10 Questions

It seems that whenever I take a little time off of writing, usually because, you know, Life, but it seems next to impossible to start back up again. I was so very glad when Nilsa posted these ten questions, I immediately copy-pasted and answered them for all of you. Aren’t you lucky? (Yes. Yes you are.)

1. Twitter or Facebook? 

Facebook. I want to love Twitter, I really do, but I just…I feel like if I am not “on” all the time I am suddenly completely lost in conversations and miss all the important things and I just don’t really have time for the stream of consciousness from 100+ people…maybe I’m doing Twitter wrong? I dunno.

2. Morning person or night owl? 

Absolutely a night owl. I can stay up until 2 or 3 without batting an eye, but ask me to wake up at 6:30 or 7:00 (even with a sensible 10pm bedtime) and you shall get ALL SORTS of side eye.

3. How do you drink coffee? 

I don’t. My caffeinated beverage of choice is Diet Dr. Pepper with a very generous squeeze of fresh lime (like, at least half of a lime. I feel so very much like Amy March every single time I do this.).

4. It’s 9pm and you’ve got the house to yourself, what do you do? 

One of two things: turn on my audio book and pull out my oil paints, or curl up in bed with whatever book I’m currently obsessed with; my go-to is almost always reading.

5. What’s on your nightstand right now? 

Margaret Thatcher’s autobiography (not started yet), a lovely candle, a few hair elastics, and an original oil seascape that I look at every morning when I wake up. (There is a basket underneath my night stand with no less than 25 more books to read…always.)

6. What smell do you love? 

Fresh cut grass, freshly laundered boy, clean sheets, citrus smells.

7. What smell do you hate? 

Lake stink, this sulphuric cloud that sometimes comes off the large salty lake next to my home; it seriously fills the whole valley with the smell of rotten eggs and oil refinery pollution.

8. Other than your current home, where would you most like to live? 

I’d love to eventually live somewhere with tall granite-topped mountains that I can view from my main living area; they really are home to me. Now, I live in that type of place now that is surrounded by such mountains, but I don’t have the view. Someday, I’ll have the view.

9. If you could eat only one nationality of food for the rest of your life, which one would it be? 

Mexican food: chips and salsa and burritos and tacos and stuffed peppers and enchiladas and tres leches cake. All day. Erry day.

10. When you were six years old, what did you want to be when you grew up? 

A circus performer, one that was part acrobat and part equestrian. This morphed into my dream of being a stunt woman in the movies, and then a fighter pilot, and then an international attorney, and now I manage a program that helps low income and under-served students figure out the steps required to prepare for and succeed in college….and not the kind of college where you study to become an acrobatic equestrian. Sigh. Dreams deferred, man.

What about you? What is on your nightstand and what were your career goals when you were in kindergarten?

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Harriet: Age 32

Today I turn thirty two years old, an age that seems both impossibly mature and still only the beginning of my adult life. I’ve been thinking about how I could commemorate my birthday every year, a kind of State of my Blog Union (Blogunion?) for the events of last year and the hopes and dreams for the next. So, in that vein, I am re-purposing one of those popular end-of-the-year recap formats and I hope to update this once a year to celebrate making it another rotation around the sun.

How will you spend your birthday?
I am going to work, probably taking myself out for a sort-of fancy lunch, taking part of the afternoon off for a pedicure, then picking Mr. Blue Eyes up at the airport so we can spend the weekend together. He is taking me to my very favorite seafood restaurant so I can splurge on crab cakes. Mmmmmm, crab cakes! The rest of the weekend will be spent cuddling and ordering take out and loving on each other.

Compared to this time last year, are you: a) happier or sadder? b) thinner or fatter? c) richer or poorer?
Happier; thinner; richer (thank you, work promotion and raise!).

What did you do last year that you’ve never done before?
I was quoted in the newspaper on a new work-related program that I implemented this fall to wild, state-wide success.

What was your favorite discovery last year?
Audio books. I am still kind of floored that I can download a real life human who patiently READS ME A BOOK, they do all the voices and never need a break, and I can listen while I drive, work out, or hang out at home. I mean, talk about on-demand luxury! No one has read aloud to me in 20 years, and now I can have this over-the-top experience every single day. Give me ALL THE AUDIO BOOKS!!!

What do you hope to learn this coming year?
I want to continue to improve my oil painting skills, and learn how to make ice cream. Really good ice cream.

What would you like to have this year that you didn’t have last year?
A dishwasher.

What was your biggest achievement of this year?
For almost 18 months I had been consistently working towards a promotion at work, the funding for said promotion was approved by the legislature last March and in June I was offered a fantastic new job in my department. I am so proud of myself for working towards this for so long and putting in the time, effort, and energy to ensure I was the most qualified candidate for the position. (Also, yes, I’m a state employee, all funding must go through the legislature…yes, it’s a freaking hassle, but whatever, tax payer dollars and checks-and-balances, and all that jazz.)

What was your biggest failure?
I spent a lot of the year angry, hurt, and full of anxiety. Now, I understand that part of this is due to some chemical imbalances in my brain that I cannot blame myself for, but I also think there are some ways I could have been more proactive in reducing those scary and hurtful feelings and move forward in a better place. Baby steps, folks. Baby steps.

Where did you travel this year?
Multiple trips to Arizona and Montana (experiencing a nearly 130 degree (F) temperature differential); Chicago; Denver; as well as several in-state trips both for work and for fun.

Do you have a destination in mind for next year?
I would love to go to Turkey, Spain, Greece, or Paris for Thanksgiving…it’s kind of a pipe dream right now, but I can’t stop thinking about the idea.

What did you get really excited about?
I geeked out this year about Charles Darwin, big time. Seriously, if you had more then 3 conversations with me in the last 12 months it is more than likely that I brought up Darwin at some point.

What do you wish you’d done more of?
Traveling, particularly short weekend trips. I miss having an almost-always packed weekend bag and a constantly increasing pile of travel photos and memories.

What do you wish you’d done less of?
Fighting. Fighting with myself; fighting with Blue Eyes; fighting (on Blue Eyes’ team) against his crazy-ass ex-wife; fighting anxiety and irrational fears; fighting to be understood.

What was the best book you read?
Ooooh, how do I even answer this question!?! I re-read East of Eden again and am still completely in-love with those characters, stories, and language; but as for new reads, I think the one that has stuck with me the longest is Madam Secretary by Madeline Albright. Recommended!

What did you want and get?
A new-to-me, adorable, surprise car. Miss Persimini makes me smile every time I see her. And she’s SUPER fast…not that I have ever gone even one mile above the posted legal speed limit….Ahem.

What did you want and not get?
Besides a pony? A pair of knee-height cognac-colored flat-ish boots. I’m still hunting for the perfect pair.

What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
A judge standing up to Blue Eyes’ ex-wife’s illegal, irrational, and hurtful behavior and possibly handing down massive fines and a permanent record of her crazy bullshit. She is seriously a bad person and I wish someone with authority to force her to change or improve would recognize it. The system surrounding child custody, visitation, and preventing crazy, jealous, vindictive parents from unleashing their anger on their ex-spouse (and thereby hurting the children) is so, so, broken. And expensive. And just, it’s a mess.

What kept you sane?
Painting until all hours of the night; losing myself in books; lots of lengthy conversations with dear friends; soothing snuggles and hair pats from Blue Eyes; and, quite literally, anti-anxiety medication.

What political issue stirred you the most?
This one continues to grow for me, I am so annoyed and irritated by the lack of true gender equality in all its forms. I can get riled up about feminism and why more people should care more about it in about 2 seconds flat. I want more people to understand the actual definitions of patriarchy, benevolent sexism, and feminism. Hint: “feminism” does not mean “man hating.” It is really just the radical notion that women are people too and deserve the same full range of rights and benefits as their male counterparts. If you think feminism = man-hating you really need to educate yourself and examine why you think that, i.e. what person or institution is trying to convince you that championing the rights of women is somehow a negative thing.

Did you fall in love?
Yes. After a pretty rough patch, I fell in love again with Mr. Blue Eyes. And I think we are finally back to a really good place. And that’s all I’m going to say about that right now. Wink.

Who did you miss?
My sweetheart. Blue Eyes moved 700 miles away more than 4 months ago for work and to be closer to his tweenage kids. We have some long-term plans in place for me joining him, but that doesn’t help reduce the hole in my heart.

Did you learn a valuable life lesson this year?
Ages ago Amber posted this on her blog, and I’ve had it on a post-it note on my wall ever since:

My hackles are raised. I want to give them hell. Buy maybe I need to get over it and realize that this is simply the world nudging me toward something better.

My lesson for this year? Maybe this is simply the world nudging me toward something better. If I can just stop ranting about it long enough to get out of my own way great things are bound to happen. And if not “great” then at least “marginally better.” Hell, I’ll take a year full of “marginally better” anytime if the alternative is “same old crapshoot.” So, onwards and upwards and older…oldwards…olderwards….whatever, you get the idea. It’s my birthday and I’ll make up words if I want to. So there.

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Baby steps. (Not a pregnancy announcement.)

This year has both dragged on endlessly and flown by, I am in such a different–and better–place than I was last Christmas, but it has taken a lot of ups and downs, mostly downs, to get there.

Yesterday I decided to pull up my list of 2014 New Year resolutions and see what the damage was, I knew I wouldn’t receive any gold medals (or bronze medals) for my superior Crossing Off of Resolutions this year, even though I was pretty intent on crafting resolutions that I would be manageable but require some growth. I spent a couple of weeks finalizing my goals and an action plan for completion of each one.

People, I did not fulfill a single one of my resolutions. Not a single one.

Are there reasons for that? Absolutely. Will I get in to them here? A bit, yes. It also helps explain my spectacular radio silence for the last 8 or 9 months. January came and everything got worse. A lot worse. Multiple panic attacks a week, often times once or twice a day, and some not-bloggable bombs sent me reeling. I spent a lot of time at the doctor and psychologist’s office, and I started taking some anti-anxiety medication to help me function on a regular basis. My health was…not good. My emotional health was worse. I just…goodness, I was a complete disaster most of the time.

Spring came and with it a huge amount of work responsibility, I had spent years taking on more and more projects and had finally created enough of a demand for my services that a promotion was in order, which is–on the surface–really terrific sounding. But right under that glossy new title was months and months of 10 and 12 and even 14 hour days, trying to both hire and train a replacement in addition to carving out a new position, and launching two enormous state-wide programs and initiatives that made headlines for weeks and gave me lots of warm fuzzies and lots of work-stress nightmares.

It was the best of times and the worst of times, and that enormous work stress ball lasted from February until Thanksgiving. With the help of my boss I carefully laid out about a million steps and tasks for success with draft and final deadlines built in. I put my head down and got to work. The good news is that my program launch in November went so much better than expected, our new hire is up to speed and absolutely awesome, and I am back to working 8 hour days and leaving at 5:15 on a regular basis. And they pay me more than they did a year ago. So, awesome.

Um, yes. And also, kind of no.

The thing is, I feel like I’ve lived most of this year in a stress and panic-induced fog, but a fog where I got a LOT of stuff done–none of it on my resolutions list, but even so, I accomplished a lot this year. My to-do lists were the only thing that kept me going and I’ve gone through pages and pages and pages of tasks large and small, crossing them off one by one. I’ve just started to really enjoy the clearer air and blank to do list and….and I feel like I need a new project because I am somehow, suddenly, stagnant. I feel like I’m not moving forward. I’ve had a few weeks of “normal” and I feel like I’m floundering. When everything was overwhelming I forced myself to be very efficient with my time, which helped me see consistent progress, and now I have all the time in the world and I feel like I am doing nothing worthwhile.

So…I guess it’s good news that last week we put in an offer (which was accepted) on a fixer upper house 700 miles away.

Touche, 2015.

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Writing for you, but really, writing for me

A few weeks ago I saw this writing meme on SoMi Speaks and Kristin’s blog and while it has taken me longer to get this completed than is fashionable when responding to a meme, I liked it enough to persevere anyway.

1. What am I writing or working on?

A few weeks ago I finished an enormous manual for my 8-5 job, it was full of technical information, timelines, sample communications, images, and media releases. I’ve had some good feedback and some constructive critique and am ready to tackle the 2.0 version, to be released in the fall.

On a personal level, recent events in my world and the world at large have prompted me to think about some very difficult questions and have demanded some answers. I don’t know if there has been another time in my life where I so desperately needed clarity. Beginning with the kidnapped young women in Nigeria, the subsequent #yesallwomen explosion and aftermath, and –most recently–a threat of excommunication of a Mormon feminist for her public work to advance equality within the LDS faith (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints). My heart both hurts and is simultaneously seething with anger. I know that women are not the only underrepresented group, but for a world with a population that is probably more than half female, we surely have a lot of unnecessary obstacles and difficulties and not a proportionate amount of heartache and lack of control.

I am trying to organize my thoughts on these events, and also on feminism in general. It’s not hard for me to write about, I find every topic I explore launches me into 3 or 4 more topics to address. I’ve opened Pandora’s box and the memories and hurts and issues escaping from it demand my attention. I am both energized and overwhelmed. ANd–more than ever–I am grateful for this space where, when they are fermented enough, I can share my thoughts and opinions without the fear that used to loom over every post. I have written nearly 100 pages on my “coming out” as a feminist and the experiences that catalyzed that realization. So, when I have something a little more formed and formatted, you can expect a series on Why I Am A Feminist.

2. How does my work differ from others of it’s genre?

I don’t really know how (or if) my writing differs from others “in it’s genre.” Honestly, I don’t know if I could put myself into any categorical genre. I suppose I write more non-fiction than fiction or creative writing; more edited than not (and only sometimes with spelling or grammar mistakes); I am more word-focused than image-focused (except when I post image-heavy photologues…ahem); more opinions and rantyness than DIY or crafts; more original content than reviews of products. I am not a Mommy blogger, not really a lifestyle blogger, not a fashion blogger, not a food blogger (at least, not here), and I don’t really travel enough to be considered a travel blogger. I’m just a girl with a notebook and a lot of opinions…is that a genre?

3. Why do I write?

Why? I write because I need to get words and thoughts and ideas out of my head and onto a page. I write because it helps me process and is the winding path from a jumbled mess of thoughts to something cohesive–from chaos to concrete opinion. I write because when I don’t my thoughts stop tumbling, begin to crust, and stagnate into a murky pool, suffocating themselves into oblivion. I write because it somehow makes me feel more alive.

4. How does my writing process work?

Part of me wishes I was some kind of uber-sophisticate with a tiny, shiny tablet-laptop that generated silent keystrokes who could sit on the train or in a hip coffee shop with bluesy music in my tiny earbuds, generating blog posts, paragraph after paragraph of perfectly edited prose.

Um, I’m not that person.

I write–in pen–furiously in a college-ruled 1-subject notebook because anything else seems overwhelming. I fill pages with thoughts and scribbles–crossing out entire paragraphs and writing new ones in teeny letters in the margins. I used to be able to open a new blog post and fill it with 1,000 words of…well, to be honest, mostly drivel. I am finding I like the ache in my hand from writing–I like being able to express some of my emotion in my handwriting: neat, well-formed letters for something I am almost certain of; larger ones when I’m forming the thoughts as I write; super slanty jagged ones when I’m angry, abbreviated words and a lot of them missing the last few letters when I am trying to write fast enough to keep up with my brain.

I don’t worry about “messing up” a page, or about anyone else reading what I write, and I no longer worry about composing the perfect blog post that could maybe go viral and make me famous/in-famous for a minute. I just write. Anything I want to publish here I transfer from my notebook to a blog post. I don’t know if that is a “process”…but that’s how it works for me.

What about you? How do you write? Where? Are you a genre-compliant writer? Or are you all over the map?

 

 

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Fact and Fiction

I thought starting a new blog would be easy, I thought the words would just pour out of my fingers and fill up posts without my hardly having to try. I thought I’d have immediate followers and readers and comments up the wazoo…

Ha!

Hahahahaha!

I really don’t know why how I can possibly justify this type of logic to myself, I know what blogging is like, I know it is difficult business, I know what the “writing-editing-revising-editing-writing-revising-editing-editing-editing-FINALLY hitting publish-only-to-find-a-spelling-error-in-the-last-paragraph” cycle is like. I know that quality content does not just stream out of anyone’s fingers; I know that commenters are an ever diminishing breed. But I was so hopeful, I need this site to be better for me. I need this to be a new “happy place.” I need to be able to share my hurts, my triumphs, my thoughts here. As most of you know, this is not my first blog. I have actually been blogging for years and years elsewhere in the vast universe of the internet. But in recent months “elsewhere” has become someplace I no longer can be honest or even be myself; things finally got so bad I decided to board up the windows and close everything down. That has also been a slow and difficult process, it’s like a part of me has died. Or, more accurately, it’s like I am actively killing something I love.

Despite knowing it would probably be the best thing for me and the 3 or 4 people who were most affected, shutting down my darling blog was (and is) really hard.

I am not embarrassed to admit that many (many!) tears were shed, lots of swears were yelled, and scenario after scenario was studied to make sure I was making the correct decision. There was not a single scenario with a dominating “pro” column and a completely empty “con” column. This was a really tough decision for me, and it has been weighing on my little heart for at least a year, probably longer. It’s been a dark, dark place.

The other day I read a quote by Madonna Badger, an art director for Calvin Klein who lost her three daughters and both parents in a Christmas Day house fire two years ago, she said:

“Basically, I go to wherever the light is, because anything else is darkness…”

Now, I am in NO WAY comparing closing a website to losing your entire family in one tragic day. But I love the idea of walking away from the dark things in our lives and trying to find something better. I am hoping that here will be better, safer, more real. I am hoping to unpack those vulnerable parts of myself and put them back where they belong. I hope I can throw open my windows and let in some sunshine. I want to write truthfully and honestly, even when it stings and even when it seems impossible.

Go to wherever the light is, because anything else is darkness.

Here we go!

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P.S. Um…my name is not actually Harriet. Most of the identifying information on this blog will be a variation on a truth or made up completely. (Does it seem strange to create an alter-ego in order to share your thoughts honestly? Well, yes, kind of. Strange, but necessary.) Harriet is my mask, but what is underneath the label–the actual content–is all me, more of me and a more true version of me than I’ve ever been able to share. And that, my friends, is refreshing! Exciting! Terrifying!  And awesome.