And then my cat puked on Prague...

My sister's friend cancelled on their day-long scrapbooking event, so I decided to go get crafty, get in some quality sister time, and try to finally catch up on my photos from studying in Berlin (yes, eight years ago). Suggestion for you scrapbookers out there: document your adventures within, say, months afterwards. Not years. I couldn't even remember people's names, much less the significance and fun of all the little things that happened. Luckily, I apparently did a few pages sometime right after the trip, so not all of the original flavor is lost. And it started coming back to me as I worked with it, which is half the fun.

So after eight hours of scrapbooking (yes, eight hours), we finally quit. And when I went home, what did I do? More! Yes, I may have an obsessive personality (it was binge knitting last month, remember). But I love a good project!! Once I get into the creative zone, I don't want to be anywhere else. But eventually it was 2am. So I laid everything out for the last page of the trip and went to bed. When I woke up the next morning, I discovered a strange pile in the middle of Prague... Cat Puke!

First of all, lovely. And second, really?! Of all the places in my house to up-chuck, why on the one set of photos that I don't have the negatives for? Serious anger ensued. I nearly threw my cat right out the front door (he's not an outdoor cat). Then frustration; I spent a good chunk of time wishing that reality was different. Then sadness. Lost evidence of the fabulous, free, time in my life. Loss of the creation supposed to be made on that page.

After a while I came back around. Resigned myself to the fact that this was an unexpected and unforeseeable occurrence. I got a mini-lesson in anger out of it. (I'm not good with anger, whether mine or someone else's; it scares me.) And maybe even an amusing story.

I eventually started to look at what I had left, and get some ideas for how to salvage the page. I borrowed a few images from a book and the Web. It probably turned out better than it would have with my own grey photos.

But don't tell Oliver (the likely suspect). He's still in the dog house.

Parties Need Crafts, and Crafts Need Parties

I hate parties where you don't know people. Standing around trying to think of things to say. Field wide open for new people to judge me. Even if I love the host and I theoretically trust that their friends will be lovely as well, I still have a hard time getting myself there. Sometimes I just don't.

But I recently went to a party that bridged this... with champagne and a craft! Fabric collage postcards sewn to cardstock. (Apparently you can really mail them!) Everyone was busy with the fun task at hand, and conversation flowed (or didn't, no big deal) as we pleasede.

Brillliant! (Except for the people who fear art projects more than new crowds of people, sorry. But we could gently guide you to your creativity...) Kids parties, duh. Why not adult birthdays and family gatherings? And how about skipping the toilet paper wedding dresses and measuring the pregnant belly? We're thinking of going into business...

Why I love my job...

Just when I'm filled with frustration.
exhausted.
small set-backs feel like defeat.
moments away from just plain bitter.

I walk into a room of beautiful young faces.
greeted with exuberance.
playful conversation.
warmth.

my eyes soften.
a smile leaks out of my heart.
burdens evaporate a little.

I remember goodness.

A Whole New Bag

Inspiration can be around every corner. I see something, get an idea, another builds on that. With each idea, my spirit lifts. Possibility.

But too often something happens between idea and action. Perfectionism. Unstarted projects often hang around (often for years). Taunting me.

But something has been knocked loose recently. With encouragement from the right company, the possibility outweighs the fear. And once I get started, I can feel my brain chemistry change for the better. For the moment, it's somehow worth the risk to get into that space. Here's an oilcloth bag I cooked up while at Stitches and conquered within a week - unheard of for a sewing project in my world.


And here's a custom birthday crown for a friend's 50th. Any excuse for a little decoupage and glitter. And a reason to use grommets! Basic idea shamelessly stolen from cute novelty shop, with a few personal twists...


Hmm. What's next?!

Addicted to Britney

hold New vice: celebrity gossip. I blame the ladies at school with US Weekly on the faculty lunch table for getting me started. It's always been one of those things I secretly am drawn to but am trying too hard to be above it to admit I enjoy it. Even to myself, much less anyone else. Like General Hospital. And teen TV dramas...

I have a newly embraced general interest in most celebrity goings on (except for a particular lack of interest in Jessica Alba), but I have a completely compulsive infatuation with the Britney Drama. I never really thought much about her before, but suddenly I can't get enough. Since the 5150 hold, I can't wait for the daily (always slightly-conflicting) online updates. Train Wreck. Paparazzi stalker becomes new best friend? Wearing her wedding dress? British accent? Who's to say that any of us wouldn't crack under that kind of constant scrutiny. But regardless, I am now one of those horrible people who are feeding the monster. I know this media concocted reality may be far from actual life, and I'm repulsed by my own voyeuristic impulses. But I can't stop...

Perhaps nostalgic for my own not-so-stable times? But come on. Even at my worst, I look sooooo well balanced. I am so desparate to feel normal by comparison? Or just boredom? Escapism. Waiting for life to start back up again. Lapse in after-school activities. Inappropriate men of the moment lost their luster. No others in my sites. Everyone has someone in mind for me; not that that ever goes anywhere. Except our librarian supposedly has a cute nephew...

How to Mend a Broken Heart

I recently experienced the end of a romantic relationship. We hadn't dated for all that long, but I had grown quite attached and wasn't ready for it to end when it did. He was the first real contender I'd come across in a long while, and I wanted to see where it could go. But you don't always get to choose. Luckily, I remembered a few old standard break-up rules to get me started on the healing process:

1. Go shopping

2. Get a haircut.

3. Eat whatever the hell you want. But, then...

4. Join a gym.

I hate to say it, but the retail therapy actually really can help make you feel better. And I ate a whole cheesecake without remorse. I had already joined a gym for the dark and rainy winter months, and it felt fantastic to run hard. It took me quite a while for the haircut. I needed some time before I was ready for a fresh start.

Unfortunately, the real process beyond my simple rules was a little messier. After some quality bawling, then sniffling my way through a good week, I got good and mad. I completely forgot any reason that I ever liked him, and every annoying thing he ever did ran through my mind. Convenient and effective subconscious coping mechanism.

And I may have "acted out" a little. At least that's how I'm explaining reviving a few youthful bad habits, dressing up in a Catholic school girl uniform and making out with a 26 year old, and engaging in flirtatious correspondence with a (cute but) Republican football coach who insisted that relationships "weren't his thing" and instead argued the merits of more casual encounters.

And then I got sad. Not sad for the loss of this man in particular any more, but missing having my life intertwined with someone intelligent and caring again. My life was richer in relationship. Not easier or necessarily happier. (Have I explained that I have some issues, and nothing is easy?!) But as hard and scary as it was at times, it was alive.

Then one day out of the blue I was a little less angry and sad, and I felt the urge to finally make contact (I had been punishing him with my silence, you see). I gently explained my silence and conceded that I had made some assumptions along the way. And I threw in a reference to the fact that other men still found me attractive. (I'm not that mature.) But a weight lifted. I have done a very good job of finding peace with the end of relationships in the past, and I don't want that to change now. When I run into an old flame, I want to be able to give them a hug and feel genuine regard for them and what my time with them taught me.

Luckily, I never dove into the self doubting pit. It wasn't because I wasn't good enough. Itjust wasn't a match for whatever reason(s). Timing. Unresolved family issues. Whatever. I genuinely felt like it was His Loss. Which was very different than the monumental sinking of self esteem I experienced when a boy in high school broke up with me then parked his little black BMW outside my friend's house all summer. Glad to see we're making a little progress here and there.

The key this time? Unleash the anger. Not at anyone directly (that rarely helps). But let the confusion and disappointment and loss wash over you whenever it needs to. However you need to. And it seems to eventually wash out. I am grateful for this little bit of wisdom. And yet I still ask: I really need to learn more about ending relationships?! How about more lessons on being on the inside...

White Girl Meets Hip Hop

I went to see a friend of a friend's hip hop group last night. When they started to perform, I couldn't help but giggle that they were white boys from Ballard. But why is that funny? I'm uncomfortable. I feel sorry for them pretending to be something they aren't. They don't fit the urban, oppressed, black hip hop

mold. So their life experience and form of creative expression isn't valid?! But they're good. They are talented, passionate, and look like they are having

a whole lot of fun. Suddenly, I'm jealous because I don't have the guts to break out of my own mold.

I love real hip hop. The rhythm. The energy. The poetry of social justice. (I even love a lot of the crappy grind-up-on-that-... stuff. Don't judge.) But I enjoy it from afar because I feel I don't belong. I'm a white woman from a straight-laced middle class family in North Seattle. Getting dressed for my first exclusively hip hop show (Blue Scholars!) a few weeks ago was stressful. Could I be myself yet still fit in? (I decided a tight fitting hoodie and big hoop earings were the key, btw.) Luckily, it turns out hip hop in Seattle is very diverse. No one cares what you look like - they're too busy enjoying the music. As I should be.

On a continuing quest to chip away at my discomfort with the mystery of racial and cultural difference, I'm reading Black White and Jewish by Rebecca Walker and expecting to learn about a life experience very different from my own. I have; my dad never kept a shotgun by the door in case the Klan came around. But I also read about myself. "Because keeping a part of myself held back is what I've done to cope... opting instead to be partially known, reservedly intimate, I have no idea if I can tolerate what might be a less than accepting response." We have both struggled to untangle pieces of imposed identity while being suspended in the fear of judgement. If we could listen to each other, would we find out that human experience and emotion are universal?

We walk on eggshells when discussing things like race. It's so easy to emotionally trigger someone else without getting the chance to honestly explore what we meant and how it was received. Being familiar with fallout from emotional land mines, my self-preservation instincts tell me to steer clear. But I am no longer comfortable making assumptions about things I have not experienced and don't understand.

I have struggled with identity, perhaps more than many people because of some difficult life circumstances. But I have not struggled with or been made to feel inferior because of my racial identity. I have the luxury of belonging to the comfortable majority. I have recently come to accept that through no fault of my own, I have been led to participate in and benefit from a system of advantage based on race simply by being white in the United States. But now I know. I would be at fault if I continued carelessly from here. So I lean into the fear and try to ask more questions...

Bump in the night. And on the slopes.

I went skiing for the first time this season! With a cozy new raspberry-pink ski coat and a freshly knit hat to match, of course. The snow was great. But unfortunately, my own internal conflict overshadowed the potential fun. Why so afraid? It's like climbing... and the rest of my life. I am standing right next to sheer joy, but this big barrier keeps us separate. Fear of the chair lift, fear of taking a turn that looks too steep, fear of looking stupid, fear of losing control.

And what keeps me in my house when there are relationships and connection right outside the door? Fear of judgement. Rejection. I'm not smart enough, funny enough, attractive enough, thin enough, interesting enough... Perfectionism much?! All these years of therapy and it still has complete control of me sometimes.

On the eternal quest to figure out how to be happy in life and make a living while I'm at it, yesterday I decided I should go to design school and work in the clothing/textile industry. (FYI: A few months ago I was going to spend a year at an orphanage in Central America, and two years ago I was going to refurbish vintage Airstream trailers...) Just the idea that I could possibly do something all day that made me happy and make a decent living made me feel fifty pounds lighter for about two seconds. But then the fear and doubt slowly creaped it's way in. How would you even get in? What if you weren't actually any good? What were you thinking?! Until it's just another crazy idea to joke about. And I stick to what I know I know.

I was recently reminded how intoxicating good chemistry with another person can be (even with an immature republican football coach, but that's another story). Deliciously all consuming - concerns about all other responsibility and consequences (and reason, obviously) melt away for a while. I think fear is equally intoxicating in the opposite direction - into the dark side. It sucks me in and everything else fades to the background. And when I go through times when the fear gets louder than the belief in joy and love, I start waking up startled. Hearing more bumps in the night. Doors and windows suddenly exist only as potentials for intrusion. The other night, I actually forgot I had cats and spent a good minute in terror. In my anxiety-drunken state, life means danger. Isn't it amazing the power your mind has to shape your reality? And in the winter around here, I am pulled towards the shadows.

But as I keep skiing, less and less energy is fed to the fear. I start to catch glimpses of the familiar rush. I remember this is something I enjoy. My body knows what to do. Conversation becomes more interesting than worrying about falling 30 feet. I remember about trust. And joy. Now the trick is to get that to rub off on the other areas of my life...