Reprogrammable Girl: Robot Meets Girl

The Dangers of Sitting Still

Wednesday, August 22, 2007

I haven't posted about Comic-Con 2007 properly. I really want to do that, but doing that takes effort. Effort which I just don't seem to have these days. It took a lot for me to simply get the dry cleaning from the new Ralphs that is a block away from me. And it's not even because I'm depressed (which is a happy change of pace)! I'm actually the happiest I've ever been--and it's not the kind of happy that I fake because I know I'm supposed
to be happy, and the why-aren't-you-happy questions are too scary to contemplate. It's the kind of happy where I feel calm, tranquil and basically centered with myself and the universe.

Me and the universe, we're back on good terms. In fact, I've been so happy that I have regained my psychic powers, also known as my jedi mind tricks. It's been uncanny. Ya'll think I'm joking whenever I refer to my jedi mind powers, and for the most part, I am. But I have picked up the phone before it's rung consistently over the past week. I've answered questions B and my brother Leo hadn't asked out loud. The best, though, is my effect on electronics. I can no longer wear a watch, just like in the good ole days when I was a teenager. However, that's not the best part. I was at Rite Aid last week--they're having a sale, by the way, where a bunch of stuff is buy-one-get-one-free--and I have this Rite Aid gift card for $30 for transferring a prescription. I bought a lot of stuff BOGO, particularly Neutrogena products because that brand hardly ever goes on sale (plus they have an added bonus that if you buy $20 worth of stuff, you get a $5 single-check Rite-Aid rebate). I was looking at my hand basket and thinking to myself that I really didn't want to spend more than my gift card, but I had essentially $80 worth of stuff, which seemed too good of a deal to put away (especially in regards to things to Things I Actually Needed). I decided to just get it, while secretly willing it to be enough for my Rite Aid gift card. Whilst in line, I watched four people get rung up properly. When I got my turn in line, the register malfunctioned. Meaning, she was ringing up my stuff, it was making the noise, but it didn't register about $55 worth of stuff. And the cashier didn't notice. I noticed, but I figured I'd just double-check when I got outside and examined my receipt. Maybe I was seeing the screen wrong. But in case I wasn't, I didn't want to bring attention to it.

I still have five bucks on my gift card, too.

I suppose this could be considered psychic stealing, since I did want it to happen, then it happened, and I didn't do anything about it. And I'll take that. I'll admit I'm an opportunist. I'm not going to point things out to people purposefully. But I did feel a smidge guilty. But only a smidge. Mostly, I've just been marveling at how uncanny my spidey sense has been lately.

So why the sudden spike in psychic activity?

I think it was our trip to Yosemite. B and I actually climbed a honest-to-goodness mountain, and it's one of the proudest and most spiritual moments of my life. And I shared that experience with two relative strangers, a fellow mountain climber, Mark, and our ranger and guide for the hike, Sierra, who was from Placerville, California (Placerville is usually my proxy for Mt. Aukum, because Placerville was the closest town to us with a grocery store that wasn't Hall's Market--which was usually kind of overpriced because it was the only grocery store between us and Placerville. Anyway, when people ask where I'm from, I usually say Placerville and explain it's the last stop before Lake Tahoe on Hwy 50--anyway, most Californians don't even know where Placerville is, so it was really trippy to meet someone who had his wisdom teeth pulled from the same doctor as me--Dr. Ozawa, in case you were wondering).

The reason I bring the "relative stranger" into the equation is because I don't usually open up to people, and it takes me a helluva long time to feel comfortable enough to share meaningful experiences with people I choose to include in my life. So, I wasn't expecting the day to turn into anything meaningful. I figured we'd climb a mountain, see some pretty sights, and that'd be it. But it was way more than that. I felt the smallness I used to feel in the measuring scale of the universe, back when I used to think about such things. Back when I used to live in the middle of the nowhere. It's a beautiful feeling because at once I feel like I am too small to make a difference in the world, but that my tininess is a virtue, because it means any mistakes I make will be as equally minuscule. And I can continue to try.

And it suddenly became very clear. Writing terrifies me these days. So I don't write. I don't write because I'm afraid of trying and failing--when I used to be the person who was fearless. Now I don't even try? This saddened me. I am afraid of failure. I feel like there is so much pressure to be special in grad school. To be special in a fiction workshop. To be special in a literature or theory class. But that pressure is really my fear that if I try, and fail, I'll find out that I am simply ordinary. But the old me was never afraid to try. The old me never even acknowledged the possibility that I am not a special and unique snowflake (I am! Damn you Tyler Durden!). And that's what made me special. Because I fought through the fear to find something extraordinary. The fearlessness led me to places in my writing that were special.

I realize that over the years, I've let my thirst for approval drive me instead of my fearlessness. Thirst for approval from my father, my mother, friends, teachers, even B. That's the saddest thing of all to me: that I've lost the fearlessness. When I got accepted to NYU, I allowed my writing to be entwined with that need, with that thirst, because suddenly writing made me special enough to be one of the forty selected from 2600 applications to the Dramatic Writing department. At one of my jobs during the summer after leaving Tech for NYU (it was at the telemarketing one, actually), I even met someone who had also applied to the Dramatic Writing program but she had been rejected (what are the chances, right?). Wow. I haven't thought about that in six years. How randomly organized of the universe.

Anyway, nowadays, I think my leaving NYU would have been inevitable and not simply a ramification of 9/11. I think that fear of failure started the moment I got my acceptance letter, and was fueled by 9/11 but not sparked by it. 9/11 allowed me to fear writing. Because look where writing took me? It was bringing me my dreams. What else would my writing have to live up to? And it was nearly two years later when I suddenly felt that fearlessness again in a creative non-fiction workshop. With enough distance, I found that I was able to enjoy it again.

But once more, now in grad school, my future depends on writing, and that's such a scary prospect. And I know it's crazy, but I watch shows like America's Next Top Model and Kimora: Life In The Fab Lane, and these women (Tyra Banks and Kimora Lee Simmons), and, well, I feel inspired by them. They knew from a young age what they wanted to do with their lives and they've gone after it (plus they teach me how to smile wit my eyez, a phrase which I'll attribute to my friend Charlie).

Attaching my livelihood to writing is a scary prospect, because what if I can't get published? What if I can't make money at it? What if...? What if? Whatif? I get caught up in the fact that fellow students seem to be more special than me (they're getting published, they're winning awards, blah blah blah). I'm getting lost down a road that I haven't even begun yet. And there's no reason to worry about where I'll end up if I have nothing to start with. I'm here right now and this is where I'm at and that's okay.

This is going to seem really off track, but there's a show called Design Star (to which I am thoroughly addicted, which I suppose I could say the same about any number of reality shows), but two weeks ago, each designer was given a plain white room, $399 and could only shop at the ninety-nine cent store. Oh, and the rooms did not have to be functional. One of the designers, Todd, came up with this:

Couch Surfing

Todd is a surfer/rock star type who is constantly, and kind of annoyingly, doing somersaults on things he shouldn't and building irreverant skateboard ramps in areas that shouldn't really be skateboarded in, but everyone finds it scintillating that he had such "vision" for the "space." Anyway, aside from my general dislike of him, I will admit that he came up with something kind of profound. When asked about his room, he said, "It's about the dangers of sitting still," and I felt chilled to my core. It's been two weeks, and I still feel chilled. Sadly, all profundity was lost later in the same episode when asked, again, this time by judges, what his room was about and he said, "Couch surfing." Yeah. So not the same. But I will be forever grateful for the genuine nugget of wisdom he was able to impart.

The kind of stillness and tiredness I have felt this summer has been tremendously helpful (when I am not chastising myself for wasting time watching TV instead of writing). I have learned a lot about myself in the process of sitting still.

Now, the challenge is to get up and get going.

First order of business will be to plan my first costume project, so that I may buy fabric and begin construction. Whenever I thought about this prospect, I would feel tired and overwhelmed by the sheer number of ideas (I have no less than 18 costume ideas). But it's like web design. I should pick the one I feel most excited by.

Labels: america's next top model, california, camping, clothing, cosplay, costumes, design star, grad school, hobbies, kimora, life in the fab lane, psychic, reality shows, tired, tyra banks, uncomfortable truths, yosemite

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