You'll never watch your life slide out of view

Last night at Big Chicks I made loosethread dance with me to Pulp's 'Common People' even though you can't really dance to it. We figured it out. For me that involved singing outloud and jerking my head around.

There are things I want to do today and there are things I have to do today. As tempting as it is to blow those 'should' things off, I really can't. I mean, obviously I could, but the aftermath of doing so just isn't worth it, so I'll make it happen like Mariah Carey.

The other day I was shopping downtown before work for some undershirts and ended up with some clearance items, including orange flipflops. I'm still not sure how I feel about having something lodged between my toes. I've never been crazy about flipflops for this reason, ever since I was a kid. But I see tons of people wearing them all the time and I'm like, why not me? Damn, them ishts hurt when I first wore them, just out into the backyard to take the dog out. Its getting a little better. They are totally hippie brand of flip flops too with some cartoon smiley face character and a motto of "Life is Good." I was more attracted to the color and the price, but there's a small part of me that likes them for playing into my fantasy of living in my corn oil-operated VW van. I can't really tie-dye though, so I'd have to come up with some other way to make money along the way.

When shopping, I also got a fig-scented candle (which is one of my current favorites, in the candle genre). The woman who rang me up was inspecting the box, which basically was green with leaf designs and said "Green Fig".

"What is this?" She seemed a bit suspicious, and I just blurted out: "Smell it!" She opened up the box and took a whiff and was surprised at how nice it was. "See, it's fruity -- but not TOO fruity." She laughed and said, "I was a little worried when you said 'smell it' -- I didn't know what you were getting me into."

Then she paused and said, "yeah, you can take that home, light it, turn the lights down low.....that would reaaaal nice." Um, did I mention this woman was in her 60s?

I said, "you know, there's one left over there on the rack."

"Well, ok then! Maybe I'll have to go pick that up for myself."

"Then I'll be back next week to see how it worked out."

Love a girl who holds the world in a paper cup

I finally bought my actual plane ticket to San Francisco for the end of June and I've been thinking about my birthday and how I'm sort of actually making it a big deal. I mean, for me. There have been plenty of years where I have done very little for the occasion, by choice, and this year I maybe want a little more, though of course I'm immediately hesitant to allow myself to feel such things because then I start to think, oh well, that's just setting myself up for disappointment. But actually, no, its not, I don't have one specific idea for what plan needs to happen. Its more about a general atmosphere of festivity, of wanting everything to be part of the celebration of the year and my life, whether its eating food or tripping on a sidewalk or laughing with a dozen friends or sitting in sunshine.

I am turning thirty. I feel slightly embarassed about it, it seems to young, so naive, in this strange way, like wow, you're only 30? You're just now turning 30?. But the other part of me feels like the number is solid, more stable, in that way of marking an occasion can be like, wow, I did it, I made it.

The joke is frequently made (by me too) about "the Jesus birthday". Several people lately around me are celebrating their 33rd, so its been around, and I had this thought a couple months ago actually, which I'd forgotten, but was reminded this week when I went to a 33rd birthday outing, -- and yes, I get this is a joke, an ironic reference by people who are generally not Christian, who have a touch of morbid humor because after all, he did supposedly get killed at the age -- but 33 isn't really a good Jesus year. The 'real' Jesus year is the age of 30. That is how old he was when he performed his first miracle, came out of the closet as a prophet, started teaching, etc. (I mean, you know, all this is 'historically' speaking of course. Hi, I was raised Methodist, it's all still up there in my brains.) But also I was just reading about Siddharta Gautama and how he left home at 29, to visit his kingdom, it was the beginning of what would become his spiritual awakening, so now I've been thinking, about all these things -- Saturn returns, Jesus year, etc., and maybe the mini-existential crisis at this time isn't just a product of our contemporary society, maybe there's something to it. And I can get down with that, with turning 30, and thinking ok, here's where I turn water into wine, here's where I go out in the world, here's where I [insert other cultural myths/allegories involving hero's journeys]. Here's where I make it happen and get the ball rolling, where maybe my self has coalesced and I can take it out into my life and find out what I can really do.

[I'm actually sorta glad its Friday evening when I'm posting my earnest woo-woo entry.]