the battle of sluggish sloth vs. busy bee

i don't get the feeling that every type of person finds productivity rewarding. there are those chronically lazy types (brad pitt in "true romance" comes to mind, for those who are loyal quentin tarantino fans and have seen what some men have called their favorite film of all time) who seem to want nothing more from life than, well, nothingness. the lack of activity (lacktivity? sounds lactation-related but i still like it) is the coveted oasis for this sect of the population. i, however, fall somewhere in the middle of the spectrum. i am not up at 7 on a saturday and raring to go on a 7 mile hike. i definitely enjoy pulling the covers over my head to block out the sun (who am i kidding--sun in SF?) and soaking up the fruits of leisure when i can, but sleeping until the late afternoon, getting up to eat a sandwich (or better yet, eating the sandwich in bed--ahem, george costanza), and then going back to bed is something i find depressing.

i value my days, to a certain extent, by the activities they contain and the satisfaction i gain. especially right now, as i prep for a 2.5 month voyage to spain and beyond, i have a set number of days until my departure and a list of logistics to get in order longer than rapunzel's hair. even though i intend to plan close to nothing and leave most adventures up to game-time decisions, there is still this excruciating minutiae to tackle before i can step off u.s. soil. if a (jobless) day goes by with nothing to show for it but a couple grilled cheese sandwiches and the depletion of my DVR archives, i begin to feel kind of worthless. at the risk of getting heavy and existential for a moment, what is the point of this life if nothing happens? if every day was a syndicated repeat of the same show from the previous day, would you still watch it over and over? some people want that numbing redundancy, the absence of decision-making and change. but i--and maybe you--crave that each day gives and does something unique. it needn't be hugely significant, but i want to say, "hello there, day. give me something. make me a little cooler, wiser, savvier, more ahead-of-the-curve, armed with a truly random experience i didn't have in my memory the day before." no matter how seemingly inconsequential, i am convinced that everything we see, say, do and play contributes to our persona and mindset. even when i go to trader joe's to arm my fridge and pantry for the upcoming weeks, i mandate that i buy something new with each visit. cheese puffs, tomatillo salsa, english toffee, snap peas. anything refreshingly atypical. without that, i end up filling my cart with a bounty identical to the prior trip and that makes me uneasy.

though i constantly feel like leonard in "memento" (a must-see if you haven't yet) with a horribly faulty short-term memory, i never want to feel as though i am living in "groundhog day"; routine redundancy squashes my potential for excitement like a careless foot on a sidewalk tomato (you know, because that happens all the time). really, there are two relevant factors that i regard with a certain amount of significance: productivity and variety. i try to achieve my ideal balance of effectiveness and relaxation, and simultaneously feel weakened by the lack of constant change and progression, no matter how minor. some routine is inevitable and, frankly, quite comforting, but the lack of it entirely makes me feel stale, stagnant, ineffectual. i fully acknowledge that everyone has their own recipe for daily living; what makes me feel that much better might make you feel that much worse. if you love lazing, don't let me stop you. after all, what do i know? i'm just one person, one mind, some of which is corrupt and twisted, some of which may be worthwhile. i don't want to be preachy so i leave it to you--be inspired, offended, or apathetic. in the end, balance is the tastiest treat i've been able to find and savor. stress a little less, do a little more, get down tonight.

i've got that gloom gloom pow

as i have had the recent misfortune of discovering, the freedom buzz is fleeting.

just a week ago, i stepped out into the scorching san fran sun and reveled in the sweet victory of crossing the line to the other side where alarms and timesheets don't exist (though nor do paychecks). i wore sandals and shorts and walked a few sweaty miles through countless siloed neighborhoods to reach what i will now call the slam district (glam + slum, aka dolores park & vicinity). knowing that my income henceforth ceased to exist, i was determined to stretch my dollar while still giving in to the notion that my first day of autonomy was deserving of certain indulgences. (full time employment during my collegiate tenure served as a financial boot camp for a frugal city dweller such as myself, so budgeting is something i see as a sick pleasure and a challenge.) i convened with a fellow jobless wonder and savored wine, gougère and delfina pizza, had a b-list celebrity sighting, soaked up the heat, chatted up some charmingly hip gay boys, and went to a nighttime hip hop class. i had a hard time believing my life had so abruptly become such a paradise of delicious luxury and leisure. pinch me, am i dreaming?

tragically for me (and thankfully for those who coveted my new lavish lifestyle), the glory was short lived. day one was the honeymoon, and no later than 9:00 am on the day that followed did i awaken to find myself covered in a mess of decisions, logistics, frustrations--you know, that whole "ok, now what?" virus that flares up from time to time. i popped up and showered, hoping to wash away the horrid stress that had appeared from nowhere, and prepared myself for another venture in the city, unchained and unsure. i can shake this, i thought. i'll get out in the sumptuous splendor of the hot city and peace and pleasure will be restored.
and then, just like that, i looked out the window and the clouds said, "hold, please. the sun is not ready to take your call at this time." you've gotta be kidding me. so i get one day of that sun-kissed divinity and then back to status quo? the universe is teasing me. testing me? forcing me to confront the bitter realness that perfection is only an illusion with a limited shelf-life.
so a couple more days followed. the weather again left much to be desired and i spent my time attempting to wrangle tasks from the ever-growing list (thanks, google, for this new gmail feature!) until the weekend arrived and i up and left for a lazy lake getaway where the temperature climbed 50 degrees and instantly reinvigorated my peace of mind and obnoxious joyfulness.

cut to: present day.
and now i'm back in the city, and so is the buzz kill of a climate. i find these days exhausting. my enthusiasm for possibility is wholly squandered by the doom. it has a choke hold on my inspiration and has transformed my vibrant daily vision into a black & white film with a weak storyline, muffled sound, and muted personalities. my stride is being broken by the intrepid emptiness of the dark sky and i am constantly struggling to find a way out of this mess. i want to cheat it, i want to win. i deserve to.

but why do i let the supercilious and preponderant sun dictate my mood? is there a way to bob and weave its crazed determination to ruin me? let me be victorious. i want to stick it to the sun like one shoves a marshmallow toward the flame. i want to find the code to unlock this absolute graying out of my motivation, wringing out of my wide-eyed optimism. when put into words it seems like such a trivial detail of daily life that shouldn't have such an intense influence on my frame of mind, but i find it entirely consuming and manipulative. so far, the only antidotes i am readily aware of are music and booze. the boozic solution. but i want to believe that there is a way to tap into my own brain and rewire my outlook, somehow tricking it into seeing lightness, brightness, and magnificence where i previously saw none.

and so i turn to you, faithful and inventive readers (especially those in portland, seattle, SF, etc.), how do you fight the muck muck?

brush up your hush up

knowing when to hold 'em and knowing when to fold 'em. that's important stuff. especially for people like my brother. and lady gaga. but knowing when to bite your tongue and when to speak your mind is arguably just as critical. i can't tell you how many times my verbal dam has let some insipid comment through the sieve that really should have been detained by security and escorted out of the building, never to see the light of day. those of you who have seen "mean girls" might be thinking of the phrase "word vomit", spoken by the character portrayed by the latterly lesbian and larcenous lindsay lohan, but written by the beloved witty MILF tina fey.

obviously everyone has their own level of expressiveness. some choose to mostly observe, ponder, and speak rarely. others have more of a tendency to let it all flow. these people would be a nightmare for the FCC to censor on-air with a three-second delay. those of you who know me can pretty easily determine in which category i fall. and of course there are various points along the spectrum for each person's individual makeup.

logic would support that those falling into the former category are less likely to commit these crimes of spoken spew, though there are always exceptions.

but are those who let the cat out of the bag, spill the beans, put their foot in their mouth, etc. fueled by a subconscious need or desire to release those words into the wild, emancipate them to a life of freedom where they are on longer being confined to an existence of bondage and suppression? despite the fallout, there is an inherent relief that is yielded by the exposure of these taboo thoughts, faux pas, and the like.

so you hate your friend's boyfriend. yeah, convention would dictate that you keep that little tidbit under wraps, but one night you have a few too many sidecars and all of a sudden you are telling her that you think he is a pompous misogynist with bad teeth. sure, she may not want to speak to you for a while, but maybe she was starting to question how much she really liked him. your unfortunate and inebriated slip could propel her to take scissors to the paper heart of their relationship and cut a zig-zag right down the middle. could it be that your logorrhea set forth a series of occurrences destined to happen? or is that just you trying to justify your misstep?

bottom line is, we all do it. we screw up and spit out something we shouldn't. our brains are connected to our voices but we can't always get the memo from one to the other with enough speed and accuracy to prevent a colossal miscue. it's as if we are each employing an unreliable office assistant who sometimes is too hungover or busy doing her nails to run from the mind to the mouth and say, "no, mr. stanwick, don't say that to her! she's not pregnant, she's just fat." but the least we can do is utilize a self-imposed three-second delay and run our thoughts through the strainer before allowing the final product to pass through and reach the open world.

no one is without flaw so, at the end of the day, after employing the self-censor, the best we can hope for is that our tactless word vomit somehow transforms an otherwise "oops" moment into a gift that at first you don't like and want to return but, after sitting around on your dresser, you start to understand the purpose of and get used to.

and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.

hello, and welcome to funemployment

you can turn off your 7:30 alarm--you won't be needing that where you're going.

stock the pantry with ramen noodles and peanut butter. keep the hard alcohol out of easy
reach so that you at least have to work for it a little. assess the netflix queue--this may be the time when you actually catch up on those pesky recommendations from acquaintances.
you know, like "high school musical" or "transporter 3".

but what do i know? i am only a freshman on a team that has many seasoned players. the
varsity quarterback is listening to me now thinking, "oh, silly naive girl. you know nothing of the game. watch and learn." but i don't think i'm all that blind to the flexibility here. it is what i make it. for all intents and purposes, i am my own boss. and today i'm giving myself the day off.

at the risk of concoting the biggest cliche ever, i feel as though someone has given me an empty plate at a multicultural buffet and now i have to decide what to spoon onto my dish. i have issues mixing radically different foods in one meal--pad thai, calzone, shawarma, all intermingling, meshing and mucking flavors. meh. but i may need to get used to that notion as i now have room for all kinds of things that i need to consider making room for, like dayparts on a tv schedule. so far today i am keeping it pretty simple with a hefty serving of relief and excitement, a side of contemplation, and an iced coffee. when the day is done i will wash the plate and put it back on the shelf until i go at it again tomorrow. there's no telling how sustainable this lifestyle is or when the first curve ball (food poisoning?) will hit, but there is a certain comfort in not knowing any of that. today is the first day of this new way of dining. the first few hours are sitting well with me, and that's all i can be bothered to care about right now.

as my quarterlife crisis (?) and reassessment commences, i should note a couple other observations that may or may not be a sign of things to come:

i found another grey hair. i need to stop pulling them out. at the end of the day, silver fox > mr clean.

my new dermatological neck scars have the appearance of love bites. this is eliciting suspicious inquiries from curious friends/foes. i may need to craft a new explanation that is more exotic than routine cryotherapy.

how is emancipation going to affect my general temperament? will i mellow out? or will freedom fuel my calculating mind and propel me into a life in which i stack unthinkable adventures, one atop another?

as i celebrate bastille day, as well as the independence of the sheez from the shackles of employment, i shall venture out into the absurdly uncharacteristic 90 degree weather and let my brain wheels spin with reckless creativity. and work on evening out my tan.

god bless you all; your fate, your consciousness, your appetite for change, your hangover, your dysfunction, your attempt at baking, your lack of organization, your carnivorousness, your sinning ways, your propensity to jaywalk, your genuine craziness.

buy / sell / trade

everything's gotta be such a trade-off, doesn't it?

i'll give you my headache for a pain-free evening of insomnia.

take my boring dry sandwich for your aromatic curry that makes my stomach furious with me.

hand over your $4 and i'll show you a book that cost me $14 but i'm disinterested in and unable to return.

when you think about it, why is this a surprise? everything has an innate value. we put forth work/effort/sacrifice/risk to earn each dollar. once that money is ours, so is the decision of how it'll be spent. we can't just sit on the piggy, day in and out, not ever making a decision. this applies not only to money, but to any choice--the logic is the same. this for that; that for this. in economic terms, this is essentially opportunity cost.

as theoretical situations are not rooted in any substance and are purely abstract, we can't assess the "what if" in any sort of productive way. we will go mad with regret and frustration. but there is some peace, i believe, in seeing all decisions--no matter the scale--as having the potential to either reap a favorable return or to short-change you. yeah, they may not all be winners, but being slumped up in an old armchair with a tall glass of kahlua and milk waiting for decisions to make themselves isn't going to send you anywhere worth going, except maybe the toilet. there is a certain beauty and excitement to any risk--not knowing which way it'll go is part of what keeps us invested in our lives in a truly stimulating way. you know you can't always lose, and the wins give us such high peaks that our memories of the losses become hazier and less significant.

but the ups and downs should not be blind to cognition and can't always be as simple as a coin toss. decision-making is one of the few things you can control regardless of your rank, bank, face, place... you get it. this notion is endlessly empowering, yet i'd venture to assume most people completely forget. at this time more than ever, when the economy is less than a winning horse, we are at the nauseatingly proverbial crossroads more often than we ever expected to be, yet we are rarely forced into a corner. isn't there always a choice of some sort? sure, some are more glamorous than others, some more extreme, some more mundane. but stop thinking that the only roads allowing you access are the one straight ahead or slightly off to the right. sharpen your #2 pencil and start drawing the map around you if you have to, but do it.

don't be afraid of the trade-off.

turn it on.