Photo

The Prompt:

Sift through all the photos of you from the past year. Choose one that best captures you; either who you are, or who you strive to be. Find the shot of you that is worth a thousand words. Share the image, who shot it, where, and what it best reveals about you.

Forgive me, but I’m going to cheat…again.  I’ve chosen two pictures, not just one.  As it turns out, this prompt was not as easy as I anticipated.  I had, literally, thousands of photos to go through from my year.  Out of those, there were maybe 50 with me in them.  Generally, I’m the one behind the camera.  I’m not photogenic in the least, and it’s very hard to find just the right angle in just the right light to get a picture where I don’t look like I have a wall-eye or suffer from Parkinson’s.  Anyway.  This prompt made me feel like maybe I DO suffer from multiple personalities, each one showing a drastically different side of me.  I had it narrowed down to about five, each one depicting pivotal traits in character.  At the close, I ended up with these two:  the closest I could come to ME, in microcosm.

#1: True Grit

Fuggedaboudit

I took this picture myself.  It was taken in the passenger seat of my girlfriend K’s Jeep right after she’d picked me up from a salon visit.  The aesthetician had just finished MURDERING my eyebrows.  (I remember now why I do them myself.)  I happen to feel beautiful when I look at this picture.  It downplays the size of my nose (which I am INCREDIBLY self-conscious about), shows off my killer tan (the first I’d had in four years!), warns people that they really shouldn’t fuck with me (look at the the jut of my jaw, the easy hang of the just-lit ciggy), and hints at a deeper humor/sadness (my eyes really are my best feature, I think).

#2: The Wanderer

I am the fucking Jedi-Master at packing for airline travel

This second photo was taken the day I left for the east coast for two months over the summer.  That is the only bag that I took with me, aside from my purse, which you can see partially on the left side of the photo.  That’s my pedicured right foot (size 6.5) in there to show scale.  I took this photo too.  There are a lot of things this picture show about me.  Independence, wanderlust, simplicity, excitement, adventure, searching misdirection….  I LIVED out of this bag for those months.  It contained everything I needed, and I was even able to discard a few things along the way.

There were other photos that contained me smiling, laughing even, but smiles don’t really come easily for me.  Showing those, I’d feel like I’d lied to you, dear reader.  I thought about adding photos of sweating beverage glasses on sandy beaches with backdrops of rainbow sunsets, but the sand aside, they wouldn’t have been dirty enough–though Jeebus knows how important my margaritas and vodka are to my existence!  There were cutesy, impish images of me winking at the camera, but those were just mugs, and not True.

Anyhoo.  No flowery prose for you today.  Just two images that have come the closest to catching me as me as I get.

Merry Christmas!

Body Integration (oh jeebus)

The Prompt:

Body Integration This year, when did you feel the most integrated with your body? Did you have a moment where there wasn’t mind and body, but simply a cohesive YOU, alive and present? (Author: Patrick Reynolds)

Oh for the love.  Just reading this prompt made me want to light a cigarette and pour a shot of vodka.  I’m afraid that this challenge has just leapt over the boundary of “Reflective” and into the realm of “New-Age Blowhard”.  I’m going to wax a bit derisive here, so if you love yoga because of the mind/body connection, or hang crystals and arrange furniture to streamline the flow of Chi in your home, you might want to find another blog, or you might find yourself meditating for my lost soul and splotched aura.

When did I feel the most integrated with my body?  Seriously?  I’m ALWAYS integrated with my body.  And I can’t believe YOU aren’t.  Waiting for that purchase from Ebay?  Your mind makes it possible to put one foot in front of the other to get to the mailbox.  Want an omelet for breakfast?  All the motor functions required to beat those eggs are made possible by your mind.  Still can’t drink tequila because of that one night spent in the tub of your sorrority house?  Yet another mind/body connection letting you know that that smell is, indeed, Cuervo.

This question isn’t a deep one, it’s fucking inane.  It’s one more ploy to get you to believe that you aren’t WELL.  That there’s a deeper meaning out there that you’re missing.  That if you’re not searching, you’re not living.  Well, in all this search for a stronger connection, what we’re really doing is succeeding in missing the simple sinews that make the larger whole.  In the end, if you reject that premise, and start with the idea that you’re already joined in the most simple and base way, you’ll see that maybe that deep meaning isn’t so deep after all; that it’s right in front of you and the interaction happens every minute of every day.

We ARE cohesive us’s.  All the time.  Every minute.  Questions like this are a waste of time.  They separate out those that don’t “get it”.  I’m here to state for the record:  There’s nothing to get.  Just DO something, anything, and you’ll see line between body and mind plain as day.

11 Things

The Prompt:

11 Things What are 11 things your life doesn’t need in 2011? How will you go about eliminating them? How will getting rid of these 11 things change your life? (Author: Sam Davidson)

1.  PUBIC HAIR (aside from a small landing strip so that I don’t look like a 9 year old girl)  Yes, I said pubic hair.  Because really, what’s the point?  It’s annoying, unsightly, and gets caught in the teeth.  I have been, for about the past year, saving money monthly by doing my own Brazilian waxes, or, as seems more fitting: Vagina Jihads.  Twat Fatwas.  Unlike eyebrows, which, if plucked too sparsely, will refuse to grow back, pubic hair is resilient, like crab grass.  It costs me money and pain, and I really could go without it.  Unfortunately, I think I’m stuck with it in 2011 as well as every ensuing year.  Electrolysis is cost prohibitive and laying the area ‘down there’ ablaze with a blow torch is quite out of the question.

2.  CIGARETTES.  I’m pained to say so, but I really think that it’s about that time.  In my twenties, I always said, “I’ll quite when I’m 30″.  It seemed so far away at that point.  When I hit 30, I pushed the semantic envelope by deciding that I would be 30 for a whole year.  By 31, I’d just plain stopped attempting to fool myself.  But it’s time.  My skin is showing visible effects and so are my hair and nails.  Who cares about lung cancer or emphysema with vanity to worry about?

3.  HANGOVERS.  Remember when you could drink until you blacked out and then wake up two hours later refreshed and ready to start again?  I do.  Not so anymore.  Where before my hangovers were limited to slight dehydration and bad breath cured by greasy breakfast and a 20 oz of Coke, they’re now raging, two day affairs requiring only a minimum amount of movement (if any!) and a dark room.  As much as I hate to admit it, I think it’s also time to start limiting the excess to which I partake of the devil’s nectar.  Lacking a live in EMT to administer a saline drip as soon as I stumble into my bed, it might be the only viable option.

4.  GRAY HAIR.  For real.  Is it really necessary?  I don’t think think so.  The scientific reasoning is something having to do with the body’s inability to continue to make the proteins necessary to produce pigment.  I’m less concerned with the reasoning and more concerned with the fact that I can no longer yank out the errant grays that I see.  If I did that now, I’d have a sizable bald spot on my left temple.  I’ve always been happy with my hair color and I’m resistant to having to begin yet another beauty maintenance procedure that costs me money and time.

5.  DOG PUKE.  There aren’t really many things more disgusting than making your way to the bathroom in the dark at night only to walk through a wet and slimy puddle of dog bile.  My dog has a weak stomach.  EVERYTHING makes her vomit.  If we go somewhere new, or stay at home.  If she’s running around, or lazing on her bed.  New food.  Her regular food.  Dog treats.  Fireworks.  Balloons.  There’s no rhyme or reason.  Just a constant flow of bright yellow mess.  Methinks it’s time for an iron stomach transplant.

6.  THE LITTER BOX.  I never dreamed I’d own a cat.  I grew up with dogs.  When I was young, one of the first funny things my dad taught me to say, aside from “Disco Sucks” was that cats were good for one thing:  Boat anchors.  So when my girlfriend K (a vet tech) called me to give me a sob story about this tiny little kitten who had just lost its hind leg and needed a home, I was reluctant to accept.  But, being a sucker for a hard-luck story, I took the mewling thing in and we became cat owners.  I love my cat.  I hate her litter box.  I’ve inherited a slightly OCD need for cleanliness in my home, and that means the litter gets changed every day.  It’s a pain in my ass.  I hate it.  Unfortunately, on top of it being difficult to teach cats tricks, I think it might be life threatening to ask my three-legged cat to balance precariously above a toilet full of water in order to eliminate that disgusting box of cat waste.

7.  UNEMPLOYMENT.  It’s time for me to get a job.  Seriously.  This is the longest I’ve been without work since before I could work legally.  The break is over.  It’s been real, but I’m beginning to feel completely useless.  I’d make a terrible kept woman.

8.  FEELING GUILTY ABOUT THE FACT THAT I DON’T WANT CHILDREN.  This is an open note to those of you on the Stepford Mommy Track:  My vagina is not a clown car.  Not wanting kids does not make me a bad person.  Not having kids does not make my husband and I LESS of a family.  You may take your condescending, side-long glances and your “What’s Wrong With You, Don’t You Know That Your Life Isn’t Complete Without Babies” thought processes and shove them back into your uteruses where they belong.  I don’t want your Kool-Aid, thank you very much for offering.

9.  HAVING A BLACK THUMB.  I love plants.  Seriously.  Every space is better if it has a plant in it.  Unfortunately, if I even look at a plant sideways, it withers and dies.  I’m not lying.  You’re thinking about it now aren’t you?  I can hear it as sure as I’m sitting here.  You’re saying:  ”Well, you just never had a (insert the name of a plant that CAN’T die here)”.  I have.  And I’ve killed them.  I’d like to learn how not to do so.

10.  BAD ITALIAN FOOD.  I live in Washington State.  I don’t know how it’s possible, but apparently, the Italians never made it this far west.  You can’t find a good pizza, and when you ask for an Italian Mix at the deli, they look at you like you’ve asked for shit on a cracker.  I’m on a mission to find a good piccata, a halfway decent Diavolo and a passable almond cookie.  My kingdom for a cannoli!

11.  CRAPPING OUT AT THE LAST SECOND.  I’m doing it here, and I do it all the time in regular life.  I get excited about a project and then don’t finish it.  I shall, in 2011, finish what I start.

I can’t say how these things will change my life, other than they’ll make it considerably less annoying.  I’ve always known that I’d make an excellent, cranky old lady, but 31 is too early to start down that road.  I’m struggling toward a more zen me.  These things are just road blocks.