WOULD-n't It Be Loverly?

I have the blog "The Happiness Project" on my home page for my home internet, and this week I was particularly drawn to a post about resolution-making for the New Year. Given the list, here are my updated resolutions that I have posted to my vision board in my room:

To Look In the Mirror
· Physical balance
· Work/Life balance
· Nutrition

To Look to Others
· Church
· Meetups
· Travel (Obtain passport)
· Volunteering

The One
· Shuts his cell phone off when we’re together and doesn’t make me feel guilty about the communication he missed
· Doesn’t get tired of my mind or my body
· Spends the night
· Is curious
· Makes me laugh
· Lets me—no, asks me—to tell him what turns me on

To Look to Life
· 3 pages per day of writing
· 12 books read this year
· Work/Life balance
· A job that I define
· Read The New Yorker weekly—and write on it

You'll see that work/life balance is on there twice. It's twice as important.

And if I can keep more than one resolution this year, then you'll see a lot more of me on here, writing about what I read in The New Yorker. Or, three handwritten pages worth of nothing in particular.

Have a wonderful holiday season, dear reader.

Girl Clothes

When you work in the industrial supply world, you tend to blur the lines between what is masculine and what is feminine. I often just slide a bunch of tools on my belt (Gerber, box cutter, fat Sharpie marker, two-way radio) like a cop and take on the merchandise, no matter how big, dusty, dirty, or heavy it may be.

I lift what the boys lift, whether I should or not.

This past week we hosted a management meeting at my location, and for two days I got to dress up. "Dress up" means stay in my pumps, not put on all the tools, and wear jewelry that dangles. It also meant that I got to curl my hair. The second day of meetings the hair collapsed, but the first day it looked good--good enough to get compliments from another manager. (And no, the manager was not a man. I don't get compliments from men since I broke my hand. I guess when you break a bone it destroys the sexy side of you.) That compliment blew my mind--the other person was noticing something feminine about me.

A couple of weeks back, I did a two-week gig cat-sitting for someone. The stay was wonderful and I loved the cat, but the owner was grateful anyway and gave me a collection of small gifts. One of them was the item you see in the center of the black circle in the picture here. What do you imagine it is? A candelabra?

Nope.

This is a lipstick holder. I own exactly one tube of lipstick. The rest of the my lip products are Blistex, in squeeze tubes, or are Burt's Bees. But someone else thought I was a girl, not a brawny dock worker.

Time to buy more lipstick. Time to celebrate in girl clothes.

Bruce Springsteen - "Long Walk Home" - Video Of the Week

Had to draw some boundaries tonight or drown in a world that felt forgotten, and drawing the boundary hurt. I was flipping through Springsteen to sooth the savage heart, and this song stood up, spoke, and lit the wick of what was left of my life.

I know that Springsteen will be something I will be alone on, for the most part, but when it comes to him, I don't mind being alone. It's like a language only I get...a friend only I can have.

Never Thought It Would Be Contagious

It's not long that I can spend with people that I can pick up on it...

I'm boring to them.

It's probably shouldn't be okay, but it actually is. It keeps reminding me of that line from "Murphy's Romance":

"Oh, I like myself just fine. I just never thought it would be contagious."

That line always makes me smile. I don't think I'm boring, but I don't expect that feeling to be contagious. ;)

For those of you keeping score via the convoluted path to read my blog, since I no longer purposefully post on Facebook (although I notice that GoodReads does it for me), today I worked and then came home and ate and read a little (yes, it was Harry) and now I am curled up in soft flannel creating Pandora stations. Tonight's station, "Claude Debussy's Rockin' Tunes." I love getting to make up the titles.

I have the next two days off. Let's get the books to the library, get some writing done, and breathe in some late autumn fresh air.

Bless you for reading. ;)

What a Difference A Break Makes

Since the "fall" at work at the end of July (sometimes I refer to it as "the accident"), I have not been hit on. Not once. This is an odd confluence of probably dumb luck and decreased self-esteem, but in spite of the fact that I have continued to shrink in my clothes and eat less due to stress, I still don't get hit on.

I still feel, quite literally, lame.

And I feel, very suddenly, old.

So I find myself not caring about "hiding" things anymore. If no one is looking, then who cares if I wear something tighter than normal? Who cares if I stretch in the sun on the beach? WHO'S LOOKIN' ANYWAY?

It all comes down to this--if a posture or article of clothing accentuates feminity in this City, will it still have an impact? Or, like a tree falling in the woods without an audience, is it soundless?

Sort of opens me up to all kinds of freedom, right?

:)

Nuns and Paddle Ball

Since I am, in fact, the biggest nerd on the planet, I possess a reading journal. I made it myself years ago, back in the States. It's a 6" x 8" three-ring binder with sleeves in the covers for inserting my own pictures. On the front cover is a picture of a room with bare walls and filled waist-deep with books, surrounded by the quote "Everywhere I go I'm asked if I think the universities stifle writers. My opinion is that they don't stifle enough of them." It's a quote from the late great Flannery O'Connor.

Inside the book are a bouquet of bookmarks, then a great deal of notes in the binder, and then in the back cover is another photo, of an elderly nun playing paddle ball. The quote around this photo is "How old would you be if you didn't know how old you are?" That one's from Satchel Paige.

A reset, of sorts.

So if I didn't know a lot of things, like all the stuff I assault myself with all day long, then maybe I would be a little more free. If I didn't check Google Reader, Facebook, Twitter and e-mail, would I feel a little less inadequate? Would I stop comparing my life with the lives of other people? Would I go out and find life, instead of following the plotline of everyone else's?

Not to walk away for just a day or a week.

How about walking away until next year?

Everyone that I follow on Facebook and Twitter has their life in order, with families and boatloads of friends and travel and fulfilling lifestyles. I feel empty, uninspired, lost, and (this is going to be politically incorrect, brace for it), retarded. I feel light years behind the world when I should be standing in my own shoes anyway. I have talents that I have forgotten, focus I've lost, all to my stinky self-esteem, which drags in the water like sprays of seaweed, heavy and off-balance.

How about one focus?

How about just one thing to follow?

More to come.

Onay Eakspay Ishenglay

I've been caught between two worlds all week--offending/boring the locals, offending/boring visitors, and am at the brink, by this time in the week, to open my mouth. The only person I haven't pissed off this week thus far, with proof, is my brother. He's just confused. "You sound normal," he says, without me asking. "You sound a whole lot more normal than Bob." I think fondly to my "nephew cat" Bob and smile. Bob is unoffensibly normal. Ain't no one gonna hate that sweet thing.

I don't know who I am or what I'm doing or saying this week, and it feels as though everything coming out of my mouth is verbal shit, so maybe I am a little scared of being around people at the moment. But here's what I know for sure, to steal from Oprah:

• I had a good week with a visitor. I miss her.
• Harry Potter is starting to be soothing.
• Getting my hair cut short feels good when I can't have unhealthy addictions.
• The ocean is quietly beautiful.
• "The Hurricane" is a good movie.
• I love cold weather.
• I love tea.
• Tart to Tart makes a delicious vanilla cream muffin.
• John Mayer is an excellent lyricist.

That's a good start. I should be able to say that without blowing up the building...

Let's hope so.