If you've been following long you know that I'm in school to be a wedding planner. I'm obsessed with weddings. Completely and totally obsessed. I love weddings. They are beautiful. I've been subscribing to wedding magazines for about four years now. I've been a member of the TheKnot.com since then as well; if any of you have ever browsed the internet for wedding information you're probably familiar with this wedding planning site. I make wedding idea books: scrapbooks with ideas for a wedding based on a theme or color scheme. I have two such books in creation, one for a Spring and one for a Fall wedding. I cut out pictures from magazines that fit into these themes and make a scrapbook of sorts. I used to view it as a way for me to have fun but now I see it as a great business tool. I'll have several books of ideas at my fingertips for brides who would like some direction. Soon I'll be starting a Winter wedding book since all the bridal magazines will be reflecting those styles. They are definitely works in progress--the Spring book started four years ago!--but they're a great way for me to flex my creative skills while I'm waiting to finish my schooling.
So I've been pretty absent this past week. Tons of stuff going on! My brother had his court date and got probation. He's staying here for a few weeks while everything gets straightened out. My friend is in the process of moving from one apartment to another so she's also staying at my house for a bit. Right now we've got five people, two dogs and four cats staying here. It's kind of hectic but I've found that I'm really flourishing in this domestic role. I've been keeping the house clean, cooking healthy, delicious meals and running around taking everyone where they need to be. It's good to know I'm capable of doing all this.
Another episode of the Stove Experiments today! I made another stew but with beef this time. It came out SO well. Everyone in the house loved it and I still have tons for leftovers. This week I'll be making Thanksgiving dinner for everyone and I'm kind of nervous! What is everyone's Thanksgiving plans?
Some of My Favorite Topics
23 November 2009
12 November 2009
The Stove Experiments
As with most things in my life, I notice that sometimes I want to blog four or five times a day and other times I can't think of anything to say for days. I'm going to try to remedy this by using the schedule option in Blogger. The days I feel like blogging a million times I'll just go ahead and do it but schedule them to come out at later dates. The only problem I have with this is that it's difficult for me to consciously write in the past tense. So today is Wednesday and I'm going to blog about this sweet stew I've got cooking but the blog won't come out until Thursday. So when I say I am doing this and that, it really means I did this and that. Not that it really matters, you have no idea when I made that stew and you probably don't care. So, on to the post!
I like to cook. I know how to make some basic things pretty well, according to my own tastes. My cooking experience is pretty limited to cooking for myself because when I became a vegetarian my parents supported it as along as I cooked my own meals. The first year and a half of my marriage my husband I were separated by our military duties and I took full advantage of the Army's cooking. My husband and I have been living together since January and I've since come to realize how much he dislikes home cooking. He isn't used to it at all. He was raised by a family who eats out every day and doesn't cook many family meals. He likes spaghetti, but not home made spaghetti sauce. Icky Ragu. So for the majority of the past year I've been living off fast food and boxed or frozen meals. And spaghetti. But I am tired of it! And literally sick of it, my digestive system has really been doing a number on me recently. So I'm starting The Stove Experiments. My attempts to whip up some yummy home cooked meals begins tonight.
My husband got some deer meat from someone in the office. I know nothing about deer meat except my mom cooked it once in a Shephard's Pie and it was freaking amazing. I originally thought it was like one big chunk of meat so I decided to make a stew out of it. I've never made stew but my parents make it all the time and I love it. I started to Google stew recipes but it was just altogether overwhelming how many different options there are out there so I decided to wing it and just pray it turns out okay. To my great surprise this morning, I realized the meat was actually ground... It looked way different when it was frozen, that's all I'm going to say. But I'd already bought all this stew stuff and I was just craving stew. So I decided to go ahead and just have ground meat stew. Whatever. I dumped it into a big pot with a bit of olive oil to brown it--deer meat is really lean I hear so I figured it could probably use some lube so to speak (before I spell checked this I had typed I could use some lube...). After it was mostly browned I threw some chopped onions in there and turned the heat to low.
I started to cut some potatoes, the leftovers we had laying around that looked like they might go bad soon. I threw in a bag of petite carrots, a can of corn and a can of green beans. At this point the pot was like 3/4 full so I added just enough water to cover everything, poured in the slow cooker seasoning mix I picked up and turned the heat up a bit. I figured it would be a good time to light some incense to Hestia. I prayed that it would turn out alright because I have no idea what I'm doing here. I prayed that this food would nourish or bodies and minds. It's just past noon, I plan on cooking it 'til around 5.
So far, it looks pretty delicious. I'll update after dinner :)
Update: Well, the veggies turned out AMAZING. But the deer meat must've been pre-seasoned? It just taste completely different than the rest of it. Gave it a bit of a conflicting taste. Hubs and I picked out all the veggies and had a hearty dinner. I just don't know what to do with all this meat now. I don't want to waste it but it doesn't taste good. Bummer! Any ideas?
I like to cook. I know how to make some basic things pretty well, according to my own tastes. My cooking experience is pretty limited to cooking for myself because when I became a vegetarian my parents supported it as along as I cooked my own meals. The first year and a half of my marriage my husband I were separated by our military duties and I took full advantage of the Army's cooking. My husband and I have been living together since January and I've since come to realize how much he dislikes home cooking. He isn't used to it at all. He was raised by a family who eats out every day and doesn't cook many family meals. He likes spaghetti, but not home made spaghetti sauce. Icky Ragu. So for the majority of the past year I've been living off fast food and boxed or frozen meals. And spaghetti. But I am tired of it! And literally sick of it, my digestive system has really been doing a number on me recently. So I'm starting The Stove Experiments. My attempts to whip up some yummy home cooked meals begins tonight.
My husband got some deer meat from someone in the office. I know nothing about deer meat except my mom cooked it once in a Shephard's Pie and it was freaking amazing. I originally thought it was like one big chunk of meat so I decided to make a stew out of it. I've never made stew but my parents make it all the time and I love it. I started to Google stew recipes but it was just altogether overwhelming how many different options there are out there so I decided to wing it and just pray it turns out okay. To my great surprise this morning, I realized the meat was actually ground... It looked way different when it was frozen, that's all I'm going to say. But I'd already bought all this stew stuff and I was just craving stew. So I decided to go ahead and just have ground meat stew. Whatever. I dumped it into a big pot with a bit of olive oil to brown it--deer meat is really lean I hear so I figured it could probably use some lube so to speak (before I spell checked this I had typed I could use some lube...). After it was mostly browned I threw some chopped onions in there and turned the heat to low.
I started to cut some potatoes, the leftovers we had laying around that looked like they might go bad soon. I threw in a bag of petite carrots, a can of corn and a can of green beans. At this point the pot was like 3/4 full so I added just enough water to cover everything, poured in the slow cooker seasoning mix I picked up and turned the heat up a bit. I figured it would be a good time to light some incense to Hestia. I prayed that it would turn out alright because I have no idea what I'm doing here. I prayed that this food would nourish or bodies and minds. It's just past noon, I plan on cooking it 'til around 5.
So far, it looks pretty delicious. I'll update after dinner :)
Update: Well, the veggies turned out AMAZING. But the deer meat must've been pre-seasoned? It just taste completely different than the rest of it. Gave it a bit of a conflicting taste. Hubs and I picked out all the veggies and had a hearty dinner. I just don't know what to do with all this meat now. I don't want to waste it but it doesn't taste good. Bummer! Any ideas?
11 November 2009
Service
I have already been on my soap box about the military over at The Wandering Hearth so I'll keep it simple today. Here are some pictures of my time in the military. There are a lot of them, just a warning :)
This is my best friend and I in the barracks, waiting for pass to start. The training we were in was very restrictive. Everything had to be earned. It was a privilege to put on our civilian clothes, leave the barracks and use our electronics, including cell phones.
Me drinking out of a Camelbak. The Army issues these and we have to wear them everywhere we go while we're in training. Hydration is very important in the Army and if you got caught without water in your Camelbak, you'd better pray the drill sergeant was in a good mood.
My friend eating my Nutella in my room. We were absolutely not allowed to have food in our rooms. I frequently broke this rule. I was commonly referred to as the "Contraban Queen".
This is my room mate (far left), myself, a friend and my best friend (far right) sitting at a strip mall with no clue what we should do next. Most everything was closed on Sunday but we wanted to make every last minute of our free time count, even if it meant just sitting in an empty strip mall enjoying the sun, far away from the barracks.
This is the creed of a PSYOP soldier. PSYOP stands for Psychological Operations, which is what my job was in the military. You can read the text if you click on the picture, if you're interested. Ever heard of those leaflet bombs in WWII? That was PSYOP. We rock.
Every time we went inside or came out of the barracks, we were required to do push-ups, sit-ups and pull-ups. Every. single. time. And if you got caught not doing them... again, you'd better pray the drill sergeant was in a good mood.
This is a girl I fought with all the time in AIT. Towards the end we started to get along better. She and I sat on the bus together on our way to our "field trip", which was a visit to the Airborne Museum at the end of our training.
This is where we stayed when we went to the field once. Those buildings on the left are our sleeping quarters. On the right is the "TOC" or tactical operations center. On this particular FTX (field training exercise) we pretended we were in another country doing operations. They had people pretending to be natives. We would leave the base and pretend we were on a real mission. We didn't get more than 4 hours of sleep and during those four hours our base was attacked several times. Every time we got "attacked" we all had to wake up and go to our posts and fight back. We did this for a week.
This is two of my friends on our field training exercise, extremely sleep deprived. These are the weapons we carried around 24/7. Do you see those red things at the end? They're muzzle covers. We only fired blanks on our training exercises.
This is me enjoying my cell phone before I had to turn in back in for another week.
At the DFAC (dining facility) my friend cut this heart out of her grilled cheese. I took my phone out and snapped a picture. I wasn't supposed to have my phone and someone who worked in the DFAC told my drill sergeants. I got my butt chewed.
These are the HMMVW's that we drove around everywhere. It stands for high mobility multipurpose wheeled vehicle. Also known as a humvee. Learning how to drive these things was fun until I had to drive them at night wearing night vision goggles. They have no depth perception so it's kind of dangerous.
This is what is known as a "joe party". The guys were always getting in trouble because their rooms were dirty so the drill sergeants made them take apart their rooms, including their bed frames, and take everything down two flights of stairs and outside while they cleaned out their stinky rooms. The females never had to do this :)
My room mate and I at Starbucks coffee.
My room mate on our field training exercise. This is what we did, huddled in our tents for heat, just waiting for an "attack". We had to be out on the line within two minutes or we were in it deep. We slept in our uniforms, including our boots, every night so we didn't have to take the time to put everything on.
That crazy person sporting two thumbs up? Me. The man drinking his coffee completely unsuspecting of me behind him? My favorite sergeant. We saw him at IHOP one weekend and my friend and I snuck around and took this picture while he had no idea we were even there. I got this picture blown up for him and he keeps it in his office.
My best friend wearing her wet weather gear (poncho).
The night before graduation, this is all of the females. We lived together for 17 weeks. We hated each other. We loved each other. We will never forget each other.
A message I got on my phone from my husband. He was in training several states away. We rarely got to see each other the first year and a half we were married.
My best friend reading Where the Wild Things Are to all the females. We had pajama parties, or the closest thing we could come to.
Graduation day. I can still recognize most of these people by the back of their heads.
This is one of my drill sergeants and myself after graduation.
Our head drill sergeant and myself. He is an amazing man.
Me, my favorite instructor and my best friend.
The scariest, most bad ass woman I've ever met, but a great drill sergeant.
My best friend and I before we have to part ways. She and I met in training but remain best friends despite the fact that she is stationed several states away. I have visited at least once a year since we graduated.
Future Prospects
My father is an amazing man. He is very smart. He's a very kind, loving man. He has his flaws, like everyone, but he is my daddy. He is a man of many talents. He builds computers, likes to garden, and can fix just about anything. He and I are very similar. We're stubborn. We like to read and learn. We both have a hard time saying sorry and admitting when we're wrong. We both have a lot of interests. My father still doesn't know what he wants to be "when he grows up". He changes careers every few years. He has enough college credits to be about a semester short of a masters degree but they're all in different areas. He's forever pursuing his different options and interests.
I am a lot like him in this respect. There are so many things I could enjoy pursuing as a career. I love to make jewelry. I like herbs and love making useful products out of them. I'm obsessed with weddings. Pregnancy fascinates me. I like to teach and pass on the information I have gained. I can see myself doing any one of these things, or all of them. Currently, I'm attending school learning how to be a wedding planner. While this is very exciting and will be a great deal of fun for me, I feel like it doesn't include enough of my interests. How could I ever possibly find a career that involved enough of my interests to keep me interested long term? Or will I always be bouncing around like my dad?
For a while I've been considering getting training as a doula. For those of you who aren't familiar with a doula's purpose, click here for some basic information. Pregnancy is amazing to me. Since my best friend in high school got pregnant, I have loved pouring through pregnancy books. I'm a registered member of BabyCenter.com (yeah, I know, I'm a freaking dork). I think it's fascinating and I want to be involved in a non-medical way. I want to be involved during the pregnancy, labor and post-postpartum. It's pretty easy to become certified and not too expensive. But how would this work in tandem with being a wedding planner? I suppose being a wedding planner would be a great way to get clients as a doula--you already know someone and help them through one of their biggest milestones in life, you have trust and friendship there. It might be natural for them to turn to you for help in another milestone occasion. But how can I market that, the two of them together? And would I be spreading myself thin? Maybe if I only take on three or four weddings and births each a year, I could do it.
These are just a few of the major life decisions I've been pondering lately. My husband and I have been talking very seriously about where our marriage is going. In April, he deploys for a year. Although this will be a hard time for us, it will also be a good time to save up some money for a house. When he gets home from his deployment (only to Kuwait, thank the gods he isn't going to Afghanistan), he will be getting out of the military. From there, where will we go? Where will he get a job? Should we buy a house? We'll have a little over ten grand to put towards one, we may as well, right? There just seems to be so much going on, so many big decisions. I remember I used to get pretty excited when people told me that once you got past high school, life was easier. Who the heck told me that? Why would they say something so stupid?
How is everyone doing? There seems to be so much synchronicity in Blogland lately. Despite the fact that all these major life decisions seem to be looming, I'm in a pretty good place right now. I feel like the last few months I've spent so much time thinking, contemplating, worrying and now it's time for action. Knowing that things need to change only gets you so far, you know?
I am a lot like him in this respect. There are so many things I could enjoy pursuing as a career. I love to make jewelry. I like herbs and love making useful products out of them. I'm obsessed with weddings. Pregnancy fascinates me. I like to teach and pass on the information I have gained. I can see myself doing any one of these things, or all of them. Currently, I'm attending school learning how to be a wedding planner. While this is very exciting and will be a great deal of fun for me, I feel like it doesn't include enough of my interests. How could I ever possibly find a career that involved enough of my interests to keep me interested long term? Or will I always be bouncing around like my dad?
For a while I've been considering getting training as a doula. For those of you who aren't familiar with a doula's purpose, click here for some basic information. Pregnancy is amazing to me. Since my best friend in high school got pregnant, I have loved pouring through pregnancy books. I'm a registered member of BabyCenter.com (yeah, I know, I'm a freaking dork). I think it's fascinating and I want to be involved in a non-medical way. I want to be involved during the pregnancy, labor and post-postpartum. It's pretty easy to become certified and not too expensive. But how would this work in tandem with being a wedding planner? I suppose being a wedding planner would be a great way to get clients as a doula--you already know someone and help them through one of their biggest milestones in life, you have trust and friendship there. It might be natural for them to turn to you for help in another milestone occasion. But how can I market that, the two of them together? And would I be spreading myself thin? Maybe if I only take on three or four weddings and births each a year, I could do it.
These are just a few of the major life decisions I've been pondering lately. My husband and I have been talking very seriously about where our marriage is going. In April, he deploys for a year. Although this will be a hard time for us, it will also be a good time to save up some money for a house. When he gets home from his deployment (only to Kuwait, thank the gods he isn't going to Afghanistan), he will be getting out of the military. From there, where will we go? Where will he get a job? Should we buy a house? We'll have a little over ten grand to put towards one, we may as well, right? There just seems to be so much going on, so many big decisions. I remember I used to get pretty excited when people told me that once you got past high school, life was easier. Who the heck told me that? Why would they say something so stupid?
How is everyone doing? There seems to be so much synchronicity in Blogland lately. Despite the fact that all these major life decisions seem to be looming, I'm in a pretty good place right now. I feel like the last few months I've spent so much time thinking, contemplating, worrying and now it's time for action. Knowing that things need to change only gets you so far, you know?
10 November 2009
Current Music Choices
I know I am, like, way behind the times here. I can be pretty tech savvy but there are some things that just slip right past me. I still don't understand the point of a Twitter..? So I'm going to post this for everyone else out there who is like me and seems to miss out on some of the good things in life.
Pandora. It pretty much rocks. This website is amazing. It creates radio stations according to your musical interests and offers suggestions of bands that are similar. For instance, I like Postal Service. I put that into my radio station and Pandora was like "Hmm, what sounds like Postal Service? Oh yeah, Owl City." I've been using this little gem all night after spending the weekend with a friend who showed me it's infinite amazing-ness (yeah, that's a word). I've discovered about ten new bands so far that I love love LOVE. For real, yo. Yeah, I know. I'm stupid. But seriously, check this out if you're kind of in a musical rut. I'm pretty particular about music. I hate the radio. If it's on the radio, I probably don't like it. I relied pretty heavily on my friends to introduce me to new music. And since I've moved out of state, I've been listening to the same bands for like, two years? And they're still good, always will be, but I like variety!
I'm in love. So here's a little playlist of the things I've been listening to lately, some old and new:
-Owl City
-Postal Service
-Iron and Wine
-Band of Horses
-Matt and Kim
-Her Space Holiday
-Andrew Bird
-Cloud Cult
-Death Cab for Cutie
-The Decemberists
-Say Anything
-Damien Rice
In about an hour or so, I'm sure there'll be fifteen new bands I like. This is just a small taste of what I dig listening to. If you like indie music I highly recommend all of these artists.
Pandora. It pretty much rocks. This website is amazing. It creates radio stations according to your musical interests and offers suggestions of bands that are similar. For instance, I like Postal Service. I put that into my radio station and Pandora was like "Hmm, what sounds like Postal Service? Oh yeah, Owl City." I've been using this little gem all night after spending the weekend with a friend who showed me it's infinite amazing-ness (yeah, that's a word). I've discovered about ten new bands so far that I love love LOVE. For real, yo. Yeah, I know. I'm stupid. But seriously, check this out if you're kind of in a musical rut. I'm pretty particular about music. I hate the radio. If it's on the radio, I probably don't like it. I relied pretty heavily on my friends to introduce me to new music. And since I've moved out of state, I've been listening to the same bands for like, two years? And they're still good, always will be, but I like variety!
I'm in love. So here's a little playlist of the things I've been listening to lately, some old and new:
-Owl City
-Postal Service
-Iron and Wine
-Band of Horses
-Matt and Kim
-Her Space Holiday
-Andrew Bird
-Cloud Cult
-Death Cab for Cutie
-The Decemberists
-Say Anything
-Damien Rice
In about an hour or so, I'm sure there'll be fifteen new bands I like. This is just a small taste of what I dig listening to. If you like indie music I highly recommend all of these artists.
09 November 2009
Perception
I've had this post in draft for a while. I know I want to say a thing or two here but I've been putting it on hold for a while. But I read a post over at Rayden's Rants about a similar topic and I decided it was time to just get this out. People are intriguing. I love watching them, listening to them. Not just to the words coming out of their mouths, but listening to their body language. Listening to their posture, their facial expressions. The smallest twinge can give a person away. People tell me I'm intuitive. They say I see things others don't, I can read people like a book. I don't necessarily think this is true, though. I'm not sure people can be so clueless, honestly. How someone can not interpret that "No, really, I'm fine" as "There's a lot going on and I just don't know how to talk about it". How people can't really see behind that smile. Or those tears. I think people chose to not see these things. I think people turn off their intuition. I don't think it's something some people have and others don't.
We all experience things that make our lives unique. They change us as people. These experiences are things many other people go through every day. But they are uniquely our own. One of the most interesting phrases is "I know what you're going through". I have to both agree and disagree with this statement. Our experiences aren't unique, but how they affect our lives, how we handle them and feel about them, that's unique. No one can ever truly understand how you're feeling about something. You are a unique person. You go through millions of experiences, thousands of things come together on a daily basis to shape you as a person. No other person on the planet is exactly like you for a lot of reasons. One of those reasons is we all experience things differently. We get puberty at different times. Our parents treat us differently. We have different teachers. We have different brains that perceive things differently.
There is no person in the world who has had a unique experience. Lots of people have miscarriages. Lots of people get divorced. Some people try drugs. A few people kill others. There are literally millions of people who have, are or will go through what you're going through. You are never alone in anything that happens to you. To think you're alone is selfishness. It's egotistical. It's naive and silly.
You are not an island unto yourself. You're more like a house. There are others that look like you. But they are made of different materials. Even if it's the same material, it came from a different source. It may be stronger or weaker than other materials. It may have flaws. It may have been cut out of the same stone, but one piece could've been dropped. One piece may have been heated to a dangerous point. Another piece may have sat in the rain. Every piece of material is different than the next. Your house is unique. You can hole up in your house all by yourself but there are others out there who look just like you. There are others who look a lot different than you. But you're essentially the same thing. There are some houses in the same neighborhood as you, experiencing the same elements. You'll get rained on at the same time. You'll feel the same wind and sunshine. But there are other neighborhoods yet, neighborhoods that will get different weather. They may never experience the same weather as you and vice versa. But the houses that are in your neighborhood, they'll be affected by the same weather differently. Maybe the house whose stone was dropped will crumble. The stone that was heated may crack and allow leaks. So each house is different. Similar but different.
I was born in 1987 and I was raised by a crazy person. A mentally unstable woman gave birth to me. She smoked while she was pregnant with me. Both of my parents were in the Navy. I cuss a lot, I was literally raised by sailors. I'm a firm supporter of the military. I don't believe in the concept of sin but I think killing a soldier is an unforgivable offense. My brother is a soldier. He almost died in Iraq. He saw his driver take his last breath, close his eyes for the last time. I cry a lot. I cry every time I read Harry Potter. I cry when I watch those I Shouldn't Have Survived shows. I have compassion for the strangest people, those people that most people don't understand; hell, most of the time I don't understand them. But I feel for them. I'm selfish. I'm ignorant. When I look at the man who hurt me more than any other person ever has, I still feel love for him. When I look at the woman who gave birth to me, I feel hurt and contempt. As much as I disagree with abortion, sometimes I wonder if I would do it if I got pregnant again. I like makeup. I hate the excuse "That's just how it is". I've tried most drugs. I enjoyed many of them. I'm bisexual. I think women are beautiful, soft creatures. My marriage started for all the wrong reasons. I'm trying to make it work for the right reasons. When I think of the perfect marriage, I imagine my dad and stepmom. I recently found out their marriage may not be working out after all. I wonder if love is possible. I'm a nude art model. I don't do porn. There's a difference.
There are probably thousands of people who fit all of these criteria. But not one of them will know how I felt when I had my miscarriage. Not one of them experienced it in exactly the same way I did. Nobody will know how it affected me when my brother went to Iraq or I went through basic training. But do people need to truly understand something in order to be supportive? In order to be let in? I don't think so. Our experiences aren't unique and there are common threads. We don't experience them so we can be alone, we experience them so we can grow together. We experience them so we can connect with people. So sometimes when it seems like what we're going through makes no damn sense at all, there can't possibly be a reason for what we're going through, remember that. Remember that someone else is experiencing the same thing. And next time you think no one could possibly feel the way you do, you're wrong. And you're right.
"Nothing of me is original. I am the combined efforts of everybody I've ever known." -"Invisible Monsters" by Chuck Palahniuk.
We all experience things that make our lives unique. They change us as people. These experiences are things many other people go through every day. But they are uniquely our own. One of the most interesting phrases is "I know what you're going through". I have to both agree and disagree with this statement. Our experiences aren't unique, but how they affect our lives, how we handle them and feel about them, that's unique. No one can ever truly understand how you're feeling about something. You are a unique person. You go through millions of experiences, thousands of things come together on a daily basis to shape you as a person. No other person on the planet is exactly like you for a lot of reasons. One of those reasons is we all experience things differently. We get puberty at different times. Our parents treat us differently. We have different teachers. We have different brains that perceive things differently.
There is no person in the world who has had a unique experience. Lots of people have miscarriages. Lots of people get divorced. Some people try drugs. A few people kill others. There are literally millions of people who have, are or will go through what you're going through. You are never alone in anything that happens to you. To think you're alone is selfishness. It's egotistical. It's naive and silly.
You are not an island unto yourself. You're more like a house. There are others that look like you. But they are made of different materials. Even if it's the same material, it came from a different source. It may be stronger or weaker than other materials. It may have flaws. It may have been cut out of the same stone, but one piece could've been dropped. One piece may have been heated to a dangerous point. Another piece may have sat in the rain. Every piece of material is different than the next. Your house is unique. You can hole up in your house all by yourself but there are others out there who look just like you. There are others who look a lot different than you. But you're essentially the same thing. There are some houses in the same neighborhood as you, experiencing the same elements. You'll get rained on at the same time. You'll feel the same wind and sunshine. But there are other neighborhoods yet, neighborhoods that will get different weather. They may never experience the same weather as you and vice versa. But the houses that are in your neighborhood, they'll be affected by the same weather differently. Maybe the house whose stone was dropped will crumble. The stone that was heated may crack and allow leaks. So each house is different. Similar but different.
I was born in 1987 and I was raised by a crazy person. A mentally unstable woman gave birth to me. She smoked while she was pregnant with me. Both of my parents were in the Navy. I cuss a lot, I was literally raised by sailors. I'm a firm supporter of the military. I don't believe in the concept of sin but I think killing a soldier is an unforgivable offense. My brother is a soldier. He almost died in Iraq. He saw his driver take his last breath, close his eyes for the last time. I cry a lot. I cry every time I read Harry Potter. I cry when I watch those I Shouldn't Have Survived shows. I have compassion for the strangest people, those people that most people don't understand; hell, most of the time I don't understand them. But I feel for them. I'm selfish. I'm ignorant. When I look at the man who hurt me more than any other person ever has, I still feel love for him. When I look at the woman who gave birth to me, I feel hurt and contempt. As much as I disagree with abortion, sometimes I wonder if I would do it if I got pregnant again. I like makeup. I hate the excuse "That's just how it is". I've tried most drugs. I enjoyed many of them. I'm bisexual. I think women are beautiful, soft creatures. My marriage started for all the wrong reasons. I'm trying to make it work for the right reasons. When I think of the perfect marriage, I imagine my dad and stepmom. I recently found out their marriage may not be working out after all. I wonder if love is possible. I'm a nude art model. I don't do porn. There's a difference.
There are probably thousands of people who fit all of these criteria. But not one of them will know how I felt when I had my miscarriage. Not one of them experienced it in exactly the same way I did. Nobody will know how it affected me when my brother went to Iraq or I went through basic training. But do people need to truly understand something in order to be supportive? In order to be let in? I don't think so. Our experiences aren't unique and there are common threads. We don't experience them so we can be alone, we experience them so we can grow together. We experience them so we can connect with people. So sometimes when it seems like what we're going through makes no damn sense at all, there can't possibly be a reason for what we're going through, remember that. Remember that someone else is experiencing the same thing. And next time you think no one could possibly feel the way you do, you're wrong. And you're right.
"Nothing of me is original. I am the combined efforts of everybody I've ever known." -"Invisible Monsters" by Chuck Palahniuk.
05 November 2009
Tarot of the New Vision
Last night my brother bought me a new tarot deck as a late birthday gift--my birthday is in April but he was in Iraq. We went to a book store in town called Peace of Mind. This store is amazing. They have more books on spiritual matters than I could try to guess at. They've got a few stones and crystals, a bit of jewelry and an herb room. But what I love most is their tarot case. They must have 50 different decks in there. This is where I picked up a mini Rider-Waite for my mother, who expressed an interest in tarot a few days ago.
I scanned the case for any of the decks I'm just dying for and found Tarot of the New Vision. I was super pumped about this because I think these cards will take me a long way in learning more about my Rider-Waite deck. These cards answer the question: what else is going on in the story of each card? What is the Magician looking at? What is the King of Swords contemplating? What other things make up the world around each card?
The deck came with the book which is 153 pages of very detailed information. The deck's artwork is beautiful. It's very colorful watercolor, less garish than the Rider-Waite. A few of the cards are not exact reversals. For instance, in the Magician, the sword and wand are on the ground instead of on the table. However, most images do stick with the original placements and it appears things have only been changed around to make an image work. The cards are thinner, more pliable for easier handling, but I'm sure this will also make them more susceptible to damage and not as long-lasting.
While learning the tarot I've made an effort to tell a story with each card. This deck makes that very easy. It also adds depth to the meanings I've come to associate with each card. The Hanged Man is before a jeering crowd who appear to be very angry, bringing to mind the story of Jesus' crucifixion. Now not only will I think of self-sacrifice, or an act done purely for the self, but I will think of acts done for the greater good. But I will also think of punishment and torture. It hasn't changed my original interpretation, simply added to it, making my tarot education more well-rounded.
One of my favorite images is that of the X of Swords. In this picture you can still see the man lying face down with ten swords protruding from his body but this time you see a woman shrouded in black looking at him. She appears to be mourning his death. Usually the X of Swords makes me think of what is ending in my life, how it affects me. But this image makes me think of how it may affect others around me. In the VIII of Cups you can see what the man in the image is walking away from; it isn't simply a few cups on the ground. There is an entire city in the background lit up with fireworks. What are they celebrating and why does this man feel so alienated from it? It gives you a lot to think about.
I wouldn't recommend this deck for beginners. Even though the deck is so similar to the Rider-Waite, it does leave out some important details that make the R-W deck so easy for beginners to learn. From behind, you can't see all the symbols that are easy to interpret. This deck adds a few more symbols but they aren't as clear cut as the R-W. I would suggest someone who is familiar with the R-W use these cards. It works great as a companion to readings and a tool to learn more about the beloved familiar images. This deck can be found for a great price through Llewellyn Worldwide.
I scanned the case for any of the decks I'm just dying for and found Tarot of the New Vision. I was super pumped about this because I think these cards will take me a long way in learning more about my Rider-Waite deck. These cards answer the question: what else is going on in the story of each card? What is the Magician looking at? What is the King of Swords contemplating? What other things make up the world around each card?
The deck came with the book which is 153 pages of very detailed information. The deck's artwork is beautiful. It's very colorful watercolor, less garish than the Rider-Waite. A few of the cards are not exact reversals. For instance, in the Magician, the sword and wand are on the ground instead of on the table. However, most images do stick with the original placements and it appears things have only been changed around to make an image work. The cards are thinner, more pliable for easier handling, but I'm sure this will also make them more susceptible to damage and not as long-lasting.
While learning the tarot I've made an effort to tell a story with each card. This deck makes that very easy. It also adds depth to the meanings I've come to associate with each card. The Hanged Man is before a jeering crowd who appear to be very angry, bringing to mind the story of Jesus' crucifixion. Now not only will I think of self-sacrifice, or an act done purely for the self, but I will think of acts done for the greater good. But I will also think of punishment and torture. It hasn't changed my original interpretation, simply added to it, making my tarot education more well-rounded.
One of my favorite images is that of the X of Swords. In this picture you can still see the man lying face down with ten swords protruding from his body but this time you see a woman shrouded in black looking at him. She appears to be mourning his death. Usually the X of Swords makes me think of what is ending in my life, how it affects me. But this image makes me think of how it may affect others around me. In the VIII of Cups you can see what the man in the image is walking away from; it isn't simply a few cups on the ground. There is an entire city in the background lit up with fireworks. What are they celebrating and why does this man feel so alienated from it? It gives you a lot to think about.
I wouldn't recommend this deck for beginners. Even though the deck is so similar to the Rider-Waite, it does leave out some important details that make the R-W deck so easy for beginners to learn. From behind, you can't see all the symbols that are easy to interpret. This deck adds a few more symbols but they aren't as clear cut as the R-W. I would suggest someone who is familiar with the R-W use these cards. It works great as a companion to readings and a tool to learn more about the beloved familiar images. This deck can be found for a great price through Llewellyn Worldwide.
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