Sondra: Take care of yourself. You are worth it. You are a fabulous creature of amazing abilities but if you don’t take good care of yourself and you stretch yourself too thin… you diminish your capacity to do fantastic things. Slow down. Breathe 10 times and smile 20. I will keep checking in with you on the BlissQuest.

Megan: You are powerful and beautiful and absolutely worth affection. Put together your plan for how you want to be less tired and what steps you are going to make to seek out the solution to feeling heavy emotionally or spiritually – because I suspect that when you have lifted yourself up energetically – you will feel more lovable and sense energy more as it is in it’s abundance rather than the lack of it. I will keep reminding you.

ResilientMonkey: Stroll. Don’t even think of is as “walking for 20 minutes” just stroll. Take in the scene. Wander and people watch. It’s not about the exercise, right? It’s about letting your feet carry you someplace while you watch people and be a witness to the beauty of trees, the strangeness of your city fellows and the sidewalks that make up your area. Start out going for 10 minutes. Start your budget with a grid and leave it alone for a few days. I can guarantee you that if you draw a grid of categories and leave it untouched for three days that the back half of your brain will process it so when you sit down to budget it will be so easy you’ll wonder what took you so long.

The 90 challenge starts on Monday. I have already set out my first 30 days of vitamin supplements; my schedule for working out, and have started reading a new book on hormone balance and introducing adequate proteins to my diet. I have purchased two new outfits and made a list of things I need to accomplish before the 90 days so these tasks do not get in the way of my thinking; oil change, tire rotation, air filter, bills, etc.

On Monday I will also be starting to assert my boundaries more to keep from putting more energy out in a sense of obligation. I plan to spend a lot of time outside this year even if that means doing less writing.  So we’ll see.

The point is, it’s only a couple days away and then some new –improved and positive changes will happen. Because really, change needs to start happening.

Good luck, everyone!

Some fundamental questions need to be answered about my life and I want to start it before my 30^th birthday.

I never did post my 29^th note to self, but I’ve been thinking about what I wrote last year, a lot. Especially with the 30^th note to self fast approaching.

It’s been the plan to always write my year out in advance, to give myself pointers and to do an advanced pep-talk for any possible pitfalls.

Several things I think I’ve struggled with this last year are boundaries, intimacy and purpose.  

For those of you whom I haven’t blathered on to about my 30^th – I should explain that I am SO EXCITED to turn 30.  I really am! It sounds unreal but I’ve been looking forward to 30 since I turned 27 and kept thinking, “only three more years.” And 28 “damnit, two more years.” And 29, “Thank God! Next year I’ll be 30!!”

I can’t really explain it. I’ve just made the correlation that with 30 comes the shedding of my childhood. Finally, I can let go of the ideas/fear/obligations of the rush to survive and the disorientation of being mentally and somewhat emotionally asleep. Somehow I have wired the thought to my consciousness that when I turn 30, I will be free of my Karmic obligations of youth so I can put my full attention and INTENTIONS on my greater purpose for this lifetime.

This doesn’t mean I’ll not have my inner child, on the contrary I will have her closer to me than ever before – but she will not require so much attention because I feel like I have reached the edge of where I needed to nurture my child Athena in an effort to provide the childhood she didn’t get. This last two years, I have been mothering her.

For the first time, since I can remember, I feel like I have finally had my childhood and I’m ready to venture into the world and embrace my path as a woman. As an adult. As a member of the human race with the power and capacity to make changes where the Universe thinks I will be most beneficial.

I finally feel like I have true and honest independence, because I have given closure to the pain of a stolen innocence.  I reclaimed her. I gave her love and freedom and nurturing and chocolate and hugs and room to play and adventure. Finally, she is satisfied and feels wholesome and protected. Finally, I can move forward and become a warrior because I will not have a needy and terrified abandoned child in me.

I have now, a path to walk that actually feels like a relief.  For the last several weeks as I’ve been processing I’ve come to see that with my inner child being healed I am coming in to a great deal of energy and power that has been being diverted to her for a long time. Now I feel the need to shed my baby fat, change the clothes I’ve worn for my “childhood” and slide into the body of a woman. A curvy, alabaster-skinned woman. I woman with a voice and hips that sway and arms that can hold a sword. I can, with a sigh of relief exhale and bring my spirit to full strength in a form that is feminine and mature and ready to engage with a man of similar awareness.

In this 90 days I plan to shed my childhood shape, and begin my birth into a new life of conscious actions and prepare myself to accept the call of the Universe, because finally, I am ready to answer it without a fight.

To celebrate my 30^th and the continuation of the journey and the birthing of this new adventure I will be having a week long party. From the 3^rd of August to the 10^th that will include things such as Skydiving, beaches, parties and people I love.  So if you are interested or if you also want to use that week to celebrate your own evolutions, growth arcs, victories or passions… I encourage you to take the 90 day challenge with me and begin anew.

What about your life can you change or alter to provide a higher level of happiness and health in 90 days? What steps can you take to feel more whole?

Do you want me to help you pledge? If you want to write in I will update and have check-ins for the next 90 days and we can celebrate together in August.

You game?

I work in a school of geeks, my kind of peeps. Everyone who knows me knows, I am a geek lover/champion/admirer.  I have my own level of geekery that I felt was expressed by having a 6’ cutout of Legolas stand behind me while conducting my appointments.

It didn’t take long in most appointments for the topic of Lord of the Rings to work its way in, which invariably led to Pirates of the Caribbean and then through some convoluted circumstances and segues led to discourse about Halo and other games. So it’s fairly well known here on campus that Athena is a gamer, a geek and not as “corporate” as the rest of them and perhaps therefore a little more approachable.  Many of my students come in just to talk, or banter or discuss new games.

Last Friday I was asked/told to take Legolas home. Evidently he is unprofessional, distracting and “people talk about him a lot”.

I wasn’t happy about it. AT. ALL. It felt like the Universe giving me yet one more sign – “pay attention!” “get the hell out before you are molded into a blank corporate icon of boring uncreative work ethics” “you are being wasted here.”

It felt like a warning and one I seriously took into consideration as I stood him up at home near the foot of my bed.

Yesterday a student came in. One of my favorites who comes to talk about games and his future as a game designer.

J: Something is different and I can’t put my finger on it….

I let it pass for a few minutes while his companion told me about how he is job hunting and the market is tougher than he thought.

J: Something is missing and I can’t figure out what it is….

I nodded.

Me: Olri is gone.

His mouth dropped open and he sat forward with alarm.

J: Did you to that or did they do that?

I smiled at the vagueness of they and said,

Me: They did.

J: Did you cry? You should have cried. I bet if you’d started crying they would have let you keep him.

Me: I cried, but I did it at home.

J: That was not a very smart thing they just did.

I grinned and thought, GOD! I love my students. My fellow geeks. My underappreciated nation of misfits. I love them.

The topic shifted again to his friend who is job hunting and as they were leaving I said,

Me: Hey, good luck on your job search.

J, turned around at the door and looked pointedly where Orli/ Legolas used to stand.

He smiled sadly, and said…

J: Hey, good luck on yours too.

Did I mention how much I love my students?

Saturday during class I was struck with the sudden knowledge of what to do with my screenplay (previously mentioned here) which I’ve been reluctant to touch.  I’ve left it alone for years believing it is just one of those projects I shouldn’t revisit for awhile, but as I had a break in class I whipped out my notebook with a flash of inspiration and jotted down dialogue for the character, Cassy, whom I’ve all but given up on these last 5 years as a cardboard and lifeless failure.

The scene happens when she’s avoiding emotional intimacy with the lead male character, Jared, and he asks her why she likes to write:

Cassy: I love stories! I love the challenge of building arcs and characters and situations that force them to evolve.  I love the feeling of being carried away in a world, a life or an adventure. 

They talk about this for a time before he calls her on some line of BS about why she doesn’t ever engage.

Jared: Why are you so afraid of being seen? Of being a part of something real rather than make believe? Why can’t you stop watching life and start being a part of it?

Cassy: I don’t want to draw attention because if people notice me, they know they are being observed. I can’t be an observer if I know they know I’m watching them. What’s wrong with make believe? No one really gets hurt in a fantasy. No one gets left or bruised or told they were not good enough. I can’t stop watching because as soon as I become part of the story I’m trapped in it, doomed to live in a reactionary state to impulses I can’t see or name and I will lose the power to tell the story objectively.

Jared: It must be a lonely and isolating place out there, watching everyone go about their lives… while you are an observer and not a participant.

I wrote in class on Saturday and spent the rest of the day home and with my thoughts. Sunday I met my scene partner at a café to rehearse and as we have in the past we end up talking for two hours before actually getting to the work. A particular tradition that I adore as it teaches me a lot about him so I know who I’m working with. Anyway, even though I don’t know him very well, I have a great deal of respect for him because he doesn’t know me either and he doesn’t pull any punches about what he thinks. In fact, its fun to find someone with the same perverse enjoyment of finding someone’s buttons and pushing them repeatedly – which he does, on me… and I can’t help but have a bit of admiration for it because I do the same thing to other people – even him when I can.

Anyway, as we talked he asked me why I don’t read aloud on the treadmill.

Me: Because then people will look at me and I won’t be able to watch them.

Later when we talked about style and dressage and I mentioned that I dress “frumpy” so I can hide he asked- “Why don’t you want to be noticed?”

Me: Because if I draw attention to myself then I can’t people watch as effectively.

Him: So you are taking away the chance for other people to people watch you?

He looked thoughtful for a second then met my eyes and said – “So you’d rather always be the watcher?”

My chair suddenly seemed terribly uncomfortable.  I knew he could sense his advantage and by the way he continued to stare I knew he expected me to answer to myself but not necessarily to him. I shuffled and dodged and knew I’d been cornered by my own fears again.

As I laid in bed last night and thought about the screenplay and realized it time to pull it out and redo it, I wondered at the timing of the dialogue I’d written and just a day later been reminded of in person, by someone who barely knows me and seemed to see right through my comfortable protection.  I didn’t sleep for a long time, but kept mulling over why it made me so shifty and hard to pin my thoughts down about why I feel so uncomfortable about being made. 

Maybe it’s because of the return dialogue of Jared. It is lonely. It is isolating on the outside, never trusting myself to be a part of a great story again. So evidently, it wasn’t Cassy I was writing but somehow myself, which means – there’s something that needs to be examined and usually out of the mouth of my characters come the breadcrumb trail that leads down a path I generally don’t want to follow, but it seems I need to.  This is apparently someplace I’m going to have to go.

There is clarity, I think, when you are down for the count and isolated with your thoughts and far too much of a semi-hallucinogenic cough suppressant. Things just come together.

I’m trying too hard still, to make this life work for me. I’m still struggling against it as though I’m trying to swim against the tidal force.

Finally, I have a plan, sort of. It’s still rough and a little sketchy but the idea is finally there.

I’m struggling because my spirit knows – this life, here in Portland, here in my little bubble, here in my cozy office job, here in my tiny hippy neighborhood – this life is too small for me. I’ve outgrown my bowl and I need a tank. It won’t happen over night.  In fact in might not happen for a year or so, but I now understand that as much as I love it here, as much as I am at home – I am also trying to squeeze myself into a space that I am not built for. There is a sadness in this knowing, but also a sense of relief. It’s almost time. Not in the immediate sense, but in the sense that a shift needs to happen and I have been okay with the waiting up till now.

If you have to try this hard, just to find a sense of balance, you are not on the ground you need to be on. I have been looking at this all wrong.  I’ve been looking at this job, this time and space as a new start while I get my shit together to be a writer. For lack of a better word I have been thinking of this life as plan B and still not focusing on plan A.

Truthfully, I wasn’t all that wrong but for one tiny detail. This life and job and location is a gift to help me find a framework of discipline so I can get stronger before I step out into the vast current of the Universe.

This is my chance to build my body, my creativity and my craft so I can launch. This job is not an oppression – it’s a cocoon so I can make ready.  My house and roommate are not just little joys to keep me mentally balanced while I struggle with my job – they are sanctuary while I make plans to fly.  

I don’t know when or how or where to. But it will happen. Now I see that I am holding myself to a standard of functionality that has never and will never be – in mine or anyone else’s best interest. I cannot reach my greatest potential if I don’t let go.

Let go of the idea that I will have to work this job for the rest of my life and put in to a 401K and file paperwork for other people’s dreams. Let go of the idea that if I leave Portland I will fall into a wasteland of emptiness of purpose. Let go of the idea that I cannot make a life for myself as a creative individual.

Let go.

And see what happens.

While I figure out more of this, I will be reformulating my current circumstances to reflect the pending change by altering my disciplines to meet the new challenge.  I have no idea if any of this made any sense. If not I blame it on Nyquil.

‘GhostChasers’ was campy and sort of fun, but I had to watch it in two sittings because I couldn’t really get into it at first.  The handheld cameras made it sort of disorienting and I had difficulty really enjoying the characters. Ultimately, I can see the attempt and enjoy the step out of the usual Supernatural box, but it wasn’t really my thing.

‘Long Distance Call’ was an interesting look into the isolation Dean is facing in himself with the eminent arrival of his date with Hell. He’s shutting down inside and pushing Sam away in an effort, I think, to come to terms with the fact that he is, without a doubt, about to go to hell and he’ll have to do it alone.

With that major character shift that was the only redeeming factor of that episode – which sort of makes it more like a nightly continuing drama than a show based on stand alone episodes. The plot felt old, the creature seemed flat and lacked sincere motivation, I felt like I’ve seen it all before.  The last two episodes felt like fillers.

While I suspect the writers are shaking off some dust and put out a couple of easy to patch together stories… I am more than a little concerned that the passion is slipping.

I don’t know if I mentioned it, but a couple of months ago I applied to McG to write for Supernatural.  McG is one of the executive producers of the show and with some help from Pha and a few others we dug up his contact info and I sent a cover letter and a page of pitches.

I had three story concepts – one of them I was the idea I had about getting Dean out of his deal with the Devil. The characters are easy to write and the concepts are fun for me, after all – I’ve been writing for supernatural and folklore for quite some time. Anywhoo, obviously I didn’t hear back but the way I figured it – You can’t win if you don’t try but you will most certainly not win if you don’t at least attempt.

So with all that being said, I have much more interest in seeing what they cook up to keep the show vibrant.  How are they going to breathe life back into Dean? How are they going to keep him from his deal? What will Sammy do when the chips are down? What other creatures will they meet and how will those adventures help shape them into better/worse men? How will their choices make or break them and what supernatural forces can the creators come up with to push the boys to the edge – maybe they’ll go over –maybe they won’t, but I am deeply curious to see how it turns out. What I am most interested to see is how they will pull the show up from this slump and send it spinning off in a much more powerful and entertaining direction.

I wrote this for Mona a while ago and for some reason as I looked in the mirror this morning I thought about it. I need more laugh lines; more of my life lived well. I’ll get right on that.

I hope you are all out making some serious laugh lines on those lovely faces.