Teachability

I can learn new things.

I can.

But dude, sometimes I am my own worst enemy.

I am afraid that I will be “inconvenienced” due to inclement weather on Sunday.

Bah.

Take the train, darlin’.

I have the opportunity to assist a make up artist on a music video that is being shot in San Francisco this Sunday.

I was super excited and flattered to be invited to do so, then nervous, then why would she ask me?

Duh.

Because I show up for work all the time with Betty Page eyes and full blush on.

I wear makeup and I obviously have looked into doing it before as a career move when I was in the middle of making a shift away from nannying.

I investigated Aveda.

I went to Blush School of Makeup.

Both schools, said, yes, please, come right on in.

Both schools asked for a pretty steep tuition.

“You don’t need a licence to do makeup,” she told me, “you do if you are doing hair or esthetician work, but not make up.”

“Do you have any experience working on people?” She inquired.

“Helped one friend with makeup for her wedding and what I do every year at Burning Man,” I said.

I have put make up on folks, but not professionally.

Then again, it’s not like I was tapped to be the head make up artist, I was asked by the head make up artist to lend a hand, to be on set, to meet people, to see how it works, to watch from the process and learn.

That’s really how I learned what little I do know about makeup, from being the model of a friend of mine who went through the Blush program.  I paid attention, I listened to what his instructors were saying, I learned new stuff.

Then I just got used to putting make up on myself.

I still would like to be professionally made up sometime, that would be fun.

I am going to learn some new things, meet some new people, and hey, get to be on the set of a music video?

What?

I will take the train if it’s raining and I don’t want to be on my bicycle.

It’s not a paid gig, it’s more like an apprenticeship and considering how much courses to learn make up do cost, it’s a pretty awesome thing to get to be involved with.

It’s another thing I get to learn how to do.

There is so much to learn.

I don’t believe that I will ever master any of them, but I also get to find out what I like.  And from just a pure girly sort of stand point, I do like make up.

I never wore it in high school or in college.

I remember my first serious boyfriend rather poo poo’ed it.

Of course he was smoking pot, sporting t-shirts with Onion slogans on them (Fuck you, you fucking fuck was great for grocery shopping at Woodman’s) and plaid flannels, Van’s for skateboarding and playing frisbee golf and smoking more pot and drinking craft beer.

I am surprised he was ok with me shaving.

I remember once his dad made some comment about how I was high maintenance and it pissed me right the fuck off.

High maintenance?

I don’t wear mascara.

How can I be high maintenance?

He probably meant my personality.

But I did begin to wear a little something now and then to compliment the ever-present pot of Rachel Perry Lip Lovers that was always in my front right pocket.

I loved that stuff.

Still, to this day, I have not found an adequate replacement.

I started to learn how to put on make up in my thirties.

I started with lipstick.

I carry approximately seven to eight of them in my makeup bag.

I can do without the mascara, blush, powder, eye makeup, but don’t take away my lip gloss man.

“I couldn’t stop staring at your mouth,” she said to me one night after a get together, “it’s so, so, uh, glossy, what do you use?”

I love lip gloss.

Not too sticky though.

I am not a fan of the sticky gloss.

My hair gets caught in it, my lips feel funny, and it’s not good for kissing.

I like a creamy lip gloss that has high shine and if it glitters excellent.

If not, I make something happen.

No body is going to read this post, it’s all about lip gloss.

Bahahahaha.

I could briefly write about glitter.

Like the helmet I am going to get to accompany my Vespa.

Oh, don’t worry, I will make sure it is DOT approved.

I am not an idiot.

I just glitter like one.

Another new thing to learn and experience, the scooter thing, that is.

Two weeks from today at approximately this time I will be wrapping up my first of three days of motorcycle safety class.

Seems a bit surreal that all the sudden it’s happening.

But that’s how things happen.

Just out of the blue.

Yet, I know that a lot of work had to preface this decision.

I was thinking as I cautiously navigated my way home tonight, it was starting to rain on the way back, that I have really in a short period of time come a very long way.

I was completely broke when I landed at SFO in May.

I mean broke.

I had ten dollars in my wallet.

Nine months later I am living in a nice studio that is fully furnished with full-time work, having paid off the debt to Barnaby, travelled once to Florida, gone to Burning Man, re-established myself, and my wardrobe, have a smidge of money in savings toward a new laptop, am fed, housed, and taken care of.

And I am getting a scooter.

How amazing.

I really do show up and do the work.

I don’t always let myself see how willing I am to try to do.

To be taught.

Even when I get scared to show up and fumble around.

I don’t have to be perfect on Sunday.

I just need to show up.

Rain or shine.

I will be there.

I get to be of service and learn.

Not a bad way to spend a Sunday.

Plus, come on, it’s on a music video shoot!

Good times.

Now What?

Blush is out.  Nice facility.  But it is a private institution and thus cannot receive federal financial aid.  The cost of tuition-$8,600.  I don’t have that kind of cheddar.  Aveda appears to be out as well.  I cannot cover the costs of tuition without additional loan monies, which I don’t have.

If I did, I would probably be flying to Paris right now.

I don’t know what to do.

In the midst of this, I had an interview last night with a very small, very unique, very new business in the city that I believe I could really help.  I love the product, the location rocks, and the money is nada.

I would have to move out of my apartment.  I think I’m going to have to move out of my apartment anyhow.  Go back to living with room mates.  Live on shoe string.  But, I would be making a distinct difference in the company infrastructure and getting in on the ground floor of something that could really go places.

The person I interviewed with really wants me–it is nice to be wanted, it is nice to have my skill set acknowledged and sought after.  Now he’s pitching to the owner.  If I got the position I would start November 1st.  The day my contract with my current families ends.  I would only work 40 hours a week.  That in and of itself would be refreshing.  I have worked 50 hours a week for the last year and my previous nanny position was 45 hours weekly.

Though, truth be told, I don’t believe that there were many weeks where I actually was there for every hour of those 45 to 50.  However, the constraints of knowing that I was accountable for those hours made it feel like I worked every one of them.

And I had a quiet, sneaky, hey where did you come from thought as I was sitting in the upstairs office talking with the General Manager of the company, what if I took those extra ten hours and I wrote during them?

Shut, the fuck up.

Ah, excuse me, young lady, aren’t you trying to go to school for a make up career?

Yes, I am, and I appear to be getting blocked.

Remember bless it or block it?  Well, I am feeling totally blocked.  I got the denial letters in official forms today from Sallie Mae and Patelco stating the obvious due to my bankruptcy and various other nefarious things on my credit report (all of which have been cleared up, thank you very much) I am ineligible for any kind of financial assistance from them.

Unless I get a high interest rate credit card and pay for school that way, I don’t really have any options.  And frankly, that’s just not an option.

On the bright side, my credit rating is higher than I thought it was.

Yip-fucking-ee.

But, what if I, humor me now, change my mind, yet again, and help run this business and have fun at my job and just be a worker amongst workers and I write.  Not just my blog and not just my artist pages, but I also build in that additional hour to my craft.  I could work on the second draft to The Iowa Waltz.  I could perhaps land some free-lance work.  I could try being a writer.  I could get the formatting taken care of for Baby Girl and get it up on Smash Words.

Instead of talking about it and running away from it, I could actively do it.

John Ater has told me time and again that I don’t need a Masters to write.  Maybe the idea of going to make up school was put in my head to help me facilitate removing myself from being a nanny–remember it was my conversation with K’s family about going to school that gave them the go ahead to put her into pre-school a year early.

I mean, I got jobs nannying if I want them.  I have recommendations coming out the whoo ha.  I just don’t think I can do it anymore.

No, I know I can’t do it anymore.

What if I go small to go big?

I hate, hate, hate, hate this.  It feels so similar to everything else I have done–maybe I’ll be a veterinarian, a paralegal, a nanny, a make up artist, maybe, maybe, maybe, ad infinitum.  I see a pattern, do you?

What if I practise having faith that I’m supposed to publish and find ways to do this.  I hate eating humble pie as well–although it is the only pie I allow myself to eat anymore.

To be back again at square one and see the same thing staring me in the face: “psst, hey you, yeah, you, sitting at your keyboard with stacks of notebooks every where and pots of pens and piles of paper and manilla envelopes and stamps and fancy paper clips from Italy, you look an awful lot like a writer, you know”?

Maybe you it’s time you acknowledge and pursue.

I am a tool and I feel like I am being used like one.

John Ater sent me the proof for the photos we took.  There’s one that popped right out and I can see it’s the cover.  I can see the sadness and the anxiety and the fear in that photo–maybe I got to go through this week of absolute craziness to get to that photo–the photo that will be crafted into the cover for my first book.

Hey, what if this is the moment I have been waiting for all my life?

God damn it.

And all I really have is this at the end of the day, what is the next action in front of me?

Back to the simple. Go do the dishes because I don’t even know if I got this job.  I may be whistling in the dark.  But I took action and went and interviewed and I updated my resume and references and sent them to the General Manager as he requested, before I wrote my blog tonight, to make it pertinent to the job being applied to.  I took action, the results are not mine and they never have been.

I took action around school, too.  I explored, I researched, I interviewed, I toured, I applied.  I don’t have any answers or ideas left.  I have the ego of a tiny squashed gnat.

Anybody need a room-mate?

Fuck.

Fuck, fuck, fuckity, fuck, fuck, fuck.

And, yes, you can quote me on that.

Slight Change Of Direction

I think.

I reserve the right to change my mind at any time.  Just as long as I follow through with action and not thinking about it.

I am not certain, but I may go to a different school than Aveda, and I suppose I don’t have to be certain right now, in this moment.  I can just be oh, I don’t know, present in this moment.

Which really should not be too hard as my fucking cat is kneading my leg so hard she’s sinking her claws into my leg.

Jesus fuck.

You know, I swear a lot, don’t I?

So, fucking what.

Ahem.

Well, anyway, here’s some more fun money news–that’s right another, institution of financial lending turned me down today.  Thanks for shutting the door on me Patelco.  I had a mere five minutes, perhaps even as little as three, of disappointment and irritation.  Then, it went away and was replaced by, alright, so now what?  I also had the thought of, “bless it or block it” and I think I’m getting the idea that I’m being blocked around this.

When this is happening I am in the park, at Mission Creek with the lady bugs and I literally look up at the sky and say, what ever you want, God.  Just show me the way.  I did not even bother to look around.   I may have startled the gentleman reading the morning paper on the bench five feet away, but he did not say anything to me and I just pretended I had not noticed him. Until we walked past and he smiled and gave a grandfatherly like wink to me.

Oops.

But, you know, maybe it was for the best.  Maybe it’s time to look at another program.  Maybe I should not just throw my hat and my non-existent money at Aveda.  I decided today to check out Blush Make Up School on Market St. (www.blushschoolofmakeup.com) and I really liked the looks of the program.

I had a friend that attended years ago, I placed a phone call to him to pick his brain.  Then I called the school up and talked to the head of their admissions department.  He asked me some very specific questions about what I was looking for as I mentioned to him that I had applied to Aveda but was having some thoughts about exploring all my options.

After answering those questions and listening to what he had to say about the school and the curriculum they offer, I made the decision to go in and take a tour and find out more information.  I have a tour scheduled for this Thursday. The program that I am most interested in is the Master’s Make Up program.

It would be a five month program if I went full-time or a seven month program if I go part-time.  The tuition is still expensive, but $4,500 less than Aveda’s esthiology program.  And it’s focus is all on make up with maybe a little skin care tossed in there.  I would learn theater make up, cat walk and fashion make up, I would learn television and film make up, special f/x, wedding, and traditional photography.

This is more up my alley, I realized after a few minutes of listening to the director talk.  I want to work in fashion and entertainment.

Eek.  Who said that?

Yeah, that was me, the closet Vogue reader (and W and Elle and Nylon and French Vogue, shhhh…I actually have a magazine and book allowance in my spending plan, I love fashion magazines, my little addiction aside from lip balm and caffeine).  I want to do make up for famous people.

Or on famous people.

Or just on fabulous people.

Or just on people period.

Really, when I was completely honest with myself, yeah, I like the idea of doing skin care and spa work, but what really gets me excited is the idea of doing make up, of styling some one for a fashion shoot.  I fancy myself a bit of a Grace Coddington.  That is what I want to do.  And so what if it’s frivolous and frou frou.  And so what if I aspire to wear eclectic clothes to work and maybe even get a neck tattoo.

I can do that in fashion and not be looked at askance.  I also have a great rapport with people and I would be creatively expressing myself.

The tuition is steep, but with what I would receive from Federal Financial Aid I would not be as far in the hole as I would be with Aveda either.  It would only run me about $1,800 our of pocket versus $4,000.  That’s a huge chunk for some one who doesn’t know where they are going to work in three weeks.

I also had another talk with S’s mom today and let her know that I might be changing direction as I got turned down again for loans.  I told her about Blush and that I had a tour scheduled for Thursday, I may be able to help them help me out for a few more weeks.  I may not.  I don’t know for certain.  But I still plan on being done with the nanny by the end of this year.  That was what my God letter said, I would be done being a nanny by the end of this year.

Some thing else will be happening.

Of course, it is all in motion and I don’t know where it’s going, but I will let you in on a little secret, I don’t feel as insane about it as I was.  I don’t know if I have turned a corner, but I wasn’t in financial fear today.  I just went about my day and I enjoyed the fuck out of the sunshine.  Give it to me.

That could all change tomorrow, but that’s tomorrow and I am not there yet, so I choose to stay on this path and see where it leads.

I may still fall on my ass, but you know, so what.

It’s a damn cute ass.

Blind Faith

I do not know what is going to happen next.  I do not know.  I am in shock.  I “lost” my job today.

S’s parents picked her up earlier than expected and both of them came.  They came bearing gifts from their safari in Kenya–hand-made beaded earrings and a beautiful bead bone bracelet.  Stunning.

And the news that my time as their nanny is ending.

This is a gift.  I refuse to see it as anything else.  All experiences are a gift, if I so choose to see them as such.  I thank God for this opportunity to learn and to be humbled and to move on.

I am scared.  Oh, don’t get me wrong, I am scared shitless.

Which is good, I’ve had enough poop drama this week.  In case you were wondering, K. has gone back to being regular as a clock.

Where was I?  OH yeah, no job come November.  Beginning school November 8th.  Don’t know how I am going to pay for school.  Don’t know how I’m going to pay rent.  Don’t know what I’ll be doing for work.

I think I am in shock.  Because I feel way too serene about this.  Either that or what Shadrach once said to me, “you walk your faith on a razor’s edge, never afraid of falling”.

I protested at the time.  I am afraid of falling.  I have always been afraid of falling, but I walk that razor’s edge nonetheless.  Although, I have to say right now I feel like I am in complete free fall.  I have jumped over the cliff and I have this image of me going down waving my hand frantically.  But at the same time, I feel ok.  I feel at peace.  I feel like, well, alright then, I really am done being a nanny.

S’s mom was horribly upset and in tears right along with me in the kitchen, but as she was explaining I knew where she was coming from.  She first apologized for giving me the impression that I would have secured employment come November.  The family that they were planning a nanny share with to continue forward, backed out and decided on pre-school and day care.  S’s family can’t afford me without doing a nanny share.  The mom may as well stay at home at that point.  I actually think that this is what she’s planning, but that’s not my business.

I was assured fantastic references and support in my job search and they threw me accolades along with the jewelry.  Oh, fuck, here come the tears again.  This week, really has been arduous.

But, they could not foresee moving forward with me in a part-time capacity.  And the mom said, besides, you’re going to need to make a lot more money if you are working fewer hours.  You need to be available to work that kind of job.  Hey, can you tell me what that is, by the by?

Uh, yeah, about that, don’t know how its going to happen.  Or how I’m going to look for work when I am working 50 hours a week, doing the deal, and writing every day.  Not going to get overwhelmed right now.  It’s just not worth it.

Where is this fabulous job going to come from, part-time making more money than I make now?  You have any ideas, pass them on would you?

I had a premonition that this would happen.  And as I was riding my bike home tonight with a haul of groceries from Rainbow on my back, I remembered the letter I wrote to myself from God while I was at Burning Man.  I dug it up while I was making tea.  It’s in regards to calling in the one and as of right now, it’s spot on–

 

Dearest Carmen 9/4/2011

The signs are everywhere.  Trust yourself, you know what to do next.  Your will be done being a nanny by years end.  This years end.  You will have met and be in a wonderful, loving, nurturing relationship with your life partner.  You will have successfully have called in the one

You already have.  He is on a direct path to you, you, your beautiful smile, your warm loving heart, your tenderness, they are already in his heart and mind, he longs so for you.

He is on his way as we are speaking now.  You will start a family and be married by the end of next year.  You are on a life path beyond your wildest dreams, my child.

You have worked so hard and opened yourself up to me and to love and to this amazing world..  All is here, all is within your grasp.  Hold out your hand to me now, for I am reaching out mine to you.

Listen to your heart.  He adores you already and cannot wait to see you again.  You will be together soon, my beautiful child.

The alchemy has happened.  Listen, listen, be still he comes.

And you will be taken care of, loved, honored, respected.  Breathe in, breathe out, and let it all go.

You will nanny no longer, your practice is done, you have learned what you needed to learn.

Now pick up the palette of colors I tried to give you so long ago and go play!

That you are an artist has alway been your journey, this is my truth for you, my lovely child.

God

 

Yeah, I got my god on, get over it.

I’m about to not be a nanny any more.  I am about to go to school.  I don’t know how any of this is happening.  I feel like I got totally hijacked.

Hey!  I was just trying to get a date.  Oh, no, you decided you wanted to change your whole world, well, ok, here ya, go, change!

Oh, in other news, speaking of change, and humility, who knew so much could happen in one week?  I did, it’s happened before, I just forget.  I am going to be formatting my book myself.  I down loaded an e-publishing book last night via Smash Words (free) to use on my kindle download for MAC (also free) to learn how to format Baby Girl so that she can be read on the various digital formats out there.

I also had a long, really grounding talk with John Ater about my manipulation and how it is totally up for me and how painful it has become and how I need some change.  I have quietly accepted that I need to change and here I am doing it all over the place.  He once again offered to help me and for the first time in over a year, I said yes.  John Ater, if you don’t know, is a professional photographer (www.johnaterphotography.com) and he and I will be meeting Sunday afternoon to take pictures for my book cover.

Which I will learn how to make via the formatting book I got online last night.  He will also take a portrait picture of me for the author’s page–hadn’t even thought about that!  And he will probably “make” me cry.  Which is alright, I feel safe enough to cry around him and it will probably help with the idea I have for a book cover.

Who knows, maybe I’ll get it all up and running before the month is out and you will be able to buy it for the holidays–thus insuring that I get to have them myself.

Or maybe something else entirely will happen.  I said I was willing to accept the consequences of going to school.  I said I was willing to take a risk.  I dropped off my application to Aveda yesterday after work.  I am just going to keep showing up and walking that fine razor’s edge.

And if I fall, well, so be it.

Fact is, I jumped and I don’t get to go back.  There is only forward.

Moving Forward

I had an awesome time today with Beth!  We went to the Hardly Strictly Blue Grass Festival in Golden Gate Park to see Hugh Laurie.

That’s right, House was in the house.  He was awesome–I adore his accent.  I do, however, wish he had gotten a longer set–he only got one hour.  Nevertheless I was thrilled to be there with Beth and to get to hang out in some sunshine with a couple other hundred thousand people.  Or however many crazy numbers it was today at the park.

There were a lot of people there.  I can’t remember the last time I was in a crowd that big.  Burning Man doesn’t count as it’s set up like a city, this was just masses of people pressed against one another.

Beth and I are also plotting other adventures.  I love girlfriend adventures.  All my friends, and I, let’s admit the truth when it’s standing right here next to me, are busy.  So, whenever I get the opportunity to hang out with one of the ladies it just feels like an enormous blessing.

Tomorrow I get to go bowling!  I am not super psyched on bowling, but I am super psyched on seeing Jackie.  This will make twice in one month–that is a big deal.  Hell, I live two blocks away from an old friend, another Jackie, who I’m doing the math in my head as I type, I have known for over eleven years.  Is that possible?

I guess that means I’m getting old(er).

And although we live two blocks apart our schedules are crazy pants and we barely get to see one another–it’s been a minute, that’s for sure.

Beth and I also talked about my book, Baby Girl.  She is one of the people who has read the whole thing! It’s posted here on my blog. And I am ever so grateful when I hear that, or when I bump into random people at Rainbow or in a coffee shop and they have read my blog–it just lights me up.  She told me about her favorite chapter and I was blown away when we talked about it as I started reliving it.  I forget how close it all is some times, although the experiences that I wrote about happen nearly 20 years ago, and some of them even earlier than that.  But I can be right there in a heart beat.

I can feel the coral rock and how sharp it was underneath my thin flip-flops.  I can smell it, the way the hotdogs smelled at the Circle K, the smell of ripe kiwi melting in my fingers, the sweaty smell of boy in a hooch.  I can hear it, the way it got crazy around nightfall, especially on weekends around the Lake, the hollering.  I can feel it–the water in the Lake, how cold it was near the drop off–which was very deep and very spooky; or the warm rain when it fell on my head while sitting on the hood of the Datsun and I can feel it, I really can, in the palms of my feet, how slick the fender was and re-assuring at the same time. And oh yes, I can taste it–which is disconcerting at times–the taste that comes back more often than not is the cold press of an aluminum can to my tongue. It is very much a part of me. Too crazy.

I suppose all pivotal points of our lives are like that.

I got to give Beth a little back story on the story.  And I got to tell her a little bit about the book that follows, The Iowa Waltz.

I have said it before, and I will re-iterate it here now, it’s time to move forward.  It’s time I worked on that book, The Iowa Waltz and then it’s follow up piece, which will end the trilogy of doom (I jest)(a little).  I have been trying for months now to co-ordinate a time to take some photos with my good friend Robert to do the cover design for the book, Baby Girl so that I can get it up on Smash Words and Amazon.  After again trying to get a hold of him yesterday, I suspect he’s traveling, he travels heaps for work, I made a decision.

I have to get this done.  So, I shot out an e-mail to a fantastic woman friend, Mrs. Fishkin, to see if she would be interested in helping me.  Arin is a graphic designer, and I realized after a minute, if that, of thought, that she really may be the perfect person to design the book cover. I like her aesthetic a lot.  And I think she would make some thing clean, simple, and compelling.

I rattle around in my head as far as what I would like it to look like.  I once took pictures of the palm trees at Mission and 24th as they reminded me of the palm trees in Florida, and oh, I don’t know, it’s not a bad place to score crack (although it seems like mostly heroin gets dealt from that venue–I do not know this from personal experience, fyi).  It’s easier to score crack at Mission and 16th.

That I do know from personal experience.  But that is not what this blog is about darling, you’ll have to ask me in person about that.

This blog is about getting my work out there.  It is about taking the next step forward.  I need a book cover.  I have the work ready to go and I want to publish on Smash Words and Amazon, yesterday.

Where you’ll be able to buy my book for something like, oh, I don’t know, $.99 for your e-reader, my dear.  I bet you’d drop a buck to read my book.  Maybe I can get it out for the holiday season!

Ha.  That would be some Christmas present, no?

And maybe, if I sell enough copies I can help finance my tuition costs through Aveda.  That would be pretty freaking awesome.  I have gotten one of the two letters of reference I need and await the second.  Once I get that, everything goes in the mail to the school’s admissions department and I take what ever steps necessary to move forward there as well.

I just paid rent yesterday and I realized that this month, October, will be the last month where I am working full-time.  November will be the last month that I know for sure that my rent is absolutely taken care of.  Then I get to work less and spend more.  I don’t know how that will happen.  School will be 30 hours a week and work will be somewhere between 25 and 30 hours.  School will also cost me $11,500.  Plus, my living expenses.

Yet, I have absolute faith that I will be taken care of, absolute.

How?

Fuck if I know.

But, from past experience I don’t have to know how and I certainly don’t have to figure it out, thank God.  If I take directions and do the next indicated actions, things always do work out.  I mean, look, I have a beautiful home and two sweet as pie cats (even when they jump in my lap while I’m writing, Uni!!!! You got to commit cat, either jump or don’t jump, but my leg is NOT a good place to use your claws to get purchase), food in the fridge, and food in the belly, the bills be paid, and I got sunshine on my face today.

There were plenty of times in my life where I did not think that I would have this.  And I do.  Because I took suggestions and did the next action in front of me.

Action being the key word.  Getting my book out there is an action that I need to take, I can tell, the two, school and the book are entwined, I feel that in my gut.  Thus, the book must be a part of the plan, I can’t see the blue prints, but I can tell it’s in the works, therefor however I can get it out there, I’m going to.

And if Mrs. Fishkin isn’t able to do the cover, somebody else will.

I’m like a shark, I got to move or I sink.  I want to take The Iowa Waltz to its next draft  and eventually, sooner, rather than later, I want you to read it.

I think you’ll like it.

I really do.

Emotional Hang Over

Well, not quite, but a little.  I had just a rather mundane day today.  After all the excitement of the tour at Aveda and the serendipity of hanging out with Jackie and the joy of spreading it around, today was sort of difficult to get into.

I had moments of being sucked back into the fear as I tried to access my FAFSA from my phone.  I got an e-mail that I my request had been processed. Of course, I was thinking it was an award amount and it wasn’t.  I spent a lot of today wondering vaguely what I was going to get, would it be enough, and how was I going to pay for it all.

Then I would catch myself thinking and just breathe in deeply and let it go and focus on what was in front of me–K. it was just her and I today.  S. was out with a cold.  I don’t think she’s actually sick and it sounded like neither did her parents, but K’s mom was very adamant about her not coming in if there was any suspicion of illness.

This woman is going to have a rude awakening when she puts her daughter in day care.

She asked me to not take K. out anywhere.

Gah.

Did you see how nice it was today?  Do you see the sunshine?  Please, it has been the foggiest ever, ever.  Just let me out of the box, lady.  Fortunately I was given permission to walk and take her outside. I took her on two walks.  One for two hours and another in the late afternoon after nap time for another hour.  I got me some sunshine!

Pausing to be grateful for three hours in which I got to be outside today while at work.  I know a lot of people that probably did not get that much paid time at work to be outside.

Thank you jesus.

But no parks.

What ever.

Six more weeks of this, then I am out.  I am still in the hallway, still not quite seeing how it is all going to work out and the realization hit–Carmen, get comfortable with being uncomfortable.  I got a hit of relief when I realized I was on the path, doing school, that the way was laid and my feet were moving down it.

Then it curved and I could not see where it was going and I got nervous.  I suppose that will just continue to happen.  When I was calculating my rent costs for the next couple of months and seeing how many weeks were in September and October and how much I had coming in.  I began to feel a bit frantic; I just stopped.  Closed my eyes.  Paused.  Breathed.

My rent is paid right now.

My rent is paid right now.

There is nothing wrong.  There is nothing I need to fix.  All my bills are paid.  I don’t have any un-opened mail staring me in the face.  I have $500 in savings.

That ain’t much, but it is something.  I have food in my belly.  So do the cats.  I can buy groceries.  I have $400 in checking.  The next two pay checks will cover October rent and there will be a little left over.

School will happen with or without me getting anxiety over it.  In fact, the anxiety does me little good, except to make my brow furrow, and really, that’s just not necessary–no need to look my age now!

Thank you God, I have more than enough money.

I could also just be feeling a little off kilter still from staying up until 5a.m. Saturday night!  Although, I let myself be vulnerable, at least it felt like I was being vulnerable, and I took my quilt, a pillow, a Vogue, a cup of tea and went to Huntington Square Park yesterday late afternoon and actually fell asleep in the sunshine.  It was glorious. I napped in the grass.

I think I have been talking about taking a pillow and the quilt and a cup of tea to the park for aeons.  I have lived in this neighborhood now for two years, come October 15th, and it took me that long to do such a small little indulgence.  I will be repeating and it will not be two years in the making.

Other financial insecurity crapola–I told Wendy I will go to Hallowell for Christmas and I told my Uncle Boy that I will go to San Diego for Thankgsiving.  Of course, my brain is telling me I won’t have enough to do so.

But I am going to believe that I am.  In fact, after my rent is paid for October I will be purchasing tickets for both places in the first week of that month.  I will find out about the school’s schedule and buy the tickets to coincide with the holidays offered.

I have to also send S’s folks an e-mail letting them now that I am going to be going to school and what days I will be available.

I am just going to keep taking the actions indicated.  I have copies of my transcripts for the application.  I have filled out the FAFSA and the results have been sent to the school.  I have requested two letters of reference and received affirmative response from both parties asked.  I just need to write my letter of intent and I will be done with the application.

This is the other anxiety inducing thing.  School is three days a week for ten hours.  I am about to sign on to working three days a week and doing school three days a week.  Basically giving myself a six-day work week.  I am not excited by this.  Thus, the brain kicks into overdrive again, can I do two days a week with S. ? Can I find other work?  Should I drop being a nanny completely and just get some barista job somewhere.  I found myself looking at job boards last night for writing work.  I have never done any freelance writing.  Is now the time to start?

When can I squeeze more time into my schedule to do this?

Ugh. Stop.

Makes the head hurt and I can feel furrowing.

Which leads me back to here, right now.  The present.  Where there again is nothing wrong.  Not with me, not with my job, not with school, not with money.

Not with the One.  Where ever he is.  There is nothing wrong in this moment and all avenues of possibility are open.  I am at the nexus of the Universe.

Ok, that sounded like I’m in Dune.

I am exactly where I am supposed to be.

There, that’s the attitude!

Remember, Carmen, the consequences of your actions are not going to be negative.

Accept that, move forward.  Take next action.

Go pee and wash your dishes.

I can do that!

Things I Did This Weekend

Calling In The One

Ah, like, went to bed last night/this morning at 5 a.m.  Holy crow, batman, I don’t remember the last time I stayed up until 5 am on the weekend.  It has surely been a long time.

I had a crazy, cool, out of fucking hand day yesterday, that just kept morphing into the next cool thing.  Did it all happen?

Yup.

The morning was my usual Saturday morning m.o.  Get up do my morning practice, make a little breakfast (hot oatmeal with an organic banana, cinnamon, pumpkin pie spice, ginger, nutmeg, sea salt, and unsweetened vanilla almond milk.  Oh my god who is this masked woman and what the fuck is she eating?) and a pot of organic Italian Roast french press coffee.  Then I did me some writing.

I did my morning pages, three, and I did the exercises out of Calling in the One.

PS.  If you are sick of hearing about this book, tough, this blog is going to be screaming with it, so get over it now or go read something else.  Like my book.

Ahem.

So, yesterday’s reading was around the ‘boogeymen’, you know those things that we allow ourselves to tremble before, despair of, and be in fear (F.alse E.vidence A.ppearing R.eal) of.  Like the this one: what the hell am I doing even thinking about applying to school for something I may really enjoy doing as a career, don’t you know that there’s not enough money and you are a fool and you are going to wind up getting evicted out of your apartment and you will be pushing a shopping cart in front of the Aveda institute with too much rouge on your withered cheeks.

Yeah, that’s where my head goes.  Uh, thanks for that.  That was really pleasant.

The exercise for this reading was to write yourself a letter specifically addressed from this fear.  Let the fear have its say.  Now, I thought, here is the stupid exercise that is not going to work.  I have contempt.  I know this fear, blah, blah, blah.

Hmmm, seems like some one is balking doesn’t it?

I write the letter addressed to myself from the fear of financial insecurity (ie the ain’t-never-gonna-be-enough fear) and boy howdy, did I get pissed.  By the time I was done with it, I had said “fuck you” out loud really loudly.  Poor cats, they thought I was hollering at them.

Here’s the “letter” from my fear-

Dear Carmen-

You’re never going to make it, you’re going to be poor forever, you’re going to get evicted, you going to wander the streets homeless and abandoned with a shopping card.  You will be unloved and always abandoned, you don’t deserve love, you’re unlovable and you don’t deserve financial success either, because you’re a piece of shit.

Baha- Your Fears Committee

I really did say “fuck you” quite loudly, then adding, “who the hell are you and what are you doing in my head?”

Flipping the page to the book, which is designed just so that you don’t see that next part of the exercise until you are about to do it.  The directions following said, I read to now write back to the fear and address it the way you would a young child.

Bingo.  I have the memory.

I was five, four, probably.  It was the middle of the night, somewhere in some city in the Bay Area or San Jose area.  Mom was flinging stuff into her boyfriend Chucks car and my sister is sleeping next to me in the back of the Volkswagen Beetle.  I am terrified, but keeping it pretty stifled.  We are moving again.  We are fleeing before they evict us.  I am woken out of a hard sleep to be shoved in the car with a bunch of boxes and garbage sacks of clothes.  My mom is sneaking around the car trying to be as quiet as possible so the neighbors don’t wake up.  The porch light is off and I watch from just below the door jamb on the Bug, I am crying and sniffling.  I had liked it here.  There was a tangerine tree in the back that I liked to eat from and I liked the kids in the neighborhood.  I don’t want to go.

Hence, with some new perspective, I write back my fear–

Dear Fear of Financial Insecurity

Thanks for the insight, but I am really being taken care of quite well, I’m not a little girl running away in the middle of the night skipping out of the rent like my mother and her abusive boyfriend.  I am loved and I am allowed to succeed.  And I am never alone.  I have an amazing God that loves and provides for me (yeah, I said GOD, get over it bitches).  Further I get to be happy and successful, they are my dues after all the hard work I have done.  I know that you are scared for me, that you are just trying to protect me so that I won’t get hurt.  But it’s time I flew without you, I promise God won’t let me crash.  You can let me go now.

Thanks for your concern, in loving kindness–Carmen

Then I left the house.  Saying as I left, if I lose this apartment because I am going to go to “beauty school” so be it.  I accept the consequences.

Now remember, the consequences don’t have to be bad!  What if, as John Ater suggested, the consequences are that I get a better place?  Am I ready to accept that?

YES!

I got a message from Beth on the phone about meeting up, so we hooked up in the Mission and then had us a great girls lunch at SunFlower.  Man, I love me some tofu salad.  It is just screamin’.  And nothing accompanies it better than a good bouquet of girlfriend.

Then I head downtown on BART to the institute.

It is perfect.

Can I just say it again, perfect.  Yeah, I got nerves, yeah, I had me some doubts, again, what am I doing?

Yet, every time I turned around something else was declaring hey, Carmen, this is it.  First, it smelled delicious.  I am such a fan of all things that smell nice.  I always have Pacifica candles burning in the house, maybe it’s vertiver,or blood orange, or my favorite Mexican cocoa.  I drench myself in coconut body lotion and make it a habit to always have my signature perfume, Egoiste, by Chanel, on my body.  I am a scent person.  And the school smelled good, so good.

So much better than poopy diapers, let me tell you.

The woman who I interviewed with, Jocelyn, and I got along smashingly.  Ridiculously. I thought, why we could be best friends her in about three days.  And how Paris came up (thought I’d forgotten Paris had you, think again!), how, not sure, but she’s going there soon for a vacation and the next thing you know I am asking, is there an Aveda in Paris?

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Why, yes, Carmen, there is.

Fabulous.

Then we are talking about the CIDESCO program and how it would mean not only California licensing to practice esthiology, but also throughout the United States and 30 other countries.  France being one of them.  Paris being where the Aveda institute is located.

Why, how handy is that?  I had been keeping it in my heart, but now, I share.  I don’t want to be a nanny in Paris either.  I want to do skin care work and I want to do make up art and I want to work the fashion shows.  I want to go to London on the tube.  I want to go to Milan.  I want to be booked to work the shows in Paris.

Hey fear of financial insecurity do you hear me knocking down your door?

I pay the deposit.  We go over the financials.  I breathe and say I don’t have to know where the money is coming from.  It’s just coming.  The tuition will get paid.  I will get to do this.  I also run into an old friend whom I had not seen in years, turns out she’s their new director.  Well, fuck me, how cool is this?

And I will be starting November 8th.  The very week after K. starts pre-school.

Handy, no?  Could the timing possibly be better?

I leave Aveda on wings.  I drift home up the hill.  Have I mentioned the school is located down the hill from my house.  I can walk there in fifteen minutes.

I meet with Jackie.  She picks me up and we head over to Oakland to see Thievery Corporation at the Fox theater.

More fantasticness.

We catch up in the car and bang, Kismet.

Guess who else has been doing Calling in the One?

Guess who has called in the one?

She did the web seminar.  And met the one.  I got to meet him too.  Spontaneity took hold of me while we were having dinner at an Ethiopian restaurant on Telegraph and I said, sure, I’ll go to this work party function in some crazy fancy high-rise condo in San Jose after the show to meet your guy.

And I did.  And it was awesome.  It was so affirming to see how it was working for her.  We shared a lot, we talked a lot, we compared our experiences.  She bolstered me up and assured me that I was on the right track.

It was though the Universe, was saying “hey, kid, I swear it’s happening, just hang in there, here’s a little proof to show you”.

As Joan likes to say, “Amazeballs”.

Amaze balls indeed.

I came home this morning too wired from the night and the party and meeting Jackie’s beau and drinking a lot of coffee, to go right to bed.  I got online, filled out the FAFSA, financial aid paper work for student loans, and made a promise.  Today I would get my nightstand for the other side of the bed, as I was directed to do weeks ago.  No more balking.

And guess what?

I did.

Guess who is calling in the ONE now?

Yeah, that’s right I am.  Here he comes, walking right straight for me.  I think he’s going to like the nightstand.  I got him a kick ass lamp to read by as well.  He likes to read.

Before you know it, there’s going to be an extra toothbrush in the bathroom as well.

Now excuse me while I go kick some more fears out into the hallway, I ain’t got room for them no more.