Get It Done

Until I can’t get it no more.

I have a head ache.

I read a lot today.

A fucking lot.

So much.

But that being said I am done with all my Trauma reading for class as well as having listened to an hour-long This American Life segment, and I did all my Couples Therapy reading.

Holy shit.

There was so much of that.

I find it on again, off again, hilarious that I am doing all this work for my Couples Therapy class.

Irony, no?

I’m not in a relationship.

I have never been married.

Half-assed proposed to twice.

Oops.

Ha.

Make that three times, I forgot one of them until I wrote that sentence.

However, so much of Couples Therapy seems to be understanding what the individual wants and is feeling, I can get behind that.

I have done loads of work finding my emotions.

Like yesterday when I was feeling “fat.”

First, fat is not a feeling.

I was feeling sad and a bit disgruntled that it was harder to find what I wanted than I had imagined.  I was feeling overwhelmed by the options, none of which felt like they were good options for me.  I was feeling that I was not enough, not good enough to be shopping and spending money on myself or my pursuits.  I was also feeling a little guilty, like should I even be buying new clothes?  A touch of survivor guilt there.

And underneath all of that.

I was feeling really vulnerable and that I needed to have a nice protective shell around me and I wasn’t able to locate one.

That I was embarking on a new journey into some sort of professional type career and I’ve never done this before and I am feeling not enough and scared.

Ah.

There you are fear.

Always at the root of I’m feeling “fat.”

Thanks for sharing.

Heh.

So, yeah, I have some ideas about how to navigate feelings, I’ve been practicing.

What was interesting in the reading for me as well was to find some of my own patterns in past relationships, places I had lost my voice and instead of trying to share and be vulnerable I got shut in or I shut up.

I let the other persons needs completely supersede mine until I couldn’t stand it any longer and I had to get the hell out.

I’d love to not do that again, but the chances are I probably will.

The thing is not to not do the thing, but to be compassionate with myself when I do and also, to allow myself to be open and vulnerable.

Relationships will have conflict.

It’s how I navigate the conflict.

It’s allowing myself to navigate the conflict.

And to ask for what I need without expecting the other person to fulfill my needs.

I’m definitely learning some nice little tidbits, almost makes a lady want a relationship to practice on.

As though I don’t have plenty, work, school, personal friendships, family.

Loads of relationships.

I meant romantic, since I’m studying Couples Therapy this semester.

Anyway.

The reading.

It got done.

I did some other things today and when I stop to think about them, I realize that it was more than enough, but I did have a moment when I thought, I have to get out and do something, I have to.

So I rode up to the Inner Sunset on my scooter to get a manicure.

But the shop was swamped and the other place I sometimes go to was closed.

I got a little frustrated, there was nothing for me to do, I suppose I could have done more grocery shopping, but I wasn’t feeling it, I had done a little run to my co-op and didn’t really feel like doing more.

I didn’t need to cook more, I had done my food prep for the week earlier today.

I didn’t really need to buy anything.

I didn’t have a place to go or be.

It was an odd time of late afternoon, almost early evening and I realized that the best thing to do would be to just come home and do the reading I had somewhat handily denied to myself that I needed to do (a bit of, I’ll just read at work, or on the train, going on in my brain) and thank God I did.

I don’t think I realized how long the reading was going to be.

I read for at least three hours.

My brain feels a little soggy right now.

I have read for longer than that, pleasure reading, but scholarly work is different and requires a different kind of attention and focus.

Plus, the This American Life segment, which was an hour, reviewing syllabi, going over the practicum stuff for this week, and getting ready for the next open house on Wednesday and my interview on Thursday.

So.

Um, yeah.

A lot of time devoted to school today.

I did not write my Trauma paper, but I’ll be able to knock it out next weekend and it’s just 3-6 pages.

I’ll get it done in an hour.

It’s not a research paper, it’s a reflection paper, so I can just write about what I felt going over the first weekend of material, class, and the readings.

The rest of the week, when I have time to, I will be doing the reading for my Community Mental Health class.

I do not like the readings at all for this class, too much policy reading, stale, governmental readings with no soul or poetry or elegance to them.

Thank God the teacher has plenty of soul and poetry and elegance to him, otherwise I’d be dead in the water.

Public policy is not my milieu.

Nope.

I got done what I needed to get done and I’m happy with that.

Plus.

Two loads of laundry and a spotless, and I do mean spotless, house.

I cleaned.

I always clean before I need to do homework.

Nothing says procrastination like house cleaning over homework.

But.

My little space looks like a shining jewel box.

I was reflecting with much pleasure as I sat on the chaise in the corner underneath a big reading lamp, my home, so warm and clean and pretty.

Smelling homey and comfy.

I roasted a chicken.

Little Sunday rituals, self-care, and yoga in the morning.

It was not a bad day at all.

And though I did not manage to get my nails done, I did end up taking a scenic detour home from the Inner to Outer Sunset, through Golden Gate Park on my scooter as the sun was setting through the Truffula trees (what I call the Monterey Pines, I swear I think that’s the tree species that Seuss was referencing in his drawings), the washes of light blues and the underlining golden colors of sunset, the hydrangea blooming, Stow Lake, the water reflecting the last of the sun, the end of the day, golden and washed with glimmer.

It was a lovely reminder of where I get to live.

And when I got home and walked into my jewel box of a home I was glad.

Glad to be home.

Grateful to have time to devote to my studies.

And content with myself and my efforts.

I am enough.

I have enough.

I do.

I really do.

All In The Family

I turned around, his small body pressed to me.

“Chip,” he said soft, with a slight lisp, he smiled, “chip,” he whispered again.

Oh squeeze my heart little cousin.

I hopped a tortilla chip off the platter to his waiting mouth.

He took a bite, then held out his hand for the chip and went back to his favorite uncle on the couch.

Who proceeded to feed him a bite of cake.

Family.

Grandma.

Auntie.

Uncle.

Three boy cousins and their wives (what are the wives of first cousins called?).

And then the grand babies.

Which would be my second cousins–three more boys.

Me.

Food.

Oh my goodness so much food.

Grandma homemade food.

I just about fell over.

Roast pork and chicken and potatoes and salad and the most amazing paella I have ever, ever, ever had.

I wasn’t able to eat the Hawaiian pineapple cake and some other things but getting to watch everyone eat and talk and cozy against each other, cousins and second cousins running in and out the patio screen door, was such a gift.

I got to hold a four-month old second cousin in my lap and look in his wide brown eyes and see the genetic markers of the family passing themselves merrily right along.

A part of.

Once again with my family.

My aunt hugged me as she headed out the door, “don’t be a stranger.”

I won’t.

I don’t know when I will come back down to Chula Vista, but I will again.

And I can see myself making the trip up to my Uncle’s in Nevada City for a holiday, perhaps Thanksgiving?

Make some more memories.

Have some more connections.

See more things.

My Uncle and my cousin, his youngest son and wife, took me out to Balboa Park today in San Diego this morning and we spent the morning into the early parts of the afternoon wandering around the grounds.

We went to the Historical Museum and saw the Dr. Seuss exhibit, which was truly amazing and also wonderful and silly and made me laugh out loud.

My second cousin, his dad, and my Uncle sat down a Dr. Seuss designed table and cut and colored Cat in the Hat paper hats, cut them out and then wore them around the exhibit.

I laughed so hard I thought I might pee my pants.

While they were working on hats I discovered a color in your own Dr. Seuss character postcard table and I sat down and colored up three of them right away, one for my mom, one for the boys I work with and one for my cousin and his family–they were such wonderful hosts, every one really–which I plan on sending as a thank you card.

I didn’t actually get myself any postcards from the museum.

I was having too much fun hanging out in the museum to color more.

I scooped up the three I colored on and galavanted about the rest of the Historical Museum, snapping photos wherever I could.

Then off to Rose Garden where I was happy to discover roses that actually smelled like roses, and a walk through the Japanese Tea Garden to quietly walk through the paths and marvel at the giant coi fish in the ponds.

Prior to the museum we also went through the Botanical Gardens, wandered through the Spreckels Organ pavilion and checked out the fountain in the front.

It was a lovely meander.

The sun burned through the fog and they day grew warm.

We headed to a late lunch, had sushi, ran a few errands for my grandma and then back to the house for dinner and all the folks.

Sitting here, the dishes washed, the lights being dimmed, my uncle having one last piece of cake, my gram getting ready for bed and I am filled with a kind of gratitude I find hard to express, but it is there, full, golden, sun soaked and happy.

Quiet.

Seeing photographs of my father as a boy.

My grandmother showing me his Boy Scout uniform from when they lived in Oakland, my eyes welled and my heart grew three sizes bigger.

Then she pulled out a package from my sister.

It was a strange, but so sweet, assortment of crochet items that she sent my grandma in 1986, she would have been eleven or twelve.

I gasped when I saw the postmark on the box, Windsor Wisconsin.

“I save it, I thought it was so sweet,” my grand mother said, “I don’t know what they are exactly, but you could see she was just learning and I had to keep it.”

I told her about my afghan, the one she had crocheted for me when I lived in the House in Windsor and had shared that I was in the coldest room in the house, the one directly beneath the attic and it was like living in Siberia, so she crocheted me a red and white and pink afghan.

I had lost it.

Not lost it as in lost it, but it had been destroyed in a flood in Madison.

It was in the same stack of boxes my ex had bought down in the basement when we lived on Mifflin Street the year it flooded our basement.

I also lost all my Christmas ornaments.

My ex had tossed everything out.

I was so hurt when I discovered that.

“I’ll make you another!” My grandmother told me, “just tell me what colors you want.”

My eyes welled.

It’s been a wonderful trip.

An amazing gift of reconnection and discovery.

Listening to the squabbles and talks and the hugs and the kisses and hearing all the stories between uncles and aunt and cousins and wives.

I had just a kiss of regret watching the easy give and take of love, I wished for a partner to share it all with, someone I could lean into and hug and kiss on too.

I know that will come.

Things like that happen when you are happy and secure and surrounded by family.

It just happens.

Like love.

Blooming.

An unending flowering of love.

Family.

My family.

Clown Explosion

I jest.

Sort of.

This is what happens, I tell myself, this is always what happens and when you get used to it, it’s fabulous, but for the first day or so, you are uncomfortable.

I feel like a small car full of pink clowns exploded on my head.

I could only keep the hair straight for so long.

Once I hopped in the shower, I knew it was over and I prepared myself.

It’s actually really awesome.

In an over the top, oh my God, that’s pink, kind of way.

I’ve been messing with it for too long and finally just pulled it up in a big clip and now I have the bun of madness on my head.

I sort of want to stick a small rabbit in the mass of curls, just for fun.

I tried barrettes.

Too babyish.

I tired leaving it down.

Too much.

I am sure pig tails will do the trick, they usually do.

And give it a week and I won’t bat an eye and I’ll be yearning after the Manic Panic in the bathroom, sweet Cleo Rose, color me pink again please.

Because that’s how my brain works.

Always on to the next thing.

The next hair geographic.

I did feel stylish and sophisticated and pretty and polished for 24 hours.

That’s not bad.

And should I ever get it together to learn how to straighten out my hair on my own, I’m sure I could achieve that status again.

I even looked at curlers today when I popped into the SafeWay to grab some groceries.

I’ve spent enough on my hair, however, and I don’t feel like tossing anymore that way.  I have other things to spend my money on.

Graduate school tuition.

Student loans.

Groceries.

I don’t have graduate school tuition to worry about yet, but it is there, looming on the horizon.

I do know, however, that I have been given the green light on this so far and I don’t believe at all that I’m going to be dropped.

The money will be there, the tuition will get paid and if I’m paying off student loans for a while, so be it.  And stuff happens, miracles and magic and pink hair or no pink hair, curl explosion of glory, I’m always taken care of.

And in the mean time, I get to focus on the small tasks ahead of me.

Work.

Writing.

Blogging.

Living.

Reading.

I butted through about 190 pages of a book one of my cousins sent me a few months back.  He’s got quite the collection and he shipped me off a few of his favorites.

Although not what I would have chosen, story of my life, the books have been good and easy reading and I found myself lost in a book for a good long while today while I got used to the pink mania of my hair.

It is riotous.

It did inspire me to watch “Oh The Places You’ll Go at Burning Man” on YouTube, about well, duh, Dr. Seuss’s last book interpreted through the eyes of Burning Man attendees.

The first time I saw it, a co-worker of mine at Mission Bicycle Company showed it to me.

“Have you seen this?!” He asked me all excitedly.

I had not and it brought tears to my eyes.

“Damn it man,” I said, as I wiped my eyes, “we’re not even open yet and I’m smudging my eye makeup.”

“Gives you that smoky, sexy, just rolled out of bed look,” my friend assured me.

I don’t know about that.

I always just think it gives me the I’ve been crying look.

But.

I’m ok with that.

A few tears will not make or break me and it’s good to let them out, tears of happy or sad or joy or love.

The swell of salt in my body wishing to return back to the sea from whence they crawled.

The sea was beautiful today, but I did not take a walk down by the ocean.

It was too breezy.

And when it’s that breezy up around my neighborhood it means, it’s really blowing down by the beach and nothing says fun like getting sand stuck in your pink glitter lip gloss.

I suspect I’ll be wearing a lot of pink and black the next few weeks until the color dies down a little.

Today I shook it up and wore coral.

Oooh.

I also did ride my bike along the Great Highway and it was indeed windy.

In fact, the highway got closed down at the end of Lincoln and the gates were swung shut on the highway.

No through traffic was happening.

Which made a nice quick commute for me on my bicycle.

“I see you all the time on your bike, don’t stop riding ever,” the guy at the garage sale said to me today as I pursued the goods.

It was a good yard sale.

The group that rented was moving, back to Florida of all places.

I didn’t even ask why.

It’s hard making it in the big city and I am lucky that I am where I am at.

I hear so much about people unable to afford rent, getting squeezed out, or bought out, or any other egregious acts of rental roulette in the city.

Either that or no one is moving, even if they don’t like where they live, there’s not really anything to move to.

I suspect that things will change, they always do, but for this afternoon I was happy to walk around my neighborhood while dinner was simmering on the stove (Italian white beans with tomatoes and basil, sautéed ground turkey, onions, garlic, black olives and celery over brown rice) and relish my life here in San Francisco.

I make about half of what one is supposed to make to live here.

And I do alright.

But I work my ass off and when the fun needs a release valve.

Well.

I tend to go the route of hair geographic.

I’m ok with that too.

Even if it does look Insane Clown Posse has sprung full-blown from my brain.

Like Athena springing from he brain of Zeus.

Except.

Well.

REALLY.

Pink.

Pretty in Pink