Last Day and Halloween

I missed a lot of days but I thought I would make an effort to post today because it's the LAST DAY and also HALLOWEEN!  I will PLAN to post on Tuesdays from now on. 

We're going trick or treating tonight.  It's gonna be fun times.  This will be Marshall's first official time going.  Last year he was with us but I was holding him and he didn't have a basket.  People still wanted to give him candy though.  He's that cute.  I figured we better make it official this year. 

This year we're going to be a family of dinosaurs.  Kind of.  Bishop is the Indominus Rex from the first Jurassic World.  Marshall is a dragon from the Halloween where Bishop was a dragon and I was Khaleesi, the mother of dragons.  John and I are chickens because chickens are technically dinosaurs.  In fact, I learned from a heated argument with John and subsequent google search that chickens are actually the most closely related to rapters than any other bird still alive.  I mean they might be tied with other birds but the point is I just happened to pick the most dinosaur-y bird alive.  That wasn't really intentional.  It's just easy to find chicken costumes.  So it just so happens that none of our dinosaur costumes are actual dinosaurs from actual dinosaur times.  Just 2 fake dinosaurs and 2 modern dinosaurs. 

Pics to come soon, I'm sure. 

Myers-Briggs But with K

At the very beginning of the month, Angela wrote about the Myers-Briggs test.  She mentioned that I am an INFP, but these things can change over time.  I just literally retook the test minutes ago, and I'm still firmly an INFP.  The last time I took the the test I was almost entirely on the Introverted scale over Extroverted and more on the Intuition than Sensation, but I was basically 50/50 when it came to Thinking and Feeling, and 50/50 when it came to Perception and Judgement.  I guess that means I'm well balanced?  I learned last year that only approximately 10% of the total population are INFPs.  I'm basically a living unicorn.

I had an instructor give us the test and then group us according to the main personality traits.  She put all the INFPs together intentionally and gave everyone an apple, then asked each group to describe it.  Every other group described their apples as:  round, red, juicy, firm, with/without stem, etc.  Here was what we came up with:  Fall, apple cider, galaxy of stars on the skin, apple pie, changing leaves, etc.  A direct quote from another group as we were reading off our list:  "WTF is wrong with you people?"  INFPs tend to see the world differently, and most everyone else doesn't get it.  We are more misunderstood than emo culture...or maybe most emo culture is derived from INFPs.

I wanted to write about this today because I was thinking about the Strengthsfinder test Angela and I took in college together.  I believe we both got the same trait as our top trait, but Angela wanted to sit at another table and ditched me that day.  Next Saturday, I'll be taking a spiritual version of the Strengthsfinder test, so I'm kind of rehashing these things a little bit.

I Know I'm Slowing Down

How did I use to do this for 6 weeks?  Am I slacking off cause it's day 26 or because I know it's close to the end?  It's like in school when you know summer's coming and you just don't want to do your work anymore because you know soon you won't have to.  Maybe I should just pick a completely random topic and rant about it.  I haven't done that in a while.  My ranting muscles are getting weak.  Okay I got one:

Older people complaining about younger people.  Why do we do this?  There's just something inside us that feels compelled to complain about how people not our age do things.  I guess it goes both ways.  But older people should know better because they used to be young and had to endure old people complain about them.  Like I used to hear people complain about my generation and I would just think 'dude, I'm just doing my best' and now I hear people my age complain about people younger and think 'dude... they're just doing their best'.  It's not like people are born fundamentally different than they were 20 years ago.  Although I guess that would point to the nature versus nurture debate.  I guess I fall more on the nature side of that.  I mean I think it's both but I think most of a person is just how their born and then they learn how to respond to the world through nurture. 

This is way less ranty than I intended.  I was just gonna complain about people complaining and I ended up thinking too seriously about it.  I feel like this happens a lot when John tries to joke with me.  I insert logic where it's not meant to be. 

Writing Process

I realized yesterday, it helps me to be honest about my process.  So much of my thinking and deciding happens internally.  I don't usually seek outside input in a decision especially if it only affects me.  I don't like sharing things that aren't set in stone.  This is why I've been so wishy-washy about writing.  I'm terrible at self discipline.  I need accountability.  But I can't get accountability without sharing my 'not so fully formed' ideas with other people.  I shared with John yesterday about how hard this was for me to stick with ideas or writing projects I want to do and it felt really good just to admit that to somebody.  I just want to have all my shit together so I can show it to people fully formed and polished but I can't because it's not together. 

This is true in so many areas of life.  I've gotten used to sharing my other insecurities and general brokenness about the way I do things with others (mostly John) but writing is a very personal and important thing to me and it's hard to admit that I don't have it all figured out.  Instead I just pretend that I only care about writing in my personal journals or occasionally updating my blog because that's all I really know how to do.  The truth is I want to do so much more, I just don't have the tools in place to do it. 

I'm hoping that just by being aware of this, I can create some accountability for myself.  I've already come up with a schedule and a general idea, I just need an enforcer. 

It's Another Brain Dead Day

I tried to sit down and write earlier and nothing came out.  Now the day is winding down and I still haven't been struck by any awesome ideas.  At some point I just have to call it.  Today is not a writing day.  I guess that's just one of the causalities of writing every single day (minus 2 days so far).  It's about quantity, not quality.  Unfortunately, when I demand too much quality from myself, I never end up posting.  I never feel 'good enough' or 'inspired enough' to write something amazing. 

Maybe I'll be whacked with the creative stick tomorrow.  The inspiration fairy is being pretty lazy with it today. 

The Plan

I took a break yesterday.  John and I were prepping to go to the super sweet party last night.  My cold went away too!  I guess it was just a minor annoyance.  I was able to enjoy myself last night. 

Now that Blogtoberfest is coming to a close (in 10 days) I've been thinking about what I can do to keep this blog momentum going.  I think Tuesday's are a good day to update.  I'm going to plan on doing that every Tuesday that Bishop is in school.  That way I have a natural time to take off when I'll probably be distracted anyway with him not in school.  I don't know about summer time.  I guess I'll see if this plan works before I figure that out.  I've tried to implement this same plan before and it crashed and burned.  This time will be different.  Because I said so.  That wasn't very convincing.  This time will be different because I'm a hard-working super-prepared work horse.  No, I'm a work unicorn!  I'm way too whimsical to be a horse.  I'm a horse with a horn.  Or a cat.  Uni-kitty?  She's pretty cool.  I probably shouldn't follow her example though.  Unless its the end part where she gets mad and kills all those robots.  If anyone is confused right now, I'm talking about the Lego Movie.  It's one of Bishops favorites which means I've seen it (not exaggerating) two million times. 

Anyway, back to my original point, if I can stay on track, I will be posting on Tuesday's.  Wish me luck.  Wait, no, wish me focus and determination.  Those are way more useful. 

Safari City

I just got back into my account so that I can post again.  Woohoo!  I literally JUST received the e-mail that my account was unlocked after being told it would be unlocked in 3-5 days.  It took more than a week.  Thanks Google.

I thought about a random event that happened to me just before I moved to the city and I suddenly realized I wanted to share it with you wonderful people!

I was out getting a tour of the city I was moving to a few months ago when I saw a guy running down the street wearing an old English safari outfit.  I was looking for a reference to go with this story, but I couldn't find one with an actual person because apparently these outfits are SO DATED that you can't even get a real life reference shot!  I'll have to go with the animated one for reference:

Not an actual person, but looks close to the actual person!

So an older man with silver hair, a mustache like the one in the above picture, and minus the cane and gun was running through the city.  I saw him three times and failed to get a picture, which is clearly entirely unacceptable.  I kept hoping that someone was running behind him in a lion suit, but there was no one else.  The last time I saw him he was slowing down and walking.  This leaves me with so many questions.

Did that guy own that safari outfit from his youth?  Has he ever gone on safari?  Is he training to go on safari?  If he hasn't owned it for a while, where did he find one?  I can't even find a good ference picture!  Why does he wear a safari outfit when he's out for a jog?  Was he being chased by invisible lions?  What happened to his rifle?  Is he making a statement about how the city is like a jungle?  Is he a superhero?  Does he know he should become one?

I don't know who you are Safari Man, but I love you and the memory I will always have of you! 

Stubborn

I think I've mentioned before that Marshall seems to act more like me.  Bishop definitely acts like John and as Marshall's personality emerges, I see myself in him.  At first it was adorable: hiding under pillows, grunting at things he didn't like, his love of stuffed animals.  Now it's apparent he also got my stubbornness.  It is very annoying.  Bishop was never this stubborn. 

It seems contradictory that a person like me with such an agreeable personality would be stubborn.  I guess it's good in a way.  I think it prevents me from getting walked all over.  And it takes a very specific circumstance for it to come out.  However, since Marshall is a toddler and just beginning to assert his own will, his stubbornness is out all the fucking time.  It goes something like this: you need me to sit on couch so you can put my socks on to leave? I've got a very important drawing to finish on this chalk board.  You need me to stand up to put my sweater on? I'm just gonna sit here until you mad.  You need 10 minutes alone to finish typing out your blog? I'm going to hang off your arm until you start blogging about how annoying I am and then put me on time-out.  That example isn't current.  Marshall's napping right now.  But Bishop was just over here asking me for food and leaning on me.  But he left when I told him I needed some space because he's not a stubborn jerk. 

That was mean.  Marshall's not a jerk.  Not all the time.  He's just a toddler.  I'm pretty sure the words 'toddler' and 'jerk' are interchangeable. 

Sick but Chill

Not like the good 'sick' when you're describing something awesome.  I don't like using that slang anyway.  I prefer 'sweet' because it's not contradictory.  But I am sick today.  Just a little bit.  It's either the start of a cold or a minor inconvenience that will hopefully be gone soon.  Seriously, I've got a sweet party to get to this weekend.  Don't ruin this for me immune system! 

I do feel super chill though because I'm tired but also happy.  It's a feeling of contentment that happens when all my business and personal affairs are in order.  That's sentence sounds way more sophisticated than my life actually is.  My life is actually super messy.  There are kids in it, it has to be that way.  For example, as I'm typing this, Marshall is hanging off my arm and testing to see how much of my personal space he can invade before I push him away again.  Because he's a cat.  He's like 2 minutes away from laying on my keyboard. 

Marshall got a new friend yesterday.  We were browsing at the thrift store and he picked out a bear.  Bears seem to be his favorite.  He picked out a bear last time too and I realized they're both from build-a-bear.  Maybe I should take him there for his birthday. 

Marshall and his newest bff

Family Maintenance

I think my brain needs a break today.  I just sat down to write and my brain was like "meh... nobody's home".  I've been doing a lot of house maintenance this week.  Bishop needed pants so I ended up going through all of the kids stuff just in case there was pants hiding in there somewhere.  So today I took 5 bags of stuff to the thrift store and then went inside to buy pants for Bishop.  Also Marshall wanted a stuffed bear with pink hearts all over it.  When we got home, he put it next to his white bear that he sleeps with every night.  I guess he needed a friend.

Bishop is becoming difficult to shop for.  Some of his 4T pants are a bit small on him but today he tried on some 5T pants that I got a while ago and they were way too loose on his waist.  He's a string bean.  I wish he could just stay in shorts all winter.  Length doesn't matter as much for shorts.  Maybe I should just buy him a belt.

Wow, this post is really exciting.  I need to work on jotting down ideas when my brain is actually working. 

Painting With Mess

Yesterday I had a sudden urge to revisit my former self.  I was just standing in my room and had the thought "I want to remember who I used to be".  Most of old journals are packed away but I do keep one out because it's pretty brief and concise.  It captures mostly feelings in my life and not so much people, places, or events.  Although I always know by the date exactly what was happening and why I was feeling that way. 

Honestly, it was a painful journey.  It's hard to look back and remember how much I struggled.  I felt so alone back then.  I really believed that no one understood me.  I was living with deep feelings and not much understanding of where I fit in the world.  And I was terrified of letting anyone see it.  One poem struck me in particular.   I think it summarizes how I felt while I was working out how to become an adult. 

This place is messy
full of scrambled feelings
being tossed around
and held in tight quarters
being stretched and prodded
cross examined and questioned
but kept locked in a box
not allowed to spill
or spread
a huge mess in a little box
threatening to escape
waiting in the box
its ready to explode
to paint the world
with this mess
to paint a beautiful picture
with a hopeless mess
to paint a story
of love
with mess
(12-16-07)

It's crazy to me now reading that how it almost perfectly describes an INFP.  INFP's feel things so deeply and personally but seem so calm on the outside.  And they usually enjoy art so they often literally paint their messy feelings.  I write mine out.  Sometimes in poetry. 

The journal does have a happy ending.  Sort of.  I mean there's still blank pages in there for me to write on so it technically hasn't ended yet.  I wrote about John and how good it felt to finally be understood by someone.  I finally found someone to unload all of my crazy thoughts and feelings.  There's not much written in the journal after that.  I had less need to express my pain in writing. 

I'm glad I have these memories to look back on.  It's good to see how far I've come in regards to emotional health.  It kinda makes me wonder what I'll be like in another 10 years.  I'll be unstoppable. 

Rambling Sleepy Thoughts

I just spent most of last week without my laptop.  I had always thought this would be a lot more difficult than it turned out to be.  I always though:  "I need this machine so that I can stay connected with people and events."  As it turns out, however, if you are too busy to sleep (I was absolutely losing sleep last week), you don't even miss the connectivity and people will still talk to you about events.

Last week was kind of fun!  I went to my first haunted thing in years, I got to spend time with my sister and her family, I painted on canvas for the first time ever, and I had a bonfire!  I also got to chill with my friends for a while on Sunday, so I got to do all the best things.  On the downside, I was overly exhausted from not sleeping and nightmares when I was sleeping.

I keep dreaming about being attacked and it's never the same.  I remember two of my nightmares vividly.  In the first one, I was fighting the Empire alongside Mark Hamill who was dressed as Luke Skywalker from Return of the Jedi, but I knew he was definitely Mark Hamill with a lightsaber in my dream.  We pretty much got wiped out, which would not have made a satisfying ending for American audiences.  Another dream I had, I was being attacked by my dog who was trying to steal my St. Michael medal from my necklace.  That was pretty much the entirety of that dream.

I'm going to try not to have nightmares tonight.  I honestly feel too tired to dream.

Learning

You know how when you learn something new and your brain just naturally obsesses over the new information like a whole brain infection?  For me that process happens inside where nobody can see it.  For Bishop, it comes out his mouth and infects the whole apartment.  This weekend he was sitting on the couch just saying and spelling 'the' over and over again.  I often find him at the fridge with his alphabet magnets singing and spelling out words.  It's bizarre in a way because I'm pretty sure I didn't start learning to read until 1st grade.  But it's amazing to see how fast he's catching on.  It's like his brain has set fire with learning.  He's so good at it.  It kinda makes me feel bad for not sending him to preschool.  Although that obviously didn't slow him down at all so I guess no harm done. 

I'm just so happy that he loves it.  His enthusiasm is spreading to Marshall too.  I often hear Marshall shouting random letters and sounds while he plays with the alphabet.  He's rarely correct, but he's trying.  Marshall's basically a little echo machine right now.  I like to thing of him as Bishops hype man.  He's just there to be supportive and repeat the last few words of whatever Bishop says. 

Bishop with hype man

Movie Cliche

Well, I finally missed a day.  I just realized it was day 13.  Maybe I was being subconsciously superstitious.  Or just lazy.  It was a pretty lazy weekend. 

We just watched a movie which got me thinking about a certain romance cliche.  You know the one where 2 'old souls' connect and they talk about how awful some aspect of modern life is and how they both wish it could be like the 'good old days'.  But they act like nobody else thinks this way.  Like nobody else is a 'romantic at heart' or nobody else despises hook up culture.  The main character talked about how going out on dates was old fashioned.

The feeling I get from this cliche is that people are somehow fundamentally different than they were 100 years ago.   They're not.  Sure we learn different things and have different tools to live our lives but the basic need to connect with someone is still there.  Why else would we have so many romance movies in the first place?  Even in most action movies, the main character has a love interest.  It's not like people somehow just don't want to fall in love anymore.  I know that's not really what that cliche is saying.  I might be getting a little off track. 

My favorite example of this cliche is from a movie called "They Came Together".  The movie itself is just a bundle of romantic comedy cliches.  It's really funny.  The 2 main characters bond over the fact that they both like fiction.  Then later during the "girl is out on a date with guy who's obviously not her soulmate" scene, she mentions her love of fiction and he said he doesn't read fiction because he prefers stuff that actually happened.  It's the dumbest thing ever which makes it the best. 

Always

I saw a picture yesterday of a couples tattoo.  They both had the word 'Always' on their ring finger with the deathly hallows symbol.  On one level, it's super adorable.  They're both nerds, they both like Harry Potter, and they want something unique to celebrate their marriage.  I just can't help but think it's actually horrible.  Snape and Lily were never together.  His crush on her was kinda creepy and he was an asshole to her son for the rest of his life until he was seconds away from death.  Yeah he helped Harry at key moments but he was still a major jerk.  Is that the symbol you really want representing your marriage?  Sure the love itself was probably pure and sweet, but I cannot ignore the context.  It's tainted. 

This is often my reaction whenever John suggest that a song could be "our song" (even though we already have 3 songs).  Most recently it was 'Never Enough' from the Greatest Showman.  If you take the song out of the movie and just listen to the lyrics, it's romantic.  The message is 'nothing in this world will be enough for me if I don't have you'.  Yeah that's romantic, but the character who sings it is trying to break up Barnum's marriage.  Then when Barnum turns her down, she ruins his whole business.  I hear all that context when I listen to the song and I don't want that kind of negativity in my marriage.  I have to vet my songs before I decide if they're truly romantic or not. 

Mary

Today I want to talk about someone who was a giant in my life.  Not a literal giant like John, more emotionally speaking.  I realized yesterday I don't talk about her much because we parted ways during a huge transition in both of our lives so she didn't really leave a hole in my life when she left.  Then a few years ago, she died.  She was a huge influence in my very formative and confusing years of life.  Her name was Mary and she was my adopted Grandma.

Mary adopted our family when I was around 7 and my parents bought her house.  She legally adopted my 40-something year old father.  I'm not really sure why.  I think it had something to do with making the house purchase easier and she was really close with our family.  As part of the deal, she lived on a trailer on our property.  So throughout my growing up years, I would visit her all the time. 

 Her door was always open.  She was never too busy to talk.  Although sometimes she would be on the phone when I came over but I would just sit and wait until she was finished.  Sometimes we would play card games.  Sometimes we would take walks in the forest.  As she got older, we usually would just sit and talk for a few hours.  She was really easy to talk to and was very non-judgmental.  We had a very similar way of viewing the world.  Or maybe I just spent so much time with her that I adopted hers. 

Sometimes I feel sad that I can't talk to her now.  I want to tell her about all the things that have changed and get her views on being a mother.  I feel like she would have a lot of interesting stories about raising her toddlers and sending her kids to kindergarten for the first time.  She had 7 children of her own.  My dad made 8. 

I never called her grandma.  I always called her Mary.  I realize now it's probably because I thought of her as more of a friend than an authority figure.  One of my best friends. 

Sick

I've been sick more this year than I have in a very long time.  I went almost a solid ten years without insurance, and during that time, I have NO idea how I survived in light of this year.  I've had the flu twice, several colds, kidney stones, migraines and I'm sure I'm forgetting a few here and there.  In retrospect, I'm pretty sure the one time I thought I had the flu for the second time, it may have been a kidney stone.

My point is, now that I have insurance, it's like my body has decided it's okay to let itself go.  I was totally healthy when I couldn't afford to be the list bit sick, and now I'm sick ALL the time.  I'm really over it.  I was feeling like I had flu symptoms last night, so I ended up going to bed instead of doing some writing.  I woke up today more tired than when I went to bed last night, so I am possibly coming down with something.

Poor Angela has had to carry all the slack.  I'm sorry, Angela!  Hey!  Since you're looking for a writing idea, why not consider doing something with chickens?  I vaguely recall a story about chickens trying to take over the world that you were sharing with me in college.  Or maybe my sick brain is making that up.

Uninspired

I've been sitting here for like an hour trying to think of something to write about.  I feel like there's just a big blank space where my ideas usually are.  I was just mindlessly scrolling through Facebook.  I thought something might spark my idea nest.  Nope.  I'm definitely not talking about politics.  Not because I don't think it's important, I'm just a person who values harmony and politics is the exact opposite of harmony.  That's why I tend to avoid Facebook in the first place. 

Usually when I have no ideas and then I start typing, things start flowing somewhat.  Today I feel like I'm trying to get water out of a stone.  I guess there's just days like this.  Maybe it's because I've got personal issues I don't want all over a blog.  Nothing major.  Just some minor medical annoyances.  I'm just gonna leave thing here.  Maybe I'll be creative tomorrow. 

Introvert

I want to talk about labels.  I read something yesterday that got me thinking a little bit.  I looked through a picture gallery that was all about being an introvert.  Of course I could very much relate to most of the content.  Then I scrolled through some of the comments because sometimes I hate myself.  Seriously, comment threads on popular public websites are the worst.  But I found the unicorn of internet comments.  It was a thoughtful, well reasoned observation that I didn't agree with but also didn't make me mad.  So I thought it would be a good thing to blog about because I didn't want to comment and risk getting into an argument with some moron. 

The comment was about how calling someone an introvert isn't helpful because they will then act like an introvert and never learn to be social.  It makes sense in a way because if you really don't want to do something and then find out you have an excuse not to do it, you would be happy.  But I don't agree at all because in high school, I had never heard the term introvert and that didn't stop me from being quiet and awkward. 

I have found that label has helped me be better at socializing.  Because I know that it's my nature and not a way I'm choosing to be, it helps me accept myself which makes me more comfortable around people.  When I was younger and trying to talk myself into being better, I would make some small progress.  Then, inevitably, someone would say to me "why are you so quiet?" and I would think "Well, now I'm back to square one, I haven't improved at all" and then feel bad about myself.  By the way, NEVER ask a quiet person why they're quiet.  It's not like they're gonna suddenly come out of their shell just because you brought it up.  Although if someone asked me that today, I would just shrug and say "That's just who I am" because that's the truth.  I have accepted my skills and abilities and being social is not one of them.  Then I can laugh about how awkward I am because it's genuinely funny. 

So having a label has helped me have a better attitude about myself.  For example, if I went to a party and say I talked to 2 people and then sat awkwardly on the couch the rest of the time.  Before, I might have left feeling like a failure because I spent so much time awkwardly not engaging with anybody.  But now I walk away thinking "Wow, I talked to 2 whole people!  That was hard for me and I'm really proud of myself!"  I don't have to compare myself to other people, I can be proud of my personal achievement. 

Practicality

Being an adult is a weird thing.

I had a day off today.  Normally I would spend that day off doing fun things, because this is what you do with days off.  I had a Friday half day, a busy Saturday and Sunday, which means by Monday when you likewise have a day off, you have the right to sit in your pajamas and watch movies and do nothing.  Or go out and see the world when it's a gorgeous, warm fall day with the sun shining...and your day off.

I elected to do laundry, vacuum, get new tires, and unpack some more boxes.  On my day off.

I was HAPPY to do it.

Somewhere in time, sixteen year old me wants to kick thirty-two year old me in the shins for wasting a perfectly good writing day, and I kind of want to let her.  When you get to be an adult, you suddenly realize that there's a kind of peace and comfort that comes with living in a clean, well maintained home.  You actually want to do these things, because no one else is. Besides, it's your mess, you should have the decency to pick up after yourself.  I say this after having attended a birthday party for my three year old nephew this weekend whereupon none of the kids did anything remotely like clean.  They did run around in comical fashion as they went through a sadly easy scavenger hunt that my sister cleverly put together.  It was like watching heard of lemmings, but instead of running over cliffs, they were ambling from one clue to the next in their relentless search for candy and small plastic toys which will be thrown out in about a week.  I got a plastic bat ring!  I may include a picture of it later, because it is delightful.

I said this yesterday, but I'll say it again today...I DO intend to get back to my writing project.  It has not been going well the last few days so far.  I even KNOW what the next segment is going to be, but I elected to do chores and then ha a migraine...and now I'm just making up excuses.  Go read Angela's stuff!  She's on a roll!