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.
Transition-ey stuff. The first.
So. Selma and I are using the last week of 2009 to get some things in order.
There’s the casual “hey, this is me accounting for things”. And the “looking at the books” sort of accounting. And some “cheshbon nefesh” — which is literally soul accounting, but more of a thoughtful taking stock of what is and how you got there.
Anyway, related to all this, I’m listing a bunch of things that are on my mind in this symbolic time-of-transitioning.
And yeah, please keep in mind that if I don’t happen to mention you specifically as someone fabulous, it’s not that I don’t think you’re fabulous — totally not personal.
The phrase I wish had been spray-painted on my office wall this year.
Ugh. It’s so completely simple that I feel stupid bringing it up.
And yet every single thing in my life would have been better this year if I’d just had access to these nine words.
“Can I get a progress report on this please?”
So many times this year I let something slide when that wasn’t the thing to do.
All because I didn’t know how to ask for what I wanted without worrying that I’d come across as bitchy, angry, nagging, domineering, whatever.
And so I would wait for the right words to show up. And occasionally they did. But more often than not they didn’t. And then I would be left feeling even more frustrated, helpless and vulnerable.
This year I’m planning on using those words a lot. I’m also going to be considerably more cautious about lending money, bringing people into my business and making exceptions.
Actually, I kind of think I’m done lending money. We’ll see what happens.
Two businesses I’m betting on for 2010.
Rebecca Prien, the attorney you have been dreaming of your entire life.
Kind. Wise. Non-sleazy. Non-scary. Works with smart, goofy, creative types. Cares about you. A lot.
She has dogs who work for her! Kind of the way Selma works with me. Plus she had a Catholic Hindu Yogini Christmas Tree for Zombie Yule.
Basically she’s neat.
And she’s offering something that is so so so needed in this world.
Her site is called Counsel to Creativity.
And she blogs. About law-related stucknesses.
I see good things for her.
Heidi Fischbach’s Aardvark creams.
First of all, Heidi is amazing.
Second, the phrase “lotions and potions for mixed-up emotions” is brilliant.
Third, this stuff is crazy addictive.
Fourth, the idea of something you can put on your body that eases anxiety? Win.
One piece of hard-earned wisdom from 2009.
You can have a lot of love for someone and still not trust them.
Some things are more subtle and more complex than we would like them to be.
My favorite word from 2009.
Oh yes.
Sovereignty.
I got this from Hiro.
I described it here as: “Sovereignty, again, is the quality of owning your space. It’s feeling so safe being you, that you can’t be shaken from yourself.”
And here as “the quality of owning your space so completely and fully that you can’t be shaken from being you. You get to be the (pirate-ey or not) queen — or king — of your own fabulous kingdom. Or queendom. Or whatever.”
But yeah. That invisible crown that lets you know that you have the right to take up space in this world.
What I want more of in 2010.
Permission. Lots and lots of permission. The kind that I give to myself.
To sleep in. To play. To release guilt. To notice patterns without judging myself for having them.
To balance playtime with naptime, innovating with resting, making with breaking.
To let myself be silly. Out loud. Online. In every corner of my life.
Comment zen for today.
Share away.
If you want to do any of these little contemplative exercise-things yourself, you’re more than welcome to.
Or if you want to reflect or not reflect or whatever, rock on.
We all have stuff. We’re all working on our stuff. We’re practicing. Which is why we do our best to not throw shoes.
Big love.
Very Personal Ads #26: sorting out the scary
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 this thing.
Thing 1: walking earlier in the day.
Here’s what I want:
My gentleman friend and I have been in the habit of taking a morning walk for years.
And over the past few months it’s become an afternoon walk.
This is understandable. I get my best writing done in the morning. And I’ve been brunching* three different programs simultaneously, which has been all kinds of work.
And and and.
So right now we have this thing where I work and keep working until my gentleman friend correctly assesses that my brain is turning to mush, and promptly hauls me out for a walk, after which my spirits improve considerably.
I need the morning walk. We have to go back to the morning walk. Not that this should negate an afternoon walk. Just that the morning needs a comeback. Desperately.
* A more entertaining word for “launching”, which I always found kind of gross. Borrowed this delightful turn of phrase instantly and unapologetically from Tara the Blonde Chicken.
Here’s how I want this to work:
Oh, it would be nice if I could get back to writing blog posts a day or so early, so as not to be frantically editing the morning of.
It would also be lovely to just remember that walking is like Dance of Shiva in that the act of doing it will put me back in flow and pretty much guarantee that the rest of the day will go more smoothly.
My gentleman friend could remind me of this. Selma could want to go for a walk.
And I can use the fabulous Deguiltified Chicken Board at my Kitchen Table program that totally exists for stuff like this.
My commitment.
To remember that what is good for my body is good for everything else in my life.
To value movement, breath, earth, a glimpse of sky, reconnecting with myself over … pretty much all the other stuff.
To ask for help. To give myself permission to take my duck for a walk. To trust that this is a good thing. To practice. To not be too hard on myself if it takes a while.
Thing 2: readiness + preparation time.
Here’s what I want:
Normally I try to use the transition from December to January to get all my finances for the past year in order.
This is because I dread dread dread tax-time and all the related headaches. So this is the one thing I actually manage (sometimes, at least) to do early. To get it the hell over with.
This year because of some especially disastrous choices, unfortunate decisions and general stalled-ness, this task is made especially problematic.
I managed to do a good chunk of Sorting Out The Scary over Zombie Yule. But I’d really like some more movement on this over the next week.
Here’s how I want to get this to work:
To remember that I have marvelous resources and to use them.
To talk with Jennifer (my lovely new bookkeeping angel). A lot.
To ask my gentleman friend for help when I need help.
My commitment.
I will give myself time.
I will give myself permission to cry as much as I want.
Basically, permission to feel annoyed, frustrated, anxious, busy, stressed out, etc.
And to keep reminding myself how good this will feel in April, knowing that I don’t have to do it then.
To do whatever delightfully wacky rituals I feel drawn to in order to ground my transition into the new year.
And I’ll do them both to cheer me up and to release some of my stuckified resistance around everything that’s going on right now.
Thing 3: Flowers.
Here’s what I want:
I have this screwed up thing where I think that everything I do for myself is extravagant and unnecessary.
Working on it.
In baby steps. That’s why this week it’s about the flowers.
Ways this could work:
I could decide to buy flowers for Hoppy House.
And then to pay attention to both a. my stuff as it comes up and b. the pleasure I take in things being pretty.
My commitment.
To notice. To breathe. To smell. To practice. To let things happen in small pieces, over time, in whatever progression is necessary for now.
Progress report on past Very Personal Ads.
Just to update you on what’s happened since last time.
I asked for more love for my house. To spend more conscious time doing stuff that would help me feel like I belong at Hoppy House.
This went pretty well. I have been continuing Hiro‘s sweet morning ritual of visiting with every corner in the house.
Some ideas about what might help are showing up. And I am working on this belonging thing. Slowly, slowly.
My second wish was help with the scary pile and I am pleased to report that the scary pile is no longer a scary pile.
Somehow, some unplanned crazy fits of filing happened this week and for that I am forever grateful.
And I wanted to spend more time being a connector-mouse and bringing people and projects together. Haven’t done anything with that but I did have an extremely bizarre dream about that the night before last.
More about that when I’m ready. Also: wow. I was sure that I hadn’t made any movement on last week’s asks, but this is actually kind of reassuring.
Comments. Since I’m already asking …
I am adding to my practice of asking for stuff by being more specific about what I would like to receive in the comments. And that way, if you feel like leaving one (you totally don’t have to), you get to be part of this experiment too. 🙂
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:
- Theories about how stuff works.
- 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.
My commitment.
I am committing to getting better at asking for things even when asking feels weird.
Thanks for doing this with me!
Friday Chicken #73: special zombie chicken
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.
See? I was going to call it a Christmas Chicken but that just sounds too much like something someone might eat.
And we don’t eat the chickens.*
If you missed the Zombie Yule thing, that was yesterday. And yes, it’s still fabulous.
* I think I can safely say that my business partner would not be into that, being a duck and all.
The hard stuff
Weird holiday energy.
It’s like the whole continent goes … off kilter, somehow.
And if you’re have big HSP (Highly Sensitive Person) issues like me**, it’s a lot of having to disentangle yourself from everyone else’s stuff.
** Personally, I prefer “delicate violet” or “sensitive goddamn flower” but what are you going to do.
Three. Entire. Days.
That’s how much time got spent on administrative stuff for my Kitchen Table program this week.
Because of systems problems. Because of a snag where certain established “here’s how we do things” bits turned out to be not as established as previously thought.
Spreadsheets and graphs and an enormous bottle of bourbon Advil.
And a lot of the time I was saying things like this:
“So what you’re saying is that if we can’t have more than 100 people this quarter (which is really 114 people if you include group leaders and admin spots), and we have 16 more spots that are definitely open but it might actually be 27 spots that are open because of this group of haven’t decided if they’re renewing … and if there are 39 people that I can still grant permission to apply, what do I do with the 10 remaining people who got permission to apply two weeks ago but haven’t applied yet? Wait, is that even right?”
And then wondering why I had a headache.
So yes. I learned a bunch of stuff to do differently for next year’s switchover, if there is one, but this was also annoying because I really, truly thought I had already learned all my tough, expensive, painful lessons this year.
An old hurt.
Back for a visit.
Overworked.
Big surprise there.
It was going to be a crazy busy week this week before the Kitchen Table crises started.
Big balagan. And no patience for it.
The good stuff
A few of those tough, expensive, painful lessons got resolved this week.
Lessons. Learned.
And whatever needed to get sorted did — or at least enough that I can move on and not take the crappy-ness into the new year with me.
Flannel sheets. Are the best.
Last week I decided that Hoppy House needed a present.
And bought these outrageously soft, warm flannel sheets in a deep, rich cranberry red.
Since, as we all know, I have big issues around anything that seems “extravagant” (which according to my stucknesses is everything) this involved a lot of talking to my stuff.
So it’s really a double win. One, I talked to my stuff and was able to feel okay bringing more comfort into my life. And then now I get to enjoy Extreme Snuggliness. It’s a sport. I mean, it should be a sport.
In related news, the hardest thing to do this week was get out of bed since it was so completely lovely being in it.
The Kitchen Table.
So much amazingness happens there. My favorite thing is people recognizing where they were a year ago as opposed to where they are now.
The recognition of what it’s like to go from a person who stews and agonizes over every decision and every new step to being the person who knows how to ask for things, how to resolve things, how to set boundaries and how to own their stuff.
It’s beautiful.
Also, reading the applications makes me laugh. The happy kind of laughing. Because they get it.
Also they stay stuff like this:
“Hoping to join in the crazy cake-fight-ful warm-fuzzy-fest that I expect is the Kitchen Table.”
Nice.
I started listening to music again.
I have hardly been able to listen to anything since finding out about my friend who is dead. There are maybe two albums that don’t make me fall apart.
This week I listened. To lots of things. I even bought some things on iTunes. And a bunch of CDs from the Carolina Chocolate Drops.
And I only cried a few times.
Presents! Cards! Gorgeousness.
Surprises in my mailbox from so many lovely people.
Thank you, all of you.
And … playing live at the meme beach house!
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.”
So this week, I bring you:
Pig Neon Flashing Letters.
This one somehow emerged from the Kitchen Table chatroom so who knows what we were talking about.
But I can definitely assure you that it’s just one guy.
And … STUISMS of the week.
Stu is my paranoid McCarthy-ist voice-to-text software who delights in torturing me misunderstanding me. I can’t stand him.
The gems from this week. What an acetyl.
- last night in a sunny addition to Penthouse instead of “last night on earth zombie gingerbread house”
- Pennock homophobia instead of “enochlophobia“
- if you dismissed the zombie hosting instead of “if you missed the zombie yule thing”
- I was going to Gothic Christmas chicken instead of “I was going to call it a Christmas Chicken”
- hustle the panty comforts instead of “possibility of empty cupboards”
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 weekend. And a happy week to come.
Happy Zombie Yule!
Rituals, traditions, zombies. Stuff like that.
The thing about Christmas is that it really makes miss living in Israel.
I don’t mean the not having it part of living in Israel.
Though yeah, I have to say it was lovely not being forcibly submerged in that unbelievably grating seasonal soundtrack, or to have to look blankly at people wanting to know what my “plans for celebrating” are.
But what I mean is that I always liked Christmas in Israel.
Tradition.
I lived in Israel for just over ten years and five of those years were spent in bars.
Okay. Ten of those years were spent in bars, but five were spent working in bars.
And that’s where you go when you’re in Tel Aviv and you want to celebrate Christmas.
So wherever I was working, over the course of the day, some sort of marvelously unlikely gathering would emerge.
German tourists. All the South Africans who worked at the hostel down the street. The Scottish husband of a friend of one of our regulars. A couple of Israelis who had lived in Australia for a few years and missed the atmosphere.
Some years we’d string up lights and stuff. Other times we’d forget it was even going to happen until one of the waitresses would look up and wonder out loud where all the sad-looking foreigners were coming from.
We’d play The Pogues and then everything would get lost, jumbled, as the rush began. New Year’s Eve, we’d tell them. It will be a party.
Ritual.
There are so many kinds of rituals.
Some intentional. Some inherited.
Some a combination of appreciating a habit that already exists.
Some demand a sense of humor.
And some are born to meet a need.
I am a fan of most of these. Rituals make me happy, in general.
The ones with meaning and power, obviously. The ones that touch my heart. But also the ones that are silly, gleeful, unexpected.
Finding my place.
In my chosen family (that would be me, my duck and my gentleman friend), we do not celebrate Christmas and have no plans to.
We do a bazillion things for the various Jewish holidays, of course. And we can kind of get into the concept of doing something for the Solstice (who doesn’t like light?) but there’s also something about it that’s too … something.
I briefly got all excited to discover that Yule is fabulously pagan.
But it still sounds too much like decorated trees and such.
Anyway. Imagine how excited I was yesterday to learn about Zombie Yule.
Here! In the comments! The commenter mice here are the best.
Permission to hide.
This was from Ms Z:
“We decided a few years ago to bow out of the holidays and invent our own. We call it Zombie Yule.
“It started out as a silly excuse to not celebrate the holidays (I loathe the holidays) and have four days to just lay around and watch zombie movies, eat decadent food, drink good beer, and not clean the house for company (the apocalypse just happens whenever, you can’t plan for it and nobody cares if your toilet is clean).
“However, as happens with these things, it just kind of grew and grew. This is the third annual Zombie Yule — a time to gather together with as many uninfected as possible and celebrate getting through another year without the zombie apocalypse (you know it is GOING to happen).
“We watch zombie movies, sing zombie songs, and play zombie games. You even have the right to board up your house and keep everyone out. It is an all purpose holiday. With shovels.”
The main thing I got from this was “the right to board up your house and keep everyone out” … and my entire being just went oh huge sigh of relief.
Because of course. If I were going to invent a holiday?
It would be one that gave you permission to hide.
And to carve out space where you belong.
So … I don’t really do zombie movies.
Though watching Sean of the Dead and drinking whiskey could work for me. I sense a tradition coming on.
But the idea of taking intentional time off and then avoiding people and going into seclusion in a way that also makes you laugh … sounds really, really perfect.
Happy trying stuff.
Wherever you are, whatever you’re celebrating or not-celebrating, enjoying or avoiding (or both), whether theist, atheist or anti-theist (thank you, SF Slim), I wish you good stuff.
Good stuff like joy. And sovereignty. And patience. And playfulness. And time for yourself. And healthy boundaries.
And the ability to get better at practicing all this stuff, especially in situations where it really seems like you just don’t have any choices right now.
Happy Erev Zombie Yule, y’all.
Oh yes. I just said that.
EDIT: I just found out about the Last Night On Earth Zombie Gingerbread House and the Zombie Santa song. Clearly I am not up to date on anything.
So I will just say that my version of Zombie Yule is all about the avoidance and the drinking. No Santa. Though that gingerbread house is awesome.
This is for you!
Item! A plan! I do not have one.
A somewhat goofy mini-collection of stuff I’ve been reading, stuff I’ve been thinking about and oh, some completely random crap.
Basically the stuff that never gets mentioned here because I’m not the kind of person who can just make some teeny little point. Not into the whole brevity thing, as the Dude would say.
Actually, I’m under the strict compulsion to write ten pages about anything on my mind. So this is me. Practicing brevity.
Oh yes.
Things will be Itemized.
There is no avoiding it.
Item! Post No. 46 in a series that is not anywhere near as methodical, calculated, structured or anything else as people seem to think it is.
Item! Really, I do not have a plan.
I promised to talk about this in last week’s Itemization. Or Item!ization, if you prefer.
A bunch of people seem to think I have some sort of method to my madness in terms of what types of stuff I will turn into Items. Item! I don’t!
Basically it’s whatever tabs are open in Firefox.
If it’s interesting I put it in here.
If I haven’t made an Item! out of you or your thing yet, it’s not because I don’t like you or your thing or have somehow decided that it’s “not worthy”.*
It’s either that I don’t know about you or your thing … or I do, but I don’t happen to have one of your posts open at the exact moment when I happen to be Itemizing.
It’s so not personal. I promise!
Anyway. Apologies to everyone who has yet to be an Item! Though I will say that a great way to get me to remember to look at your post is to write about my duck.
* If you’re wondering who died and made me the arbiter of cool? Ohmygod. I wonder that all the time too. I don’t know what they’re thinking.
Item! An extremely brilliant piece about geek thinkery.
Read it. It’s called Gaming the System and it’s great.
“Points for what?”
“Points for points. We’re geeks.”
“And everyone has their own color?”
“Yeah, so we know who has the most points. Give me a blue pen, I’ve already got root cause on bug #3.”
He’s @rands on Twitter. I found this via @melle.
Item! Helper mice wanted!
Tori writes a personal ad for some Helper Mice. Because … who doesn’t need helper mice?
It’s really sweet.
“And while I can’t promise to believe in you 100% right off the bat, I can promise to give our relationship and projects more than a fighting chance to succeed.image
How’s that for starters? I’d like to offer all the cheese you can eat, but I’m afraid that might be a bit out of the budget. It’s certainly negotiable, though!”
She’s @mindtweets on Twitter.
Item! A labyrinth locator!
For everyone who is (or not at all) as obsessed with labyrinths as I am: there is always someone even more obsessed.
This site kind of creeps me out but I do love the idea.
It’s called LabyrinthLocator.com and … that’s what it is.
Via Yael who is @treelizard on Twitter. Thanks, Yael!
Item! I am so in love with this kazoo player!
So Larisa Koehn directed me to this incredible video because I say kazoo a lot.
Actually, other people say kazoo to me and then I respond. Kazoo!
If this makes no sense to you it’s because you haven’t been hanging out with me at the Twitter bar.
None of this is the point. The point is that oh I am in love.
I realize this is not fair because I already have a gentleman friend who plays the ukulele.
But the Carolina Chocolate Drops are my new favorite everything. I went and bought all their albums.
Expect to hear them if you’re at one of my events this year, because we will totally be Shiva-ing it up to someone playing the jug. Oh yes.
Anyway. Just watch the video.
Larisa is @larisakoehn on Twitter and the Carolina Chocolate Drops are @_CCDs.
Item! Speaking of videos.
Marie from the Snakecharmers has the sexiest voice in the entire world so I will basically listen to anything that comes out of her mouth.
I can listen to their album seventy-bajillion times a day and not get sick of it.
She wrote a song called Santa I’m Your Girl and it’s hawt. Extremely. So I hope you’re clicking that link and listening to it.
“Is that a candy cane in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?”
Rowr. And yeah, now there’s also a video which is just adorable.
Marie is @snakecharmers on Twitter. She was one of my first-ever Twitter friends and I was friends with her before I knew she was a rockstar and yes, I adore her.
Item! Can you enhance that for us?
Okay! Fine. One more video.
I found this on Laughing Squid.
You know those excellent television/film moments when the people playing tech experts magically use “advanced technology” to zoom in on something ridiculous that then solves the crime or the mystery or whatever?
I used to think it was just me who enjoyed these — my ex-husband the electronics engineer specialized in video compression so this kind of thing was comic gold for him.
But no. We all love this.
And Duncan Robson put together this perfect little homage (“Let’s Enhance!”) to those wonderfully absurd scenes.
He’s @dunkr on Twitter. Via Laughing Squid who are @laughingsquid.
Item! Update from the land of the Peculiar & Hilarious Shivanauts!
The “peculiar and hilarious” thing comes from Melynda’s sweet bit about Butterfly Wishes.
First off, the various Shivanautical epiphanies of the week, including a link to the Psychology Today piece on the neuroscience of mindfulness.
Great stuff in the comments too. Like this bit from Casey:
“I stopped, swayed slightly for a minute or so, then went to my computer and started typing. An hour later I had my first official blog post. Definitely an “AHA!” moment.”
Also, honestly. I just adore the commenter mice over there. From Herb:
“The idea of something going wrong with Dance of Shiva resulting in raining cheese is just another reason to try it.”
Item! Comments! Here’s what I want this time:
- Things you’re thinking about.
- Something fabulously inappropriate to do on Christmas Day because the usual jew-ey tradition of Chinese food and a movie isn’t doing it for me this year. But it has to involve food at some point at least because, I don’t know how to end this sentence so just trust me, it does.
My commitment.
I am committed to giving time and thought to the things that people say. Even though asking for what I want still feels awkward for me, I’m just going to remind myself that this is a thing I’m practicing.
That is all.
Happy reading.
And happy Blustery Windsday. See you tomorrow.