Stress & The Yellow Canary In The Hat

The other day I was sitting at my laptop, writing a for the blog, when I was rudely interrupted by a chirping noise - coming from my ceiling.

That's never good.

I went to investigate and found nothing. However I did discover the culprit of a very obnoxious - albeit entirely separate - tapping noise. Mr. Woodpecker seems to have opened up spare whittling shop directly under the awning of my house. Unfortunately his hours happen to be exactly whenever I am working/writing/sleeping.

Since then I've decided that there is very much a small bird living inside some little space in the roof of my house. Which frankly, I've come to think, is pretty damn nifty. I like to consider him my little pet. He sits up high and watches me write and throws out little chirps of encouragement. Or so I like to believe. I think he's probably yellow and wears a red and white polka dot hat. My little yellow canary bird in a hat. (Apparently I've graduated from having imaginary friends but not pets. Nice.)

This little bird has also become somewhat of a metaphor for the way I've been thinking about my life lately. He has it all figured out. He probably has a mostly stress-free life. The area I live in is pretty wildlife friendly (the house cats tend to be rather tame and most dogs are kept indoors) so I doubt my little bird is having any Jason Bourne like chase scenes in his day-to-day existence. He has a constant food source. I know this for a fact because every time it rains the entire worm population in the tri-state area congregates on my front sidewalk and sings Christmas carols regardless of the season. Rain today? Yea well: BOOM. WORM SONGTIME.

Plus this bird also has an endless amount of entertainment. He can watch Sammy (the puppy) get chased by Little Brother, Little Sister, and Zoey - the evil dog. He can watch my mom have fits when she can't figure out something that's written in her textbook. And he can also while away his hours watching me at various times curse, hug, pet, and stare dreamily at my laptop (the last one is only when there's a picture of John Krasinski on it. Or something shiny. Or a Kindle.)

And all of this got me to thinking. I want a stress free life. My dentist says that I grind my teeth while I sleep - something to do with stress/how I lay when I sleep/my diet/exercise/the air/allergies and basically anything even remotely medical-ly sounding. However apparently if I was less stressed I would have fewer headaches and pointier teeth so that has become my new goal of late. Less Stress = Utopia Based Lifestyle. Or something like that.

Except that lovely God-like command isn't as easy as it sounds. You know just because the booming voice spouts off one day with "BE LESS STRESSED OR I WILL SMITE YOU IN SUCH A WAY THAT YOU WILL BE EVEN MORE STRESSED MWAHAHAHA" doesn't mean I can just magically poof and be all happy go lucky. Because, frankly, my life is a bit stressful.

Not that I'm not completely blessed. Because I am. I'm young, I have pretty great health, I have a family and friends that adore me, and I'm lucky enough to have found an amazing man who cares about me as much as I care about him. So overall I try really hard not to complain. But when it comes to matters like the economy, figuring out how to pay for college, trying to write my book, and ultimately finding some way to move back down to Salt Lake to be closer to the fiance things tend to get a bit overwhelming - and as a result - stressful.

So what I would really like is to be like my little bird that sits up in the ceiling watching things with a detached perspective. It doesn't bother him if maybe my website isn't working one day or if I didn't manage to get up as many posts as I would have liked one week. He's just happy to be safe and warm and able to chirp without anyone getting after him (which I've warned my family away from by threat of using the blender at 6 am on a regular basis - you want sleep? the bird stays).

I think the most important thing to remember is that my little bird also doesn't get stressed about being stressed which, remarkably enough, is something I've been known to do. Because when it really comes down to it I'll figure out how to pay for college. I'll get my website up and running soon enough. I'll find a job and an apartment down in Salt Lake in good time. Maybe it wont work out according to my timeline or the way I planned but it will all eventually work out. And that's what really matters.

I think my little yellow canary in the hat is a pretty good example for how I should try to live my life.

Ghost Busters

Let me preface this post by sharing a neat fact about me.

(Ok not so much neat as a total pain. But anyways.)

I am afraid of everything. Like EVERYTHING. Not in a paranoid/might possibly need medication sort of way - but more in a worry-some/worst case scenario type of way. For example:

- I'm afraid of being electrocuted/hit by lightening.
- I'm afraid of me or anyone I know getting getting in a car accident. (This particularly applies to the fiance who drives WAY too fast. You know its true Crayon.)
- I'm afraid of earthquakes/fires/tornadoes/floods and I guarantee that when I buy insurance for my first home whatever sales guy I purchase from is going to be damn happy he went into work that day as my "Every Feasible Disaster That Might Occur Even If Your Climate Only Makes Half Of Them A Possibility" package will probably pay for a trip for every single one of his children into the Happy Land of Orthodontia.
- I'm afraid of all bugs and anything that has more than four legs. Or no legs.
- I'm afraid of getting food poisoning (This is only because I've had it fairly recently though - Note to all Utahns - Stay Away From "Ocean City".)
- I'm afraid of getting some sort of disease/illness or of having anyone I know get one.

But first and foremost the thing that I'm probably the most terrified of - is dying. Which, according to all those weird studies I Google when I can't sleep at night, is pretty common. Simply because we are a society cultivated on the idea that we can and should plan for every possible outcome in our life. Except that doesn't really work with matters like death and the afterlife because we really just don't know how it all shakes down after we're dead and gone. And I, like many others I know, just don't like that. Ignorance is never bliss. And what it really comes down to is the kinds of beliefs you hold - particularly your religious beliefs.

Religion is something I've never really discussed on this blog, partly because I don't want to offend anyone and partly because I haven't seen enough of life to seriously commit myself to any one set of beliefs, but when it comes to death the two seem to go hand in hand. I grew up in a Mormon (LDS- the majority religion in Utah) household and while my family was attending church I always had the idea of Heaven (or possibly Hell - depending on how much of my Mom's perfume I had "borrowed" that week) to fall back on whenever my worries crept up on me. Since then most of my family has become "inactive" (Mormon lingo for: we don't go to church anymore) and while that's perfectly fine with me, as I was never terribly attached to the church and didn't lament the lack of its presence in my life, it has left me without a solid set of answers to turn to when I inevitably start to worry about how quickly my life is moving and what I have to face when its over. And because I have no real solid evidence one way or the other (afterlife vs. unconsciousness) I have no means of satisfying the little bug in my head that likes to remind me of these things at the worst possible moment. He wants answers and I have none to give him. Except not everyone has this problem. And when I say not everyone who I really mean is the Fiance.

When Crayon and I first started dating he let me in on a little fun fact. Apparently his house, and specifically the basement of said house, is haunted. Which is pretty cool. Now before you start rolling your eyes and using words like "poppycock" let me provide a little insight. Crayon cannot lie. He simply cannot do it. The few times he has tried to lie to me (concerning presents, surprises, and other such matters) he pretty much fails at it entirely. He grins, talks in this falsetto type voice, and can't maintain any form of eye contact. The whole thing is rather cute. And when I catch him at it -he blushes relentlessly- but he'll deny that to the ends of the earth.

The point is that if anyone else told me that their basement was haunted and had given me the examples he has I would have told them that they were full of it and probably refused to text them for a few days as punishment for trying to pull a fast one on me. Except Crayon can't lie. Which brings me to this whole new kind of realization. If Crayon can't lie and has told me that he's seen/heard a ghost in his house, then does that mean that "ghosts" actually are real (in some form or another -that is)? And if there is such a thing as a "ghost" does that also mean that there is some type of awareness after we die?

Frankly all of this tends to make my head hurt and also makes me a tad more stressed out soooo (because you guys *rocked* with all of your Tv suggestions - seriously my desk calendar is actually being USED now. it's pretty awesome) I would like to know if anyone else either believes in ghosts or has had any kind of ghost-like experiences. Any sort of insight is appreciated here - and if you think the whole ghost dealio is total bullshit that too would be helpful to know in its own way. If I get some good responses I'll do a follow up post with the best stories and (after I get Crayon's approval) I'll share some of what he's told me about his basement dwelling ghost. Oh - and if you don't want to share your story in the comment section (for personal/anonymity reasons or otherwise) or just think it would be easier to type up elsewhere feel free to email me instead. (See contact info ----->).

Thanks guys. Looking forward to your responses.

Tug-of-War

Sometimes I would really love for my life to be like a movie. I would love to have some heart-wrenching scene with soft piano music (preferably composed by Philip Glass) punctuated by whispered promises and a few tears followed by one of those awesome kick-ass scenes with the motivational songs where you watch all the trials and tribulations of the main character as she struggles towards her goal (always maintaining her gorgeous hairstyle) and finally accomplishes the impossible. I want all the months of worry, stress, and mild psychosis when it comes to my writing to be all wrapped up nicely in a two minute song with a great drum beat. I see no reason why it shouldn't work that way.

Real life is so much harder than that though. Those kind of inspirational moments only last a few minutes and then whats left is the actual grunge work that you have to do. There's no fast-forwarding to the end - where the sunsets and the smiles are waiting. You have to wade through all the mud and the muck to get there and when you do there is absolutely no chance that your hair will be clean and shiny. And that's where I am with my book.

There's the excited stage where I have my nifty little idea and I lavish for a few days in the sheer brilliance that exists in ME form (not). Then there's a workaholic phase where all I do is write for several weeks and typically stop changing out of my pajama's (and when I do change, god forbid, its just back into another pair of pajama's). But when that's all said and done I end up here. Trying not to look at my storyboard because I swear its making all sorts of condescending faces at me and avoiding my computers' desktop with the folder that reads "The Book You Have Not, And May Never, Finish If You Don't Get Off Your Couch And Write Faster, Better, And More Than You Currently Are, You Lazy Procrastinating Girl."

It's not that I don't want to write. I do, truly I do. I love telling stories, I love making people laugh, and I LOVE looking at a finished piece and getting that feeling that lets me know that whatever I put down actually does make sense and might also sound nice too. It's just the in between part. The part that rests its furry little butt down just after I open my word document and before I close said document in a mad rush to find out who in my house is making popcorn and if they'll share. It's that part that scratches just below my ankle, nips at the tips of my fingers, mews incessantly and then bats its little eyelashes when I threaten to make a small sacrifice out of it in the fire pit, as if it did nothing wrong. It comes in the guise of parents and teachers, family and friends, and essentially anyone who has ever told me that money cannot be made from writing, that what I'm doing isn't work, and that I'm condemning my future husband (sorry Crayon) to a lifetime of poverty if I continue on as I am. It also rears its head under the day to day pretense of school classes, part-time jobs, scholarships, dentist bills, 401k plans, car payments, gas prices, rent, and - god help me - Etsy. I swear Etsy will be my undoing. But when I'm gone all my friends will have an ENORMOUS amount of cute (albeit somewhat unnecessary) paraphernalia to inherit.

I suppose what I'm really trying to say here is that lately my life has become this awful tug-of-war between the things that I Adore doing (my writing, blogging, taking pictures, reading) and the things that I feel like I Must do (school, work, life planning, career building, happiness ignoring). I'm trying to strike some sort of balance but unfortunately it doesn't seem like the world runs on the idea that we should make time for the things we love now instead of later.

I have a feeling this is going to be a stressful week.

A Better Way Of Living

Sometimes I wonder how we got to this point in our society. I wonder how it is that our whole lives came to be built on what seems to be a never ending cycle of stress, worry, and fear. I look around and all I see is how trapped we seem to be. How many of us have to sacrifice things we love, want, or need because our lifestyles, and the methods provided to maintain such comfortable lifestyles, dictate that we must do so. The binds that prevent us from experiencing many of the truest joys of life and continue to push us out of bed to our 9 to 5 jobs each morning are spread far and wide, undeterred by age, race, income, or hometown. They are the school loans, the insurance premiums, the mortgages, the cars, the interest rates, the credit cards, the ever out of reach promotion, and without fail the very comforts of life that we strive so hard for that ultimately end up making our lives uncomfortable.

I have friends that wanted to travel. I have friends that wanted to volunteer, teaching children in impoverished countries. Friends that are now, working part time, trying to put themselves through school. My mother wanted to be a nurse, to own her own home, to retire comfortably, without worry. She's now just barely going back to school, over forty, without any real estate to her name and without a retirement account to fall back on. My father wanted to make his living writing music. He currently works in electronic marketing, writing songs at night, and flying to Nashville in pursue of a dream that's slowly become a hobby over the last twenty years. One of my best friends from high school wanted to be a make-up artist. Now she works at a dealership, selling cars for sixty hours a week. What is it that allows us to write off the things we want, as later dates in our calendar, and things to do - but at the bottom of our list. How is it that we let the most important things fall through the cracks for the day to day sake of "making it", of "surviving"?

I wonder if college tuition was free, if health care was provided without a second thought, and if banks and credit card companies were regulated more closely, would the average middle class worker stand a little more of a chance when trying to build a life? If hospital bills and co-pays didn't force people to sell their homes would it be easier for someone to finance a small business? If not for student loans that keep us tied down and credit cards that never seem to get paid off would there be more people taking a year to go travel and see the world? Is it a lot to ask that we be free to move about and create the lives that we truly wish for? Should our society not be built on the ideas of lifting up its citizens instead of chaining them down for the sake of profit? How did we get to this point? And more importantly, is there a better way of living?

Lizzy

Palinsanity

One of the most frustrating aspects of politics is that we, the general public, are in this constant struggle to sift through the propaganda, the cover-ups, and the flat out blatant lies that we're delivered through not only sickeningly biased media sources (read: FOX News) but from the candidates themselves. However the one aspect of all of this that I find particularly infuriating is when through sickly sweet public statements public figures reveal themselves to be nothing more than brown-nosing, deceitful, hypocrites.

Take the newly nominated GOP vice president candidate, Sarah Palin, for example. This lady, the farthest from being considered feminist you can get while still having ovaries, has proved herself time and again to be uneducated, misinformed, and shows blatant disregard for anyone who's political agenda does not match her own, but this time she has really outdone herself. We recently discovered that Gov. Palin, recent mother of four month old "Trig", her down syndrome baby, took a blood test during her pregnancy to screen for such anomalies as down syndrome and various other birth defect. *Gasp* What?! How could she? A blood test?! How dare she take a doctor advocated, obstetrician encouraged, blood test that had she refused would have landed her in a counseling session and allows her to make an informed choice. We all know how firmly Anti-Choice Sarah Palin is. So what was she thinking when she told her doctor that yes, she would like to have this blood test done to see what defects her baby might have, given the fact that she's 44 which puts her odds of having a down syndrome baby at roughly 1 in 30. How wonderful for her that she was given the opportunity to make that decision and to be an informed mother. And its so thoughtful of her to be a strong advocate of the groups and ideals that would see to take that choice away from women. Because not only is Palin a die-hard Anti-Choicer she's also against abortion without an exception for rape or incest. Expert lawmakers have confirmed that if, as Palin advocates, Roe Vs Wade was overturned it would also make it illegal to have an abortion for down syndrome or other birth defects. If Palin is such a strong believer in denying abortion in any and all circumstances, be it birth defects, rape, or any other undesirable situation why didn't she refuse any kind of testing thereby denying herself the same choice that she would deny the rest of us women. Her choice to raise and attend to the needs of her baby are admirable but it must be remembered that its only admirable because she chose to. Had it been mandatory that she carry her baby to term there would be no fanfare, nor parading of her "motherly ideals" because it simply would have been something she had to do. She might even be deemed reckless for having a baby at such a late age in life when the chances of the child being born with defects are so high instead of being glorified as selfless because she chose to have the child as she is now. The fact of the matter is that its incredibly hypocritical of Palin to take advantage of the choices that other women before her, with whom she has little more than a chromosome in common, fought so hard to have and then turn around and try to take those same rights away from the rest of us.

It's absolutely appalling.

Vote Obama 2008

Palin?

I don't make it a habit to write about politics on my blog but this time I simply had to say something.

Sarah Palin? Come on. Seriously?

Ignoring the fact that she's been in office for a grand total of five minutes, that she's younger than Obama(thus nullifying the "young and impressionable" card the Rep's keep playing), that she is extremely unqualified and inexperienced especially when, if (god forbid) McCain were to win the presidency, she has the very real possibility of having to take over upon his death, the real issue I have with her being named as McCain's running mate is that I simply cannot see it as anything other than a bid for the pro-Hilary voters. Is that really a move that the Republicans believe will sway Hillary's almost-demographic (which consisted mainly of young college students, the elderly, and middle class women)? It's frustrating that the GOP seem's to be harboring the belief that those of us that supported Hillary did so merely because of her possession of ovaries - and will settle for anyone else that just happens to fall in that category. Ms. Palin is anything but adherant to even the most basic of feminist principles, and frankly its rather terrifying to have a woman who returned to work just three days after having her child making decisions about the rights and choices other women have over their own bodies.

Palin is, time and again, introduced as a "mother of five" and a "mother to a down syndrome baby" which, once again, makes me wonder what the party is aiming at by touting all these motherly ideals. Has it not occured that the last thing the pro-choice, pro-gay, pro-health care women of this country are looking for is an anti-choice, pro-drilling, anti-health care governer who, instead of shielding her daughter (and said daughters' pregnancy) from the media, seems to be hoping it will cast her family into a We-Are-Noble-And-Self-Sacrificing-Light. Unfortunately for our Red party, there are too many voters who believe that women are not interchangable and that it actually does matter what their positions, beliefs, ideals and ethics are - not just their gender. I am, however, still appaled that someone out there seems to think that having a woman in office, any woman as it were, will appease us (watch out for the scary word --->) feminists.

Just because she's a woman, doesn't mean she has a feminist agenda.

Lizzy

P.S. Sorry for the rant - politics drive me crazy.

Backup Plans

Sometimes its so damn frustrating to know what you want. There are days when I envy my friends for just being able to do the "college thing". It all seems so ridiculously easy. They all get to go to school for four years, pick a major, and follow their yellow-brick-road of a career path to wherever they want to go. They get to go to med school. They get to apply for the law program. It seems unfair for the rest of us that have "unconventional" career choices. What guidebook is there for us to follow?

There aren't pretty office complexes for writers. We don't get to sign up with big brand names and impersonal corporations. We don't have the job security, the HMO's, the pensions, or the 401k's. There's no set formula to do well in our industry. No guarantee that with good grades and extracurricular activities, we'll graduate with job offers and proud parents, with a sense of where we're headed, or even the promise that we'll like it when we get there. There are no try-outs, no hopeful gateways, and the entry-level jobs that one might work up from are few and far between. There aren't any support groups either - and writing is a lonely affair. Working on a book is nothing like blogging. The blog community has the benefits of instant validation on any and all content. For the lucky few of us that have a small number of dedicated readers we are able to receive immediate feedback, (and most of us survive off of this drip-line of positive reinforcement). Unfortunately with a book you're up against 65,000 words without any kind of a support system. And that can be pretty daunting. It can also make you reconsider what the hell it is you're trying to do exactly.

My mother wanted to be a writer too. She fell in love with words the same way I did, through literature and music, and like me, she never really let go of the idea. She worked hard at it, as she does with everything in her life, and sold a few short stories here and there but nothing further came of it. She's a testament to the reality that the creative industries have more than enough fresh blood each year, to glide over all the Mid-Lister's that didn't make it as big as they had planned. Now, at 44 years old, she's going into a nursing program, finally pursuing her only other passion. She's my reminder of how cruel life can be to those that fall between the cracks and it makes me wonder if I'm not setting myself up to fail.

Now that I'm here I can't imagine really doing anything else - the standard fall-backs of journalism and teaching don't appeal to me very much - but I can't help worrying about what happens if I'm not part of that lucky (but minuscule) percentage that actually manages to get published, let alone figure out a way to make a living off of this writing business. I know that all I can do is try my hardest and hope for the best outcome but it seems like I have so much riding on all this now, I can't help but let my rational side suggest that I might be making a mistake. I have a fiance with whom I hope to build a comfortable (read: not lacking) sort of lifestyle and I wonder if I ought to pursue a more established type of career. I know that he wants me to do what makes me happy but I refuse to be one of those women that stays home and lives off their husbands income. I wasn't raised that way - and frankly I'd probably go crazy. So what it really all comes down to is - if not this, then what?