I’m deciding if I want to take a NIA class this summer. I looked up NIA articles online and found one that gave me a sudden tingle in my stomach and get tears in my eyes. That feeling is a clue.

It was an article about creating space in a NIA class:

…the students created the space every morning and afternoon by coming into a circle, and becoming still in body, mind, emotions, and spirit.

I’ve been thinking about how I want to bring movement to more of our everyday lives. Especially ritual. Maybe that is why I got a teary reaction? Maybe it’s the same teary reaction I get at the end of a yoga or NIA class when I finally pay attention to myself? Maybe I’m longing for that?

Or maybe it was this song I was listening to while I read it. (I dare you to listen to the whole thing.)

So, from conception he was older, but from birth I was. We were born in California and then both our families moved to Utah when we were toddlers. Our families visited each other every now and then, and I have many memories of Star Wars based play. He got all the cool toys. We even had the same baby dolls.

Adam died when we were 29. Wow. When I was planning this post in my head I was planning to say that I was over the grief of it now, which I think I mostly am, but writing that still makes me cry.

It’s funny. I didn’t remember it was his birthday until my mom mentioned it, but I did remember him last night and I think it was after midnight. I was reading about Mimi Smartypant’s mini smartypants who was playing Star Wars based play with her boy pal.

Oh, Adam. Oh Adam’s parents. I was pretty much sick with grief when he died. I did have a nice dream in the weeks after that comforted me and the last moment of it is an image I see when I think of him. Here’s how I remember it now:

I’m in a big building that looks something like a conference building. One side of the building is glass. People are walking around. It’s like a prison because we can’t get out. Someone may have announced that we can’t get out. It’s not a horrible place to be. It’s just that we have to stay there.

I’m following a man. He’s walking in front of me, somewhat purposefully. He walks along the walkway in the building by the glass wall and then suddenly, he opens a door and just walks out! I’m astonished. I can’t follow him anymore, and I’m sad he’s leaving us, but I’m glad for him that he made it outside. I watch him go, through the glass. He keeps walking, never turning back, over the broad expanse of the earth, towards the sunset.

Now, if you have a half-baked theory that you’d like to disclose, please be so kind as to skirt around the issue. I’ll only listen to your elaborate webs of presumption and hearsay if you promise to veer unexpectedly and pointlessly off course at every opportunity. Prose density is part of what makes a half-baked theory fascinating.

Only last week, my friend Janet gave me a book that teaches how, through a diet of salmon and romaine lettuce, you can shave 20 years off your appearance. However, before we got to the hard-core salmon-and-lettuce, face-lifting theory, I was taken through a series of anecdotes, solicited testimonials, and long-winded circular logic proving the author’s qualifications by citing the medical establishment’s fear of his simple brilliance. It was an eye-opener.

I had a great time and I think it was largely due to me respecting my princesshood. Yes, I’m a closet princess. It all started when I was little and my family used to call me a little princess, and they didn’t mean it as a compliment. I even had a shirt which said, “Little Princess” on it. It was pink with sparkles, I wore it backwards so I could see the words. I remember wearing it when I visited my step-brother in prison, and I still have it in my cedar chest.

I also read “The Little Princess.” It sparked many a fantasy and I, being jealous of the little Princess, thought she got her comeuppance when she had to go live in the attic. But then, she did treat the little servant girl kindly, and I was glad when she got rescued by the monkey. Why, oh why, couldn’t a monkey rescue me?! But I digress.

After being accused of being a little princess, I had to put my tiara and all my pink girlishness under wraps. It wasn’t until I was in my mid-twenties that I started to reframe my princessness. I moved in with two other princesses. They were more clearly princesses, and one day my roommate came home with a skirt that twirled. “Oh, I love skirts that twirl!” I said. “Of course you do,” she said assuringly, “all princesses love skirts that twirl.” Yes, she knew I was a princess too. Believe it or not, it was a revelatory moment for me. I just sat there, (on the bathroom floor, as it happens,) stunned. I mean, my mouth was open and my eyes were wide. I was a princess too, and it was ok.

Well, I just read my email, and I am going to have to amend my posting strategy. First I’ll post everything I’m bitter about, then I’ll post greatful. That will work much better.

Bitter:
GA! Everyone is nominating my co-chair for our church’s outstanding service award!!! This is very annoying for many reasons. Most of all it is annoying because I was going to nominate her- I had no thought of myself- really. But I thought I would nominate her in private so it wouldn’t look like an inside job because we are co-chairs. I was feeling all proud of her and glad she would be nominated. And then at our meeting someone else publicly nominated her, and someone else seconded it and now she just thanked two more people who nominated her on our email list!! Well isn’t that sweet. Here I am having long email conversations with people who: don’t like the way we vote, don’t understand how our list works, need such and such, and she is emailing a thank you to her many admirers. I really like my co-chair. (GA!) and like how we work together, so I knew I had to get this out somewhere. Again, GA! This is so irritating. I’m finally sympathizing with that protoypical invisible office worker who really runs everything but gets no credit. Oh yes, I have worked long effective hours. So, I ran a bad meeting once. GA!!!

Oh yeah, and I’m greatful for:
The rain, the cuddly cat, warm Mexican style chicken soup, Gilmore girls, that people let me be their co-chair (GA!!!) ok scratch that one for now, my fun projects I am working on, my talents, that I like dancing, the fun parties I went to this weekend, that my friend came to NIA with me, that I have fun Christmas and Thanksgiving plans, my new NLP guide. GA! Goddammit, give me some credit! (Sorry, sudden reversion to bitter.) And… I’m very greatful I did not give this link to my church group!! Ha! :) People who have it, and you know who you are, SILENCE!

I was offered 10 free sessions of Somatic bodywork (I don’t know what it is either) from a classmate in one of my NIA classes. Tonight in NIA, our teacher ended the class with Feldenkrais exercises. I felt so different as I started walking after the excercises, lighter but heavier- more connected to the floor. Then our teacher mentioned that she teaches a class in a neighborhood near mine. It’s only $10 a class. I’m going to do it. Tonight I got a haircut which is outer transformation, but ya’ll know it’s inner transformation too. I have CURLY hair and the last (EXPENSIVE) hair cut I got was a mess. I got this haircut as a trade. Rock on, craigslist.

I finished my CD! It took several hours of work for several days in the recording studio and it has 5 songs and totals 12 minutes! Phew! It was fun. Now I’ve restrung my guitar and am waiting for the strings to settle in. Woo! :) I heard about a group starting the Artist’s Way journey and I jumped on the bandwagon. I think it’s just what I need. I’ve been a slacker on my Morning Pages for the last couple of days. How do all you working parents do it?

Categories | My Life, Well Being, Health, Beauty, Links

Probably:

1. Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants
2. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
3. Bridge to Terabithia (This is a good, but sad children’s book. I gave it to my cousin when he was young and after reading it and crying, he asked his mom, “Why did she give me that book?!” :(
4. Charlotte’s Web (Another children’s book. I love the old animation)

Maybe:

1. Mysterious Skin (might be too sad)
2. The 40 Year old Virgin (I like the premise, but possible too stupid for words?)
3. Beautiful Country (Haven’t heard anything yet)

And more. Wow, there are a lot of upcoming movies.

Categories | Movies, Links

Not to be confused with the Neat Freak, The Schizophrenic Cleaner is a slob 90% of the time, but during that other 10% (usually on Sunday afternoons), the Schizophrenic Cleaner becomes the most unbearable roommate known to science and attempts to clean two months of filth in two hours. Often this is accompanied by scathing diatribes against all other roommates in the house whose only crimes are that they aren’t overcome by sanitary mania at the exact same time.

Some mean people seem to think they are doing you a favor or something. Mean people suck, but you can learn to get along with many kinds of roommates. Unless you have a roommate from hell.

No line remains uncrossed by a truly evil roommate.

So you may want to kill your roommate, but you should probably just Run Away Like Wild Horses over the Hills.

My evil roommate enjoys angry outbursts, schitzophrenic cleaning, self-righteous telephone indignation, and gardening.

Categories: My Life, Links