Holy Crap

I am reading about 5 books right now all at once.  I don't have a good track record about finishing every book I start, but I've been making great progress on them.  Too bad none of them is my book for class that I'm supposed to be reading.  Instead Sookie Stackhouse in large print to make me feel like I read faaaaasssst.

No more progress on Walden.  It increases my dissatisfaction-with-the-world level quite a bit.  I fell into reading a poem by William Stafford the other day about Daniel Boone while helping my brother write an essay (and I hhaaaaaaaaaate poetry, so you gotta know it was short).  One line was, "Children, we live in a barbwire time." 

That line really struck me--not just that pretty much all land in this country is owned by someone, but also that there are so many petty restrictions on everything.  I was at Ross yesterday lounging around by the fitting rooms waiting for Ollie to come back out and observed this scene:  a woman with about five dresses was attempting to enter the fitting room with a pair of Ross shoes in hand.  The fitting room lady stopped her and told her it was against regulations for shoes to be brought into the fitting room.  The lady started arguing, "but how will I know whether these heels are too tall for the dresses?!  I need to see a manager!"  Yeah, the lady was a bit unruly but I could see her point.  I could also see the point of the fitting room attendant, because she doesn't make up the policies but she could damn sure get in trouble for not following regardless of her personal feelings for the matter.  I was a little pissed off that 1) there has to be a policy regarding this mundane unimportant issue, and 2) I live in a time period in which Corporation is King and people have been relegated to useless drones with no power to use their own discretion in even the smallest circumstance.  Everything has to be by the books, by the books.

And I was under the impression that people and the needs of the individual or customer matter more than bureaucratic horse shit.

I give people freebies at the library all the time.  Free prints if the person really needs something but can't find $0.25, free use of my staff computer if someone need something printed out really quickly and there is a long line for the 15 min computer, additional time with books checked out if they exceeded the max # of times a certain item could be renewed.  I feel fortunate that I work in an environment in which I am not closely monitored and I can use my best judgment to help people.  I also keep my mouth shut because I am not sure whether or not I would get in trouble for not following the arbitrary rules that have been set down.

Alrighty--enough of my Barbwire Time rant. 

I really had a lovely morning.  And I don't use the word "lovely" lightly because I'm not British or an aristocrat.  I sat out on my porch with my dog and cat in the shade listening to the light notes of the wind chimes I hung up yesterday while reading my Sookie. 

I love seeing my cat experience what he can of the outdoors because our last apartment didn't have a balcony and he couldn't go outside ever.  Our current apt. has a balcony, but it isn't separate from the walkway to get to the door, so we have to put up a baby gate when our furry babies are out.  Gatsby loves it.  He gets to look at birds, kill insects, feel his hair ruffled by a natural breeze, lie in sun patches (otherwise known as cat traps), hear and smell new things, stick his head through the rails and look down on poor mortals below with that particular regal attitude that all cats possess in mass quantities. 

Yesterday I hung a hummingbird feeder in our tree.  A bird checked it out this morning, but we must not have the sugar water ratio correct because it flew away.  One more thing to do today.

Domestic bliss at its finest.

Tiny house, or thoughts that occurred because I got my ass up early to read Walden

Holy fucking shit.  I was looking into the merits of Tumbleweed Tiny Houses.  The prices are perhaps more laughable than the prices of regular houses, which are already ridiculously expensive.  Hahahahahaha $46,000 for 89 square feet.

If I was going to live in a tiny house it would be a shack of my own construction with a compost outhouse.  I could shower at truck stops.  I could be a squatter on my grandpa's abundant land.

Oliver would shit a fucking BRICK.

Ok, that fantasy was a little extreme.  But I need to definitely look at the merits of building my own house when that time comes (although land is so expensive that it might be NEVER).  I wonder if a person could successfully build a house using colonial building techniques but incorporate modern plumbing and wiring.

Ah goody.  More fodder for my already wild imagination.  I read this about Virgos today:

"Virgo is the sixth sign of the zodiac. It is a feminine sign ruled by Mercury. People born under the sign of Virgo are often idealists. They are intellectual and many are perfectionists. Although Virgos are often shy they have a good sense of humor that endears them to those who love them. Virgos are often athletic and talented in the area of sports. Virgos often have a skeptical and even cynical nature that may leave them prone to depression."

Sigh.  Every instance of that paragraph is true about me, including that part about cynicism and depression.  I always knew I was a child of Hermes (definitely NOT in any Percy Jackson sense....):

So what would Hermes do?  He'd make his own opportunities--make something out of nothing.  I'm about to pull some Elizabeth Bennett shit up in here--to hell with Fanny Price apathy.

I don't know where that burst of industry came from.  I read a quote the other day, "how we spend our days, of course, is how we spend our lives."--Annie Dillard.  I realized that I spend waaaaay too much time spacing out in front of the television in complete absence of thought or responsibility.  So I've made a solemn pact to cut out almost all TV watching.  This has freed up a tremendous amount of time for me to read, think, write, craft, go on walks and what have you.

This morning in the absence of TV I sat on my porch with a cuppa Earl Grey and read some of Thoreau's Walden.  I find Thoreau's sentiments all too parallel with my own, but I can't help but wonder if part of the reason he seems so morally opposed to opulence is because he could not afford those finer things and instead sought to content himself in a zealous rejection of them to make himself feel better about not having them.

I wonder the same thing about myself.  At this particular point in my life I have come to idolize simplicity in living--I would GLADLY take to wrap myself in a shack by a lake and make pert observations all day.  I wonder if I would feel the same way if I could afford a nice house.  Would I feel the same yearning for the pleasures of working hard with my hands and muscles and sinews if I actually enjoyed my job and the former would be less of an escape and more of an exile.

Wow, long post.  Probably convoluted and nonsensical.  The crux is that I need to figure out what I really want instead of tempering those true desires with sad resignations about what I think I can easily achieve or am expected by society to achieve.  Is it wrong to dream big, after all?

Hair revelation (revolution!!)

Ok, so I haven't crafted at all whatsoever this week.  Well, I knit about half a row of the shawl I'm working on.  No spinning.  No crochet.  A fraction of cross stitch.  I stumbled onto a website www.naturallycurly.com and have been furiously reading posts.  Through the magical wonders of the internet I now, after 25 years of uncontrollable frizzies, know how to manage my hair.  Here's a photo of what I usually have to deal with.  It's blurry, but oh well.  This was taken before I knew the magical wonders of eyebrow tweezing, or the mystery of the enchanted hair straightener of fate.

But I swear.  I SWEAR.  As I sit at this very moment I have actual ringlets and not a single HINT of frizz.  I have had five good hair days in a row without straightening.  This is just ASTOUNDING. 

And why was curly hair care such a mystery?  Because my mom's hair is super thin and pin straight.  I didn't discover until high school that if I don't brush my hair while it's drying I get sorta curls.  It never occurred to me before that not to brush my hair.  I used to buy cremes, Frizz Ease, leave in conditioners, mousse, gel, wax and nothing would eliminate frizz completely.  I did discover that I had better chances if I let my hair air dry and not touch it at all while during the drying process.  That was the extent to my knowledge, and I never did get consistent results.

Here is what I do now:  NO shampoo, instead I wash my hair with conditioner by massaging my scalp with the pads of my fingers.  After rinsing that out I put in more conditioner and let it sit on there while I do the rest of my washing.  Then I switch to cool water and rinse the conditioner out.  Then while I'm still standing in the shower with sopping wet hair I scrunch in more conditioner as a leave in treatment, and then about a nickle size amount of honey, and then scrunch in some silicone free gel.  The trick, I learned, is to use products free of sulfates and silicones.  THEN I dry my hair with a t-shirt by plopping.  After the plopping, I just unleash the mane and let it air dry WITHOUT TOUCHING AND WITHOUT BRUSHING.  This sounds like a process, but it actually doesn't take much longer than what I usually do. 

One beautiful aspect of this is that I can sleep on these curls and they are fine the second day.  Ah, I am starting to make peace with my curlies.  No more straight-envy.  What a revolutionary idea.

So far:  fun summer. I give it an A+.

Friday my friend Lizzie and I, along with her parents went to see the brand new off-Broadway musical Young Frankenstein at the Majestic Theater.  Yes, this classic Mel Brooks movie has been turned into a MUSICAL.  I can't say I will be downloading any of the songs, but it was terrifically hilarious to watch it live!  All the songs are dirty, dirty, dirty. 

The lady in front of us kept forcing her husband to play musical chairs with her during the middle of scenes, and then glaring back at my buddy because she was apparently laughing too loud.  The lady said under her breath while giving a death stare, "it isn't even funny."  You could tell she hadn't seen the movie and was pissed that she didn't understand any of the jokes.  She would also get up and leave for 10-15 minutes at a time.  This was all before intermission.  She did not come back for the second half, which left an empty seat in front of me and a wide open view of the stage (and we were ALREADY freakin' close!).  The lady's husband came back and seemed to enjoy himself ten zillion times more.  He let loose quite a few bona fide guffaws.

Saturday I thought Ollie and I would go to the Folklife Festival, but it turns out we just plain didn't feel like scouting out downtown S.A. parking or battling heat and crowds.  This saves money as well.  I will just have to make myself my traditional summertime henna tattoo.  Instead we immersed ourselves in a 1930s movie called "It Happened One Night" while munching on some tortilla chips and queso. 

Today we went to my favorite Indian restaurant for lunch.  Aaaaahhhhhhh.  I should learn how to make potato and coriander samosas.  And naan. 

Last Friday I went to a Shakespeare in the Park production of Romeo and Juliet.  There was a stage set up on a rolling lawn at the San Antonio Botanical Gardens.  The play is free admission, you just come with your folding chairs or blankets and stake out a spot.  This production was set in the 1920s.  Mercutio was a man.  I can't adequately express how much I enjoy reading Shakespeare, much less seeing the plays performed.  It was just fantastic when coupled with the warm summer breeze and soft black sky, and it's no secret that I adore 1920s music. 

I need to make an effort to see more plays this summer--it obviously exercises my contentment muscle.  I may have run out of positive adjectives to apply to this post.

Amistad

I never thought I would miss Del Rio, but I really want to go back to Lake Amistad (my dad's absolute favorite fishing hole from time immemorial) and swim wif dem bass n' perch.

It's a great lake.  The water is usually really blue and clear, and it is cupped all around by white white white sun bleached limestone hills.

Walking thoughts...

I just got done taking a 2 mile walk at the park here in Castroville.  Loved it!  I waited until it was approaching dusk so I would not get too hot.  The temperature was just right, it felt like it was in the upper 80s by then and there was a slight breeze.  I love the park.  It is full of mature oaks and pecan trees, and is nestled into a little valley with hills surrounding.  The hills help block out the sun a little earlier than usual.  There is a walking path with quarter mile markers.  One part of the path borders a little offshoot of the Medina River.  There are also wild flowers everywhere.  It couldn't have been more blissful. 

I live with two opposing ideals warring for dominance in my mind.  On the one hand I can see myself as a domestic goddess who keeps a cute kitschy house covered in rambling ivy with a shady secret garden-like verdant yard with tons of flowers, vines and herbs.  I have a hubby, two children, chickens, maybe some kind of livestock.  A sleeping cat curled up on a rag rug in the kitchen.  We light our home with oil lamps and don't own a television.

The other ideal involves me living very non-conformist nomadic, minimalist way of life.  I travel all over the world, finish the AT.  I make my income as a writer (I guess...), living wherever the mood strikes.  Never amassing too many possessions.  Not being tethered to family.

These two archetypal life plans are maybe too extreme to ever live out completely.  Either would be impossible to achieve in its entirety.  On some days the first scenario seems the more appealing of the two, and I feel like I am exactly where I need to be at the moment.  On some days scenario number two wins out, and I feel trapped by all of my possessions, my pets and my husband.  Like each possession gained adds one more brick to the prison I am building for myself.

I have always felt like I am being pulled in two different directions at once.  I cannot get any closer to any life goal because I am immobilized by indecision turned apathy.  Why on Earth can't I just *settle* like everyone else in America?

On a lighter note--today was a scenario #1 day so I am feeling quite content.  I am full of lentils, veggies, sourdough bread and butter.  Delicioso!