A most vulgar Sunday
I'm rolling off a potent mix of influences right now, including:
-Florence & The Machine (NEW ALBUM SO GOOOOOD)
-YouTube videos of Jonathan Van Ness (don't know him? Go look him up. Right now. Go. I'll wait.)
-Sparse sleep (dog-watching the ageing dachshund, Honey Doodle, inevitably means I'm awake in the weeeee morning hours of, oh, anywhere from 3 to 5 am)
-Dubious skincare shopping on Amazon in said wee hours (any excuse to say "wee hours,")
-A 4:30 am self-diagnosis of MELASMA, which is a freaking joke, honestly. Did you know birth control can at once clear acne and simultaneously create prime conditions for incorrigible brown spots? I mean yes, I know age is inevitable, but these stained-on wrinkles permanently smeared across my forehead are officially NOT OKAY. I'm out to get 'em with a mean cocktail of hyaluronic acid and Vitamin C and whatever other potent herbal remedies I can drum up, because you know I am not about to trust any harsh chemicals on my faceskin. Also don't tell me about sunscreen. I know. I know.
You can add all this to the list of things you probably didn't need to know about me. So much for boundaries, or limited parentheticals, eh? Fun fact, when I'm fatigued my filter lowers significantly (which maybe I should remember for future anxiety-provoking social situations? Just get no sleep the night before? Errmmmm......)
I'm also typing all this with one elbow crooked over my cat Bagheera who refuses to evacuate my lap, even if it means contorting herself to fit haphazardly in the triangular pocket between my bent knees and belly. She is also DROOLING on my thigh. Who knew cats drooled?
You know I'm in a state when I'm repeatedly emphasizing and capitalizing every other word.
I'm laughing to myself over all this, because it's coming from such a different angle than my previous, mid-week post. Add to that the fact that I thought to myself, "oh, yeah, I'll blog on Wednesdays and Sundays. That seems like a reasonable schedule, and that way I can be kind of thematic: silly, lighthearted things on Wednesdays to get myself/whoever visits this space through the week, and more gravitas on Sundays, like church, but in a blog. And not at all religious......yeah!"
So much for that, too, haha. Mostly though, I am celebrating these variations in my tone and choice of expression. I think it would be a serious error to censor my worldly or vulgar tendencies to only present a picture of sacred ponderings. Also just, highly inaccurate. "I contain multitudes." Whitman, right? Though I wonder if he meant it quiiiite in the same way as I do now.
Ultimately, I am not interested in compressing myself into a presentable box, in any plane of personal expression. It's simply never been my modus operandi--I'm too curious, too questioning, to pretend otherwise. Over the course of my life this has lent an odd flair of slight, and unintentional, rebellion to many actions and decisions. Which is funny, ultimately, because I also have a long history of people-pleasing. I've attempted, time after time, to go against the tide of whatever was trying to express itself through me, be it gross or subtle, in favor of smoothing the facade of myself to appear respectable or safe or loveable. The result? A foggy, nearly non-existent sense of who I am and what matters to me. Confusion. Contradictory decisions. Dishonesty toward myself, and therefore, inevitably, others. Desperate fixes that picked away at the exterior but never got to the root.
Enough.
These days, I'm doing a lot more digging and uprooting of the people-pleasing tendencies, while leaving the rebellion and the curiosity well enough alone. Much like uprooting weeds, those tendencies are so much more extensive, entangled and cemented in thick mud than I ever would have guessed. They choke and clog the expressive, exploratory greenery in me that would otherwise flourish and nourish, were the soil not sucked dry by neighboring invasions.
Increasingly, I am shifting my MO to honor my multitudes; the sacred in the everyday; the absurdity and the wisdom that I encounter within myself and the world I see. I guess this is all just an extension of what I wrote before--to hold it all, to hold everything. It's what I keep coming back to....and maybe one day I'll stop feeling like I need to explain myself for it.
I hope your Sunday is rich and textured with the tone of your honest living, no matter what shows up in your day. I hope you can love what is for what is.
<3
A
-Florence & The Machine (NEW ALBUM SO GOOOOOD)
-YouTube videos of Jonathan Van Ness (don't know him? Go look him up. Right now. Go. I'll wait.)
-Sparse sleep (dog-watching the ageing dachshund, Honey Doodle, inevitably means I'm awake in the weeeee morning hours of, oh, anywhere from 3 to 5 am)
-Dubious skincare shopping on Amazon in said wee hours (any excuse to say "wee hours,")
-A 4:30 am self-diagnosis of MELASMA, which is a freaking joke, honestly. Did you know birth control can at once clear acne and simultaneously create prime conditions for incorrigible brown spots? I mean yes, I know age is inevitable, but these stained-on wrinkles permanently smeared across my forehead are officially NOT OKAY. I'm out to get 'em with a mean cocktail of hyaluronic acid and Vitamin C and whatever other potent herbal remedies I can drum up, because you know I am not about to trust any harsh chemicals on my faceskin. Also don't tell me about sunscreen. I know. I know.
You can add all this to the list of things you probably didn't need to know about me. So much for boundaries, or limited parentheticals, eh? Fun fact, when I'm fatigued my filter lowers significantly (which maybe I should remember for future anxiety-provoking social situations? Just get no sleep the night before? Errmmmm......)
I'm also typing all this with one elbow crooked over my cat Bagheera who refuses to evacuate my lap, even if it means contorting herself to fit haphazardly in the triangular pocket between my bent knees and belly. She is also DROOLING on my thigh. Who knew cats drooled?
You know I'm in a state when I'm repeatedly emphasizing and capitalizing every other word.
I'm laughing to myself over all this, because it's coming from such a different angle than my previous, mid-week post. Add to that the fact that I thought to myself, "oh, yeah, I'll blog on Wednesdays and Sundays. That seems like a reasonable schedule, and that way I can be kind of thematic: silly, lighthearted things on Wednesdays to get myself/whoever visits this space through the week, and more gravitas on Sundays, like church, but in a blog. And not at all religious......yeah!"
So much for that, too, haha. Mostly though, I am celebrating these variations in my tone and choice of expression. I think it would be a serious error to censor my worldly or vulgar tendencies to only present a picture of sacred ponderings. Also just, highly inaccurate. "I contain multitudes." Whitman, right? Though I wonder if he meant it quiiiite in the same way as I do now.
Ultimately, I am not interested in compressing myself into a presentable box, in any plane of personal expression. It's simply never been my modus operandi--I'm too curious, too questioning, to pretend otherwise. Over the course of my life this has lent an odd flair of slight, and unintentional, rebellion to many actions and decisions. Which is funny, ultimately, because I also have a long history of people-pleasing. I've attempted, time after time, to go against the tide of whatever was trying to express itself through me, be it gross or subtle, in favor of smoothing the facade of myself to appear respectable or safe or loveable. The result? A foggy, nearly non-existent sense of who I am and what matters to me. Confusion. Contradictory decisions. Dishonesty toward myself, and therefore, inevitably, others. Desperate fixes that picked away at the exterior but never got to the root.
Enough.
These days, I'm doing a lot more digging and uprooting of the people-pleasing tendencies, while leaving the rebellion and the curiosity well enough alone. Much like uprooting weeds, those tendencies are so much more extensive, entangled and cemented in thick mud than I ever would have guessed. They choke and clog the expressive, exploratory greenery in me that would otherwise flourish and nourish, were the soil not sucked dry by neighboring invasions.
Increasingly, I am shifting my MO to honor my multitudes; the sacred in the everyday; the absurdity and the wisdom that I encounter within myself and the world I see. I guess this is all just an extension of what I wrote before--to hold it all, to hold everything. It's what I keep coming back to....and maybe one day I'll stop feeling like I need to explain myself for it.
I hope your Sunday is rich and textured with the tone of your honest living, no matter what shows up in your day. I hope you can love what is for what is.
<3
A
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