Forgot a quote

One of the quotes in my collage was this:

The beginning is always today. --Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

Back to this world

Oh, man, was that fun. I'd almost forgotten how relaxing it can be to be around other geeks, and to be able to completely be myself.

It was a very inspiring weekend. Listening to Neil Gaiman read two stories and a poem would rouse the dead - the man is brilliant, and he knows how to have fun with words. This is my lesson for my internal editor: we're going to start having fun now.

I had 3 nights of extremely vivid dreams, which is usually a sign of renewed creativity, and which I haven't done in a long time.

It was refreshing to hear people whose works I venerate talk about how insecure they can be when going back to read their own works, how they never live up to their own standards. If they have that problem, and survive, then maybe I can survive it, too.

I came home and made a collage, which I haven't done in a while. I never let myself play. It didn't turn out very well, but I'm glad to have done it, and I learned from it, and I had fun, so it was worth it. Even if no one but me & hubby ever see it.

Now the trick is to hold on to this inspiration, as daily life does its utmost to suck it out of me. I hope, I hope ...

Off to another world

After a quiet week, I'm off tomorrow for the weekend to Balticon (the Baltimore Science Fiction Convention, in case you don't know), in the wilds of Hunt Valley, MD.

It's been a while since I've been to Balticon in Hunt Valley; the last time there was actually a mall across the street from the hotel instead of the fake-town open-air shopping center there is now. But at least there are more places to eat, and there's the joy of *Wegman's* to experience if there's time.

I'm hoping to pick up some writing energy from the con. I can't believe that's it's been a year since I heard Steve Barnes speak as last year's GoH - that's when my desire to write fiction sparked again. He's an amazing inspiration, and it's his Lifewriting course that I've been working on off and on this year.

This year it's Neil Gaiman and Gene Wolfe I'm hoping to learn from.

I'm so excited to go - I'm all aquiver.

See you guys on Monday!

Bury me ... in the willow tree?

Environmentally friendly coffins, made from willow. What will they think of next?

Today the quote's from me

Warped wisdom from the depths of me:

My brain works better when I get out of the way.

"Secret Daughter"

About 10 years ago, I remember seeing a PBS special about a mixed-race woman who, in the late '50s, had been left with a black family she was unrelated to, by her white actress mother who was afraid that her clearly not-white daughter would ruin her career. The show involved her taking a video camera home to essentially ambush her mother and try to get her to talk about their relationship.

It was a moving, wrenching story to watch, and I did so often in tears. I taped it and wanted to watch it again later, thinking there had to be some kind of fiction I could wrest out of it. Somewhere in one of our moves, the tape got lost and I never found anywhere to buy a copy.

Imagine my amazement and pleasure when I discovered that the daughter, June Cross, has just published a memoir entitled "Secret Daughter" (just like the TV special). Of course I ordered a copy.

And in poking around the 'net, I found a transcript of the original special.

I can't wait to see what she has to say about her story 10 years after.

Exhausted and crabby

I'm feeling like I need to post something here, but I'm so incredibly tired. The weather the past couple of weeks has been murder on my head, and that combined with the worst PMS I've had in years has just sucked the life and energy right out of me.

It's too early to go to bed - if I tried to sleep now, I'd wake up at 1 am and never get back to sleep - so I'm going to prop myself up and either watch the Orioles lose *again* or maybe watch House Hunters.

*yawn*

Turning a corner

I think I've finally turned a corner in this diet thing. I haven't seen any significant weight loss, but my eating behavior has radically changed.

Remember this post about trying to balance 3 diets at once? Well, masochist that I am, I added a fourth: The Shangri-La Diet.

The gist of this one is that it is possible to reprogram your set point (which helps define how much you should weigh, and how much you should eat) by drinking a cup of sugar water and/or downing a tablespoon of extra-light olive oil at least once a day. There's more to it than that, but that's the essence.

I started this during the worst part of my PMS week, and it's had amazing results. No cravings, no pig-outs. Two days in a row where I ate a moderate breakfast and a large lunch and no dinner. Yes, that's right - I said *no* dinner. And I didn't miss it. In fact, after the lunch, I was stuffed for hours.

This is a huge change, and not a little bit creepy. But if it ends up with me losing weight, I'm all for it.

Though I will admit I've given up on the olive oil. Man, that was *nasty*.

Political, and geeky

Don't know where this is from, but I'm seeing it all over the place, and I think it's true:

Terrorism is the root password to the constitution.

Falling off the bottom

Continuing the quote-of-the-day thing:

Take risks. You can't fall off the bottom. -- Barbara Proctor

Thursday I start marketing my business. This is scary stuff for me, since it means I'm promoting my skills to people I don't know. Doesn't sound hard, does it? Especially since I'm not actually going to be speaking to any of these people. (Having to actually speak to a prospective client would scare me to death.) But knowing that I'm putting myself out there to be judged is really hard for me, even though in this case it's the only way to get what I want.

Blech. I feel so pathetic.

I may have to see if there's a Baltimore Speaking Circles group. I'm feeling the need for that kind of boost ...

Loving Friday

No, this isn't a post about Friday-afternoon sex - sorry to disappoint you. Although after the email thread I participated in this morning about vibrators in Alabama, anything's possible ...

This has been an awesome day off. It's rare when I actually get anything accomplished on my off Fridays. Usually I sleep too late, get up groggy and fritter away the day channel- and web-surfing.

But today I got up a little after 6, read for a while (what I read will be another post, after I've had time to digest it a little more), then rearranged my office.

I relaunched my business web site today, with a more streamlined design and a new URL. That was a huge step, since it means I can now start marketing without embarrassment; the old web site was clunky and needlessly complicated. (Obviously, I'm not giving the URL here - I'd like to maintain some semblance of anonymity. Let's just say that if you need an index written for a book or dissertation, just send me an email, and we can talk.)

I then reaped the rewards of my nicely sized bonus from work. The UPS guy nicely brought me my digital SLR (which I can't wait to play with), a foot spa (those of you responsible for *that* purchase know who you are), and an acrylic holder for my earrings.

That last one probably sounds really odd, but in sorting through my jewelry box recently, I realized I had no idea what earrings I had. I have about 5 pairs that I rotate through regularly, but beyond that I just had a tangled mass of posts and wires cluttering up the top shelf of the box. So I ordered a 210-pair earring holder through Amazon. And while I have absolutely no ambition to actually own 210 pairs of earrings, it's nice to have everything nicely organized.

I'll post a picture later after I figure out where the camera cable got to ...

All in all, a good day. Here's hoping for many more.

Update: dopey me - in the rush of sated consumerism, I forgot completely to thank Hubby for the camera. That wasn't part of spending my bonus at all, but a belated anniversary gift, after I was too lazy to go pick out what I originally said I wanted. Sorry, sweetie - you know how I get when I'm ripping open boxes from UPS. :)

Where's my stuff?

I'm at that stage of post-move (9 months later) where I'm very thoroughly unpacked, but find myself not being able to find things I need. Some of it is just seasonal - I didn't pay very close attention when I packed away my summer things last fall, and managed to convince myself that I'd just tossed away all my summer things when we moved. (Which is ridiculous, considering that we moved in July, clearly a time when I'd need shorts and whatnot.)

Even more frustrating is that I can so clearly remember where the things I'm missing were in the old house, and I often find myself wandering through this house trying to find rooms in the old one.

Just today, in the process of rearranging my office, I accidentally found all my missing summer clothes when I went to put the winter quilt in my cedar chest. Voila! There they all were, right where I'd put them in the fall.

I think it's time for another whole-house purge and clean, so I can find out where everything is.

At this rate, I'll be back here in 6 months saying how miraculously I discovered where the winter quilt was hiding ...

Passing on the wisdom

Oh, how I wish I'd written this:
Living Like Water.

And how I wish I could live it.

The silence of the spiders

It’s spider season again – I’m seeing them out of the corner of my eye everyone I go. One sat on the outside of my windshield yesterday as I sat waiting to go to work, and it took me a good moment of concentration (and a consultation with Hubby) before I was sure it was actually on the outside.

One of the most basic parts of my personality is my fear of spiders. Some of my most vivid memories of living in Kansas when I was very small are of my mother flailing around with a broom screaming as she killed our kitchen spiders, which were, at least in my childhood memories, big as saucers. That experience for a sensitive and anxious kid added up to spider phobia for most of my life. Even the word can give me the creeps. And don't even ask me about the nightmares I had for weeks after watching the spider scene in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.

In the past few years, the phobia has eased, and while I’ll never be completely comfortable around spiders, I can at least be in the same room with one without freaking out totally.

I realized sometime this week that part of my problem with my meditation practice is that my meditation chair was positioned in spider central. I obviously can (and do) meditate anywhere I can sit, but that chair is special enough to me that I wanted to use it. It’s in my office, which is at the top of our house, and my chair was in the dormer. Right under the window, prime territory for spider ingress and habitation. (Does it say something that I started to type “terrortory”?)

So I spent an hour this morning rearranging my office so I can sit in my meditation chair (my expensive chair that I bought in a total fit of self-indulgence) without tensing up waiting for the feel of spider legs on my arms or legs.

And still I’m spider-spotting: in the kitchen, where one has made a web in the corner of our cabinets; on my backpack, where a tiny white one scuttled out of the folds. I can’t help but wonder if I’m supposed to learn something from them, so I’m watching and waiting to see if I can figure it out.

Definitely headache, but a little imagination, too

A great wind is blowing, and that gives you either imagination or a headache. -- Catherine the Great

I am doing 1 thing

I love synchronicity. It's one of the things you learn to watch for while doing the Artist's Way.

I formally re-started AW yesterday, having already had my artist's date on Saturday, when I went out to Michael's and bought supplies to make marble magnets. I messed around with a few, and had a lot of fun.

I also spent some time rewriting the text for my business web site, something I'd promised to do a couple of months ago. I'm planning to relaunch the site sometime this week. That's not directly AW-related, but it is writing, and it is progress toward part of my dream, so I'm counting it. :)

So today I went looking on Google to see what I could find related to AW, and what should I find but an AW group on 43 things. If you look over on the right in my sidebar, you'll see the link to it.

This is the third or fourth time I've started this, so who knows if I'll finish it. I've had a lot of revelations since the last time I tried that should help me get through.

If anyone's interested in doing this with me, I'd love the company.

Be the change you want to see in the world

I look at the people that I love, who wrestle with problems that are far too large for me to grapple with, things that break their hearts, make them bitter and angry, make them hurt with the pain of lifelong injustice, make them rail against the stupidity of the world, and all I want to do is to make the world right so their pain is assuaged, so that they and their children can live in a world where none of this is real, where all the pain and wrong and injustice is a distant memory.

But I'm not Martin Luther King, Jr., I'm not the Dalai Lama, I’m not Mother Teresa. I'm not Gandhi. I'm just a practicing non-Buddhist geek who wants the world to work.

What can I do?

Drop of wisdom for the day

Never regret. If it's good, it's wonderful. If it's bad, it's experience. -- Victoria Holt

Amen to that.

Put on your own oxygen mask first

I was always so smug when I read things about working mothers who wear themselves out always doing for others and never taking care of themselves. After all, I don't have kids and my husband is thoroughly self-sufficient. There's clearly no way for me to be walking the caretaking-of-others-and-neglecting-myself path, right?

O, arrogant soul, think again.

At some point recently, I realized I am clearly walking that path. My "doing for others" addiction comes from work, where I need to serve everyone, even if they don't need it, and I need approval from everyone, even if I don't really care what someone thinks. It's so ingrained at this point that on a day like today, when I need to have total concentration on what I'm doing to get it done, I struggle against telling people I'm unavailable and sending my calls automatically to voice mail and not answering email. They might get mad at me.

(Yes, I know – that really is the lamest thing I’ve said in a while, and I’m embarrassed to say it really does matter to me. Not one of my favorite things about myself.)

I bring this on myself, of course, because I have such a tiny attention span that I get bored if I'm only doing one thing. So I start looking out for other things to do, other ways to be useful. And I always end up exhausted, overworked, frustrated, underappreciated, resentful, and ready to move on to the next job, where I can start the whole pattern again.

And self-care? Who has the energy for that after a 12-hour day? I'm lucky if I have the energy to take a shower, much less exercise, eat nutritious meals, meditate, create, *live*.

At least this time through the pattern, I'm learning to recognize what's happening, and am trying to find ways to change my own behavior to defuse the bomb I lit with my own hand.

If you hear an explosion, you’ll know I’ve failed.