Letting the dream catch me for once

Since I got back from China in February, I feel like I have been chasing a dream. A dream that consists mostly of me not having to work (ever) and being able to eat as many pancakes and M&M's as I want without ever having to worry about getting fat. We all have to have a dream, right?

Hilda has been telling me over and over again that I need to "find contentment in what I have". I read blog after blog that talks about how being in the moment is so important. I even have started doing Shiva Nata as a way to try and tap into some of that contentment. Although, to be fair I have wanted to start practicing Shiva Nata for a while now (because Havi is pretty much my hero and I want to be her when I grow up) and this whole "why does my life suck all the time?" thing felt like the perfect time to finally step up and buy the starter kit.

I was trying so hard to be content with what I had, but it seemed like no matter what I did there was always something nagging at the back of my mind. Like, I would be wishing for cable (a post is coming on that, I promise) or dreading going to Macy's for job #2 of the day, or thinking about the eleventy billion other things that I needed to do over the weekend instead of being locked up in a department store.

But then the other day I was standing in my kitchen, wearing my pink polka-dot apron, kneading some bread (yes I am aware that statement makes me sound like Suzy Homemaker) and it occurred to me that I was genuinely happy. I have started listening to some of the CD's that I love, like the Godzilla soundtrack (because I am just that cool), and I finally got my apartment clean over mother's day weekend and I am happy. The quiet of not having the TV on all the time took some getting used too. Once I let go of trying to be happy - I was.

It's so cliche, I know. But I'm so happy that it found me. I am so content in my little space. I'm just sorry that I might be leaving it in a few months. Even though I am also really excited about the adventure that I will be going on (provided, of course, that the Korea's can get along without dropping bombs on each other).

The good thing is, however, that I know that I can do it. The happiness is there to be had. You just have to relax enough to let it get you.

If only I had a moon ladder, my life would be complete

I want so much that sometimes it hurts almost. Almost. Ok, maybe a little more than almost. It's the pull of desire for something (even if you have absolutely no idea what it is that you want) that starts in the center of your chest and radiates outward. Out toward the thing, whatever it is: physical, emotional, a specific event, an accomplishment of some sort.

I have decided that I am living a life that is mostly devoid of magic. And I am not like other grown ups who can go around without magic and be perfectly content. I need magic. I crave it. It is what I am radiating towards.

The only thing is I don't know where to start my search for this magic. It makes me feel very small. Like someone is telling me that I can totally make it to the moon, only they don't tell you that you should probably get a spaceship beforehand (ladders that tall just don't exist, I checked).

Sometimes I think that finding the magic will have to do with where I live and how I choose to live there. I imagine a huge back yard with huge, old trees and giant flowering bushes and so much color (green and blue and pink and purple and white and and and) that you might think that your eyes will melt out of your head. And a house that smells like cooking and baking. Warm bread, fabulous meals, cookbooks with broken spines and stained pages from years of being used and loved.

But in order to find the magic house, I have to have money. And in order to have money, I have to have a job. And that, my friends, is where I get lost.

A job that is magical. Something that I am good at and that I love to do all the time. A job that, if I did have to work more than 40 hours at it during the week, wouldn't make me want to find a mountain and throw myself off the very top of it because I am so tired and so stressed I can't stand it.

I have friends who are doing what they love. Writing or designing or what-have-you-ing. They have always known what it was, and even if they didn't know it exactly at the time, they were pretty damn close. I am good at a lot of things. I have jobs that I enjoy (to a degree) but I still manage to have about 1 day a week where my brain literally turns into jello because of the stress in my life and oozes out of my ear holes. And it's draining my will to live.

On the phone with my mother the other day, she told me that "if this was the way [I] choose to life my life then [I] should probably just stop bitching about it and be content that [I] have a job at all." And yes, I agree. I should stop bitching. I should spend more time looking for a job where I can put my college degree to good use (or any use, for that matter), be happy and make some money so that I can find the magic house where I will be able to cook and bake forever and ever, Amen.

But I think about looking for a job and all I want to do is run back into the arms of my 3 (yes, 3) jobs and the 1 day a week of brain flavored stress-jello and hold on as tight as I can and never let go. Resumes make me turn into a blabbering idiot. Looking at Monster or Career Builder makes me wonder if I will ever find anything that makes me want to dance out of bed and into the office.

And yes, I realize that I might be romanticizing this job thing. Maybe there really is not one person in the world who actually dances into their office everyday. Maybe "magical jobs" are like "unicorns" and "dragons" and while they are fun to talk about or star in movies or read about, they don't really exist.

But the thing is, I don't know that I want to live in a world where being a grown up means that you have to wait until 5:00 on the weekdays to feel the magic. In fact, I take that back. I know I don't want to live in that world. In that world, the world where everyone waits until 5:00 to be happy, I will wither and die like a flower that doesn't get enough sunshine.

So I suppose I am putting this out there to see what comes to me. I would love to have words of comfort or maybe a career idea that is something super-fun that you heard of one time because your ex-boyfriend's, step mom's brother-in-law from Texas heard about from a friend one time (maybe). The list of magical jobs that I came up with is sort of small:

• Start my own preschool
• Flight attendant
  
• Character actor at Disneyland (I would like to be Ariel please. Or Belle. Well ... really any princess, really)

Thoughts?

The deed is done

Well, the time for voting has come and gone. ET VIOLA!

I am the most beautiful girl in Puppetland

Long-ish hair was the winner by a vote of 3 to 1. Now I am beautiful, and I don't feel gross about my hair. In fact, I have worn it down every day since I got it cut! I even have long-ish bangs. See them? On the right?

What is it about haircuts that are just so darn magical? I swear, it's like Brooke switched out my old head of hair for a new one. I am never going so long without a haircut again.

The End.

I can now add "fog" to my list of things I'm scared of

I drove home from my parent's house at 1:30 last night (after watching a bad Lifetime movie with my mom and part of Dinosaur Train before we both got a really bad case of the giggles) and managed to scare the crap out of myself because I am just that talented.

It was super misty out and I don't think that anyone can blame me for getting creeped out when you are in the middle of the country (my parents live about 20 minutes from the nearest highway, in a neighborhood surrounded by farmland) and I just can't help it that there was corn growing next to the neighborhood and it was dark and super misty on the night that I saw Signs and that this movie ruined my life.

Yes ruined. I slept with the lights on for three months after I saw that movie. And - spoiler alert - I only felt really safe in the shower because I knew that the aliens would get melted. Yes, I know I'm the biggest wimp you know. Yes, I am ok with that, I came to terms with it years ago.

At one point I had scared myself so badly that I almost turned around and spent the night at Mom and Dad's but I said to myself, "Self, you are being very silly. There is not one alien that is going to try and get you. But just to be sure you should probably turn on the light to check the backseat and then lock the doors. But after that, we are going back to the apartment."

So then I'm driving on the highway and this little silver Neon pulls up next to me and it has a giant spider decal on the side of it that literally made my skin crawl.

Then I was struck by the irony of how I have mentioned freaky movies about mist (and the large and terrifying bugs that dwell within) and spiders on this blog in the last few months. But then there was a rather large bank of mist on the highway and I went back to being scared of aliens - because that totally makes sense, right?

So, up to this point, my 30 minute drive home has somehow managed to morph into the 30 minute drive home of terror. I get off the highway, turn onto the road that takes me to my apartment, and think to myself, "Self, you made it. I'm proud of us." But as I'm sure you may have guessed, the weirdness of this drive is not done.

All of a sudden there are cones all over the road and lots (and lots) of flashing lights. I slow down, like you do, totally expecting to see some hideous car wreck. But instead I am guided into the library parking lot where there were at the very least 100 police officers (and support personnel) doing DUI checks. Since I was obviously not drunk (just a little freaked out looking and tired), they gave me a little pamphlet and let me go. Although, to be fair, the terrifying tiny, barking dogs could have been the reason they didn't ask me to get out of the car. They are pretty vicious.

Pulling into the apartment parking lot, I wasn't freaked out at all. Which was fabulous because I was totally prepared to sprint to the door to avoid any would-be attacker aliens because I like to think that sprinting away from them means that they cannot take me to their spaceship or shoot me up with the poison gas that comes out of their wrists ... and now I'm going to have the sleep with the lights on.

Instead, I walked calmly and slowly because I have a really loud scream and there was an army of police officers one parking lot down from me. And aliens are totally scared of the police. Right?