palace of winds

So, February wasn’t nearly as good as January reading-wise — but I was also sort of consumed with trying to get back in a regular riding routine and packed to move to a new apartment. (Aside: For the most part I hate moving. I hate packing and unpacking, I hate the weeks of dread before the actual move that I spend thinking about how much the actual move is going to suck, I hate the actual move. I hate the uncertainty. It’s such an act of hope, moving, believing that the next place is going to be better in some way. I — really didn’t mean to go here, so just: life is confusing lately, but I think this is going to be a good thing. I’m not looking forward to moving, but I’m excited to actually be moved.)

Jocey lent me Dodie Smith’s I Capture the Castle — well, a long time ago. A really, really long time ago. And it sat in my pile of books to read. And sat. And sat. I finally picked it up this month, and it was just perfect. Utterly delightful and charming, very Jane Austen-esque. There’s something that happens toward the very end of the book that made me literally laugh aloud and bounce in my seat a bit at a coffee shop. Highly recommended, especially for Austen fans.

I didn’t read any other books this month, and had I don’t even know how many audiobook holds expire on the library shelf because I just haven’t made it in — but I have one more thing I’m going to count: Savage Love. I’ve heard it mentioned on and off over the years, but never read it myself. I know, I know, I’m the last one on the bandwagon. But this month I read through all of the online archives. All of them. A dozen years of Savage Love. 630 entries. I think that counts for at least one.

2011 Book Count: 8
January: 6
February: 2

At the start of 2010, I made 5 goals. Report card time!

• Post more than last year. Success! This is post #37, and I only had 16 in 2009. It’s not super-fantabulous, but honestly it’s better than I expected I’d do.
• Read more; keep track of it. Win! The goal was 24 books, and I ended at 29, AND I at least mentioned everything I (remembered I) read. I want to do this again in 2011.
• Take more pictures. I — did take pictures. I don’t know that I took more pictures. I definitely didn’t go out specifically on picture-taking missions, and I still feel shy about toting my camera places. Still a lot of room for improvement here. I’ll give myself half on this one.
• Travel. Check! (Hi past self!)
• Start cooking again. FAIL. Utter fail. This goes back on the list for next year.

And, to be thorough, the list of stuff-I’d-like-to-do-but-probably-won’t:

• Website facelift. Yep, didn’t do this! I also bought a domain for the Poe-face that I’ve done jack all with.
• Write about Peru. Also didn’t do this! I have started writing about Bali, though. I feel like I should get half credit here…
• Write fiction. Decidedly not done, not a bit.

Final score: 4/5. I’m pretty happy with that. My last hope for 2010 was that it would be better than the last part of 2009. I’ve been struggling a lot in the last month or two, feeling pretty bad about some things, but there’s no question that 2010 was overall a big improvement. And I’m going into 2011 positive: I’m doing what I can about the unhappy stuff, and trying to cultivate a better attitude toward the things out of my control. I used to be really good at that, at taking deep breaths and side-stepping fear, and I think I can be again.

Happy New Year, everyone.

I had a nasty bout of food poisoning in Bali; I ate very little for four days. I also did a mess of hiking and swimming over there, and ended up coming home about 7 pounds lighter. At work my bosses commented that I’d lost weight, followed immediately by a discussion about how you can mention when someone’s lost weight but it’s not okay to point out when someone’s gained. It was uncomfortable; I felt like they were saying So we noticed you’d gotten fatter! Thank you, yes, I feel enormous, let’s please stand around my desk discussing it for a while. My self-esteem has not felt battered enough lately.

I work pretty hard to try to unhook my sense of self-worth from how I feel about my body. It’s a complicated thing, which — I really don’t need to go into. Suffice to say I have spent the last many years bullying myself into feeling good about myself, and most of the time it works well. Fake it ’til you make it and all.

My grandfather died almost 11 years ago now. Tonight I unearthed the journal I kept at that time. Parts of it made me cringe but parts of it I find as beautiful as the day I pasted and stitched them in. It is full of pressed flowers, bits of feather, shards of cds, smudges of make-up, cloth, ribbon, magazine clippings. It also has the things I wrote when he died and in the months that followed as I came unravelled. I was already a desperately lost, lonely person at that time, and something about losing him broke loose something inside me that took a long, long time to mend.

My grandma died over a year ago now. I was much closer to her, and I still can’t think about the reality of it without feeling devastated. Part of me is still numb. But I didn’t lose myself the way I had a decade prior. Life didn’t come all apart.

I don’t really know where I’m going with all this. Just — a reflection, I guess, that I am a stronger person than I was. That I know who I am, and I can trust that, trust in myself. I’ve been feeling restless lately, like something is brewing just beyond the horizon. A sea change. I hope it’s a good one.

Regardless, I am ready for it. I am ready for anything.

The last thing I wrote in that journal: In defiance of loss, I love.

I love National Camera. I went there last night with my mom and sister for a photo class. We arrived a little early so I could look at camera bags — I’ve had one on my 2010 Spring Binge Shopping list for a while. An adorable sales guy gave me some very sound advice about which bags were cute and which were tragic (my words, not his; I wish I could remember exactly how he delicately described the fanny packs, though, because it was hilarious). I ended up spending a ridiculous amount of money on a Crumpler bag that I adore. It is excellent, and definitely $35 more cute than the Lowepro. Plus it’s called the 5 Million Dollar Home. (I was going to link to a picture of it, but none of them do it justice. Maybe I’ll take one later. And maybe I’ll write a novel! And post those Peru pictures!) (The bag, if you were wondering, did not cost five million dollars.)

Okay, breaking for a second — this is so awesome. I just got my company’s Weekly Digest email, and there was a little article in it about shortening the length of time a particular alert shows on our system. The title of the article? “They Only Have One Week to Live.” I wish I knew who’d come up with that, and who okayed it, so I could thank them. So fantastic.

So anyway, confession time: I don’t have a budget. I kept a really nice one for a while, using Microsoft Money, and all the pie charts and line graphs and tidy reports made my little accountant’s heart glad. But then the ‘horse’ slice of the pie started looking depressingly large, and I got a couple months behind, and I came to a realization that none of it was helping me figure out what was an appropriate amount to spend on anything. I spent all this time entering data and staring at the results, and wandering around the internet looking for rules on spending, trying to find something that would tell me Yeah, you can get that nice couch, or You should really skip the fancy cheese this week.

Apparently spring is the time when I wonder a little bit about money and then go on some cathartic shopping binge: two years ago I mulled over Lasik. (And wow, I totally forgot my Lasik anniversary this year! As an update to that post, I did get the surgery, and life is really better. I can see, it’s a miracle!) (Okay, maybe spring isn’t exactly the only time I whinge about money [see December 06], but I’m going to stop trolling through the archives now, because this is all getting so very far off course.)

My point was, I think, that I don’t budget any more, and I’m a happier person for it. I’m frugal most of the time, skip coffee shops and bring my own popcorn to movies and don’t get my hair cut for seven months, live in kinda low-income housing and work a little side job — all so I can buy a ridiculous bag that I will (hopefully) still be smiling about years from now and get a laptop because dammit I want to use it on the couch, and et cetera.

And I’m starting to feel weird, now, talking about money when I really meant to talk about my cute bag. But I also feel weird deleting this, because I hate the whole money stigma. And I can see from here the circles I’m about to ramble in, so instead I’m going to stop here, with the thought that I am lucky, and life is good, and my new bag? My new bag is very cute.

Briefly, since the day’s almost over: yesterday was good. My hammock finally arrived; I picked it up after riding, and set it up, and it is glorious. I can’t wait until it stops raining so I can use it. Maybe by the time I get back from Florida? (Where I’m going June 14-18, which I don’t think I’ve mentioned before, actually…)

I also had a very important phone call. It was not with a boy at all but I totally felt like I was setting up a first date, and tomorrow I think I’ll feel a little like I’m going on one. I am nervous and excited and couldn’t sleep at all last night. I don’t mean to be a tease about it, but I want to note the date for myself and really can’t say more until things are further along. I hope I’ll have lots of wonderful to share in early August.