Katie’s Tent on the Beach

What you're witnessing here is the breaking of a bad habit.  Exciting isn't it? Here's what happened...

The other day I started a new blog.  [Insert joke related to the number of blogs I'm currently authoring here].  My thought was that I was sick of looking at this huge long list of archives, this stale design, this old and tired conversation that just kept happening in the same way all the time.  So I wanted a clean start.  I ambled over to Word Press and started me a blog. 

And then I got itchy about it.  I couldn't get it to look right. It didn't feel right.  I labored over the design only to be brutally rebuffed by the fact that you have to pay for the privilege of writing your own code.  Nothing was right.  And I found myself missing my little beach tent here.

But the realization of what I was doing hit me at Ikea, the jumbo house of overstimulating home improvement possibilities.  I took a trusty friend with me (hi Monica who doesn't read blogs) to help me stay focused. And as I stood before a blinding array of dressers, discussing whether I should get the six-drawer brown black or the three-drawer yellow, I said out loud, "Well, I wonder where else I'd be able to use this."  I was buying new furniture for my new place and thinking about how it might fit in the next place.  Monica (and this is the reason she got the Ikea nod...okay, actually she drove me there so that was probably a huge factor as well) just look at me like I was an ass and said, "Yeah, no." And then I saw the light.

For some reason, I am just uber-resistant to settling in anywhere.  I am a chronic re-starter...this may be directly linked to my perfectionistic tendencies...if it's not perfect, then I have to start over. I don't like to dwell on my past messiness or re-live the pain of it.  Somehow, the joy of it always gets lost.  I'm like that dog in Alice in Wonderland whose tail functions as a broom, sweeping up the path he just made.  I keep erasing my footprints.  And then I sit, head in hands, wondering how I have no history to lean back into when the times get tough.

So, the beach tent stays.  I am going to move it to it's own domain name so I can re-design it to be it's most glorious, tent-tastic self.  But the structure will remain.  As will the history that it represents.

It always amazes me that there are times in my life when the muddy path gets more well-marked, that a little light shines through the dimness, and that all that is sometimes fuzzy comes into clearer relief. I've learned to live for those times.  I can't neglect the time that I'm in, but often I find myself hoping for these moments because they're life giving and breathe a new kind of spirit back into everything.

What I'm always surprised by, though, is that these moments aren't always happy.  It seems like they would be.  No.  Sometimes they really surprise me.  Like now.

I'm down today.  I knew it was coming.  I hit a calendar date I was dreading and we all know how that goes.  There's always fallout.  There's always doubt and worry.  There's always speculation.  So much uncertainty.  But I find it remarkable that with these times that cast shades of dimness, there is always something that catches me off guard.  And today it's something in the resiliency of the human spirit.  Maybe it's mine a little bit.  It's definitely a friend of mine who just coincidentally did the exact right thing at the right moment. It's the unfolding of a lot of new beginnings. And it's in the ability to realize that even though today stings, it stings for the right reasons. That all of the uncertainty has an end that's foreseeable.

Maybe some would call these coping mechanisms but that seems dour.  They're living mechanisms through and through.  They allow persistence to happen.  And maybe even a little hope, too. 

Do you have a surf routine?  Because I sure do...

I always thought coasting around on the internet was fun because there were no boundaries.  I could click as fast as I wanted, be totally random...you know...just go with the flow.  Oh how I pine for the days when I could surf YouTube for hours (I'd like to think that whole activity is called "YouTubing"--like Inner Tubing but inside. On the computer. With a bowl of chips and a diet coke.) I was always thrilled by the possibilities.  What could I stumble on that would change the course of my day?  Exciting.

I realized today, as I'm sitting in my little gray half box here in Cubicleland that, just as any long term relationship does, my frenzied, quick-clicking love affair with Mozilla Firefox has become (dum dum dum)...predictable.  My days of surfing are gone, replaced by the rolodex-like efficiency with which I check all of my "stops" on the interwebs.  I have a whole cycle of sites and logins that have to be tended to.  My routine goes something like this:

1. Check e-mail.  14 messages appear every morning like clock work.  None are from a real human person that I know.
2. Check google reader.  Read FML (usually 26-30 quick twitter-like entries), Cake Wrecks, and Chicago Sun-Times first.  Then peruse the other 15-20 blogs I have in there.  If Meghan or Marc post, they get first dibs.  Nun blogs (of which I have a shiny collection) get saved for last.
3. Go to Facebook.  Noodle around there for awhile looking at the most recent newsfeed.  If there's a quiz that looks good, take it (and 12 others just like it.)
4. Check school e-mail.  NOTHING good is ever in there. It's the black hole of interesting things.
5. Write on one or both of my own blogs (I am literally in this step right now...it's the real thing, people.  This is not a drill).
6. Back to Gmail to futz around on Calendar or Documents for a little while (I do keep my school work in Documents, so that's a least a little legitimate).
7. Move on to doing other things (sometimes even not online...(gasp)) but keep Gmail minimized just in case something interesting comes in.

And so it goes every single day. What has happened to me?  How have I become boring in my online life? I'm trying to figure out the change.  I think I might blame Facebook as it's become the clearinghouse for all weird, wacky news that I used to glean from other sources independently.  But even still...I don't surf anymore.  And I miss it.  Frankly, I wouldn't even know where to go to start doing that again.

I'm just sitting here, hanging out on the sandbar gettin' a sunburn.  I gotta head back out and try to catch something interesting...right after I check my inbox...

I have a question.  So I was at Target this afternoon buying an overly-expensive yet completely-worth-it Sonicare toothbrush because my old one just pooped out last night. (Ack...Can't be mad, though, because I've only had it for 11 years.)  Anyhoo, I'm wandering at Target, as I am predisposed to do (because I haven't spent my requisite $100 yet and I'm afraid the universe will open and swallow me whole if I tempt those fates) and I wend my way into the deodorant aisle.  Now for my question:

Since when is it necessary that we use "clinical strength" anti-perspirant? And why does it have to come in 700 scents including "Mango Dream?"  Seriously, are we really so disgustingly sweaty that the masses should have to have smell control that's reserved for those who normally would have to go to the "clinic" to get their hands on it? And did this just start happening?  Because I'm pretty sure that in all of my anti-perspirant wearing days I've never really seen this phenomenon appear at Target before. 

Of course, I understand that there are those who have serious sweating problems and that these aren't new formulas or anything.  I also know that, despite all of my problems, this isn't one of them; I'm actually allergic to the aluminum in the stuff anyway so I gotta go the Tom's Natural direction.  But c'mon.  I can't believe that there are enough people who legitimately have this problem diagnosed to warrant an entire wall of the stuff at Target.  I also question why something clincal also has to have sparkly silver writing on it.  Do our pharmacists hang a disco ball and wear leisure suits? No.  They look like medical professionals.  They are clinical.  Because they deal with serious drugs.  Shouldn't we expect the same from boxes containing clinical strength anything?

I don't even want to think about what makes it clinical...more heavy metals that we're smearing on ourselves just so Stacy and Clinton won't pop up from around the nearest rack of clothes and besmirch our unsightly sweat.  Geez.  It's hot out there.  We sweat.  Shouldn't we be asking more questions about what we're putting on to absolutely stop that process for hours at a time? 

Of course, I basically put bleach directly on my teeth, creating a nauseating pain that lasts for days just so I can have a whiter smile.  I suppose we all pick our poisons, don't we.  But seriously....clinical strength Secret...it's like an oxymoron... 

Oh man.  I'm moving again.  I'm standing in my half-packed, half-unpacked, half-still-packed-from-the-last-move apartment realizing that the countdown has moved into the "weeks" range and I'm doing what I swore to myself I wouldn't do again at least for two years.  Moving.  I hate it.  But the frequency with which I do it suggests there's something I love about it.  Perhaps it's time to unpack that...both the apartment and the "stuff" surrounding it.

Last year at this time Meghan (hi Meghan) graciously agreed to search for new apartments with me.  What a trooper.  But she joked that I have a commitment problem and it's stuck with me; I think she hit on something of a universal , running truth for my life.  It's clear to me that I have a problem "settling."  I've never thought about it literally before but it's true.  The possibility that there's something better out there haunts my dreams.  It motivates my every move (including apartments).  It suspends me in something of a web of anxiety.  Searching, searching, searching.

So, here's the beauty of this move: It's a chance for me to do something I've not done ever, really.  It's an opportunity for me to allow this new place to become home and not just my "Tent on the Beach." (Wow...the implications of this are far-reaching...I might have to do a blog overhaul.)  I think, possibly out of sheer exhaustion, I need to stop searching and just learn to settle here...as the first settling in a series of settlings that, I think, I've been putting off for a long time.

Yesterday I read an article about contentment...I always read these things like I would an instruction manual: "How do I get this Contentment?"  The point was really good.  It basically said it's a matter of choosing it.  Contentment is always there for the taking.  It's being appreciative for what you have and letting the reins loosen on what you want.  It's a living in the present, I guess. It's letting go of searching so fervently.  Already I feel better.

What a nice thought: to fully believe that, in 3 weeks, I'm going home.

[Sigh of relief.]

There is certainly something to be said for quiet.

I went home to Cleveland this weekend, a place not known for its quiet.  My brothers were home with their respective dogs in tow, so our house is not a place known for its quiet.  But, I ended up sleeping on the living room floor and I'll tell ya, when everyone had gone to bed and I was lying there, trying to fall asleep, there was quiet and somewhere in its folds was a little peace.

We somehow tend to assume that silence and quiet are the same.  They are not.  Since I've started writing again, I find that silence fills a lot of my days.  I spend long stretches of time in spaces designed to block out noise, other's conversations, and the sounds of life.  It's those places in which the buzzing of fluorescent lights starts to wear on me.  There is no peace in that kind of silence.  My attention-deficit mind yammers along barely stopping long enough to catch its breath before launching into four separate conversations simultaneously. The tap of the keyboard always pushes through. That silence can drown a person.  It gives me anxiety and makes me run from it.

Quiet, though.  Quiet is not the absence of noise, like silence is, but the absence of want.  Quiet is rest. Several moments of quiet strung together can be peace.  And several stretches of peace strung together can become contentment.  Quiet is calm.  Even when there's noise, there can be quiet.

I have to remember that.  I've been mistaking silence for quiet for too long and it's taken it's toll; I find myself getting angry and scared when those stretches of silence leave me agitated and edgy.  I have to remember that one is not the other.  And start to look more readily for the state made possible by resting.

I'm in search of some quietude.

There are some people who I really wonder about, made more interesting by the fact that I do not know them.  Oprah is one.  Rachael Ray is another. (Sandra Lee is also another but she gets her own post--and has on this blog already.) Back to Rachael. We've watched said perky, non-chef, cookery maid change already simple but lovable "American" cuisine for the worst by introducing the concept of 30-Minute Meals which allows us to revel in dishes like "Zangy* Hot Dog Nachos" (ugh...a conundrum for me because I shamelessly LOVE both components but love them for who they are separately...c'mon) or "Rootin' Tootin' Cowboy Chili...which is regular chili with a completely asinine adjective attached.  I'm begging you not to get me started on the aforementioned adjectives that, upon reaching my ears, create such intense rage I feel the only way to deal with it is violence. (EVOO, GB, WTF...that last one's mine).

Of course, I blame Bob Tushman--who belongs in the 7th circle of Hell with fellow blood-traitors to the human race Dick Cheney and Sarah Palin (thrown in really just as a Cheney torture device)--who I firmly believe will get his in the end.  But back to Rachael.  Here's the shameless part.  After giving us 279082908374 episodes of meals full of carbs, saturated fat upon saturated fat (see "Zangy Hot Dog Nachos"), all the while calling them healthy because there's some vegetable presence, she's peddling a diet plan...on Facebook. AAAAHHHHHHH!!!!  As if I haven't seen enough of the cookbooks, the spices, the pots and pans, the television show, the magazine, the dog food (I'm not kidding).  Now we need a diet plan and why?  Because her original claim to this world, giving us healthy quick meals, has actually failed.  Turns out "rootin' tootin'" is just another way to say "McDonalds". So, does she admit that things didn't work out the way she thought?  No.  She saves us with her awesomely unique diet plan based on the brilliant principles of "eat less" and "exercise."  Thank God for RR. 

I'm beginning to wonder how to really respond to this phenomenon which is becoming a real issue.  Now that we've got all of these flash-in-the-pan celebrities who are famous only on personality without any discernable talent or skills...how do we stop it.  I say it's a two-prong attack.  Put the credit card away and turn off the tv.  Apathy, people.  The answer isn't anger and resistance.  I think it's apathy.  Maybe if we just don't care, she'll go away. This'd take care of Billy Mayes and the Luna people too. 

*Um, of course, "zangy" is a fun combo of the words "zesty" and "tangy"; one such linguistic device that has eaten away at our already sad grammar and vocabulary prowess in this country.  And it infuses an implied level of fun into this food that I find objectionable.       

Wow, it's been a long time.  I only realized this when Kaye, friend and Alto II extraordinaire, mentioned that her RSS feed hadn't lit up with my stunning and evocative discussions of real-life issues (see specifically any posts tagged "free floating crazy"...which I have to admit is my most favorite tag I've ever come up with...) This month has been a rough one and so my witty observations have taken a back seat to what I thought was more intense introspection which then, as it does, turned into brooding.  Eh...can't win 'em all.  But, I did have some deep down, essential conversations with myself on a couple key issues of existence and I'd like to share with you what I've learned.  In no particular order:

1. I love Kelly Clarkson.  Go ahead and judge. I cannot explain it.  I hate American Idol.  I hate other American Idols (excluding Carrie Underwood who I just mildly disdain).  But when this girl sings, so do I.  I have been belting out "I Do Not Hook Up" for DAYS and I intend to continue that trend.  I have really always loved her.  I'm just more comfortable saying it now.

2. Alternative titles for #1 could be "I Love Lady Gaga," "I Love Gwen Stefani," "I Love Pink," or "I Love Christina Aguilera." These I'm actually not ready to be judged for so they didn't get the nod, but it's true.  I can listen to "Hollaback Girl" 27 times in a row and never tire of it. I've talked about this before but I'm still working through it.

3. #s 1 and 2 are directly related to this: I can't believe I've lived without an Ipod for this long. Admittedly, I've been something of a Luddite when it's come to music.  I've always listened to the radio and when my last walkman broke I just never replaced it.  But this Ipod business has changed my life.  Not only can I have 4789372 songs with me at all times...but I can arrange them however I want.  And then rearrange them.  This is revolutionary to me.  However, with that power comes the need to choose.  When I was listening to the radio, I could blame them for Kelly Clarkson.  My Ipod, in all of its green wonder, has forced me to come to grips with my schizophrenic music tastes.  All on the same playlist I have Grayston Ives (contemporary choral), The Mamas and the Papas, Moby, and Beyonce.  I feel dirty about this.  But also soooo good. Mmmmm.

4. Bea Arthur is one of my heroes. I never wanted to admit it.  But it's true.  I've just rediscovered "The Golden Girls" because WE tv, god bless their hearts, are running these enormous GG marathons everyday.  She was the heart of the show and it was funny. And it still is.  Then, I caught Maude on ME tv and she was the heart of that show.  And it was funny. And it still is. I feel this same way about Elaine Stritch who's surfaced as Jack's mom on 30 Rock.  These baudy, bold, brassy broads--that's who I wanna be.

5. I do not hate Sociology. The lack of blogging can be directly attributed to the fact that I've begun to write in the first time in over a year.  It's always a relief to be revived by the ideas. What's even more rewarding is having taken this year to regroup, I can synthesize my experience and these ideas much more insightfully.  Wait, hear that? Oh, it's just me breathing again...I forgot how lovely fresh air can be.

6. I operate on a see-saw that swings between fear and fearlessness. Never before in my life have I been so aware of this dichotomy.  I'm either paralyzed by fear or shocking the hell out of myself in being bold. I've tried to change this for a long time.  That's a stupid struggle.  I will not change.  But what I can do is learn how to manage that transition better. I'd love to explore the world of moderation. That's my next big challenge.

7. If you allow them the chance, worthy people will surprise you in great ways. I'm always amazed by this. But I've become very aware of the importance of the first clause.  So much of our lives are about perception.  I'm now convinced more than ever that if we want change we have to allow for it.  The stage must be set.  Once that's done, amazing things can and often do happen.

8. Fuck Napanee. This one's for Kaye too.  But that trip deep into the wilds of Amishland in Indiana was a breath of fresh air.  Much like the Garage Mahal that I fully intend on swinging by next year.

I'd love to round this up to 10 but this is what I got for now.  Life's too short and I haven't laughed enough yet.  I'll get back to ya on the other two before too long, I'm sure.

Thanks Kaye for re-lighting this blog's spark just a little ;)  

I'm so predictable sometimes.  There are times that I do things that totally surprise me.  Today's not one of them.  It's Sunday which means 1) I'm totally restless, 2) I'm resistant to the new week, 3) I can't focus on anything, and 4) I also can't fall asleep.  Thank god I just found Lost on late night network tv, so that should help.  But I'm still trying to get to the heart of my restlessness.  Why does this happen?

I just read the last blog I did and I think it's related to this feeling right now.  I had a super week.  It was REALLY good, perhaps just because we're getting to a point in the year that I've been looking forward to for awhile.  And, to my surprise, my support system has just gone nutso in the best way possible this week.  They may know that and maybe not but I keep getting this horoscope that I'm loved and respected and I think it's not kidding.  That's exactly how I've felt all week long.  Every day was better than the next.  And then today happened and it was good.  Not awesome.  Not spectacular.  Just good. And (here's the crazy part), it seemed like a letdown.

So, maybe I'm not restless.  I'm just selfish.  I get too attached to the great things going on and when I have a "normal" Sunday, it seems sucky.  And, I'll be honest, some great things happened today too.  I think they just weren't what I wanted to happen.  And what would that be?  I don't know.   There it is.  That's the problem.  I just don't know what I want.  OR I know what I want and that I just can't have it. Or won't.

I generally never say this, but I'm looking forward to tomorrow.  I'm pretty sure it'll have some answers.