Friday, January 16, 2015

2014 Was the Year of the Living Dead

Is there is an astrologist who can show me the jagged map the stars and planets traversed this year so that we can all understand why it was so fucked up? I'll take anything, even a hokey astrology chart. For some, including myself, it could have been worse. For others it was the worst it could get. A lot of good things, foundations in our lives, folded abruptly and a lot of baffling injustices made any remaining faith in humanity brittle. It makes me think of George Romero's remarkable Night of the Living Dead.

I first saw it late one night in the early 2000s while still in high school. I lived in Penn Hills, a large suburb of Pittsburgh, next door to Monroeville where one of the nation's first malls still lives, where the follow-up to NOTLD, Dawn of the Dead, was filmed. NOTLD was also filmed in the then-rural areas East of the city in Allegheny and Westmorland counties. These were places pocked with lose towns populated by farmers, volunteer firefighters, coal miners, steel mill workers, and all of their mothers and who had last names that ended in -cci, -sky, and Gentile -ann. A UFO crashed in one of these towns in the early 60s, but that's another story.

I rediscovered NOTDL after stumbling upon the above video. If you haven't seem the movie yet, maybe you shouldn't sit down and watch it here, but it's still a pretty cool video. The user must have thought it was clever to couple the film with The Suburbs album's lyrical theme, I'm sure. I find it a little too obvious. The music doesn't match rhythmically with the movie, but at times it works in a disturbing, off way. At times, the deceptively upbeat and polished indie rock clashes a little too well impending doom on screen.

Yeah, if I could sum up NOTLD in one word, it'd be DOOM.

When I first saw my opportunity to see it back in the early 2000s, I assumed a gory zombie flick, a kitschy teen scream film that might have accepted it was bad at the time. I was surprised by how sophisticated the storytelling is and enthralled by its terrifying embers that explode in the last few minutes. It's GOOD. The film reveals what it's really about in its last moments, and it's like waking from a nightmare of magical mayhem into brutal, real life swathed in unforgiving sunlight.

I'm debating over whether I want to get into it with a spoiler or not. Okay, I'm not. I think you should just watch it and discuss.

So, what is Night of the Living Dead about? What or who is the real enemy in Night of the Living Dead? Will 2015 be the year of the Dawn of the Dead?

Friday, January 09, 2015

On Practice, Patience, and Persistence / Knitting, Running, and Writing


I have quiet hobbies because I'm a quiet person. For a year now I've finally been learning music, succeeding mainly on the quirky, very simple, Omnichord. Expressing myself through music is scary to me. Me making noise kind of scares me. Drawing attention to myself is something I never consider doing, and when it happens I shrink back into a shell. And, I'm Okay with that. I'm just a quiet person. I'm a lone wolf with a pair of knitting needles.

Music is a challenge I'm amazed at myself for doing at all. I wouldn't have gotten to this point were it not for the hobbies I naturally took up and which have formed who I am now, a person who can do anything if she embraces three things: practice, patience, and persistence.

Practice, patience, and persistence depend on each other. They form a shining circle, a feedback loop. For a number of years I've been writing, knitting, running, pushing myself through each of them (in varying degrees, however) because of the in-the-moment joy they stir up. Here are my reflections on my hobbies. Perhaps you can relate?

Practice
Fundamentally, knitting is performing an action over and over and over. I picked up knitting in the summer of 2005 on a whim. It was trendy at the time, and Target sold a starter kit with plastic number ten needles (which I understand now were of very low quality), pink eyelash yarn (a fad that was a terrible yarn to learn on), and a confusing tutorial DVD. I bought it the day I borrowed my dad's car to distract myself from the commencement of my grandmother's health decline and the angry absence of my brother. The car ran out of gas less than a mile from home. Whoops.

For almost ten years now, I've been learning knitting and I'll never stop learning. There are always many more miles of yarn to manipulate with untried stitches, alternative techniques, and new patterns. And, as long as lace knitting remains difficult, I'll be learning that forever. Cables look hard, but they're actually fairly easy. Lace knitting looks hard and IS hard. Each individual stitch requires full attention, even the ones in rows of straight purls. I've been trying to do the Stitch n Bitch Sweetheart Sweater for a few days now. I've started it over three times, and I'm going to have to go for a fourth now. The full lace pattern occurs over 10 rows and I've yet to complete the round more than twice. My piece looks like the ugliest slice of Swiss cheese you'll never eat. This is how every lace knitting project for me goes. I've never completed a lace project.

A pin-hole photo of my knitting from 2006.
This time, with all that I've been experiencing, I am able to really look at that wonky piece of work and see how much I've actually done at all, not only what I'm doing wrong. I managed to complete one set of the pattern only to get halfway through the next to see that the stitches aren't lining up, and no matter what I do that isn't ripping out the done rows, it doesn't look right. But, I managed to complete one set. I practiced that ridiculous pattern over three times now, and I'm only getting better.

I may not finish this sweater. Maybe I will and it will represent some sort of achievement. And, maybe I'll never wear it. But, right now, it's reminding me how much practice makes a difference. With every new turn at this damn sweater, I get better. With every mile I run, I can breath smoother, with every draft I write I get closer to making a connection with other weirdos out there.

Patience 
You can't practice well on a deadline. Lately, I've felt pressed for time. Deadlines have formed out of my own theories and ifs. My phone isn't on silent, yet it sits next to me and I keep checking it for a call I hope to get in time for...something. The phone utters no peep. True, I'd like to be out of my current apartment and into a cheaper one before a certain time, but it's no tragedy if I'm not, only a struggle if one other thing doesn't happen. etc. Overall, there's a dread in my chest simply because I'm trudging through uncharted territory right now.

When I moved into my first very own apartment in 2006, a fresh college grad, I decided I would become a runner. I bought bad tennis shoes at Payless, neglected warm-ups and stretching, and barely considered a training plan. I was out of breath before I started. That didn't last long. The second time I tried taking it up, in 2010 during my early years living in San Francisco, I made the same mistakes again. Both times I had the urge to jump out and run. Fast. Deep inside, it wasn't out of a desire to be healthier or thinner, to be a winner in some timed race. I had something inside of me that was trying to bust out and would only swell uncomfortably when I rushed into easing this restlessness.

When my husband wanted to get in on the running action, he smartly did his research. We started with the attainable Couch to 5k program and it only got better from there. Today, I'm about a quarter of the way through training for a marathon. A fucking marathon, sons of bitches. And, I WANT do to it.

It's probably going to take me over five hours to complete a marathon. I've finished my last half in two hours and thirty-eight minutes. Most of the my I practice running with music blaring, which gets me in the zone and transforms those miles into minutes flying by. During races runners are encouraged to keep the headphones off for safety reasons, but it's also exhilarating to be aware of the party of thudding feet around you. Even without music, during a good race the miles and the minutes fly by. Your mind becomes still while your body is flying.


Now, maybe half of all of my runs are this Zen-like. Of the half that aren't, I usually want to give up on. It's boring and painful. I'm acutely aware of the damage I'm doing to all the bones in my back, knees, shins, feet. Unable to breath into my stomach while my neck and shoulders constrict like I'm a turtle hunching into its shell. I'm saying very eloquently in my head as I look at the time, "Oh come ooooooon mother fuckers!" Sometimes I finish one of these runs and feel terrible.

So, how did I get to the point of wanting to run a marathon? Patience! Whether I run an eleven or a fourteen minute mile, It takes time to finish one. It takes time to complete the nine mile loop. It takes time to reach the point where you can push through the boring miles and truly want to keep going past mile 13.1. I've always been pretty patient and have been able to tolerate long lines, waits for tables and stuff like that. But I've never been so graceful in waiting for answers to where my life will be in a month, a year, five years. Waiting to know if the other shoe will drop or if whatever it is I'm anxious about today will resolve itself. The difference between dealing with the anxiety of waiting five years ago and dealing with it now is that I can think of the patience I'm forced to face when completing a big run. You'll get there. It will be there when you get there. It will end and you'll have a new perspective after it's over. If it's not what you wanted, then you try next time.

Persistence 
But it's true, practice does make perfect--if you can accept perfection as never reaching an endpoint. I like that philosophy, but I do bulk at it when I think of my writing. I said last week that my writing is like a succulent, growing very slowly. Of the hobbies I'm discussing here, writing is the act I do the least. Perhaps because it's not a hobby. It's my calling. It's just what I do. I regard it the highest inside of myself. It's the most mercurial--an idea burns hotly just before I fall asleep only to be completely forgotten the next time I'm by a pen and paper. It mocks me when I draw blanks, It disappoints. It hurts. I really fucking hate it sometimes.

While I'm persistent in my running programs, working my schedule around miles, and I'm persistent in getting that crazy pattern just right even if I retire by the time it happens, I'm just not quite there in my writing. I can't seem to tame it so that I regularly write. I'm trying now, yet again. Every January I come up with a plan. Every following November I ignore NanoWriMo emails. Maybe going back to school will help, maybe letting go and being wild in my writing habits will if I had a better memory. Maybe I just have to quit bitching and do it.

But, persistence. If I can do it running, dragging my high school gym class self through a marathon, counting every single little stitch in a lacy sweater, I should theoretically be able to complete the writing dreams I've had for most of my life.

In conclusion of sorts, I thought of a cool tattoo idea honoring my hobbies and their virtues. In the meantime, please encourage me to keep writing, even if you don't like this blog. :P I encourage you to embrace practice, patience, and persistence the next time you feel frustrated, anxious, overwhelmed, inadequate. As Counselor Troi says in Star Trek TNG "Decent Part I," "Feelings aren't positive and negative. They simply exist. It's what we do with those feelings that becomes good or bad." Q might consider that "pedantic psychobabble," but I think it's Okay for now. TNG rules.


Thursday, January 08, 2015

3 in 30: Why I Must Do.My.Art.

Airplanes make you think.
I knew from the start that I'd have a hard time keeping up with my 3 in 30 project. I dislike my habit of losing steam. I knew that my last installment would be based around the concept of "careering" and I knew I needed time to really think about it. This third part is based on a realization I had while running (see #12 here). It's about what I NEED to do with as far as a job or a "job," but I also knew that I would take it up clumsily.

But, I am going to do it. I just have to. I must. It's hard. So, I take a diamond of advice from Cheryl Strayed--"Do you think miners stand around all day talking about how hard it is to mine for coal? They do not. They simply dig."

But very simply, what I without-a-doubt gotta do is, "do my art." My crude little mantra bounced into my head as my feet rounded a Northeastern curve of Lake Merced. All of my life I've been storytelling, crafting, considering, making up, thinking, scribbling, throwing, creating. Like many of us, I did it so much more when I was younger--wondering in a couch-cushion fort at age four and wondering at four a.m. in my college dorm. I made a promise to myself sometime in high school after waking from a dream with an idea. In the middle of the night, I flicked on my lamp and write down the idea, which I've completely forgotten, and lay wide awake for hours after. During that time, I promised that I would always try my wild ideas, write them down while saying "fuck it" to sleep if I had to, share them with the world. No excuses. For the most part, that hasn't happened to me in about six or seven years. About the time when I started working full time. I broke my own promise to myself. Let myself down.

My favorite succulent, which grows as slowly the rest.
I'm happy with the small, but growing, body of work out there that a few people might have read. And, when I say growing, I mean it's growing like succulents. Over a happy spring, you'll notice how quickly tulips and daffodils bloom and wilt. But succulents take their time. Sometimes they turn ruddy and gaunt but then a brilliant storm fills them and they're verdant and voluptuous again. They grow slowly and deliberately. That's my writing. I love it, I don't tend to it enough, and yet I'm blessed with a storm every so often. It's time for me to take those storms into my own hands.

I feel terrified that I will keep making excuses and never sacrifice luxurious comforts to do it.

"Do you think miners stand around all day talking about how hard it is to mine for coal? They do not. They simply dig."
-Cheryl Strayed

Right before Christmas I lost my job to company-wide layoffs. I knew about it the day before my 31st birthday, so I had two months to prepare to be jobless, to get myself psyched up for a month or so of freedom. Of visiting family, packing and cleaning my apartment, sleeping in, preparing elaborate lunches for myself followed by elaborate dinners for my husband and I, running a wandering we'll-see-far-I-can-go route and possibly ending up somewhere in San Mateo county only to drag myself back to San Francisco on the CalTrain stinky, achy, and more badass than ever, and writing, writing, writing every other hour of the endless days. I had two months to plot all of this, my "do my art" life plan. 

Since being jobless, I feel like I'm running on a hamster wheel. I'm tired but can't get off the wheel. The anxiety that I might miss a job or an apartment opportunity if I don't apply immediately and then the guilt when I can't bare to write a third or fourth cover letter in one day or speak on the phone about all of my alternative income. Guilty when I just want spend the day reading. The embarrassment and frustration I aim at myself when I see that I've made a mistake. Uploaded the wrong cover letter to the wrong posting. Spelled "messenger bag" incorrectly in a writing sample. All of this is self imposed. (Ah, I said it!)

Why am I like this? I'm the girl who always does her work on time and works hard enough to justify or earn free time. The little girl whose parents were told by her teachers "I wish I could keep Angela in my class forever!" and whose parents tell her "We're so lucky to have you." The girl who disappoints when she fails Algebra and lies about where she was after school.

I'm flying to the East Coast to meet my niece for the first time. Today is her first birthday. My parents are getting older, too. I found round-trip ticket from coast to coast for under $300. And, I mean, it's not like I have a job (but I keep thinking that my job is to find a job, and by the California EDD expectations it is, but even that job has got to have weekends and vacation, right? Gah!), so I can travel for a few days and see my family while I can. While they're young and healthy.

As I waited at the gate for boarding, I watched a woman across from me knit. If you know me, you know that my other quiet hobby after running and writing is knitting. This woman had those beautiful wooden, rainbow stained needles I covet and was speedily forming a fluffy ivory-colored sweater. If you know me, you're wondering why I didn't bring my own knitting. I thought, as the woman set down her needles pointing precariously upward, that knitting needles were illegal on planes. Only terrorists carry knitting needles onto planes, right? That's what I thought, and I thought I was just following the rules. Always such a good girl, following the rules.

I've been following rules that don't exist.

The girl that always followed the rules.
Inspired by my friend Megan's recent post on the one word blog challenge, I am taking one up. My word is short and sweet. It's ME. I choose it because I'm afraid of not doing what I want, what I know I should do, what is purely me. I fear that I'll end up putting all of my efforts and skills into full-time, well-paying job and feel empty by five p.m. That I should just "quit these pretentious things and just punch the clock" to borrow an Arcade Fire lyric. That I'm selfish for not contributing my skills to society (the workforce). I'm afraid of missing a job posting that could offer me stability and that I'll actually take it and be miserable.

So what am ME doing about this? I'm reminding myself that it's "Okay to take a break," as my husband lovingly and calmly told me over and over after my freak out last evening. I'm leaving my planner and three other job-related notebooks at home when I got out. I'm not going apply for 1 single job or look at Craigslist for even 1 apartment in Portland or anywhere. I'm going to make my own hours, eat BBQ at the Charlotte airport in about three hours, and anticipate seeing my niece's kind little grin in person and be that guy who Instagrams the heck out of it. If I drive anywhere, maybe I'll run a red light. WHO KNOWS. THE GLOVES ARE OFF. WATCH OUT SOCIETY AND HIDE YOUR STUPID RULES.

I must rekindle my promise. I will carve out significant time to work on that project that is truly unique and not yet existing in the world. What is truly ME.

In long-distance running, when you want to finish a certain amount of miles and feel like you can't, you do. You don't stop. You mine the coal. You do your art.

My 2015 is about me, but really it's about "do my art."

How about you?