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. Yay, ritual!

Let’s do it.

Thing 1: support with FUNBREWING

Here’s what I want:

The great fun-brewing project starts this week!

Fun-brewing is what I call “fund-raising”, because everything about fund-raising makes me want to throw up.

So we are brewing fun. And we are brewing it for the new Playground. Yes, Selma and I are opening a studio to give this work a home in physical space.

As part of the fun-brewing, we will be brunching (yes, that’s what we call “launching” — borrowed that lovely turn of phrase from the blonde chicken) many things.

In fact, nine different wonderful things will be brunched.

So it’s kind of a busy, semi-crazed time here at the pirate queen headquarters. Understatement.

What I’d like is support, in as many forms as possible.

Support in the sense of staying connected to myself and my fabulously bizarre mission.

And in accessing the qualities I need (grounding, peace of mind, sovereignty).

The support of my friends, colleagues, students, clients, blog readers, commenter mice and Beloved Lurkers cheering for me, and helping me to biggify the hell out of this.

The support of knowing and trusting that this is an extremely awesome thing to do, that will help so many of my right people do important, beautiful and surprising things in the world.

And I’d like to be able to rest into this sense of support so I don’t get overwhelmed.

Ways this could work:

Lots and lots of Shiva Nata to keep me centered and to keep the epiphanies rolling.

I can book an extra session with the magical Hiro. That always does the most amazing things.

I can work on asking for help. And share what I’m working on, which I don’t always remember to do.

And I can stay in touch with the essence of what I’m trying to do here.

My commitment.

To let myself have a meltdown if I need one.

To breathe. To dance. To walk. To move. To stretch. To cry. To laugh.

To not try and go it alone.

To be patient with myself when I can, and remember that patience isn’t always going to happen when I can’t.

Thing 2: Iguanas.

Here’s what I want:

Iguanas are things I don’t feel like doing.

There are kind of a lot of them this week.

Ways this could work:

Talk to my monsters.

Make lists.

Call an emergency Drunk Pirate Council to make some decisions (even though stupid passover means we can only drink wine, which is totally ruining Drunk Pirate Council, for the record).

More Dance of Shiva. More asking for help. More staying focused.

Plus a bunch of other things I can’t think of right now because aaaaaaaaaaaaagh.

Is there an iguana fairy? Because I could kind of use one.

My commitment.

To keep coming back to why I’m doing this.

To keep asking what I need to stay grounded.

To get creative. To ask for help.

Thing 3: Vancouver.

Here’s what I want:

Selma and I are going to be in Vancouver next week for a couple days.

We have pretty much zero time to plan anything because of the fun-brewing madness going on.

So I need stuff to kind of fall into place.

And, every time I go somewhere, everyone I know there wants to meet up with me and I either go into hiding or have an emotional breakdown.

Ways this could work:

We’ve already gotten a ton of hotel recommendations from the Twitter bar.

I could ask Karen to come hang out with me at the best cafe in the world (of glorrrrrious day fame), and then we could announce a casual meet-up with whoever wanted to drop by and say hi.

Magic.

My commitment.

To give myself permission to not have to worry about this (not that this has ever worked before, but what the hell).

To activate my network, as my lovely friend Pam says.

To state my wish for things to go as smoothly and comfortably as they can. And then to come back to the stuff that needs my attention right now.

Progress report on past Very Personal Ads.

Just to update you on what’s happened since last time.

I asked for help keeping up with the napping. And — astonishingly — it mostly happened. Some days it couldn’t because of client calls and such.

But just about every day I was able to at least close my eyes for half an hour. And that was brilliant.

I needed help catching up with all the mad piles of work that accumulated during Non-Emergency Vacation. And that worked too.

My First Mate and I plowed through the biggest, scariest pile. There are still a couple of unfinished things, but feeling okay about this.

And I needed pesach to not be the biggest pain in the ass ever, and yay. My gentleman friend set up the seder plate and cooked the entire meal for the seder.

It was beautiful and delicious and all I had to do was show up.

And he’s been spoiling me all week with kneidelach and other yum things. I feel enormously lucky. Thank you!

Comments. Since I’m already asking …

I am adding to my practice of asking by being more specific about what I would like to receive in the comments.

Here’s what I want (just leave them in the comments):

• 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 would rather not have:

• Reality theories.
• Shoulds. As in, “You should be doing it like this” or “That’s not the right way to ask for things — instead it should be like x, y and z”
• To be judged or psychoanalyzed.
• Advices.

My commitment.

I am committing to getting better at asking for things even when asking feels weird.

Thanks for doing this with me!