my nose hurts

It's raw from being blown all day long.

I'm all stuffy. It stinks.

I've waited too long to write today and now I'm all tired. I've got to start some better time management if this resolution is going to work.

I have a few personal resolutions this year. I want to trust myself more. I want to be more confident. I want to stop apologizing for myself. I want to stop doubting so much. I want to be more positive.

Worry and negativity really are just habits. They're things you learn, even from a young age. But I think you also have to spend a little time unlearning them. You have to really make an effort to change the way you think.

I think maybe I've been watching too much Oprah lately.

ommm

So, I have an admission. I really really like Taylor Swift's album, Fearless. It's actually, genuinely good. I know, some of you (one of you) is probably rolling your eyes. But psh, whatev.

On another note, I've been seriously considering doing a Vipassana meditation course. I used to think meditation was kind of.... weird. A little too new agey and.... weird. But I've been reading and learning more and more about what it's all about and it makes so much sense to me it's just crazy.

Vipassana, in Sanskrit, means insight. Mostly, insight into the nature of reality. The goal is to see the impermanence in reality, and to explore yourself so that you can detach yourself from it. The whole idea being that everything is transitory and the nature of a person is selflessness.

The more I read, the more it makes sense, and the more time I spend meditating (I'm still a total beginner and am not yet very good at it - I get distracted) the better I feel, just in general.

Vipassana is a technique you learn through a ten-day course. It's pretty much ten days of pure meditation. The first three, you just learn to focus on your breathing as a way to calm your mind, and then you do the more introspective meditation. You don't speak to anyone, you eat an entirely vegetarian diet and you have no communication with the outside world. No reading, writing, anything. Sounds pretty intense.

You can apply and if you're accepted, it's completely free. It's funded by people who've finished the course. Pretty cool.

I'm reading Letters From the Dhamma Brothers and it's got me interested. It's mostly letters of thanks from prisoners who've done the course.

Pretty interesting stuff. I'm feeling pretty sickly, so that's all for now.

ouch

Went out drinking last night. In a good amount of discomfort today. I'm not as young as I used to be. Insightful, I know.

I want to move and need to figure out how. ideas?

new year

It's a new year, but I am still a bad blogger.

The holidays have come and gone and the majority of them, for me, consisted of cooking, eating and making coffee. Mostly quiet, but they were good.

I have a new resolution. And it's a typical New Year's resolution - unattainable, difficult and it probably won't stick, but let's just see. I am going to write something every single day. I'm starting here, but with my new shiny web site coming soon (!) it may evolve to a new location. But it will be more than on a notepad at home (unless I have some extenuating, no-access-to-internet situation) because that won't keep me accountable.

I worry too much about getting things right. I worry too much about making the perfect choice, making sure my moves are the right ones. Sometimes I forget to just do something. Sometimes I freeze facing so many choices, so many paths. So, I'm just going to pick one path and do it. Maybe it won't always be right or perfect, but I'll be doing it! And it's not a big choice - but it's a good start.

I am a very emotional person. Nobody makes me realize this more than my mother. She is an emotional person. She worries about everything, about everyone. She obsesses. She fidgets. All the time. She's got this undercurrent of energy that is just always buzzing. It makes me crazy sometimes. There is so much of her in me. But I can also realize lots of ways that I am not like her, and that is helpful too.

Sometimes my emotions surprise me. Sometimes there is something there, under the surface, that just seems to grow and develop all on it's own and you never really even notice it. You don't even know it exists, but you carry it around all the time. And then, you kick your foot into the coffee table or someone grabs you by the shoulders and says something right into your eyes and it just springs up, out of nowhere, just to surprise you. Where the hell did that come from? But somehow you are familiar with it, and you kind of knew it was there all along.

Am I completely insane?

ha. it's late. time for sleep.

P.S. I think it's comical that my first post on the first day of my new, ambitious project for 2009 didn't even happen till Jan. 2.

interesting

tell them to call me!

one of the greatest new writers of our time :)

Oklahoma heartbreak.

hoooooolidays have begun

Thanksgiving - check.

Big 12 Championship for the Sooners - check!

Wonderful things have happened since my last post. The Sooners have made it to Kansas City after a dramatic three-way tie ordeal. BEAUTIFUL! Kind of wish I could be there.

Thanksgiving was scrumptious and my gingerbread men went over well. Got to spend some great time with good friends this weekend. :) all is well.

All my working at Starbucks has slowed me down on the job hunt, so I'll have to make a stronger effort there. Applied for a couple of jobs in the OKC area... and I found a reporting job in Georgetown, Texas that I plan to apply for. Yay productivity!

Cross your fingers for me. I'm ready to move.