I get chills every time I watch this. The world really is an amazing place. Even when it feels like a parade of headaches and bills and traffic jams, things like this exist. Damn, Mother Nature. You know your stuff.
Murmuration from Sophie Windsor Clive on Vimeo.
I did all the right things in high school. Did most of the right things in college. Then I just...got lost. For about a decade. Fine, twelve years. Yes, entire humans have been born and grown and developed personalities and philosophies and complex orthodontia in the time that I was lost. Lost. I was lost. That's hard to admit.
I knew I wanted to write. I did write, but in a haphazard, aimlessly ricocheting, how-can-I-pay-the-bills-this-month sort of way. I didn't feel confident enough to write what I wanted to write, the things I admired and loved to read. Confidence - or the ability to churn out final products without confidence - is essential. I had neither.
From the outside, it looks like not a lot has happened to me. No marriages, no children, few relationships, few accomplishments of the Duly Impressive Sort.
My journey has been very internal. The day you learn that you can be blisteringly unhappy on the back of a boat in the Caribbean after eating shrimp and drinking white wine is the day you stop striving. There's something grimly comforting in realizing that you can be deeply unsatisfied when you have everything you ever wanted and deeply content even if you're single, unemployed, and over 30.
I mean, what? That just doesn't make any sense.
But it taught me that the inside of my brain informs my entire world - so it doesn't matter what that external world looks like or what I do. What matters is what I think about what I do. Because you take the inside of your brain everywhere you go. It wouldn't matter if I was writing a novel in my apartment in Paris or sitting in Poughkeepsie watching Real Housewives if the evil pixies in my brain are making trouble. Telling me I'm not good enough or not smart enough or not successful enough or just not enough.
Not enough? No. No, you sweet, misguided pixies. We are all enough. I am, you are, your weird cousin is. But everyone has to find that sweet spot for themselves. In their own way, whether it's doing all the things or doing none of the things. And then we have to find it again. And again. And again, until we realize that it's never found, it's a simply a process of finding and forgetting and finding again.
All I really want from my life is to be at peace with myself. Maybe to be a place of peace for others.
Peace, the blessed silence that comes when you're not concerned about what you're doing or what anyone else is doing or what place those actions have on the bell curve of right and wrong, impressive or not-so-very. It's when right and wrong don't exist any more because you're always acting from a place of love.
Acting from a place of love requires a centered mind and heart, vigilance and patience. It's something I've managed, if I'm being generous, maybe .003 percent of the time. But finding peace will matter more to my life and to those who know me than if I ever write anything else again, much less something brilliant or successful or - with enough questionable goat sacrifices - both.
Maybe I wasn't lost over that decade so much as I was freewheeling through my brain and my psyche and, dare I say it, my soul to find that confidence. That center of me from whence all the good stuff springs.
Coach Taylor (and Eleanor Roosevelt) says, "Success is not a goal, it's a by-product." I want my writing to be the by-product, not the goal.
Because that peaceful place produces good work. Because being at peace with the inside of my head means I'm wholly focused on laying down whatever words I have in that moment. Sometimes the good is pretty darn good, sometimes it's average, sometimes it's an unholy mess. But writing from a place of peace and love is how I can do the work I feel I'm meant to do.
And we all have work we're meant to do.
I will always be writing, whether I'm working as a secretary somewhere or getting advance copies of my book delivered to a bungalow in Costa Rica. Because I'm a writer. That's what I do.
But it was never about writing. Writing is the messenger, not the message. The message is what I found for myself while lost for a decade. The message is that the more peace I can hold for myself and for others, the better I can write. And the better I can make my small corner of the world. The message is going to be honed as I spend my next decades being found, being lost again, finding, losing, and finally realizing that it's all the same.
If I was going to feel overwhelming envy for a person who only exists in the realm of fairytale, you'd think I'd pick someone cool like Cinderella. Cinderella gets to ride around in a souped-up pumpkin and has a fairy godmother who gives her things. That sounds fun.
But, no. Instead, I choose to go insane with jealousy over Rip Van Winkle's sleep schedule. A hundred years sounds just about right today.
Reason I work for myself #48: So that when someone's having a rough day because they took a super early flight that morning and didn't have time to eat before going to work, I can ask if they want me to drive over with bacon. And I can mean it.
Don't be too impressed, because 1) I demanded sainthood and a lot of praise for this and 2) I already had the bacon and 3) He was only ten minutes away. If he worked in North Hollywood, forget it. I'm not that nice.
Bacon delivery, check. So that's Monday down. Leaving...the rest of the week. Crap. This is why I have to make grand pronouncements. Otherwise I'd never follow up.
That was handy. Thanks, to-do list.
And the winner is...Snoozical! As chosen by the random number generator thoughtfully provided by the internet. Congratulations, Snoozical! For winning at the internet and for that adorable new baby.
I dance like a turkey in public. Then I do it again. Then I do it a third time in case you missed the first two. I threaten to show up at your Christmas party dressed as a Christmas pirate. I might make you go ice skating with me. At some point in our relationship, I will probably eat all your food. I will always eat all
your dessert.
I might come to your house with bacon. But only if you're geographically convenient.
This is probably my favorite music video ever. If I walked into a gym and saw four guys in colorful skinny jeans doing this on the treadmills, I would have to die. Because my life would never again be so full of unrelenting amazing. So, uh, I guess I have to hope that never happens. Following this logic to its inevitable conclusion, does never seeing such a thing at the gym mean I get live forever?
Which is better: Immortality or dudes making unexpected and whimsical use of the treadmills?
I DON'T KNOW. I JUST DON'T KNOW.
Yesterday, I drove from Los Angeles to San Jose where I'll spend Thanksgiving with my family. My only companions were Siri and a lot of caffeine. My new phone arrived a few days ago and Siri and I spent the long drive getting to know each other. Basically, "getting to know each other" equals me pressing her little button and telling her to do things and her sitting there and taking it. I wouldn't blame Siri if she felt a little used.
Siri is good at playing music and a champ at finding the nearest Starbucks. She likes it when you speak clearly to her and only occasionally willfully misinterprets your request. She also sends texts, which is a life saver if you're by yourself in a car for six hours and don't mind sounding like English is your second language.
When I was texting with Sexy Jesus, instead of telling him "Lots of cows. No beer." Siri said "In Calais. No fear."
Siri thinks my life is a lot more interesting than it really is.
In a creepy are-we-about-to-find-ourselves-in-a-Battlestar-Galactica-situation kind of way, getting to know Siri is like getting to know a person. You have to figure out how to talk to her. You have to learn how to interpret what she says. Sometimes she gets your point right away, sometimes she never does. Sometimes she understands your request, but can't do what you want her to.
Three hours into my trip I realized that I'm having a weird little relationship with my iPhone. So I tossed her onto the seat and turned on David Sedaris instead.
--
30 Days of Magic update:
Autumn colors. Siri. Allowing emotions to just be what they are. Learning, slowly, to choose what to focus on. Knowing that I can decide where I put my attention and where I spend my time - and those are the things that will flourish. Feeling my perspective shift as soon as I remember that I have to find at least one #magicmarker for the day.
Petting an enormous dog with a gentle face and hopeful eyes as he sat in a chair like a human while his people got coffee in Buttonwillow. Deciding to move to Buttonwillow and buy a house there just so I can write the word Buttonwillow every time someone asks me for my address. Meeting the dog's owners in the caffeine line. They were so happy that I stopped to pet him because, despite his sweet face and argyle sweater, he's still a giant pitbull and sometimes people find him intimidating.
Dessert masquerading as coffee in those red cups. The Thanksgiving poem I wrote in 2006 about a turkey escapee named Fred. Thanksgiving with my family. Going to a whiskey-swilling, boot stomping, bluegrass-listenin' Turkey Trot with friends.
--
If you have any #magicmarkers, I'd love to hear about them in the comments or on the Twitters. It's a nice way to procrastinate for a few minutes. As a champion procrastinator (I mean, not to brag), I highly recommend it.
It's amusing how quickly looking for good things turns into a chore. "Ugh. I have
to look for magic again. Didn't I just do this? It's been five whole days. I'M EXHAUSTED." Yup, I'm that kind of asshole. But then my ornery mood evaporates and I'm left with a dog sprawled across my bed and rain on the windows and it's all quite nice.
Weekend magic: Dog butts carefully perched on my bed, naming my new iPhone "The Oracle," eating spicy peasant food while talking about other food, pressing send on a batch of copy, turning on my red glowing heater and pretending it's a fireplace, nice conversations with friends, lying in bed and listening to the wind in the trees, making my first Twitter list ever for #magicmarkers.
Marcel the Shell with Shoes On was my favorite internet thing last year. It might be my favorite internet thing ever. Last week, Marcel the Shell Part Two came out. There were many expostulations of unholy glee that day.
My love for Marcel is a deep, true thing.
P.S. The second Marcel video is how I ended up calling myself The General when my new phone told me to sign up for games. Why, yes. I am calling myself The General while doing anything my phone tells me to.
If you have any daily magic or love letters to Marcel, you should totally leave them in the comments.
My favorite novel hasn't been written yet. My favorite TV show hasn't been made yet.
My favorite movie hasn't been thought of yet.
My favorite song hasn't been recorded yet.
My kids haven't been born yet.
I haven't eaten the best meal of my life yet.
I haven't been to Barcelona yet.
(Good things will happen in Barcelona.)
I haven't reached my full potential yet.
Neither have you.
Because we're both still alive.
So there are a lot of things to look forward to.
--
30 Days of Magic update: Gingerbread for breakfast. Disneyland with its time traveling telephones and short roller coaster lines. My newly minted ability to turn coffee invisible so I can sneak it past the guardians of the hallowed gates. Realizing the nearby tree was blocking every last firework and watching dozens of people laugh uproariously instead of imperiously demand its immediate removal. Lemon ricotta french toast eaten under a chandelier. Time with my family. #magicmarkers
Here are the bits of awesome I found in my first day of Project: Make, Find, Be Magic. I won't do this every day, because we'd all be exhausted and annoyed by day four, but I thought the inaugural day deserved recognition and praise. Tuesdays are sometimes misunderstood, you know. Sometimes they just want to be acknowledged like a Friday or that smug bitch Saturday. Thanks, Tuesday. You were so worth it.
My magic was found in conversations, in a red package on my doorstep, and in saying, "Dude, I want to do some sweet creative projects" and having sweet creative projects fall on top of me.
(No Ambers were harmed in the making of this Tuesday.)
--
Me: "My name means petrified sap. I don't like the implications."
My aunt: "Don't forget semiprecious."
My mother: "You catch a lot of really great bugs!"
In my parents' defense, I do catch a lot of really great bugs.
--
If you don't count my shoes, I didn't pay for a single thing I wore to dinner with my my family last night. Clothes tend to arrive unexpectedly on my doorstep these days and the big scarf/shawl thing I'm wearing - softest, warmest, brightest, yay - was found in a red box just that morning. This magically-appearing outfit sponsored by Gap.
I suspect that shawl will spend a large percentage of its life being turned into a pillow so I can nap in public.
--
Having the self-proclaimed brilliant idea of tagging this experiment Magic Markers. I'm still not sure if it's real genius or if I just need more sleep, but I'm going with it. So I'll be tagging things on the Twitters with #magicmarkers.
If you feel inclined to join, it would make my day. Maybe my month. You'll definitely be labelled magic. (HI, MIKAEL!)
--
On Monday, my first piece of fiction to ever see the light of day went up. I call it Monster Regret. Then one of my favorite artists offered to illustrate my monster for me. Now it's turning into a whole project and I can't wait to show you guys what it becomes.
For my last piece of Day One Magic, my monster landed in my inbox. This totally counts, even if my computer firmly refused to open the file.
--
Anything magical going on in your lives? Real magic or stuffed into the category by sheer dint of will? Are we sick of the word magic yet?
You can do a lot of things in 30 days. You can eat 30 bowls of Rice Krispies. You can - apparently - write an entire novel. You can rip a page off your calendar and dramatically intone, "Well, another month closer to DEATH." You can also tell yourself you're going to do a Project. A project that sounds a little overly earnest and Oprah-tinged or like you've read Harry Potter one too many times, which let's face it, you totally have. But that's okay. There is a place for earnestness in this world, and apparently that place is my blog.
Sadly for a few dearly cherished ambitions, a month spent devoted to magic won't actually turn me into a wizard. But if I look for magic every single day from now until December 15th, I'm certain to find some.
I did a similar (un-blogged) project a few years back and it was startling how much more attention my life and my surroundings got when I had an assignment. FIND MAGIC. MANUFACTURE MAGIC. INVENT MAGIC. IT'S HERE SOMEWHERE. FUCK. FINE, FINISHING THE DISHES AND PRETENDING THEY WERE WASHED BY JAUNTY HOUSE GNOMES COUNTS AS MAGIC.
Imagination is where all magic starts, after all.
Today I begin my month of poking under rocks and barreling around corners in search of the amazing. It starts at Disneyland (magic commodified! appropriate!) and ends...who knows where. Well, it ends on December 15th. But you know what I mean. Hey, look. I'm already lapsing toward the prosaic. Real life: 1. Magic: 0.
If you want to try it with me, please do. Just decide to spend a month finding or creating magic every single day. Yes, watching a dog in a purple sweater spinning on his hind legs for treats counts as magic. Yes, finding that mythical parking spot right by the front door of Trader Joe's counts as magic. Yes, clearing your inbox counts as magic. Yes, hallucinatory unicorns count as magic. So if you need to spend a lot of time on gmail or toss back a few shots of absinthe to meet your quota, have at it.
Spend 30 days focused on finding magic in your life wherever it hides and something will shift, guaranteed. I can't wait to see what happens.
I love everything about this video - the idea, the execution, the travel, the hot guy walking toward me. Then he starts smiling into the camera and it's over. Major Web Crush: Ignited.
MOVE from Rick Mereki on Vimeo.
Oh god, the talk. You know the one. The one that makes your stomach drop into your sneakers, leak out the holes meant for your shoelaces, and start digging its way to Bolivia. Or maybe your stomach doesn't do that because you have a healthy relationship with communication. I DON'T KNOW. WE'D HAVE TO TALK ABOUT COMMUNICATION FOR ME TO KNOW THAT ABOUT YOU AND - AS JUST ESTABLISHED - I DON'T DO "TALKING." OR "COMMUNICATION."
I do believe that talking things out is healthy. I do believe that having difficult conversations and emerging alive can strengthen a bond. I do believe it's good to know where everyone stands so you can move forward fully informed.
Sadly, I don't know how to integrate any of this into my actual life, the one I actually live. As opposed to the one I just think about a lot.
In my experience, Talking tends to end badly. So I cope by repressing until it's physically impossible to corral all my thoughts and feelings into one head. So my angst starts encroaching on the mental space of those around me until some poor, unsuspecting 56-year-old married man standing next to me on the street corner waiting for the light to change is baffled by his sudden concern about what a 32-year-old computer programmer thinks about him.
For the good of innocent bystanders everywhere and my own desire to be a healthy adult with good relationships, I'm learning to forge new pathways in my brain. Pathways where Talking = Healthy Relationships. Instead of Talking = Harbinger of Doom.
So far, I've managed Talking = Four Minutes of Profound Discomfort That End Relatively Well, All Things Considered.
Progress.
With the advent of Spotify, the little box on Facebook that tells me exactly what's going on with everyone all the time exploded with song titles of coolness I can't begin to calculate. This marked a profound realization: There is some information I will never willingly share with the world. I may tell you about my bad moods, gynecological issues, the dog, and my uncomfortable attraction to a man I will never meet. (HI, RYAN!) But you will never know what I listen to. I consider it a public service. Here's why.
Amber is listening to a crappy song.
Amber is listening to another crappy song.
Apparently once wasn't enough, because Amber is listening to that first crappy song again.
Amber looooves her crappy songs.
Amber is listening to a slightly less crappy song.
Hey, look! Amber chose a good song.
Feel proud of Amber. She is growing.
Amber is listening to another good song. Good for Amber.
Now, she's listening to...whale mating calls?
Followed by something no one's listened to since 1997.
Amber is listening to another crappy song.
One by one, Amber's friends are threatening to disown her if she plays this song anywhere in their zip code.
Amber is listening to classical music because she likes the cannons.
Yes, the 1812 Overture has cannons. Because Tchaikovsky was a bad-ass.
Amber is listening to another crappy song.
Facebook feels compelled to inform Amber that once someone is past the age of 30, they're not supposed to listen music by anyone who spells their name with a dollar sign. A dollar sign is not a letter.
Amber has obviously been scarred by roadtrips in her youth, when her mother listened to nothing but the soundtrack to Oklahoma!
Yes, there's an exclamation point in Oklahoma!
Amber has left her computer to dance around the room like an overly-caffeinated muppet. There might be a dollar sign masquerading as a letter involved.
Sorry, Facebook friends with good taste.
I didn't know who Jonathan Harris was until this video landed in my inbox a few days ago, but it took him approximately 12 seconds to land on my Serious Web Crush list. 1) He went to Bhutan to ask people about happiness.
2) He gave them balloons.
3) He looks like a cherub with a microphone and a passport.
How could you not love a guy like that? He also asked each of the people he spoke with for a wish. The wishes were startling in their simplicity. Well, startling if you inhabit the first world and have an awkward tendency to take your car and your education and your independence for granted.
Note to self: Don't do that.
Therefore! I present to you this week's video - a ten minute blast of color and perspective.
You have this body. A pre-assigned meat suit you were born with, that hurts when you bash it and feels good when you rest it and lets you taste cheesesteak and spot red balloons in that blue, blue sky. You can dance with it. You can run with it. Its finely tuned responses and firing neurons help you drive the car that someone else's firing neurons helped invent. Amazing. Then there's your brain. Where everything really happens anyway. Nothing in the human experience escapes the story we've invented. As much as those stories torture us sometimes, the brain is also where all the great stories come from. West Wing, Friday Night Lights. David Sedaris, Sarah Vowell. Jane Austen, Milan Kundera. Each brain filters its stories differently and sometimes people write them down, giving us all access to endless variations. That's an incredible thing.
But the brain is noisy. Full of agitated, hungry hamsters. That's okay. You learn not to judge what goes through your brain because that's a big, fat waste of a life. I speak as one who's wasted a good 75 percent of her waking hours listening to the hamster brain. Hush, hamster brain. You can go to sleep now.
That's why we all like sex so much, I think. There's a moment, right at the good part, when your brain just...stops. It's still. Almost the only time it's ever still. This is amazing. It's peace. For the six whole seconds before it starts up again, prodding you to remember that maybe you did that one thing wrong and your partner maybe isn't the best person for you to sleep with and you have a deadline in two days... yup, there it goes. But for one minute, there was relief. Even grace. Sometimes love. It's best with love.
Work. Work and money. That's fun too, if you look at it the right way. People are always making amazing things. For work, after work, during work when maybe they should be doing something else. Everyone is creating. The smart ones are getting paid for it. Money is a game when you think about it. How you can collect enough of it to board planes and buy birthday gifts and eat toro sushi on dishes someone else will wash for you.
Then there are the monsters. The gremlins. The trolls. Most of them live in your head - worries that never actually happen, worries that do happen but weren't nearly as bad as you thought, worries you never thought to worry on until they blindsided you on a Wednesday morning. Evil little gremlins that look like parking tickets, that cold you can't shake, abuse, unbearable loss. But if you look at them and feel them and love the gremlins, as best you can, they evaporate. Not the illness, not the unbearable loss, but holding love in the midst of pain gives you just enough space to breathe again.
Here's my favorite part - the people. The people you love. The people you hate. If you don't hate anyone - and you probably don't - there are the people who aggravate you or manipulate you or teach you how to hurt. So you learn how to get over that hurt. You learn that no one can manipulate you unless you let them. No one can hurt you unless you allow it. You resist that lesson because it means that maybe you didn't have to hurt as badly as you did or for as long. But maybe you did. Because that's how you learned. Don't get caught in that particular hamster wheel. No regret. Keep moving forward.
Because you have the world. The great, wide world. Stuffed with elm trees and hot sand and endless stretches of concrete with grass poking out of the cracks. You can see as much or as little of it as you want. Every piece has its own microcosm, until it barely matters what you see and what you don't. That patch of daisies on the corner of the cul de sac where you grew and lived and died has as much as the Amazon rain forest or the Great Wall of China.
Life is a playground. An astounding, incredible playground. I rarely remember this. Most adults don't, I suspect. Kids do. Kids are full of joy and rage and live everything fully and loudly. Until we teach them to forget, because forgetting is how you get through a world where most don't remember. Twenty or forty or fifty years later, you begin to recall what you once knew. That making things just for the joy of creating is good. That running around in a circle until you fall down is fun. That blowing bubbles just to watch them drift and float is one of the best ways to spend an afternoon.
You remember that nothing matters as much as you think it does. And everything matters more than you ever imagined.
1. Have a meeting on Rodeo Drive. 2. Have a meeting in the Beverly Wilshire on Rodeo Drive.
3. Feel like Pretty Woman, only with less prostitution.
4. Set a monetary goal that feels like a stretch and meet it three weeks later.
5. Date a guy who looks like Sexy Jesus, if Jesus was a really funny texter.
6. Take control of my financial life, something that seemed a lot harder before I created the spreadsheet and just started plugging things in.
7. Realize that whatever my financial situation is - in the end, they're just numbers. Whether the number is red or black, I can and will deal with it.
8. Plan to participate in an epic dance-off with baked goods. Instead, just sit in a corner and stuff as many baked goods into my craw as possible, because why waste time dancing when there's a buffet?
9. Learn - yet again - that having an emotional meltdown almost always precedes some new opportunity. It's like a psychic colonic.
10. Never use the term "psychic colonic" ever again. That's just wrong.
11. Solve the Halloween problem forever by answering every Halloween costume- or party-related question with, "Why, yes! I'll be going as an invisible pterodactyl. It's a costume that works best when I stay at home."
12. Stop being a Halloween grinch and resuscitate my Evil Tooth Fairy costume circa 2006, where I wore a black glittery tutu with black glittery wings and brandished an enormous construction wrench with bloody papier mache tooth clenched between its vicious prongs.
13. Start a life list.
Check, check, check, and check.
Except for number 12. Papier mache is hard, yo.
Killing My Lobster is a San Francisco-based sketch comedy group that's been a hey-those-dudes-are-funny-and-damn-I'm-hot-for-funny crush of mine for almost a decade now. I wrote a story about them for a local magazine before I even knew what blogging was. I was tweeting about them in my head before Twitter even existed. (Back then, they were called "thoughts.") Most of their stuff is pretty San Francisco-centric, like the incredible Coffee Wars and Twilight Zone, but my new favorite is the geographically non-specific Frankenstein Gets a Dog. It's a cute dog. It teaches Frankenstein how to love and how to not be creepy around girls in bars. Everyone wins.
Fun fact: the park they use in the video was three blocks from my apartment in San Francisco. I used to walk there every day. When I bought Popeye's chicken to go sit on a park bench and wait for the dogs to come trotting over, that's where my puppy-bribing behind was planted. Hi, Alamo Square!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBxqO0mJ1AU&feature=youtu.be
Last night, we were sitting on the couch watching Modern Family, because Modern Family is the funniest show ever and totally deserves couch time, when Sir Calzador of the Muddy Paws started systematically destroying his large stuffed alligator. It was malicious stuffed toy brutality and I almost couldn't watch because I'm a delicate peony who wilts at the first hint of violence. He may have been demonstrating his extreme displeasure at his situation in life - not eating cheese, not sitting in my lap - or he may have just decided it was high time the alligator went to a better place. Either way, it was disturbing. But if he has to be passive aggressive about his feelings because he's a dog and doesn't speak English, better his stuffed alligator than my favorite sweater. Don't worry, Calzador. Your body language is more than adequate for conveying your discontent. Pausing in your destruction of an alligator leg to glare at me balefully is particularly effective.
In other Calzador news, he's a big dog. Not an enormous dog, but big enough that his nickname is Pony and if he leans against my legs he'll knock all my 137 pounds forward if I'm not properly braced.
Calzador, posing for a crappy iPhone shot and wondering when it might be time for more cheese. You may also notice that the colors of my bedroom are the exact colors of my new blog. This was creepily unintentional.
Not a pony. But not small. Yet he still gets spooked by tiny yapping dogs that would easily fit in his mouth if he opened up wide and thought of England. The little dogs jump and make a lot of noise and this is how Napoleon won France, I guess.
Anyway, when we pass a miniature yapper, even an enclosed miniature yapper, Calzador picks up his pace and doesn't slow down until the yaps recede in the distance. We were walking around the neighborhood yesterday, Calzador was sniffing things and I was pondering things, when he darted out of someone's driveway like a rogue squirrel had set his tail on fire. I assumed there was a little dog on the loose, so I peered around the hedge. There was no small dog, just a cheerful Halloween display.
Yes, the dog - who we can assume is not under the influence of any horror movie/Halloween cultural conditioning - was terrified by a fake ghost in broad daylight. How is that even possible? OH, YOU SWEET ADORABLE PANSY HOUND.
So we go home and I dump half a package of shredded cheese in his food bowl so he can partake of that other American holiday tradition - over-eating to calm the soul.
I'm having one of those days. One of those days when the power goes out and my back goes out and the dog keeps yelling at an invisible squirrel and things keep going wrong until I'm completely and ineluctably cranky. Is "ineluctably" a word? I'm not even sure. Note to self: Look it up before you press publish. Because I'm cranky, I was - predictably - feeling cranky about writing here. But I told myself I would write a post today and I'm trying to keep my promises to myself. Life tends to go better when I'm doing the things I say I'll do. Doing the things circumnavigates the slow erosion of motivation and self-esteem that comes with breaking my word to myself over and over again. Note to self #2: Don't do that.
THEREFORE.
In the end, it doesn't matter what you do so long as you love it. So don't worry about doing exactly the right thing all the time. Just love what you're doing. (Today you're allowed to just sort of enjoy it maybe.)
Do things faster. It doesn't have to be perfect, it just has to be done. Plus, the more you do, the better you feel and the better you get at doing that thing. And let's face it, you like to be good at things.
Send money to someone who needs it more than you do. Heifer International, Kiva, Feeding America. There. The world is a slightly better place.
You don't have to listen to your brain today. Just gently shush it when it starts yelling at you in all caps about DOOM AND DESTRUCTION AND YOUR BANK ACCOUNT IS A DISGRACE AND SO IS YOUR HAIR and get on with your day. Bye bye, brain. I just gave you a vacation. Go lie in the hammock and read a book.
Pay attention to what's going on outside your own bad day. The world is highly skilled at providing perspective. I just looked up from my laptop for three seconds and, in that three seconds, the girl behind the counter offered a customer her own personal snack because they only sell sugar and the customer is starving but can't have sugar. "We don't sell them, but I have a banana in the back. You can have it if you want." A nice thing.
I also look at this. Love notes never fail to make me feel better, even if I was the one who wrote it. Especially if I was the one who wrote it.
(Hey, look. Ineluctably is totally a word. I even used it properly. A childhood spent reading books instead of engaging with the real world pays off again!)
Well, that was just a little blog post journey, wasn't it? From cranky to far-less-cranky-with-the-possibility-of-happy-sometime-today in - let's see - nine paragraphs. HOORAY. I WIN AT BEING CRANKY.
What do you do to stave off the bad mood? Seriously. I need more ideas.
As you know, the internet is a magical place where web fairies regularly cause amazing things happen. Sometimes those amazing things end up on video and I end up watching them seven times in a row. Hence, Web Crush Sunday.
Everything I post will be from legit web crushes, people who, if I ever actually met them, would render me invisible because I dove behind a sofa when the glaring brightness of their awesome became too much to endure. All videos are carefully vetted by my own complex algorithm, where the number of friends I've emailed the link is multiplied by "Man, this is what the internet is for." You can't argue with math.
What I'm saying is, these are videos I like a lot and I think you will too.
My inaugural web crush award goes to My Drunk Kitchen because Hannah Hart is made of comedy gold. (Ice cream! Brunch! Pretentious-Ass Cookies!)
As if getting drunk and cooking and being funny wasn't enough, she went and made a rap video about food. And my whole life got better. Yours will too. Behold:
Living in the world means you learn a lot of things. How not to spend all your money. How to get tomato stains out of white shirts. How to take care of yourself when you have the flu. How not to be a jerk. How to navigate around all your own little quirks so you can function well with other humans. How to use three remote controls in mysterious, magical conjunction to get the damn TV to turn on.
I've learned all of these things - and even more things! - with varying degrees of success. But the best one I've learned is...
Doing the nice thing is far more important than remote controls or white shirts or even not spending all your money. Because doing the nice thing makes people feel good. The remote controls and white shirts don't really need help with that. They're pretty happy being inanimate objects. But the people? They need attention.
When the heavenly light hits my scalp and the perfect nice thing occurs to me, I've found that it's worth dropping whatever I'm doing and doing said nice thing right then and there. Jumping on Amazon and pressing purchase. Writing the note. Sending the invitation. If I put Buy Awesome Gift for Friend on my to-do list, it keeps dropping down the list until said friend has purchased it for herself, moved away, or died.*
* No one died. I just enjoy melodramatic artistic license.
The first time I did the nice thing, I was having some trouble in a relationship. I was sitting at my desk at work, feeling mad and hurt and put-upon and all those other annoying emotions that crop up when you're trying to love someone as best you can but inevitably have awful feelings about them instead. Eventually, I started wondering why I loved him. A few seconds later, I thought it might be nice if I told him why. Happier for him because he gets a love letter instead of a girlfriend with a vengeful expression and happier for me because I got to stop stewing in my bubbling mire of discontent.
Yes, I was at work. Yes, I should have been doing other things. But that job is long gone, even the relationship is long gone - but writing and sending that letter right then and there remains one of the best decisions I've ever made. It lifted me out of the hurt and into a space where I could remember why I loved him.
Spending a morning sending Twitter Love Bombs instead of working.
(This time, I was self-employed so it was a totally kosher time management decision.This is one of the main reasons I want to be self-employed. So I can spend my morning sending people love notes instead of working if I damn well please.)
Hands down, this was the best morning's work I've ever done. I highly recommend the Twitter Love Bomb. They're easy, just direct messages to your favorite people stuffed with 140 characters of why they're awesome. Yeah, 140 characters isn't much, but it cuts down on the writers block. Kerrianne calls it the sucker-punch of sunshine, which remains the best description ever.
Put a CD in a tree.
This makes sense, I promise. When I was cleaning out my apartment, I loaded my last few CDs onto my laptop and got rid of them. I had a friend's band's album in my possession and, as one would imagine, hesitated to dump it in the Goodwill bag.
As I stood there, jewel case in dithering hand, I decided to do the first thing that popped into my head. I stuck on a post-it note that said, "Listen to this. You'll love it." and carefully perched the CD in the tree outside my door. When I went back outside a few hours later, the CD was gone. YOU'RE WELCOME, WHOEVER TOOK THE CD OUT OF MY TREE. YOU'RE WELCOME, FRIEND'S BAND THAT NOW HAS A NEW RABID ALBUM-SNATCHING FAN.
I'm pretty sure there are more - I mean, I hope there are more, because if I've only done two nice things in the last three years then I pretty much suck as a human being - but you get the point. You probably got my point seven paragraphs ago because you are a keen point-getter and also I like to talk a lot.
AT ANY RATE.
You might be really good about putting nice things on your to-do list and actually doing them, but I'm not. If you aren't either, I highly recommend dropping everything when that burst of inspiration strikes and getting the nice thing out into the world. You can usually knock off a nice thing in five minutes or less. Think about how much time you just spent checking Facebook. Yep. Me too.
The more you do the nice thing, the more you find other people who also do the nice things and the more your whole world gets better. Of course it does. You know how this works.
So if there's a nice thing that's been pinging or sproinging or niggling you, or doing anything else to you that's also not a word, I totally recommend making it happen. You'll feel amazing, the person who receives it will feel amazing, anyone who witnesses the exchange will feel amazing. ALL THE AMAZING. The world can use more amazing.
If you do the nice thing (or even just put it on your to-do list), I'd love to hear about it in the comments. Because I don't have a nice thing at the moment and I want to feed off your niceness like a serotonin-starved vampire.