I don't know where I lost the will to write.

Writing is work. Even if that work is just sitting in front of a keyboard -- I still have to keep my fingers moving and sometimes, for a long time now, that's hard.

I was never great at being consistent. I never wrote daily or blogged regularly. But it got worse a year or two back. Then somewhere along the lines I had the incredible opportunity to interview Francesca Lia Block, but I wasn't in one of my blogging-success patterns and I really, really didn't give it my all. This was one of my dreams, people, and I didn't give it my all!
Thanks depression and dysphoria, so glad you could join the party...

After that I was caught up in the whirlwind of moving across the country and trying to find work and succeed at all in another place where the odds are stacked against us. Against everyone, really. I lucked out like crazy with an internship to get me through the doors and part-time job(s) to pay the bills, but lost essentially all of my creative energy and motivation.

Over time, this started to create a fuzzy little noise in the back of my mind, like a tumor reminding me that I've given up my creative and artistic goals and never accomplished anything. Then came poverty.

I love this city, but everyone knows it's kicking us out. My rent is literally double anything I've ever paid for housing before. My car is constantly one step away from repossession [I've since sold it --read; paid a lot of money to not have to pay for it any more]. We haven't bought groceries in over a month. Every time we've thought we were almost caught up, something else happened and we were at the bottom of the money hole again.

It's like all of my energy and motivation and hope has drained away in the last year, maybe it's just been too long struggling to make things work here, fighting possible homelessness over the last few months, going hungry for the first time in my adult life. I worked three jobs (one unpaid) over the summer and two after that fo
r months. When I lost one (the one I hated, luckily), I spiraled. I'd spent so long working 40+ hour weeks that I exploited my new-found free time. I'd go to work and I'd come home and I'd watch tv. Over and over. For months I overcompensated for a year of overworking. Getting to work on time became a small win. Doing the dishes; a big win. Working for more than 5 hours a day; huge.

Everything fueled this depression trying to creep over me, but I smoked lots of weed and curled up on the couch to watched tv. First I stopped writing. Then I stopped reading. Then I stopped being social. Then I stopped doing pretty much everything. It wasn't like my past depression -- curled up under piles of blankets with a black hole inside of my chest -- this was... almost functional. I assume, perhaps logically, that this difference is due to my being medicated now versus then, but who knows.

And we got through it pretty decently. We started to take walks more often, just to get off the couch. We found local resources for free food. We found ways to make a few extra dollars -- selling plasma, selling furniture, etc.. We played with our dogs more and we cuddled more and we keep our heads up and kept moving.
Mood-wise, we were okay: it was like doing yoga next to a crumbling cliffside-- sure, you're keeping your cool, but any minute now that wall of rock is going to collapse on top of you and kill you, and you know it's coming. This was my feeling pretty much all of the time. And every time I thought about something I could do to help myself -- write, read, be social, clean -- I just... didn't. I didn't have even the slightest bit of willpower to get my ass up and do anything.

Now is a little bit different.
Now I'm the sales manager where I was interning, a rad [i say rad, now, cause i'm a west coast grl.] publishing house that is getting bigger and bigger every year, and I'm excited to help them grow and succeed. They've been incredibly patient with me and my situations over the last year, and it is an amazing opportunity. I work with books all day and, basically, am doing exactly what I came here to do. If I work a full forty hour week (which I'm still working up to and it's slow-going) I have almost enough to pay my rent and car payment, and hopefully the electric bill (not our other bills though, of which there are many).
We're not even close to paying any of our bills, our taxes (holy shit it's a lot), our loans, my car payment, or being able to buy groceries any time soon. But we still have an apartment and we're constantly looking for somewhere cheaper. I have a reliable, grown-up sized paycheck coming in.
For the first time in months, there's this underlying feeling of possibility.

We're not okay, but every week it's more and more likely that we're going to be. There's something inherently freeing in that possibility.

Romance of Sadness

"My version of the truth is every letter I never sent and two broken watches sitting on my desk; one that slowly stopped ticking after five years wrapped around my wrist and one whose strap snapped as soon as I tried to put it on and I’m sure you could make a novella out of that but I do not want a metaphor anymore, I want you. Fuck meaningful glances and the smell of rain sneaking through my windowpanes in the early hours, fuck untaken chances, fuck serendipity, your heart is not an empty room. FUCK EVERYTHING I SHOULD HAVE SAID AND EVERYTHING I SHOULD HAVE DONE AND EVERYONE I COULD NEVER HAVE BEEN BECAUSE NONE OF IT WOULD HAVE BEEN ENOUGH. I am begging you to tear out your fears now and run and run and run from the romance of sadness because for however many birthday cards I keep, however many long poems I write, however many aeroplanes don’t crash, I only want your hand in mine. I want you a train ride away. I want to lick the stamp and walk to the postbox and know my love will find you."

-Finn (A Greater Reality)

2013.

My first note of the new year is to never again drink "Red Velvet" flavored anything unless you like to have your cake and drink it too.
We couldn't even finish the bottle, every sip left my mouth feeling like it'd been bathed in super-sweet cherry chocolate. I should have just gotten the cheap plain bubbly.
Oh well, we'll find something to celebrate for and drink champagne so I can get my yearly fix.

My NYE was uneventful, but happily highlighted by a small plate of sushi and a bottle of Hana Awaka (to myself). The sweet, sparkly sake is something I've turned into my own NYE tradition. Not cheap, but worth it once a year. Then the two of us played a quick practice game of Munchkin Bites on the floor and watched tv.

This week my focus has to be on editing and getting as much of my current assignment done before the school year starts back up. I want to have a paycheck on the way before I go back to the awkward, stressful mediocrity that is substituting.

My new years resolutions are mediocre as well, with just the same things that are pretty much on the list every single year. Not hard things, necessarily, but not simple, specific ones, either.

The two things I really want to do this year are to be more of myself-- which first requires me to really find out what that means, which is the hard part --  and to create more. I read recently that one of the problems today is that we are consumers, not creators. We consume what others have made; food, tv, games, music, books, art, etc., without creating enough of our own. I'd like to create something every day this year, even if it's as simple as a drawing or a blog entry or a story or a meal. Every single day; something created.

So go out and live and love and smile and create in the New Year.

Be Like Weetzie Bat : Wear it.

Ways to Be Like Weetzie

Number 21 :: Wear What You Want, Wear What You Love!

Wildfox photo shoot captures Weetzie's glamorous style

Weetzie is NEVER afraid to wear whatever she wants. When she finds something she likes, she goes for it and doesn't care what other people think of her. This is the case with many FLB characters and it should be the case for you!

For starters, get clothes you like. I love thrift stores (goodwill, etc) and outlet style stores (Ross, Marshals, TX Maxx, etc), and even the dollar store can have adorable purses and bits of plastic jewelry. Give yourself a certain spending limit each time and get a few things that make you excited when you see them. Things don't have to match when you buy them (although you might want to avoid something that you love but don't think you'd ever actually wear), just go for what you love.

"I was wearing my shiny leotard and my wraparound skirt, my cork sandals and Jontue perfume and Bonne Bell lip gloss." -Wasteland

Grab some accessories (or make them yourself!). Bracelets, anklets, knee high socks, slouchy hats, 

Native headdresses, Indian saris, hello kitty jewelry, stick-on body art, glitter tiaras, star shaped barrettes and hair bands, studded belts, rainbow suspenders, and so much more! Grab the cute little things that catch your eye (which never has to be expensive if you're in the right place) and top off all your outfits with bands of bracelets, thick colorful belts, military hats, or fingerless gloves!

Find some style icons. I love Zooey Deschanel, she's bright and pretty and whimsical, and I pretty much always love what she's wearing and how she looks. Find someone who has a fashion sense you like, and look to that person(s) for inspiration!

"Perdita is wearing antique lace, and feathers in her hair. She is wearing strands of beads, a plastic necklace filled with green glow-in-the-dark liquid and a glass bird ring. She is dancing by herself when she see me..." -The Hanged Man

Make a list of things you love/want to wear, and things that make you feel beautiful or stylish (I have two in my Bible). Every time you're taking an extra minute to piece together an outfit (keeping in mind that I only spend like 60 seconds doing this in the morning), scan through this list and find something that's in there. Wear it!

Go for fashion. I'm not a believer that everything has to match. But, it's easiest to make things look great when there's at least some kind of main theme. So try keeping certain colors together in your outfit (I really like green, purple, brown, black, and grey, and they happen a lot in my clothes lately) so that even if it's pretty wild, it at least has a sense of...flow.

You never have to pick one style. If you feel classic one day, go for it. Punky the next? Go go go! Bright and trendy the next? Yes! Sporty chic the next? Just do it!

Even if you never feel like dressing up and feel best when "dressing down" or just going around in sport suits or jeans and a tee shirt, just go for it! As long as you feel good in what you're wearing, that's what's important.

Don't think about other people. Dress for you, no one else.

If you're confident in what you're wearing, your much less likely to get strange looks from the people around you. You probably don't like what they're wearing that much, why should it matter if they like what you're wearing?
You love it, and that's what's important.

"Under the pink Harlequin sunglasses, strawberry lipstick, earrings dangling charms, and sugar-frosted eye shadow she was really almost beautiful. Sometimes she wore Levi's with white suede fringe sewn down the legs and a feathered Indian headdress, sometimes old fifties' taffeta dresses covered with poetry written in glitter, or dresses made of kids' sheets printed with pink piglets or Disney characters."
~Weetzie Bat

With a Whimper

This new year isn't promising.

Last year felt like an all time low, almost every single day, especially the second half of the year. But I don't even want to think about it.

I want to move on. I want to get better.
I want to make this year better.

So I started with my journals.

My Bible was neglected for a while, but it's picking back up.
So fast, in fact, that I'm starting to think about my next little black book.

Once again, I wrote down my wishes and Resolutions for the new year.

They're mostly the same as last year, but much more determined.

More money. More fun. More adventures. More laughs. More gym time. More water. More writing.

Then Dan bought me these adorable little mini-journals from Target, each with a national monument on the cover, maps of city undergrounds along the inside, and adorable little pages ready to be scribbled and doodled on.

I turned it into a Daily Log.
Did I exercise today?
Did I drink four glasses of water? Eight?
Did I do chores?
Did I kiss Dan?
Did I have fun?
Did I laugh?


I hope it becomes my nightly ritual.
Cross legged in bed with a book and a pen, checking off my day.
Did I write today?
Do something new?
Do something fun?


Hopefully these two things will give me the structure (and boost) I need to get through the first few months of the year, paycheck or no paycheck.
Since even though looking for a job and working and exercising are on my check list, so are laughing and kissing and pampering myself, maybe I can make sure my life is a mixture of work and play, which hasn't been the case this past year. It was work mixed with laziness and self pity, with the occasional bit of play.

This year, I want to be better. Fitter. Happier.