Powering Through

Let’s see if I can write yet another post about how I disappeared off the face of the Earth and then how sorry I am that I did that, and see if anyone reads it, shall we? Actually, let’s not. It sounds a bit depressing and extremely boring. Instead, let’s take a different approach—something I’m ripping off the Bloggess. I swear this will become clear in the second paragraph.

The first time I remember having a panic attack, I must have been around six. It was night, I was in bed, and I have the feeling my parents may have let me watch something with aliens on TV. I couldn’t fall asleep, and I felt nervous and sweaty, and then the next thing I knew, every sound in the universe was crashing loudly through my head and my heart felt like it was going to burst and my body felt like if I even attempted to move out of bed and get my mom, I would fly off the face of the planet.

Okay, I lied. Third paragraph. If we don’t count this one.

I’ve had anxiety forever, it seems. It took having a panic attack in the middle of the hall before the morning bell in high school for me to realize that I wasn’t actually going to die (that it was, after all, a panic attack—thanks to that wonderful English teacher who knows exactly who he is) because I never told anyone about it. After K was born, I ended up saying, “Screw this shit!”, and throughout my twenties, I spent a lot of time, energy, and effort kicking anxiety’s ass. I used every tool available to me: meds, therapy, behavior modification, you name it. And I did kick panic’s and anxiety’s asses. That doesn’t mean that sometimes they don’t come back to take another beating. So, I’ve developed a repertoire. I have some standard go-to ways to keep myself out of that anxious/panicky state of mind, and in my opinion, those ways are awesome.  One might even say they are some of my favorite things.

Hang in there, folks. I will get to the point someday…

That’s what’s been going on for me for the last several weeks. My grandfather’s passing, the stresses everyday life, being sick, some important changes J and I have been working on… all of these things added up and into some major anxiety. So, I ended up cutting back on a lot of things (like writing here, and writing at SI, and being on social media) to go back to basics: Get up. Wear clean clothes. Make sure to eat. Sleep. And do at least one damn thing each day that you enjoy—even if you don’t think you’ll enjoy it today. Do it.

That’s how I power through.

Now we’re there! The Bloggess recently had a list of her favorite things, and there were so many excellent ideas on that list that I thought it would be awesome to create a list of my own. These are the things I’ve done recently to pull myself out of a funk, but you don’t have to be in a funk to try them out. I just felt like sharing the love (as the Bloggess is one of my favorite things)…

You may love Doctor Who, or you may hate it (WHAT is wrong with you???), but even if you do love DW, have you watched Torchwood? Now, it’s not suitable for the kiddos, and frankly, the first two episodes left me feeling like I did after I watched “Rose” for the first time, but just like Doctor Who, Torchwood does get better (although, it’s not as good as DW—we all know that—but it’s an excellent Netflix diversion in the summer television doldrums).

Also, for my DW fans—do you follow Doctor Who and the TARDIS on Facebook? You totally should. That page is chock-full of memes and inside jokes and cool merch. I like that they repeat things about ten times, because I am the person who will miss something in their timeline the first nine times. Also? Sometimes a girl needs to geek out for a bit in the middle of the day, just to make herself feel better.

As for reading… I recently read The Astronaut Wives Club, and for non-fiction (Gah!), it was engrossing! I read that damn thing in one day. Also? This totally gives you a reason to go to the library. I didn’t know if I would really like this book, and I didn’t want to purchase it through iBooks, so I went the old-school route. And you know what? I missed the library. A lot.

Have you heard about the Missouri is Awesome campaign? No? Watch the video. And then, go and check out the 5 Pound Apparel  store, and hit up their Kickstarter. And start calling people you don’t know Terry, just to see what they do…

Finally, I re-found Cold Stone Creamery. I hadn’t been to one in, oh, a decade, even though I walk by one every day on my way to work. On the Fourth, we ended up going in, waiting in line, and eating massive quantities of ice cream and chocolate and peanut butter. I’ve come to realize that ice cream is not only a summertime staple, but a valued member of my ‘get-to-feeling-better’ program. We all need to eat more ice cream.

So now it’s your turn—Tell me, what makes you happy? What have you recently enjoyed? What pulls you out of a funk?

A Year in Review

2012 has provided us with one helluva wild ride. Then again, I don’t know that there’s been a single year of our lives—since J and were together, at least—that hasn’t been a wild ride.  That being said, the reason I started this blog nearly three years ago was to reflect on our lives—to find the positive and remember it through the hard times. I lost that once, and I never want to travel through that darkness again.

So, let’s take a quick look at some of the highlights of 2012—as featured on this blog or not—and then I’ll be ready to start thinking about 2013… although, if you caught me on Twitter last night, you know that I’ll only be making resolutions I know I can keep. Like spending more time on Pinterest.

In January, I mentally powered through an minor PA relapse. Writing about it gave me the chance to connect with other individuals who suffer from RA, PA, and Lupus. We traded notes on meds, exercises, shortcuts and foods.  I’ve been med free for quite some time now (since July 2009), and I can attribute most of it to J’s enforcement of a positive attitude and exercising Every. Damn. Day. Which, at first, made me feel like I was going to die. I hate freaking exercise.

In February, J and I took a weekend trip to KC and I started writing for Sprocket Ink! My favorite posts to write in the last year certainly had to be about the Hunger Games Haters and the Zombie Apocalypse. Also, last February, I began to take a stand against the teacher who was making Ant’s life a living hell.

In March, I first starting preaching the benefits of finding your Twitter tribe, and wrote an SI article that started the phrase ‘Hooker Powers’ amongst my friends. It was awesome.

April brought a declaration from J that I need to write about him more often, and Alex from Late Enough and I shared a mutual hatred of birds.  Also? The Bloggess released the funniest book ever.

May marked the one year anniversary of the tornado which devastated my hometown in 2011. Steph from Musings of a Sarcastic Mind  started #OperationPlayMore and I joined in. J was still on me to write more about him.

June brought vacation. Because there’s no better time to go to Disney World than when there’s a tropical storm. No lie! The rain keeps the temperatures down and the lines away. It was fantastic to know that it was 83 degrees in Florida while it was 106 in Missouri. Plus? We totally got to see a rocket launch and Atlantis make its way home. Also, there was the broken shower incident of 2012… I still hold Mike Holmes responsible…

July was hot. And unbearable. And tried to kill me, since June didn’t get the job done.

In August, I spent a week in Chicago sans-guys. Granted, it was for work, but it was awesome. Good food. My first official train ride.  

In September, which is one of the busiest months of the year for me (I know, I know… I say it about almost every month) we openly admitted to K’s OCD diagnosis—which had been a summer-long process, and to make me feel better, the Twitter gave me a vacuum. Again, this is why the Twitter is awesome! Okay, maybe it didn’t exactly happen that way, but close enough. Oh, and I totally copped to believing in ghostesses, and started a group with like-minded women who want to travel to ghosty places, learn to ghost-hunt, and drink. Mostly the traveling and drinking bit, I bet. Then Noa from Oh, Noa told me she wanted to come and investigate my house (she totally was a ghost hunter before) and I didn’t find it creepy at all.

October and November both are kind of a blur. I spent most of my time writing the grant. I also had some funny moments (well, funny for J, not for me) and Jesse took pity on me and sent me some Rock Star Wine! 

  

In December… well, I officially admitted I have let myself go (although I’ve been able to rectify a bit of that over the last week of vacation—I even gave myself a manicure on Saturday—a manicure!) and then… well, I think it was hard for many of us to get in the Christmas spirit this year—especially if we had elementary-aged children.  Each year, the four of us do something or make something to remind us of the Christmas spirit. This year, I’m happy to say we participated in #28ActsofKindness.

Why 28? Because there were 28 victims that day, at least in my mind. I don’t believe in monsters, but I do believe we have a massive gap in mental health care services in our nation today. I also told you that I am (still) waiting in the Common Ground.

And there you have it. Not an exceptional year, per se, but an adventure, nonetheless. Every day with these three guys (and Super-Sophie) is an adventure, to be sure!  I’m looking forward to 2013… but I suppose that’s fodder for a post tomorrow. 

What is(are) the highlight(s) from your 2012? And what are you looking forward to in 2013? 

Did You Miss Me?

I desperately need to blog, so I am going to fix that right now… Even though I don’t have anything particularly poignant to say.

Although… and I know you’re bound to be just as excited as I am about this… I am done with the grant proposal at work! Woohoo!

What? Did I forget to mention that thing? Oh. I’ve spent the past few weeks writing a grant proposal at work, asking for money. Which is really the only reason why one would write a grant proposal, but…

Do you know how difficult (and time consuming) it can be to write a big, thesis-long, technical thing asking for money? And explaining how you will wisely and responsibly spend that money? I don’t like asking the neighbors to check the mail while we’re on vacation! Can you imagine how odd I feel asking for fistfuls of cash—even when it’s not my own?

I did find time to put the tree up, though...

 If I had participated in NaNoWriMo this year, I’d have been about half-way done, which is a vast improvement over how far I got last year. So maybe grant-proposal writing is my thing.

Nevertheless, the proposal is done, edited, and gathering signatures as we speak. And this means that the few weeks of being able to think of nothing other than the proposal are over!

Unless we win, and then I’ll be spending a lot more time thinking about the whole thing. Which is kind of the point, but hopefully, it won’t suck out all of the creative writing juices from my brain, like the writing of the proposal did.

Also? I think I’ve gained about ten pounds during this grant proposal writing process. Writing a grant requires that you eat chocolate, and have wine with dinner. And not exercise. That’s the important piece, there. I’d probably appreciate it if the weight gain thing would stop now too.

How could anyone resist this wine??? They couldn't.

Although—here’s an idea—I could go back to my Fitspo motivational posters, and my blog posts about how losing weight sucks and why exercise is the devil’s work!

You see? The juices are already starting to flow after just starting a blog post.

Except this is really a blog post to nowhere. While the big names, like The Bloggess, are incorporating half a dozen different animals (dead, alive, mythical, and saintly) in one post, and SDL, who came out of the closet as not-straight this week… here I am with no coherent thesis statement and no idea of an ending to this train wreck.

Maybe the proposal burned up that area of my cerebral cortex…

Or... maybe it's creepy owls who are now the newest thing in house accessories...

 Although, I was able to write some fun posts for Sprocket Ink over the past few weeks, and I’ve not yet had the chance to share them with you here! So, let’s have a recap of some of the good ones:

I was amazed that our culture needs Legos to explain the Bible…

I made fun of Lance Armstrong’s Twitter skillz.

I got to applaud Cory Booker, and…

I wondered what all of you would be doing with your Powerball money, had you won.

You know what? That was almost like a weekend wrap-up! Which I haven’t done forever! Perhaps I’ll bring that back as well! And maybe a giveaway? I haven’t had the chance to do one of those in a while… And didn’t I promise everyone a post of the vacuum that Twitter gave me?

And… I’m back!

Context, Immersion, & Realization in the World’s Longest Blog Post. I’m Sorry.

Photo Source

 For those of you who don’t know me in real life, you likely have no idea what I mean when I say I’m a culture nerd. That’s okay. I plan on telling you exactly what I mean today. Get ready to nod off. I feel like thought-dumping all over the blog today. Or would it be spewing? The one thing I know is this jumble of thoughts is coming out. I will try to keep it short, but no promises.

I’m a culture nerd because that’s what I studied in both my undergraduate days and while I was I graduate school. That’s right. I studied American culture. I studied it from a psychological perspective, I studied it from an anthropological perspective, and then I dove fully into the pool and got my master’ in American Culture Studies. Please note that I didn’t get my degree in American Studies—which is more along the lines of the history and literature of America (which IS good stuff), but in American CULTURE Studies, which means I fashion myself to be something like a social scientist.

Right now, you’re likely thinking that I have now informed you there’s a line of inquiry more pointless than a philosophy degree. I would beg to differ-- there are lots of ways to be employed with a culture studies degree, and they are not all at the Smithsonian Institute.

Also, I’ve always like philosophy majors, so don’t diss them.

EVERYTHING we do, EVERY day, is influenced by the enculturation we have received in our lives, to date. Culture tells us how to act, how to respond, how to think, how to process new ideas and experiences—it tells us almost everything. Human beings give up animal instincts by the 18^th month of life, and we rely on culture a lot from there on out. Granted, biology and genetics has its role, but—in my mind at least—culture is king. I like to study the recurring parts of culture we respond to but don’t always understand (sometimes this is called the myth and symbol school), and I like to study the new culture that is made when people interact with one another (called symbolic interactionism).

Yesterday I had reason to pull up an old article from my grad school days in order to help a student. It was a paper on textual analysis—which is one method researchers use to study culture—especially if they are qualitative researchers (I fashion myself a qualitative researcher). As I was reading McKee’s article (he literally wrote the book on how to do a textual analysis, and I love that he talks to us like a normal person would do in everyday conversation) I came across a chunk that has smacked me in the face time and again. I won’t bore you with quoting McKee, but he basically says that in order to understand the significance of anything in culture (as a researcher—but as a normal person as well, I would hazard) you must immerse yourself in everything. Books, movies, music, news, pop culture, the internet—everything.

I’ve been craving culture. Movies. Books. Music. News. I’ve been feeling guilty about giving in to these cravings, because there’s so much to do at work and at home right now. Every time I give in and buy a new CD or download a new book or watch OnDemand I feel like crap because I could be school shopping or grading or cleaning out the closets.

McKee tells me, in one paragraph, that I need to be immersed sometimes. That these cravings deserve to be fulfilled because the process of immersion is important.  I thought about this for the remainder of the day yesterday. It led me to another realization—and this is where we get to the point of the post, I promise—I’ve gotten a bit off track here on my blog.

This little chunk of the internet was created with the intention of chronicling our ascent to bliss. I know, I know; I’ve always loved being dramatic. There are ups and downs in life, and we’ve experienced some downs as of late, but the upward trajectory remains the same. My goal was to chronicle it, so that I could start reminding myself that life doesn’t always suck. Which was a hard thing for me to grasp back in 2008 and 2009. For the most part, I’ve accomplished that goal and kept to the main point of this blog—detailing the wonder in our life right now—marking down the moments of my children’s lives I’m afraid the years will wash out, describing the thoughts and experiences that seem so important to us in this day and time, etc. But I’ve also been narrower than I should’ve been—so while, on the outside, it appears that I’ve remained on track—I’ve realized that I’m not really on track at all. It’s not just about the funny things Ant says or the vacation we took or even how I feel about today’s politics or anything else. I am not giving you the full scope of what’s important in our lives—in my life—right now.

One part of the problem (hectic summer schedule aside) I’ve been experiencing in posting here (on a regular basis, at least) is that I’m writing other things as well. I write for Sprocket Ink (and I’m not willing to give that up—because it helps justify my desire to immerse in pop culture about Katie Holmes and Octomom and all the other things) and I write here, and then I write fiction. Which I haven’t been sharing with anyone, for a multitude of reasons:

1)     The first reason is that I’m afraid it sucks. Which I think is usually the top reason for anyone who writes and doesn’t share it with another living soul.

2)     Because I always wimp before I hit 20,000 words. I have great ideas for books, can outline them out, start writing, and then something (usually myself) derails me from ever finishing a damn project.

3)     Because it doesn’t fit. I’ve been hesitant to do a lot of things on this blog. That statement itself is fodder for another entire post, but the gist is that I’ve felt the scope of this blog wouldn’t accommodate serial fiction of unknown quality.

I have set myself up in a way where I have at least three major writing projects going on at any given point in time (not counting work) and no overlap. I think fellow bloggers/writers may agree with me—there are only so many words you can write in a day. In a week. In a month. So, if I keep posting at Sprocket Ink, and I happen to be excited (for the moment) about a fiction idea, then this blog suffers. Or if I’m excited about something here, then the fiction suffers. Because I only have so much time and so many words, and I’ve always thought these three things should not overlap.

Realization told me yesterday this is a lie I’ve been feeding to myself to continue justifying hiding the other things I do. If I would post some of my fiction—or even talk about my writing—I would be presenting a more accurate picture of my life here, I might even get some (free!) critique on my writing, and—here’s the big part—posting serially may even keep me on track to actually FINISH SOMETHING, FOR ONCE IN MY LIFE!

That would be nice, wouldn’t it? I bet you’re hoping I finish this post sometime soon.

All of the above is to explain a major change that is coming to the blog. I am going to start posting fiction.  I am going to give it a page up above, and then link to serial sections, and then you can read it, and tell me if I suck, or if I’m awesome (especially if you are a book agent, or know one), and if J is right and aliens are the new zombies (just like zombies were the new vampires two years ago). I don’t know exactly when you can expect to see this new stuff, but I’m shooting for the next couple of days. I don’t know what my schedule will be for posting it, and I don’t know if perhaps I will just hide behind the loveseat in my living room waiting for the trolls to come and laugh at me, but I will try to make this a regular thing, and have some structure, and what I really want from those who read is for you to KEEP ME ACCOUNTABLE. Seriously.

Sometimes a girl needs someone tailing her ass in order to get a project done, just like she needs to brain dump all over her blog for her sanity.

And if you made it to this—the second to last sentence of this post—then you deserve a gold star!

Fellow bloggers: Is your blog a completely open representation of who you are in any given moment, or do you sometimes use it as a wall to hide part of yourself—like I do?