A Toast to the Reflective

The new year is a time for change blah blah blech. You will be hearing it all over the place, that is if you haven't already. I mean January magazine editions are hot off the press and everything is screaming in brightly colored letter accented by people with perfect bodies and the most perfectly chaotic/dramalicious lives that we can't help grabbing up an issue even if it is for just a moment while we are standing in the still ridiculously long post-holiday check out lines. I mean really, does anybody expect you to stand in line doing nothing!?

How to get a better body. How to be healthier. How to have better sex. How to abstain from the "bad" things in life. How to get more sleep. How to run more efficiently on less sleep. How to be "successful".

Setting goals isn't a bad thing. You may think that I am making a mockery of it but I feel the same thing. I feel the change vibes. Oh yeah. They are hittin' the groove stream. This whole next week is all about thinking back on this last year and looking forward to the next. It's the perfect limbo land and I am going to pump it for all it's worth! Really. I mean why let all of that excited energy go to waste? Why stand back and pretend that you are better than everybody else because you know that it is all a bunch of hype that people are going to be making a bazillion promises to themselves and others that they can't possibly or won't probably keep. So what? They aren't you. It seems a bit foolish to me to let the whole possibility on getting a little lift in to this next year slide by just because I am too snobbish to be counted amongst the masses that are setting themselves up for (failure to) change. These were my two picks for the beginning of the New Year. But that is just the beginning.

Change is in the air and I am going to let it give me the boost of enthusiasm that I need to get to the fullness of the New Year. But change never comes before reflection. So, a toast to the next reflective days.

Cultural - Merry Christmas!

Those of you, whoever you are, who have been reading my blog may have got the idea that I am anti-establishment. You would kind of be right. I am more anti-institution but I know that lots of people don't really like to split hairs like that. Splitting hairs on some of these things is important. Why? Because it just is.

All this to say that there are some things that I know people boycott, especially holidays. I can't say that I blame them. My family has done that very thing. Boycotted the extreme commercialism and the intense pressure to buy buy buy for everyone, to go in to debt to buy everyone and their relatives gifts when what you are really giving is the gift of guilt and receiving gifts of debt. I know, bitter isn't it? I really think that a lot of us have to go through a stage where we boycott such things, it's almost like cleansing ourselves of the whole thing, detoxing, that is what it is, a detox. There is something to the whole detox thing. Really. I would say that my family "detoxed" from everything that is "normal" in our culture for years, we've come out a wild bunch of characters that is for sure. So I am not saying that it doesn't have to be done.

There is a time though when the bitterness must fade and a new era of sorts has to dawn so that you are able to live life and really enjoy it to it's fullest. I am with Solomon on this one, life is short, you have to live it!

What does all this have to do with Christmas? Pretty much everything. We draw names in my family which really makes things nice because you can go pick out a really nice gift for the one person that you have to buy for, it is really great, I know lots of families have lots of different ways they do things but I am pretty sure that it helps with our holiday stress. Why is that? Because we don't have any holiday stress! Seriously. Zero. It's about celebration and enjoyment. And FOOD! I am embracing Christmas. I am not buying things because I have to. I fully recognize that Christmas to us is very cultural, they way we celebrate it is cultural, our gift giving for Christmas is cultural. It's great! It can be so much fun! Finding a perfect gift, even finding a "good deal" on the gift becomes all part of the fun.

I don't know, maybe I drank something in the water up here but Christmas this season to me is all about embracing culture and family and drinking it in until I can hardly hold any more.

I honestly think it's because I was so empty from the years of "detox" that I finally have room to feel the hunger and be completely filled with loving Presence.

Merry Christmas!

Of passion, disturbing experiences, Jillian Michaels, strong wills and lesbians

I had an interesting thought, or maybe a disturbing experience, I'm not really sure because a lot of my interesting thoughts come about because of disturbing experiences or because I have an interesting though I tend to look out for disturbing experiences or I let them actually cross my mind and realize they are disturbing experiences I'm not really sure. In most cases it's kind of like a "what came first the chicken or the egg?" type of deal.

Anyway, Netflix is where i had my most recent experience. Just this afternoon actually. I was looking at the different categories that Netflix had so kindly chosen for me in my play it now lists and ran across "quirky movies with a strong female lead." Yeah, I dig that. So of course I take a look at the list. I guess I shouldn't have been surprised when a large section of the list was comprised of lesbian films.

The day before yesterday (at least I think) I was talking with a few people about Jillian Michaels, I admit it, I'm a fan. I was talking about the fact that I knew quite a few people who had questioned whether or not she is a lesbian. OK. Seriously. The only reason that question is being asked is because she is a strong female and isn't afraid to use it.

I just read a statistic in Glamour magazine (Yes, believe it or not I actually subscribe to Glamour). The stats say that only 9% of women express their anger when they are angry at the person they are angry at, most women stuff it.

So where am I going with all this? Strong women. Being a strong, outspoken woman does not make you bad, it does not make you lesbian and it doesn't make you an overall angry person. I would know. I am one of them. I have been accused of all kinds of things being the loud-mouthed opinionated person that I am and I actually can't say that I have been totally OK with that. I hardly think it is fair that I was born with such a strong personality and with such a desire for people to like me at the same time because believe me they don't really mesh well.

Being a strong outspoken woman doesn't make you bad. It is who you are. End of story. And there is really no point in trying to cover it up or fake that you aren't what you are because you will be miserable. Flat out miserable. Either that or you better go get your prescription of Zoloft right now. Oh wait a minute! An insane amount of women right now are on anti depressants. I wonder if that has anything to do with the 95% of women who are stuffing their feelings? Nah. Also, women are some of the biggest motivators! When women begin to speak there will be people to listen. We have huge amounts of influence.

Jillian Michaels has a boyfriend. I just thought all you doubters should know that. Strong women and being a lesbian don't go hand in hand, not all the time anyway. Trust me. I know. I dig my man. But I do understand why a lot of women choose that when they are strong opinionated people, they feel like outcasts and there are many men who don't like that kind of woman so they go looking for affection within their own sex where they won't be hurt by the hateful things said about them or by the way that men try to conquer and subdue them.

The anger... passion is often times mistaken as anger just as excitement is often times mistaken as fear. People are afraid of passion and of passionate people. Passionate people are disturbing and they very rarely follow the rules and they could care less about the "norms" that they are stomping all over in their haste to express their passion.

Just sayin'.

It's Easy for You

Here is on my favorite things and as I say that I can hear the soundtrack for the Sound of Music playing in the background with the sound of a high pitched soprano, the kind of tone I could never have, and the sweet voices of children singing "These are a few of my favorite things..." But these have nothing to do with "when the dog bites, when the bee stings..." or anything else like that and the list of my favorite things is actually a morbid list that isn't filled with puppies and warm fuzzy things but rather a collection of items that range from vaguely irritating to downright maddening and their subcategories are all my thoughts on the matter(s). This one definitely makes the list, maybe somewhere near the top.

There seems to be a good many people who think that since they have read a certain thing, or maybe lots of things, especially things that are backed by some sort of "evidence" of some kind. that they agree with that somehow they have done this thing and that it works out in actuality even though they have never actually done the thing that they are now pushing (Yeah, like a pusher but pushing an agenda of some kind not some sort of hallucinogenic) but the figure since the have all the evidence to back it and since they think it is a good idea that you should to. I was recently in a conversation with an older man who was telling my SM and I how we needed to "sit under" some older men (Yes, men in specific) to direct us. Ummm... first of you have no idea who we are or what we are doing or what we have done what exactly gives you the right to automatically think that we need directions from someone else? Here is another great example, people ask me about my son's birth and I tell them only to have them tell me how that just doesn't work or how lucky I am. I have people tell me all the time how things are just "easy for me" how it just doesn't work that way for other people. How the hell would they know? No one knows how I battle fear just as they do. Sometimes every day. I am actually fairly prone to panic attacks. I know. Embarrassing. It's true.
Here's a good one. Have you ever had someone stand there and tell you how to change your lifestyle so that you can have a healthy or active life while all the while they are sitting on their butts doing nothing and take up enough of the couch to prove it? And somehow you are the one who is in the wrong? And why should you change? Because your lifestyle doesn't fit in to their little box that's why and it is making them uncomfortable.

The unfortunate part is maybe, just maybe you have what a lot of people want. You are healthy, fit, active, you have a great family and you hardly pay anything for rent, you aren't in much debt, you travel, your happy and your free but "It's just easy for you." And to that I have to say....

BULL! I work my butt off and so does and have everyone else who ever gained any character or did anything in this world. You want some of it? You'll have to work for it too and guess what? It won't be easy. And you know what else? There are a few people out there willing to help.

Fear - A sour, contaminating substance

Everyone knows that the favorite tactic of evil men is fear. Fear, unlike it's more pleasant counterparts, is a huge motivator, maybe one of the strongest motivators. I tend to think it is because it stimulates the adrenal glands thus pushing even the laziest person in to crazed action.

Truth. Truth is the way to combat fear but truth also is the cause of fear. Sometimes it is people themselves that balk at truth but usually it is because someone "above" them has conditioned them to fear certain truths, certain things that challenge ultimate authority.

As it turns out on of the best ways to cultivate fear is to create an institution of some kind that can manufacture fear large-scale-factory-style with a few good men (and women) at the controls, usually something like a board of directors or something of the sort, along with some good minions to do their bidding that may or may not be in on the actual reasoning behind the fear-perpetuation of institution as a whole. Most people like to think that they are being looked after and cared for, they will swallow almost anything to believe that nothing has to do with money or control but stems from the goodness of a heartless institution because no matter what anyone would like to believe and institution is a dead thing.

We are continually told that certain things must be said and done "for the greater good". Who and what is the greater good and since when does the greater good come before the injured, suffering, sick or dying that is held in the arms of those that love them?

Fear is the catalyst to the control because the masses can be controlled by fear. Add just a bit of fear of the unknown to any suggestion and you can bet that the masses will flock to the familiar, or what is represented as the familiar. Fear is like a sour taste in your mouth, bitter bile that you want to spit out. It is contaminating like yeast, bubbling up the substance that houses it and growing it to consume everything around it. People hate what they fear.

Fear - salted sparingly with misquoted truth - turns people from intelligent, thinking beings in to nothing more than a stampeding herd of cattle.