Drink some water, you'll feel better.

Of course, at night when I'm exhausted my brain has ALL THE IDEAS. But when I get up in the morning and want to implement one, just one, for a blog entry, my brain says, nope. Nope, what were you thinking? Nope.

I wanted to take one of the pages I have open on tabs either on the laptop or on my phone and link to the page and then discuss said information. But they're all either too short or too long to discuss this morning. I need to get a hundred other things done today.

I don't want to just blow off my blog for the whole of November. If I go too long making entries it's hard to get back to them.

I really need some time off. Away from everything, everyone. I wish I could take a vacation all on my own. I might plan a whole vacation on my own. It may never be taken, but it would be fun to plan it. Where should I go? Let's start small. Yeah, I could plan to go anywhere, but I want to start with someplace close. Let's make the goal realistic, okay? Some people say, "Dream big! If you're not going anyway, just go crazy! Or maybe, "You don't know you'll never go, visualize!"

But I find planning for a big trip overwhelming. Like...I'd like to go to China to see the end of the Great Wall, where it meets the ocean. But that's insanely expensive and I don't even have my passport. So why don't I plan a small vacation. Like...a weekend. No, I want to plan a week. But a weekend is more reasonable. No I don't want to be reasonable! I want to have fun! If I plan for a week I'd have to take off work! Okay fine, plan for both. Do one plan for a weekend -- maybe a four day weekend -- and one plan for a week. We'll plan for some place close, within a two hour driving radius from where I currently live. And it's me and only me. What will I do? Go hiking? Maybe. I've heard Starved Rock park is really pretty and I've seen pictures from my friends' trips, so I know it's true.

Looks like a good choice.

And I think Starved Rock is only a few hours away. Let me check. Ooh, they have a lodge! That's pretty much perfect for the first time. Dude, they're only an hour away. Not even that much. I am soooo going to Starved Rock State Park.

Or at least elaborately planning a vacation BY MYSELF to said park.

I don't know who Brene Brown is, but I'm feeling this.

Only it's not a midlife crisis, I've felt like this for a long time. But yeah, midlife seems to be the tipping point. I hate thinking about the idea that I'm at midlife. Fuck that! I want at least a hundred more years to do stuff! I've only just now figured out who I am! I refuse to go out in my nineties, I'm not going anywhere. Fuck you guys and your stupid "aging". I refuse to age anymore. I won't do it. 

In fact? I'm going to un-age. De-age? Instead of gaining a year on my birthday, I'm going to subtract a year. I'm going to tell myself I'm a year younger until my subconscious believes it. Then I'll do the same the next year and the next year until I reach...twenty-seven. That's a good age. Young enough to still look great and have lots of energy (unless you were me at twenty-seven, I looked like shit, but all the more reason to hit the reset button) but old enough to have a better car insurance payment and decent credit rating if you've been careful.

The ever-watchful eye. I like the single eye symbol, but I can do without the pyramid.
I should do a Zentangle of this.

Stand together.

Bang. Bang. Bang. BANG. BANG.

Slow and steady and terrifyingly LOUD.

I sit in a room with a group of people. The floor beneath us shakes with the force of the blows we hear. The walls shake, the windows rattle with the force and we can hear the creaking of the joists. 

We can hear the roaring outside, the terrible roaring. It’s getting louder.

There’s a monster pounding at the door. And it will get in. That cannot be stopped.

I look to my left and I look to my right and I look all around me and see that I am not alone. We are shaking and crying and scared but we are each stronger than we know. I reach out my hand on either side and I can feel that I’m not alone. I have my friends. 

We can face this monster down. It may wreck our house and all that we’ve built but we’ll face the monster down and come out the other side.

And we will find new friends along the way. You will find friends in places you never thought to look. REACH OUT TO THEM. DO NOT LET FEAR OF THE UNKNOWN KEEP YOU FROM MAKING A CONNECTION.

While searching for images for this post, I found a picture of a sixteen year old boy living in India. The boy has neurofibromatosis, a genetic condition which causes uncontrollable growths along the nerves. He's a modern day medicine man, half his face is grown larger than the other, it looks bloated and swollen and melting.

I have food, shelter, money...privilege. I am scared of the monster at the door and what will happen to my friends, but I have gratitude for all I have as well.

Find your gratitudes.

Comic Misdirection

Master Chicken, Kung Fu Panda 3

Today's entry is just a picture of Master Chicken from Kung Fu Panda 3. And these sentences, stating that this picture is all the entry consists of. Because MASTER CHICKEN. I am giggly about the idea of a Kung Fu Master chicken. 

Technically he's a rooster. But they don't call him Master Rooster. Because roosters are badass, why do you think they have cock fights? And now this picture of a kung fu chicken will show up in some odd keyword searches.

Future Tense

Word Porn needs to get out of my fucking head. Seriously. Yes, my life has changed. I changed it myself, though I didn't even know I was doing it. By making changes that I knew I really wanted, by taking on things that scared me (which really, does it even count when FUCKING EVERYTHING scares me?) but I really wanted -- I created some sort of fundamental shift in my core. Or maybe it was there the whole time, this person, this being, this life but the path just needed to be exposed.

I had a dream once, a long time ago, where I met a version of my future self and cried with happiness because I thought I'd never find her, or never her see her again, I can't remember what I said exactly in the dream. This was a very long time ago. At least twenty-years. But I think I've found her, my future self. 

How do you know that you really know what you think you know?

Does it know where I left my favorite pen?

 Hm. And what if that inner voice is a bitch? Indeed, I have more than one inner voice and some of them think really stupid stuff is a good idea. Like the voice that wants donuts all the time. What about that voice? How about the voice that wants to tell people the absolute truth all the time? While that's "good" in theory, in real-world practice it can cause you a lot of unneeded difficulties. So which inner voice should I be listening too?

I prefer the term "Inner Knowing" for my intuition. Because voices just make noise. Voices are based on desire. My intuition just knows things. The trick is knowing intuition from voices. Intuition is mostly a quiet, assured voice. It tells me which things I should be doing even when they scare me ("Yes, It's scary. And it's hard. It's really hard. And you might even fail. More than once. Do it anyway.") and which things I shouldn't be doing even though I really want them (several very poor choices spring to mind).

Here's the difficulty that arises. things I though I should be doing because I wanted things to be a certain way and I thought certain actions were 'brave' and the horrible feeling I was getting was fear of taking chances. I didn't understand (yet) that particular horrible feeling was actually the "dear god, you stupid bitch, this is a horrible, horrible, horrible mistake and you're just desperate and lonely and YOU WILL REGRET THIS FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE" feeling.

How do I discern "bad vibes" from "fear of failure"?

I have had to learn to differentiate. It was difficult. It took many tries. I now have something of a system worked out, a way to know what is "knowing" and what is "wanting".

Accept truth. Listening isn't so much the problem.

Accepting...that's really important. Accepting the truth of what intuition is telling you. Very, very, important. Because sometimes the inner voice, the inner knowing, the truth...is something you don't want to hear, whether it's telling you something you should do but you don't want to because it's scary or hard or scary hard, or it's telling you something you shouldn't do (or say, or eat, or buy) but you really want that thing because it will make you temporarily happy because it will taste good or feel good at that moment.

I need an adult?

That's the part that took me a long time to figure out, "I want this because its good" from "this is right for me".

The Happiness in Your Life Book Series consists of 12 books,
each on a different subject that either allow or prevent happiness.

Shel Silverstein was interesting. I think he knows what he's talking about.
Or he did when he was alive at least. He's dead now.

But how do you know...how do you KNOW which voice is the true inner voice. How do you trust the inner voice when it's telling you something that seems so completely impossible? How do you know for sure so that you don't end up doing something you'll regret? Because I also really, really, really don't want to regret NOT doing something, NOT having something good, because I didn't listen to that voice that says, "It's right and it will happen in good time if you let the flow move and all will be well."

I'm not fond of Gloria Steinem as a person. Her personality seems very different from mine.
But I recognize what she's done for women.

By the way, I haven't vetted any of these quotes. I don't know if they're actually from the people they're being attributed to on the pictures. And you know what? Right now, I really don't care. I'm still trying to figure out why my inner voice seems to have quietly snapped.

Keeping afloat.

Found this amazing piece of Zentanglish artwork at this blogspot. They do not have a credit listed for the artist.
If you are the artist of this incredible piece of work let me give you credit. If you want me to take it down, please let me know. It is a perfect representation of my NANO, which is titled Zentangled. I draw Zentangles too.

It's the second day of NANO, don't ya know, and I'm finding my decision to make a personal book of journal entries and essays to be working well for me. Fingers crossed and knocking on wood, I think I will make my daily word count goals easily and win again this year. Next year I can go back to torturing myself writing a work of fiction. This year it's terribly true tales, in-your-face ugly truths and mind-numbing minutiae. Hooray for stream-of-consciousness!

Enough with the hyphens.

Could not find an artist credit for this one either.

I want donuts.