Thought Blanket

"All I know is that I know nothing". There's an oldie-goldie. I hear it everywhere, though I can't pinpoint where exactly. We all hear it in a philosophy or English class at some point, then feel entitled to bequeath acquaintances with the knowledge that "Actually there's no record of Socrates ever saying that, we get it second-hand from Plato". Granted, it's an interesting point. 

Like nearly any phrase or warning, it's easy for the saying to get watered down in repetition, but sometimes it wiggles it's way into a context I like, and I read it for the first time all over again. It's beautifully humbling, no doubt, but two other characteristics about it that appeal to me are a) how self-aware Socrates/Plato whoever said it must have been, and b) how comforting it is. I think knowing that there are masses of information that I don't and never will have any awareness of is deliciously comforting. If I could put a thought to the feeling of taking a warm blanket out of the dryer and wrapping up in it, this saying would be the thought. 

In modern society in general, I think most people would agree there's this sentiment that if there is a thing, we need to know it. A concept, an idea, a theory, an element/chemical, an artifact, if it exists, we need to figure it out. So, acknowledging the pixels of information floating around our heads but never into our brains, and passively letting them float, is freeing, like exhaling instead of arguing, just letting it roll off our backs, wrapping up in a blanket. It's self-aware, peaceful, and wise. Cozy, easy, breezy, ahhh. 

Breathing Underwater

What do Kate McKinnon, mermaids, and young children have in common? They can all breathe underwater, in a sense.

Recently, I've grown more and more addicted to Saturday Night Live, anticipating my next hit of "Live from New YoRK IT'S SATURDAY NIIIIGHT!!!" all week. I could dedicate a whole blog on the many ways Saturday Night Live is the marvelous and outstanding program it is, but one characteristic about the show that keeps me coming back is it's tremendous generosity. SNL gives, and gives, and gives.

When they say that opening phrase, they're not performing at all, their eyes are wide and sparkling, you can feel that lump of un-distilled passion swelling in their stomachs, they're gifting us a peek of their child-like obsession with what they do. They're handing it over to the audience, inviting us to be a part of their game, inviting us to go underwater with them for an hour and a half.

My high school acting teacher talked about what is likely the primary goal of a performer: to re-learn the ability to play like a child. I'd never considered the idea before, but I was, and am, hit with how perfectly true it is to everything I now feel about performing. My teacher described that as kids grow older, they need to "come up for air" more and more often, finding it harder and harder to stay "underwater" in their pretend worlds. Whether dolls and figurines are the vessels, or the children themselves, the once elaborate worlds of "make-believe" become spotty, then start to fade. Eventually, like Adam and Eve's sudden awareness of their naked state, it all seems too ridiculous, the worlds fade into extinction and the games stop. At a certain age a child may pick up a foam sword and a stick-on eyepatch only to find she can't get underwater at all, try and try as she might, like there's a floatation device she can't remove. The tricky thing is that holding your breath doesn't count. When we're growing older and watching our worlds fade and running out of air, we try holding our breath, only to discover it doesn't work like that. The worlds have to give us air, have to be self-sustaining.

A few days ago a friend of mine turned to me and said "you know something I think makes us compatible? We bs things a little longer than is normal. We'll keep up a stupid conversation a little longer than we should, a few steps beyond the acceptable stopping place". "Immature" and invested, like children.

Each SNL cast member has an unbelievable ability to breathe underwater. Through years and years of work and study, they've regained an impressive chunk of that elusive skill. They're aware they're performing, they're aware the sets aren't real places, their hair just wigs, their characters only impressions, but it doesn't matter at all because they can breathe underwater. They acknowledge it's a game because they don't need to pretend it's real, just like children. They take their time and play and swim around and when they look at the camera and cry out that opener, they're saying "come on in, the water's great!"

This phenomenon could explain the awkwardness present after someone says they're "just being silly", it seems they're really saying  "I'm only pretending to swim, imitating the actions of the game, but not really playing". It implies there's a separation between this sense of play and "real-life", when there's not.

When we're little, we wish the fancy-vent cover really was the entrance to Narnia and fantasize about finally receiving our Hogwarts acceptance notice, but the magic was in knowing they weren't real, and still being able to accept them. Now, when I'm babysitting, watching children play but only able to see their worlds in two-dimensions, I know what Sebastian really meant when he begged a young but aging Ariel to stay "under the sea".

Loose 30 lbs No Exercise and Fall in Love!!

Here I have been taunted with the possibility of earning money, I'd guess around a few dollars a year, if only I download "adsense" to this site. It's so easy, practically all I have to do is click "download", and boom! Let the fractions of a dollar roll in. But in less than a week I've gotten rejected from adsense twice.

Their reasons? According to the impersonal and, frankly, rude and offensive email they sent me, I have "insufficient content" and their crawlers "aren't really sure what this blog is about" (I paraphrase). Wha-ugh. Well, "adsense team", could you give me any indication of how much content exactly is preferable? How can I provide the blog you wanna read? Since it would be such a hardship for you to let me have this. Since you really need to be selective, just until this google thing catches on.

And honestly, I don't know how you missed it, this blog is clearly about weight loss and romantic guidance, as you may have noticed from my previous posts "Some Dietary Adjustments" and "Weddings".

In order to gain the approval of the folks over at adsense, I'll be catering to their automated requests and posting too much content. Maybe a post every few hours, I could title them:
"Yay, adsense!", "adsense is admirable!" and "I say AD you say SENSE!"

Unrelated, blogger thinks "adsense" is misspelled, but "Adsense" is correctly spelled. Huh. Guess you'll have to publish it with all these typos anyhow.

Some Dietary Adjustments

Yet again, I have "resolved" to "eat healthier" this year, but it's only sixteen days in and I can see this will, per ush, pose a considerable challenge. As difficult as it is for me to step away from the nutter butters and my nth serving of x-simple carbohydrate, by far the hardest thing for me to stop shoveling in my mouth is my own foot.

I'm a fan of the TV show Curb Your Enthusiasm, and part of what makes Larry David's character (Larry David) so endearing and frustrating is his unrelenting appetite for putting his foot in his mouth. Per season, how many opportunities and potential friendships does Larry miss out on by saying something thoughtless? Many! Very many! And while the show may exaggerate the average person's tendency to fudge up, who among us hasn't had a few zoom-into-the face-wide-eyed 'wow I should've just shut up' moments?

I certainly have, and in classic Curb Your Enthusiasm fashion, I experienced the bitter, bitter taste of  foot-in-mouth in a prime scenario, a job interview. During this interview, my potential employer asked me; "describe a situation that caused you to grow". This was a stumper, flying at me from left field. I had to think fast. I went for the low-hanging fruit: "I think for me, an example of that would be when I realize I need to apologize for something I've said". I should've stopped there. It would've been unoriginal but also unmemorable. Not great, yet not red-flag material. But I added "like when I've said something rude or offensive".

Now, I've never been in a position where I interview and hire others, and I don't know what the criteria are for passing an interview, but I'll go out on a limb and say that I probably wouldn't hire anyone that makes a habit of saying "rude and offensive" things. I can't think of any hiring situation where that would be desirable, except maybe if I was auditioning for Real Housewives of Orange County, which, contrary to rumor, I was not.

Being a reasonable person with reasonable hiring-standards, my interviewer asked me "do you say rude or offensive things frequently?" "I hope not!" was all I thought to say.

I definitely don't think saying rude and offensive things, as long as you apologize, is a great opportunity for growth! In fact, I try to not say rude and offensive things. To say something "rude and offensive" is really to say something unkind, and that's not the form of speaking and communicating I'm hoping to accomplish. While I certainly have quite a ways to go before I'm able to communicate exclusively with kindness, I don't think "rude and offensive" are my primary characteristics, at least I certainly hope not.

Needless to say, I don't expect to be chosen for the position. In the eyes of a reasonable employer, I just confessed to "rude and offensive" personality tendencies. I guess the take-away from this whole flub could be an example of a situation that caused me to grow- or no, no maybe not. At least I can say that next time, I'll close my mouth, take my time, and try to speak mindfully, because when I let my mouth go unsupervised, I can be prett-ay, prett-ay sure to embarrass myself.

Weddings: A Celebration of Friendship

Just like anyone with a Pinterest account and a tendency toward procrastination and daydreaming, I like to think about my theoretical wedding. I can't pinpoint exactly what prompts me to conjure up thoughts of the 'big day', but the event will pop into my head at times and it's hard to resist such a dreamy mental story.

I do know what doesn't prompt me to think of matrimonial ceremony, and it's anything to do with actual marriage. Whether or not I get married is not something I care about right now. If a fairy from the future visited me in a prophetic dream tonight and told me I'll never get married, I wouldn't be especially disappointed, or surprised. The idea of marriage is certainly inviting; sharing a home, a lifestyle, and a lot of time with someone I love romantically, that's a lovely thing! But as of now, I can easily imagine myself being a single woman for the whole live-long run of it. And I find that lovely and inviting too. 

But I keep going back to my mental wedding, which at this point is pretty well planned out, if I say so myself. I go back because a wedding (at least according to my knowledge limited to traditional, American weddings) is a big ol' celebration. I know what restaurant I want to cater my wedding, I know where I want the ceremony to be, and I even have some ideas for the reception. But what delights me most about weddings is what they really celebrate, the real reason for the whole she-bang, friendship. 

Now, they'll tell you romance is involved. A wedding is where and when one gets married, apparently, and I can't argue with the facts, folks. What they say about the marriage part is true, marriage happens at weddings. Marriage is the what of a wedding, but friendship is the why. 

Other than imagining all the blenders and mugs I'd put on my registry, my favorite way to daydream about "my wedding" is to imagine my friends together. Friends from different areas of my life. Friends who know each other well and friends who've never met. I imagine dancing and laughing and talking and eating with close friends during the whole "bachelorette" part-ay deal.  I imagine being goofy and cheesy and luxurious with them as we get ready. I imagine my friends arriving, meeting each other, sipping whatever drink is reasonably priced and trendy at the time. I imagine seeing my network of love and support mesh together in a lovely clump of awesome people. I see all these friends eating together, learning about each other, a strategic seating arrangement conducted by yours truly. And to top it all off, I see us all there at the reception, some dancing, backed by the soundtrack of a great band. I see which of my friends won't be driving back to their hotel (or house or whatever), and which are still seated at tables, laughing good-naturedly at those friends. 

Anniversaries are celebrations of marriage. On anniversaries, couples do things for each other, they cook each other favorite meals or eat at favorite restaurants, they write each other poems (ideally), they visit landmarks significant to their relationship, probably take part in some activity celebrating their physical attraction ;), but not so in weddings. Weddings are about sharing a milestone that's special to us, with people that are special to us. 

Maybe I enjoy imagining a wedding so much because I'd love to be able to celebrate and honor my friends to such a scale. But that's ridiculous. Why should I feel the need to wait for someone to commit to me as a life-long romantic partner before I can celebrate and honor the people that have been there all along? I may or may not meet someone I want to share the rest of my life with in marriage, but I'll definitely never be alone, and I hope I never forget to celebrate the people I'm sharing my life with already. Do I hope to be there for dear friends in sickness and in health, in want and in plenty? Do I know they always have been and believe they always will be there for me? I do. 

She's Risen! Wow!

Well hello! It's been a hot minute. Six hot year-minutes. I've aged! I'm twenty-nine, give or take a decade or two.

Recently I'd been thinking I wanted to start a blog, and I was thinking 'what platform would I use, does it cost money, how do you set it up?' etc. Then I thought, heck, I'll just recycle the middle school blog from my 'youth'.

So hey! I'm an adult now, and that's actually true. I'm nineteen, so I can now own a house and a business and rent a car and, oh wait no, I can't rent a car.

So stay tuned, and scroll down for a real blast from the past. I'll be figurin' something to write. Cheers.

Oh, and shout-out to one of my dorm roomies and kewl kat Hayley Nelson for taking my profile pic, check out her amazing photography insta here.