannot even begin to describe how impossibly fabulous this is, but you can at least peek at the outrageously great itinerary to get an idea.
Ways this could work:
I can do the three things that need to be done for the HAT (Havi Announces a Thing) page to go live.
One of those things? Remembering to un-password-protect it. Right.
I can write love letters to the right people.
And dance dance dance.
My commitment.
To remember how much fun this is going to be.
To adore all my people, and remember (remind them too) that even if we can’t be together this time, we will do wonderful things together eventually.
To bring this joyfulness and appreciation and silliness into every single thing I do related to our Week of Biggification. No work. Just play.
Thing 2: Being immune to other people’s angst. A perfect, simple solution.
Here’s what I want:
Someone close to me is dealing with pretty high levels of existential angst right now. Oh! So much hard.
I want to be able to love this person with my whole heart, and still take care of myself so that my distress doesn’t get triggered by their distress.
Ways this could work:
I can remember that I already know how to do this.
I can practice separating my stuff from their stuff. Reminding myself that I get to work on what’s mine and not on anything else.
What else? I can process the process and do a bunch of writing about it. Have conversations with my monsters, and with my sad, scared selves.
I can work with Hiro‘s excellent advice to create safe spaces for myself.
My commitment.
To be receptive to perfect, simple solutions other than the most obvious one (me doing more with my stucknesses).
To avoid certain topics of conversation.
To be loving to myself when I can, and trust that it will come when I can’t.
Thing 3: So close to done!
Here’s what I want:
I have a project that I have been projectizing and it is so almost ready.
It really just needs a few more hours of love from me.
But this week has client calls and teleclasses and visitors and brunching the Week of Biggification.
Can it be done? And how? And in a way that doesn‘t involve a descent into madness? Oh I hope so.
Ways this could work:
Not sure.
Maybe some early morning cafe time with Selma (my duck) and Mack (my computer).
Maybe some writing to myself about creating pockets of time like we did on the Rally (Rally!)
My commitment.
To want this. And to trust that wanting counts.
To stay connected to myself. To sneak off and have a sexy love affair with this project.
To hang out with metaphor mouse some more.
Thing 4: Anyone driving from San Francisco to Portland?
Here’s what I want:
Last week I asked for costumes for the Playground, and then LeeAnn made us the charming offer of three boxes she has.
She’s in San Francisco. We’re in Portland. Maybe we can find someone who is planning a drive up the coast who would like to perform the mensch-like service of costume-delivery!
Ways this could work:
I can put out the ask here, among my lovely readers and into the ether.
We could look on Craigslist. My amazing uncle Svevo, who often does odd and unlikely things — some of which involve creative ways to move things from one place to another — might have ideas too. I can ask him!
Also, I can choose a date by which I would like this to happen, so that if it doesn’t, we can arrange to have her ship them to us and pay the costs.
My commitment.
To appreciate the wealth of creative ideas and possibilities that are available to me.
To be receptive to this working out in a way I might not normally think of.
To dance happily around the costume room in my feather boa, of course.
Progress report on past Very Personal Ads.
Just to update you on what’s happened since last time.
Oh the joyfulness. So yes, I asked for a wild rumpus of costumery, and all sorts of wonderful people gave me ideas and suggestions.
And then some people offered to mail us things! Hooray!
If you are one of those people, you can send things here:
The Fluent Self
1526 NE Alberta St #218
Portland, OR 97211
United States
Thank you!
I also made an ask related to a dining room table for Hoppy House, and, more specifically, figuring out why I am stuckified around this. Some progress was made.
A gorgeous table was peeked at. The realization that we may need someone with a truck was pondered. And it was thought about. So this case is not yet closed but I will keep thinking about it.
And then I wanted to do some more thinking about my Shivanautical epiphany that not everything needs a response, and that has definitely been happening. A good week of VPA-ing, all in all. Happy.
Comment zen. Here’s what I’d love today.
- Your own personal ads, small or large. Things you’ve asked for. Or are asking for. Or would like to ask for. Or updates on last time!
What I’d rather not have:
- The word “manifest”.
- To be told how I should be asking for things.
- To be judged, psychoanalyzed or given advices.
Wishing love and good things for your Very Personal Ads! So glad for everyone doing this with me.
Friday Chicken #108: oh sun salutations, I suppose
Because it’s Friday AGAIN. And because traditions are important. In which I cover the good stuff and the hard stuff in my week, trying for the non-preachy, non-annoying side of self-reflection.
And you get to join in if you feel like it.
One hundred and eight of them.
Anyway. It’s Friday! Time to chicken.
Which, by the way, I protest as being thoroughly preposterous. Friday? There is no way whatsoever that Friday could be here again.
Clearly my calendar is full of the crazy. That is the only reasonable explanation I’m willing to accept.
The hard stuff
Soreasaurus mouse. I am one.
First the sore back from nightmares and thrashing around unhappily.
Then exacerbated by spending an entire day clearing out the Pirate Queen quarters at the Playground and doing way more heavy lifting than was good for me.
I’m sorry, sweet body of mine. That was not nice. You are right to be annoyed with me. I will try not to forget that we are twice as old as we are in my head.
Sadness and memories.
Worked through a lot of crap this week.
Old stuff. Getting closer to resolving some of it. Still not fun, though. Surprisingly.
Ayiiiii.
My gentleman friend’s car was run into (he was fine) in New Mexico, and the bill that we might or might not have to pay is exorbitant and depressing.
Trying to maintain faith that this will be taken care of and not by us.
The heat wave that will not end.
Enough. Really. I would like my brain back, please.
Airports!
We were at the airport way too many times this week.
And I always think that picking someone up won’t be a big deal but then it somehow devolves into chaos and absurdity.
Delays and miscommunications and we never remember to pack food and water because we never expect it to be an ordeal but then it is an ordeal.
Too many ordeals this week. I am done.
And just generally tired, cranky and ready to hide under a bed for a while.
Yes, well.
The good stuff
Yard sale fabulousness in our neighborhood. Score!
Oh, I bought the most perfect and delightful presents for my dear, sweet Playground. For practically nothing. Schnäppchen!
We are now the proud owners of two hobby horses, an assortment of alphabet blocks and puzzles, a pirate trunk and spiderman on a motorcycle.
Awesome. As were the thoroughly entertaining conversations that accompanied this.
Neighbors down the block: “Wow, so how old are your kids?” Me: “Huh?”
Even more shivanautical epiphanies. Hot!
I do Shiva Nata and then I have unbelievably brilliant ideas and then run around shouting gleefully about what a genius I am.
It is probably extremely annoying for everyone else in my life but oh the fun for me.
I did a smart thing.
Not letting Mack (the laptop, of course) stay home but instead having him sleep at the Playground.
Less internet-ing. More designated times and spaces for computerizing.
This was a very good thing.
Clarity and spaciousness and things like that.
Hugely energized from a session with Hiro, my sister-in-silliness-and-wonder, I performed minor miracles.
That is to say, I cleared out my office and the bedroom closet and entirely transformed the Pirate Queen Quarters at the Playground.
It took an entire weekend but it is making everything better.
Summer! It is so delicious I can hardly stand it.
The farmers market!
Peaches and nectarines. Blackberries! Cherry tomatoes and basil on my gentleman friends’s homemade sourdough bread.
Homemade cheeses.
Red pepper soup!
At least seven times a day I declare whatever it is I’m currently consuming to be the ambrosia of the gods and then I must immediately swoon again on the nearest fainting couch.
Jane!
My dear, sweet Jane, the friend I do not get to see nearly as often as I would like, was in Portland for THREE WHOLE DAYS and I got to monopolize her time completely.
So lovely.
Hope and trust.
The notion that one day I will be okay (and not just okay but ENTHUSIASTIC) about the having space that is just for me.
The idea that I will gleefully claim it and no longer be ambivalent and/or resentful about space and having it …
This is a hard thing for me right now, but feeling hopeful about it is really good.
Gigantic full moon plus porch swing plus blackberries.
Really, summer is blissful.
And … playing live at the meme beach house: it’s the Fake Band of the Week!
Yes, that’s a Stuism too.
My brother and I have this thing where we come up with ridiculous band names and then say in this really pretentious, knowing tone, “Oh, well, you know, it’s just one guy.”
This week I’m delighted to introduce you to:
Nubble Dots
This is from @butwait on Twitter. You will love this band. Of course that it’s really just one guy.
And … the not hard and not good but occasionally kind of accidentally hilarious.
So there’s this guy on Twitter who also goes by a name that sounds like mine but his has a second v.
And his friends are either not especially bright or not perceptive or both, because they are constantly tweeting things to me that are meant for him.
It is quite clear when this happens because my people do not (generally) misspell things in extravagant ways, nor do they (generally) say things to me about jesus or partying or partying with jesus.
So I know that a person who has just said something especially bizarre and nonsensical to me (but not the usual kind of bizarre and nonsensical that I would totally expect from say, you) will turn out to be one of the other Havi people.
Anyway, it happens all the time but for some reason this week it was more entertaining than usual.
That’s it for me …
And yes yes yes, of course you can join in my Friday ritual right here in the comments bit if you feel like it.
Yeah? Anything hard and/or good happen in your week?
And, as always, have a glorrrrrrrrrrrrious day and a restful weekend-ing.
And a happy week to come. Shabbat shalom.