Darx Unplugged

I am just planting a little stick in the sand here to mark that I have come this way, that I am present on the earth, that I am alive and breathing, that my heart beats, that my fingers touched these keys. I am leaving a little rock for myself -o- to show that I visited this little corner of the vast world.

I have suffered, am suffering, a loss. I can’t say more than that, because to say it would make it more real, and I am having all the real I can stand right now. I worry people will judge me as being coy or cryptic (to my inner judge that reflects those thoughts, I say, hey, not helpful! privacy is a legitimate need, and in the world I want to create and live in, space for pain isn’t contingent on an informational transaction– there is room for all of it).

I am trying to tether myself to this world, and right now, writing this post seems like one way to do it, one little piece of connection I can create to the world and the people around me, one small act of reaching out. I want people to reach back, and I believe that me reaching first is how that starts. Probably me reaching repeatedly is how it keeps going. Showing up and asking people to reach back toward me (in case you’re wondering, I’m asking).

This morning I was reminded (not that I forgot) that other people are experiencing loss and pain, too. I am writing this post because I want to take a page from their books and write about this stuff, instead of hiding. I want it to be okay to be in the world even when I hurt, even when I need. Sometimes I feel like I am this fragile box that might break if anyone knew that I have problems, make mistakes, feel pain, feel sadness, am scared about the future.

But who doesn’t, and who do I think I’m fooling? Hiding my pain and mistakes and problems hasn’t helped me heal or avoid or solve them. What if I try this new way? What if I tell you that I’m a flawed human with a life that has both good and hard stuff in it, like so many people? What if there’s no such thing as a flaw, if we are all just different versions of perfect? What if having good doesn’t negate the hard and vice versa, it’s all just there together? What if you know I am scared, and you don’t run away from that, away from me, but you sit here with me for just a moment, and you let me know I’m okay and that I’ll get through this hard time? That would be so good for me right now. To make a space for myself to be everything I am, even when it’s not all pretty and happy and easy. That’s what I’m trying to do by writing today.

I am here. I exist. If you want to leave me a little rock -o- to mark your presence here, too, I welcome it. I’m reaching for you.

I learned something interesting today. A friend just finished writing over 50,000 words for NaNoWriMo (yay, Armelle!), and in cheering for her, I took a mind to count the number of words I’ve written this month in posting every day. Turns out I wrote 25,174 words this month (not counting this post), which is pretty impressive since I didn’t set myself a word count goal, just an intention to post daily.

What you don’t know is that I had a secret sub-goal. I also aimed to post once/day to one of two non-public blogs. Yeah, I’m still shy about certain parts of me being seen, what can I say.

So of those 25K+ words,  I wrote 5,021 here (not including today), 7,753 over here, and 12,400 somewhere else that is even more secret. That’s over 4 times as many words written somewhere else as I wrote here. Wow. Quite eye opening for me.

Also today I read this post, and it reminded me of this post. Both of those are such vivid descriptions of how things get in my world sometimes, but I avoid writing about it. Reading those posts brought tears to my eyes because they reminded me I’m not alone.

The connection is: those 20K+ words I didn’t share with y’all here? What if even a few of them helped someone else feel less alone with their problems? Can I get over my… shyness is not the word. It’s fear. Fear of being judged or analyzed or ridiculed. But if I could somehow, not conquer the fear, but allow it to exist and possibly think about moving if not past then around it, if I could allow myself to be more open here, what might that be like? Would something I write help someone feel less alone someday? I’d like that.

Another thought I had? I bet I could totally write 50,000 words in a month if I was trying. It’s entirely possible that the act of trying would make the words dry up, and instead I would just sterilize my entire house in avoidance of writing every day, but hey, that might not be so bad either. It’s definitely something to consider. If only I had a story I wanted to write as a novel!

Didn’t love this one. Combination depressing terminal illness element plus central-to-the-plot level product placement by big pharma equals can’t recommend this movie. Jake Gyllenhal is a cutie pie, but seeing his naked butt didn’t make up for the other stuff (although, if you’re an Anne Hathaway fan, you do get to see plenty of her in the movie, so there’s that).

The one thing that I liked about this movie was that it was filmed in Pittsburgh. The loft where Maggie lives looks surprisingly like one I visited at a welcome reception for new students at my alma mater. Let’s hear it for rust belt cities being reinvented as film industry hot spots. Okay, that might be overstating it a bit, but I always love when things are actually filmed in Pittsburgh. Or Ohio.

The good news is that I got a crapload of housework done today: laundry, changing the bed, roasting a dang chicken (ugh, there is a reason we’ve let Andy cook all the meat in our household all these years) and making pan sauce and mashed potatoes and lining drawers and cleaning shelves and the bathroom and doing a mess of other stuff.

The bad news is it all leaves me way too tired to write anything remotely intelligent. Only two more days of the forced march.

Today is grey and rainy. Quiet in the neighborhood, a blessed sweet relief from the leaf blowing sound pollution of the past few weeks, and we’re not yet into the snow blowing season. A good day to curl up in a blankie and watch something British on TV, which I dutifully did.

Andy did his own thing today, and what a delightful thing it was. He installed 3 of 4 drawers (that he built himself over the past few weeks) in what was previously an incredibly underutilized cupboard in our kitchen. For the first time in years, we can store our silverware and utensils in the kitchen again, instead of in the next room. Being able to unload the dishwasher without leaving the room? Bliss.

Tomorrow I’ll be back to clearing and rearranging stuff. Today I made mental progress: rough sketching out some more ideas for ways we can get more space in the kitchen. I’ll post pictures of Andy’s beautiful drawers when all four are in and the fronts are on. For now I’m just going to go admire them again. If you need me, I’ll be in the kitchen, swooning over my beautiful new drawers.

This movie was somewhat entertaining. I recommend it if you are, like me, interested in clothing or fashion. I think I read about it on Gertie’s blog (?), and my trusty library got it for me. At first I hated how grainy and jerky the picture was, but toward the end of the film, I understood why they were doing that and how it made for a better ending. Well, the grainy part. The jerky camera work was just annoying and made me pity anyone watching this movie who has a tendency toward motion sickness.

The most interesting thing about this movie was hearing about the inspiration for this designer’s collection. I mean, why is this the chosen method for deciding what clothes will be available to the masses? One random, fairly kooky guy’s 3 am insomniac movie experience means everyone is wearing fake fur the next season? Who thought up this system? Why do people to continue to participate in it? It seems like the height of insanity to me. I don’t want some random guy, whose personality I’m not even all that crazy about, or even a bunch of those people, deciding which clothes I can choose. All the more reason to sew my own.

Another interesting facet of this movie was the models. Quite an interesting pack of folks, and again, it amazes me that we let the way these few people look determine so much of what is defined as beautiful and appealing. I guess mostly this movie exposes what I consider to be a rather crazy part of our current culture, so I recommend it for that reason. I deem the jerky camera work worth enduring to get the greater educational benefit.

I’d definitely love to hear anyone’s thoughts on this movie. If you’ve seen it, what you liked or didn’t like, your thoughts on the whole fashion-is-insanity topic. Talk to me.

Another day of clearing, today in the living room. Some nice open space was restored, but now I’m too pooped to pop.

Today’s biggest excitement was talking to my little brother, who turned 40 today. It’s pretty strange to have a little brother who is 40. I got to hear about his spinning on the wheel he made himself (one of several he’s made), the scarf he knit for his girlfriend, and the knitting technique he invented for himself that somehow involves holding one needle stationary with his belly. I hope to see it in person someday.

I wish I had something more interesting to say today, but apparently I’m going for quantity over quality this month.

Spent a wonderful day clearing out my loom room, which had gotten junked up with various things that didn’t belong there. We’ve got a friend coming over to hang out in about 15 minutes, and I get three more days of puttering, cleaning, cooking and chilling out with The Professor this weekend. Not too shabby!

I used up all my blogging energy today setting up galleries for a couple posts written by a fellow weaving guild member about some neat places she visited this summer (weaving related). Between uploading, captioning, formatting, inserting, and I don’t remember what else, I am just tired of looking at ye olde dashboard at this point. Take a look! Make sure you note the diacritical marks in the captions. Figuring out how to do that by myself, with only Google as my guide, constitutes a significant personal achievement.

I overcame my extreme aversion to Angelina homewrecker Jolie to see this movie and was glad I did. I still can’t stand her, but Johnny Depp is great, as usual, and this movie had a completely surprising (to me) ending. Totally worth seeing.