Intentional Beginnings

(Disclaimer: I live in a world that is totally comfortable with words that that are normally bleeped out of cable TV and that, while I encourage you to click on the little blue links, that you should aware that there are people out there who make use of those little words to punctuate their sincerity and if those words aren't your thing, maybe think again about clicking on the last link.)

I spend most of my evenings having things pour into me. I check Facebook and see what people have posted, read articles, shake my head, smile, click through pictures, and respond to messages. I shudder when I look at my gmail and avoid deleting the extras among the 800 unread messages because there's a link to a new video from one of my youtube subscriptions. I catch up on videos with headphones in because only nerds subscribe to channels on youtube (nerdfighters, that is) and I have to pretend I'm not a nerd (though the word nerd is not an insult- John Green). I check Twitter and spend what must be an hour loading new tweets, clicking on content, reading articles, looking at picture sets, and following conversations down through my twitter feed. If you have the misfortune of following me while I'm watching a movie or the Friends finale, you see that I spend much of those hours tweeting quotes from what I'm watching. And if Twiiter, Facebook, TV, movies, and roommates can't feed my emptying brain enough, I'll switch over to my tumblr and reblog the first twenty awesome pictures, articles, or John Green quotes I see. Also squids. There's this girl on tumblr who's like me and is even named Addie except she has this thing for Matthew Gray Gubler and squids. Not together. That would be weird. But I'm giving squids a try because my doppelganger thinks they're cool and I like her taste.

Squids aside, I spend most of my time at my new awesome townhouse with awesome roommates doing anything except making something. And I think it's great that there's so much good content out there. There's such opportunity to make things and design things and put it out there for people to look at and evaluate and admire and ascribe importance to. I really like that there's this international underground of creativity that isn't necessarily recognized by the media powers that be. Basically, I'm an internet hipster. Like, I think etsy is an awesome idea, I think you could give some of the artists on DFTA records,  the NPR tiny desk concerts, or the free new artists list on Amazon a listen, and I think that there are beautiful and funny and insightful blogs on tumblr and other places on the internet. Even though there's a lot of pointless things out there, I think that the magical land of the internet is a sweets and joy and joyness. My only problem with the internet is that I spend more time watching than contributing. Then again, I do that in life a lot too, so I'm not sure that I'd expect anything too much different.

But making something means putting yourself out there. I mean, I had an impromptu accoustic guitar session with my roommate, whom I trust and love, and I couldn't pick a single song for us to play for fear of picking something I couldn't play at all or something that my roommate wouldn't know or like. It's one of the safest environments possible, outside of being alone, and I just had nothing to give. Or, I started organ lessons on Friday and had to stop and talk  and make a joke every single time I messed up. I'm starting to think that I contain a world of insecurities just waiting to be unleashed on people. But making something, whether it’s music or writing or other arts, means putting your talents to use and making things that are distinctly you and allowing people to take and use them however they want. It's difficult and scary and something I totally want to do right now.

I have this weird, awesome amount of confidence in things I do because I am now good at something, that something being planetarium shows. I mean, I never intended nor thought that knowing so many puns about stars and planets and stuff would give me confidence to do other things, but recognizing that feeling of accomplishment, of knowing that in a particular situation you could excel like no other, helps you recognize that feeling in other situations and helps you to be proud of yourself, to have the right kind of pride. So I'm going to run with that and take Ira Glass's advice and just continue making things. Now, I paint like a one year old (that's unfair- I draw stick figures on, like, a seventh grade level at least) and I sing like someone who deserves to have the choir hide them (also unfair- I mean, I'm only squeaky after close football games which I attended and which I think we should have won) and play guitar like a noob, but I write pretty OK, so I'm going to start intentionally writing again. It's part of an intentional series of life things I have going on right now and I figure if I can succeed at something I want to do, maybe I'll figure out how to succeed at things I have to do.

I'm drawing up a list of topics and at least weekly I'm going to write a new blog about different ideas. I recently spent a summer deeply discussing the attributes of superheroes, so maybe I'll write something smart about that. I've had a lot of questions about why we've landed a laboratory on Mars, so maybe I'll rehash that. I've thought a lot about what I think about social, economic, and religious issues, so maybe I'll muster up some courage and tackle some of those things. And I've experience a lot of funny sound bites in my recent life, so maybe I'll curate a collection of those to present to you. I mean, I totally appreciate my coming-of-age things, because I'm stuck in that phase where I'm definitely an adult but am unsure about how I feel about that, or how other people feel about that, but there's much more to me than that, and I want to express that.

So raise a glass to beginnings, to the infinite set of numbers in that terrible place between zeroand one that I'm going to brush by (Ze Frank). Let the potential for awesome thrive. 

Moving (Or, Life Confusion)

D'you know, I've spent much of the last month looking for spare seconds when I can sit down and get my thoughts together. I mean, other than that week that I didn't do much moving at all due to a fall and back injury. Can we talk about that? It's just scary that you can miss one step and end up in pain that reaches at least a 7 on a scale of 1 to Bane breaking Batman's back. And it's scarier that you could have pain like that perpetually. It's scary that there are unfixable pains out there, and that they can become realities in your life. It's scary that I can hurt like this. 

But, aside from all of that, I think the last month has been an exercise in worrying and plugging in everything I can to block out the worry- worrying that I'm an unbearable burden, worrying that I'm a frustration in other people's lives, worrying that I won't be good enough, worrying that I'll never be healthy again, worrying that things aren't going to work out, worrying that the transition from this plan to the next is going to be more than I can handle. The problem with my worries is that I don't know which ones are realistic and which ones aren't. My worries live in a mind of freedom and opportunity- they're all created equal as far as I'm concerned, and only time will tell which ones are going to grow up into big, important problems. Then again, certain worries are subsidized by the department of self-doubt, so they're probably going to succeed anyway. It's just easier to avoid all these potentials and realities and just watch Friends or go watch movies and fill up the schedule until you think you're squeezing seconds out of your day to do anything outside worrying and avoiding worry.

Along with several people in my acquaintance, I have a gap between when my lease at my old apartment ended and when the lease at my new apartment begins. For a lot of people, it's like hitchhiking through the weeks- one night here, three nights there, only staying as long as it fits in with other people's schedules and contemplating the possibility of sleeping in their car. Luckily, it's more like catching a ride with me, where I'm spending my entire time without an address at a friend's apartment in a mostly-empty room. But I can't help feeling that everyone else is just as lucky, because they're hardly a problem, a momentary obligation, rather than a perpetual burden. It's just difficult, to get used to not possessing a space after having nearly a year of a having a place that was mine. I mean, currently, I have a room to stay in, and my stuff's there, but it's not mine. This gap in housing is just something I'm dealing with, a temporary thing, like having to wear a cast on my independence until it's functional again.

When I think about all of this, though, I get a little weighed under by the nostalgia of a summer spent never owning a space and never having to move anything larger than a backpack and the thought of people who have nowhere to stay and why I had so many offers of places to sleep when others have none. It's this weird, depressing spiral where I feel guilty for my blessings, wonder why the world isn't fixed enough so that everyone can have the same things I have, and wish that this dumb idealism with which most of us post-college purported world-changers are saddled would either go away or push me enough to do something that secures good in the world outside of my own self interest. I also want to get rid of half the stuff I own and I want to be able to move at a moment's notice just by packing up my car and I want to walk lightly upon the earth and I'm so confused, because I don't know that you can live deeply and walk lightly and I think that conversations like that are best held when the day is just waking up and not many of us have the motivation to stare down the dawn and dare it to blossom into another day that will leave us with more pain than we started with. Probably.

All I want to do right now is move into the new place on Friday and Saturday and settle into a routine. I want to hold still for a few weeks before something new starts. I want someone to sit beside me and listen to me rant and ramble and then tell me how to make things happen, to push me, to send me on a mission, and to watch me while I finish it. I want to understand the length and depth and breadth of universe and then I want to tell someone else about it and call that my contribution to humanity.

So, that's all a little too much to ask, you think? Anyone want to help me move instead? I'll give you pizza and beverages and my lasting thanks. That's what I've got right now. 

Cockroaches (Or, Friends and Difficulties)

So I've been bouncing around a lot of places recently, between Chapel Hill and Hickory and Granite Falls and Boone, and I've been visiting friends and congratulating and bemoaning and all sorts of things. It's been a red letter kind of month/year/week/thing.  I've been, at times, as good of a friend and as bad of a friend as I can be, and I wonder how a person can equally regret and admire the same expanse of time.

In one of my more admirable periods, I was at a friend's apartment, celebrating graduation and pet-sitting and any one of a number of remarkable things that have happened in this friendship, and my friend discovered a cockroach in her kitchen. Of course she screams and of course she yells for me and I respond with a "What am I supposed to do about it?" And she goes on and describes how big it is and how terrible it is and how I have to kill it, just kill it pleasepleaseplease. So I walk into the kitchen to find it and I don't see it. I move the trashcan and the recycling and the bag of plastic grocery bags and no monster cockroach. I declare that it's gone back where it came from, but she's not convinced. We have to drive this thing out or kill it trying because it is a freak of nature and also gross. So I go back to the kitchen and then check out the laundry room and HOLY APPLES AND NUTELLA THAT IS A GIANT COCKROACH RUNNING UNDER THE DRYER.

After several minutes of panicking and laughing and not wanting to show very real fear and convincing and kicking the dryer, I persuade my friend that the cockroach has gone back where it came from and that she can sleep safely tonight. We watch a few episodes of Friends and call it a night.

Then tonight, after returning to my apartment, I walk through the living room to my bedroom in the dark, because I'm lazy and because it's kinda awesome how the human memory can prevent me from stubbing my toe on our couch, and then I flip on the lamp in my room and go into my bathroom and look up because in the top corner of my bathroom is the largest cockroach I have ever seen in my life ever.

What follows here is a real conversation held via text messaging.

Me (11:39pm): [sends picture of the Hulk of cockroaches] This is on my bathroom wall. AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!

Me (11:46pm): Sarai, I don't think you understand the gravity of the situation. THERE IS A GIANT COCKROACH IN MY  BATHROOM. MY BED IS ON THE FLOOR.

Me: [definitely regrets the decision to not buy a bed and refuses to consider the continuing metaphorical symbolism of this moment because THAT THING COULD SURVIVE A NUCLEAR HOLOCAUST (DON'T THINK I HAVEN'T CONSIDERED IT YOU INVASIVE SPECIES FROM THE BEYOND.)]

Sarai (11:46pm): OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD YOU HAVE TO KILL IT!!!!!!

Sarai (11:47pm): BE BRAVE AND STRONG. I KNOW YOU CAN DO IT.

Me (11:48pm): BUT WHAT SHOULD I DO? AND HOW DID IT FIND ME?

Me (11:50pm): IT'S UNHUMANLY LARGE. THERE'S NO WAY TO KILL IT.

Sarai (11:50 pm): IT SNIFFED YOU OUT BECAUSE IT REMEMBERED YOUR SCENT FROM WHEN IT WAS AT MY PLACE. HOW THE HELL DID IT CRAWL UP THREE STORIES. DO YOU HAVE A GIANT SHOE?

Me: [goes to bathroom. Faces off with cockroach. Thinks momentarily about how the first thing I wanted to know was what action I could take and the second thing I wanted to know was how this happened to me and how that's really kinda how my life goes. Realizes I'm going to need a bigger container if I'm going to capture this sucker. Drops the plastic cup. Goes to get bucket o' markers from closet. That'll do. Dumps markers on bed. Balances on rim of tub and toilet. Squeals like a tiny scared child when the cockroach moves like the ninja it is when prodded by magazine. (I know I'm an adult now because I'm using one of my roommate's old Victoria's Secret catalogues to potentially destroy this threat to my safety.) Traps the cockroach. Runs it outside. Dumps the bucket. Watches it crawl down between the boards in my porch. Closes porch door. Double fist in the air. I AM THE MASTER COMMANDER! Returns to phone.]

Sarai (11:56pm): DID IT EAT YOU BEFORE YOU COULD KILL IT?

I responded just before midnight with confirmation of a successful capture and release ("CAPTURE AND RELEASE? IT'S GONNA COME BACK HERE!") and accidentally tweeted my promise to call in case more cockroach situations arose and generally felt accomplished for the night.

Now, I tell you this because I basically ran back to my computer to write about this little adventure. It's just that I can't decide what I want the cockroach to stand for. Part of me wants to say something like, "Hey, why do we all just diametrically hate cockroaches anyway? I mean, they don't bite.* They don't really affect our lives. All they do is freak us out and if I'm applying this kind of banishing logic to things that freak me out, then I'm not the kind of person I want to be." Because, after all, getting rid of something that freaks me out but isn't going to hurt me isn't the best use of my time. Especially if it was already illegal and I decided to put a poorly-phrased amendment to a popular vote just to prove how much work there is to be done still.

Or, I could make the cockroach a metaphor instead of a talking point. Make it something completely different. I mean, it's something I reacted poorly to, and then did my best to get rid of. Maybe I could make it be sin in my metaphor for life. I like that. I helped my friend address her sin, but let it get away, giving her the opportunity to conquer it on her own once she knew it could be conquered. Yeah, I like that! But no, that won't work because when I was in my own apartment, I stood there and talked to it for a good couple of seconds, thinking that would either scare it or convince it to leave me alone. When that didn't work, I closed my eyes and wished it would go away. Twice. In the end, I actually had to do something to make it go away, and before I could do that, I had to admit to someone that there was a problem in the form of a giant, scary cockroach. I had to admit that my apartment, nice though it is, still has the potential to have cockroaches and I'm sorry, but that's too difficult of a message to hear if the cockroach were going to be a metaphor for sin.

(Plus, cockroaches don't eat you from the inside out until you can't think straight anymore and make you want to go back to the days before you even knew what a cockroach looked like, not in real life anyway. They don't make you sit up nights thinking or lose days dreaming ways out of messes that you didn't even think were possible for you. They don't make you shake your head involuntarily while you chorus I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry can I take it back I didn't mean to I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I never did anything just please I'm sorry. Plus, there's nowhere you can go that's guaranteed to be cockroach free. And, most importantly of all, cockroaches never make you feel warm and happy on the inside, even just for a second, so that you think hey, this side of innocent might not be so bad. It just wouldn't work; cockroaches are not complex. But, like sin, they'd survive a nuclear holocaust. So there's a point in the positive category.)

It's just that I need to go back to thinking, you know? So if I made the cockroach the equivalent of some problem I was having my everyday life, or dealing with it a symbol of my burgeoning adulthood (I also got the oil changed in my car and put money in my savings account!), it would just be this tacit acceptance that cockroaches are a part of life, that everyone has to deal with them sometime. But let's face it- some people never come of age, and some people's coming of age story is much less interesting and cockroach-free than books and movies would like to imply. When you realize that your story falls into that category, it makes you want to go out and get a testimony, go live and do something and not make the safe choice. Then again, it might not matter what you do. Cockroaches find you anyway.

All of this is to say that even though this is a weird, difficult, awkward, and awesome time of life, and even though I don't know what's going on and can't figure out what things mean, if they mean anything, it's still great to have friends who can go through all of this with you. Even if all you really want is someone to come in kill the cockroach for you with his giant shoe. 

*(PS- I have since learned that cockroaches eat the eyelashes of sleeping children. I retract this idea for cockroaches. But I stand by the sentiment that goes along with the original thought, pre-eyelash-eating-revelation.)