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August 20, 2008

my 30-day yoga challenge

i've been hesitant to post about this only because it means if i fail i have to face up to it publicly (sort of, who are you readers?). i've made a commitment to 30 days in row of yoga.

i'm on day 3.

:)

i have my yoga schedule written out for the week, including several options for classes on the weekend and i'm even going to do a class friday morning since i work from home that day (something i swore i would do since i started working from home over 6 months ago).

it's going to be tough on saturday - after a long night or concert at outside lands and a beach party to go to later saturday afternoon - i'll have to get to class at 8am. but i'm determined to make it happen with lot's of pre-planning and just total dedication to my newly developing practice.

after all, i am worth it!

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August 19, 2008

the listmaker

is it weird that i like to make lists?

this has been an incredible year so far when it comes to concerts. it has been so amazing and wonderful to go to any show i want to and not have to worry about how i'm going to afford it. one of the positives of being an adult with an adult salary i guess.

anyway, the list of 2008 concerts attended and attending:

1. pinback @ the fillmore
2. pinback @ the bears lair, uc berkeley
3. eels @ the palace of fine arts
4. dave matthews and tim reynolds, key arena, seattle, wa
5. steve miller band and guests @ the fillmore
6. john mellencamp @ the greek theater

UPCOMING:
7. outside lands this weekend (bands i am excited about: radiohead, beck, steel pulse, ben harper, wilco)
8. sammy hagar @ the throckmorton next wednesday (willing to bet many, many local bay area rockers will show up for this - my money is on lars ulrick and kirk hammet and bob weir)
8. dave matthews band @ the greek theatre (all three nights) in september
9. pinback @ bimbo's 365 club in october

i saw tori three nights in a row in december and i'm hoping to add a show or two of hers to this list before the end of the year.

it's been a good year for concerts and i love that i've been so proactive about getting tickets, paying attention to email alerts and basically going to any show that i want!

next list: my 30 day yoga challenge

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August 13, 2008

i love lyrics

i love lyrics. i should just post lyrics every day.

todays love: courtesy of radiohead, who i am very, very excited to be seeing next week at outside lands.

fitter happier

Fitter, happier, more productive,
comfortable,
not drinking too much,
regular exercise at the gym
(3 days a week),
getting on better with your associate employee contemporaries ,
at ease,
eating well
(no more microwave dinners and saturated fats),
a patient better driver,
a safer car
(baby smiling in back seat),
sleeping well
(no bad dreams),
no paranoia,
careful to all animals
(never washing spiders down the plughole),
keep in contact with old friends
(enjoy a drink now and then),
will frequently check credit at
(moral) bank (hole in the wall),
favors for favors,
fond but not in love,
charity standing orders,
on Sundays ring road supermarket
(no killing moths or putting boiling water on the ants),
car wash
(also on Sundays),
no longer afraid of the dark or midday shadows
nothing so ridiculously teenage and desperate,
nothing so childish - at a better pace,
slower and more calculated,
no chance of escape,
now self-employed,
concerned (but powerless),
an empowered and informed member of society
(pragmatism not idealism),
will not cry in public,
less chance of illness,
tires that grip in the wet
(shot of baby strapped in back seat),
a good memory,
still cries at a good film,
still kisses with saliva,
no longer empty and frantic
like a cat
tied to a stick,
that's driven into
frozen winter shit
(the ability to laugh at weakness),
calm,
fitter,
healthier and more productive
a pig
in a cage
on antibiotics.

[This is the Panic Office, section nine-seventeen may have been hit. Activate the following procedure.]

does anyone else thing orwell's 1984 when they read this?

anyway, back to work for me.

xoxo,
s.

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August 06, 2008

for strong women

By Marge Piercy
 
For Strong Women

A strong woman is a woman who is straining.
A strong woman is a woman standing
on tiptoe and lifting a barbell
while trying to sing Boris Godunov.
A strong woman is a woman at work
cleaning out the cesspool of the ages,
and while she shovels, she talks about
how she doesn't mind crying, it opens
the ducts of the eyes, and throwing up
develops the stomach muscles, and
she goes on shoveling with tears
in her nose.

A strong woman is a woman in whose head
a voice is repeating, I told you so,
ugly, bad girl, bitch, nag, shrill, witch,
ballbuster, nobody will ever love you back,
why aren't you feminine, why aren't
you soft, why aren't you quiet, why
aren't you dead?

A strong woman is a woman determined
to do something others are determined
not be done. She is pushing up on the bottom
of a lead coffin lid. She is trying to raise
a manhole cover with her head, she is trying
to butt her way through a steel wall.
Her head hurts. People waiting for the hole
to be made say, hurry, you're so strong.

A strong woman is a woman bleeding
inside. A strong woman is a woman making
herself strong every morning while her teeth
loosen and her back throbs. Every baby,
a tooth, midwives used to say, and now
every battle a scar. A strong woman
is a mass of scar tissue that aches
when it rains and wounds that bleed
when you bump them and memories that get up
in the night and pace in boots to and fro.

A strong woman is a woman who craves love
like oxygen or she turns blue choking.
A strong woman is a woman who loves
strongly and weeps strongly and is strongly
terrified and has strong needs. A strong woman is strong
in words, in action, in connection, in feeling;
she is not strong as a stone but as a wolf
suckling her young. Strength is not in her, but she
enacts it as the wind fills a sail.

What comforts her is others loving
her equally for the strength and for the weakness
from which it issues, lightning from a cloud.
Lightning stuns. In rain, the clouds disperse.
Only water of connection remains,
flowing through us. Strong is what we make
each other. Until we are all strong together,
a strong woman is a woman strongly afraid.

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August 05, 2008

daddy's little adult

i've always been a daddy's girl.  perhaps it's because he didn't often express his approval or love or his pride or for that matter his thoughts when i was growing up.  something inside of me has always yearned for some validation, some affection, some sign that i am good.  i often sought him out by having an interest in what he was doing - whether it was working in the yard or on the car or later on in his business.  you could say i am who i am because of him.

it's only been recently that we've begun to connect as adults.  it's hard to explain the subtle transformation that has occurred.  they are little things but they are very apparent to me later when i think on them.

i originally started this blog in order to sort these sorts of things out. it later turned in to a passive aggressive way of saying things to those around me who i was having troubles relating with.  i'm so over that.  i resolve to never hide behind my blog again. my interest has since moved on to those who make their living by blogging, internet sensations if you will. many of my favorites have since written books.  and they all seem to work big life issues out as a result of them.  i guess i've always found writing to be the best way for me to understand me. i'm not a talker.  i don't have much to say because there is too much spinning around in my brain for me to pick one thing and say it out loud. i'm too busy listening to what everyone else has to say (including my own self) and then breaking that down.  it takes me several days to decide how i feel about the simplest of things. it makes communication difficult if you don't know the real me.  most people i know at this point in my life don't. i've also come to understand (NLP, thank you Raj!) that it's really about what my parents taught me as a child (be seen and not heard) and as a result i don't believe that i am really even worth listening to.  i've recently discovered this is why i seem to attract overly opinionated people in my life. i believe it's also the reason my sister acts out the way that she does.

i've been searching deeply for about the last year.  what do i want to do with my life?  i always come back to the blog and writing and perhaps traveling - alone - and keeping a journal and later writing about it and someday make a living off of my experiences. but i always come back to feeling like me is not worth it and therefore no one would possibly find it interesting enough to read, let alone purchase in a book store.  (still working on the NLP thing...it's the only therapy i've had that i actually think about on a daily basis.)

this is jumping around a lot. this is what it's like in my head.

anyway, really what i want to express in this post and put down to be able to remember for a time to come is that i spent some time with my dad on saturday that was for me, literally a dream come true.  i have often dreamt of doing adult things with my dad and somehow finding a way to fill the hole that is leftover from my childhood.

music has bonded me with so many of my favorite people.  my dad is no exception. i have the fondest memories of john cougar mellencamp being blasted on the stereo while my mom and kim and darcy made tacos and my dad and barry and randy would be drinking beer, possibly smoking some weed, laughing and just being friends.  i can't hear cherry bomb without seeing my dad laugh as kim would dance around the living room or the discussions they would have about a particular artist or song.

i mean, come one, my dad named me after a hall and oates song. i was destined to have a huge connection to music.

i have so many other things i want to dissect and figure out but it's overwhelming and i think this is enough to start for now.

i also have no idea how to end this so i think some lyrics might be the best way.  this is the song that my dad was blasting from his convertible z as he drove through the streets of berkeley on our way to the show. it's the song that he'd sing out loud when it played on his stereo with his friends. it's the song that brought me to tears as the first few notes rang out at the show. i leaned over to tell my dad something, anything that would express what i felt.  i managed to choke out "this song is my childhood". i wanted him to understand what i was feeling inside of me so badly and i don't think it translated.  but that's ok, i'll keep trying.

Million young poets
Screamin out their words
To a world full of people
Just livin to be heard
Future generations
Ridin´on the highways that we built
I hope, that they have better understanding

Check it out
Goin to work on monday
Check it out
Got yourself a family
Check it out
All utility bills have been paid
You can´t tell your best buddy
That you love him
So check it out
Where does our time go
Check it out
Got a brand new house in escrow
Check it out
Sleepin with your back
To your loved one
This is all, we have learned
About happiness

Check it out,
Forgot to say hello to my neighbours
Check it out
Sometimes i question my own behavior
Check it out
Talkin about the girls, we´ve
Seen on the sly
Just to tell our souls
We´re still the young lions
So check it out
Gettin too drunk on saturdays
Check it out
Playin football with the kids
On sundays
Check it out
Soaring with the eagles all week long
And this is all, we have learned
About living
This is all, we have learned
About living

A million young poets
Screamin out their words
Maybe someday
Those words will be heard
By future generations
Ridin on the highways that we built
Maybe they´ll have a better understanding
Check it out
Maybe they´ll have a better understanding
Check it out
Maybe they´ll have a better understanding
Check it out
Maybe they´ll have a better understanding
Check it out
Hope they´ll have a better understanding
Check it out ...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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