Light-sabers

So I was looking for inspiration about what to write today.  I browsed through my documents on google drive and found a something titled "subject list".  It was from a more ambitious time when Kris and I were going to write about certain topics every week.  We literally never got started.  But I did write down some random subjects to write about.  The flashiest on the list was light-sabers!  I was probably watching my son destroy the apartment with a light-saber when I came up with that list.  Everything else was boring. 

Anyway, after Bishop broke a light bulb in his room with his toy light-saber, it was confiscated.  I'm pretty sure he had broken something else before that and there was way too many near misses.  Just seeing him holding it was enough to put my anxiety through the roof.  He's probably gonna be in therapy like 20 years from now talking about how his parents never let him have light-sabers and he'll have a whole room in his house that's just ceiling to floor light-sabers and swords.  At least he'll be protected against Emperor Palpatine.  No Sith will be safe in that house.  It's a good thing we took his toy light-saber away so he hoards them later.  Now I know he'll be protected as an adult.  As we all know, Sith attack is the number one threat to adulthood. 

Ironically, one of the other subjects on that list was "Being an Adult".  Bishop is going to be an interesting adult.  I honestly can't wait to see it.  I mean I can wait, cause he's my baby and I want him to stay that way as long as possible, but it will also be fun to watch him grow up.  Picking his brain is already one of my favorite activities.  He has some crazy ideas about how things work. 

It's the Holidays

I want to be excited about it but I haven't finished my shopping yet.  I remember when I used to have finals and term papers due this time of year.  That was awful.  Thank god that's over with. 

I'm having trouble writing today.  My thoughts are just everywhere except any suitable topic.  My brain is like "topic? no, lets think about all this personal stuff you can't share about!"  And I'm over here like "Brain!  I said I was gonna post every Tuesday!  Don't make me a liar!"  But I guess my brain doesn't really care so I'm just stuck here arguing with myself. 

By the way, the 'personal stuff' has nothing to do with John.  I feel like every time someone talks about non-specific personal issues, you assume it's the spouse first.  I mean it makes sense because that's the person you spend the most time with so the odds are higher that it's them, but it's not.  John is a perfect human being that can do no wrong and I will fight anyone who says otherwise.  Including John.  Because I know he'll disagree with me but he's wrong. 

So now that I've argued with myself and some fictional person who theoretically wants to fight me, I've run out of people to argue with.  I need a Kris.  She's really good at arguing.  I'm actually looking forward to my kids being teenagers.  I feel like they'll be really good at arguing about nonsense.  That's all I really need in life.  Real arguments make me uncomfortable, but nonsense arguments are the best.  That's seems like a good place to end.  My brain is spent. 

Not Shy

I was recently contemplating my "shyness".  I put it in quotes because I'm not entirely sure what being shy entails and I'm not quite sure it accurately describes my social nature.  I feel like everyone has a different definition of exactly what it means.  I don't think the word technically applies to me but considering the number of times I've been asked "why are you so quiet?" in my lifetime, I'm sure there are many people who see me as 'shy'.  I suppose I could look up a definition and settle the matter but that won't stop people from thinking I'm shy in real life.  It's not like every time someone points out how shy I am I pull a dictionary out of my pocket to correct their terminology and offer them a more appropriate word to describe myself.  That would involve engaging in conversation and I don't do that because I'm.... a quiet person. 

I actually did figure out the heart of the issue.  The key lies in drama class.  I've always enjoyed acting.  Even when I was terrified to stand on stage and perform, I still volunteered for plays.  It's like some invisible force was pushing me into these uncomfortable situations.  Then at some point between middle school and high school, I started to enjoy the adrenaline rush of being on stage.  I loved being in drama club.  It was one of the biggest anomalies of my life, to be so quiet and practically invisible at my small high school but jump at the chance to perform in front of an audience.  But there was one part of drama club I did not enjoy.  I absolutely hated Freeze. 

For those who didn't go to my high school and take drama, Freeze is a game where everyone stands in a circle with 2 actors in the middle.  They improvise a scene until someone yells 'freeze'.  Then both people freeze and the new person chooses an actor to tag out and they take their place and start a new scene.  The only time I ever played it is when the drama teacher would yell freeze and then insert me into the scene.  Then I had to come with a scenario on the spot.  Sound familiar?  This is what real life conversations are like except way less scripted than real life.  You could be anyone, anywhere, any time and it was terrifying.  As many of you know, I am terrible at making decisions.  The less meaningful the decision, the harder it is to make and 30 seconds of make-believe in drama class is one of the most meaningless decisions I can think of.  I'd rather be walking around the school naked, on the way to take a test I didn't study for than come up with 30 seconds of make-believe with someone I barely talk to in real life. 

So that is the heart of my issue: improvisation.  That's why I love writing so much.  There no one here judging what I'm writing as I type it and I can proof read before anyone sees it.  But real conversations require a lot of improv.  Yeah, society provides us with a small script sometimes but it's taken me years to learn that so you can just imagine how awkward my teenage years were.  I don't mind being seen or heard when I have a script.  I'm not afraid of people noticing me or paying attention to me.  I'm afraid of people expecting me to say something when I have nothing to say. 

This is also why I suck at class discussions.  By the time I formulate something worth saying, the conversation has usually moved in a different direction.  I need time to think and ponder what I want to say and usually people want an answer right away. 

And that's why I'm not shy.  I don't know what to call it.  Bad a improv.  There should be a word for that. 

Honesty

Today it's raining and Bishop isn't allowed to watch TV.  I just spent about 30 minutes doing dishes while answering a constant barrage of questions.  Theoretically, Bishop should now know how the clean/ dirty sign works and why you can freeze applesauce and yogurt but not cheese but I guarantee he will ask me those questions again.  It's not enough for him to hear an answer to a question; he has to make sure that answer stands the test of time and that every person will give him the same answer. 

The reason he can't watch TV is because yesterday I walked out of my room to find him with a mouth full of Rice Krispy.  Then as soon as he could talk, he proudly told me that he ate 5 of them.  It's a weird feeling as a parent to be mad but also proud that your child is so honest.  He would make a terrible criminal.  Which is a huge compliment.  Then ironically while I was explaining what he did to a friend, I could hear him making a ruckus in the bathroom and called out to him.  It went exactly like this:

"Bishop"

"I dropped my toothpaste in the toilet"

If he hadn't told me, I probably would never have known because it flushed with no problems.  I would have just assumed it got lost somewhere. 

*sigh* I love that little jerk so much. 

I Did Follow Through!

I know I said I would blog every Tuesday but last week didn't count for.... reasons.  And then today I thought "Maybe I'll start next week" but I realized Bishop doesn't have school next week which is when I said I would take my breaks from blogging so I thought "I better do it now before I slack off too much and this whole thing crashes and burns before it even gets off the ground".  So here I am, showing up to my self-imposed obligations.  I would be so proud of me!  I AM so proud of me.  I'm right here, I can just ask myself questions whenever I want.  And I do all time because my brain is an unstoppable question machine.  Is it any wonder that I made Bishop, who can literally not stop asking questions?  I like to blame John for his boisterous personality (I mean it's partially his fault) but his questioning nature is all me.  Bishop is what you would hear if I ever bothered to tell anyone what I was thinking about.  Except the questions would be more age appropriate.  But when I was 5, I was asking all the same questions in my head and just making up my own answers I guess.  I also have a very active imagination.  One time, my classmate told me that one of the bus drivers got fired and I legit thought she was dead.  Like "You're bad at your job, we're gonna fire you out of this cannon.  Goodbye" and I was terrified about getting fired until I saw her a few weeks later and thought to myself "she didn't get fired, she's right there." 

Am I getting off topic?  Was there a topic to begin with?  It has been 13 days since I blogged so I guess my mind is just full of rambly thoughts that I haven't had a chance to share with anyone.  Or maybe I just feel amped up right now cause I've had a busy day.  I did one whole thing.  If you use the introvert conversion, that's like a million things.  Also that one thing I did involved me talking for an hour so you can convert that to 10 million things.  I did 100 million things today.  And I'm still blogging.  And now I'm done.  See you in 2 weeks. 

PS - I just proof read this before posting and it was LOADED with mistakes.  Not spelling mistakes, because spell check catches that stuff right away but like "you missed a whole word" type mistakes and I originally wrote conversation instead of conversion.  Totally different meaning. 

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!