A Road Less Travelled

 So, on Saturday I was putting on black fingernail polish just because I felt like it, when I realized that the next day would be Sunday. Brilliant deduction, I know. This meant that I would either have to remove said black fingernail polish after wearing it for a few hours, which seemed rather silly, or wear it to church.

 After my first slight shock I realized that wearing it to church would not actually be such a horror. Most likely the people who were disturbed by this would be polite and reasonable about their concerns that this meant I was an evil person. I might even be able to convince them that they were wrong–about the connection the to black nail polish anyway. I’m pretty sure the ‘T’ in TULIP didn’t stand for ‘total depravity of everyone who wears black nail polish’.

 It turned out even better than I thought because only one person noticed (or at least only one person mentioned) my black fingernail polish, and he’s already a friend (see my definition here) so it didn’t bother me a bit that he thought it was very strange.

The only other comment I got on how I looked was an word of approval that I was wearing black again, especially as Gabrielle was wearing purple. Gabrielle and I have often noted that it seems wrong when I happen to wear a brighter color that she does. Apparently we’re not the only ones who notice anymore.

 Now, I don’t actually think of myself as goth.  I am aware of sharing some aesthetic sensibilities with the goth subculture, but I don’t wear black to be goth. I wear it because I like it, and it suits me. If I don’t feel like wearing black then I’ll wear something else. Yes, that does actually happen sometimes.

 But here I here I am showing, for lack of a better term, my ‘goth side’ to the people at church. And they haven’t started avoiding me yet. I don’t think I’ll wear my black lipstick to church quite yet, though…

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friend: n. Someone who has at least an idea how freaky odd you are and hasn’t started avoiding you yet.

 

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This morning I made pankcakes for breakfast. I used farm fresh eggs, whole milke kefir and whole wheat flour I had ground about two minutes before I mixed the batter up. Oh, and baking powder. Mmmmmm, they were tasty.

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One of my favorite smells is the smell of someone doing laundry. Very specifically it is that whiff of warm fabric softener mixed with dryer exhaust that you catch as you walk past a house. I love that smell.

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Our electric wheat grinder just came today! I am very excited. We’ve been wanting to start grinding our own wheat to get rid of that bitter aftertaste one finds in commercial wheat flour and because bread made from fresh ground flour is ninety-percent protein. Crystal knew that if she got a manual grinder we just wouldn’t use it very much. So, she found an electric grinder that only makes as much noise as a loud vacuum cleaner. Crystal is going to make biscuits to eat with dinner tonight out of freshly ground, organic wheat. Hooray for us!

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I have a personalized Google homepage. It makes me special. On my personal Google homepage are nifty gadgets I think I’ll like. I have something that keeps track of the current moon phase, I have a new optical illusion every time I load the page, I have nifty and nifty-ish quotes and I have a link to interesting How-Tos. Today’s How-To was How To Be Confident. I feel confident that only some of the steps are interesting. So, let’s look at those steps together.

Step 1: Make a list of special talents you have, or of things you do that are good - morally or otherwise.

Let’s see, I am very good at saying the wrong thing at the wrong time, I can loose my temper like nobody’s business, when it comes to being self-righteous I could try out for the Olympics and I am lazy as the day is long.

Wow! Those are some nice special talents. Just listing them and reading it over is making me more confident. I can feel the confidence flowing through my veins. But wait, there’s more.

Step 3: Choose a role model, whether someone close to you, or someone famous. Think of the qualities, both physical, emotional, moral, and spiritual, that the role model displays and work towards acquiring those.

I don’t have anyone specific in mind, but the world is full of people I would love to have as my role model. There are plenty of selfish, self-centered, lazy, self-righteous people to choose from, but since I am so confident I think I will just choose myself to be my role model. And since so many people are looking up to me to be a model of how to act I will just have to be more obvious about my special talents.

Step 5: Know that you have important things to say and do. When you feel strongly about something, speak loudly and clearly and make eye contact with people. Be yourself.

I didn’t have to be told about this one. I have always known that I have important things to say. If people don’t want to listen to me that’s their problem and their loss. I try not to be too pushy (another thing I’m good at), but I have found that sometimes I have to hold people down so that they can benefit from my wisdom. But I am confident that everyone should hear what I have to say so I do what I must.

Step 7: Celebrate your individuality. If you know you’ve got something special or different, work it, don’t hide it. That’s diversity. You wish you were taller, or shorter, skinnier, stronger, whatever the case may be. But you need to realize that if you were like everyone else then you wouldn’t be who YOU are. “What am I?” you ask; the answer’s easy: You’re a unique individual who is capable and growing and learning.

Anyone who knows me at all well knows that I am very good at celebrating my individuality. We throw a party every other week. I am who I am and I am confident that all my quirks and perfections make me the great person that I am. And of course I am one of a kind- I have yet to meet anyone as cool as I am. So I should be happy in my perfection. That will make me a more confident person.

These are most of the steps to becoming a confident person. Just in case you were still confused the webpage includes some helpful tips.

• Don’t stop yourself from doing what you want to do.
• NEVER excuse you virtues (i.e. “sorry for being here on time”, when your friend is not ready, and similar situations)
• Listen to your inner monologue, your inner voice. In situations where you believe you lack confidence, realize that your inner voice is telling you negative things. You need to retrain that inner voice to be positive in those situations. If you need help, find someone who can help you do that.

Well, I hardly needed these tips, but I can understand how people such as you all might. I mean, I never stop myself from doing what I want, I never apologize for my virtues and perfections, and whenever the inner monologue starts going I just sit back and listen to all the nice things it says about me. Sometimes I even make popcorn.

I hope you find these steps and tips helpful. I am such a great person that I know you all want to be just like me. If you want to choose me for your role model that’s fine with me. And if you need any help adjusting your inner monologue to be more positive and affirming just give me a call. I am very good at that. I hope that one day you will find your confidence and realize what a great person you are. If only more people loved themselves exactly as they are then the world would be a much better place.

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 Yesterday we had dinner with the Ben-Ezras, pursuant to our normal Resurrection Sunday tradition. As always we had good food and a lot of fun just hanging out together. We even got to have the Peiffers hanging out with us for part of the afternoon, which was really nice.

 But this year, as we walked out of church, there was something mixed in with the automatic reaction of, “Yeah, we get to go to the Ben-Ezra’s today”. I looked around at everyone getting ready to stay and eat together, and even though I was looking forward to eating with the Ben-Ezras, I didn’t want to leave.  

 I was trying to figure out my reaction to this, and I just realized–I think I’m savouring it. I’m in a church where I actually want to be around the other people in it. That’s usually been true to some extent, but now it’s not “Do I sit with the people I like, or the people I should probably talk to?” so much as, “Which conversation am I going to get to finish? The people I want to talk to are spread out over half the room!”

 Now, I can still point to which people in the church I can’t seem to start a conversation with, or the people who just plain scare me, but somehow that’s not really the point. Providence is home. And it’s really nice to have another reminder of that.

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Yes, I know this sounds boring, but it’s not really so much about my dress as it is a saga of Adiel and my complete lack of thank you note sending. It really started when she sent for me with a traveling relative a book of haiku she’d found at a library sale. (Can a truly express how much I approve of having the words book, haiku, and library sale in the same sentence?) I perused it, noting the lovely photography, and thinking I should surely send Adiel a note telling her how much I enjoyed it. This thought wandered away and never came back again.

  Some time later she sent me, again with a traveling relative, a cream colored gown she no longer used.  (Yes, I mean gown, not just dress. It’s much more expressive how it looks.) Again, I thought I really should send a thank you note, only this time I thought of it multiple times. I just never actually did it.

 Now granted, I kept thinking that after I made the small adjustment on the neckline, then I would wear it and then surely I would remember to write a thank you note. Except that besides putting off the thank you note, I also put off making the adjustment to the dress.

 Finally, I found a very simple way of making it work, and decided to wear it on Resurrection Sunday. I enjoyed wearing it immensely. It has the kind of sleeves that are ridiculous for working in, but are elegant and drapey and just fun to wear. Even better, I wore it all day and managed not to get it dirty. (Well, except for where the hem dragged on the ground, but the point is that I somehow managed not to spill anything on it.)

 So, thank you Adiel. I love the dress, and I will now wear it as often as I find occasion to. I really do appreciate it, regardless of the fact that Emily Post would be ashamed of me.

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 Ahem! I have a very important announcement to make. Perhaps more momentous than important… Or is it just of possible vague interest?

 Regardless, here it is. I am Person with a Laptop (laptop still in transit). I ordered it last week because I finally decided it was worth the money to have the freedom on working on writing projects. While working on writing projects was my main goal, there are a lot of fringe benefits to having a laptop. Beginning tomorrow (if the tracking number is correct) I will be able to write a blog post from any room in the house! The down side is that I will then have even less excuse for posting infrequently…

 For those who wonder about this sort of thing I should tell you that my laptop is a PC. I looked at Macs briefly, but besides being more expensive, they seem to carry a certain responsibility to become a Mac Person. This includes sneering at PCs, touting the marvelous abilites of Macs at every opportunity, and generally making the ownership of a Mac one of the cornerstones of one’s life. This is not the kind of responsibility I can handle right now. While I’m sure Macs really are great when you get to know them, I just don’t need that kind of commitment to my laptop.

 Please understand, this is not something I will apologize for. I mock you and your Macintosh computer! Um, at least, maybe I will after I reboot… 

 

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Yesterday I picked up a bar of soap and noticed that one corner looked like it had been broken off. I didn’t think much of it until I turned the bar over and saw teeth marks. Judging from the size of the teeth marks and the idiocy of the action I’m pretty sure I know who did it. Well, I guess he won’t be doing that again.

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