rabbit, rabbit, rabbit!

This hasn’t been my happiest month, but project good deed has served me well. This blog has officially kept my mind off of ExBoyfriend and depressing thoughts. Most of the time. Very good indeed.

I have a skeletal idea of what I want to do next… but as I did last month, I’m opening it up to all of you!

Here are my thoughts:

Every day I add to the daunting sheaf of pages I call my “idea pad”. Last night I was flipping through it and I realized that most of the “ideas” aren’t my own, they are from other people – from the blogs I read, the comments I get, the people I talk to – etc.

So every post this month has been about me, and what I’m doing. I want every post in May to be about all of you!

I’m going to call this project, The Ones I Love.

More tomorrow. Tonight I am going to make lists....!

Final good deed: to volunteer at the L House once a month. It's a recovery home for homeless women. 10! 

29th kindness: almost done!

One the my fellow bloggers, a woman who writes words I love, recently commented on Sexual Assault Awareness Month. Read her post here:

Sizzle Says, Part of the Solution

Even as women, we act as girls.

Exhibit One: Popular songs titles.
Girls just want to have fun. Boys don’t cry.

Exhibit Two: Expressions.
You throw like a girl. Don’t be a girl about it. Man up.

I could go on, but I won't.

Even later in life, past the age of dolls and ponies, women are taught to be girls. If we don’t fall into specific roles – assigned early on – then we are … the b word, the c word, the w word, and the s word. We are met with ridicule, disapproval, scorn… even disgust.

Good girls are:
- polite

- smiling

- soft spoken

- cardigan and skirt wearing
- compliant

- trophy wives

- living in orange county

- relationship/ family oriented
- sugar and spice, and everything nice

When a guy pursues you with aggression he is "driven" – when a girl does, she’s a psycho stalker. I heard this at a very young age – never call a boy, never be easy, always play hard to get. And I listened!!

Case and point: current situation with my ex-boyfriend. He still has my keys, and my sneakers, and I need them back - so I have been trying to get a hold of him... and nothing!!! he won't answer my calls, if he responds to my texts it's with a measly one word answer "huh" and "no" and if i'm lucky, "call you in 5" - needless to say, he doesn't call in five. he doesn't call in ten. he doesn't call in f-ing 24, 36, 72 hours.

I feel like a crazy person!! I don't want to lose myself in this web of mind games. The funny part? Most likely he doesn't even realize it - I feel like I'm five again, talking to my imaginary friend.

I am shy about asking for what I need - my keys, my shoes, my sanity - because I feel aggressive and out of my element. I know how to get the boy - I flutter my eyelashes, laugh a lot, and never make the phone call or the "let's hang out" suggestion. My success with men, sad to say, is contingent on acting like a “girl”.

When I was in seventh grade my boyfriend called me an “Estella” – we were reading Great Expectations at the time. I think this is one of my most fitting insults. Once I bait them I throw them back. And if I do hold onto them, eventually a time comes when I get irritable-restless-discontent, in FEAR, and I push them away - by making their lives hell.

How much of this ability to “attract” stems from fear? From loneliness? Fear of rejection, or worse, fear of loving and not being loved in return?

It’s easier to just “be a girl”. You are taken care of, you are spoiled, you are “provided for”.

BUT. I don’t want to lead a limited life. Twenty years from now I don’t want to bored, sitting around the house in curlers, ironing my husband’s wool socks for the 6,000th time. If this is my fate, twenty one years from now I’ll wake up in the bottle.

So I shyly, and humbly, am embarking on a – hopefully – different life.

And f*ck, if I have to go on ONE MORE BAD DATE, I might become a lesbian.

Seriously.

I just want to be myself and say things like:

aaron: hi, robin?

me: hi!

aaron: hi.

me: hi.

bla bla bla

aaron: it's hot, isn't it? i think it was ninety something today

me: yeah i stuck my head in the freezer like ten times this weekend

aaron: what?

me: then i let sam have a go

aaron: oh

me: oh.

aaron: oh.

poor aaron. probably thinking, what a psycho that girl was...

good deed yesterday and today: helping a friend in need. and letting another friend use my car so she can make an early class.

Q

breaking up: oh so hard

We would have been dating for two years on March 14th. He relocated to Michigan, then California for me. When we moved into this apartment we had so much hope for ourselves. People told us it was too soon, but we didn’t listen. We were fools in love. Know it alls. Uniques.

And now here I sit, my seltzer one hand, typing with the other. Our dog, really my dog, running circles around my legs. ExBoy came today and picked up the rest of his “stuff” – most of which I bought him. The fancy bike I got him for his birthday, the scenester sweater I came home with “just because” – I think he even took the salt shaker I swiped from a table in Costa Rica. But he did leave my keys! And no note. Oh, and no sneakers.

This apartment is like a memory minefield – yesterday I opened a rarely used kitchen cabinet to find a miniature “love” card I left him – I hid ten or so around the house, and this one said – Knock Knock, I love you!.

Little reminders of how hard I tried, how deeply I loved him, and how willing I was to make it work. Little reminders of how I failed, how my efforts were in vain, and how I couldn't control the end result.

Too depressing a post? I apologize if it’s heavy, but my heart has been a little heavy today, and I needed to lighten the load. Talking about it and knowing I did the right thing by ending it helps me. Looking back, I realize that I had reached my limit, that limit we all know in our gut. Enough was enough.

On a more positive note! For my good deed today, I went down a meeting phone list/ email list (about 25 or so names) and gave each one a positive message from my morning meditation book. I got two "you kept me sober today"s and one "um, I'm not an alcoholic".
Maybe I can’t be happy every day, but I can try to make someone else happy every day!

Have a good night, everyone. And please, if you have any advice on the aforementioned topic, I could really use some different perspectives!

i'm a woman, hear me purr - kindness #27&28

i love: something I can't describe.

The opposite of fear is faith –

The word spirituality. What do I think of when I hear this word? BC (before change) spirituality conjured: the boogieman of our generation, the cult of corny, groovy new agers with long hair and balloon pants – dear god, should I say it? Fanney packs. Fanney packs and Enya.

And post-change (referred to as an “entire physic change” by a man many of you know), I view the word differently.

It’s a cliché saying, but it helped me when I first tried to understand why this small word would posesses a big place in my newly fashioned life:

Religion is for people who are scared of hell; spirituality is for people who have been there.

Zen Quote: “God is a thousand dawnings.”

Feel the love-bliss all around you, as my modern day mystic, Barry, would say. Everyone and everything is inextricably linked. The only thing that separates me and you and me and “God” is the ego.

The ego is: conscious or unconscious separation from.

From my spiritual mentor, Barry, I have some homework: write poetry and consider life's beautiful faces - the aha! dawnings.
Some old classics: the ocean, the sea, the rain. Or Sam’s puppy face staring up at me first thing every morning. My Mom’s laugh, my Dad’s chuckle. Jackie’s wry comments. Cassie's mushy moments when she turns to the sun like a flower. The way I feel after talking to an old friend, relaxed and inspired, shrouded in love bliss.

And on and on.

Just things to think about.

I love something I can’t name.

Have a great week, everyone!

franz wright

And the ocean smells like lilacs in late August–how
is that.

The light there muted (silver) as remembered light.

Do you have any children?

No, lucky for them.

Bad things happen when you get hands, dolphin.

Can you tell us a little bit about your upbringing?

There is no down or up in space or in the womb.

If they’d stabbed me to death on the day I was born, it
would have been an act of mercy.

Like the light the last room, the windowless room at the
end, must look out on. Gold-tinged, blue

vapor trail breaking up now like the white line you see,
after driving all day, when your eyes close;

vapor trail breaking up now between huge clouds resembling
a kind of Mt. Rushmore of your parents’ faces.

And these untraveled windy back roads here–cotton
leaves blowing past me, in the long blue
horizontal light–

if I am on an island, how is it they go on forever.

This sky like an infinite tenderness, I have caught
glimpses of that, often, so often, and never yet have
I described it, I can’t, somehow, I never will.

How is it that I didn’t spend my whole life being happy, loving
other human beings’ faces.

And wave after wave, the ocean smells like lilacs in
late August.

25th kindness & insanity

kindness and insanity

today was the first day in a long line of days (taken one at a time) that i wanted to drink. when driving home i passed a neon lit liquor store, and instantly tasted that thick beer (dark, ann arbor brew) in my mouth.

this is the world's way of reminding me that i am still young, and have so much to discover about myself, and so much more growing to do. i have a long way to go before i'm "comfortable" and "free," as Barry says.

but i feel fortunate... the experience of craving/ obsession is absolute hell, absolute pain, BUT every time i get through it, and the call of the wild passes, i once again realize that feelings are not facts, and we don't think our way to better action - but act our way to better thinking.

pain is the cornerstone of growth, they tell me, and i'm starting to believe them.

good deed: i put $30 bucks in the basket. 7th tradition support.

have a peaceful weekend, everyone :)

24th kindness: starbucks

good deed: tipping $10 at Starbucks. two of my old coworkers were at the register. 

wallace stevens once said that poetry is the "supreme fiction." he was the critic's poet- a class can spend hours analyzing his work. a business man with an ordinary, albeit successful, career, he insisted on turning to the "necessary arts" for a "freshening of life." 

i agree, mr. stevens. or should i say wallace? wally? 

this is one of my favorite poems - it's about youth, and possible rape, music and beauty. reminds me of my first journal-snippet from 1998. 

Peter Quince at the Clavier 

I

JUST as my fingers on these keys
Make music, so the self-same sounds
On my spirit make a music too.

Music is feeling then, not sound;
And thus it is that what I feel, 
Here in this room, desiring you,

Thinking of your blue-shadowed silk,
Is music. It is like the strain
Waked in the elders by Susanna:

Of a green evening, clear and warm, 
She bathed in her still garden, while
The red-eyed elders, watching, felt

The basses of their being throb
In witching chords, and their thin blood
Pulse pizzicati of Hosanna. 

II
In the green water, clear and warm,
Susanna lay.
She searched
The touch of springs,
And found 
Concealed imaginings.
She sighed
For so much melody.

Upon the bank she stood
In the cool 
Of spent emotions.
She felt, among the leaves,
The dew
Of old devotions.

She walked upon the grass, 
Still quavering.
The winds were like her maids,
On timid feet,
Fetching her woven scarves,
Yet wavering. 

A breath upon her hand
Muted the night.
She turned—
A cymbal crashed,
And roaring horns. 

III
Soon, with a noise like tambourines,
Came her attendant Byzantines.

They wondered why Susanna cried
Against the elders by her side:

And as they whispered, the refrain 
Was like a willow swept by rain.

Anon, their lamps’ uplifted flame
Revealed Susanna and her shame.

And then the simpering Byzantines,
Fled, with a noise like tambourines. 

IV
Beauty is momentary in the mind—
The fitful tracing of a portal;
But in the flesh it is immortal.

The body dies; the body’s beauty lives.
So evenings die, in their green going, 
A wave, interminably flowing.
So gardens die, their meek breath scenting
The cowl of Winter, done repenting.
So maidens die, to the auroral
Celebration of a maiden’s choral. 

Susanna’s music touched the bawdy strings
Of those white elders; but, escaping,
Left only Death’s ironic scraping.
Now, in its immortality, it plays
On the clear viol of her memory, 
And makes a constant sacrament of praise.

my old journals

hi, ladies. you are probably wondering why i put you in the title - just wanted to remind you how quickly things change. love to you all.
***
I am: a person who saves a lot and writes down even more

I have kept a journal since I was nine years old.

I was born in 1985. 1985 to 1998 was a good time for me. Before 1998 there are dried flowers, rhyming poetry, dramatic gestures – and the occasional “guest” entry from my sister, Jackie.

But then, the real fun begins! (sarcasm: i need to define it for the californians). Here are some (tiny) excerpts from my past:
1998
His overpowering hands
I am nothing, left with a memory of a girl
And nice
Long ago

1999
I don’t know why I am not good enough for -----.
I feel horrible for ---- sometimes.
Sometimes I wish I could leave here forever. And never look back.
2000
I love myself.
I hate myself.

2001
Why am I so screwed up about boys?

2002
So it’s gone. They’re gone. The only familiar faces from my seventeen years have just left me, parted from me, blustering and red faced at a security checkpoint. I woke up to my new mother calling “Robine” into the room. They are young! I don’t know how to say anything. Or if I did know the language, I wouldn’t know what to ask! and wtf, why does Luis (loo-eeeeeze is how they say it) leave the toilet seat up? Last night I FELL IN!

2003
I love Spain. I love it, I love it, I love it – I never want to leave!

2003 – Summer
------ calls last night at five in the morning. Why? Booty call? Weed run? Or to talk? Fuck him. Every few nights I have a drug dream. Fuck me!
2004
Am I turning into Papa?
2005
Wasps breath alcohol – that's what ----- says. Am I a wasp? I’m British and Irish. Yes, I am probably a wasp.
Wait, I'm not protestant. Hell, I’m probably a hornet.

2006
I just met the ----- sister who was really into coke and sex. And then I met -----------. She has a pinched face.
How did I end up here?

2007
California light is gold. Am I ever going to return to Michigan? Jackie’s calling, gotta go.

2008
Now.
Funny how things turn out. I could pull different tidbits from my journals and present an entirely different past...
... but no worries, I'll leave you with this random assortment for now.
Happy Thursday!!

good deed today: cleaning the ernster's dirty dishes. 9 - it was a foul job.

22nd kindness: planting a tree

so i planted one of my house plants (a small tree) at the backbay today. probably broke some hyper-anal orange county law, but hey! it's earth day! had to do it. 

also... went on my first official "date" as a single girl. it was strange. realized i am not ready to date - especially go on a BLIND date, for the love of god, no. no, no, no. i am too critical, too cynical, and too closed at the moment to really give anyone a chance. i am deep in the missing my smart, funny, and kind ex-boyfriend mode... sigh. 

i want to be alone for awhile. it's what i need. and what i want - most of the time. 

more coherent thoughts and less rambling tomorrow, i promise, and for now a little fun in the sun from the desert. 

 

yeehaw! and 21st kindness

amigos 

desert flower 

another desert flower

hecho en mexico 

waiting for the meeting to start 

some pics for now... i'm off to snooze with my sampson-head. i've missed him. 

21st kindness: giving sampson a big bowl of peanut butter. warms my heart :)

 

19th kindness, 20th kindness, ball blastin' fun

20th kindness: told "compass," our horseback riding guide, that she did a great job. in reality, she was a bitch with a 'tude who made me feel like a no good city slicker.

(how is that for westernspeak)

19th kindness: shared my bulk candy with my best friend

more on the arizona adventure tomorrow - but one funny thing, we were watching children at the water park, and omar took this pic on his iphone -

accompanying quote:

"what are you scared of? that he's going to blast his little balls? ....... fing creep."

18th kindness: happy, happy girl

The Red Wheelbarrow
William Carlos Williams

so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.

robin's good deed today: making omar laugh about kids in the fountain. oh, and being EXTRA nice to the airport employees - two even commented on my good attitude! yes!

17th kindness: planting nice notes and a lil' history of photography - early 20th century

my best effort to capture what pictorialist photography was like...

a real pictorialist!! heinrich kuhn. see how this resembles a painting?

how do i move through the world? reading and researching. blame my private school education, blame my bookworm mother, blame my extremely inquisitive sisters - just don't blame me for being a nerd.

so, the subject on the brain today: photography.

A very strange art, concerning discovery and innovation. Light and shadow. Man, machine, and image.

Imagine the world when photography exploded into a fad. Can you imagine how jarring realistic images must have been? People didn’t know how to read photographs– they read them like paintings. Photography “exhibits” displayed small, framed prints thrown onto large walls. Instead of one or two prints per wall, there were tons of them, floor to ceiling – the “good” photographers aimed for viewer’s eyeline.

this is what pictorialism was all about. trying to assuage the stark exactness and details of photographic representation. even tones, selective focus, bland images - boring colors. etc. (ok, so it isn't my style)

I ask questions about photography, and the questions lead to more questions.

For example:

How does one classify photography? A means of mass communication, a mechanic process, an artistic process, a scientific process... One of the very few arts that can claim objectivity. This must have pissed all those highly subjective impressionists OFF. Freedom from the artist – it’s about the machine and the process.

So wtf? Is it a form of information or artistic expression?

Only in the second quarter of the twentieth century was the medium considered study-able. Nobody recorded the history of photography until the 1930’s. In the early 1900’s absolutely no museums had photography sections. Now, most of them do.

The layman’s art – anyone can do it! Grab a Kodak, a snapshot camera, and make a moment. Joe Blow is the next Da Vinci –

This must have INFURIATED artists who spent years and years honing their artistic skill.

Anyway, a little food for thought. Above is one of my favorite pictorialists and probably the raciest image i could find. look at that bod! hot.

good deed today: slipping nice notes into random books at the library. 5.

16th kindness: money bags and neurosis

an image to keep me calm

recently some girl friends from way back - i'm talking high school- have resurfaced.

...and i'm not sure how comfortable i am rebuilding bridges.

i grew up (part of the time) in palm beach county, florida - toxic people aplenty. land of the botox beauty and the silicon snake. shiny people with big hair and small hearts whose friendships felt more like death sentences. **

... or was that my hold on myself? did i create the drama in my head?

am i absolutely insane for resenting people from that long ago?

how do you handle past demons? slap a halo on their heads and forgive and forget? or slam that door and keep it locked?

help!

good deed today: donating money to the newport club.

** there are many people who do not fall under this category. the cowie clan, the larkins, the mottas, the parkers, the hickels (aha), our neighbors with the yapster dog - just to name a few.

15th kindness: surf and sand

One Heart
By Franz Wright

It is late afternoon and I have just returned from

the longer version of my walk nobody knows

about. For the first time in nearly a month, and

everything changed. It is the end of March, once

more I have lived. This morning a young woman

described what it’s like shooting coke with a baby
in your arms. The astonishing windy and altering light

and clouds and water were, at certain moments,
You.

There is only one heart in my body, have mercy on me.

The brown leaves buried all winter creatureless feet
running over dead grass beginning to green, the first scent-
less violet here and there, returned, the first star noticed all
at once as one stands staring into the black water.

Thank You for letting me live for a little as one of the

sane; thank You for letting me know what this is
like.
Thank You for letting me look at your frightening

blue sky without fear, and your terrible world without

terror, and your loveless psychotic and hopelessly

lost

     with this love

today's kindness: walk on the beach and picking up litter. 5.  

this is a poem i return to often - especially the last stanza. given the last few day's events, i thought it would be appropriate to share. 

memorial for jenny s

fresh cut flowers

one of my good friends passed away this weekend. we met each other two years ago through a mutual AA contact... she had 8 months more than i did.

in may 2007 she relapsed, to everyone's shock, and took 36 vicodin in a 12 hour period. she was promptly sent to another rehab - her fourth, i believe? - in texas.

i felt a range of emotions - devastation, sadness, pity, concern, anger - the usual host of feelings surrounding a relapse – mine or someone else’s.

but as time went on, I heard from her less and less. a whole lot of life was happening, and we lost touch, save the occasional email here and there.

i hate this disease, this silent assassin.

there is nothing you can do for someone in the throes of alcoholism. i don’t care what the manifestation is – drinking, drugging, fucking – it’s all the same.

i am lucky i got this sobriety/ recovery thing before it was too late. i flirted with death, and wound up in the hospital more times than i care to admit.

Anyway…. Jenny was smart, funny, and beautiful. 26 years old. Last year we celebrated her birthday with a day at the beach. She was Jewish, and had a profound connection to her religion. On Wednesday nights she would cook us dinner – her specialty was pico de gallo – and finish it off with a desert of ice cream and gummy worms. She loved clothes, she loved makeup, she loved her family and her friends. Unfortunately, she loved pills more.

She relapsed another time in Texas, and was taken to a detox center. I guess the pills and alcohol were still in her system – because that night she took a bath and drowned.

please, if any of you are even questioning whether or not you are an alcoholic/ addict – just get in touch with someone who is sober. You can ask me, or someone else, just please reach your hand out.

my good deed today: organizing a memorial service here in newport. no rating.

14th kindness: a memorial for Jenny S.

fresh cut flowers

weekend round up

12th kindness: donating blood to unknown recipients / 8 (I passed out)

13th kindness: buying a birthday present i can't afford for a friend i really love/ 5 (it's my duty!)


explanation: 

I think I post too often. I'm going to skip the weekends from now on... don't want to bore you readers! plus blogger isn't working, and won't let me upload pics. infuriating! time to call on my destroyer!

here is the test! 

http://www.capt.org/catalog/MBTI-Book-PMAIonline.htm

results

I took the test. Here are my results:

Your PMAI Scores:
Lover - 28
Creator - 25
Magician - 25
Ruler - 24
Sage - 23
Jester - 23
Destroyer - 22
Warrior - 22
Caregiver - 22
Seeker - 22
Innocent - 20
Orphan - 13

I am a lover/ creator/ magician – these are the roles I play most of the time.

These archetypes are available to me, but do not determine how I view the world: Ruler/ Sage/ Jester/ Destroyer/ Warrior/ Caregiver/ Seeker/ Innocent.

I do not call on the Orphan often, and have trouble understanding why people play this role.

Lover:
I assume that love is the answer. I am sensuous, alive, vital, and full of love for others and for life. I see others as peers, not people in need of help.

Creator:
I assume what can be imagined can be created.

Magician:
I assume that perception defines reality.

fitting for someone with a disease of perception, eh?

I DON’T understand the Orphan: someone who “assumes that it pays to be careful”. Someone who uses realism and logic to combat day to day problems...

….psh! This is so not my proverbial cup-o-tea. I tend to play with fire until the point of third degree burns. I guess I could learn from annies.

a thought: every boy I have ever dated fits this profile. opposites attract?

11th kindness: help from Jung & helping the young

balboa boardwalk.

some history 

We all have stories – we all have plots. I’m going to call your life your plot, and my life my plot. This is a change from my Wavy Gravy days – remember, friend? – when I called my reality my “movie” and your reality, your “movie”. **

** NOTE: This was also the time I lived on the beach with out air conditioning in the dead middle of Florida summer. Upwards of 100 degrees. I spent my days painting on walls and my nights skinny dipping in neighbor’s pools… need I say more? 

Carl Jung called the roles we play in our specific plots our “archetypes”. Father, mother, child, lover, sister, creator, warrior, caregiver, blogger, dog lover – whatever.

There are as many archetypes as there are “typical situations in life”. But we tend to use a select few – our “dominant archetypes”. Sometimes we screw up – we use the wrong archetypes in the wrong situations. Like trying to fit a round peg in a square hole, it just doesn’t fit. Jung said, "there is no lunacy people under the domination of an archetype will not fall a prey to" (Jung, 1959). Powerful stuff, huh? That Jung. Jokester. 

A woman I admire very much suggested I take this test, and I’m going to… but first I wanted to present a little background!

I know at least one of you – ahem, Cassandra – will want to take this with me.

good deed today: introducing myself to a newcomer (she is 15) and giving her my unlisted phone number. i just hope i can be an example - not a cautionary tale. 6. 

have a wonderful weekend, everyone! and thank you so much for your smart, thoughtful comments. they really make my day. even your's, my omy friend. 

10th kindness: tibet, roses, and proper chronological order :)

this picture is for wayfaring wanderer - i was so inspired by your beautiful photographs that i wanted to take a flower picture, too! roses. but what kind? 

my good deed: hooking up with amnesty international and demanding the release of 15 Tibetan monks. rating: 7. 

Yesterday's post, written in the airplane:

What is the difference between nurture and enable? Cameron’s writes:

Someone who

Nurtures (v) – gives you a sense of your own competency and possibility,

Someone who

Enables (v) – gives you a message that you will never get it straight with out their help


But, as anything else, enabling has more to do with the enabler than the victim. Or the beneficiary?

********

Artist’s Way Task:

List three nurturing friends who help you, not treat you as though you are helpless. Which of their traits, particularly, serve you well?

- Jackie
o Accepting, Kind, Funny, Kindred Spirit

- Mom
o Creative, Artistic, Clever, Persistent

- Omar
o Aware, Stable, Unconditional, Funny

- Donna
o Aggressive, Strong, Intellectual, High Expectations

To all of you: Who are the nurturers in your life?

9th kindness: jackie don't read this

i hate writing "8th kindness" on the 9th of April. i like to be on schedule. so i shipped jackie her new yorkers today... kind to both of us! enjoy : ) 

8th kindness: i see said the blind man

i don't know if it's my sickbed stupor or my strange concoction of homeopathic meds... but I thought this would be a great kindness... you tell me, my healthy friends: crazy-scary or kind-whimsical ?

yesterday i went to my thai place and told them to make me the hottest thom-ka-gai possible. now, as many of you know, i'm not a spicy person - a tank top and sandals are required if i'm to eat even the mildest salsa - 

so i tried this coconut concoction... and couldn't taste a THING! but i could breathe through my nose for 10 minutes, and boy, was it worth it. 

SO - i bought a bag of fortune cookies (prewrapped) and on today's walk with Sampson (featured above) I placed each in mailboxes around the neighborhood.

ceiling in the bathroom. not related, but cool, eh?

i thought it might be a nice surprise for some of the local residents. sort of a tomorrow is a new day vibe... ? i give myself a 5 for venturing out of quarantine.

 

happy hump day! 

7th kindness: self-quarantine

I woke up sick. Sickly sick, with a red, scratchy throat and a stuffy nose. I feel as though someone cracked open my head and filled it with cement. Stuffed cotton balls in my ears.
Glazed my eyeballs with a blowtorch. It’s misery, absolute misery.

I calculated my average niceness: 5 point something. So, according to Cassie, I have to beat my average by next Tuesday... Any suggestions?

My good deed today: going home early and sparing students what could very well be the next bubonic plague. 4. The image above is from a beach walk on Sunday... to remind myself of happier times (sob).

meeting

At seven we went to a meeting, and as always, I heard exactly what I needed to hear.

This is what was said:

If I take the right action, my heart and mind will follow.

Whatever you envy – that is exactly what you cannot have for yourself.

Comfort is a want not a need.

6th kindness: funny

I am no longer imprisoned by the bondage of self.

Me in my natural state: I am impulsive, I am rash, I am passionate, and I am NOT prone to logical, rational thought. I have a drink in one hand and a cigarette in the other. Party time.

Now, in my second life, I do things differently. They say that to change you only have to alter one thing - and that's everything. And not with out pain and suffering – and not with out truth and joy.

I think everyone reaches this point. Some of us call it a spiritual awakening – others call it growing up. Strum und Drang, Midlife crisis, Existential thought, Psychotic Break… the list continues ad infinitum.

One of my dear friends said something the other day, and like many of this person’s comments, it keeps rolling around in my head. This is how the conversation went:

Me: so you’ve been checking out the blog?
Person: yes, it’s very you, overly expressive.
Me: in the most charming of ways
….
Person: It is emotional for me to see you doing well. I feel like we went down together, and now we can go up together, too.

When he/she told me this, I felt so supported – even loved. I felt inspired and grateful.

I am no longer imprisoned by the bondage of self. I’m not free… but I’m a hell of a lot closer than I used to be.

my good deed: cutting out comics from the new yorker, pasting them into cards, and sending them to random addresses! 7 - it took me awhile.

5th kindness: carnations = filler flowers = best effort

Today I couldn’t think of a kindness. Code for: I was lost in my own BS.

I spent the day with a dear friend of mine, sharing with her my heart and my head. But despite her generous support, I couldn't shake the feeling - just one of those sundays.

Good ideas to ponder when we head into this new week! Enjoy the last of your weekend hours, everyone.

I did, finally, figure out a good deed.

A scrooge lives across from me - I despise this platinum blonde, silicon boobed, scratchy voiced woman. For good reason! When Sampson was just a puppy (aw, tear) we left him in his cage - no, sorry, his "house"- for five hours. We were at a baseball game, what could we do? I guess he was barking the entire time, because we came home to a note on the door:

PLEASE TAKE CARE OF YOUR DOG. HE HAS BEEN BARKING THE ENTIRE DAY. OTHERWISE I WILL HAVE TO REPORT YOU TO ANIMAL SERVICES.

My blood boils when I type this. I was so ashamed! ASSHOLE. Breathe, Robin, breathe.

So today I bought a bought a bouquet of flowers and left them at her door, attaching this note:

before you start thinking, "that robin, what a saint!" I must inform you that I gifted her with pink carnations. I TRIED not to pitch a little spite in there... but alas, I am who I am.

I give myself a 6.

4th kindness: support public radio!

today is Sampson's birthday! he is one year old. more on this tomorrow, when the party is officially over - but let me just say, i DID let him into his toy cupboard, and when I say "let him in" - well... 

on another note, my good deed today was donating to npr. half my paycheck. rating: 5. (my paycheck ain't that big) 

3rd kindness: garbage woman walking

This afternoon Sir Sampson and I took a leisurely stroll. What better time to practice good deeding than this? I grabbed a Publix bag (ok, Ralphs) and picked up litter as Sam trotted beside me. At one point he snatched the makeshift garbage and tore off running – I sprinted behind him yelling, “Sampson, come on! That’s my good deed! Sampson!” An old man walking towards me shook his head, grumbled a few shucks and damnations, and changed direction. 

My rating: normally a 4, but old man’s shaming and Sampson’s obvious need for another training class boost me to a 5. 

Happy Friday! 

2nd kindness: big tip at the parlor

today i left a big tip for the teenager who served me my soft serve. she was nice with a high pitched giggle- i felt she deserved more than the nickels and dimes filling up her "college fund" jar. rating? i'll give it a 4. 

THE EMPEROR OF ICE CREAM 

Call the roller of big cigars,
The muscular one, and bid him whip
In kitchen cups concupiscent curds.
Let the wenches dawdle in such dress
As they are used to wear, and let the boys
Bring flowers in last month's newspapers.
Let be be finale of seem.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.

Take from the dresser of deal,
Lacking the three glass knobs, that sheet
On which she embroidered fantails once
And spread it so as to cover her face.
If her horny feet protrude, they come
To show how cold she is, and dumb.
Let the lamp affix its beam.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.

-- Wallace Stevens

i also want to add, this month is Sexual Assault Awareness Month - just another reason to keep this kindness project rolling!

1st kindness: hanging out with ernie

i spent the entire day learning accounting-stuff with the bookkeeper of my former employer: sixty year old ernie. 

i don't necessarily need this job. and i get the feeling ernster doesn't necessarily need my assistance. 

but i do know this: he lives alone and he is excited to pass his skills onto someone young and foolish enough to learn them. he elected me a few months ago, but i always presented an excuse. now that i quit my job, guess what? no readily available excuse! 

it is kind of him to take me under his wing. we spent 1/4 of the day working and 3/4ths eating pumpkin pie (sugarless) with cool whip (low fat) and gossiping about our coworkers. 

when he was fiddling at the computer i watered his plants. i'm almost positive he didn't notice. so this is my first deed of the month! 

rating: 5*

*rating system is 1 through 10, 1 is cruel and 10 is mother teresa. 

big grin

I have decided to merge all of your wonderful, creative suggestions. The theme for April is rated kind acts. I want to make people smile. Myself included :) 

daily: 

1) do something nice for someone else - and if I am discovered it doesn't count (inspired by  1218 and  kim )

3) post pictures of/representing aforementioned kind act (jess)

4) rate my days as cassie suggested.

5) work on champion macaroni sculpture garden - what Tom refers to as the "lost art" 

6) collect junk and garbage and glue them to a piece of furniture... (is this what you meant, mother??)

would anyone* like to join me in my quest? take on one, two or all six of the items on my daily menu?

*Cassie & Jackie: since you are kin you are required to join me. Especially since you have me rating my days now, Miss Casserole!!) 

 

thinking

i'm thinking of a project for april. any medium, just a project. any ideas?