free from the closet monster

I'm attempting a renewed effort to write here. I feel like it's good practice, if I want to develop a 'style'. Unfortunatley (or fortunatley, depending on your view), as a pisces, style is fluid. I notice it most in the way I dress- biker-ish chick one day, professional and polished the next. I feel I can assimilate into any environment, and differentiate when I want to. Would it be vapid and vain to discuss style for a quiet moment? The rhetorical question begs an evaluation of your view of style as an intellectual entity. The girl who cleaned my closet last week (I got rid of FOUR large garbage bags full of clothing- some I haven't worn since Junior High), has a definite position on style. She says that "how you present yourself is a reflection of how you're feeling inside". I have to say that minimializing the clutter in an area I consider important (my closet- the doorway to how I'm feeling), has almost lifted a weight off of me. I can focus on other things now. Shopping (one of my favorite activities) has been revitalized for me. I know what I have, what I need, and what I want. I'm more efficient at it, therefore I don't have to do it as much, I don't feel obligated to buy, and when I do, I know it's really something I need/want.

Basically, I've been blessed with some clarity in that area of my life. It leaves me time to focus on other things, and leaves me less frustrated in the morning.

So, for this week, I want to focus on writing- and make an effort to veer away from the vain and vapid. I want to experiment with style.

Three things I'm grateful for since my last post:
1. The closet clean. AMAZING.
2. Finishing my article-judgement/discussion comes Thursday.
3. A quiet weekend. Bless!

Below are photos, of my organized, color coded closet:

lost in words

I know I haven't written for a while. Why, you might ask. Well, I've been busy writing. My first attempt at slight infamy, I've slotted myself into the next issue of a local magazine. So last friday, I wrangled my photographer/bestie and headed to Saskatchewan to see what kind of trouble we could get into. I was ready for lame sauce, but instead, I got awesome. I was ready to protect my neck (as the Wu would say) but I would say we were greeted like long lost family. We met most of the people our age at the bar attached to our motel - yes, that's not a typo- there was a bar AND an off-sale (liquor store if you're not aware of the slang) attached to the Heartland Inn. Booming bass greeted our arrival, and as my travelmate informed me (she is a small town veteran), Friday nights are THE night in small towns. It definitley was. And of course, we had to get drunk enough to sleep in the dirty motel we had chosen.

Anyways, more on the trip later....gotta get back to writing!

Three things I'm grateful for since last post:
1. An AMA membership. They say curiosity killed the cat, and I'm curious. So driving through a snowy field to get a photo of an abandoned chruch didn't faze me. Until we got stuck. The tow truck driver was quite perplexed by our choices to say the least.
2. My bed. Never felt so good after the motel.
3. My bestie for being such a good travel buddy and fabulous photographer.

newspaper nonsense

My morning ritual is not to be messed with. Beans are ground. The coffee goes on. Into the shower and make uped and blown dry and dressed preferrably before I sit down for my first meal of the day. I like my coffee strong, unadultered. I prefer quiet, but don't mind the radio from my alarm. It repeatedly tells me the time and the weather, keeping me on track both satorically and time wise. I go get my newspaper, and sit down and enjoy that time, getting ready for the day- some calm before the storm.

This morning, pursuing my usual peruse of the newspaper, an opinion article caught my eye and made me mad. 'Fictional drivel'. My response to this appropriately titled article could only be remedied in writing, so I got to work, and got to work:

Letter to the Editor

Re: Fictional drivel- Barbara Kay, Opinions, Wednesday February 25, 2009

Ms. Kay's opinion that Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale is "merely a tale told by a feminist" takes an important and well-written piece of Canadian literature and reduces it to "signify nothing" in her one-sided interpretation of the oeuvre. Kay posits that dystopian fiction only deserves critical respect when its premises are grounded in psychological or historical reality. But Kay seems to miss the point that Atwood's tale is fictional and therefore should not need to be grounded in any reality, and must not parallel any guidelines that Kay's perspective demands.

Kay takes her own interpretation of the work as an ideologically, self indulgent nightmare and magnifies it, using examples of the Nazis and Lebensborn to give her perspective credence. Fair enough. Everyone has their own interpretation of the work, and that's the point: To incite discussion and to create a forum for competing perspectives. But publishing such a one-sided un-balanced perspective on the work seems more than irresponsible, rendering Kay's column an overblown piece of propaganda designed to influence the reading of this work and its use in public schools. The Handmaid's tale is a text that may or may not have a feminist angle, depending on your reading of it. Atwood's work deserves more from the Post than the hysterical fear mongering that Kay's article incites.

Pleased and intellectually satiated, I continued my day.

Three things I'm grateful for since the last time I did three things I'm grateful for:
1. Major restraint shown on my shopping excursion/walk around the mall with 3 inch heels excercise last week.
2. Confirmation that we're going to Saskatchewan to write an article for a magazine!
3. A good workout/crying on the tredmill/getting frustrations out at the gym with my Dad on monday.

the unstable myth

When I was younger, I wanted to be a Saint. Anyone who knows me now might think that out of character for a girl, who at 16, got gussied up to sneak out of Christian camp in an attempt to buy booze. But for me, it was a life that was rebellious and different. I devoured tales of lives of the Saints, admiring their dedication to one thing, a dedication that often superceeded their physical or personal needs. Their lives were mythical and their stories have survived for that reason. They said 'fuck you' to what society required at the time, weather that be marriage or paganism or materialism and did their own thing. I know that's what drew me to their stories- the courage to be different, no matter the consequences.

Being on the fringe of society fascinated me at different times in my life, the willingness to be above or below the 'normal' and say fuck the consequences. But now, It just seems more challenging to balance the expectations of society with my own quiet rebellions. It results in a kind of schitzophrenic identity that doesn't reconcile. In high school, the girl on the honor roll, A+ choir student was hitting up strip clubs at lunch with her pot head girlfriends and drinking vodka in church. I seem to be able to emulate the correct side for those people who need it most, the ones who don't want to think that reality is a stability that doesn't exist. It just doesn't always add up. And that's okay. Because, even if I don't know exactly what I want, I know I don't want to be 'normal' or 'average'. What the definite definitions of these words are are obviously negotiable, but, from my understanding of what that might be (something like a suburban horror story)- terrifies me.

So I will continue on, as a Valentine's day card a friend got from his dad said; to 'Be Bold'. Hopefully it's the myth I aspire it to be- minus the stoning/burning at the stake/whipping oneself type of story.

waking words

Sometimes in the twilight before I fall asleep or the dim mornings when I float between dreaming and waking, words threaten to overwhelm any potential sleep. Sentences run behind my eyelids, begging to be spilled on to a page or be typed out and read. I used to give in, but lately, I let it torture me, editing with my eyes closed, turning over variations of sentences and words in my brain. Then it's lost. In the waking world, the dream-like magic has disappeared, and they're just words again, not beautifully cadenced sentences singing like music to me and painting beautiful visions behind my closed eyes.

new year?

Does it feel like a new year to you? Because it doesn't feel like one to me. Change is constant. And as I just returned from a trip to visit family in Saskatchewan (did you even know it could reach -53 degrees celsius?) I observed some changes that I'm proud of (which I will cover in my top three today) while visiting with family there.

I wanted to discuss coming out of the closet. The blog closet, I mean. Not one person reads my blog presently, which means it is essentialy a diary- i'm writing to myself- or no one. I'm a closeted blogger because;
a) I don't really feel comfortable with anyone reading my daily musings; which may or may not be inconsequential but most likely are, and
b) why should anyone care what I think; it feels quite vain to expect anyone to care.
So for now, I remain in the closet. Should my writing miraculously improve or my self worth skyrocket suddenly, that may change, but for now, I'm writing for me to prolong that hour before the breakdown.

So to conclude, three changes I'm proud of this year:
1. I no longer feel the need to contribute to every conversation. Meaning, I'm okay just listening and evaluating without that anxious, itchy feeling that the group must must must know what I think about the subject as well.
2. I no longer feel lonely being alone, or feel like a loser if I'm not with friends every day of the week. I relish alone time with my book.
3. (Now this one I'm not so sure if I'm proud of, but it sure makes my life easier) I can last a whole day doing only one or two things at work and it doesn't feel like an eternity. (Otherwise my life would be hell, because my job is the converse of intellectually stimulating and doesn't expect a large or high output, unfortunatley).
I've coasted into complacency- which needless to say is the same as coasting into the suburban mickey d's drive through in your mini van with your two munchkins, on the way to soccer practice thinking about what kind of curtains you really want in your dining room and if the kids will just pull them down after two minutes and if you have enough time to do those 15 cupcakes before the school event tomorrow. All while wearing your Northern Getaway tummy stretch panel jeans and the 'funky' bejewelled t shirt in burgundy and that frosted pink lipstick the lady at lancome told you looked 'young'.
Quelle horreur. Seriously, you might as well take me out to the pasture and shoot me.
Happy 2009!