the value of discomfort

I've been getting Lisa Hammond's e-mail newsletter for a pretty long time. (She's the founder of Femail Creations.) She shares some pretty great stuff sometimes, and in her last newsletter she mentioned a free teleconference thing this coming Monday~ it'll be a conversation between her and another woman named Ann Tardy, who is the founder of Life Moxie. (The number is 605-772-3500 and the passcode is 436877113#. It's at 6:00 PST/9:00 EST.)

So I looked at the Life Moxie website and signed up for their newsletter, as well. The first thing that popped up in my inbox was a "9 Strategies Cheat Sheet" and one of the strategies is to Be Uncomfortable. That one caught my attention more than the other eight.

The quest for comfort and safety has been my Holy Grail. I don't even know if that's a correct sentence, but I think y'all know what I mean. I spent years holed up in solitude, creating my own blobby version of comfort, and now I'm finding that what I needed then is rarely what I need now. And these Moxie folks are telling me to be uncomfortable on purpose!

It was Wednesday when I got the e-mail. There was a writing sampler that night, which I really wanted to go to, until it was actually time to go. And thank goodness for those instructions! I walked out the door with the intention of Being Uncomfortable, and the class was as wonderful as ever. I wrote some good stuff, a few lines of which had everyone laughing audibly, and I was only uncomfortable a little bit of the time. (The real class starts this coming Wednesday, and I'm SO GLAD.)

The next morning, my alarm went off at 5:00. I had been invited to a BNI meeting, and the group meets at 7:00, so I goed for the gusto; not only being uncomfortable, but also living (for that one day, at least) by another Moxie strategy: getting up early. Yes, it smacks of redundancy (getting up early = uncomfortable), but there we are. I was so nervous about that meeting, and had found reasons not to go the two weeks before. This time I went because I didn't want to. And of course, I was glad that I did. I know that networking and meeting people face-to-face is my best friend when it comes to finding clients...

So, I'm making a commitment to discomfort- the good kind of discomfort. I'm curious about others' experiences with this kind of thing... do share!

sing me a lullabye

For anyone who suffers from phases of horrible sleep, you know that I'm not exaggerating when I say that it SUCKS. It does. After several nights of not being able to fall asleep or stay asleep, you get to the point where you're basically just too tired to sleep. That's where I seem to be. Dragging through the day, quasi-wide-awake in bed, but too much of a zombie if I try to get out of bed and actually do something.

I picked up a friend this evening for a writing date, and started to cry as soon as she got into my car and asked me how I was. I whined and boohooed about how tired I am and how much I'm a failure and how stupid everything is and how I sabotage myself and it's all my fault blah blah blah. She flung her hands toward the sky, palms up, and insisted that I wasn't a failure at all, that I hadn't ruined anything, that I didn't have to have all the answers right this minute... and that things would look different if I could just get some sleep. Just what I would tell a dear friend who was in my same situation. So wise!

How blessed it would be if my exhaustion were to blame for all of the dings in my person. It's certainly to blame for the giant bags under my eyes. (If I had any money, I could keep it in my eye bags!) Right now I'm stalling. I'm so tired, but I'm computing instead of brushing my teeth. Because I'm afraid to go to bed! I hate just scootching around not sleeping. It's less fun than ingrown toenails. It's less fun than cleaning out the back of the bottom of the refrigerator. It's less fun than having to share your popcorn. It's EVEN less fun than having a spider fall on your head in the shower... which actually happened to me the other day.

But now, for my sake and yours, I'm going to brush and floss, remove the mascara that did nothing to help me look alive, wash my feet in the sink, and hang out in the dark. Long-distance lullabyes and sleeping spells are more than welcome!

my hero, and stuff

One of the things my four-year-old charge especially loves to do for large chunks of time is COLORING. She just loves to color. (I do, too.) Today she announced that crayons are made of wax. Then she asked what kind of wax... she didn't miss a beat, and concisely answered her own question before I had a chance. "Well, not ear wax!"

This little conversation reminded me of the video that I thought I'd seen on Mister Rogers years ago. I could have sworn that he showed a visit to a crayon factory on Picture Picture, but I only found a Sesame Street version on YouTube. In any case, I did find some very wonderful clips about Mister Rogers. Oh, he was something else. Do take a few minutes and watch this one, where he speaks to the senate and saves the funding for CPB. He's just magic.

I saw the darlings of Found Magazine twice last summer, once in Alexandria, VA (along with Frank Warren from Post Secret!) and once in Portland, OR. So dang fun. Davy Rothbart is the magazine's founder, and he's also done quite a few stories for This American Life~ which have been compiled onto two CDs, which I bought. His interview with Mister Rogers is one of the best things I've ever heard EVER. (It's Act 1 in the Neighbors episode.)

I played it in the car for my dad, and it made him almost cry probably four times! It's that good. He actually says things like, "What a fine young man!" And he's pretty much a saint, but also profoundly and endearingly human.

So, yeah. That's all, I guess. Enjoy!

Oooh, but wait. That thing about ear wax. Until very recently, she thought that it was ear wacks- that it was the plural of ear wack. Other favorite mispronunciations include:

barbecube
pecause
renember
candy cap (as in, "you can't park there! that's a candy cap spot!")
pink tails (the hair-do, pig tails)
tummy egg (for tummy ache... it's tempting to let her say this for the rest of her life)

Good night for real now. I'm trying (for the bazillionth time) to institute a new schedule for myself. Tonight, I definitely failed. Ho hum.

inspiration from the uninspired

The uninspired? That's me at the moment. Isn't it funny how one day we can feel all fruity and special, and then the next day our whole selves can suddenly morph into blobs of questions and furrowed brows and negative balances?

Oh, it's funny, alright! It's hilarious.

So, there's a pink chair over there. Someone put it out by the dumpster in my apartment complex, which made me wish at least a couple of things. Things like that people wouldn't put pink chairs in the garbage. Things like me having a workshop and some knowledge of furniture repair.

I really do wish those things. I've outgrown this little apartment, and most anything can make me long for more space. A new yard, so that I can have my dog back. More yard than that, so I can try out my dreams of being a small-scale goat and chicken and food farmer... you know, with the chicks and the eggs and the milk and cheese and soap and potatoes and tomatoes and all of that. A workshop (and a cool old truck) so that I can rescue things like the sad old chair. An uncarpeted room for at-home yoga practice. A pool, so I don't have to adhere to the public pool's hours of operation...

And then there's the whole piece of the equation called money. Of which I have less than none. It has happened, and I'm trying to be all zen or SARK about it. Trying very hard to trust that things will flow, that I'll always have what I really need... or at least the gumption to rustle it up!

Here, I like this:

Jump into the middle of things, get your hands dirty, fall flat on your face, and then reach for the stars~ (Joan L. Curcio)

please leave a message at the..... bwaaaahahahahaha!

My first official ad for my business will be all over town within a few days. (I'm pretty nervous.) This morning, I decided that it was time to change my outgoing message on my answering machine, from a howdy-do! one to a more businessy one.

First of all, my answering machine is punchy, so I had to get out the manual to re-learn the proper button-pushing sequence, and then I had to stand on a chair, leaning my face over the machine, which is mounted on the wall, because otherwise it sounds like I'm standing across the room and talking into a fan.

So. There I am, perched above the machine, and I'm messing up, every time. And my messages sound like this...

"Thanks for calling The Happy House, sorry I can't take your call.... (long pause) ppppphhhbbbbbbbbbbttttttt! *click*"

"You've reached The Happy House, at 555... um... HAH! *click*"

"Hi! (long pause) pppppppphhhhhbbbbbttttttt! *click*"

And finally I had to get down off the chair and make some delicious pasta salad and try again later. It's ok now. I may do it over yet again, but at least I'm not honking with mirth in the middle of any sentences. Bonus of this, too:


After all the to-do, I was thinking about the implausible amount of fun I've had with phone messages over the years. When my best friend lived with me, we did one of those "when I say blah blah, you say blah! blah blah! BLAH! blah blah! BLAH!" things like cool rappers do at concerts, only not as cool, and creatively using our names, and OF COURSE messing up and laughing hysterically a thousand times, until it stopped being funny and we just wanted to be done, already.

Another time, I was Beulah Witch from Kukla, Fran, and Ollie. I (Beulah)was the secretary for myself (Anna) and informed callers that I wasn't home right now because I had to go to the hairdresser and get an estimate. Some people loved Beulah. Some did not.

And then there was the blinding bolt of inspiration that was delivered one day as I funneled bird seed into gallon jugs in the back room of Wild Birds Unlimited, where I worked (Certified Backyard Birdfeeding Specialist right here!) ten years ago. Perhaps my favorite outgoing message ever:

"Hi, this is Anna, at 555-5555. Please leave your height, weight, hair color, and sign of the zodiac, and I'll call you back as soon as I figure out who you are."

My mother howled every time she called. The first line of all her messages had to do with the extreme funniness of my very serious voice and very goofy request. Most people didn't actually do as they were asked, but once someone DID... and I never called her back! Because I couldn't figure out who she was!