coffee shop.

Why do I do this to myself?

After only one or two hours max of studying, I decide that relocating to my favorite local coffee house will help me to study even better, and a change of scenery would do wonders for my melting brain cells.

This, of course, is a lie I tell myself to get me to the coffee house. 

I have a terrible time studying in a coffee house. I'm so easily distracted by, well, everything, that I get far less accomplished than I set out to. For example, instead of pulling my books out of my bag, I'm blogging. Why on earth would I bring my computer to the wireless-enabled cafe, you ask? Well, I told myself because I can practice for my upcoming exams by using the Blackboard activities my professors have posted. The real reason, which I blatantly refused to admit to myself until I was almost here? So I could sit at this little wooden table, absorbed in the white noise of conversations and overhead music, sip at my iced mocha, and let the thing that happens every time I come here happen again.

I'm not sure how to describe it - it's like my brain takes a vacation. It's like percocet for my imagination. I get really creative, thinking of all the exciting projects I want to start and all the beautiful things I want to create for my Etsy shop. I get wistful, nostalgic even. I subconsciously hope that a friend will pop up in the cafe and will want to sit down and have an extensive philosophical conversation with me. I contemplate life. I am reminded that my life is wonderful, in this cozy, caffeine-injected environment. I'm surrounded by stylish young people, bursting with potential and living on entirely different planets than the people walking by outside. When I come here, I think of how much I want to be one of these people: where the outside is represented strongly by the inside, and on the verge of independence from societal restraints. This of course is a projection of what I want myself to be and probably not nearly as likely real as I perceive it to be. I come here and realize that I *am* one of those people, that I *can* influence my own life in a meaningful way. That being a slave to this society is, in part, a choice. 

I realize how preposterous this all sounds, but it truly is why I come to the coffee house. To remember that the single iced whiskey of life is not nearly as strong as I sometimes believe. That a lapse in momentum in my day does not mean a lapse in productivity, or rather, that a lapse in productivity is not necessarily worthy of the guilt trip I usually give myself.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to get back to being an espresso-sipping West Coaster.

kaput.

Okay. I have to admit that I'm proud of myself. For the last few weeks or so, I have made a concentrated effort to let go of my typical anxiety-ridden ways. I have been happier, more content, and have more energy and time (although I usually think otherwise). When I start to get hung up about something, I just shake it off. I have also been making an attempt to remove negativity from my thoughts and words; no more "I can't afford that," or "God, I'm so stupid sometimes," or "I'm really getting fat." I'm trying to substitute with, "I'm drop dead gorgeous!" and "I'm rich beyond my means!"

This may not sound like much, but for a chronically anxious human being, it's monumental. 

Anyway, at this moment, I'm feeling the stress big time.

In my Kinesiology class, we have sped right into (and through) all the major and minor joints of the lower body. For those of you out there who don't know the numbers, that's more than ten joints. Within those joints are numerous cartilages and ligaments. I need to know all of them - let me say that again: ALL OF THEM - by Wednesday. I also need to know 40 tsubos (those are the points that acupuncturists stick needles in) and an entire bodywork routine for Eastern Theory. Besides this, I have to present a program about fire on Wednesday to a panel of people deciding whether or not I get the seemingly only job opening in Bend (with salary and medical benefits - yes, salary, something I've never had before!). I haven't heard from the Nature Center job, so I am putting all my energy into this one. It might be tough to do school and a full time job, but dammit, I am worthy of shittons of money, and I can ace this job with no problem. Programs are what I DO. 

So, considering that my significant other is out flouncing about in the hills of Montana, leaving me here all alone (with my completely out-of-control fear of being in this (read: any) house by myself all night) - I am, needless to say, having myself a cup of kava tea.

Deep breaths. Deep, deep breaths. Two more weeks until finals... then it's all over until January.

Deep breaths.. oh, god, I think I'm hyperventilating.

flakey.

I have to give myself a pat on the back: for someone who is typically antisocial (in the respect that I immensely enjoy my alone time at home, puttering around the house), I have made a tremendous effort to create social activities for the massage therapy student base at the college. This I have done because I will be sitting in class nearly every day of my life for the next one to two years with these people. However.. something is strangely amiss. Everyone is interested in said planned activity, but no one actually shows up. Is it a case of "I'm too weirded out to go alone", or are the massage therapy students as a whole just like me? Enjoying their alone time too much to bother branching out? Well, at least I tried. 

Making friends is shockingly difficult once one has made the exodus from university. Now, being back in school, I was hopeful for the prospect of socializing and making new friends, but those prospects are looking dim. The fact is that Bend is just a difficult place to make new friends - most people already have established groups that seem somewhat exclusive to newbies. Oh well.

On the bright side, a friend of mine from Washington College rang me today - a one Jari Simila from Finland, that is. I may not be making any new buddies, but at least my old think of me still - even from across the Atlantic. Jari is more American than most Americans I know: he has no discernible Finnish accent, and he thinks the phrase "bad American movie" is a blaspheme that cannot be applied to any film ever having come out of American cinema. 

In other news, I have my second interview at the High Desert Museum on Wednesday. I will meet all the bigwigs who would become my associates and bosses, and I will have to 'put on' a prepackaged program, one that the position would require me to do often with groups of students. Groups of students do not make me nervous, but doing the program in front of an entire group of people who will be discerning my financial future (ie, whether or not I have one) makes me more than a little uncomfortable. I plan, however, to forge ahead and win their hearts anyway. Afterwards, I will go to the bus station to pick up a long lost friend that I went to South Africa with back in 2004. She's spending Thanksgiving with me, which is really a relief, because with Erin AND our new roommate Willow gone (and of course me being friendless), I'm feeling terribly lonely. I'm sure my poor mother feels the same way.

Our new house is the epitome of cozy, especially at the moment. I cleaned up the living room and kitchen, put my favorite afghan on the sofa (picture the collection of 1970s colors: orange, brown, light brown, gold, and green.. $5 at a thrift shop, and worth every penny in my opinion), and have the fireplace going. I shouldn't, because apparently the fireplace uses an obscene amount of gas, but I really can't help myself. I can't understand why people would put gas fireplaces into a house... perhaps wood burnings fireplaces are too messy? I have no idea. I just know that there is nothing like a fire where wood is being burned, and you can listen to all the creaking and popping as the flames change atoms and create ash, and the heat radiates throughout the house for most of the night (if you get a good one burning that is). 

Oh, and I don't have to leave the house to do my laundry. We lucked out and got a washer and dryer set for $100. Unfortunately the dryer doesn't fit into the wash room right and sticks out so far that the door has been rendered useless. I can't say I mind much; the ease of owning your own washer and dryer far exceeds the cons of having to listen to them run through an open doorway. 

Erin is away for the week in Montana and I'm glad for her. I really wanted to go with her, but I've realized I'm one of those people that doesn't have much need for personal space from a significant other. Maybe some people would call that clingy, but I think I'm just content to spend my time with her. It's hard for me to understand how a significant other (because this is a recurring theme in my relationships) needs and wants to spend time with people without you sometimes, but I realize that I'm the odd one out here, not them. (Thus my failed attempts to create social activities - you can't say I'm not trying to branch out.) Point being that I hope the week away from me (and then another in December) will give her the space she needs. 

Holy crap! Hark! People are coming over! I gotta go! WHOOPIE!

hovering.

For the first time in my entire life, I got involved with politics this year. It helps that I was fortunate enough to receive an internship from Human Dignity Coalition, the local equality group, and despite my main duties as office bitch (don't think I'm not proud to be HDC's office bitch though - I wrote it on my arm at the Drag Show) I am getting an inside peek at non-profits and the fight for equality in a world of discrimination.

In California, the ballot banning gay marriage was passed. I'm disappointed, but not, perhaps, as much as I should be. The only thing floating my balloon is that Obama actually said, "..Native Americans, and my gay brothers and sisters" in his victory speech. We may not have won marriage, but we did achieve national verbal recognition with the new president elect. Hopefully now we can continue to separate religion from politics. One religion cannot run a country; if we look to other countries, we can see the heart break that it causes. All religions need to become tolerant, or there will always be hate and war. Understand that: if you do not tolerate other religions and all things different than you and your beliefs, you will continue to contribute to war, hatred, and pain as long as you live. I'm not telling you to drop your belief systems or bring sugar cookies to your neighbors that you disapprove of - I am telling you to let go, and learn to accept. Ultimately, when this country collapses and politics and money no longer rule, we will all remember that we are of the same stuff, the same flesh, the same divine spark, the same love and pain and tears. 

I've never gotten so angry about politics. Obviously I got angry my fair share of times about Bush and his shitty ruling of the country (democracy my ass), but I've never fought about things. This time, I got into a heated argument with a Republican who called me closed minded and accused me of "not doing my homework" before making my choice to vote. I explained that all the homework I needed to do was hearing McCain's discrimination against gays and the knowing that the majority of his policies line up with Bush's, and that was that. However, it got me wondering, is that good enough? Should I have pored through internet sites and partisan literature? Should I have really taken a good look at McCain before I so blatantly disregarded him? Should I have instead voted for the more liberal, independent candidates, even with the knowledge that it was either Obama or McCain, hands down? I'm not sure. I feel in my heart that standing against anyone remotely similar to Bush was my position from the get-go, and that everytime I heard Obama speak, I felt hopeful. I told some friends that I felt like I was under an "Obama spell," that he seemed so genuine, so human; not some stuffy right-wing Christian who doesn't have a clue what's happening in the lower class, doesn't have any idea how people struggle, and doesn't have any idea what blatant discrimination really does to people (look at the Native Americans first, then the African-Americans, then the Homo-Americans). 

Don't get me wrong. I don't perceive Obama as the answer to all our needs in this time of upheaval. I don't think he can cinch up all our loose ends and right all the wrongs made in one term, and I don't even know if he's got what it takes. Obama is not the point.

The point, my friends, is that the American people finally, finally, finally stood up and said, "Enough. Enough." They came out in record numbers. They voted historically red states into blue ones. They stood in lines for hours upon hours to have the chance to say, "Enough." The consciousness of this country showed itself, that we are not a blind people all of us. That we can realize our own power. That we can hope and work towards that grossly cliche brighter future. So, to me, Obama is not the point, though I am praying he will be able to stay level headed and remember (unlike most other politicians) to follow through on what he told us in the beginning. The point is that America got out of its seat, raised its hand, and said, "Excuse me, I have had enough - I want change. And if it is a black man, I will still vote for him." We voted a black man into the White House. There are even white republican older men who voted Obama into the White House. This, my friends, is so incredibly beautiful. This is a step. Of course there is still racism and discrimination, of course hate crimes could go up, but the ball is rolling now. My eyes are tearing up just thinking about it.

Today I am feeling very tired. I don't know if it's the beautiful full clouds covering the sky, or the fact that my energy has been so rampant within the political realm, but I just want to curl up on the sofa and turn off my phone. It's not that I don't want to talk to anyone, it's just that, well, I don't want to talk to anyone. Perhaps I just need some time to come down. 

I love you all. I honor that in you which is divine. I honor the sacred beautiful holy creativeness which lies within you, and I ask you gently to remember that you are holy, worthy, and sacred, and that with you all things are possible.