Back to Life, Back to Reality

Social media is a veritable paradise for the avid people watcher. Because what one does is incredibly public while feeling like it's not quite happening in reality, there's a lot you can tell about someone by looking at not only what they say over social media, but how they say it. You can see exactly how they want to come across to other people, but if you're paying attention, you can also see all the ways their online image isn't quite in line with who they really are underneath.

I'm relatively open with others about how I treat my social media accounts and how I view the people on my contact lists. I've even openly compared scrolling through Facebook in particular to watching a bunch of fish swimming around in a bowl. I don't consider myself to be much of a people person, but I do enjoy people watching. People watching is most interesting when people have more or less forgotten they're being observed and pondered in such a way. The things I've learned have taught me a lot about the way others operate... and about how I fit into that dynamic as well.

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That said, I don't really tend to spend a ton of time on social media once the holidays roll around. Everyone tends to put on one or two of the same acts and that gets tiresome. I barely even bothered to check my feeds over this past Thanksgiving weekend. Over this past year, I've been able to upgrade my client roster a bit so that I'm only dealing with high caliber clients willing to pay for top-notch content. That said, I was easily able to take five days off to celebrate the holiday.

Quality Over Quantity

As usual, the beginning of another month has simply sped by and I'm just kind of left wondering what happened. I can't believe we're already ten days into November. Really, I'm going to take too long turning around one of these days and it will be Thanksgiving. Such is life when you keep relatively busy, I suppose.

As you may already be aware if you ever check in with me at my freelancing blog, The Creative Cat, I'm participating in NaNoWriMo this year for the first time in several years, as I finally have time for it, at least in theory. I'd been trying for some time to get my entire client base to a point where everyone I work with is paying premium pricing for my content and earlier in the year, I finally succeeded. I've been able to cut my overall workload in half as a result, meaning I now have actual time for creative endeavors of my own. 

I have to say, actually having time for something like NaNo in particular has been really pleasant. I'm working on a short story and poetry collection called Jar of Lies and so far it's going pretty well. I'm really happy with some of the ideas and think quite a few of them have some real potential. Others are just plain fun to work with, which is also OK. I'm a little bit behind on my word count at present, but it's nothing that I won't be able to easily make up this week. I don't actually have a deadline on the books for today, so should be able to make a nice, big dent in it this afternoon sometime.

Indian Summer

Indian summer is in full effect here in the Monterey area and I really don't like it much. Some people here love the unseasonably warm weather and welcome the chance to enjoy an extended summer. Being the fragile little Pisces that I am, I'm really very sensitive to heat, so I have to worry about problems like heat stroke. Especially since like most households around here, ours doesn't have air conditioning.

Thankfully, Seth is the type of guy that insists on doing anything he can to make me as comfortable as possible. Within the past week or so, two of the fans we depend on to stay cool when it's warm decided to kick the bucket. We tried to order a replacement in time for it to get here before the heat wave started, but there was some problem with the order on the vendor's end and it was unexpectedly cancelled.

Yesterday, Seth actually wound up walking five miles and visiting three different stores to get us a new fan so that we wouldn't fry to death. I'm really grateful that he did, too, because having this new fan in here today has made a massive difference. It's been warm, but I haven't even broken a sweat despite the temps being up in the 90's somewhere for most of the day. Thankfully, I didn't have any deadlines today, so I was also able to just kind of forget about work for a change and just vegetate.

At the Threshold of the Fall Equinox

Tomorrow is the equinox, so I guess it will officially be fall at long last. I can't even express how happy that makes me. It's time for cooler weather and nice, long nights. It's time to read Dracula and watch horror movies. It's time for big steaming homemade bowls of stew, and soup, and chili.

Then it will be time for the holidays. Last year, I think I felt like I'd finally made them my own. Not what my family, or my ex-partners, or society thought they should be, but what I felt they should be. It turned out the right approach combines religion with the same fun, cozy traditions Seth and I have developed by ourselves over the years. I am really looking forward to doing that again. My holiday season felt like it had a lot of meaning on more different levels than usual and that's something that's been missing.

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I decided I'm not really going to bother with my high school reunion in October. The main reason is the tickets were prohibitively expensive -- for me with my limited income, anyway -- and I just couldn't justify spending almost $200 for Seth and I to attend something I'm not even sure I care that much about. However, I also really don't think I feel like wasting an entire weekend socializing with people I'm not even close to just so I can say that I did it. As nice as it was to see some of the old peeps at Robert's funeral, the introverted Pisces that I am still kind of couldn't wait to leave. An hour or two of forced social interaction is about all I can realistically expect out of myself these days.

On Emotional Honesty, Priorities, and Being True to One's Self

It always seems that the more I have on the agenda for work on a given day, the more I actually feel like writing something of my own instead. A blog entry, usually, or a bunch of shorter social media updates... but occasionally a snippet of a longer story, a piece of flash fiction, or a poem. Usually, I react to those thoughts the way I was taught to -- by telling myself I need to get "the important stuff" out of the way first and then if I have time later on, I can spend what's left of my energy doing things I actually want to do.

The trouble with that approach to writing is that nothing expressive or passionate ever actually gets written. There's always something else to do that "needs" to get done or that society would label as more important. By the time I get to the point in my day when I'm out of things to do, it's the wee hours of the morning and I'm exhausted, not only physically, but mentally and emotionally as well. The last thing I want to do at that point is write some more.

In fact, I'm constantly wondering if maybe that "work first, play later" is actually the wrong approach. For me, anyway. It certainly feels like the wrong one. One of these days, maybe I'll learn that it's OK to be someone that makes decisions based on how they feel and not how good they look on paper or how many of the right people sign off on them. When I just allow myself to give the first hour or two of my writing day to something that I'd actually like to write, I don't resent having to work as much as I normally do. I resent the need to earn money less, since it no longer encroaches upon my self expression.

Partying With the Animals at the Monterey County Fair

We not only made it to the Monterey County Fair this year for the second year in a row, but we also remembered to take plenty of pictures. I'm even in a few of the shots for a change like this one I absolutely love of Seth and me. It was taken in the bleachers on our first night there waiting for Queen Revisited to take the Garden Stage right before the sun started going down. (We saw War and Journey Revisited on each of the other two nights we were there as well. Wonderful shows, all of them.)

Like most women, I'm hard on myself when it comes to my looks, so I'm not crazy about pictures of myself. I'm plenty comfortable in my own skin and I realize that I'm attractive, so it's nothing like that, but I never really see what other people claim to when they look at me. I feel like my dieting and focused efforts to take better care of my skin and hair are starting to show though and that's found me feeling more interested in my appearance than I normally do these days. I was especially surprised by how clear and smooth my skin looks in this year's fair photos. I also like that I look happy, healthy, and in love. As well I should! I am happy, healthy, and in love... and becoming more so all the time.

Music on the Wind: A Yearly Tradition

This past weekend, the First City Music Festival was in town. Seth and I briefly considered getting tickets months ago when I first found out Beck would be headlining, but at the end of the day, we decided we'd be better off saving the money for other things. We attempted to see if we could get press passes, as we did want to cover the concert for some of our media outlets, but things didn't quite come together in time. 

That said, we decided to engage in something that has honestly become a much loved tradition for us. Something we affectionately call our "Music on the Wind" concert series. We're lucky enough to live so close to the fairgrounds that when there's a concert down there major enough to warrant a spot on the Redwood stage, we can totally hear it from our porch. And when I say we can hear it, we can totally hear it. It's loud. You can hear all of the lyrics well enough to sing along if you want. Especially when the wind from off of the bay is blowing in the direction it normally is -- right toward our house. 

Body, Mind, Spirit

I'm beginning to realize that I've been on a real self-improvement kick lately. In many ways, I'm probably just normalizing a bit after what in hindsight has been several years worth of soul-searching and reevaluating when it comes to what's truly important in my life. As I've alluded to in the past, a lot of that process has involved eliminating relationships, mindsets, and habits that really no longer serve me. 

Now I'm working on rebuilding what's left and figuring out how I can get the most out of it. I want to become the best possible version of me. Better, happier, and healthier than I've ever been in my life. So far, I'm making excellent progress and that has me really excited.

Body

Like a lot of people, I realized I could stand to be a lot sounder physically. Years of working at home behind a computer while simultaneously eating and drinking pretty much whatever I want has meant I'm not anywhere near as thin or healthy as I could be. Plus, I've just let a lot of little grooming things that were once important to me kind of fall by the wayside because I've had other things to worry about.

I just gave myself a fresh dye job and a new haircut. I kept my cartoon red because it made me happy. I ditched the ultra-long length because it didn't. I'm also working on taking better care of my skin and such. Plus, I've been using the S Health app my new Galaxy S5 came with to get on top of my calorie intake and whatnot. Seth and I have been doing that for a little over two weeks now and it's already paying off. I've lost 13 pounds so far. 

On Autopsies and Reconstructions

The Resistless Hour Awaits by Dan May

The older I become and the more I continue to evolve as a person, the less and less I seem to need validation from other people in order to feel good about myself and my decisions. At one point, I never thought I'd get here... but here I am just the same.

Once upon a time, things were very different for me in that regard. Like a lot of people -- especially when they're still young -- I cared about being liked and accepted above all else. I still insist on being liked and accepted by the people I allow to become close to me, but I am a lot pickier as far as how I go about making connections these days. It's quality over quantity all the way.

It occurs to me that I've been outgrowing more and more of my friends as a result. A little at a time, but steadily all the same.

You know how it goes. You take up with people at a point in your life when you're in a certain state of mind -- lonely, angry at the whole world because you're not getting everything you think you're entitled to. You're probably even initially attracted to them because they're like you and have the same outlook on life. Then you evolve. You start figuring things out. You grow up a little and start realizing that sometimes you're the problem. You learn how to make better choices and form better quality relationships as a result. You slowly but surely begin to "get it".

Has It Really Been 20 Years?

The other day I got an e-mail from one of my former classmates letting me know that my 20-year high school reunion is coming up. What the fuck is that shit about? I know I'm not the first person to ponder this, nor do I think I'll be the last, but how it's been two whole decades since I graduated from Monterey High is beyond me. I still feel like a kid in so many ways.

No, really. That's not just something I'm saying. I don't and probably never will feel like an actual adult. I don't have any kids, I don't own any property, and I don't really have a career as most people would define the word. I have absolutely no desire to change any of this either. I'm a work in progress just like anyone, but I'm happy with the level of freedom I enjoy. However, all of these factors mean I don't feel much like an adult, especially when I'm physically around people I used to go to school with.

I've had limited dealings with my graduating class over the past twenty years save for the casual maintenance of long-distance relationships with a couple of my better friends. When I have been around them, I almost feel like I'm hanging out with my parents or something. They wear grown-up clothing and have grown-up hobbies. Concepts like day care, mortgage payments, and career goals are familiar to them... but foreign to me. They look, act, and sound their age. I don't. This is neither a good thing nor a bad thing, because being on either side of that equation comes with advantages and disadvantages. It just... is.

On Living Authentically

Life has made me a huge believer in living authentically. I've just known far too many people that turned out to be something other than they made themselves out to be to feel otherwise. Really, there's private and then there's intentionally deceptive. There's not wanting to tell people things that quite simply aren't any of their business and there's keeping things from other people that they legitimately have a right to know.

I remember when social media was first becoming a thing. I hopped on the bandwagon just like everybody else and I fell immediately in love with the way I was no longer stuck playing the same old roles I'd always been cast in offline. For the first time ever, I was free to be absolutely anything and anyone I chose... and I guess that's when I finally discovered that the person I most wanted to be was myself. It was just so freeing. I no longer had to be that silly, over-dressed, perfectly polite princess other people had always expected me to be. I could have opinions. I could fucking cuss, dammit. I could just go ahead and be every bit as writerly and nerdy as I wanted to be and no one was going to try to stop me. It was a really liberating experience.