My Blue Castle

I've been thinking a lot about beauty lately. That Making Space class I took last month has a private facebook group and there was a post from one of the women about trying to love her legs, so she'd taken a picture. Lots of people joined in. Then there were belly pictures from women learning to love that bit of them. Then a bunch of boob pictures. And I just kept reading the discussions, and looking at all these brave real women, and thinking about how I don't really think I've ever actually felt beautiful in my whole life.

The best I can manage on a good day when looking in the mirror is "pretty okay" or "kinda cute." And wow isn't that sad.

I always come back to the story of how when my teacher mother woulld tell me her students asked "is your daughter pretty?" (and lets unpack why they even cared...) she would say "she's ok."

So yeah, I never got the "your beautiful" message from anyone else, and certainly I never learned to see it in the mirror.

But I'm trying. One thing I did recently was to use one of my private boards on Pinterest to pin up pictures that make me feel what I think feeling beautiful feels like. And at this point in my journey, I'm challenging myself to include lots of pictures of plush curvy women. Beauty as a concept is such a nebulous thing, and its hard to really figure out what it is about these pictures I'm assembling that does it for me. But its nice to have a collection of lovely juicy images to get my brain going in some sort of positive direction.

More work to do. Lots of self portraits to explore. Hairdos to explore (hey I got out my flat iron last night and tried to do a little something with my hair this morning... ). But it can't hurt to give myself a little shot of inspiration, right?

Back at work today after my week off. Man I have forgotten so quickly how to sit at a desk all day! Work is literally a pain in the neck today. But I'm sure I'll settle in soon. Hopefully. I hear through the grapevine there was a bit of an insurrection last week with the 'new guy whose about to leave' vs. new!boss. Have yet to hear anything officially but will keep eyes and ears open!

Last week's vacation was so needed, and coming off my two week Making Space class/cleanse was so restoring. Just making space to sit in a quiet peaceful house was so terrific. I'm so addicted. I've already signed up for the August session focusing on Joy. Hopefully that will carry me through this month and keep me motivated. It's just too easy for me to let things slip away. I don't even know what about this last session made SUCH a big difference, but I'm groovin' on it, whatever it was :)))

90 more minutes 'til I can call today done. Maybe I can brainstorm ideas for my summer Lewis story instead of doing work work??? LOL

So I've been taking this AWESOME 10 day sort of soul and home clearing "class" for these days leading up to the summer solstice. These tiny baby steps of soul work have been great, but today was a bit of a pause day, asking us to think about gratitude and mornings (we've talked a lot about how to make mornings work for us. life changing really) and well... I've pretty much always had a terrible time with mornings. I'm slow to wake up, I'm disinclined to get out of bed, I kind of don't want to recognize any time before 10 a.m. etc... So I'm reading along with things that all basically say mornings are a gift ... each new day is a gift etc... and the sarcastic wench in my head said

"yeah, each new day is yet another chance to fuck it all up."

Which I sort of laughed off inside my head but I keep hearing that Mjolnir type thunder crack I heard after I heard those words in my head.

I still don't know if it was just random bad thought, but I suspect there is some truth there ... that every morning I greet myself with an unconcious "ok today's the day it all goes tits up!" message and then try and crawl back under the covers forever. And oh god no. DNW.

So. Will have to sit with this thought I don't know what in the hell to do with. But I suppose its a good thing to ponder.

Jesus.

Ironically I woke up feeling reasonably rested and right with the world. Its just I hate my job right now so coming in to work isn't the bestest thing ever.

But as I was lying in bed half awake this morning I had this vision for the back half of my kitchen. There's this dead space between the back door that leads in from the garage, and the start of the kitchen counters. Right now its just full of crap. But I suddenly saw myself moving out the crap and moving in a small table, laying a cute vintage table cloth and using it to eat at. I am bad at eating at the table, usually preferring to eat in front of the tv, but I also know that once I collapse into my chair, I'm not likely to leave it for any length of time. And since my craft stuff has taken over the dining room table ...

It's generally a good idea for me to pay attention to myself when I've seen these little flashes of inspiration. I'm taking a self-care class right now and really working through things that improve my life and things that don't. This seems like a place to start. And given I'm catless now, I can do fresh flowers on the table. So this might be happening soon. Maybe not tonight as I can't put off mowing my lawn any more.

Managed to put it off last night by going to see Now You See Me after dinner with the parents. It was great fun, and lots of great Ruffalo stuff -- which was mostly the reason I wanted to see it anyway :) Although I do love a caper film! It is however the kind of film that requires a rewatch once you know the twist/ending!!

Okay back to trying to make myself do stuff I don't want to do ... and pondering whether I'm brave enough to start making regular trips to the local public pool. I crave time in the water, and maybe I can convince myself that a couple evening a week at the pool is doable!! I went once last summer and it was okay. But its the perfect intersection of body issues, introvert issues, and procrastination issues!!!

that I had to have my Jinxy put to sleep last week. I've sort of shared the story piecemeal, but I suppose I should pull it all together here in one place.
( cut for sads and medical details... )


And I think I shall take a break from being a pet mama for a while. My poor battered heart needs a bit of a break. But Jinxy was equal parts adorable and OMGWHATDIDYOUDO?! and I will miss his little face.

It's sort of nice and sort of worrying when your co-workers greet you in the morning with the phrase "I'm glad you decided to come back to work today."

See, I had a calm two days and then all hell broke loose as we're going to be moving stuff, and probably our whole department before everything is said and done as the weight bearing studies came back with a diagnosis of TOO MUCH STUFF! So naturally facilities and panicking and wants everything moved YESTERDAY and we're trying to do what we can but in a more measured way so that people will still have access to stuff... But as I'm just transitioning into my collection management duties, a lot of the updating and co-ordinating is going to fall on me to make sure that the catalog accurately reflects where stuff is. Oh joy. It's job security at least, right?!

On the plus side I have charging in my office a 1st gen iPad now which I was sort of given. I don't really have access to what gets put on it, but I can use it for mobile note-taking and hopefully access to google docs/spreadsheets etc. And if I occasionally take it home to watch youtube videos on, no one will be any the wiser ... :) And maybe I can weasel the password out of our faculty member who's been keeping them.

But now back to wading through the 8000 pieces of paper on my desk...

Okay this is just weird. This morning or yesterday I found myself idly wishing for a workplace where people go out for drinks after work sometimes. Just in a stray thought kind of way, probably in reaction to some story/show where it happens and I thought "hey that would be nice."

And just now, today, I get a department email saying "hey anyone up for drinks after work on Friday?" In my year and three quarters here in this department its the first email of its kind that I've gotten.

Spooky.

Also cue the "yes but they don't really mean ME thoughts" that occur everytime I'm included in a group invite.

Busy Busy day here. Things to get done and a candidate in for our one remaining unfilled Faculty position.

But it's Wednesday so that means chicken and dumplings in the cafe ... and I'm wearing a cute new dress. So I think that balances out the busyness, yes?

So like HI! It's been a while, huh?

Work has been crazeballs since the start of the Spring Semester in January but things are starting to calm down fractionally since the new hire started last monday. Previously I had been trying to do three people's jobs. Now I just have to do two ... and hopefully in another couple of months, they'll make good on their promise to hire a third staff member and then I can just have my own job to do. They're trying to phase me into being what I've been calling "Collections Sherpa" ... mostly collection maintenance. There's roughly a million volumes my area of the library is responsible for, and they need someone to look after them. Weed the old stuff, send the broken stuff for repairs, move volumes around... and a bazillion other things. It's exciting but also slightly terrifying to be responsible for so many items, but if I never have to do web page stuff again, I'll TAKE it!

Spent 48 hours in a hotel room in New Jersey last weekend. Which sounds like it could have been a dirty weekend, but was simply a business trip with a lot of boxed Shiraz. :) I guess I can say MY theater company now that I'm on the board ... got us a room, and we met up with the NY/NJ half of the board and talked about long term planning and short term grant proposals. Still blows my mind that I work with a professional company that works in and around NY. Mostly what keeps the company going is in-school arts in education workshops and residencies. Then we have the free street theater we do here and there with the help of grant monies (coming soon to Bayonne, Seacaucus, and ... somewhere else, Jersey City maybe? ... my notes are at home ;)) Then we also work on developing new pieces like those productions we did locally with the Venetian poetry, and the other one using pieces written by local women writers. Plans are to keep working the Venetian piece as its wonderful (and we made those 15 gowns in one weekend so we might as well use them ;) and to dust off a piece on Freedom ... as what better time than now to do a piece that opens up discussions about the nature of freedom!!

So more theater to come. Also I have to decide if I'm going to local community theater auditions tomorrow/Friday. They've moved into the Performing Arts Center this year, so fewer performances but a much bigger house. Also air-conditioning. And fewer bats. But less ambiance than a 200 year old barn. I haven't even looked very closely at what shows they're doing. But I do have to look at dates and see when I'm free before I decide on auditions.

Otherwise I'm mostly just squee-ing over the 221 B set rebuild ... and those pictures of Tom Hardy cuddling a puppy. And working my way though the Battlestar Galactica reboot. I'm in the first half of season two right now and loving it. I love world building. :)

So that's me. What's everyone else been up to?

Well now I feel equal parts pleased and shitty.

Our morning part time person (sort of half time as she works all weekday mornings), who didn't get the job here which she really really really wanted told me this morning over tea (DOUBLE BERGAMOT. it's awesome :) that she'd had coffee with our department head post job announcement (I knew this, and was glad he had time to take her for coffee and talk to her) that as part of that she'd told him what a great job she though _I_ was doing and how underutilized she thought I was and that they had a treasure they needed to take advantage of etc etc.... 

Which. WOW. *blushes* *wonders how to accept compliments gracefully* but also CRAP. I feel really bad that she had all those nice things to say about someone who was partially responsible for her NOT getting the job she really wanted, (she had also been sort of groomed for by my previous supervisor (to no avail, clearly...).

In other news, still full of Lewis feels. Waiting to find right inspiration to write something canon-compliant. Otherwise have tiny bit written for a Lewis/His Dark Materials crossover, but am stuck on Laura's daemon. Granted I only ever read the first book so I am sort of vague on everything except people have daemons. That's enough, right? LOL

Also sidetracked by random thoughts that go like this: in a society more like our own, but where everyone has a daemon ... how would airplanes/airplane seats have evolved differently? Do daemon's get seats? Are the seats wider so one can sit with one's daemon? Oh the places my brain goes for something that's only vaguely related to what I was writing... 

So ... If you were Laura Hobson, what kind of a daemon would you like? :)

So yesterday was the first hard day in my self-portrait class. Nothing brings out the insecurities like being asked to take a picture looking right into the camera. I got a picture that wasn't the greatest, but there was something THERE when I looked at myself, so I posted it, and HELLO second round of insecurities. We're encouraged to look at the other pictures in the group and post comments and whatnot, and when I looked at the day's accumulated photos I saw a lot of wonderful people looking back at me. And rationally I know my picture is just one of many ... but I saw all of them looking wonderful ... and I saw myself looking like a big blotchy pink marshmallowy pig eyed blob. 

It's not a new thing. I've always more or less despised the way I look (the way I THINK I look anyway). It's part of the reason I'm taking this class. To see if I can shake things loose and start to see myself differently. Hoping I can. But its an interesting exercise to bump up against you larger insecurities and try and quiet the noises in your head. 

Given the comments and other's pictures ... I know I'm not alone in feeling like this, and that always helps a bit too. 

Today's prompt is "reflections" so that should be somewhat less traumatizing for all of us :)

Not much on my calendar for today, which gives me plenty of time to ponder this possible His Dark Materials cross-over I'm toying with attempting. It's the damn world-building you have to do first ... giving everyone daemons and whatnot is fun, but also you can't really write until you do it. As usual I have several lovely images in my head, but how to write a story around them ... ???