MJ in my ear

Can we just talk about Michael Jackson right now? I mean, can I get random like that? Of course I can!

I was born here in the 80's so I kind of grew up with Michael Jackson. He was just kind of...everywhere! I like MOST of his songs (I think), he's the king of pop, and I'd even go so far as to say he played some small part of my sexual awakening as a young girl. :o He taught me about Dirty Diana and the way a woman could make him feel. That making changes starts with the Man in the Mirror. He made me feel like a badass when I listened to Bad and he taught me something about AIDS, race, sex, confidence, and we all tried to learn his cool dance moves. 

I listened to MJ on repeat today but only my two favorite songs. No, that's not right. I have three favorite MJ songs. I'll put all three here but I only killed the first two today. They fit the mood somehow. Ready? We're off!

This song comes from the middle of a movie MJ did (I think...all my MJ stuff is mixed together lol). I watched it somanytimes!!! I think it was called Moonwalk. I don't feel like looking it up right now and its not important. These creature people would probably be super creepy to me if I hadn't grown up watching them lose their minds over MJ so many times. Haha. Anyway, I skipped to the music today but another favorite of this video is the end. The dance off between MJ and his disguise was epic for me when I was a kid. I remember trying to copy everything (my brother always seemed much better at this) OR I'd sit and watch transfixed! On top of everything else is the song. Love this song so much still and its a proven fact that it will make me drive faster, run harder, and do more of the things, whatever those may be!!

How great is this next MV! Ah...the whole song/video combo just gets to me still. The lyrics in this song grew on me more and more as I got older and I had more and more people in my life who I wanted to "just leave me alone". Mike really sold it to me, too! I can still feel his hurt and frustration when he's screaming and pleading. Just gets you right there. Well done MJ, well done. :) Also of note is the terrifying mouth that I was sure would chomp him every single time and when he blew my mind at the end and I realized that HE WAS THE RIDE. Symbolism!! Again, kudos.

Last but not least is the MV that had me GLUED to the screen as a young girl; another from the movie I mentioned earlier. I had a crush on MJ back in the day. I'm pretty sure a lot of girls did. His voice was too soft in real life, he was kinda weird and kinda small but when he was doing his thing, he was doing. his. thing!! He had that confidence on stage and while dancing that drew me right in. That and all his crotch grabbing, pelvis pumping, shirt ripping, lip biting, taped fingers, hat pulled down low, leather pants, chains and zippers. I'm pretty sure those all played a part as well... LOL

This is a cover for a Beatles song but I always like this version better...obviously. ;)

Mike got even weirder later, bad things came out, and now he's dead but this Mike from my childhood...he's still pretty great. :) Thanks MJ.

Some things

Helloooooo out there!!!!...out there...there...the.... That was an echo. Did you get it?! Lol Jokes...smh. Moving on!

My boss and I had a short, impromptu chat the other day about work, husbands, kids, stress, and womanhood. Incidentally, now close to retirement and single, she's getting rid of old tableware and a discussion began about how cathartic it would be to break all those plates and things instead (e.g. throw them, smash them, use them to shoot skeet). You get the picture and ahhhhhh, it was sweet. The next day when I arrived to work  I found this plate with my name on it; slightly cracked, hand-painted, and adorned with a sticker. I'm going to break this innocent plate and it's going to feel good...stay tuned. Lol (Note to self: become this kind of boss one day.)

Ukrainian Folk Tales has wrapped and now resides on my annual, digital bookshelf within Goodreads. Do you think that stopped me from delving into another book even though I'm still in the middle of two others? No, it did not! Amy Poehler's, Yes Please, has been making me salivate for months.

I caught it available as an e-audiobook the other day, jumped all over it, and have been chuckling during commutes ever since! Yes, please!!

Opportunity has fallen into my lap once again at work so I'll be using this coming week to work extra from home to complete an extra project or two, take advantage of those opportunities, relax, recharge, and have a little fun dammit! Summer's almost over!!

I'll leave you with a painting; Hieronymus Bosch's painting Garden of Earthly Delights. I ran into this section of the painting in a book at work this week. You'll have to enlarge the image to see but there's a lot of weirdness going on in this painting and I'm a true sucker for hidden weirdness in paintings! It begged me to look it up so I did.

I found the rest of it (below) and spent quite a bit of time studying each section. The guy/girl who's bent over with flowers sticking out of his/her butt is a fave. Find that one. ;)

Headed to the land of napping for a bit. Byeeeee!

On trust...

Doing a little trust work today so I'll leave one of the exercises here.

According to the book I'm in, which I'll put below, there are four ways people generally react and protect themselves when faced with emotional pain and of course we supposedly all picked these things up for the most part during childhood.
There's fight, flight, freeze, and faint. They give a couple examples like "if you were beaten or molested, you may leave your body under stress, going into a kind of trance" or "if you identified with a parent who raged, you may be hot tempered and often scare others with your anger".
Personally, I do all four types and it just depends on the situation. The book says that's normal but we all have one that's usually more dominant than the others; our go-to protection strategy, if you will. There's a little quiz of course. I think I know exactly where I'll be more dominant lol but I'll put my responses here.

Directions go something like this. Think about a recent situation where you felt like someone was angry at you or rejecting you. Examples: when you felt blamed unfairly, when you felt disrespected, when you felt like you'd been betrayed. Using a scale of 0 (Not me!) to 5 (Are you reading my journal?), how well do the following responses describe your reaction to the situation.

Here we go!

• Fight
• I get angry so fast, I can't control it.  I might break something or hit someone.(5)
• My heart instantly hardens. I feel cold, unloving.(5)
• My whole body gets hot. I want to jump up and scream. (5)
• Flight
• I'm out of here! I might even leap from a moving car if it's bad enough.(1)
• I want to just walk away. I think I never want to see the other person again.(5)
• I cant stop talking. My mind is going a million miles an hour.(0)
• Freeze
• My mind is a blank. I can't think of a thing to say.(4)
• I feel punched in the stomach, unable to move or talk.(5)
• My heart is beating so fast. My mouth is dry. I feel like a robot.(4)
• Faint
• I can]t remember what the other person said.(1)
• My body feels like Jell-O. My knees buckle and I can't stand up.(0)
• I just wait until the bad part stops, then act like nothing has happened.(1)

From most-likely reactions to least my scores go like this:

Fight=15

Freeze=13

Flight=6

Faint=2

Basically, my scores say that when I get hurt emotionally, I get angry to protect myself. This doesn't surprise me. Anger's protected me many times. Anger enabled me to protect myself physically when I needed to. Anger protected me so I was able to do things that I could never or should never have done. Anger protected me until I could get to safer places. Anger protected me when I needed to leave bad people and toxic relationships behind. Anger protected my mind from feeling what it should have been feeling but maybe would have been too much.

However, not counting my mom, I could probably count on two hands the amount of times in my life that my anger has actually boiled over into violent action. There must have been some lessons I was taught along the way as a kid about not losing control or my grip on reality and consequenses. Maybe it was seeing my mom lose control and my desire to never be like her or do that. Maybe it was because seeing what my anger did or caused when it came out never felt good later. Maybe it was because my anger scared me when I thought of what I knew I had inside of me and what I was capable of if I lost that control. I would guess that's why freezing up is a close second for dealing with bad stuff. In my mind, freezing up is like shutting down completely and that goes hand in hand with anger.

I would say the degree to which this type of reaction happens is directly based on how vested I am in whatever is causing the pain. I'm not going to get overly riled up if I don't give a shit about you and if I do care, then it will be swift, automatic, and with an intensity level of Insane. Aside from my mom, its only happened with people (or animals) who have been kind of important at one point or another.  I've only lost it (my control) on my brother when we were kids, an old boyfriend, my previous dog who thankfully always knew exactly when to exit stage left, my husband once a long time ago, and one of my kids who I never hurt but did end up scaring which made me feel like the biggest loser in the world afterward. That happened a couple times. I'm not proud of all those times or the things I did but I do think I'm doing pretty well considering the amount of rage I've had floating around inside me. I've learned to use my anger in positive ways like in the gym or if I have to do scary things like make a speech. It can get me through almost anything! Additionally, when things are going in a bad direction sometimes its good to be quiet, listen, observe, and not lash out right away. So me completely shutting down and not being able to express anything, including the craziness that might be happening inside, has turned out to be a helpful thing in a lot of situations.

Something that's not helpful and is getting in my way though is when these types of reactions are automatic but not necessarily warranted anymore. I'm human so I'm going to experience emotional pain from time to time at the hands of someone else. That doesn't make them the "bad ones" from my younger days who genuinely seemed out to get me. It doesn't mean they deserve to be cut from my life for minor infractions and it doesn't mean I need to lose good people that potentially, actually love me in the right ways because I don't have a handle on myself. I need to be able to turn it on and off. What I'm trying to say is that now, when it comes to emotional pain caused by others, I want to learn how to act instead of just reacting. 

And that, folks, will be the meat and potatoes of a future exercise on trust. 😉

Goodnight everyone and no one. 

Wall, C. L. (2005). The courage to trust: A guide to building deep and lasting relationships. Oakland, Calif: New Harbinger.

"On you will go..."

I'm tired fam...life tired.

On a completely different subject. I listened to this quick, hour-long audiobook while at the gym last night.

It seemed relevant at the time and I couldn't handle music. I seem to like a decent amount of what Adichie says in general (not just in this book) as she's in the "equal opportunities camp" instead of the "women are superior or men don't have any problems camp". Women aren't in the superior or inferior box across the board and men deal with sexist stuff as well. I agreed with some of what she said and other parts seemed less rooted in the reality we currently live in. She does give a disclaimer in the beginning that she wrote this before becoming a parent of her own daughter and that changed her thoughts a little. Anyway, it was food for thought which was exactly what I was looking for. Prior to that, I tried two other audiobooks on the subject of self-esteem or self-confidence but they were so unbelievably corny and full of psycho babble that I couldn't hang. Don't give me rainbows and unicorns, give me something concrete, something real.

Want to hear something random and completely useless? I'll tell you. You know these whiteout things?

Yes? Okay. Great little tools. This particular one malfunctioned on me (apparently a common thing. I wouldn't know). I watched a quick tutorial on YouTube and went to war with it. Little did I know this would take me to my limits of patience and occupy 45 straight minutes of my time. I had a coworker tell me it was simply defective and he'd just get me a new one. I knew it wasn't defective though! I knew it was me, so I thanked him and kept on. After several more YouTube videos, it was fixed and working properly. That right there put me on a high that lasted for hours that day. 

See? Useless babbling.

I'll leave you with a new Burna. Its...alright. But its mellow and that's what I need right now.

Let's work to keep our heads up. Hmm? Alright? Alright then!

Sleepy post

Greetings! I'm working today and have run into some fascinating photography books! Yes, I'll be bringing them home for further perusal just as soon as I find some more room in my purse...and of course I will share them here when I do.

I wore red lipstick all day the other day so another bucket list item bites the dust. Honestly, half way through I realized this shouldn't really be on the list because it's not that scary anymore.

Hmm, what else...

• I painted the dining room the other day. Debating on doing part of the living room this weekend or not. 
• I've been to Lowe's twice now looking for mailbox posts with no luck and will try a new store next week.
• The last student loan of my Bachelor's degree got paid off today; one of the 2018 goals I set and can now mark off. Feels good!
• I can now do two pullups at a time...sometimes. This was also a goal for 2018 but I'm not ready to mark it off just yet. Maybe when I can do more in a row.

I think that's all for now. I feel so sleepy all the time and at the same time I'm getting more and more restless. I'd like to disappear and do something fun and spontaneous. I've been looking for opportunities but if I can't find one, I'll be making one!

Gonna read a take a cat nap. I'm out!

On self-esteem

Yesterday I...

• felt the sun warming the side of my face while I was driving and it made me smile. I was grateful.
• clipped the fingernails of a man I barely know at work. I was kinda grossed out but as a human being he needed help and asked me for it so I did it. It was a little surreal lol
• made a new grilled cheese but not really. In reality I made a duplicate by accident. Ugh! Lol
• was told by one of my children that he doesn't think his brown skin looks as good on him as a lighter skin would. He'd rather have skin like the people he's playing in his games. (White) Sigh. 😔😔

OK! Topic change!

I've had a backslide on self-esteem issues. I had to basically start from scratch in my early 20's and have worked really freaking hard to get where I am today with my little baby self-esteem so I'm not going to let this get any more out of hand. I busted out my book last night (because books are what I do baby!) to do an exercise which I'll put some of here. Watch me work!! 😊

So it goes like this. There are some words listed and I'm to check the ones that apply to me. Some were easy. I'll put those in green. Some made me hesitate and I felt slightly dishonest but directions specifically say "if you sometimes are, or have been, reasonably..." so those will be in yellow. Some were even harder and caused some mental battling as in, technically, yes...maybe, sometimes, but I'm fighting it. lol I'll put those in orange. The rest in red are either I have never felt they apply to me, no longer apply, don't feel they apply yet, and would feel like a liar to say that they do. 

Here we go!

Humorous, mirthful, or amusing

Loyal, committed

Literate

Strong, powerful, forceful

Determined, resolute, firm

Patient

Rational, reasonable, logical

Sensitive, or considerate

Appreciative

Industrious

Successful

Open-minded

Spontaneous

Flexible or adaptable

Affectionate

Adventurous

Handy

Punctual

Gentle

Trustworthy

Loving

Creative or Imaginative

Clean

Friendly

Compassionate, kind, or caring

Disciplined

Generous
Conciliatory 

Respectful, or polite

Principled, ethical

Responsible, reliable

Encouraging, complimentary

Intelligent, perceptive

Cooperative

Forgiving, or able to look beyond mistakes or shortcomings

Tranquil or serene

Energetic

Expressive

Assured or self-confident

Enthusiatic, spirited

Optimistic

Trusting, seeing the best in others

Inutuitive or trusting of own instincts

Persuasive

Talented

Cheerful

Organized, orderly, or neat

Sharing

Attractive

Well-groomed

Physically fit

Tactful

Graceful, dignified

Looking at this list like this, a couple things immediately pop out for me.

1. Some things that are in yellow or orange and even a couple in red were at one point in green. Backsliding indeed!! For example, I mean, come on Aberiah. You're intelligent...SMH. But if I'm being deep down honest right in these last few...however long, I don't feel intelligent nor have I been telling myself I am. I often feel stupid and have been telling myself the same for lacking common sense or not being able to do math in my head or making little mistakes or comparing myself to others. That's a no-no and needs to stop.
2. Almost all the things in red make some significant, somewhat hurtful memory or memories pop up in my mind that is related to it. For example, trusting (parents), talented (mom), sharing (mom), attractive (parents). Some I don't know how to fix but I think I'll write at least some of those out. However, that's not for this blog. Need to try to get those things out and hopefully let them go. Just because I was told I was or was not something before doesn't mean that has to be my truth about myself today. Some things for me to think about there.
3. Look at those greens up there. Awwwwww. I'm proud of my greens! 😊

Part two!! I'm to come up with 15 nice statements about myself but the catch is they have to be totally believable for me. I've played this game before. It's not easy but the trick is to get crafty with the wording. 😉 I can use some of the words up top.

1. I have a strong and determined mind and my focus is killer!! 💪I'm tough!
2. I'm sensitive, empathetic, and very affectionate. 🤗
3. I'm open-minded, love learning new things,  and thrive on spontaneity.
4. I'm highly adaptable.
5. I'm adventurous, playful, and love to laugh.
6. I work hard to get what I want and where I want to be.
7. I'm appreciative and grateful.
8. I'm patient, loyal, and understanding. 
9. I'm thoughtful and a good listener.
10. I'm ambitious and independent.
11. I see the beauty in the little things.
12. I'm dependable and brave.
13. I'm perceptive, insightful, and fair.
14. I'm passionate about the things I do!!!❤
15. I'm a go-getter and generally achieve the goals I set for myself.💪

There. Look at that. I'm alright after all! 😉

Gonna look at these every day for awhile, until they soak in like they should.

I'll leave you with a couple songs. These have been on repeat for the last two days and seem to be covering all the emotions I need from music at the moment. I killed these on the way home from work today!! LOL I mean, who "car concerts" like I do?!

And here's something that made me laugh. Does everyone remember Prodigy's Firestarter. Great song! No? Here's a refresher...


What made me laugh was this video I ran into again...


That's pretty much me as a mom. lol. I remember rocking my baby the first few times and realizing I didn't know any of those songs. You know, the ones that mothers are supposed to know and sing to babies?! Ummmm. What did I do? I improvised! Shout out to all the moms out there who are winging it every single day!

Laters!!!

Things that help.

I'm not in the mood to dwaddle so I'll start with some bucket list stuff.

1. I got my eyebrows threaded for the first time ever yesterday so I can mark that off the list. 👀 Cost me ten dollars, I was in and out in about 10 minutes, didn't hurt as bad as I thought it might, and I've never had so many hairs in my eyes in my life!
2. I've ordered a copy of my birth certificate so I can get my first passport. Playing the waiting game there.
3. I want to send a care package to a random soldier. I found all the steps to do that yesterday and will be contacting the USO next week for the rest of the info.
4. I have procured a bottle, a cork, and instructions for how to send a message in a bottle these days. Lol I need my bottle to go FAR! What on earth should I write??

That's all for that, for now. Let's talk about work!
I LOVE my job and feel fortunate to have found what I was passionate about and turn it into a career. Each workday I gain perspective from something and I learn new things everyday; sometimes small, sometimes big, sometimes re-learning things I've forgotten.

Hmmm, without telling you what I do for a living...we'll say that when I'm at work, I'm surrounded by stories. Stories of all kinds and some of the most impactful on any given day come from the people that come up to me and tell me theirs. Here are a couple of recent ones that had my gears turning long after...

• A woman came to me in distress, said she was a published author and no longer able to locate her website. After giving her the contact information for the company who ran her site she told me her story and was sad that her book hadn't sold any copies in two years. I told her maybe it was time to write another one! After she left, I sat and thought about her for awhile, then looked up the book. There was only the one, self-published two years ago, sold on Amazon and Barnes & Noble, no reviews, and only nine pages.... Things aren't always as they seem at first. lol 
• I work with two guys who gave me their life stories. One is a disabled vet who was the unlucky guy to get into some nerve gas on a deployment, just taking a piss one day and unknowingly breathed it in. Never even had a clue. Now, he has uncontrollable tremors, lesions all over his body, walks with a cane on the good days, and spends a lot of time sick or in the hospital getting tests. How's that for life throwing you a crappy curve ball. He tells me that even now  he misses the action. He'll never be able to feel that adrenaline rush in the same way. 
• The other guy has Absence Seizures which cause lapses in awareness. On the outside he'll just look blank like someone in a daydream but inside he's seizing. He's had it since he was ten, was never able to have a driver's license, and loses whole chunks of time when he's blacking out. He told me a recent story of ordering a sandwich, walking a few blocks and back to his third floor desk at work before "waking up". He had to leave work and retrace his steps to his last memory to ask people what had happened. He crossed multiple streets while blank!! I imagined for awhile what a life like that would be like.
• I sat and secretly watched a homeless man (who seemed very happy!) pull out, carefully examine, categorize and repack several food items back into his bag. This was all done with intense focus and took quite a bit of time. I picked up from his comments to others that he had located a bag of goodies just outside in the back of a parking lot. I saw some yogurt, ramen noodles, snack packs, etc.. His day was made and he was so happy that the people around him started smiling as well. The thing that really threw me as I was secretly watching was that he gave some to another guy. Even with so little, he gave of what he had. That right there inspired me. It not only inspired me but it reminded me that you never know who's watching you or how you might be helping someone without ever knowing it. Also, anybody can help anybody. Period. It doesn't matter where you are in life or what you have or don't have. It just has to be the right time and the right place.
• There is a guy who rides around in a motorized wheel chair who always greets me in some way no matter how many times he's seen me that day. A couple days ago he stopped at my desk, we started talking, and he gave me his story. He used to own a landscaping company, also built things in his spare time, worked on cars a lot, etc.. A guy who liked to use his hands, lots of manual labor stuff. Then he had a stroke that changed his entire life immediately. He recovered somewhat only to fall while getting on a bus one day, completely shattering his hip which put him in a wheel chair. He ended up have two more strokes that left his entire left side paralyzed. Now he rides around in his motorized wheelchair and is getting a business degree. We agreed that in life, no one ever knows what's around the bend.

Anyway, like I said, I get stories like these almost every day. Its a beautiful thing. Moving on!

I ran into a book full of Xhosa Proverbs (Thanks to Trevor Noah's Born a Crime for teaching me what Xhosa is!) a few weeks ago that sucked me in and had me thinking. It stayed in my mind so I found it again to jot down a few that I liked and want to come back to from time to time. I'll leave you with those.

Dawn does not come twice to awaken anyone
Make sure you take those opportunities when they appear.

No elephant is overburdened by its own trunk
Anyone should be capable of handling their own responsibilities in life.

No partridge scratches the ground in search of food for another
Don't expect others do to for you what you should do for yourself.

An infant that does not cry out, dies on its mother's back, or is dead on delivery (stillborn)
Make your needs known and ask for help when you need it.

A bird builds with other birds' feathers
Equivalent to "No man is an island"

Headed out to try to have a some kind of a Sunday! Byeee!