Learning to Breathe

It's such a beautiful day. Fall is just starting to set in over the Pacific Northwest. I find I never have enough time in the day to just sit and enjoy the weather. I have the next two days off though and I got a new book from a friend, as well as a short story about one of my favorite game series, and I intend to sit somewhere quiet, with the sounds of the breeze and the peace of the day and just read for at least an hour. Its a very good chance I will read for longer but at least one hour.

I try to evenly spread out my outlets. I like to read and write and draw and game, and sometimes I feel like I need to do those things religiously to be a person who does them or to be any good at it. Like I cant call myself a gamer or an artist if I don't have some schedule or make money with it. But really I'm not any of those things anyway. I am a person/human and those things are my interests, they don't define me and I am not less than if I choose not to pursue them for a while. Now-days I'm trying to remind myself of this and keep mindful of the fact that there is no set standard on creation or relaxation. It's different from person to person and can fluctuate over time. I try not to over do it either. I find if I try to draw a thing once a week that that is healthy for me. If I get really into something and wanna give it another day or two that's fine but if I do too much more then I find myself neglecting other things like sleep and exercise. Its all about balance for me right now. Trying to be aware of what I'm doing, what my soul needs, and how much time and energy I give things. The concept that even though I may want to (or feel like I must) give energy to something-- that doesn't mean I have to or should.

Things like work can be a huge energy suck and its often things that are out of my control. I'm trying to speak up for myself but also be prepared for things to not go how I imagine. Its easy to let coworkers or bosses get on my nerves but it's not helpful. Especially when there is a change in staff in a small company. I find doing my best, and learning what I can, to be helpful for my mental state. I'm also ready for the worst. I'm gonna be looking around and updating my resume and progressing in that sense so that if the worst happens I'm not having to scramble to find a basket for my eggs.

I'm trying to take deeper breaths. Talk less. Let myself be places on time instead of early. Hug my boyfriend longer. Kiss him more often. Forgive myself. Not forget to remember what is important to me and put that first. Resist the urge to judge myself. Remind myself of all the things I do for my loved ones around me. Remember that its OK to be uniquely me.


Mav

My Hashtag

Feels really good to delete my twitter off my phone and not have to worry about it anymore. Feels as good as deleting my Facebook. Both still exist, I just turned all notifications off and deleted the apps. I just dont need that crap in my life. I wanna wake up and just get through my day and come home to my loving partner. I keep my notepad handy and take down notes for my blog now. My goal is to start blogging and creating more again and stop comparing myself or constantly "gathering ideas", which is just another way I judged myself. Basically I got a lot of self hate that I wanna break down. It's gonna get personal up in here.

Day one at work with no twitter was good. Only gets easier after that. I actually feel lighter and less anxious. I feel like I spent so much time looking at what other people were doing and being jealous or astounded or upset that I didnt spend hardly any time with my own organic thoughts. I brought a book to read on my lunch since I wouldn't have my nose in my phone the whole time. I feel like I'm more able to just be concerned with what I want to do instead of what I feel like I'm not getting to do.

Of course I also used twitter as an outlet. I had become increasingly negative in my comments. I was feeling negatively all the time, fueled by my dismay about the world and the actions of the people on it. Much of which makes no sense to me. Frankly, even outside the world at large there is a lot of personal drama spewed on social media. Business bleeds into personal life. Things get sprayed around abstractly in front of friends and strangers alike instead of discussed. But in the end, I cannot change the world. I can only change myself. So I know what my goals are, why am I wasting time comparing them to everyone else's? Just act how you feel people should act and stop fretting over the state of the world at large and whatever impending doom may be. That's what I tried to tell myself before while constantly taking in the judgemental and combative content of social media. Now without Facebook or Twitter in my life I feel like thats actually starting to take shape again for me.

Naturally when I stop expressing myself, suddenly I have all these pithy, funny quips come to mind. I have opinions and I feel more confident and I think to pull out my phone and post and then I dont have that, buy I'm trying to look at it positively. That little thought that was funny or interesting, if its enough of either then I'm at least texting my partner and otherwise its a nugget of happiness just for me. Like, its ok to think things just for myself. To make jokes for myself. I dont HAVE to share my humor with other people to appreciate it. I can appreciate me without anyone elses opinion, good or bad. Then I think, like, "Why wasn't I able to be this funny before?" Well I think its because I was stress. I embodied stress and took on other peoples stress as my own.

Releasing Twitter has been freeing. I was ready to leave the nest, I suppose. I've even put Instagram on the back burner. (Why do we spend so much time perfecting these things while so many other more important things fall through the cracks?) Im really looking forward to regularly blogging again. I think the writing will be good for me. I think the introspection will be good for me. My 30th cycle will be my most present yet. I hope that writing this inspires me and while I'm posting this publicly on the internet, I dont expect any following. If this does reach you, I hope you are inspired too.

Namaste
Mav

Listening to myself

Do you ever think about your voice? About how you sound? Are you a singer? Or a preacher? Do you listen you yourself replayed a lot? Home movies maybe but like current and recent. I couldn't stand listening to myself replayed for a long time because my voice on a recording sounds different to me than I do when I talk in real life. It sounded too weird to me. I dont mind it now. I dont really know what changed it but I hadnt listened to myself in a long time and I just started making instas of me well mostly singing. And I found that I was able to more appreciate my voice. I think I was also jealous of my sister's beautiful voice and afraid my voice wouldn't live up to it.

Also speech is weird. Why is speech ee and peach is ea?

some stuff I had lying around (ramble town)

29 years old now.


I didn't have as much to catch up on as I thought. I've started volunteering at the local zoo.  I love being around all the animals. I've been pretty depressed lately and they uplift me. I'm hoping to get stationed in this self-sufficient building that collects all its own water and shit.  There is also an insect observatory and a bee/hummingbird open garden. I just like being involved in something that matters. Getting kids excited about nature is the best part. I don't love kids. I don't want any of my own. But I love nature and knowing that I am instilling in some small way a wonder and fascination and respect and love of nature is supremely rewarding. It was upsetting to find out that Care.org had sponsored an event to protest our zoo, even though it's one of the best AZA accredited zoos in the nation. They use propaganda to get people to donate more. Using people's love of animals against them. I blocked their ads on Instagram now because I can't really trust the information. How many petitions did I sign that weren't truthful and did naively more harm than good?


Mommy's maybe got
a bit of blessing in her bottle
her teeth are fake
her clothes are worn
she lives in a hovel


I'm sad. My heart mourns.


I don't care for all this man hate recently. I had a friend ask me when I was over at her apartment, "Guys suck right?!" in a way that made it seem like the most acceptable answer was, "Yea!"
I was uncomfortable and I think I awkwardly eeked out a, "yeaaaa" and then felt slimy as she went back to her conversation.
I don't think men suck. I don't think men are trash.  I think saying those kinds of things is exactly why some men end up sucking. We expect it of them.  Many guys that society deems as 'good' get bullied and called, "Pussy!" or "Faggot!" which not only degrades the boy but also degrades women and homosexuals by saying that because of their sexual identity and/or orientation that they are somehow less than a man (which is presumably what the boy is supposed to be). When we say words we write a connectivity pattern in our brain. Every time we repeat words or sets of words we more strongly establish them in our minds. If we constantly tell little boys to, "Toughen up, don't cry. Act like a man, walk it off," when they are legitimately hurt or confused or upset, then we are telling them that we don't care about their emotions and just want to them to be stoic. We are rewriting that pattern over and over and over. The other thing that happens in your brain is that connections you don't use fall into disrepair and aren't strong and are less likely to fire. So when you say, "Guys suck," instead of, "Guys need to change," you are choosing to view the situation negatively and those positive outlooks will start to breakdown, and when something bad happens you may say, "Guys suck," instead of recognizing the individual for his faults but keeping a fair outlook on an entire gender.
Children can only hear this kind of talk from adults. Many of these insults are delivered before or during sexual maturity when nobody has any real clue what's going on. Adults tend to project their experience onto children. [[It could be as offhanded as when you drop your kids friend off at his house and after the door closes you say, "Who was that Mexican kid?" (when that kid was actually Filipino, but your child had never even noticed he was different at all) Or it could be more direct by attaching your own opinions about them based off your experience. Like say you think Christianity is absurd, and there is a cross in the yard and you say, "Religious nut-jobs." As a parent, you are setting a standard to how to view these types of people.]] This type of talk and teaching internalizes a fear of being emotional and a desire to be tough and aggressive to fit into society.  It internalizes an understanding that to be a man, one is better than other kinds of people. It propagates the falsehood that men inherently believe that they are better than others, when really we are the ones who teach each other how to label and view the world. We are living in the era, right now, where we begin to eradicate this type of thinking.
We need to be conscious. Progress does not come lightly. We have an abusive relationship with our own species and our planet. Leaving an abusive relationship is hard; that's why so many people stay in them.  Changing your life and taking responsibility is scary, but most people would agree that you should still leave. We need to end this relationship of hate and abuse and build a new one based on love and support and understanding. Men aren't garbage that needs to be tossed, they need to be allowed to take on a new role within our society.
It's unfair to punish all men with these kinds of blanket statements because hindsight is 20/20. We are lucky to be able to say we live in a time where we can tell a man, "No, let's figure it out together." And we should take advantage of this new found enlightenment to teach new people of the world. Men don't suck, men need to grow and that's okay. We need to let them, instead of making them feel guilty for the last thousand years. An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind. It does absolutely no good to make negative blanket statements about men. It chooses a side when we should all be on the same side.  We need to believe in each other, not write each other off.


Mav

The First Thing I Remember

Eyes open. Fuzzy.
Feel. Sheets.
Touch body. Naked.
Flashback:  Shoulder kiss. Can't speak. Head heavy. Cant move. Body limp. Need rest. Bacon sizzling."I'm going to go shower." Muffled echoes.

Reality. Running water. Time.
Clothes. Shoes. Purse. Run.
Pounding chest. Street. Stairs.

Home. Vomit in the hallway and toilet.
Change. Clean. Lock the door. Hide.
Tell everyone I have food poisoning.

Premature (stream of consciousness) Destiny 2 Review (oh and like spoilers and shit)

Destiny is so much better sometimes when you can game together because you can help each other do stupid things in the game and comiserate. Im trying to reserve my judgement until at least the first DLC has released but its so cheesy and the story is honestly kind of weak to me. The best parts were when Ikora was being like super real. Everything else just felt forced. I dont know i think it could easily be more rpg but they are so hard fps that there is no room for your character. I dont even feel like my characters are as real in this game. I feel like you get your subclasses fully leveled so quickly thats its all just available to you and there isnt as much development. It really is all about just loot. And i know they talk like youre one of the only guardians left but i also feel like the level of cheese makes that like not even important. Its so cheesy in the parts where its cheesy that when it tries to be serious it feels disingenuous. Im still waiting for the punch line. And we still know barely anything of Zavala. And your ghost talks for you the whole time. Maybe its because youre supposed to be this guardian who already has this working relationship with these people but they dont do enough to really portray that. The cabal struck entirely too quickly in my mind. Like they just all the sudden are able to take the speaker? And who is this speaker? Tell me more about him. Show me his face. Let me immerse myself in the world. Leave tomes in game with lore in them. Make it a map location. In each lost sector with the boss' loot chest also have a book or data byte left behind with info about the cabal and how they were able to overtake what would seemingly be a very powerful machine? surrounded by hundreds of guards for it. They arent running daily ship patrols? You rely solely on these scanning beacons? You deserved to lose the light. Got fucking complacent. Good thing the traveler was able to save itself in a much slower process. There is a rich world here but you arent very good at showing it. Oh and having hawthorne and whats her face say shit like "good vs evil, black hats and white hats, dark and light, it really makes you think" just shut the fuck up. I didnt need you to so blatantly just state that. Duh fucking duh. I think most wars are fought on such beliefs. That they are fighting what they perceive as unworthy or evil. Your story might be better with almost no dialogue at all. Also there are times where banter just seems to go on forever. No wonder these guardians get themselves killed so much with all these voices in their heads making really bad jokes. Im ready for DLC and hope its really good. I really liked the iron lords dlc in the first game and hope there is more of that and i look forward to finding out more about rasputin. I cant say its all awful. The shooting is still pretty smooth and some of the new exotic emotes and shaders are very cool. I hope they do more sparrow races and the holidays are coming and Bungie always does a really good job of being festive which i really enjoy. So play on because youve been warned and sometimes that makes all the difference.


Mav

PS Death to jump puzzles!

The Bunny Story

     As a seven year old girl, I was playing outside with my dog; and while crawling around I saw a little bunny poke its nose out of the base of a tree. I reached in and pulled out five velvet soft bunnies. Their eyes had barely opened. I cooed internally and had the strange urge to feed them. I ordered my dog to watch them and ran inside, but they wouldn't take any of the milk from our fridge. The bunnies hopped nervously around me as I corralled them towards the tree. Finally, I put them back in their hole and went inside for dinner.

     The next morning, I rushed through breakfast and quickly went outside to check under the tree for the bunnies. I pulled them out one by one, and realized there were only four bunnies in my lap. Horror struck, I began searching all over the immediate area. When I couldn't find a trace of a fifth bunny, I began to question myself and if there ever was another missing bunny. I went inside for part of the day and decided to check on the bunnies one more time before bed.

     As I approached my dog's house in the dimming light I heard a gentle rustle in the fallen, brown leaves. I glanced over and saw the tiniest movement and slowly walked closer. I brushed the leaves aside and saw, shivering in the shade, a tiny bunny. I returned it to the den, making sure to feel all five bunnies before I went inside. Laying in bed that night, I had a feeling it was my fault the bunny was outside the den.  I was sure it had bounced away from the group when I went inside and I had just failed to notice. Knowing the bunny was back home though, made me proud of myself for fixing the problem and I fell asleep excited to see the bunnies again.

     At daybreak I was already making my way to the tree. I reached in to pull out each little bunny, more energetic and stronger now. When the last bunny came out it was flat and limp in my hand, obviously dead. I panicked with a squeal and tossed the bunny away in front of me. Once I regained my composure, the morbid inner human needed to examine the body. I determined it was probably the one I missed and didn't put back in the den and I was sad. The other bunnies looked healthy, however, and that made me happy.

     A couple days passed and I thought I had better not meddle with the bunnies anymore, but my curiosity over their well-being won. As I approached the tree, one of the bunnies came out and began to hop away. I grabbed it and put it back under the tree to keep the same mistake from happening, but then another tried, and soon all four bunnies were hopping in four different directions away from me and I realized they were leaving and they wouldn't be back. I just stood there and watched as they hopped between the trees and out of sight.  All was quiet.  Lingering there a moment before I went back to the house; the morning sun streamed through the leaves.