What am I waiting for?

When I'm with my friends and family, and doing things I enjoy, life seems glorious. On the flip side, though, when I'm in "down time" mode, I feel like I'm just waiting for the next thing all the time. Having typed this out on the screen I can see what my problem is…I'm not holding to one of my happiness commandments: Number 7: Be content, not complacent.

I definitely have a problem finding a balance between those two things. If I'm not trying hard enough to find contentment, I get complacent and feel stuck in a rut. If I try too hard, I over-do, and then I never settle in and find that contented place.

Mostly over the past several years, I've allowed myself to be complacent…settling for whatever happened along, rather than manifesting my own destiny. Now I've successfully gotten myself out of that place, where I was stagnant and bored, but I've gone too far the other direction, and I'm not stopping to feel the joy in each moment.

I can feel myself doing this in all sorts of places in my life—from little things like being so impatient for the next episode of a t.v. show or a podcast I like that I don't enjoy the one I'm listening to or watching at the moment to bigger things like letting each day go by worrying about the next day. I had a great time in New Orleans several weeks ago, but it definitely wasn't like my previous trips with my lovely friend Aimee, where I let my intuition and my fancy guide me around Europe.

In France, Aimee and I sat for hours in cafés smoking cigarettes and drinking French coffees, feeling sophisticated and young all at the same time. We ate cans of tuna and peaches on the steps of Sacre Coeur Basilica, fighting off pigeons and reveling in the view of Paris from high on the hill. We ate dinner in an Italian restaurant even though we were in France, because we felt like it. Even stepping in dog crap on the sidewalk near the Louvre was hilarious.

I know I'm older and definitely more jaded, or something, than I was then, but I need to remember how it felt to really just be content in each moment as it happened on that trip, so that maybe I can bring it back to my daily life. Admittedly, traveling to work at the edge of a mid-Western town day in and day out, worrying about bills and housework and such things isn't as glamorous as traipsing around Paris with one of my best friends, but that doesn't mean there aren't moments every day that I shouldn't be reveling in.

How do you find that balance between the things that make up daily life and not letting them get you down and complacent or too hyped up you can't settle down and enjoy the moment?

When I Grow Up

Unfortunately for me, when I see that title, the Pussycat Dolls' latest hit song starts playing in my head…that isn't quite what I'm referring to. Or maybe it is…

Everyone dreams of being SOMETHING as a child, whether that thing is a professional bike rider (10-speed, not BMX), a babysitter, a bird, a lawyer, a psychiatrist, or a writer. (Note: these are all things I have wanted to be at one time or another.)

I started this blog because I've always got something in my head that wants out. It's therapeutic, freeing, cathartic, energizing, and (dare I say) fun to put my words out into the universe. As I write I hear snippets of teachers' voices saying things like "avoid cliché" and "consider your structure" and "who is your audience" and "find your own voice." What I want from this blog is to extend myself, to hear my own voice as I read, and to learn to captivate a reader. I want to explore topics to see if they can grow into something more or if they are dead in the water.

Lately, due to my distracting obsession with celebrities on Twitter, I've been keeping an eye on Diablo Cody. Her story thrills me—she seems to have always done what it is she wanted to do, without censorship. She has multiple higher education degrees, but she has worked as a stripper, just because it was interesting. She isn't afraid to write about something controversial—or rather, she doesn't consider anything controversial, because she's comfortable with herself. She seems to always have an idea in the works. Maybe that's because it is her job to write, but I'd like to think that any writer who wants to write should also always have some smidgens of stories on the back burner.

One of my favorite bloggers is Heather Armstrong at Dooce.com—Heather is another one who doesn't filter, and her posts are always interesting. She talks daily about her triumphs and her struggles, and isn't ever bashful about saying what she's really thinking.

I want to write that way—with abandon. Without concern for what the world thinks. The past 12 months have taken me a long way towards learning that what other people think doesn't really matter. The people who love me will love me no matter what I do, or what is done to me—sometimes all the more so for my inadequacies. The people who don't love me don't really matter; if someone can't accept me for being me, what do I want with them anyway? I'm trying to move in that direction, but my need for approval is always fighting me back the other way.

Part of my struggle is that I feel like I haven't had to struggle. I've had a middle-class, mid-western existence, parents happily married for 40 years (this year!), comfortable, safe relationships, minimal hardship. I've always wondered how interesting I can be if I don't have my own story, if I haven't experienced any of those challenges. Is it possible to be progressive and captivating in my writing when my own life seems so white bread?

It's callous to wish for trouble, isn't it? There are plenty of people in the universe who HAVE faced hard times—are facing them this very moment. I don't want to trivialize anyone else's experience by saying something like "I wish my life were more difficult." That's just a silly thought, but on some level, I'm jealous of someone who can pull from some raw emotion to document something, whether fact or fiction. My emotion has to be pulled from somewhere else, outside of experience, and therefore sometimes (okay, maybe most of the time, at least to me) feels false, or manufactured. I've always felt like my "hardships" were trivial, and therefore I should suck it up and quit feeling sorry for myself on those days where I feel gloomy.

I've added a new blog to my daily reading list—my friend the Dap Queen. It's a little risqué (at least for some portion of my readers) so proceed with caution if you find yourself uncomfortable with the idea of, for example, sex shops. I, however, cannot get enough of Dap Queen's writing style. It's raw, uninhibited, and thrilling. I think the girl could write a screen play that would rival Diablo's Juno, and I'm jealous. I love her turns of phrase, and that she isn't afraid of what a reader might be thinking. If you don't like it, you know what you can do with it.

Anyway, point of all this is…if I claim to want to write, for real—if that is what I truly want to be whenever I discover what a "grown-up" is—I need to take myself a little more seriously. I need to push my own boundaries, stretch the edges of my comfort zone. Maybe to do that I have to take it off-line at first, to flesh some things out, to find a topic and expand upon it.

How do you find yourself, internet? Where do you look for inspiration, and strength? How can you tell when you're speaking in your voice, and not someone else's?

In Someone Else's (Deck-Swabbing) Shoes

What's a pirate's favorite place to shop?

TARRRRRRGET!

Get it?

I went to New Orleans a few weekends ago for a bachelorette party. It was standard fare for a bachelorette party—pretty girls, trolling for free drinks, getting quite a few, and buying their own as well, special shirts for the bride-to-be and her cronies announcing their partying existence in the city, too much food, and stories that can only be partially shared due to their R-rated nature.
All in all, a great time.

We arrived late in the evening (well, okay, late for a Midwesterner, not really late for Bourbon Street) and checked in to the hotel, giving ourselves a few minutes of primping before we hit the Quarter. As the elevator slid slowly from floor to lower floor, three silly girls chattering in the car, we thought we were prepared for anything. Then the floor stopped on floor 8.

As the door opened, we shifted around to make room for new passengers, then looked up to see who might be joining us. And….pirates.

That's right, I said PIRATES. Dressed to the nines, looking like they were ready for an elaborate costume ball—makeup, props such as swords and eye patches and hats. We must have looked stunned, standing there in the elevator dressed in our best "going out" attire, staring back at the pirates.

"Oh, we're waiting for the rest of our party…you go ahead," one pirate said politely. The door closed and my good friend Aimee muttered "wait for it….wait for it…." The rest of us looked at her with wide eyes. Finally she determined we were a sufficient distance from the pirates' floor to blurt out with an ecstatically excited look on her face, "Pirate Convention!"
That's right my friends, PyrateCon 2009 was happening in New Orleans that weekend, and it made the city even more colorful (is that possible?) on our weekend trip. Maybe you're wondering (like I was) what one might do at a Pirate Convention. I've been to work conferences, where the days were filled with sessions about (in my case) technical writing, editing, advances in software, and showing off completed projects to your peers. I've got friends who attend the Star Wars convention every year, and seen both documentaries and parodies about ComicCon—I can imagine that there is plenty to do at those types of conventions.

Well, here's the PyrateCon 2009 schedule, but I kind of got the feeling that the main point of the Pirate Convention was to dress and act as a pirate. We saw pirates with live birds riding on their shoulders, pirates decked out like the Pirates of the Caribbean cast (seriously, you can't get any more creative than Johnny Depp?) and pirates that looked like the undead (I bet you've never heard of a vampirate).

I've told this story way too many times already since I've returned from my trip (you know how I love an audience). The typical response so far has been, "but why would anyone want to dress like a pirate?" This is what I have been thinking about this week.

Well, not why would a person dress as a pirate, but rather, why WOULDN'T one?

My hairdresser would probably assume I was starting a new hobby if I told her this story—she is constantly amused at the variation in my activities from day to day. But really, what's wrong with wanting to dress like a pirate? Why should that be considered weird? When I run down the list of my hobbies, I sometimes feel a little sheepish, because, as I often preface the list, they are sort of a list of the activities of a retired Midwestern woman…knitting, dog showing, fiddle-playing. Recently to that list I have added both indoor and outdoor volleyball. I also consider my obsessive reading and contributing to Facebook, Blogger, and Twitter a hobby.

People laugh when I give them this list—and some people poke fun. Not in a mean way, and I do love the attention, so I'm ready to handle it. When talking about my Twittering last week, a few of my workmates said things like "Twittering? What is that?" and "That's a lame hobby." I laugh, but I also ask them why they would say such a thing? Then I remind them of their own hobbies (fishing in competitions at 5:00 a.m. on Lake of the Ozarks--in a special fishing jersey, with sponsors, no less--or talking incessantly about fantasy sports, or traveling to Tool concerts all over the nation). Why is my hobby (or the pirates!) any weirder, or less acceptable, than any of these other things?

It isn't. We're all weird. My best friend from 4th grade and I used to pride ourselves on our weirdness—embracing the strange and the interesting things that made us different.

I've been thinking quite a bit this week about how hard it is for most of us to step outside of our own experiences and look at life from a new perspective—from someone else's viewpoint. To stand in someone else's shoes for a minute, and understand what the world looks like from a different vantage point. I like to think that I can do that, at least passably well. I'd like to do better.

So, with that, I'll leave you with a few photos of me with some pirates…who you can tell worked tirelessly and for many hours to prepare themselves for their week in New Orleans this year. Oh, and if you need to hire some undead pirates for a party, check out the Dark Dwellers on MySpace. That'd be a conversation topic for your event, for sure.

Vampirate! (Watch out Karen!)

The Dark Dwellers

Celebrity

I bought a new cell phone about a year and a half ago solely based on the fact that I can text from it—like a teenager. I mean, in the middle of dinner, while I wait at stoplights, during real life conversations with people, in the middle of phone calls…I love texting.

Before I bought this phone, I had to use the regular numerical keypad, which is not conducive to fast-paced typing, albeit abbreviated and punctuated with text slang. Some of those new phones, like the iPhone, or the new Google phone, or the Blackberry Storm with it’s clicking touch screen don’t really provide me with the functionality I [think I] need in a mobile device—I like my phone with its wide flip-open QWERTY keyboard.

The problem with loving to text is simply this: I am almost 30. Many people I converse with daily are NOT into texting. It seems like a waste to send text messages to people who don’t answer—it is MUCH more fun when it is a two-sided conversation. When I joined Facebook (I almost typed “the Facebook Revolution” here, because I really feel like it is something monumental I am involved in—is that weird?), I added Facebook Mobile to my phone.

On my text-based phone (I don’t have an internet browser or any cool applications that can run a real-looking version of Facebook), I can get text messages when people send me messages, or comments, and I can comment back on status updates and photos other people post. Facebook sends me text messages all the time, and I love it.

Well, over the past few weeks I have found something even better—TWITTER!!! If you aren’t on Twitter, I won’t try and convince you to join. If you don’t have the right mindset (for example, you hate knowing what other people are doing all the time), you won’t like it. I don’t really care if you don’t like it—or if you think I’m silly for using it. I will point out, however, that not only are all the cool kids doing it, but so are businesses, politicians, and…wait for it…celebrities!!!

I follow quite a few celebrities on Twitter. Some are stupid—their managers or “people” post things for them (that’s what Britney Spears and Ryan Seacrest do) and I am just not interested in the business side of it. However, I LOVE knowing what random things someone else is doing at a given moment, especially if they are charismatic and interesting. Maybe I’m a bit of a stalker…I don’t mind. You know they like it, these celebrities…don’t put it out there if you don’t want me to read it.

I have some followers on Twitter as well—it makes ME feel a little like a celebrity. I know I’m not all that interesting or glamorous, but sometimes I have something witty to say, or something funny, and I can put it out there in the universe. You can read it or not—that part doesn’t really matter to me all that much. A few people care a little about what I have to say, and I like knowing we can communicate in such a cool way.

Someone at work called me “sad” today for “caring about what celebrities are doing.” I thought about that for a little while—is it sad? I don’t think so…it’s something that entertains me. (By the way, I told him that if that’s how he was going to be, we could talk about his love of fantasy baseball or comic books….)

Some of the more interesting people I am currently following on Twitter are Soleil Moon Frye (you may know her as “the actress who played Punky Brewster”), John Mayer (singer-songwriter), Diablo Cody (author of the screenplay for the movie Juno), and Rainn Wilson (Dwight from The Office). They have interesting things to say, in a world that is outside my realm, and I like peering in from the other side of an SMS text message.

You can say what you want—but if you want me to read it you should probably say it on Twitter.

The "New" One

Because you're all dying of suspense...

So, less than 24 hours after my last post, I purchased a car. Seemed almost impulsive after the weeks and weeks I spent agonizing about this decision, but I think it just means that I finally did all the research I was going to do and there wasn’t anything else to consider. (Or, rather, if there was, I was going to consider my brains out for weeks turning into months and NEVER have my own car again.)

I ended up with the Infiniti. It’s a purple-blue color (the girls at work have decided it is “Midnight Blue”), has leather (heated!) seats, a great sound system, a sunroof, and a roof rack. These are pretty much the things I need to be happy in a vehicle. It also rates extremely highly with Consumer Reports and actual owners on Edmunds.com. I feel confident that it was a great choice.

One of the best parts about my shopping experience was Carl. The Infiniti was at a very small dealership in Edwardsville, KS, called JB Motors; it has 4 employees and is out in the middle of nowhere. I found a Honda CR-V on their lot using Cars.com, and was there checking it out when I noticed the Infiniti.

Carl is about 5’3” and has bright blue eyes. He also has a loud booming voice. He referred to every car we discussed as a “nice little unit” and called me “ma’am” every time he spoke to me. He explained in detail the features of each vehicle, along with a demonstration of each lever, button, and switch in the car. He gave great descriptions of the finer points of each vehicle, such as, “This Bose stereo, ma’am, I tell you what, you crank up the volume and it’s like you’re actually at the concert,” or “We got that Honda up and running for you just like new, sparkling like it’s just come off the lot. Really nice little unit, that one.”

He was very polite and accommodating, if a tiny bit overzealous in the way he contacted me (he called me quite often while we were discussing the vehicles on their lot). The key fob was missing for the car, so he told me that I could “go on the computer, you know, and order one, from that place, you know, where everybody goes to buy stuff? You know, on the computer?” I’m still not sure if he meant eBay, but that’s the first thing that came to my mind. (I ended up buying a new key fob from RemotesandKeys.com.)

So I’m happy with my purchase. There is a 90 day warranty, so I’m going to get the car checked out for everything that they cover and make sure I don’t need any work done.

Let me know if you’d like a ride in the “new” car (it’s actually older than my last one).

The (Current) Bane of My Existence

This week, I've been car shopping. Well, really, I've been shopping for a few weeks now, and even longer I've been shopping in my head and online.

Last week the insurance company paid off the loan on the ol' Highlander (may she rest in peace), so I'm ready to dive in to yet another loan and get something to drive myself around.

Thankfully, my friend Chris loaned me one of his (5) cars for about three weeks, so I haven't had to rent, and my generous roommate has waited around for me to be ready for work in the morning on the days I'm not driving Chris's car. As nice as it is to not have a car payment, and to be driven around, it probably is time for me to get my own ride.

I hate car shopping. When I was a teenager, my first car was a Pontiac Grand Am, 1988. I didn't really have a choice--that was the car my parents had, and my dad was driving a company van to work at the time, so it was mine by default. They told me I could drive it as long as I had a job and paid for my own gas. (One time I ran out of gas about a block from the house because I had run on empty for about three days, but I digress. Usually I bought my own gas.)

When I went to college, my sister got to drive the Grand Am (which by that time I had nicknamed the Pontiac P.O.S.). It drove all right, except for those few times it died in the middle of busy intersections, but the fabric header was loose and tended to rest on the heads of the passengers, and due to an unfortunate incident involving myself and a boy, the radio was broken and Alannis Morisette's Jagged Little Pill album was stuck in the tape player for over a year, playing in a loop.

My sister (she's a tricky one) wrecked the Grand Am by smashing into the rear end of a deer, and my parents bought her a newer car, while I was off at college bumming rides (including one where I almost drove a Mazda known as Lucy off the highway after picking someone up at the airport--Lucy perished in hurricane Katrina so I feel it is now safe to mention that I almost killed her in 1998).

When I was a senior in college, I took over the payments of my mom's car, another Pontiac Grand Am, this one a newer model (1995--I got it in 2000). Despite accidentally crashing into the garage door opening, that Grand Am lasted until just last year.

In the meantime, I got the Highlander (may she rest in peace). I bought the car at CarMax, which I highly recommend to anyone who hates car shopping. Pick out your car online, go to the store, pay the asking price. No haggling, no "let me check with my manager" business. It was a good experience, and I planned on driving the Highlander (may she rest in peace) until she died on me (have I mentioned I loved that car?). Little did I know that would be this year.

Anyway, the search for a car is overwhelming me. I am trying to be financially responsible but also buy a reliable car. There are a MILLION choices out there, and just when I think I've found something, it turns out to have a problem.

I don't even really care about cars that much--I've never really had a favorite car (unless you count when I was 14 and wished for a red Miata convertible, or when I was in high school and thought about how cool I would be if I had a Jeep wrangler). Now I wish I lived somewhere I didn't need a car, and could take public transportation, or that the weather was nice enough and I lived close enough to work to ride a bike. Purchasing something as large as a vehicle is daunting, and maybe this means that I'm becoming an old, boring adult, but I find this shopping experience excruciating.

I'm still looking, and reading reviews on Consumer Reports and Edmunds and checking Carfax reports and asking for advice. My most recent find is a 1999 Infiniti QX4 (I know, not exciting, and old--but it's reliable, gets good reviews, and is cheap!). We'll see how it pans out...I don't have much hope that it will be a painless process, but who knows. I needs me some WHEELS.

Focus (or Lack Thereof)

The last few weeks have filled my head so chock full that I haven't been able to focus.

I wrecked my car a few weeks ago, as you may have seen on this blog and elsewhere, and when the officer on the scene asked me what happened (and he actually said, "No seriously. WHAT HAPPENED?") I couldn't really answer. I know that I wasn't paying attention--I was thinking about anything BUT driving.

That morning, I read an email from a friend that consumed my thoughts for most of the day. Before I got in the car to take that last drive (R.I.P. Highlander!), my mom had me watch an episode of Oprah that got me thinking about myself, my free time, and my relationships with others. I planned to run a race the next day. I saw a play the night before and the songs were stuck in my head.

None of these things are reasons to drive my car off the road, I know. It's a horrible excuse, if you can even call it that. And my ability to focus has just gotten worse since then.

Dealing with the insurance to get a new car has been harrowing. I testified in court last Tuesday. Work has been insane the last few weeks; today I couldn't get anything done because I was working on too many things at once.

Tonight I played in a volleyball game and I had to keep reminding myself to pay attention to the ball--I caught myself staring into space more than once (not that I'm really any good at volleyball, internet, but I was worse than EVER tonight).

Even this post is disjointed. My thoughts feel jumbled.

I think I need to get back to yoga--it was definitely something that helped me focus. When I'm not focused, I tend to do things like fall down stairs or sprain my ankle. I miss deadlines and projects are harder to complete.

I'm trying to slow down my brain. The rain tonight helps a little--it's calming and relaxing, and I'm breathing a little deeper. If you have any advice for getting my mind back into a lower gear, I'd love to hear it.