It’s a big problem of mine. It mostly stems from my giant load of Catholic guilt, I think. Talking about the good things that are happening in my life feels too much like bragging, especially when someone else around me is having a bad time. Is it okay to talk about neat experiences that someone else can’t have, or is that rubbing my good fortune in someone else’s face? I’m bad at judging another person’s mindset, so I usually err on the side of caution. So that leaves two options: talk about ideas and experiences we both share equally, or trade complaints. Since not everyone has the same experiences all the time, more often than not, I end up talking about the negative side of life.

I do hate complaining. Once again, the guilt is a problem – my life is incredibly blessed compared to other people’s lives, what do I have to complain about? That guilt keeps me silent a lot of times. But the opposite side of that guilt is irritation; when I do vent my day-to-day problems, many times the other person’s answer is to play the “I can top that” conversational game. “Oh, you had a bad day at work? Here’s how awful my day was, it was totally worse than yours.” It’s not even a conscious decision; everyone does it, even me, as much as I try not to. Again, it’s a way to connect – look, we both had awful days! We’re in the same boat! But my automatic reaction to the “mine is worse than yours” response is to clam up … I go back to “my problems aren’t bad enough to talk about, obviously, so I’ll just shut up and listen.” Which is a noble sentiment if you have it for the right reasons, but most of the time, it just makes me feel bitter.

Then, there are times when I’m excited and want to talk about it! I’m going on vacation! Something awesome happened at work! I received a great present! I was inspired by a wonderful idea! There are some people in my life I know I can be genuinely happy at and not feel guilty (hi Kate!), but for the most part, I silently question who I can celebrate life’s little victories with. I may be going on vacation, but that person is having money problems and can’t afford to go anywhere for a while. I may have gotten a great opportunity at work, but that person is stuck in a miserable situation and doesn’t currently see a way out of it. I’m inspired to write something shiny and new, but that person’s been suffering from writer’s block for weeks. Is it fair to go to those people and share my glee, or will it just rub salt in their wounds? Ideally, I’d like to think that my friends would always be happy for my victories, but I know myself, and I get bitten by the jealousy monster more often than I’d like. Envy makes me feel like a truly lousy person. Maybe, I think, I should be nice and keep the other person from feeling that lousy. So, I temper my enthusiasm, and end up getting irritated when someone else feels comfortable enough to celebrate their good day.

Obviously, most of my problems in this instance revolve around how much stock I put into other people’s opinions. One of my biggest ongoing struggles is to remind myself that my own opinion is the only one that truly matters, that other people’s negative opinions of me do not define me. I want to be more positive! I want to celebrate all my little victories, and I want to feel comfortable sharing those victories with the people around me. At the same time, though, I want to be sensitive to the problems of others and not make their potential misery any worse with careless words. Where’s the balance? How do I feel comfortable making conversation without worrying that I’m saying the wrong thing? That’s a much larger problem for me … on the topic of complaining versus happy thoughts, I need to remind myself of several things:

1) I am allowed to be happy, even if someone else is sad.
2) The reverse of the above is also true. My emotions and experiences do not have to be tied to anyone else’s.
3) Another person’s misery is not a personal attack on me. Unhappiness is not a game with points to be won. Neither is happiness.
4) It is good for me to listen to someone else’s happy thoughts or complaints without turning it back around to my own experiences.
5) If someone I’m talking to doesn’t seem to understand point #3, it doesn’t mean I have to stop talking about whatever it is that I’m feeling at that point.

There is a larger issue I’m unpacking here – the idea that my life is just as interesting and valid as anyone else’s, that I need to choose the life that makes me happy regardless of whether someone else (specific or society at large) thinks it’s a worthwhile pursuit. That’s going to take a while to get through. This is a start, though!

1) Deanna Raybourn’s Lady Julia Grey books – a series of Victorian mysteries that feature one of my favorite first-person narrators in a long time. My friend Michelle suggested we read the first one, Silent in the Grave, for our book club; as soon as I finished it this weekend, I went out and bought (and read) the second book. If you like historical mysteries with a liberal dash of romantic tension, I highly recommend this series!

2) So You Think You Can Dance. This is the first season I’ve watched, and I’m enthralled by the talent of all the dancers. I’ve always wanted to be a dancer, but never taken any classes – maybe that’s something for the list of adventures? For now, though, I’m living vicariously through these contestants.

3) The new Great Big Sea album, Safe Upon The Shore. GBS has been one of my all-time favorite bands since 2002 (my discovery story, if you’re so inclined), and the new CD doesn’t disappoint. It has all the Celtic-tinged folk rock they’re famous for, with a little dash of Southern flavor that came from recording their album in New Orleans. They’ll be here for the Irish Fair next month, and I can’t wait to see how the new songs sound live!

4) Yoga, for finally helping the stiff neck I’ve been sporting since sleeping in a hotel bed at the convention. I should get off my ass and do it tonight … after SYTYCD, of course.

5) The prospect of a ton of great concerts this fall! So far, we have Cowboy Mouth, Stephen Kellogg and the Sixers, fun., Ludo, Justin Townes Earle, 30 Seconds To Mars, Great Big Sea (again) … and the fall tours are just beginning to be announced! This, my friends, is where all of my disposable cash goes, in case you were wondering.

If you feel like it, tell me what’s making you happy in the comments!

The thing I like most about her approach, though, might be her adventure bowl. The thing is, my recent bout of depression has made me realize how afraid I’ve become again. I’m afraid to say things because I think my friends will think badly of me. I’m afraid to do things because they don’t fit into the neat little routine I’ve made out of my life. Yes, I do a lot of things that other people consider brave and adventurous – I drive hundreds of miles to see bands I love, I dress in costume at sci-fi conventions, I post the occasional raw emotion on the internet – but there are a lot of other things that lurk under the surface that I’m just too scared or too shy to try. The definition of ‘adventure’ is to gamble, to take a risk. For everything I do in my life right now, I have a pretty good idea what the outcome will be. Maybe it’s time to start doing more things whose outcomes are uncertain?

I’m bad at not knowing things. I had an embarrassing meltdown while finishing up our costumes for the convention a couple of weeks ago; I felt like I was the only person in our group who didn’t know how to sew or finish things, and like asking questions of those who did know amounted to bothering them, which I hated. But, how does anyone learn anything if they don’t ask for help? I hate asking for help. Somewhere along the line, my brain decided that asking for help meant admitting I wasn’t as smart as I wanted to be, and that people would stop respecting me if they knew how dumb I was. That’s a mindset I need to learn how to combat more effectively. Asking questions doesn’t make a person dumb. Pretending you know everything is much more likely to make you look stupid!

So, maybe it’s time I made my own adventure bowl. What would I put in it? That’s something to think about. I need to think about all the things that scare me, and decide which ones only scare me because I don’t know how they’d turn out.

Tell me: if you had an adventure bowl, what would you put in it?

I’ll be honest. It’s been a hard few weeks in my head. I can point to a bunch of little things that have probably contributed to my negative headspace, but the fact is that, for a while there, I slid back into a place I hadn’t been since last year. I don’t like that place. When I’m there, I’m paranoid and angry, and my creativity drains away. Last weekend, it affected my enjoyment of an event I look forward to all year. It sucks.

But, to look at a brighter side, the therapy and medication I started last year have both given me enough perspective to recognize that headspace for what it is, and to know, even in the darkest moments, that it will eventually pass. And it did. I took a few days to disappear into myself, and I’ve come out the other side with more energy and a lot more of my coping skills in place. Which now leaves me looking at projects I want to continue – like this blog – and wondering what I need to do to get myself back into a productive rhythm.

One day at a time, I guess. One post at a time, one morning of getting up and writing at a time. It’s the only way to get anywhere!

Day 2: How many characters do you have? Do you prefer males or females?

My characters are legion. Are there any writers out there who don’t have a million different voices in their head? I’ve been making up stories for thirty years, there’s no way I could remember every single character, much less count them.

As for the second part … I could say that I prefer a balance, and that would be true to a certain extent. But deep down, I really want to write a lot of female characters, women who readers can both relate to and fantasize about. (Not that way, you perverts. Not this time, anyway!) My first exposure to non-YA fantasy was Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Sword and Sorceress anthologies, which I started picking up at the library when I was around 13. In them, I found story after story about women kicking ass and doing magic, and I wanted to be each and every one of them. I want to write stories like that, full of women who have more purpose than to just be the damsel in distress, a sex object, or an idealized vision put up on a pedestal by some self-involved male character. The more girls the better, as far as I’m concerned!

In other news, this post sums up my feelings about Eat, Pray, Love pretty much exactly. I loved the book, and it inspired me to get up off my ass and do something – but only after I got over the initial crushing despair when I compared my life (and budget) to hers. The fact that she’s rich and unfettered is not the point; the point is making yourself do things you would never have thought to do before. I’m not always the best at creeping beyond my comfort zone, but I think I’ve gotten a lot better in the last few years!

Day 1: Tell us about your favorite writing project/universe that you’ve worked with and why.

The flip answer is “the one I’m working with right now”, but it’s also the true answer. Writing projects are like lovers; writers tend to believe that the current project is “the one”, the best one ever, the one you’ve been waiting for. If you don’t feel that way, then your lack of passion will show in the writing. But if you’re in love with your project, man, the passion will be hard to contain!

I’m in that first-blush honeymoon phase right now – I was previously plodding along with another project, listlessly pushing myself to add words that I’d invariably just delete anyway. But then, bam! There’s the sexy new project, all dolled up and ready for me to throw myself in headfirst. In the past, I might have felt guilty enough to continue forcing the previous project, delaying long enough for the passion for the new project to fade. But this time – I credit The Artist’s Way – I decided what the hell, go with the passionate response! I made a new playlist of songs for the new project, and I went out and bought a couple of visual aids to help me plot. I’ve let the new project take over my brain entirely.

It’s paid off; I’ve written more words this past week than I wrote on the last project in a month. I’m carefully not describing it yet, though. The honeymoon phase also has an element of paranoia, a feeling that you need to hide the new lover from well-meaning friends and family just in case they might tell you he’s ugly and why are you wasting your time on him anyway? It’ll just be me and my project for a while, happily lost in each other.

If you’ll excuse me, I have to go figure out ways to destroy a city …

Saturday: Green River Ordinance, a Texas-based pop-rock band we know and love from The Rock Boat, opened for Kris Allen at the Fine Line Music Cafe. That afternoon, they also played a short acoustic set at the Best Buy in Roseville. It’s always good to see them – they’re fantastic musicians, and super nice guys besides!

A video I shot at Best Buy – “On Your Own”:

Sunday: I took myself to St. Paul’s Grand Old Day; I’ve been living here in the Twin Cities for 12 years, and this was my first time at the semi-official summer kickoff festival! My main purpose for going was to see Dessa play, as her album A Badly Broken Code has been my absolute favorite CD of 2010 so far. I wasn’t disappointed! (And it was a gorgeous day to wander down Grand, so the day was a win all around!)

Video – “Go Home”:

Monday: back to work, but then to the Guthrie Theater for w00tstock – a comedy/music/variety show starring geek celebrities Wil Wheaton, Adam Savage, music duo Paul and Storm, and a various array of guest stars. As an unapologetic geek, I can tell you that it was pretty much the funniest 4 hours and 45 minutes I’ve spent in a really damned long time. :) Explaining it would take a lot of time and brainpower, and quite frankly, I haven’t yet caught up on the sleep I lost that night. If you’re a geek, though, you’d love it. If the show comes to a town near you, go!

Video – Bill Corbett and Kevin Murphy (Mystery Science Theater 3000, Rifftrax) wrote a generic national anthem (for sale to the highest bidding country!), and perform it accompanied by the entire cast of w00tstock Minneapolis.

Ladies and gentlemen, my life. Live music and geek jokes pretty much sum up everything you need to know about me, really.

* … okay, so not every weekend is this awesome. I wish.

First, I wrote a small guest post for 37 Days; she is putting together a free ebook in honor of her daughter’s high school graduation, and invited readers to submit short pieces of advice for her daughter and anyone else about to embark on adulthood. I overcame my usual reservations about my own writing and submitted something, and lo and behold, she posted it this week! Consider this: the best days of your life will sneak up on you. I’ve never written for someone else’s blog before – I barely write enough for my own! – so it was a little thrill to see my writing posted on a blog seen by so many people.

Then, today, I came around to contemplate what I should blog about, and saw that Gwen Bell had mentioned my very first post on Twitter! Yet another blogger I admire greatly acknowledged me and my writing, which is kind of amazing. So … I’ve spent the last 9 weeks on The Artist’s Way; I think I can recognize synchronicity when I see it.

So, if you’re surfing over here because of one of those two ladies, hello! I’m thrilled that people might be reading, and I will try to produce a little more content for you! For now, though, it’s off to Wednesday night crafting, as I’m still participating in 30 Days of Creativity, and whatever costuming/jewelry making/knitting that goes on tonight will certainly count!

In August of 1996, my sister decided to “buy” me a cat for my upcoming 20th birthday – her friend Jessie’s cat had just had a litter of kittens, and since I’d expressed a desire to get a cat, she took me to Jessie’s trailer and told me I should pick out one of them. The whole litter was black, except for two; the tabby, which Susan had already claimed, and a little fluffy white cat, which another friend had claimed. So, I was left with the task of picking between half a dozen identical tiny black kittens. As I walked through the house, I passed by the kitchen and caught sight of a kitten cowering behind the stove. She looked up at me, and I said “okay, I think you’re the one coming home with me.” I named her Luna, and aside from the three months she spent at my dad’s after I moved to Minnesota, she’s been with me for the past fourteen years.

Until yesterday morning. Early in May, she was diagnosed with terminal mammary cancer; one of her tumors had become infected, and she went on antibiotics. However, the infected tumor never got better, and had been getting exponentially worse over the last week. Saturday night, when I got home from sewing, I saw blood on the couch and on the kitchen table. After some angst, I knew it was time. So Sunday morning, we took her in to the emergency vet, and I let her go.

Luna was the first pet that had ever been mine and mine alone. She was also the first living being I’ve ever actually seen die – I’ve lived through a lot of human deaths, but I’ve never been there for the moment when life leaves the body. But yesterday, I sat there and stroked Luna’s head as the vet injected her with an overdose of anesthesia. She slowly collapsed onto the exam table, and then she was gone. I feel a little guilty, I won’t lie. I can see the places I went wrong over the years, decisions I did and didn’t make that made her more susceptible to this cancer. But, hindsight does me no good – she was sick, and I decided to let her go before she became even more miserable. She’s gone. But, she’ll always be my little girl. I miss her like crazy.

I have a million excuses – I’ve had lots of plans, I watch a bunch of TV shows, I’ve been sick, I feel bad about going off and not inviting (insert person here) along. But, at the same time, how much time have I spent staring blankly at the computer? A lot. An awful lot. So I need to come up with some plan to give myself an hour of my own time every week. This week, I promise myself that I’ll do it tonight. I have no plans tonight except to raid Super Target for groceries.

The other problem is thinking of something to do. Tonight, I might go up to the park and walk around the lake, because I haven’t done that in several months. But I’m having a hard time finding ideas that sound like fun and that I can do in the evening. I should do some more searching online for idea lists, and pick out a few. I can plan them several weeks in advance; that might be the best idea, because I’m pretty anal about sticking to already made plans.

Slowly, my brain is processing the idea that “taking care of myself” does not actually mean “sit at home and don’t stress out”, because sitting at home does not always equal not stressing out. It’s amazing how long I continued to believe that.