The Wind At My Back Instead of the Spit in My Face

If you're wondering about the title of this particular post, it's a quote from Modern Family. The reason I am spouting some of the show's immense wisdom is due to the irritation I often feel towards my otherwise sweet and loving husband.
The problem with my husband is that he's never been very good at comforting or encouraging. If you're sad for the love of God don't go to him looking for soothing words. The same goes for any sort of dream or aspiration. My husband lacks the ability to make the leap of faith, even if it means having faith in me. He's a lot like my parents that way. He'll always be the one to point out how things can go wrong, and never the one to claim that I can do anything I put my mind to. He, like my parents, are what I like to call pessimistic realists. They look at the cold, unfeeling facts and always go towards the downside. The speech usually goes, "yes but how is that supposed to work out? If it doesn't you'll be out this much money or this much time, etc etc etc." It's exhausting being the only one to believe in yourself.
The truth is, I know that they are all looking out for me, trying to keep me from making mistakes, but sometimes mistakes are necessary. Sometimes you need to try and fail, at least then you know that you tried. And maybe, every once in a while, you won't fail. You'll succeed.
It's a lot easier to run that marathon when you have a cheering section. I know I need to concentrate on proving them all wrong, but it can be exhausting pushing against your own doubts as well as everyone else's. It would be nice to hear someone say that I could do it.
As I've learned from Modern Family, I would prefer it if they were the wind at my back instead of the spit in my face. (Ah, Modern Family. What don't you teach us?)

A Return to Femininity

What is with all of the butch women I keep seeing lately? Did I miss a secret meeting in which everyone decided they wanted to look like a pre-op transsexual on hormone replacements? Take today for example. One of my clients walked in for a treatment and I felt like I was looking at a caveman. What is wrong with femininity? I'm sorry but there's nothing wrong with being beautiful and feminine. It's as though it was secretly agreed that embracing being a woman meant admitting inferiority. Wrong ladies, so very wrong. I think trying to cross over to the other side and emulate a man is admitting inferiority. One of our many, many strengths is our beauty and grace. If you think you're gaining my respect you're wrong. You are only achieving my disdain. That's right ladies. I can wear a dress, look hotter than hell and still kick your ass! So smarten up and for the love of God look after your appearance!

A Meditation on Passion and Decision Making

Why is it that we always second guess ourselves? It seems as though every time I make a decision I immediately feel it was the wrong one. It's only when I look back on it, after all is said and done that I'm truly able to say, "yep that was the right decision" or, "that was incredibly stupid".
I wish I had better reasoning skills. I'm not a logical person. I seem to operate solely on my emotions and gut reflexes. I'm not able to detach myself and simply look at the facts. Instead, I look at how I feel about the facts. I look at how the outcome of my decision will make me feel. Now, that wouldn't be so bad if I also took into consideration how my decisions would make me feel in the more distant future, but I'm almost entirely a 'now' person. For example, I'm only able to focus on goals if they're attainable in the near future. That's why even with my long term goals, I have to break them down into a series of easily attainable steps. If I don't accomplish my goals quickly enough then my attention will wander to a new idea and I'll start all over again, never really accomplishing anything.
It's the same with my enthusiasm. It's short lived.
In fact, I was telling my husband just the other day,
"I'm not someone who can stay passionate about any one thing for a long time. My passion flares up and burns brightly for a moment and then peters out almost immediately. Aside from you, my passion for anything rarely lasts longer than a month. My passion is like a series of small explosions. BOOM! It's there and then it's gone. Something new enters my head and BOOM! A flare of passion for this new idea before it burns out and it's gone."
He looked at me with a devilish look in his eye and said,
"So you experience small passion explosions?"
I laughed, told him he was gross and we moved on. Thank God I have such wise council.

Summer Reading

I must insist that all of you out there pop over to one of my absolute favourite websites. It's www.jennsylvania.com and it's done by one of my all time favourite writers. Her name is Jen Lancaster and she's written Bitter is the New Black, Bright Lights Big Ass, Such a Pretty Fat, Pretty in Plaid, and most recently My Fair Lazy. The website acts as her personal blog as well as giving information on tours, book releases and etc. Recently she decided to make a list of her summer reading suggestions. She is a brilliant writer and I take her word as gold so I highly suggest that you check it out and maybe find a few good books to read. Because I don't know about you, but I'm always looking for new things to read.

My First Step

Today I took my first step in setting up my new home business. This has the potential to be a very big mistake, but I'm going to try anyway. Am I still attempting to write? Well, I'm here aren't I? But I need a means of supporting myself when I'm done massaging at the end of October, and never in the history of mankind has a book made it's way to shelves that quickly. I need a way to feed myself until I can get a writing career off of the ground, and God help me, I hate conventional jobs with a fiery passion few could understand. So, here goes. Fingers crossed people.