Past the Equinox

It's finally starting to feel a little bit like fall around these parts and I'm definitely relieved. We tend to have our warmest weather of the year around the same time it's actually starting to cool off everywhere else, but as always, I hoped maybe it wouldn't happen this year. Instead we wound up having an absolutely horrible heat wave that started just before Labor Day weekend and continued for a couple of weeks afterward.

We're not just talking hot weather by my standards either. Pretty much anyone would probably think temps of over 100 degrees are excessive, especially if you don't have air conditioning and double-especially in this particular part of California. I legitimately felt like I was going to die or go crazy at one point. Honestly, it's still a little too warm for my taste, but thanks to the way it's been getting so cool at night lately, I don't really feel it too much as long as I stay in the house.

At times it even feels downright autumnal and I can't help but feel like doing fall things when that happens. I couldn't (and didn't) work much while it was at its hottest, but I'm slowly getting back to being my productive self. I'm having ideas again (although I've yet to do much with any of my newer ones). I've picked things back up with some video courses I started a while back because I missed my Hitchcock class from July so much. I've been listening to some new music and reading regularly again. I even baked a few things -- banana bread, a very experimental loaf of pumpkin spice bread, and some peanut butter cookie brownies for Seth's birthday last week. It's been nice not feeling like I died in my sleep one night and woke up in Hell Proper to say the least.

On 23andMe the Strangeness of Genes

As I mentioned in a previous post, I did finally get around to doing that whole 23andMe DNA test thingamajig this summer after probably a good year of hemming and hawing about it. It's been a few weeks since I first got my results, but I've been truly fascinated by some of the things I found out, especially in regards to the ancestry side of things. 

Suffice it to say that my mixed race heritage has always defined quite a bit about my physical and biological identity whether I wanted it to or not. When I was a kid, I was a shy wallflower type that just wanted to fit in, so I used to hate being mixed because of the constant questions I always got about my ethnicity and heritage. As an adult though, I've come to realize that being different or unique isn't so bad, so I've learned to embrace it for what it is. I've even become quite curious about the bare-bones, honest details of who and what I am from a cultural heritage standpoint.

Lots of people grew up in households where cultural identity and heritage were really, seriously important things. That wasn't the case with my immediate family when I was growing up at all. I knew my dad was black and that my mom was probably mostly of Irish heritage, but that's about it. Neither of my parents seemed to consider those aspects of who they were to be terribly important. My brother and I were certainly never encouraged to really identify with anything about where we came from ethnically speaking, especially in regards to our black side. 

Moving on to Other Things

Tippi Hedren - Publicity Still for The Birds

It's strange. Whenever I do a thing, I always try to make it as easy as possible for people to find out more about me or get to know me better if they're so inclined. However, it never fails to surprise me if people actually decide they want to do that. I was just as surprised (but pleased) to learn this blog has been seeing a modest amount of traffic from the TCM forums and occasionally from Twitter over the past few weeks, especially lately. (I don't actually market my personal writings here or anything, so I don't see many passers-through as a rule.)

I suppose that can only mean people appreciate my thoughts and insights on some of the films I've been studying with my fellow Hitchcock students enough to come see what else I'm about. A couple of folks have even gone out of their way to chat with me or at least say hello. I'm used to being seen as smart, but I don't know that I'm always seen as interesting, so that's been nice. It's also been really refreshing for me to interact with new people that actually think for a change. I've probably shared more original thoughts and insights with others over the past month than I have in the past... I don't know... five years? I hope I'm able to keep some of that optimism and good energy going, because that's something I need to be doing if I'm as serious about my writing as I always tell people I am.

Tonight is going to be the last Hitchcock viewing party and the course on the whole only lasts through next week. I will truly miss the lessons, the instructor, my classmates, and all the daily discussions. This has given me so much to think about, and do, and discuss as far as my free time goes. My mind is happiest when it's busy like that, so I'll have to think about how best I can fill that void and keep going with some of these positive thought patterns. I suppose there are always more classes to look into, not to mention aaaaaaall those personal creative projects I never quite seem to get around to working on, let alone sharing. I thought maybe age and a growing sense of disenchantment with the world and with the rest of humanity had destroyed my passion for thinking and sharing my thoughts, so mostly I'm just really relieved to know that part of me is alive and well.

Stopping at Manderley

Rebecca (1940)

It's always a good thing to realize you're growing as a person, but it's very strange indeed to realize almost no one you're close to has been growing in the same areas you have. Seth and I both have a lot of moments lately where we're going through our social media feeds reading posts from people we once considered ourselves close to and shaking our heads. "Was so-and-so always such a self-pitying crybaby?" "Have Person X and Person Y always been this mind-numbingly boring?"

Normally I simply assume that if I've fallen out of love with a particular friendship, it's because the person changed and isn't as cool as they used to be, but lately I've been realizing that's not the case at all. I am changing and world views that once made a lot of sense to me now seem very silly and unrealistic. I'm also realizing that I know so many people that suffer from victim mentality because I used to be the same way and like attracts like. I guess I need some new friends. People that also like to learn and grow. People that are determined to see themselves as winners, not losers.

........

I'm really very proud of myself for keeping up with my Hitchcock 50 class despite having as much to do for work as ever. At this point, we've successfully completed two weeks of lessons -- one on Hitchcock's early work in silent film and another on the British spy films he made in the 1930's. Seth and I have both taken and passed two tests. We've also made it a point to watch as many of the films as we can on Wednesdays and Friday when TCM shows them, as well as participate in class discussions. A lot of the other students have already fallen behind at this point in the course, so I'm really proud of both of us for sticking with things and making the most of the experience.

Summer of Hitch

The Lodger (1927)

So I'm actually doing a thing this summer. I'd been seeing ads on Facebook and elsewhere about a free film study course TCM was giving on the work of Alfred Hitchcock, my absolute favorite director of all time. At first, I didn't know if it was a good idea, especially since I've been more stressed out than usual lately. Then I decided there was no harm in signing up and giving it a try, as I could always drop it if it turned out to be too much to handle on top of everything else I have going on right now.

Now I'm really glad I enrolled, because it turned out to be just what my summer needed. In fact, Seth and I are both taking it and the lessons have since become one of the highlights of our days. It's fun to have something to focus on that feels productive, but that isn't somehow about work or taking care of other responsibilities. I especially like that it's led to some really fun discussions, both with other people that are taking the class and with Seth. I've always thought we might enjoy the experience of taking a class of some sort together. We have fun together anyway and talk about all sorts of things, but it's been fun to have an actual activity to focus on.

Blood Carrots

Last night, I dreamed I was a carrot. I was planted in a field with a lot of other carrots and tended by farmers that apparently took farming super seriously. To make sure all the carrots grew nice and big, they kept taking animals and even people out to the fields and slaughtering them on the spot so they could fertilize the fields with all the blood. It also rained almost constantly wherever this was.

In the dream, I kept soaking up all the blood and all the rain through the outside of my carrot body and it was weirdly satisfying. Like eating a huge plate of exactly what you've been craving when you're so hungry you think you're going to faint. Also, I never got too warm because my whole body was made of vegetable, safe underneath the surface of the earth. And my carrot top really liked blowing in the breeze. I knew I'd get harvested and eaten one day, but for some reason I was really excited about it.

On Aging, Choices, and Other Monsters

When I hear people talk about whatever they think is wrong with their lives, it always seems to be about boredom to one degree or another. They want something to happen. They want to feel like their lives are exciting and full of action. They want to feel like they matter to other people -- that they're important.

I'm the opposite. I usually feel like too much is going on even though my "too much" often looks a whole lot like other people's "not much". I feel like I have too much to worry about and too many responsibilities. I also often feel like I matter too much to others and in all the wrong ways -- that too many people count on me for too many things I'm not really equipped to provide. Only those that know me well enough to know how resentful I become when I don't feel like the things I do are noticed or appreciated remember to thank me often enough. Most don't thank me at all, let alone return the favor ever. In other words, I get very little back out of life considering what I put into it at times and that feels almost unbearably unfair.

I'm also noticing that the older I get without any of that changing, the more important money seems to become to me. Not just any money either -- my money. Money I earn under my own power doing things I'm good at. As much as I don't like not having a choice about whether or not I work, I very much enjoy making money. I especially like that I'm in business for myself. I don't have a boss. I get to call all the shots 100% of the time. I don't have employees or business partners either, so I get to take 100% of the credit for everything I've accomplished from a business standpoint. It's a neat feeling -- indulgently selfish in a way I don't get to be when it comes to any other area of my life.

Hatching (and a Wee Story)

To me, the best time to turn over a new leaf isn't New Year's Day. It's still cold then, meaning the earth is still hibernating and so am I. I'm also just coming out of full holiday mode at the beginning of January -- probably not even back to work yet after whatever vacation I took to celebrate the season. I'm not ready to go from that state of being to making self-improvement plans and trying to be productive in any meaningful way. 

"Pre-spring" is a much more natural time for that. It's getting a little warmer, which makes it easier to get in the mood for positive change. Lent also starts, so I'm already primed and ready to put the brakes on the old self-indulgence engine for a while. I've been in kind of a low energy funk for a while, but I feel pretty prepared for Ash Wednesday day after tomorrow. This is a challenging time of year for me, but an exciting one as well.

........

That said, I felt like trying to snag myself a real bank account and maybe a line of credit a few days ago. To my very pleasant surprise, I was actually approved for both. My credit's been such shit for such a long time, I've grown completely used to living a cash only lifestyle over the years. Apparently by now though, it's been so long since any credit problems I might have once had that I'm seen more as someone with no credit at all than I am a potential risk with bad credit. (I confirmed this with an actual credit check.)