Kondoing

Have you ever looked around and thought your life, your home, and your mind were cluttered? I started off this year without resolutions beyond working some jigsaw puzzles and try to enjoy myself more. The feeling of being bogged down mentally and physically kept creeping in, and the next thing I knew, I had set up my goals system (something I have used since I was 20) and plotted out the next 10 years of my life. I was faithful in doing this for decades, but I think the years after Hurricane Harvey were so overwhelming, that I let it slide, and I just coasted.

Just as I roused from my malaise, I kept hearing the name "Marie Kondo" everywhere. I found her show on Netflix and it was the final push I needed. I have been "Kondoing" my home (and life) for the last few weeks and it is clearing the cobwebs (literally and figuratively). I only wish I started this a few years ago. I am not completely faithful to her model, but what I have taken away from her method is working very well for me. I started in my bedroom and managed to unload about 2/3 of my clothes. Putting all that you own in a mound on your bed is a shocking way to come to the realization that there is such a thing as "too much." 

After donations to Goodwill, I tackled my papers and found the bottom of that pile (finally), making it more manageable month to month now. I took a couple of boxes to a shredding event that is held by a church every few months, and for a $15 dollar donation and some dry goods for the homeless, they poured my papers into a shredding truck and destroyed them on site - a win-win.

Now each month is devoted to clearing out and updating a different room. I did bathrooms in March and April will be the Kitchen., etc... until I'm done. I am looking forward to getting to my studio/Gohonzon room at the other end of the house. It will signify that I am done with this process, and also free that room up for me to enjoy again for painting and meditation. 

After a rough 2018, this feels like the physical and mental exercise/exorcise that will help make 2019 more palatable. Since 2019 gives all indications of being as bad or worse that its predecessor, I think we will all need to do everything we can to buckle up (and down) to prepare for the bumpy ride that most certainly awaits. 

Ron English, “Corpocracy”: installation view, 2015, Station Museum of Contemporary Art

To say that trump being elected president has been a black cloud over the country and over me is a monumental understatement. The blind, rabid hatred of much of what I love about the U.S. and it's people is on display daily by trump and his frothing base. The madness of the situation seems to me to be what the Roman Empire looked like as it fell. I understand that the most amazing periods of creativity and growth spring from the darkest and most desperate times, but it is an excruciating process. 

Fighting my way through two years of trump as president has had an impact on me, for the better and the worse. I have lost some of the optimism that I once had about people, but I have also seen how our system of government, and how so many people in America,  work to work to preserve civil liberties and Constitutional law. I have seen wrongdoing on both sides, but the GOP looks like the most corrupt and morally bankrupt institution to exist in this country, all the worse for not for not standing up to trump and trying to abate some of his worst tendencies. History will reveal how much damage he has been able to inflict on our natural resources, our people, and our economy, and it will not be kind to the collaborators who helped him along his path of destruction. 

Elevation/PSB 2016 by Finijo

2018 was not a great year for me physically or emotionally, which is clear to me when I realized how long it has been since I visited this place. For too long work was so stressful that I lived in a self-imposed state of ennui as a means of survival. When I changed my work situation in 2017, I was so worn down, that it has taken me a year or so just to get back to stasis. Even now, it is an effort to make the things I used to do and enjoy part of my routine again, but it is happening. 2018 was not all bad, and in spite of a non-healing ankle injury, a root canal gone awry, a car accident that almost removed me and still causes me pain, and pneumonia that landed me in the hospital, I managed to make it to Mexico City for Dia de los Muertos. I had an amazing adventure with family and friends and fell in love with Mexico. 

Working through my emotional sludge brought about more of a mission than a resolution for 2019. I have begun to clean out all that I don't need in my life. From possessions to people. The hope is not just to simplify, but to devote more time to the things and people I care about. To keep the people and things that make my life better and to disconnect myself from sources of pain and negativity. I don't want to slog through the rest of my life dragging behind me anything that makes my journey more difficult. I have done that long enough. Still, taking inventory of what I own is a bit disheartening. I have too much stuff - an embarrassment of riches. I donated 40 pairs of shoes and 2/3 of my clothes, and still feel like I can rid myself of more and not even feel the loss. I cleaned out papers and took about 10 lbs of shredding to a mobile shredding unit last week. This beginning has given me clarity, and with each step I take toward minimizing these things in my life, I feel like I'm making room for my creativity. 

It is time to put my energy into my art, my family, my friends, and my life. I have an art site in the works, a couple of art shows on the horizon, and I think I will be ready to get a studio in the future. 

Grinding

Membrane by Finijo

Tonight I am pondering a lifetime spent fighting to survive and always coming up just a little bit short. I will request some antidepressants and antianxiety medication from my doctor next week, to see if it can help lift the veil. Beyond tired, I am weary.The clarity of vision to create is now lost to a constant fog. No writing, no drawing - just work, home, chores, errands, and taking care of other people. Using Roku like crack, and binging one show after another, just to keep from having to sleep a dreamless sleep or think about all that feels like it is crushing me. Waiting to lay down until I am literally staggering to bed in exhaustion, prevents me from being kept awake by thoughts of what cannot be changed before I drift off.  Hope and joy now replaced by dread and regret. We all carry our own burdens, but some of us carry the burden of others, and eventually it y to lean on, and nobody to help. One by one, possibilites are ground away, leaving a layer of dust over what little is left.

New Year 2017

Trish and Darin Glass Half Empty

It is a new year and I am slogging through it already. Mom went into the hospital and had surgery on December 20th, and the illness I had been fighting off took me over for the next two weeks. The vacation days that I took well in advance of the end of the year, with the express though to spend them doing fun things and not thinking about the dread I am feeling from work and from the impending inauguration of president-elect Baby Tyrant never happened. I was too ill to attend the parties I was invited to and became a slave to Mucinex, steroids, antibiotics, Nyquil and a neti pot.  I did manage to get to the Degas exhibit at the MFAH and it was transcendent. More than 200 pieces of art including drawings, paintings, sculptures, and photographs. It was an incredible history lesson and journey through the life of an incredibly talented artist. I am going to strive this year to see as much art as I can, since I don't seem to be capable of creating it at the moment. I am also setting the bar very low for my goals this year. Survival is my watchword, emotionally, professionally, and physically. If I manage to survive, then goals met. If anything happens beyond survival, then there may be cause for celebration. 

I face the new year, not with a renewed sense of purpose or having replenished my reserves, but in a depressed and depleted state. I don't want to go back to work. I don't have the energy to help anyone, so I will go through the motions and hope that the law of averages will make everything appear to be running as it should, not good, not bad, but middling. Not sunshine or rain, nothing to inspire an emotional lift or fall, just more of the grey nothingness. 

Fuck 2016 and all the promise that was lost, and fuck 2017, too. I know what's coming and it is going to be a bitch of a year. 

I Understand Now

 Grandma and Linda 2000

Listening to Accuradio Decade: 1970's Hits, the floodgate opened and I cried for the first time in ages. I turn 50 this year and I am looking forward to hitting the milestone (it's a miracle that I made it this far). Still there is a pall of loss cast over my life. With each passing year, I feel it more acutely than the year before. While I would love to live to see 100, I am a realist and recognize that I did not win the genetic lottery. 

 Steve, Fini, and Grandma 2000

Mother dead at age 35, father dead at age 45. sister gone by 52, and brother gone by 58. I am staring down what is probably the last decade of my life and today, listening to the soundtrack of my childhood, with a gentle Spring rain steadily falling from the gray sky, I understand why my Grandma Kate drank. She lost her brother in the last months of WWII and then watched a large extended family pass, one by one until she was the last one standing of her generation. She lived till the ripe age of 92, surrounded by grandchildren and great-grandchildren who loved her and wanted her to live with them, but she lost her daughter (my mother) when she was 60 and her son while she was in her early 80's, and honestly, his living was probably worse than his dying, (the word wastrel was coined with him in mind). 

Linda's Wedding 2000

At age 60, she decided she would be dead soon and sold her home 5 years before it was paid off. She "loaned" the money to her son and my brother for a business venture that never really got started. Needless to say, she never got any of the money back. Grandma Kate had aunts and grandmothers she was close to, but a troubled relationship with her mother, who also drank to excess. Today I listen to the rain, cry, and feel the pain of her loss, both for me and for her. I will wake tomorrow and feel better, but today I wallow.

A Masked Life

Venice Through the Mask's Eyes 5 by Alex Levin

Lately I feel as though I am looking at the world through a mask. That old feeling of disconnection is back. It's how my mind/body handle stress. I am good under pressure, but after prolonged exposure, I function by floating above the fray. It feels like I am the pilot of an unmanned human. It's been some time since I had this feeling,and this time it crept up on me sneakily. I am in it now and wonder how long it will be before I rejoin the human race. When it has me, I guess it doesn't matter. 

Time to go through the motions... 

Media Diet

Between the election circus (mainly GOP) and the terrorist attacks all over the world (298 and counting so far this year), things seem bleak. We cut off our cable in January and watch only what we can on Roku, which is to say, everything except news. It is not that we can't watch news on Roku, but we have to make an effort to watch news, so it I feel a bit like an emotionally fragile ostrich sticking my head in the Roku, but it is the only way to tune out the cacophony of evil and stupid that we are all drowning in. I am drawn to British mystery and cop shows (this week it's New Tricks), fantasy shows (Gotham, Sleepy Hollow),  and gritty shows (Ray Donovan, Hannibal, and Quantico). Anything that takes my mind off of work and the world, is a boon to my ability to sleep, which has been profoundly affected by the chaos around me of late. Luckily, melatonin also has a positive impact on my drowsiness

While the world is still reeling from the attacks in Paris (because there seems to be relatively little coverage of the rest of the attacks in the world), I am in the middle of a media detox diet. Yes, I still have the occasional news relapse, but for the sake of my mental health, I am trying to partake in a balanced and healthy news diet. The verboten, fettuccine Alfredo of this diet is anything right wing and most certainly all things Fox. In my younger days, my system could handle the toxicity, but as I get older, I have learned to accept my limitations. My news staple is NPR during drive time and the rare treat I allow myself is a desert of Trevor Noah's Daily Show.

This is how I survive the media apocalypse.

SCOTUS - For The People!

Facebook Profile Pic by Finijo

This week the Supreme Court of the United States made the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) legitimate and legalized gay marriage by nullifying the state laws that barred marriage equality for people who are gay. There are a lot of weeks that I question my government and think that the government and many of our citizens are on a path of hatred and aggression. This week is not one of them. This week I am proud that the judicial branch of our government protected citizens who needed the protection and who could not receive it any other way. 

The dissenters are as follows:

Obamacare - Scalia, Alito, Thomas, and Kennedy

Gay marriage: Scalia, Alito, Thomas, and Roberts

I am troubled that both decisions were won with only a 5 to 4 vote, but I am not surprised that it all of the dissenters were men, and I am really not surprised that Scalia, Alito, and Thomas all voted like conservative old men afraid of change. 

Today I am focusing on the positive, so I am grateful and ecstatic that the SCOTUS vote went the way of love, rather than bigotry and fear. 

I know there will be protests and that there will likely be violence in the wake of these decisions, but change is happening, and today I am hopeful. 

New Profile

Station Museum Mandala by Finijo

I began my blog more than 10 years ago. It was a natural progression from paper journaling to a blog, but it was also rooted in my frustration with the election in 2004. Politics has turned my stomach a little more with each passing year, but I still blog about the minutiae of my life and at times the larger events in the world. Sometimes I still manage a book review or to blog about something that I just learned that seems pretty cool to me. My blog has changed in the past 11 years and I have changed some over that time, as well. 

When I started, I was a fledgling geek and the internet was just approaching it's adolescence and, as cynical as I can be, I had no way of predicting the revelations that would come to pass when Edward Snowden released thousands of NSA documents into the world. Reading my profile tonight, I realized that I can no longer say I would be first in line for the human modem. Of course, we are wireless now, but I would not trust that kind of tech in my body for any amount of money. I grew up during Watergate, graduated in 1984 (of course reading  and watching 1984) and on Logan's Run and West World, but it took government surveillance of our phone records to bring on a fairly mature case of The Conversation paranoia. This is my old profile quote.

When they perfect the human modem, I will be in line for the implant. Access to the internet makes me feel like I'm the smartest person alive - the internet being an extension of my own brain. There is nothing I can't access on the net. The key to the universe is Boolean. I enjoy words and art. Pictures painted with words are perfection, almost too beautiful to bear. When I can find time (and settle my mind), I draw, paint and make "stuff." I like to journal, tell stories, watch people, and laugh loud and hard.

I think I will just remove the first half until I can put some thought into what I want to say about myself and rewrite it.

Perimenopause

Story Bones by Helen Redman

http://goo.gl/nC38z9

I woke today about noon. It's Saturday with nothing in particular scheduled, so I took advantage of a rare opportunity to sleep in and didn't set my alarm. I thought I would wake up about 9:30 AM, but my eyes didn't even flutter until just before noon, probably due to my recent insomnia. 

Feeling rested for the first time in weeks, I have spent a lazy morning catching up on my friend's and family member's Facebook posts and I have cried. I have cried like a hormonal teenager at everything from a post about two friends who are lesbians who have been in a committed relationship for 20 years and are eagerly waiting to hear that the Supreme Court has made same sex marriages legal across the U.S., to a video about a woman in Texas who has metastatic breast cancer, to a video from the perspective of a dog, Denali, who died of cancer. I feel like a weepy drunk who didn't get the benefit of the fun party before descending into the wallowing blues. 

It occurred  to me that this is due to a wonderful condition that my doctor told me I had in 2010, perimenopause. I was diagnosed with this gem of a malady after I came back from a trip to England in November and told the doctor how I had been burning up for the entire trip, and had to sleep with my hotel window open and didn't even wear my coat for most of the trip, because it was too warm. Everyone else was running around in heavy coats and scarves and gloves, but I was in a light sweater and still couldn't go into some of the shops and the Tube because the heat was repellent to me. 

So, five years later, the "peri" is still attached to my menopause and I continue to experience the not so wonderful changes that have been a part of my life since I was 13. The changes go on, only different. The promise to an end of what feels like a lifetime of bleeding is more elusive at the end than you are ever led to believe, because they never tell you how long "the curse" will impact your life. You cannot imagine my surprise upon hearing the doctor tell me, "It can last 10 years, or more." 

The impression I formed growing up of menopause, was only an impression, because nobody spoke of it except as a punchline on sitcoms. I was led to believe it was this terrible ordeal that happened to woman all at once, and it meant that you were old. Menopause was synonymous with drying up and being past your prime, but that is not how it really feels. I still feel vital and like I am still the same person I was at age 18, but with more insight and, of course, body aches. Perimenopause is like my daily craps shoot. Will I feel pretty good, or roll the snake-eyes of cramps, bleeding, and/or an emotional roller coaster ride? Today, I feel pretty good physically, but I am weepy and feel silly to be so affected by EVERYTHING. It is unlike when I was younger, in that there is no set schedule, the bleeding is mercifully lighter and some months non-existent, and the hot flashes are like nothing that can be described and truly understood without experiencing them. I now feel I know what someone who has spontaneously combusted feels just before they go up in flames, and it is only humorous after it passes and my body has cooled down enough to make laughter possible again.

I have read that men go through a similar experience as they age, but I cannot imagine how. I don't lament being born a woman, because I recognize the advantages of my own sex, but I do wish at times that women had not been shamed so much about their bodies and bleeding. The religious disdain for women, menstruation, and menopause has allowed me to reach this point in my life without having open and frank discussions with my mother and grandmother about what I had to expect. I am not ashamed anymore, as I admit I was as a teenager to have been "cursed" with monthly bleeding, but I am not as enlightened about my womanhood as I would like to be either. I have a grandniece who is 9 years old and I hope that she will feel comfortable enough to ask her mother and I whatever she would like to know about her body and what she can expect as she passes from childhood, to adulthood, to middle and old age.

A Little Me Time

 

 BAM Podium Pre-Sedaris by Finijo

I took a spontaneous trip to NYC last week and had a fantastic time. My friend, John, contacted me to say that David Sedaris would be playing near where he lived. I told him he must see him, if he got the chance and he responded by saying that he would buy the tickets for both of us if I would catch a flight to New York. It was an offer too good to pass up. I bought the ticket and then he found out the show as sold out already. I realized that I wanted to go anyway, so I went for a Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, just for fun - and it was. We decided to keep trying to get tickets and to go see another show or two instead, if he couldn't. 

Kinky Boots Set by Finijo

On his way home from work he messaged me and said he got us box seats for David Sedaris and orchestra seats for Kinky Boots. Both shows were fantastic and my face hurt from laughing so hard. We had Chinese dumplings and watched movies. He made his traditional welcome banana bread and movie night brownies, and some great asparagus egg scrambles for breakfast. I brought Home for the Holidays and Saved and we watched Terrible Bosses 2 and Birdman. It was a wonderful way to spend the middle of the week. There is still a long list of things I want to do in NYC, so I will have to make it back up there again, soon...maybe in the Autumn. Central Park in October sounds beautiful to me. 

Patty Gay Toothman

I found out just now that while I was laying in bed last night composing a letter to you in my head, you died. I have missed your physical presence in my life for more than 20 years, but you were always a phone call or letter away. You were one of the best people I have known in my life and you gave me unconditional love when I needed it most. You were my second Mom. I am glad that your struggles are over, and all that is wicked and wretched in the world can no longer hurt you. You took care of me when I needed it, and I hope knowing that you had one more person in the world unconditionally loving you was a source of comfort for you at the end. You will always have a place in my heart and your voice will be in my head telling me that everything will be alright and I should do the thing that makes me happy. 

Dear Patty,

Thank you for loving me unconditionally and with your whole heart.  Thank you for looking after me, and holding me when I needed to cry or just needed a hug. Thank you for all of the laughter over all of these years. You were one of the funniest and most gracious people I have ever known. Thank you for all of those late night talks sitting on the balcony in our nightgowns, drinking iced tea, and eating your homemade chocolate chip cookies. Thank you for trusting me with your secrets and for holding on to mine. I would love to get a peek at the journals I gave you over the years, just to see what I missed by not seeing you everyday. You deserved better than you got in life. You deserved to not have to struggle and fight just to hang on to your family, but even in that struggle, you were an amazing, strong, wonderful woman. I cannot begin to express how much you are going to be missed. 

Rest in peace,  Mom.

I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. 

With an abundance of affection,

Karen

Late Onset ADD vs. Spring Cleaning

Most weekends I have many (oh so many) things I need to do, but when I start trying to tackle my list, I am easily distracted by everything from Facebook and this blog, to meeting up with friends to spend an afternoon catching up. 

I think I can remember a time when I could start a task and work it to completion without wandering around my house starting, but seemingly never finishing, most of what I set out to do. It feels as though the clutter in my house is cluttering my mind and I imagine this how it feels to have ADD.

My plan this year is to start with my bedroom and work my way through my possessions to simplify my existence. With some some persistence, I will work my way through each corner of my room. Getting all of the clutter off of my dressers, out of my closet, off of the window seat, etc... until I feel like I can breathe again. I hope that seeing the effect in my room will spur me on to take care of the rest of the house, one corner of one room at a time. 

I think that by trying to de-clutter a whole room, I have been defeating myself and exacerbating the problem. My plan/hope is to work through my bedroom by quadrants, so I can finish in 4 weeks. If I am successful, I will move on to the other rooms in my house and even my yard. It's time to let go of my possessions and walk a lighter path.

For all of my good intentions, I started this post a week ago and I have gotten up at least 4 times before finishing today to plant herbs, clean out my terrarium, plant seedlings from the terrarium outside, and finally to trim and water my amaryllis bulbs....sigh.

Aspiring Author

Drafter Architect Desk Junk Drawer Clean Out Lot

 I think most people who keep a blog probably have a not so secret desire to publish something that they have written at least once in their lives. 

It takes an aspiring  writer to recognize another aspiring writer, which I did, while shopping the Goodwill auction site tonight. 

Much to my delight, I feel like I stumbled upon a kindred spirit. A stifled author channeling their inner J. Peterman wrote the most wonderful descriptions of collections of mostly tat. 

The descriptions of these lots of random items beautifully spin the beginning of a biography about the people who might have owned them. 

It is like an improv challenge for writers using props, or possibly a teaser about a character in the author's own half-finished novel. 

Whatever it is, I like it enough to have read all of the vignettes and I hope that there will be more to come from the anonymous Hemingway. I am amazed at the amount of nostalgia the author's words can inspire for people who do not exist outside my imagination. 

I found this photograph to be particularly intriguing. Her shoulder bared as she looks directly into the lens, as though she posed for a boudoir photo in an era that would have deemed her sensuousness improper. 

The description: 

Drafter Architect Desk Junk 

Drawer Clean Out Lot

The hard working Architect married to his job. All of his loved tools each one he knew by touch. The short breaks to sit out on the porch and smoke his cigarettes or his well use pipe. The picture secreted away of a love once lost. In this lovely lot you can almost feel the pride that was taken in his work. Perhaps even a hint of him playing poker with some of the other "boys." 

A peak into this lot and you will see a whimsical ashtray, vintage to newer drafting tools, prints of Governor's Place & a few other buildings, vintage Oregon license plate, magnifying glass, playing cards, stationary and much more.

Measurements
8.6 Lbs

Material
Wood, paper, plastic, metal and fabric.

Condition
Things are used. Tarnish and discoloration that adds great character. 

Somethings are used and vintage although not all things will be vintage. 

Even the pattern on these cards and the foil on their box hearken back to another time. I can't remember the last time I saw a set of playing cards like this for sale in a shop.

There are several collections, Military, Farmer, Miner, Small Town Doctor, and no telling what the author will come up with next. To see more, check here, and search for "junk drawer" or possibly "collection,"  and hopefully, the adventure will continue.