Climbing to 100 – 2013 style

It’s only been, uh, what? 10 years since I did one of these? Kept you hanging on the edge of your seat, didn’t I?

(drum roll, please)

100 (more) things about me – 2013 style

PJ: Dog of Love and Pajamas

I’ve morphed from a cat person to a dog person. I always swore I would be a cat owner until the day I die but I think I’m done with cat pee issues for a while. I’ve loved (and lost) five cats since 2004 and while I adore Sophia to pieces, I think I’m ready to be cat free for a bit. (Not forever, though.)
I love a good cup of coffee more than most things in my life.
As the metaphysical book reviewer for Pathways Magazine, I get sent a lot of woo books. I mean A LOT OF BOOKS. The crap thing is that I cannot read them all (nor do I want to because believe it or not, some woo is even too far out there for me) and it’s not really in integrity to sell books I get for free so I donate them to the local hospice store. Let me just say that where I live is not a terribly enlightened place and I’m sure there’s not a big market for these books. I need to find a way to get them to people who will read them.
I could open my own metaphysical book store right now and make a fortune. Jeez, so many dag books that I don’t even look at anymore. Books are one of my major addictions, as if you didn’t know.
Thirty years spent sitting at a desk has made it hard to work any other way. I find I am much more productive while sitting at a real desk in front of a real computer. Laptop and sleeping doggies don’t make an optimal working environment for this girl (but it does make her feel loved so perhaps it’s a tradeoff, yes?)
Why yes, I do have an office we created just for this very thing (i.e.: being productive). Thing is, the desk is weird and there’s not much space and wha whaaa whaa. Let’s say that when I get my house on the beach, my office will have a beautiful desk facing the water, lots of windows and be far away from television noise, barking dogs and petty annoyances.
I can only write when I have the wordpress application open. I’ve tried to write blog posts on word docs and it feels … wrong, somehow. Of course, there is the random key slamming thing that I do that somehow highlights AND deletes entire paragraphs and there’s no getting it back in WordPress. Just POOF! Gone. I try to look at it as the Universe “suggesting” that I might not want to publish whatever it was that I was writing. Sounds reasonable to me.
I’m finally coming to terms with who I am at core level: I am a chick who feels anywhere between 12 and 28 most days, feels happy and safe around books, is not ever going to be “naturally thin”, abhors cleaning and cooking and most things domestic, prefers to be sitting on the couch with sleeping dogs, hot coffee and a laptop over most anything else and who really does hear those from the other side speak.
Letting go of my need for approval has been a challenge because although I am the black sheep of the family, inside there’s a girl who wants to be seen and accepted for who she is.
I will love David Cook when I’m 80 and can’t remember who he is or where I know him from. He’s a great singer but beyond that, a genuinely nice person who is authentic and real. Someone remind me of that when I am 80, k? (I doubt I’ll forget the hug from him, though!)
All I want right now is a nice bathroom with an awesome tub for bubble baths. When I hit it big in the woo-land, I will build myself one.
I’m still rockin’ an addiction to notebooks and pens. (Flair pens, nowadays) I suppose that’s not the worst addiction to have.
Facebook was not even around when I wrote editions one and two of this.
I have a love/hate relationship with it. I love being able to see what goes on with people.
On the other hand, I often want to roll my eyes at what goes on with other people because it’s either a buttload of drama, trivial BS or oversharing. I am beyond glad this did not exist when I was younger and had no clue how to manage said boundaries.
Young people come with drama built in, don’t they? And I suppose that’s why many television shows (and movies) are built around that. Who’d want to watch a 53 year old chick sit on her couch with coffee and a laptop night after night? That’s right. No one.
I never hold grudges. It feels icky to me.
I am often a wee bit too exuberant about things and let my joy get away from me.
Sometimes, that’s a good thing (“It’s my birthday! Hug me!”) and sometimes not (when I get all fired up over an idea for a class or something and then in the light of day wonder what the hell I was thinking.)
I don’t get Twitter at all. It’s way too noisy for me and I don’t understand why people have conversations on there that would be better suited to either texting, IMing (does anyone do that anymore?) or email. I don’t want to see your mundane BS come through on my feed. (Hell, I don’t even want to see MY mundane BS!)
I’ve been on anti-depressant meds for a LONG time. Now and again I decide to go off them and find myself in a huge ditch that I can’t seem to climb out of. I’m not embarrassed to admit using them, I just wish I didn’t have to. (Many women in my family have this issue. My mom was a LOT nicer when she was on them.)
I found these awesome flip-flops that hold me nicely in my body. I’ve never been partial to flip-flops but when I happened upon these, I was in love. Bought three more pairs when I wore the first ones out. Must. Be. Grounded.
Duty buys weird shit that I know he’ll never use and it ends up in our garage. I don’t say anything because a) he’s an adult and can piss away his money as he wants long as we can pay bills too and b) I do that with online business courses and instead of the garage, they’re on my laptop. Had to unsubscribe from a ton of email lists because I have trouble resisting bright, shiny programs.
I haven’t found anything yet that’s replaced Pilates and Crossfit. Hence, doing NO exercise and feeling all sluggy. Crossfit really gave me a lot of confidence until my vulnerability outweighed it. (Long story) I’d go back if I could do it again with my trainer Shannon. But it was $75 a session and that’s just not a good cost/benefit solution. (/excuses, I know)
There is never a day when I don’t think of and miss Lauren. I doubt there ever will be. Anticipating the day we are reunited in soul form again.
I also don’t understand atheism. Well, mentally I do. But I don’t know how you can see everything around you and not understand that there really IS more to all this than what we can see.
That said, I also don’t get why people want to believe that there is ONE right path to God (and all there is). Why can’t there be as many paths as there are people to walk them? Why can’t it be okay to walk the path that’s right for you (even if it’s NO path?)
I don’t think I’ll ever understand that whole “you must conform to MY beliefs and I’ll shame your ass if you don’t” thing that goes on. How is that following the tenets of any major belief system?
I was destined to be a tree-hugging liberal by being my father’s child. I’m proud to carry on his legacy in this. There’s more I can (and ought to) be doing to be of greater service (especially in my own community) to really step it up, though. He set a high bar.
When my Aunt Tootsie gave me copies of the high school paper my dad wrote for back in the day, I learned that our writing styles were very similar. (Like eerily similar. )
I hate hate hate to be manipulated, whether it’s on television, movies or freaking FB. It brings out my GRRR side (which is not pretty, btw).
Speaking of that sort of thing, I also despise Drama Soup. Lived in it with my own self for many years and then managed to invite it in through friends and others. Now? Cannot abide it. FB makes it easy to see who brings that drama and to adjust my own preferences accordingly.
I have this weird thing about following directions – I read and re-read them obsessively, wondering if I missed anything.
And that’s why those who don’t read and follow them cause me apoplexy. I see this a lot with my students and it makes me want to run down the street screaming. No matter how clearly I lay them out, repeat them and remind them, some will just go happily along their own way. I don’t know how school teachers do it and not go mental.
A falling out and subsequent separation from a teacher this past January was the best thing to happen to me. I was getting too dependent on her and would often mimic her and her concepts in what I was teaching. I think she tried to point that out and I wasn’t getting it so the Uni stepped in and spoke through her (in a not very kind way). I got it. Oh yes. Don’t need that lesson again.
Another lesson this past year was not to give away my power to ANY teacher / coach / mentor. The trick is to walk beside them as a partner. That was a co$tly lesson to learn but I got it.
I enjoy shopping mostly because I get to touch stuff. I didn’t realize this until I was out one time with a friend and he remarked “You know, you walked around the store and touched everything.” I just need a tactile experience, I suppose. Often, if I want something, I carry it around the store with me and then realize I just wanted to touch it and put it back. Makes shopping much less expensive.
Shopping for clothes brings out ALL my body shame. All of it.
So, I buy a lot of earrings because they don’t bring that out.
Much of my political beliefs are entwined with my spiritual beliefs. And while I understand that there are many others who feel likewise (evangelicals, for example), unlike them, I don’t think that just because *I* believe it, it should be law for others. (It goes back to “your own path” etc.)
I don’t actively work to take away rights from others because they believe differently from me.
Why anyone would seek the office of the President is beyond me. It seems fraught with criticism, mis-understandings, cruel people saying shit about you, people trying to kill you and way too much power to hurt others. I guess it’s the power thing that calls to many (not all).
I did mention that I peeped W’s aura once right after he was re-elected in 2004 and it was very, very sad. He didn’t want that role, didn’t like it, wanted just to go home and be left alone and just wanted out. It allowed me to feel a measure of compassion for him I didn’t before.
I would never scope out Cheney’s aura – that’s like asking for a huge f’ing wallop of icky grossness to come upon you. My sense is (and I am open to being wrong) is that his soul chose that heinous role to support us all evolving and moving forward. If that’s true, he’s done a masterful job indeed because we can see for ourselves how craven his agenda is and why we don’t want that. (At least I’d like to think that. Don’t disabuse me of this notion,please.)
For quite a while, I was obsessed with Sarah Palin gossip. I know more about that woman than I do my friends, I’m sure. After a while, though, reading it all made me feel slimy. I think she’s got some serious mental stability issues beyond her need to grift and while I don’t want her anywhere near our political system, I have compassion for her as well. (No aura-peeping needed.) It’s clear something is not right with her world and I don’t like being part of those who make fun of her. (That’s growth, right?)
Although I am a word-nerd, I don’t overly like crossword puzzles (or puzzles of any kind, actually). I do, however, have an affinity for those dumb Facebook “match 3” games like Candy Crush and the like.
Some days, that game playing gets obsessive. When that happens, I know I’m avoiding something although having said knowledge doesn’t always move me past whatever it is. I think this is how I meditate, actually. (/excuses again)
We have to figure out how to start leaving Brogan and PJ in their crate when we go out. We rarely get the chance to go out together anymore because of that one time early on when we left PJ in a crate alone and sent Brogan next door. She had a HUGE meltdown. Now we know that she needs Brogan in the room with her to anchor her. Still, I’ve done nothing to help train her that it’s okay to be left alone and I have made myself a prisoner of the house. That needs to change.
Been drinking these smoothie-things we make with our Nutri-Bullet and they are mostly quite yummy. I make a mix of spinach or kale, apples, banana, peach, strawberries, almonds, coconut milk, carrots (not all of this at the same time, now). I try to drink it in the morning before any other food because it allows me to believe that I’m doing good things for my body. At the very least, I’m getting greens and fiber that I wasn’t before and that can only be a good thing.
The last movie we went to was the 3d IMAX version of the Wizard of Oz. Even though both pairs of our glasses broke before the movie even started, we were able to watch it with a bit of finagling and it was just amazing. I had to avoid the urge to sing all the songs out loud.