March 30, 2011

shut it, lady

Earlier I had to listen to two different women go on and on about how awful it is to be 9 months pregnant. I wanted to cry, but I didn't.

March 29, 2011

square one

So, I finally figured out why I hate looking for jobs so much... Are you ready for this? It's because I don't want a job.

(Um, duh!) What I want is a home and a husband and babies. I want to sit and write and make pretty things and take care of my family and never have to go to work again! Ugh. Who exactly do I need to talk to, to make this happen??

If I do have to work, I wish I could at least find a job that I don't hate. My "dream job" -- which I applied for recently and (for once in my life) was really quite confident that I was going to get -- has fallen through. They picked someone else. I was looking forward to it so much, and it's just gone. I feel like I am right back at square one again. Everything seems so very bleak.

I don't want to look anymore. I don't want to try.
I want to just lay down and not get up for a long long time.




March 28, 2011

the opposite of a narrow existence

Main Entry: expansive
Part of Speech: adjective
Definition: broad, comprehensive
Synonyms: all-embracing, ample, big, dilatant, elastic, expanding, expansile, extensive, far-reaching, great, inclusive, large, scopic, scopious, stretching, thorough, unrepressed, unsuppressed, voluminous, wide, wide-ranging, widespread

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Main Entry: boundless
Part of Speech: adjective
Definition: endless, without limit
Synonyms: great, illimitable, immeasurable, immense , incalculable, indefinite, inexhaustible, infinite, limitless, measureless, no catch, no end of, no end to, no holds barred, no strings, no strings attached, tremendous, unbounded, unconfined, unending, unlimited, untold, vast, wide open

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Main Entry: vast
Part of Speech: adjective
Definition: very large; wide in range
Synonyms: all-inclusive, ample, astronomical, big, boundless, broad, capacious, colossal, comprehensive, detailed, endless, enormous, eternal, expanded, extensive, far-flung, far-reaching, forever, giant, gigantic, great, huge, illimitable, immeasurable, immense, infinite, limitless, mammoth, massive, measureless, monstrous, monumental, never-ending, prodigious, prolonged, spacious, spread-out, stretched-out, sweeping, titanic, tremendous, unbounded, unlimited, voluminous, widespread

Antonyms: bounded, limited, little, narrow, small


mediocrity loves company

Mediocrity is the most effective mask a superior spirit can wear, because to the great majority, which is to say, to the mediocre, it will not suggest a disguise: and yet it is precisely for their sake that he puts it on—so as not to arouse them, and, indeed, not infrequently to avoid this out of pity and benevolence.

Friedrich Nietzsche

March 27, 2011

take me home



I'm screaming to God / would you come and save
what you've either forgot / or you're strengthening
I've finally paid the toll / and its all open road
just trying to find a home / take me home

And if you find the key / would you set me free
if you find the key / would you set me free

March 24, 2011

impetus

Every time I travel, it's like a delayed-reaction catalyst for change upon my return. Australia was overwhelming, but when I got back, I was in awe of what I had experienced and it motivated me to reach for more when I got home. Being in Washington State was really hard, and I felt extremely tired the whole time, but now when I think about the handful of days I spent there, and the people I filled those days interacting with, I feel so happy because I love them all so very much and am so glad I got to do that, and I am equally glad now to be back in California, where I am so much more at ease, and look forward to building a better and better life here -- a life I could never have achieved before.

And I am relieved to have returned from a place I always viewed as an inescapable snare; to have proved it was not so inescapable after all, because here I am again, no longer there.

occupy, inhabit, own

I feel contained, in the same way the contents of an aerosol can are contained:


DO NOT EXPOSE TO EXTREME TEMPERATURES.
KEEP AWAY FROM OPEN FLAME.

I think that if, given total acceptance, a small amount of alcohol, and a bonfire, I might just do any number of interesting things. (Does this conflict with your impression of my state of mind when you saw me last, however recently? Do not worry; it conflicts with my own impression as well.)

I am bursting with the tumultuous energy of a million ideas, and I wonder what it would be like to feel like this all the time, or at least most of the time. I wonder if this is how "normal" people feel every day -- or just people who are on crack. Perhaps it is only so stimulating because I've been suppressing myself for so long?

Lately I've been thinking about my body, of it's power, of all that it is capable of; and how devastated I would be if I lost any of that power. I never used to think about my body. In fact, I used to not-think about my body as much as I possibly could. Now I find myself staring at it like an infant. My legs, my fingers; they do what I tell them to do. They are this shape; they are mine, not yours. It makes me want to dance, to fling myself about, to meditate, to breathe. To stare and stare and stare, because I think I've finally fully realized that this is mine, and it is not yours. My body, my life, my mind. You can't have it, you could never have it.

This is mine. And what I do with it is up to me.

March 23, 2011

in praise of curves in the road

i rounded the curve
and spied a gorgeous sculpture
in the middle of the greening field.
i blinked
and the captivating sculpture
became
a mule
grazing.

from captivated and elated
to
disappointed and deflated
all in the space of
a few hundred feet.

then i remembered
something read
years after i left
pews and classrooms . . .
michaelangelo
said he created his
david
by removing all that
was not david.

and just like that
i was once again
captivated.


Wholly Jean, The Barefoot Heart

there and back again

My sister came down to stay with me for a few days, like I told you she would -- but then I surprised everyone by accompanying her back to WA for a week, where I visited some of my family, caught up with two of my completely amazing friends, finally got to meet one sweet baby girl... and took scandalously few photographs. (It didn't even occur to me until I was on my way home that despite the fact that I spent time with 11 different people, there are no pictures of me with anyone except for the baby.)

We did all the same mundane things we've done before, and will do again; and it was marvelous. I was there, and I was with -- and I was content. I guess the writing of updates and taking of photos just seemed superfluous.

March 10, 2011

March 9, 2011

on a different note

You know, I was just thinking, the scope of the world is so much vaster than I was ever allowed to believe before. And I love that about the world. I love its scope.

World, you have freaking awesome scope! Thanks for being SO MUCH bigger than the house I grew up in.

----------

My head is feeling lighter now.
It helps, I suppose, to empty it this way from time to time.

rambling

It's so hard to know sometimes what I should put up here. I remember when I had no followers, and it felt like it was just me, tossing my words into the ether.

I saw them like handfuls of skelatal leaves, imagined them drifting away and away to I-knew-not-where. I wrote from my woundedness, bleeding in English, onto the lined pages of my journal and across my computer screen. Back when I was falling apart, or maybe just falling, like Alice down the rabbit hole, on and on, not knowing when or if I'd ever find the bottom, or rediscover which way was up. But I did; I found the bottom eventually, and to my astonishment there were other people there. People like me, whose worlds were scrambled as snow-globes. Loneliness made me happy to see them. Compassion made me sad. But perhaps the biggest shock of all was discovering how much I'd always been right about, after being told all my life that I was the one who was constantly wrong...


Oh, ruinous land of my mother and father! I shake off your dust from my feet.


----------


I'm trying to move forward, but I still have trouble separating who I was from who I am. I still panic when things take a turn for the better. I still expect to be punished for being alive. But maybe it won't always be this way.


----------


My heart is heavy lately, and so is my mind. I feel like I can barely lift my head sometimes, for the weightiness of my thoughts. Prioritizing is the hardest part of being an adult, I think. Deciding what takes precedence in one's own life, and knowing it is no one else's call. The line between responsibility and perfectionism. The line between laziness and self-care. It's hard for me to see, a lot of the time.

Maybe this is just how it is. Maybe this is life. I can't help wondering, though, how much more difficult certain things are for me, and always will be. There's no way of knowing. Our experiences are ours alone. But I have hope, still, much as it annoys me sometimes: I hope that my life has simply had it's seasons out of order.

I was born into a hundred year's winter, ice and snow and silent malice all around, each day lived as under a curse. A curse that I have broken, now, through sheer force of will. (While breaking curses is all very well, it still takes time for that much frost to melt.) But spring will come, I suppose. Eventually.

March 8, 2011

be still my heart

I can't stop thinking about how big he isn't.
I miss you, baby. I miss you so much I can hardly move.

March 7, 2011

omg

Really reaching the end of my rope with Customer Service, I think. The last week or so it has been harder than ever before to bite my tongue and be polite to the awful/rude/belligerant/obtuse customers who try to rip me off every day. I was abused by other people for most of my life, but for over a year I have not been a part of any abusive relationships... So it comes as much more of a shock now when people treat me badly, and I am getting angry. REALLY angry. Too angry to be continuously serving customers; I fear I am going to become something of a liabilty if I don't get out very soon.

Today, a horrible woman gave me a very bad time, then gave the assistant manager a bad time, then gave the manager a bad time, carrying on in a loud voice and insulting us and the store and saying she didn't have time for this (um, SHE didn't have time for this?!) and basically trying to get us to do what she wanted. We each said/recited the exact same thing (in effect: "no") and finally she stormed out... But then, just before she got in her car, she walked halfway back, and flung the banged-up shoes she had been trying to return at the store windows!!

Bitch, please.

Thankfully she was a pathetic shot, and the shoes landed miserably short, but still. Such infantile behavior. I'm telling you, it was all I could do not to cut her to bits (verbally, of course) while she was standing there insulting me.

----------

So. Hope hope hoping that I will get that wonderful phonecall, be able to give my notice, and finally see the light at the end of this tunnel. Once I quit, my dream is to never have to work in retail again. It's just not the thing for me.

progress

I seem to have finally overcome the strange dread that was paralyzing me every time I tried to sew, and am busy again making things for the shop. Click over to my crafty blog vera kate gets creative to see a couple of new items, and several more soon to come!

March 4, 2011

eep!

On Monday I went and did an office skills assessment for KP Human Resources, and this morning I got a call from the recruiter: I did really well on my assessment, and they want to call me back and set up an interview for sometime next week.... Fingers crossed! This could (finally) be it, the opportunity I've been waiting for.

March 3, 2011

one week

My birthday is just one week away! It always seems to sneak up on me so quickly, once the new year begins. I will be 27 years old, which sounds to me like a splendid age to be.

I will be having a little dinner party with some family, and then over the weekend my sister will be here and we will go have some fun in San Francisco. Can't wait!


PS: I've been getting asked a lot lately what I might want as a gift, so I'm letting everyone know there is a tab at the top of the page where interested parties can find my Birthday Wishlist... or you could just click on this link. ;) Cheers! --v

March 2, 2011

opinions please




I kinda want bangs... Do you think I could pull them off??
images via weheartit.com

March 1, 2011

:::::::

Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all.

Dale Carnegie