I like turtles.

This video was sent to me by a friend and I've since become obsessed with it. First of all, I love Tool. I find their musicianship to be astounding, but more importantly, I just like the way it sounds. I get lost in it. I get halfway through an album like Lateralus or 10,000 Days and I don't know how I got there.* Second, this is an amazing arrangement. I love the koto.



I don't know why it caught me off guard that a number of people were surprised by my affinity for their music. I realized a long time ago that people are always taken aback when they start to get to know who I really am. In fact, many of my closest friends over the years didn't really like me upon first meeting.

For a long time I thought it was just the nature of the industry in which I worked, but really it's an overall theme in my life. I may be no more complex than any other person, but there is always so much going on under the surface that most people, I find, cannot really read me. Ironically, I am very open and forthcoming about all aspects of myself when I feel a connection with a person. My social personality, though, is just the tip of the iceberg.

That being said, I called off Peter's move to Atlanta. Not only that, but I called off the relationship. This took him by surprise, which of course took me by surprise. I'd been struggling with it back in August when we broke up the first time, but if neither party is adamant about it, what's there to really finalize it? The issues I struggled with back then just became much more clear to me in the face of his arrival and I was forced to reconcile myself to the truth in my heart.

My only regret is that it took me until the last minute to become conscious of it. Once I stopped fighting what I already knew deep down, I was relieved. I was relieved of the burden of trying to force a square peg into a round hole. I like squares, I get along with squares, I enjoy time with squares; but ultimately, a square does not truly fit into a circle and no matter how one might try to trim off the corners, in the end, there is still a void in the connection. He deserves to be with someone who better appreciates who he is and I deserve to be with someone who truly gets me on a fundamental level. Anything less is a disservice to love.

The concept of still actually liking a person and seeing their value instead of needing to run the relationship into the ground before accepting that they are not the right match and subsequently ending the relationship is new to me. Peter is a great person, but ultimately not the right match.

I thought after breaking up that regret might start to seep in and I'd have to remind myself of why it's right that we're not together. There are definitely qualities about him that I will miss, but I do not regret my decision. I am completely at peace with it. I feel like my future is wide open and I have a strong urge for drastic change. Something big is in the air, I can feel it.


* don't fret, Aenima, Undertow and Opiate have had their fair share of play time, but I find these two albums to be particularly hypnotizing.

Do you have the slightest idea (No, I don't)

Music Playlist at MixPod.com

My boots are getting heavy. As the hour of Peter's arrival draws near, I find myself panicked and confused. For lack of a better expression, wtf? He is set to leave in six days on a cross-country adventure with a final destination of my apartment. I never understood why people made rash decisions in the 11th hour of major events. I do now. I'm scared and that doesn't aid in clear headed & clear hearted conclusions. I am human and I too suffer from the human dilemma in that I have paradoxical feelings about all major events and areas of my life, including this one.

Sometimes I wish I'd created this blog anonymously so that I could talk through my anxieties with brutal honesty with no worries of exposing the personal details of other people's lives in a public setting. As it stands now, I edit, omit and sometimes spin to see the positive in things even if only for presentation. That is not to say I am reticent or disingenuous in my writing, but it usually results in large gaps between posts.

I also have a monkey on my back tendency to get wrapped up in the big snowballs that are my possible futures, each built with the sharp rocks of what-ifs and packed hard for devastation upon impact. I know there is really no "right" or "wrong" choice, but I fear making the wrong one none the less. This is the source of much of my dilemma. I get wrapped up in the deadly snowball and I have to find a way to locate the snowflake that is knowing what is right for me. I plan to spend time in meditation for the next day or two and hope to find some clarity underneath the shadow of much mental chatter, fear and doubt.

moving forward

I've had enough adrenaline and cortisol production for one week, so I'd like to move on and change the subject. Not sure if any of you have followed the story of me and Peter, but if you have, the last you heard, we had broken up. The thing is, we still were talking every day and not really doing any of the things you do in a break up to move past the person you've broken up with. It didn't feel like the solution we were looking for and neither of us were satisfied leaving it at that. It took me some time, but it actually was the step back I needed to take in order to move forward. That initial hormone laden, idealistic fairy tale, sparkles and fireworks period had worn off and I was left with the same great person, but in human form. This was a barrier I'd not yet been able to break through.

At the same time I was feeling this, he was about to move in with me from across the country and so I freaked. I think anyone with a history of retreating in the face of sustained intimacy would've had the same reaction. However, as we continued to talk and I continued to work on my fears and challenge myself, I turned a corner from the perspective of fear and flight to one of looking forward to an exciting challenge that brings with it amazing rewards that I have yet to experience in this lifetime and would certainly regret missing out on.

So, we decided to take another camping trip and see where that would lead us. Western North Carolina is beginning to become a tradition for us and it's one of my favorite places. Unfortunately we couldn't hike much because my knee was still swollen. Hence, the knee brace and mini-trampoline.






Aside from one major point of contention regarding bear safety during a period of 24 hours of rain, it was a great trip. Not only that, but the time we spent at home living daily life was completely different than last time when I was having my freak out. I didn't feel crowded or that my personal space was being invaded, but rather, I felt content and excited to come home to him after my daily errands. Coming home with him here was like a exhaling after a deep, satisfying breath of clean air.

After all of those days and nights struggling with whether I was ready for this kind of relationship, waffling between moving forward and moving on, wishing the decision could just be taken out of my hands, only after I'd found resolution, it was. Ironically, after I felt that indeed I was ready, still a bit scared, but able and willing to take on this new and exciting challenge, the fairy tale wore off for Peter and he was left with the same great person adorned in all of her humanity.

The dilemma was that Peter has dreamed of working in major motion pictures since he was a kid. He even went to school for it and worked in several aspects of production. For his whole life, the story in his head began in Los Angeles. All of the sudden, he was faced with the same feeling that I had not too long ago, that time was running out for him to get a start and if he made the "wrong" choice, that he'd always be looking over his shoulder wondering how things might have been. He was torn between me and L.A. with the idea that his career and a relationship with me were mutually exclusive.

I spent about a year (one week in real time) giving him space to figure out what the right decision was for him. I was in limbo. I let him know that I wanted to move forward with our relationship, but that I wanted even more for him to make a decision that he felt good about. It was important to me that he could feel as though he would be moving forward rather than like he was sacrificing something so important. If his decision meant that we really break up for good, I told him I'd be sad but I was sure that we would both be okay no matter what. The difficult part for me was that I couldn't start the difficult process of mourning the relationship, nor could I fantasize about our future together because both were a possibility and all I could do was wait. How long I could stay sane doing this was to be determined. Fortunately for me, after about a week and some conversations between him and his friends in L.A. who are in the business, he decided to commit to Atlanta for a year and re-evaluate then. Neither he nor I see ourselves in Atlanta permanently, but with my soap business growing locally, I feel I need to stay here for a while and cultivate it before transplanting it someplace else.

His thought was to be here permanently in time for Christmas, however my mom will be visiting for a couple of weeks and that would definitely be a full house. I haven't seen my mom in about three years, an amount of time that I feel is shameful and I'm thoroughly looking forward to spending time with her. So, it may be that Peter moves here after the first of the year. I am by no means suggesting that my mom's visit will foil my plans, please don't read it that way. My whole relationship with Peter has been a constant lesson in patience. You could say I have my yellow belt in patience. Besides the fact that time is flying by as my soap flies out the door during the holiday season, I enjoy the anticipation of exciting events and it's really not that far away. I'm looking forward to ringing in the new year with my mom and my man.

we used to be something, but somethin' happened to me

I figured a sad, twangy Ryan Adams would be the most appropriate for this post, though I'm finding myself relating to many a heartbreak song. My two year history with Peter has officially changed status. We've broken up. I still can't make myself change my facebook status as ridiculous that may sound. Although, to anyone who has gone through a painful breakup, I'm sure you can relate. This one is so different for me and actually caught me off guard. At the beginning, I was so terrified that he'd suddenly change his mind, call it off seemingly out of nowhere, and the rug would be pulled from under me. Well, the rug was pulled from under me but by my feelings of heartbreak over relief.

On the heels of his decision to move to Atlanta to be with me, fear and doubt, two extremely destructive things, began to creep in. I'd been fretting for the last few weeks that maybe we just couldn't relate on some very fundamental levels and it seemed that the easiest source of relief would be to end it. Every other break up for me has been a relief. I was completely done and moved on almost immediately. This one is not so. I don't understand how I can love someone and get along superbly until I return to my daily responsibilities. Perhaps in a few weeks when things sink in and I can start focusing my energies where I need to, I'll feel some release of pressure, but right now all I feel is lonely and sad.

I've been writing him letters. I'm not sure that I'll send them. His birthday is tomorrow. I feel I've failed. I have never had such ambivalence upon deciding to end a relationship. You see, he came here this past weekend and we went on a camping trip. I was consciously open to reconnecting and that's exactly what happened. We spent two nights in the mountains and genuinely enjoyed each other's company. Somehow, something happens when we're out of the woods and into daily life. Maybe it's that he so strongly reflects my shadow self:

"According to [Carl] Jung, the shadow, in being instinctive and irrational, is prone to project: turning a personal inferiority into a perceived .. deficiency in someone else."

I think there are basic differences in our perspectives that make living daily life together a struggle and I have no way to know whether we could get past them if I didn't unintentionally sabotage (oxymoron, I know) our relationship by turning into a neurotic control freak (exaggerating a little here) where he couldn't do anything right by my standards. I have seen some ugly parts of myself and not only do I still have this work to do on myself - in or out of the relationship - but I feel so empty on top of it. Perhaps that's a small price to pay for clarity over confusion. At least now I'm only troubled rather than troubled and indecisive.

We had a really special, unique, magical, adventurous, amazing run of it for a while. I have my theories on what went wrong and what changed, but I can't force myself to grow as a person any faster than I am able and I guess I'm just going to have to be okay with that. I have a feeling that I'm also going to have to be okay with the fact that this appears to be much more difficult for me to let go of than it is for him. At least that's the way it appears to me. I'm used to being the one who gets over it easily; but what is pride when your heart is broken?

I have nothing more to say.

I have endless things to say.

It's a hard way to fall.

This ain't the easy way down.

It's a hard thing to love anyone, anyhow.

Welcome To Nashville.

It's been a great week, especially after rounding out last week by catching that nasty cold that sneaks up on you.  Thanks to those who took me into the triple digit sales on etsy, including my brother who doesn't seem to know that he gets soap for free what with bein' family and all.  I came home from my 24 hour trip to Nashville to find myself at 99 sales.  What?  I didn't tell you about Nashville?  Oh, my bad.  I went to Nashville.

In the continuing saga that is my long distance relationship with Peter, I drove up to Nashville to meet him (and his 8 passengers) during his 3 week trip working as a tour guide.  Also, I got to meet my wonderful blog friend Holly, who gave me the "Holly's Nashville" tour.  I was so excited to meet her and had so little time that I just sort of ran off at the mouth, nonstop.  I was also so excited to see Peter that I had to crawl through the trunk to get my keys after a narrowly avoided keys-locked-in-car-hanging-from-the-ignition scenario.  Sometimes I'm easily distracted...

Before I post the rest of the pictures, I'd like to explain that Peter grows a beard semi-annually and then shaves it off after the Yukon Quest every year in a tradition known as "fun with shaving".  This year he shaved it into an I DRINK YOUR MILKSHAKE kind of mustache and kept it on until I got to see it in person.  It cracked me up but I got used to it pretty quickly.  He says he misses it.   Also, I'm learning how to do photography at night...

heartbeat of the city

hill billy grill

blue moon on a red brick wall

I DRINK YOUR MILKSHAKE!

Nashville by Night

great smokies

A Moment of Sappiness.

 

Got a two part Valentine mix from Peter filled with love songs.  This one really struck me and like to think he could've come up with just these words for me since we spend so much time apart.  He's in Alaska driving the dog truck to checkpoints and handling for Dave Dalton ~ a musher in the Yukon Quest.  This picture is from our 3 weeks in Alaska for the race last year.  You can see more here.

Too Sad To Wax Poetic.

Well, I just took Peter to the airport after his two week visit with me.  He flies to Fairbanks, AK tomorrow for the Yukon Quest, where we spent three amazing weeks together last year.  It's almost becoming old hat now, the pattern of emotion in this long distance relationship.  And much like the June trip, we ended up with but one cell phone picture of our entire visit.  

Once the plane tickets are bought, I relax.  A week before he gets here the countdown starts and I start getting really excited.  While he's here, I pretty much disappear.  A day or two before he leaves I start getting that anxious feeling in my stomach like late on a Sunday evening in high school and you still have homework to do.  As we drive to the airport, it seems like we're just driving somewhere like any other day except that I can't believe how quickly our time together has passed.  When it's time for him to go through security I have to hold back the tears and then quickly bolt out of the airport as soon as he gets in line at the risk of embarrassing myself.  I get home and for a few days everything is very quiet and a little sad before I get back into the swing of things.  Right now it's very quiet and I'm a little sad, so I'll save the rest for next time.

Christmas In January.

I got Peter's Christmas package the other day and it had real mistletoe in it!  I've never seen real mistletoe, it's pretty cool.  My point, though is that when I opened one of the presents, it was a picture frame with a picture of us all kissy at the Chena Hot Springs in Alaska last February.  That very same picture was among my gifts to him.  Just waiting for the picture frame I ordered the other day.  Yes, my Christmas shopping tends to happen in January.  Not for sales really, but it's just sort of become a tradition.  

That picture:

Is going to go in this bad ass frame:

from Black Eyed Susan Artworks

I was also looking into a gallery wrap of this piece for my mom since it matches her home in Albuquerque completely.  It's out of my price range, so I'm just going with the print of this beautiful photograph from Jen Murray Photography.

Fortunately both my mom and my boyfriend almost never read this blog, so their gifts shall not be ruined.  Err...  unfortunately?  

Thanksgiving Forecast: Mostly Happy With A 20% Chance of Loneliness.

Usually Thanksgiving and Christmas come and go without me feeling sad or lonely.  This year, however, having seen my brother for just one day last week, the sum total of our annual time together, my mom off to Utah and out of cell phone service for a special Thanksgiving and everyone's updates on Facebook surrounding the topic of being home and around family, I feel a certain void.  Granted, I am going to be spending the evening with wonderful people that I don't get to see as often as I'd like, I am still feeling homesick for people, as I have no "back home", really.  My mom lives in Albuquerque, my brother and his wife live in Boston, my boyfriend lives in California with no next visit planned and things feel a little empty.

Don't be mistaken, I have been feeling positive and productive about life in general, it's just that sometimes when things slow down and everyone takes a break for quality time that I made no effort to do myself, it gets quiet and quiet leads to contemplation.  It's really no time for me to be buying a plane ticket, quite honestly, but I'd still jump online to do just that the second I knew when I could see Peter again.  Video chats can only do so much for a person.

Tomorrow, I will be thankful to be around several friends who always make me laugh, in a warm, beautiful home with great food, wine and several rounds of Rock Band.  I will feel happy and fulfilled, and there will also be a part of me that wants so badly to be sharing that with Peter. 

Two years ago, I met up with my mom, brother and sister in law in Boulder, CO for Thanksgiving.  We went hiking and saw the most amazing sky I've ever seen.  It's amazing how things have changed and stayed the same since then.

All Better... Almost.

I can't get drunk anymore.  Too many ounces of Jameson made it into my stomach last Tuesday, and though I had a really great time overall, it took its toll.  It took me two days to shake off wanting to crawl into a hole until the feeling of impending doom wore off.  Immediately proceeding my recovery, I got "the crud", also known as a stupid cold.  

Witness:

Matt has stolen countless pairs of bike socks from me, it's time he gave back.

I promptly put those socks on my hands and stole my friend's beer.

I received the gift of hope.

Until now, it's been never that a politician has inspired hope in me and though I know the tough times are far from over, I believe that we will see many changes that will lead us in a positive direction.  The renewed air of hope and respect toward the United States that Obama's victory has invoked in much of the rest of the world is so promising to me.  

On the Soap front:

On Thursday, I met up with Erin, whose acquaintance I made at the Grant Park Festival.  We had a chat about marketing, as she recently helped a company called Melt blow up thanks to her work with Coca Cola and Dillards.  My first objective...  to tighten up my look and make it consistent across all mediums, i.e.  website, etsy site, packaging, etc.  I seek to do this first by adding a bit of detail to my logo and then make a commitment to a specific style.  I've got a few ideas, but it's going to have to evolve.  

Speaking of consistency, I've decided to cut mocha cafe the same as my other soaps and add whipped topping to them.  I'll post a picture soon and you'll see what I mean.

Health Issues:

A few months ago, I started to experience symptoms of my Graves Disease (Hyperthyroidism) after a year of remission.  I'm continually learning more about it, but I was in a real panic.  I had been informed by a friend who is also a doctor, that I'd had some temporal wasting that I thought were just bags under my eyes since I hadn't been sleeping well.  It turns out that I'd lost a lot of fatty tissue from underneath my eyes and was left with huge dark craters indicating the severity of my sickness.  I've been on thyroid blockers for almost six weeks now and it's obvious in my face that I'm becoming healthy again.  It's a little unnerving for me to display the following picture, but this is such a common autoimmune disease and a little honesty and humility on my part can't hurt, if not help someone else to not feel so alone and betrayed by their body.  

After about 2 months of symptoms, just before starting treatment.

After 4 weeks of treatment.

There is a lot of information that you, as a patient are responsible for gathering.  Your doctor will likely only give you the most common or "simplest" explanation or recommendation for treatment.  In my own reading, I discovered that thyroid blocking medication was the most common form of treatment outside the U.S. whereas most patients here are treated with radioactive iodine, which I flat out refuse.  Hyperthyroid is actually a very dangerous disease.  It's stressful on one's heart and cardiovascular system.  I've finally gotten most of my strength back at the gym and just two days ago, I was finally able to run again without my heart rate skyrocketing putting me in danger of developing arrhythmia.  I'm quickly on the road to recovery and am also in a much better state of mind, perhaps due to my treatment.

Personal news.

After some inner tension about my relationship with Peter, I finally was brave enough to have an honest discussion about my feelings and our relationship status without attachment to outcome.  I know this sounds really cliche, but I need to know where I stand so that I don't unwittingly get myself into something that was never what I thought it was to begin with.  Fortunately for me, Peter is able to be explicit about what he wants, doesn't want and how he feels.  We both have insecurities and fears, but once we both got past them, we agreed that it's been a long time coming and that we should be "in a relationship".  So, technically, I now have a boyfriend, even though everything's pretty much the same but now our hopes and expectations are out in the open with each other.  Who knows what will happen.  We know there's a suggestion of moving to the same city to really give ourselves a chance to be great together, but it's a long way from making plans.  Things could end before they even really begin, but somehow I'm much more relaxed about the whole situation knowing that he wants to be mine and me, his.

 

Thoughts colliding in my head like a horde of mexican jumping beans after a quadruple espresso.

The biggest event that transpired since my last post (besides my Graves Disease coming out of remission - but that's another post) was Peter's three week visit with me, here in Atlanta.  It passed like the blink of an eye and when our efforts to prolong the trip were financially thwarted (one way tickets are NOT half the cost of round trip) I begrudgingly took him to the airport this morning after a 5:30 a.m. wake up call.  We sat silently holding hands most of the way, 'The Greatest' providing quiet accompaniment on our drive in the predawn hour.  Having missed the cut off for baggage check, Peter missed his flight from Atlanta to San Francisco....  again.  With the extra 20 minutes this gave us until his next flight, we sat with coffee and shared a bagel as I remarked about how natural it felt just being next to him before he left me for the security check line.

Oh my sweet Carolina.

Making  my way back to the car, I felt fairly stable as opposed to the anguish I had been anticipating and I pressed the unlock button only once, glad not to be in tears.  As I sat in morning rush hour, Love Is Hell began to play.  Just three days prior, these songs had cascaded from the same speakers as they did now, but with Peter at the wheel and me beside him.  He mentioned how the music complemented the scenery as we drove south on the Blue Ridge Parkway through the trees whose leaves were golden beneath the sun.  This brought the first tears to my eyes.  Upon arriving home, the coffee he had bought for me still in hand, I walked into my apartment which no longer carried any sign of his presence.  Silently greeted by the pot and pan soaking from our romantic dinner just hours ago, the indentation in the sheets from where he had slept, the couch where we cuddled and watched movies; I was overwhelmed with sadness over how empty my home felt.  

You were holdin' me, little honey, kissing my soul.

The last time I saw Peter this past August, we agreed that our experience with each other seems exponentially better with each trip and this was no exception.  There comes a point for me in the early stages of relationships where the "flaws" that make a person human start to become visible beyond the veil of idealism through which I initially see a person.  I thought for sure the terrified heart underlying the commitment-phobe in me would latch onto these things as it has in the past eliciting a sigh of relief, comforted by my old patterns.  The patterns that create distance between me and another thus avoiding the risk of getting hurt.  I feel triumphant that I was aware of this notion and consequently able to break through that internal wall in order to finally get to really involve myself in experiencing another person intimately.  I am literally amazed that three weeks of constant contact left me wanting more.  This is the first time that I've gotten my space back and was not relieved to have it all to myself again.

...when you're living in the darkness.

Peter and I got to do so much that we missed doing back in June which wrapped up yesterday with Dialog in the Dark which lets you explore an hour without sight.  I always wonder which parts I'll remember more than others because they're always different than the moments I think I'll remember at the time.  While he was here, we went to the Starlight Drive In, The Georgia Aquarium, Thrashers game, Dialog in the Dark, Agave, Thumbs Up Diner, The Brickstore, Asheville, Mt. Mitchell, Mt. Pisgah, Blue Ridge Parkway, camped, cooked wonderful dinners and breakfasts, wandered through the farmer's markets of DeKalb and Asheville, went for several walks, toasted marshmallows in the mountains and a lot of other stuff I won't mention.

The Gym Smelled Like Cheese.

Well, I ended up going to sleep and hitting the snooze button until about 11:30 a.m. when I actually became aware that I was hitting the snooze button.  Not bad considering that every time I've been to sleep around 6 a.m., I end up waking around 2:30.  I got a pedicure, got my hair thinned out, had my eyebrows waxed, washed my kitchen floor, took some clothes to salvation army, did laundry, cooked dinner, went to the gym - which smelled like feet cheese, and now I'm about to drink a glass of wine and watch a movie because I'm really not going to be able to sleep tonight.  "Why?" you ask..  because I'm picking Peter up from the airport at 9:30 a.m. tomorrow.. er, today, technically.  He's staying for three weeks.  Neither of us have a clue what'll happen afterwards, but we both agreed that this should be our next move.  I'm not nervous right now, but my heart will be racing in about 7 hours. 

We're going to go camping in Western North Carolina and cruise the Blue Ridge Parkway.  

Sidenote:  last night as I was trying to go to sleep, I read a few stories in The Idiot Girl's Action Adventure Club.  This is a book I've read before and remember enjoying.  This time it felt a little flat.  The humor was forced and rather cliche.  I wonder what the difference is.  I think the book fit more into my life when I was into coffee, cigarettes and gossip.  I am still into coffee, but have since quit the other two.  

Simple and Graphic.. just like my jokes.

I accidentally made a logo for my sudstress labels.  It's simple and graphic.  I like it.  I used my elementary skills on my pretendphotoshop software for a new etsy banner and found a way to incorporate it into my labels.  I had to start from scratch, but I'm plugging along, changing them all over.  Though I'm sure I'll go back and make some changes, I am pretty happy with how things are looking so far.  My goal is to have my soap labels completely changed over for my next festival this Saturday and the rest of the labels (scrub, shea & oil) by the Grant Park Summer Shade Festival at the end of August.  

Things got put on hold for a couple of days last week when I drove through Tennessee and Alabama to spend some short but quality time with Peter.  I went white water rafting for the first time!  Every time we see each other, things just get better and better.  It scares and excites me at the same time.  Seriously, look how cute we are together.

  

I also joined the best gym ever.  It's been entirely too hot to run and/or bike, and I'd been meaning to rejoin a gym anyway, so I checked out Core Body in Decatur.  I liked it so much that I joined the same day.  It's got such a good feel, people are there to exercise, not to judge.  Even the people that work there are my kind of peeps.  My friend Stephanie and I went out to U Joint on Thursday night and ran into Patrick who works at the gym (which Stephanie also left L.A. Fitness for, incidentally) and ended up hanging out with him for the rest of the night.  He had us in stitches until my lack of sleep caught up with me at which point I came home, stripped and fell asleep with my contacts in.  Oh, the memories...

Lost and Found

Peter, the man with whom I spent the better part of three weeks in Alaska this past February came to visit me for 11 indescribable days and nights.  I took him to the airport this morning for his return trip to California.  While he was here, we took a trip to Savannah, which is one of the most charming towns I've ever visited.  We camped on Tybee Island, spent the day at the beach, took lots and lots of pictures of each other and the beautiful Savannah buildings while wandering around the town, only to have left the camera at The Pink House after a nice cold martini.  Alas, no pictures in this post, as it's hard to recover something you left at a bar when you don't realize that you left it there until almost a week later.  I already ordered another camera but have lost every digital image of our time together in Georgia.  It's yet another lesson in living in the moment.  The experiences we shared and the connection we have is worth more than all the pixels in the world.  I may have lost a camera and some pictures, but I found something much more valuable on this vacation.  And I don't just mean the shirt he left behind for me.

Peter designed and made his own batch of soap (with me hovering and giving more instruction than necessary) and I can't wait to post pictures of it and post.  I will probably add it to my permanent line, although I'll probably change the scent.  As soon as I get my camera, I will take and post pictures of it.  It's really beautiful.

Pete the Cat

I have a new obsession and it's Pete the Cat.  I saw this guy's booth at the Inman Park Festival and I looooooove his work.  They're all really clever but also he's a really great artist.  I found him on Sunday of the Inman Park Festival debacle.  

Pete in Savannah:

Speaking of Pete in Savannah... Peter will be here for about a week and a half in the beginning of June, which I am extremely excited about.  We're going to go to Savannah for a few days and basically going to enjoy each other for the short time we'll have together.  There are so many things I want him to see and so many people I want him to meet but I know it's somewhat useless to plan all the specifics because; a: I'm no good at making plans and b: there's no way to predict what either of us will be in the mood for, so it's really just a lesson in futility to even try.  I'm just really looking forward to another amazing experience to perhaps build upon and at least to keep in my treasury of memories.  

Quick & Random

The Inman Park Festival starts tomorrow and I'm working tonight until the wee hours and will probably not sleep before arriving to set up as close to 6:30 a.m. as possible.  Fourteen hours is a long day with no sleep, but I've done it before and I can do it again.  I never feel ready for these things.  It's so hard to predict what people will want and I always wish I had a more varied product line.  A few deep breaths should do the trick.  My success or failure does not depend solely on this one event.  My tent leaked last year and the weather forecast calls for scattered thunderstorms on both days, so I bought some scotch guard and a couple of plastic tarps.  Everything will be fine.

I rode hard on Tuesday.  I did 26 hilly miles in about an hour and a half.  Not too shabby, but I have not run or biked since and wish I could go right now to relieve some of this nervous tension.  I'm a little stressed about the j.o.b. as well, but things will work out, I guess.  They always do.   And if they don't...  they still will, just differently.  

I haven't felt this stressed in a while, so I'm going to focus on de-stressing about everything.  It's just wasted energy.  I think part of it is that I feel like I don't have a very big support network right now.  Unsure whether this feeling comes from inside or out, but I'm inclined to say it's the former rather than the latter.

I've lost a few pounds, that's good.  I hope it's not my hyperthyroidism acting up again.  I need to make an appointment with the endocrinologist on Monday.

This month I watched Little Children, Juno, Capote, No Country for Old Men, Owning Mahowny and Sex & Lucia.  I highly recommend them all.  I also discovered that I really like the Paolo Nutini cd.  He sings about getting it on in pretty much every song.  Speaking of which, I can't wait to see this guy in June when he comes to visit me.

I am going to take a lesson from my kitty Neko, he has not a care in the world.

Okay, I feel a little better.  Now I shall go load heavy tables into my car.

It's (kinda) official.

I've been holding back.

Things have been going well for me this year ('08 is great) and I'm scared that at any moment, everything will fall through and I'll be left with my heart, hopes and dreams in my hand, standing alone, in the rain, on a corner watching the last bus to the good life drive away without me.  

Actually, I've had a few undesirable things happen so far, but I turned them into lemonade.  I know I have the strength and resources to pull through tough times, but lately I've found myself wondering what would happen if I went blind.  What if something catastrophic happened that shook my will to go on?  Would I be able to overcome something like that?  I'm sure everyone thinks they've had a difficult life, and I'm no different.  I feel I've had to learn a lot of hard lessons early and that I'm ready for a period of smooth sailing.  Maybe not even so much in the outside world, I don't necessarily need good luck (not that I'd kick it out of bed for eating crackers) but I want a moment to breathe without the constant inner turmoil that arises from questioning myself, my motivations, my life, what I believe in, etc. 

Over the last year and a half, I was going through a pretty rough patch.  Throughout my life, that seems to be my general pattern.  Something brews for a while, I go inside, into the dark, struggle with my inner demons and then come out on the other side transformed.  I can't remember ever having such a long dark period, however.  I shared a lot of good times with good friends, but I was really struggling with feeling depressed and lonely and as if that's not hard enough, feeling embarrassed about it like it was a testament to my inevitable deterioration.  I turned 30, was drinking too much and making poor decisions that only perpetuated my shame and loneliness.  I knew that something had to happen and whatever it was had to come from inside of me, I just had no idea how to go in and get it.  Sometime after that came my epiphany.

Part of the reason for holding back is also related to my continued commitment to stay in the moment so as not to obsess over the outcome of any situation since I can neither control nor predict such things.  For example, my relationship with Peter.  So many things occur every day that I wish I could share with him or something will remind me of a joke we shared, but since he's in the wilderness with no phone/email quite often, the lack of immediate/frequent response starts to get to me and I wonder if it was all in my imagination, are time and distance eroding his feelings for me?  I share the same time and distance, but when I get lonely, no one else's company would satisfy my urge to be with him.  I don't claim him as my boyfriend, but would feel untrue if I were dating others not necessarily to him, but to my feelings.  I have not asked him to deny himself these options, but I can only hope he would feel the same.  So, I've sort of created my own little conundrum.  My solution:  cross my fingers and plan the next visit. 

I'm not good at making plans either.  I can barely commit to what time to meet for lunch three days from now because I might be in the mood to do something else.  So for me to plan a career just seems ridiculous.  Over the years I've tried several different jobs after graduating from college, all while still bartending.  Each of them has bored me within a year.  I'm scared to invest so much time, energy and money into another degree only to be met with the same boredom.  So, five years after my introduction to handmade soap, for soapmaking to still ignite the same passion, if not more so, thrills me to say the least. 

I haven't talked much about this because I didn't want to count my proverbial eggs before they hatch...  but that distributor I spoke about briefly several blogs ago wants to carry my entire line of soaps.  Ahhhhhhhh!!!  They even sent my soap off to a lab to make sure it was up to their green standards on top of trying it for themselves, so they know I have a good product.  Their website should be up and running within the next week or two and the way I understand it, from there they will gauge interest in my product and shortly thereafter, place their order(s).  They also have other plans in the works which could mean bigger orders a few months from now.  I think this is definitely cause to step up production.  So, a few hours ago I went to Home Depot and got some MDF and 1x4 wood to make a mold that will accommodate 3-4 times the size of my current batch.  I started daydreaming about warehouse/loft space, exposed brick, stainless steel kitchen carts, soap curing in racks along the walls, saponifying to my Mute Math cd as the sun shines through the windows into my soap palace... (note to self: stay in the moment).   A few years ago, I pasted my face onto a picture of Kathleen Lewis from an article  in Organic Style, a magazine which no longer exists.  It was with scissors and glue, not exactly photoshop quality:



Man, that would be cool.