wow, i haven't updated this sucker since march.
although typically i am *not* ready for the new year, this 01-01-2011 i'm seeking to fully embrace the opportunity for personal reflection on my life direction, and as such, change.
if 2010 was a year for me, i suppose it would be year of the cocoon. or year of the spaceship. either way, this past year i feel like i have continued a trend developed in the last few years... that of self-cloistering. over the past decade, i might say this has been the biggest change that I've manifested - becoming much more introverted, whereas before i was full-on hella extroverted.
i find it helps preserve my sanity. a lack of heavy social interaction, remaining close to only a small number of people. letting the details of my life sway in a cradling hammock, close to my heart. facebook status updates... not really seeing the point. firstly, i don't super want to share my shit. secondly, i don't like how the status update is literally an update on status: oh marvel at the cosmopolitan privilege of my luxurious life! behold my cultural and social capital! i partied with jane f-ing fonda last night, what. (alice waters and a bunch of other white n. berkeley fogies -- lame.)
of course, copious amounts of sleep does help keep a life rather uneventful, at least on a behavioral and conscious plane. i have also been watching a fuq-ton of tv. not commercials, i hate commercials. battlestar galactica has been the show rounding out 2010, and increased consumption of all things dystopic and sci-fi. the road, oryx and crake, year of the flood, asimov, brave new world, the crazies, all sorts of stuff. it's nice to develop a new past time. (what was that phrase we learned in spanish so many years ago? que son tu favoritas divertidas y pasatiempos? i always loved that phrase, though i'm so rusty i'm surely mangling that in at least three ways.) though these habits reflect an escapism from reality that is all too comfortable, and not exactly a catalyst for productivity. (not that i want to get too caught up on the neoliberal tsunami of filtering the meaning of life through a capitalist frame. f that, man.)
one change for the new year: not stuffing my face. getting physical. doing a juice cleanse (previously pretty unfathomable) to jump start a healthier relationship to food. less processed shiznit and sugar. i'm a sugar-holic. and goddess i love butter. in the last month alone, i've singlehandedly consumed at least three sticks of butter. that's going to be a tough one. and exercise! kickboxing round two. looking forward to hitting and kicking things again. maybe i'll even try to kick my meds to the curb. carefully, and with a physician's supervision. nobody likes an insane person.
another resolution, one that i make every year and every time i think about my life: more creativity! art and creative output needs to be a way of life for me. gradually i think i have been overcoming my fear about my talent or "ability to contribute." (grad school can be such a mind job on how we evaluate ourselves. this fear i more importantly need to overcome in my "work," my so-called chosen career path.) screw it, just put some color on a page. slap some paint on a canvas. i would love a studio but... well, i'd need to give up the oh-so-comfortable (expensive and bourgeois) spaceship type of lifestyle.
the ever present not-so-silver lining to these resolutions is definitely dinero. though i'm still too temerious to actually designate financial responsibility as a resolution. it's so banal. but money is definitely something to think about. recently, both my mom and my boyfriend have expressed discontent with, what i personally would call unequal wealth distribution, but more generally, why those joneses got that and i don't? my mom was toying with the idea of joining a book club, but she's not doing it b/c she doesn't want to go over to those various doctors' bling-ass houses. she said, "it makes me feel like, why do they have that and i don't? i want to have those things too."
sure, who doesn't want a bimmer, for realz. though having a car (thanks mom!) makes me feel like, dude, why you want that fancy ass shit? i'll just be stressing about scraping the rims. ha ha, rims. my imaginary disposable income. in addition to film fest trips, art and design (including but not limited to the clothing variety), international travel, and blah blah blah.
so. while it worries me to hear these kinds of laments from my loved ones, i'm personally not too hung up on it. i like my life, it's good. does living paycheck to paycheck blow? yeah, but see if you're kinda flippant to the whole financial system, whatever, loans schmoans, late fees, yadda yadda. it's all a social construct anyways, and who don't got debt. at least mine is to the gov't for the most part.
i am however - such of sign of maturity - repressing my flippancy for authority in the realm of safety. living dangerously, and especially, putting other people at risk (pedestrians, other drivers) has got.to.go. save my need for speed for racetrack time. (also on my "if i was fabulously loaded i would blow it on..." list.)
big lessons for me are the benefits of life in the slow lane. it's not a race. following cartman, whatever i do what i want.
and the balance of sharing with people. i still play the tough grrrl, but don't want hackles to be my immediate response to threat. people are injurious, hurtful, untrustworthy, petty, mean, competitive, selfish. but not always and usually not through and through. it's unlikely i'll forget those that have trespassed against me, what with being a scorpio and all, but very few of those fornicators are truly evil. everyone needs a little twist of secretly evil anyways, just to stay interesting. eeeeevil, $1 million dollars hold the world for ransom, evil, bwhahaha bwahahahaa!
and on that note, cheers to 2011. to not being evil, being happy and having fun.
