What The Hell?

My former blog, "FUNCTIONINGSCHIZOPHRENIC", served as an emo-ish dumping ground for my moody poetry, wine-induced pondering and middle-of-the-night-insomniac ramblings about how "The Brothers Karamozov" blows my mind and makes me lose sleep. Boring? Yeeeah. Therapeutic? Eh. Narcissistic? Well, most blogging seems to be... In any case, it was my alter-ego blog, if you will.

Here in "Adventures" I've tried to give myself structure, deadlines, and initially, meant to say meaningful things. I've always hoped to avoid the journally, self-indulgent crap I loathe, the kind of stuff that can be found in abundance out in the blogosphere but have I achieved my goals at all? Perhaps to some extent but I feel myself moving further and further away from the place I started. Now that this is my only blog and I've been straying from the original format more and more I can feel the old evil twin in me rearing her dramatic head. The one who will talk your ear off if you give her the chance, the one who wants to explore everything and the one who can't help but be chronically critical and infinitely indecisive. She's gettin' bored.

Where am I going with all of this? Somewhere new! I'm annoyed with my blog. Who am I to be putting my thoughts out into the world in this way? What is the point? Well, I'm not really sure but being the schizo that I am (and stubborn by nature) I refuse to give up. This is my little playground for thoughts and words. What I love/hate about blogs is that anyone can write them! It's cool, it's fun, it's irritating and it's just the way it is. So on with it...

This Blog

The Rules:

• In San Francisco and in my head: So I can talk about whatever I want... hmm. Good rule.
• Try not to be too self-indulgent. AKA, try not to talk about myself all the time. Shoot! Gotta work on that one more.

The Goals:

• Work towards shorter posts. People these days seem to have extremely short attention spans and no time. We're twitterers! Ew. OK, basically: Must make readable from an iphone. (Which, BTW, I do not own.)
• Become really smart, witty, clever and concise. No problem!
• Get a digital camera and start incorporating photos. My old one broke and I mean, whose blog is words only! How boring. God.

Right.

So next post will be shorter

And I'll start dieting tomorrow

And I swear,

Yesterday was the last time I let myself see that guy I shouldn't see.

Totally.

Spring Cleaning!

Cleaning, cleaning, cleaning! House, body and mind. Spring is another chance at starting something fresh and what might be on the horizon? I'm preparing for something unknown...

L'appartement:

• R and I cleaned and prepared the empty room for our new roommie B, then we made him sign paperwork, give us money and drink with us. Initiation; make a mess, overshare a little, bust out the guitar, break some glass, and clean again in the morning...

Ma Chambre:

• Since I don't live alone I have to treat my room like my own mini home. I Cleaned, re-arranged, got rid of shit, polished hard wood floors, washed laundry and eliminated clutter.
• Goal for the weekend: Get curtains and get a plant!

Le Corps:

• Went to the doc, got a clean bill, put an end to weeks of neurotic fretting and irrational belief that I have every disease. Rode away on my bike smiling and a cute guy at the crosswalk said, "you look beautiful". Smiling continues...
• Hair tinted, bangs trimmed, recent skin issues resolved, feelin' good!
• Running/biking; check! More or less healthy eating; check! Vitamins and water; check!

That thing in my noggin:

• Started two new books.
• Going to meditation tonight and signed up for a retreat in June. Yay!
• Nice long conversations with the cool people in my world.
• Contemplating crazy dreams...
• Made some lists.

OK, I'm ready!

For...

?

I guess all I can do now is chill and enjoy the BEAUTIFUL sunshine! See you at Dolores Park.

27 Things

Sometimes it feels really good to be self-deprecating. It's much easier than giving myself praise or compliments but I think it's time to challenge myself to do the hard thing. I've often been told by family, friends or therapists, "you're too hard on yourself". I usually try to accept it but find that secretly, I don't agree and I end up beating myself up even more. What I've been noticing more and more is that a lot of people in my life do the same sort of thing. We're all hard on ourselves, we push, we struggle, we punish ourselves and we get down on ourselves all the time for every little thing. We hold ourselves to unhealthy and unrealistic standards when it comes to beauty, our definitions of success, how much we accomplish in a day, week, month, year... and where does this negative reinforcement get us? It seems to me that we end up with a mass case of low self-esteem.

Obviously we can agree that low self-esteem is not a good thing but there seems to be an aversion to "self-help" and "new-age-hippie-bullshit-self-esteem-building". It almost feels uncool to try to be happy. But why? I admit, I don't want to start shitting unicorns any time soon, but I do see that when I feel bad about myself a bunch of other negative emotions spring up and start to affect everyone around me. It's not just about me being happy or unhappy but how quickly one or the other state of being can spread to my friends and even strangers. When I'm feeling bad about myself it's easy to feel things like jealousy, anger, resentment, bitterness and fear. Living with these things in my heart and mind mean I usually end up taking it out on someone else whether it's just a negative thought I think about a friend or a comment I make.

So here's the deal, my mom is one of those peace-and-joy-love-and-light types and even though she lives across the country in tiny house surrounded by a garden twice its size, she seems to have a psychic connection to me (or something) and sensed this problem on my mind. She called me up and after a long discussion told me to, "make a list of 27 things you love about yourself and make you worth loving to others". OK mom. Well, I decided to humor her and just try something different, I'm always open to new things.

It took me a week! Every time I tried to sit down to make the list I would find some reason not to. When I finally got down with my pen and paper I felt embarrassed, uncomfortable and just plain weird. But I did it. I made the list. I thought very carefully about each thing. It was hard at first, I know I have good qualities but I'm not used to putting them down on paper and acknowledging them to myself. Surprisingly, with each item it became easier and easier, I tried to search for deep and true qualities, things I really believed and by the end of it I felt amazing!

The day after I made the list I woke up feeling different, I felt peaceful, happy(ish) and I was even smiling. This feeling has carried on for almost a week now and it's spreading. This feeling has helped me take better care of myself. I've been getting more sleep, healing my back, I cleaned and organized my room, I even feel more productive at work! I have more energy to put into my friends and loved ones and I've been getting back to meditation which perpetuates the feeling even more. It must be a combination of factors but I know the list didn't hurt. Now, don't get me wrong, I don't want to start walking around with an over-inflated ego and I don't think that I'll stay in this mood forever, at least not at this point in my life, but it was a nice little reminder: It feels good to feel good.

So now I want you to try it too! Please, please, please! Roll your eyes, call me crazy, scoff and pshhhhaaa and then suck it up and try something new. Something hard. Make a list. 27 things and leave ONE as a comment on this blog post. You can leave it anonymously but try it! I would love to hear what makes you so awesome and even if you can't do the whole list see how it feels to admit one of your good qualities to yourself. I'll start it and you know it's fucking embarrassing so please don't leave me hanging...

I DARE YOU!