Tingles

I seem to be in a kind of cocoon/waiting room period in my life right now.  It's kind of cool because I think when your life quiets down for a bit you know that big exciting stuff is in the works.  It's a feeling I really dig.  So in the meantime I've been cultivating the art of finding things that make me happy just for the sake of being happy.

And in the spirit of sharing (or talking about myself... which, let's face, is the entire raison d'être of this blog) I thought I'd do a little show and tell about some of my recent tingles.

1. Welcome to Night Vale

I'm sure many of you have already known about Night Vale for months and months, but I am traditionally the last person on every cool kid band wagon so I just heard about it this week.  For those that haven't heard about it, Welcome to Night Vale is a bi-weekly podcast about a little town in the desert called Night Vale where a lot of weird shit is happening.  It's kind of like Rod Serling and Amy Sedaris wrote an episode of Prairie Home Companion.  It's truly very awesome even if you aren't a science fiction fan.

2. The Wire by Haim

This is a new song from super cool sister group Haim.  I love their sound... like some weird Stevie Nicks/Belinda Carlisle/mid 90s Liz Phair combo. 

3. The Daily Love

I'm a good news junkie.  I treat my happiness like a set of lost keys: I look for it everywhere.  This website/daily email newsletter has become such a highlight in my day.  The creator Mastin Kipp started The Daily Love as a twitter account when he was in the baby steps of his own spiritual journey.  It's crazy how almost every day Mastin's message in my inbox feels almost like it was written specifically for me and addresses something I am currently going through... like today, for instance:

How many of us can do that in life? Instead of demanding what we want and wanting it now, can we ask The Uni-verse for what we want, and then let go? Can we rest in the peace of the moment knowing we are provided for and that the perfect thing, which is probably better than what we asked for in the first place, will show up?

Do we really have the faith to live the maybe? Or better put, can we see that the delays of The Uni-verse are not Its denials? Can we let go and let things unfold naturally? 

This just really spoke to me and how I've been feeling lately... like all of my momentum has been put on hold.  I think I've been struggling to recognize it as temporary, and instead I've been worrying that I might be at a dead end.  I've been seeing lots of 'Nos' when really I've been getting lots of 'Maybes'.  I had such a great aha moment when I read this.

4. The rain

We've been getting Oregonian levels of rain around here.  I am in love with it.  Everything is so GREEN and beautiful.  The trees are actually growing moss and there are mushrooms everywhere.  It's majestic.  But I am genuinely sorry for the people with flooded basements.

5. This picture of a tiger living his/her best life.

Every time I look at this picture of a tiger relaxing in a waterfall I feel peaceful.  And I don't know where I am in this photo... am I the tiger?  Am I the water flowing around the tiger? Or am I the stone and rock on which the tiger lays and over which the water flows?  Do I care?  Nope.

Summer Funk

Well at 7:00 am this morning it already felt like an armpit outside... so we've officially hit the part of summer where I rarely leave the air-conditioned confines of the indoors.

And I'm realizing that it's well into the summer months and I haven't done anything even vaguely summer-y.

I haven't gone to a lake.  I haven't gone swimming. I haven't had a picnic or eaten watermelon or whatever the fuck it is you are supposed to do in the summer.

Mostly I've driven back and forth to work and watched soccer.

My life is at a nadir of boredom.

I need to stir things up a little. So that's what I'm working on this week.

In the meantime,  here is what I've been listening to on an endless loop:

1. Usher - Hot Thing (featuring A$AP Rocky)

2. Lady - Yankin (NOT SAFE FOR WORK OR LIFE YOU GUYS)

By the way, have we ever discussed my unironic love for incredibly filthy rap music?  Probably not because I don't really have an explanation for it.

3. Amanda Blank - Something Bigger, Something Better

4. Lucifer - Jay--Z

5. Primadonna - Marina and the Diamonds

Let's Take An Imaginary Vacation!

Years ago when I hated entirely loathed my job, I used to play a game with myself
to decompress and escape every once in awhile.

This game has very simple, easy-to-follow rules:

1. Browse resort websites online.
2. Pick out the one you like the best.
3. Pretend you are vacationing there instead of in your office being miserable.

I heard a morning tv show mention this weekend that studies show that most people
get more enjoyment out of planning a vacation than they do out of the actual vacation.
So it turns out my imaginary vacation planning game might not be so random.

Today my imaginary boyfriend Xavi is taking me to the Seychelles for a quick getaway
before the start of Euro.

We're staying at the Four Seasons Resort.  It looks pretty rad, you guys.

And since my stomach is so perfectly flat, I'll be wearing this most of the time:

What I Wish I Wore On Holiday 1 by luxlis featuring a straw beach tote

I'll send you guys a postcard!

Because My Love Is Strong and My Heart Is Weak After All

So I had another clever clark blog about Aleksandar and my cruise (plus another cocktail recipe!) ready to go for this morning, but I've got something else on my mind.

Actually, I have a song on my mind.

Have you ever heard a song for the first time and it just stopped you in your tracks?

It happens to me fairly frequently... enough that I've nicknamed these songs 'Mental Patient Songs', but it happens rarely enough that it still feels momentous and exciting.

So then I was thinking about what it is exactly that makes these songs 'Mental Patient Songs', and I think I've decided that I have almost no ability to understand, let alone explain why these songs speak to me so much... I just know the symptoms.

The immediate intoxication of hearing something that gives a voice to some emotion, some deep essential part of yourself that you never knew how to express to anyone or even that you needed to express it.  It's like the universe sending you text message that says 'Hey, you aren't the only one.'

And it just makes me soar.  It infiltrates and informs every part of my day. And that is why they are called 'Mental Patient Songs'... because I listen to them all of the time.  And when I'm not listening to them I hear them anyways.

So this is my latest one... Bushwick Blues by Delta Spirit

Summertime

Barefoot in Folsom from ben joyner on Vimeo.


You guys, everything about this video makes me painfully hungry for summer. But, lesbianest, my summers... all of them... look more like this:

Or maybe this, if I'm lucky:

And my summer montage video would be me guzzling coffee while driving to work at 6:30 am and then driving home alternately glaring bitterly and rolling my eyes at young people out having a grand ol' time on their summer break.

But you know what... I aspire to something better, and this summer I'm going to pull it off. Some how some way my summer is going to look like a Ralph Lauren/Levi's/Abercrombie and Fitch commercial.

Except for the diving... I never learned how to dive and I'm not all that upset about it.