I'm craving a trip to the fabric district downtown. Wanting to be surrounded by the colors and the sounds and the questionable smells. By the shop owners who don't speak English and are at once nonchalant and proud of what they've got to sell. I want to run my hands across the silks and the fake silks, the cottons, the blends, the tulle, even the polyesters, and be surprised by what catches my eye.
Several months ago, I happily canceled my memberships to a couple of book clubs that I'd signed up with years before. You know the ones -- the constant junk mail generators, the never ending "featured selections" to accept (yeah, right) or decline (always). When I finally wrote CANCEL in huge letters across my reply forms to these clubs, I felt a wave of relief rush over me. Gone was the constant pressure to buy books at barely discounted prices, usually by authors who write at what I consider to be a fifth grade reading level! Gone was the filling recycling bin after recycling bin with their "generous offers"! Gone was the fear of forgetting to decline my "selection" and therefore coming home from work to an ominous book-shaped box several weeks later!
Yesterday, I signed up again. With both of them. Hey, there are a lot of good books out right now! I HAD to.
My arms hurt from lugging around a huge lens yesterday at an engagment portrait session. It's always somewhat satisfying to have sore muscles from something other than carrying my groceries, which is what usually does it.
Drove an hour each way for the shoot, managing to keep my newly formed freeway anxiety in check the whole time. I feel proud of myself for that, but still a little sheepish that the anxiety is a factor to begin with. I almost sent April to the shoot on her own.
Will take the small victories when I find them.
i'm going to ignore the fact that i have gained five pounds which feel like twenty and i can't seem to shed a single one
the giving up of pasta and potatoes can wait until Monday
i'm going to pretend that there is no little voice in my ear telling me that i'm better off admiring the work of others than creating anything myself
i'm going to make believe that the sky isn't hazy with smog here, that the air is as ripe and fresh with summer in los angeles as it was up north
and allow myself to breathe it
for the weekend anyway
So anyway, camping was great. It was technically "luxury camping." There was little to no roughing it. Since (regular, real) camping is one of my absolute most beloved things to do, I was very curious about how I would feel about Camping Lite. It turned out to be pretty much exactly what we needed. Relaxing and rejuvinating without being too taxing as far as having to pack and set up a bunch of stuff.
We did some wine tasting, we rode bikes along the coast, we made killer s'mores. We also got pooped on by two adorable owls. Owls pooping from high up in a tree can do a lot of damage. They covered both of us and our entire table of carefully prepared food. We'd just sliced a bunch of delicious cheese to go with our bottle of wine (which we bought at a grocery store, not at a winery, I am only somewhat embarrassed to say), and the whole lot of it was destroyed by the downpour from the tree. We were, at first, quite horrified. But then we laughed, and are still laughing.
every once in a while, usually deep into a chapter as i am now, i have a fleeting moment of thinking "my God, i could very possibly be writing the worst novel ever composed."
thankfully, i've been lucky enough to have read literally hundreds of painfully bad scripts at work, and since i imagine the literary world is not much different, i'm fairly certain that my book will probably be only the 338th worst ever.
when we were camping, i sheepishly sang g. a song i was making up about he and i. it was terrible. terrible. and yet i impressed him, somehow, because he loves me.
"Happiness... not in another place but this place, not for another hour but this hour." -- Walt Whitman
All last week, I didn't feel well. Getting up (early, so early) every day to go to work felt as though it might actually kill me. I started to worry, which is rare lately, given that I've all but abandoned my former love of hypochondria.
But then this weekend I got out of town. G. & I went camping (more on that next time) and it was glorious. I felt healthy and strong (even though I was pretty wimpy while riding bikes, something I haven't done in close to a decade)and alive. The air was cleaner, the food tasted yummier (Though not the wine. I believe, after visiting Santa Ynez wine country this weekend, the SIDEWAYS folks chose the wrong part of California. The wine further north that we had last summer was much better.), my mind felt engaged and full.
Today, back at work, I am sore, allergy ridden and tired. I got a massage yesterday (My first real one ever.) so I feel better than I did last week, but I'm still somewhat stunned at how profoundly my current work life affects my physical well being. I find it fascinating and sad. I'm grateful that I have a very satisfying life outside of the office. I feel deeply for people who have nothing to go home to when they are done with their work day. I can't imagine how one would make it through.
Tommorow's entry: A tale of two owls and some ill fated cheese.
For our anniversary, G. gave me a gift certificate for the two of us to take dance lessons together. This is something I've been wanting to do since we first started dating, so I'm very excited about it. I'm also a little nervous because while I'm the one with years of dance training, G. is the one with a natural sense of movement. All of mine is hard earned, and frankly not that convincing. These classes should result in some interesting stories.
This weekend we saw the documentary MAD HOT BALLROOM about children in Manhattan schools who are part of a mandatory ballroom dancing program. The movie follows three of the schools as they prepare for a city-wide competition. I highly recommend this film. It's by far my favorite movie this summer, and I think that would be the case even if the other movies I've seen in recent months hadn't been totally blah. Go see it.
I let my brain rest this weekend. With the exception of a few moments, I didn't think about character arcs, about photos that needed photoshopping, about the change of address cards I'm making for my friend, or about the bizarre and frustrating turn of events that has lead cat hair to be a disturbingly more prominent tenant in my apartment than I am. Instead, my weekend was about reading great magazine and newspaper articles, day dreaming about my grand schemes for the future, and eating good food with G.
This was all very dandy and charming until last night when I was forced to remember that I have a lot to do right now. Itchy, unclear things that will require much brainstorming and learning in order to figure out. In almost all ways, I am absolutely thrilled to be doing this stuff. My mind desperately needs and wants to learn new things. But there's another itty bitty part that is scared that I'll be rather bad at it all.
This Wednesday, two of my friends got long-awaited jobs in Chicago. I'm so excited for them that I almost feel as if it is me who will be embarking on the big adventure of moving to a new city and starting a new phase of my career. I'm trying to embrace this borrowed sense of anticipation and renewal, and channel it into my own life. I have a lot on my plate right now, and nearly all of it is stuff that I will have to do on my own, with deadlines I've set and motivation that I've conjured up myself. I'm not very good at this, really, although I've been much worse in the past. I do better when I have someone who is expecting something from me, waiting for me to complete it. I've still yet to fully grasp that it's just as satisfying and important to do things for myself, that in fact, it's crucial for me to feel that way. So much of writing and art must be realized and propelled only by the person creating it. After a certain point, there's very little that outside forces can do for an artist who isn't willing to show up for herself every day.
I am learning, slowly but surely, to be a girl who shows up.
