My mom and I seemed to have intertwining dreams last night- maybe partly because we are working together to help a family member and have had intertwining conversations.
I dreamed that my mom was going to have a baby. I was hoping it was going to be a boy. I would be happy either way. I was longing for a brother or sister the same way I used to long for one when I was a kid. I was also longing for my mom’s attention and was worried that she would love the baby better than me! When I woke up, I felt positive about the dream.
My mom dreamed that she and I were standing with three toddlers and we were all holding onto helium balloons. One of the toddlers lost the balloon and it floated up into the sky. The toddler was upset. I let go of my balloon so I could tell the toddler, “See, I don’t have a balloon either. Both our balloons are in the sky together.” And then the balloons found each other in the sky and floated away together.
I thought it was really sweet of my mom’s unconscious to give that role to me. Ahhh…
I want to do balloon art or something. I wish I didn’t have a day of packing ahead of me. Here are some balloon videos in honor of the magical balloon dream.
I felt totally overwhelmed yesterday, so naturally, I browsed the internet, spent some time on facebook, and otherwise wiled away my hours. Today, I feel more ready to tackle my “to do” list. This post by Keri Smith helps.
…there is a point where you have to push through and get past the “stuckness”. you can also apply this concept to creating something, as there are often block that come up that make you want to quit. you get overwhelmed at some point and think “this is not working”, I’m not very good at it. but what you don’t know at the time is that the place you have to push through to is very close, just inches or minutes away. it might be a simple as moving one item. but you don’t know that because you’re stuck on the side of uncompletion which feels bad (read: self criticism). those of you reading this who have given birth may recall that the moment most women want to quit is right at the point of “transition”, (when the body is coming through the birth canal). But at that point you are almost done!
this is why it has become so helpful to me to perceive everything as an experiment. because the next step then becomes about trying anything.just make a move no matter what it is and a different conclusion than the one you are faced with will arise.
Man that play was intense. I just saw it last night. The main charachter is a soldier. Maybe its because one of my friends went to war and came back changed, or maybe its because my cousin’s husband is in the Marines and has turned into an absolute jack ass. This play was really intense for me. I hate what we do to men when we train them and send them to war.
Its funny because I like “Alpha” males. I like strong, daring, confident men. It just makes me sick that we, as a society, use brave men to kill other men, use their valor and honor for unvaliant and dishonorable purposes. Hmmm… although its not like they don’t have a say in the matter.
I like how Shakespeare shows human nature so well. Its just interesting how the same types of people have been around for a lot of years, at least since Shakespeare’s time! Its kind of disturbing too.
I hate how some people make something as disgusting as war sound honorable. There has got to be a way to honor the power and strength of our men without using them in this way. It makes me sick. I hate that some people in our society do this to our men generation after generation.
Actually, its interesting that I would see this play on Father’s Day because originally Mother’s Day was created by a mother who was outraged about war. In Coriolanus, the mother is very pro-war and pro-warrior, at first anyway.
Its all too familiar, but I think we have made progress over the generations. We’ll see. There will never be a war to end all wars. But maybe there will be a play to end all wars. Then maybe there will be a time when this play doesn’t make any sense to people. That would be good.
You know, many of us had parents who said that we should have jobs that we can tolerate, or even jobs that are horrible in order to build character. That’s alright. They just didn’t know. Here are some words of advice from a man who knows. And if you didn’t get that advice from your parents, you can pretend Gene Siskel is talking to you:
I want you girls to know, that the one thing that hasn’t been mentioned is that we found a job that we love. And I hope that the work that you do, the work that you choose, that you will take a very quick inventory of it and decide, “Do I love this? Can I love this?” And I don’t mean “like a lot” I mean passionately love; that you would hate having it taken away from you. That’s a very good test.
And, in a few years I hope you’ll remember this and tell your younger brother what I said. I’d appreciate that very, very much.
Have you ever had one of those days? weeks? years? I can’t seem to get myself to envision anything I want to do, but I would like to see the following films:
Tulpan because, as Roger Ebert says, “there has to come a time in everyone’s life when they see a deadpan comedy about the yurt dwellers of Kazakhstan.”
Away We Go because I want to be young, in love, and pregnant. (Hey! There are some things I want to do!)
The Hangover because it sounds fun, and I like that guy from The Office.
The Land of the Lost because it sounds really weird and all the reviewers hate it and the show freaked me out when I was a kid.
I think this is a great idea and I have an addendum to it that I think is super important:
Photoshop your face onto someone who you will actually look like when you are thinner.
How do you do this?? Well, if you were ever at your goal weight, you know what you looked like when you were thinner. Of course, then you don’t need to use photoshop, you can just look at a picture of your previous self.
OTHERWISE, a really great way is to look at the book called The Science of Sexy. I love this book. You can find your body shape, height, and weight to see what would look good on you. Once you find your body shape and height, you can see what you will look like when you lose weight.
And the best part? At least when it comes to finding a body to photoshop your head onto: the book lists a celebrity stand in for each body type, height, and weight!
Its pretty fun to see what celebrity you look like now, and which one you will look like! (Its a great way to get style ideas!)
The downside: the body types are pretty simplistic. There are only 4 body types listed. If you want to get a really good idea of your body type, go to Myshape.com and create a personal shop. You put your measurements in and they will tell you what your body type is. The measurements won’t lie. The advantage of The Science of Sexy is that there is a celebrity stand in!
(Bonus with myshape: I love updating my measurements as I lose weight and seeing what new clothes are in my shop. The clothes are way too expensive for me, but its still fun online window shopping!)
So, find your celebrity stand in today! My current celebrity is Emme, my goal weight stand in is Kate Winslet. My super thin celebrity is Cindy Crawford. And yes, I was once close to the Cindy Crawford weight. And yes, I did get asked a LOT then! :) (I was also 21 at the time which helps! :)
Walking out in the rain today, I stopped in at the library for shelter and grabbed a book off the “Staff recommends” shelf: High Tide in Tuscon by Barbara Kingsolver. Below is an excerpt of the first essay. It was just what I needed. I’m often blessed by the God of Books.
A hermit crab lives in my house. Here in the desert he’s hiding out from local animal ordinances, at minimum, and maybe even the international laws of native-species transport. For sure, he’s an outlaw against nature. So be it.
He arrived as a stowaway two Octobers ago. I had spent a week in the Bahamas, and while I was there, wishing my daughter could see those sparkling blue bays and sandy coves, I did exactly what she would have done: I collected shells. Spiky murexes, smooth purple moon shells, ancient-looking whelks sand-blasted by the tide. I tucked them in the pockets of my shirt and shorts until my lumpy suspect hemlines gave me away, like a refugee smuggling the family fortune. When it was time to go home, I rinsed my loot in the sink and packed it carefully into a plastic carton, then nested it deep in my suitcase for the journey to Arizona.
I got home in the middle of the night, but couldn’t wait till morning to show my hand. I set the carton on the coffee table for my daughter to open. In the dark living room her face glowed, in the way of antique stories about children and treasure. With perfect delicacy she laid the shells on the table, counting, sorting, designating scientific categories like yellow-striped pinky, Barnacle Bill’s pocketbook… Yeek! She let loose a sudden yelp, dropped her booty, and ran to the far end of the room. The largest, knottiest whelk had begun to move around. First it extended one long red talon of a leg, tap-tap-tapping like a blind man’s cane. Then came half a dozen more red legs, plus a pair of eyes on stalks, and a purple claw that snapped open and shut in a way that could not mean We Come in Friendship.
Who could blame this creature? It had fallen asleep to the sound of the Caribbean tide and awakened on a coffee table in Tucson, Arizona, where the nearest standing water source of any real account was the municipal sewage-treatment plant.
With red stilleto legs splayed in all directions, it lunged and jerked its huge shell this way and that, reminding me of the scene I make whenever I’m moved to rearrange the living-room sofa by myself. Then, while we watched in stunned reverence, the strange beast found its bearings and began to reveal a determined, crabby grace. It felt its way to the edge of the table and eased itself over, not falling bang to the floor but hanging suspended underneath within the long grasp of its ice-tong legs, lifting any two or three at a time while many others still held in place. In this remarkable fashion it scrambled around the underside of the table’s rim, swift and sure and fearless like a rock climber’s dream.
If you ask me, when something extraordinary shows up in your life in the middle of the night, you give it a name and make it the best home you can.
I hope you get a chance to read the rest of it. To me, it spoke about my current search: to find a life, a place, a home that fits my inner tides.
Visitor's Voices