Pleasure Notes

the challenge

Today is the first day of @binduwiles‘ challenge, 21.5.800, and I am absolutely terrified. I’m feeling completely overwhelmed by life at the moment. My TO DO list is a roving monster of infinite size and, worse yet, it’s a monster with whom I very much want to be friends. The majority of items on it are things I REALLY WANT TO DO. But I’m tired and sick and emotional and unanchored, all of which has a funny effect on the monster and transforms it into a very intimidating beast. My body is betraying me. My head is freeze-dried. The white noise of the world has become a cacophony of echoes.

This challenge could not have come at a better time.

I find sanity in writing. Putting words to paper – any words, in any form, to anything resembling a blank, white page – SILENCES my brain. It is a strange alchemy that I care little to explain. I’m simply grateful for having stumbled upon the phenomenon. One of my biggest life challenges, however, is letting myself obtain that level of sanity.

I love yoga. I love how aware of my body I become when I do it. I love how strong and supple my limbs become. I love how I can feel SPACE within, and through, me. I love the rooting that happens, the invisible threads that develop between me and the ground, between my physical being and the physical earth. I love sinking into the floor and reaching for the sky. Another of my biggest life challenges, however, is letting myself be in space.

So this 21.5.800 challenge upon which I’m embarking should be interesting. I think it may be all about SILENCE and SPACE. But I wouldn’t be too surprised if it also becomes about SONIC BOOMS and KALEIDOSCOPES OF COLOR.

Only time will tell…

Will you be coming on the journey as well?

Thank God for Gwen Bell. I first learned about this amazing, dynamic woman because of a business affiliation. Later, I met her in person. Now, she inspires me. And, if I’m honest, occasionally intimidates me (my issues, not hers). But today, I’m simply grateful to her. She’s come up with this Best of 2009 Blog Challenge, and that has me writing again.

Obviously, the “blog every day” thing and I don’t have a great track record. After all, only last month I attempted the NaBloPoMo with notably dismal results. I can pull out the excuses – I was sick, I was traveling, I was spending what little energy I had trying not to cry 24/7 – but the results remain black and white, for all to see.

So what makes me think this month will be any different, that Gwen’s challenge will be met with any greater results?

Not a damn thing. Except… desperate need.

I NEED to be writing, more now than perhaps at any other time in my life. It may just save me. Or at least distract me from the crying.

You see, this challenge is FOCUSED. There are SUGGESTED QUESTIONS on which to ruminate. And the point is to talk about what is BEST about the past year, not what is worst. Part of the reason I haven’t written much the past few months is because I’ve been overwhelmed with worsts and unable to see or believe in bests. This shouldn’t come as a shock to those who know me, but it has caught me strangely off-guard.

While I can’t change my life overnight, I can step up to this challenge, to the best of my ability.

Baby steps, I know. But with enough of those, I may yet go the distance.

by Lady Gooner/flickr

So it’s only been a day since I began this ridiculous challenge to write every day for a month, and I’m already prepared to thrown in the towel. I won’t, of course. At least not yet. But I’m currently wadding it up into a nice tight ball.

I’m not quite sure when the transformation happened, when I suddenly became the type of woman who would prefer to curl up on the couch in my flannel lounge pants and tank from Target, a bowl of Soy Praline Pecan ice cream and this past weekend’s TiVo’d episode of Mad Men rather than drag my laptop out of the heavy-as-shit bag in which I lugged it home from work in order to write a rambling blog post. But I must confess, the transformation is almost complete. Just a few more pieces of dead skin to pluck off and I will no longer be mistaken for anything but graceless couch potato. Sad, don’t you think?

It doesn’t help that I just found out I have to go to New Jersey this week. Let me repeat that. NEW JERSEY! No offense to anyone who has ever lived there but really, people, haven’t I been through enough hardship this year? Why couldn’t I be sent to New York? Or Hawai’i? Or, hell, Bora Bora isn’t that far away. There is just nothing particularly appealing about the Garden State when I’m having to give up dinner with friends, a potential rendezvous with an ex-lover and some unstructured time on – yes – my couch to be there. Even an invitation to dinner with Bruce would leave me only begrudgingly enthusiastic and, since there are no Evites in my in box, I’m guessing that’s not going to happen.

I am left to shake my fist at the universe and wonder once again why I wasn’t born with a healthy trust fund. Can you feel my pain?

I moved to Los Angeles umpteen years ago to pursue acting. Yes, it’s cliche, but it’s the truth. I let that dream go a number of years ago in pursuit of a better one… to be a writer. And that’s a dream I’ve achieved, which is pretty cool. But I have to admit that from early childhood I’ve fantasized about winning an award in addition to a paycheck for my creativity. I obsessively watched the Oscars, Emmys and Golden Globes before learning that many of the results have more to do with advertising dollars than merit. I thought up speeches and wardrobe choices and potential red-carpet dates. I practiced the hand wave, and how I would restrain myself from punching out Joan Rivers. So just imagine my thrill at actually winning an award! That’s right, ladies and gents, I have been honored with the Superior Scribbler Award.

Okay, so I received it while sitting on my couch in my sweatpants and trolling my favorite blogs, but I did do a little booty shaking in celebration. And here go the obligatory thanks — or in this case, the eligibility requirements for the kudos…

1. Each Superior Scribbler must in turn pass the award on to 5 most-deserving bloggers.
2. Each Superior Scribbler must link to the author and the name of the blog from whom he/she has received the award.
3. Each Superior Scribbler must display the award on his/her blog, and link to this post, which explains the award.
4. Each blogger who wins the Superior Scribbler Award must visit the linked post and add his/her name to the Mr. Linky list. That way, we’ll be able to keep up-to-date on everyone who wins this prestigious honor.
5. Each Superior Scribbler must post these rules on his/her blog.

I started this blog just two and a half months ago. I was am a complete neophyte in the blogosphere. Truth be told, I didn’t even read blogs before I started my own. I had never heard of Twitter. HTML was just one more acronym for something I didn’t understand. The internet intimidated me. In many ways, it still does. Once I entered this world, however, I quickly immediately fell in love with it. I entered it because I am a writer.

By Guy Ottewell

Yep. I am a writer. I even claim it on my tax forms. But I don’t always claim it in my real life. Why, you ask? Because. Because I’m not on the best-sellers list. Because no one optioned that feature that circulated last year. Because I haven’t been in a writers’ room since before the writers’ strike. Because I currently pay my bills with a “day job.” Because, right now, all I do is blog.

Each one of these arguments is a ridiculous reason to denigrate what I do, but it’s the last one that truly gives me pause. All I do is blog. Now, that’s a doozy.

By Ando Tokutaro

You see, if I devalue my role as a blogger, I am devaluing the role of every other blogger out there. That’s wrong. There are some great ones. While the level of integrity, and quality, of mainstream media seems to be in free fall, the trajectory of bloggers appears to be in the opposite direction. Change is uncomfortable, however, and many people outside the blogosphere would disagree with me. They don’t understand, value, or respect bloggers. I know. I was one of those people. Yet, I have seen the proverbial light.

Don’t worry. I’m not deluding myself into thinking that this blog will change the entire world. But it has changed mine. I rediscovered the pleasure of writing. Out in the “real world,” I spent so much time trying to play the game please my agent catch the latest trend sell my shit, I lost my voice. I forgot that I write… because. Because I love it. Because it keeps me sane. Because I have something to say.

By Johannes Vermeer

Every other blogger has something to say as well. You or I may not like all the voices we stumble across, but the blogosphere deserves as much respect and protection as any other written word arena. Two witty bloggers writers, califmom and Mr. Lady, present this case very well. They were inspired to do so by Don Mills Diva. So was I. She is actually doing something to ensure that bloggers have a seat at the grownups’ table.

Wanna join the crusade?