Happiness is...

Since I normally write in this blog to clear my head, most of my posts have been pretty depressing.  Today I'm going to write about happy things.  Those need to be processed too. 

So the Friday after Thanksgiving, my friend Chris and I went out for a ladies' night on the town.  We ate some delicious Thai food, drank some exotic drinks and were all set to put some moves on a dance floor.  For some reason, Columbia, MO - our haunt of choice that evening - was all but shut down.  None of the usual dance venues were open.  More amused than dejected, we kept wandering around the cold, barren streets trying to figure out what to do.  We were determined to stay out late and have some fun since neither of us gets out enough.  We went by the Blue Note and to our delight, it was open and they actually had live music! To make things even better, the band that evening was Chump Change!  I had discovered them a year and a half ago when I happened upon the 1st annual Roots and Blues Festival.  They are a fantastic rock and blues band.  We walked in and discovered that even though this great group of musicians was playing, that there were only maybe 10 patrons in the entire place.  After sitting patiently though an entire song, I told Chis that I wanted to get up and dance even though that seemed to be an inappropriate thing to do considering the mood of the place.  She thought that was a brilliant idea anyway and so we hit the floor in front of the stage.  As soon as we got out there, five other women joined us.  By the end of the night everyone - all 20 patrons - were out there making fools out of ourselves.  The band loved it, I loved it, and I suspect that everyone else there loved it.  The crowd was mostly older, respectible, responsible-looking people.  I suspect the majority of them worked at MU in positions of authority.  Most of them were pretty terrible dancers, but, unlike the student population we normally dance with, these folks weren't afraid to make fools of themselves.  Once Chis and I opened the door for them, they let out their inner-dancing fools!  SO MUCH FUN!  I'm so happy that Chris and I braved the cold and that she is not afraid to be a dancing fool with me.  The world would be a much happier place if we all let our inner dancing selves out more often.

In other happy news, I "ran" a marathon at the end of October.  I've always hated running.  For the past three years I have fought myself every single day to get to the gym and get on that stupid treadmill for 20 minutes.  I went to DC to support my sister and cousin as they ran the Marine Corp Marathon.  When I went to help my sister register the night before the race, we discovered that there were still some openings.  I decided that trying to run a marathon would be more fun than waiting by the finish line for 4 hours.  I was also curius to see how far I could go.  When I run at the gym I only run for 20 minutes because I know that making myself do more would end in me never returning.  So, even though I push myself every day to run, I've never really pushed myself in the act of running.  The next morning, I went to the race accepting that I would only be able to do about 30 minutes of running.  I knew I was capable of at least that and I knew I could walk about 9 miles if I really had to.  So I had no intentions of actually finishing the thing.  But with 30,000 other runners, such thoughts quickly leave your head.  I started running with the huge mass of people and I was so distracted by all of the chaos that I hardly noticed the running part.  There were hills that made my knees hurt and my asthma really acted up during parts of it, but I'd had the foresight to bring my inhaler and some tylenol (although I should have brought an entire bottle of the stuff with me).  I hadn't been to DC in years and it was a perfect fall day so I was sight-seeing along with the running part.  I'd always thought long-distance running was stupid since it's so hard on your joints and of no real practical value.  But, somewhere around mile 4 when I was still running, I began to really enjoy the whole concept of a marathon and running in general.  I realized I'd never have seen some of the sights that I saw without this opportunity.  Many of the major streets were closed down for us.  There were so many happy people cheering us on along the way.  To make a long story short, I finished all 26.2 miles of it.  ALL OF IT!  I could barely stand up or think straight the rest of the day and I couldn't walk normally for 2 weeks afterwards, but I loved it!  I will be registering for it again in April when slots become available.  Every day that I drag myself to the gym I think about the awesomeness of that marathon.  This time I'm actually thinking about "training"  for it so the hills don't hurt so much and so I can improve my time (and walk a little bit less).  I realize that despite my protestations, I really do enjoy running.  Even though the first 19 minutes really suck, once those endorphins kick in, running is one of the most pleasureable experiences there is.  Every day I run just .10 faster or .10 of a mile longer, I am achieving something.  I am demonstrating that I am capable of more than what I think I am.  That is an awesome feeling. 

Petty Venting

Deep Thoughts About Relationships

I've had one of those mind-bending days where deep thought upon deep thought has infiltrated my psyche until I can't do anything except pause life to figure it out.  So I guess that's what I'm doing here back on my xanga site. 

So, as human beings, we have decided that it's generally in our best interest to interact with other human beings.  I'm sure evolution has brought us to this point somehow. 

As much as I detest Freud in many ways, I can't help but agree that he was on to something with the id, ego, and superego theory.  Life does seem to be One Big Balancing Act (ego) of moderating our primal urges (id) so that we may continue to exist.  It kinda sucks. I suppose the suckiness is better than the alternative (rampant chaos ensues as everyone succumbs to their basest instincts and we all end up dying of horrendous diseases/ starvation/ murder, et al).  Also, when we transcend the crap that is our id, we gain the ability to Love Unconditionally.  That is an absolutely magnificent experience. Probably the Greatest High Ever Experienced. 

So we have these two extremes of happiness: carnal bliss and transcendent love. Unfortunately, life seems to be a pendulum careening between the two extremes so that you never really get to experience either one for long. 

In the relationship department, we have marriage.  Blah.  It's possible to experience a blissful marriage.  I hope to experience that someday as I think it may be the pinnacle of the human relationship experience that evolution has decreed we endure.  But the journey there is so freakin' crappy sometimes...and I'm not even married yet! I keep hearing this baloney about how when you meet the Right Person you'll just know.  magically.  My response to that is "you've got to be kidding!"  I know far too many people who knew  that the person they were marrying was The One.  and then a few months or years later, they were divorced in the most painful and wretched of ways.  So that assumption, that you'll KNOW, is a fraud.  Maybe arranged marriages are not such a terrible idea - at least theoretically.  Trouble is, you have to trust your parents to find you a good match. Considering that my parents and I have vastly different values, I don't think that's an option for me.  (That being said, I am happy that they like my fiance). 

This brings me to another point (sort of). I am so sick of guys who will be your "friend" while you're single but abandon you when you get a serious boyfriend. Why the hell can't guys just be your friend?  Are they so driven by their weenies that they can't just hang out with a member of the opposite sex?  Pisses me off to no end!!!  Excuse me while I go rant....

That being said, THANK YOU JT for not being one of those terrible guys.  You give me hope for the future of the human race.  I think we'd be so much farther along if men and women could coexist socially without all of the sexual drama.  We have so much to offer each other psychologically that it's a shame our physical bodies take up so much of our time and attention. 

"Values"

Hmmmm.  So much is going on in my mind and I'm not sure how to channel it properly onto the page.

I worked on our new Coordinated Plan at work this week and it got me thinking about "values."  What are my values? 

I value other people. I've been trying to reunite myself with people I admire / love. I have a tendency to distance myself from those I love and compounding this is my tendancy to fall in love with people who do the same thing. We all profess to be too busy for such piddly things as activities that build friendships, which we honestly are, but - as my grandmother likes to remind me: if you really want to do something, you'll find the time to do it. So I'm trying to realign my priorities and find the time to spend with wonderful, enlightening people. (I'm really becoming aware of the limitations of the written word to express some of my feelings-but that's a rant for another day.) So I wrote a letter to my aunt who has distanced herself from my family. I've tried to distance myself from my family too, so I completely relate to her there! She is a wonderfully inspiring woman - one of the few positive female role models I had growing up. I'm trying to reach out to my cousins more because they are also wonderful people.  I'm trying to not cringe when my mother calls me for the 3rd time today desperate to hear my voice.  I'm trying hard to appreciate Rick's family b/c they are good people even though we have little in common. I'm spending an inordinate amount of energy trying to come up with activities to do with my "friends" here in J.C. so that we become more like friends than the good acquaintences we currently are. It's really hard to do that when you're dirt poor and have created the habit of chronic busy-ness.  It's also really hard when there are so few people in my life that really value the things I value.  As much as I try to be friends with people, it's difficult if you can't relate to one another.

I find myself torn between those who worship religion and those who hate religion. I am a party animal, but I also have a spiritual core that longs to be nurtured. People aren't like that in Missouri.  I hate organized religion but I also hate trying to be a staunch athiest - I can't do either one. If I threw a party and invited everyone I cared about to it, they would end up killing each other instead of having fun :(  No good. Where are the intellectual/spiritual moderates?

So, if you're reading this and you get what I'm talking about, send me a line. I need some company. 

The Altitude has Sucked Away My Eloquence

It's been snowing all day long!  I'm in Buena Vista, CO with my parents and they have had their driveway bulldozed 2x in the 4 days I've been here and shoveled at least 5.  We went swimming at an outdoor hotsprings a few nights ago and it was great b/c we were outdoors under a full moon with snow on the mountains surrounding us.  Glorious, spiritual, mystical, healing, and then the wind picked up and the snow started blowing in our faces.  And then we had to get out.  That was cold.

We went to church last night b/c my dad said we had to do something religious b/c it was Christmas Eve.  So it was either go to the local Episcopalian church or stay at home and pretend to be religious with my parents.  Obviously I chose the former.  Happily, the priest devoted his Christmas homily to "namaste" which means "the divinity in me salutes the divinity in you."  It's a Hindu term, so that made me happy that a conservative priest in a conservative town was able to be so liberal and open-minded to embrace a completely different faith and center his CHRISTMAS homily around it.  Awesome.  It gives me a tiny bit of hope. 

Since I last posted ages ago, I have found myself happily employed at the Missouri Department of Higher Education.  We are a very, very small, underfunded department, so write your state legislators and tell them to spend some money on their state's brains!  The more educated people are, the more likely they are to VOTE and be healthy and wealthy, and not land in jail...etc...turns out education is a pretty cool thing!

In November I went to NYC to hang with my sister and her husband.  Loads of fun.  When I become rich, I will get myself a NYC residence. I will post pictures one of these days.

I participated in the MSU "Forum on Faith."  I've heard rumors that the entire evening was posted on YouTube. 

I've become involved in MoCAN and that's pretty cool. 

There's also been lots of personal drama in my life over the last 6 months which I will not go into now.

Being at this high of an altitude has sucked most of the oxygen from my brain so I'm done thinking.

If you read this, you should email me.  Then I can convert you :)

hjf590s@yahoo.com

"Think happy thoughts!"