the saddest blog in the world

One of the windows in my car was refusing to go up so I took it onto the shop today. I got it in a half hour after the shop opened and it was already unbelievably busy. When I gave the mechanic the key I told him I was planning on waiting to hear from them at a near by coffee shop; that it was fine if my car couldn’t be seen today, but to please let me know as soon as possible so I could pick it up and reschedule. I spent three hours at a coffee shop, and then went to a restaurant for lunch. After lunch I spent an hour and a half at another coffee shop when my sister called and told me she was down the street. At three thirty I – hot, tired and highly caffeinated – began to get very pessimistic about the prospect of my car being repaired today. I called the shop several times, each attempt met with a busy signal. Feeling defeated I accepted a ride home from my sister. At four thirty, a half hour before the shop was to close, I was able to contact the garage. I was informed that my car had been inspected and that the repair part needed to be ordered. I’d fealty sick since returning home, and after this news my swimming stomach dropped. My husband got home a couple hours later and we went to pick up my car. I drove home in my own private inferno, contemplating weather it was worth three hundred dollars to have a window that went up and down. (My final answer, after the air conditioning – though perfectly functional – did little to un-stuff the car, was yes.) Once home I experienced a sensation that hasn't lived inside me for some time. I fealty depressed. It wasn’t serious, just a quick sharp stab that had me bursting in to tears a couple of times, but while I stuck in the muck of it I felt like I would never escape. I fealty, worse than insignificant, like I was a selfish parasite unworthy of the energy I was sucking from the world. I tried to breath, but my diaphragm denied me and allowed my lungs only the slightest sip of oxygen, just enough to keep me alive. I tried to remind my self that things weren’t dire, but I could only frame positive thinking in terms of my negative thoughts. Instead of creating an optimistic attitude, I could only see my self having a horrible life, or trying to hide from my horrible life. After a couple of hours I could feel the antiendorphins that had flooded my system begin to subside. Once again I was able to fill my lungs. Now, though smiling is a real effort and I am by no means full of joy, I am not without hope. Today was not the first time the devil of despair has tempted me, and while I was lucky enough to slip thru it’s clutches today, I will take from the experience my own lessons into the future. I noticed that I was enshrouded in this malaise from 18 to 22, and I now have a new facet to of gratitude for the grace that has been granted to me since. I see with new eyes all people for whom depression is a cronich condition. While I can be fairly sure that the physical and mental stress I was under today contributed to the temporary spell I suffered, I have no idea how it was lifted. I feel deeply for people who are walking thru their lives, with an idea about what triggered their personal turmoil, but no clue as to how to escape. I don’t want to forget the time I spent in that place today. I can see that hope isn’t always easy to choose; since I have the choice I want to do a little hoping for the people who can’t do it for them selves right now.

my blog my self

When I started this blog I told my self that it would be a fun creative outlet. I had a vision for the content; I saw a blog full of parody and satire of pop culture. I thought it could be a place for me to synthesize the ideas I get that don’t seem like they have anywhere to go, and normally end up lost to me forever. I thought that I could control what this blog was going to be. The interesting thing is the effect this blog has had on me. It shouldn’t have come as a surprise, but I became consumed with the idea of other people looking at my blog. At first it was just a weird awareness that, though likely no one would ever read my blog, there was a chance for any one in the world could come across what I had put out there. I like to check out bogs with names I find interesting and when I would find ones I liked I would comment. Things got out of hand when I my comments began to get replies.

Many people I know say they are jealous of me because, based on the fact that I can pretty much take or leave any chemical substance, I seem to have a non-addictive personality. The thing is I am hooked on something: attention. Getting feedback, being recognized in any way by someone else out there, made me feel good.

I recognized a while ago that in general my self-esteem is directly related to what other people think of me. I have worked on defining what I can do to make my self-proud of the life I am living and living to that definition. I thought I had let go of the person who needs validation from others to give meaning to the things she does. And then I started blogging.

I got to the point where the first thing I checked when I got on line was not my e-mail but my site meter statistics. I began to leave comments in hopes that it would draw others to my site. (Just so you know the comments I left were all on sites that were interesting to me, but instead of leaving them as simple, genuine signs of respect I wanted the attention I was giving out to return to me.) I was out of control tryin to get a fix. I realized what I was doing and felt ashamed. Just so you know being an attention junkie is not a part of living the life of my dreams. Thinking about the intention behind my actions absolutely disgusted me.

At first I thought about deleting the whole blog, just run away and try to forget that it had ever existed. But that had been a part of who I had been before… blocking my self out of the areas of life I felt I couldn’t excel in, avoiding people I couldn’t please with my act… so I decided to face the blog. I decided I needed to be honest with my self and honest in this blog. Because even if no one ever reads it, even if it is encountered by people who don’t know who I am, it is still an aspect of my life. And in order to live healthy I must be authentic in every aspect, every moment of my life. (That is, in a nutshell, what I decided my best life would look like by the way.)

But then the idia of being truthful in this blog started to get me sick. Because, though I do have a need to be this touchy feely sap, there is also a part of me that loves deconstructing reality TV and making fun of the mainstream. If I was going to be real, I reasoned, I should just start a truth telling blog.

And then I realized I was on the other side of the looking glass as I had met my jabberwocky. I was taking the same approach to blogging that I had in every other aspect of my life. I was separating every part of my self and putting those parts into a divided lunchroom tray, never letting one part touch another. Well that ends here.

This will now be my cyber stab at living a fully connected life. This is the place where I will work out the bugs of being an authentic smart ass. Maybe I will find that my sarcasm no longer serves me, or maybe it will transform and become a powerful tool when it is supported by all of the other things that make up me. The one thing that I am sure of is that anything can happen now that I am committed to getting to the bottom of what and why I am doing what I’m doing it and to telling the truth about it – and recognizing that I can still be a person who makes things up about the world around her while standing inside of her own truth.

Just can’t get enough

You heard it here first… the Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency is the best show ever. First of all, any show that refers to the thought someone must put into having a nose job as a ‘big honkin decision’ just absolutely ROCKS my world. But second, and truthfully more importantly, the show shows women’s actual weight. She showed to models who looked sort of heavy. But instead of saying that they weighed 112 pounds they showed them as weighing 148 pounds. These are beautiful proportioned women who need to loose weight if they want to be models, and Janice is saying that they need to loose twenty pounds. (A wonderful side note is that Janice suggests that they do this thru diet and nutrition; do you see how funny that statement is?) I just really dig real weights being reported. I am 5’2” and 147 and seeing girls who are 5’8” who are my weight and look sort of like me make me feel OK about the weight I am. I heart you Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency!

Reality show version of crystalmeth

So. Um.. Yeah… so I sort of decided that the Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency was not going to be a show for me. I figured it would be full of gimmicky bullshit that was totally predictable and not interesting. But I was wrong. And while I want to say that maybe not every one will be interested in the show.. if you have ever felt compelled to watch either project runway or America’s next top model in any sort of capacity you will find your self addicted to this show before the first commercial break. When I first started to watch the show I wanted to write about the use of filters. Watch the show. Just do it. Write me back, if you can, about the use of filtered lenses. I was, for the first five minuets, enthralled with the grainy footage… but then I could not tear my self away from the show it self. Please tell me what you think… if you can think any longer. I think I am going to steal my neighbors belongings and sell them to be sure that I can pay for cable long enough to see the next episode.

Bee sting

Spelling bee mania is crisscrossing the country!

“We have always loved to spell,” Richard Johnson, spelling enthusiast and New England native, said. “Its wonderful to see the pass time many of our friends and family have taken for granted finally elevated to the level it deserves.”

Johnson and his wife, Elizabeth Towels, hosted a national spelling bee party during the live June first broadcast of the event on ABC.

“It has been a rough couple of years for spelling purists,” Towels reflected before popping an appetizer (a handful of Alphabets Cereal) into her mouth. “We think that tonight marks the end of spelling ‘fat’ with a ph.”

A topic that has perennially captured the American imagination, the story of the spelling bee seemed doomed to be locked in the same stinky gymnasium from which it emerged with the fall of the made for network TV movie. Luckily the bee keeper has opened up the honeycomb. Several spelling bee documentaries have given way to two honest to goodness Hollywood movies. In an ironical twist one of these movies was based on a book that was written with words that the author had to spell!

Today the spelling bee is gaining respect at the same rate Texas hold ’em tournaments saw several years ago and hot young couples are not blind to this phenomenon.

“Today people take giant steps to avoid playing a friendly game of Scrabble,” Johnson said after watching Katharine Close out spell her opponents to become 2006 national spelling bee champ, “tomorrow they will be paying money to stand up in a room full of judgmental acquaintances and be given challenging words to spell allowed.

The Johnson-towels household will be holding their first spelling bee night next Wednesday at seven thirty. There is a five dollar entrance fee. Though snacks will be provided, Towels informed us that “…the event is bring your own honey.”