Spiritual Cinema

I got this bit of interesting 'spam' yesterday.

Spiritual Cinema Circle, Spiritual Movies and Spiritual Films

THE CIRCLE offers a service that's unique and deeply needed. The CIRCLE gives you a way to bring hours of inspiring entertainment into your life each month, while making an important contribution to the world. In addition, it's an incredible bargain.

Remember, the mainstream movie business literally runs as much on popcorn-sales as ticket-sales. Big, violent action movies bring in audiences that eat those huge $7 boxes of popcorn and those 32-ounce $4 cups of soft drinks. That's why theater-owners want them, and that's why Hollywood makes them. The movies you'll see as a member of The CIRCLE are made with love and passion. They're not made just to sell popcorn.

Basically they send you 3-5 films (short and feature length) on DVD each month for $24 (shipping is extra so it will probably end up being ~$26). The films are selected based on their quality and spirituality or ability to uplift and inspire the viewer. The movies are new films you're unlikely to see anywhere else.

I think I will subscribe. The list for June looks interesting.

Related links

Moving Messages Media
WISDOM Media

CHECK!

As you can see (if you look) one of the items on my blog to do list has been crossed off. I have registered at Blogarama, Blogwise, and Globe of Blogs. I am not on their listing yet, there is the matter of site verification, but my part is done. Check. As is my usual penchant, I overanalyzed what my keywords should be, what should be in the description (even whether to use my real name or make something up... but that's another story). As I was reading all the possible categories for blogs listed on Globe of Blogs (18 major and in some cases more than 30 sub-categories) I wondered where mine fits and marveled at the variety of interest and knowledge. I wondered why I only have one blog (well, I have 3 but I really only post to one). I have some interest and knowledge about some of those topics, why not me. I guess this desire/obsession relates back to what I wrote in a previous entry describing one possible motivation for blogging as a desire to create a 'digital alter ego' -- a complete and accurate reflection of all that is good and interesting in my internal thought processes. In some ways I feel like a child who is not content to view her toys in the toy box but wants to lay them out on the floor so she can see everything at once. But there are too many to see at one time. So she tries to group them, arrange them in categories with related categories close together. But nothing is satisfactory. One arrangement has the dolls too far from the books and some of the dolls are characters from some of the books. But if the books are close to the dolls then they are too far way from the jigsaw puzzles and that's not right. So in frustration she gathers everything up and throws them into the toy chest in complete disarray, until the next time she opens it and has an idea to put them in some order, to see what is there, and to decide how each object relates to each other object.

It seems there is no hope for me. I can't even keep to a single topic in one post.

Twaddle?

In scamming around for something to write about today I picked a page at random from Creating a Charmed Life.

48. Choose actual over virtual reality

At first I thought this was telling me to stop writing blog entries and actually go and have a discussion with someone. But that wasn't it. Whew!!! Or at least it wasn't the whole 'it'. Moran discusses choosing books that are "in touch with vital thoughts and events" rather than "boring, poorly written books" and other forms of "twaddle". On one hand, I must agree with Moran. I don't watch TV and rarely go to 'popular' movies. I don't follow the lives of movie stars or celebrities. But I worry that too much 'snobbery' is not a good thing. I don't think having ones nose stuck securely in the upper atmosphere guarantees happiness or even encourages it. Some of the most unhappy people I know are like that. I think there are (at least) two reasons for me to avoid snob excess. One is that I really enjoy some low brow stuff. There are times when the only thing I want to read is a Star Trek novel. It is comfort food for my brain. The characters are all my friends and I know nothing too difficult to bear will take place. My life would be poorer without Star Trek in it. It is a way to connect with others and to connect with my younger self. Still I don't want to read Star Trek novels every day.

The second reason for remaining 'grounded in mediocrity' at least part of the time is that deep down I know that is where I belong. I find it hard to justify being so particular and reading only 'good' books, listening to only 'good' music etc when my writing skills, my musical talent, my artistic leanings are mediocre at best. What would that make me? A person who would only join a club that wouldn't take me as its member. And at this point my heart swells for all the mediocre people trying their best to write, to paint, to sing, to compose music. We should ignore them? We should insult them? We should ban them from creating something too twaddle-infested? Sounds like the same kind of snobbery that suggests people of lower intellect should be 'discouraged' from reproducing. So my criteria of REAL is if the person creating it put his/her heart into it and showed a tender part of themselves to the world. How can I reject that? How would rejecting that make me a better or happier person?

Imperfection

I have been upset, agitated, and angry the last few days but I didn't know what to write. This evening the feeling was getting out of hand, making me bitchy with everyone so I walked for an hour and tried to work my way through it. It starts with my stepson and his misbehavior, as many of my moods do lately, but I knew it didn't end there and in actuality didn't really start there either. As I was working through my anger at his misdemeanors I started to think about myself at 13. I wasn't a perfect child either. I was moody at times and believed I knew better. I was trying to grow up without any one else's help or advice. In thinking about myself then I didn't like myself. I remembered reading a really touching blog entry Male Order Bride in which the author, Ellie, describes her sixteen year old self on her wedding day. Ellie also writes what she would say to the girl if she saw her now:

If I could stand next to the girl in the photograph today, I would gently remove the veil from her head and take her by the hand to the rock next to the pond, where I would hold her in my arms and rock every last tear out of her. I would tell her it is her uniqueness, her brave spirit, that makes her special. I would remind her that no matter where she is, what road she chooses, what mistakes she makes, it does not make her any less lovable.

Thinking of this during my walk and I cried because I could not be as kind and forgiving to my 13 year old self. I saw only the imperfection of her and how can imperfection be lovable? The path to wholeness and healing seems clear. To embrace and love imperfections, the imperfections of my past selves, of my future selves, of others and of me. But how to do it?

"Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
It's how the light gets in."
Leonard Cohen -from Anthem (1992)

Walt's birthday

Well I missed celebrating Walt Whitman's birthday. It was May 31st. Whitman was born on Long Island but I haven't been to his birthplace. I have been to the Walt Whitman mall. There are two cool things about this mall, one is that the outside is carved with lines from Whitman's poems, (although on the negative side, they just keep repeating the same few lines over and over but, hey, poetry beats advertisments any day) and the second is that there is an Apple store inside.

I CELEBRATE myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.

From Song of Myself by Walt Whitman

On the shore...

This is so cool. I figured out how to post pictures from buzznet to this blog! I still need to work on the formatting etc. But the first step has been accomplished. Since I am trying to become more positive about my own achievements, I will enjoy this success and be proud!

Last of May, tidying....

There are a few snippets that I didn't get to talk about this month.

Two films I watched this month but haven't reviewed yet:

The Crying Game (****)

I know, I know, how could I not have seen that before but I didn't. I really liked it. The idea of a person having an unchanging nature is worth pondering. I guess it is a good thing if it is a positive character trait but what if it is a negative one? Does that mean we cannot improve ourselves? I really don't feel that is correct. It sounds very hopeless to me.

The Funeral (***)

This is a Japaneses film directed by Juzo Itami, who also made "Tampopo" which I really liked. The Funeral was not nearly as funny (it really wasn't funny at all) and it was rather long and tedious. I guess it is an interesting view of Japanese society... maybe I just wasn't in the mood.


Yesterday we visited the Fire Island Light House. Beautiful weather on the beach although a bit too chilly for swimming.



Blog Goal for June

Figure out how to post my own pictures. I have started a photoblog at buzznet but it is still very rough, not ready for viewers. I'll keep you posted.

---

The Crying Game




The Funeral

Saturday morning at Starbucks

Father and baby reading the newspaper
Is mother at home sleeping, luxuriating in silence and idleness?

A girl glides in on rollerblades with natural and yet amazing grace.

A tall man in white, white hat, white shirt, contrasting with his sun darkened skin waits to get his caramel frappachino.

A woman in purple sneezes and is blessed by the man making her latte.

Father and son with identical large blue eyes discuss with wonder a baby who can speak Spanish and never cries.

Father with baby gives up reading and is seduced into blowing raspberries on the baby's belly.

Outside the sun shines brightly in its late May way, the wind blows, it's just another beautiful day.

The Treasure of the Sierra Madre

I just finished watching The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. This is an excellent film with complex character development. The acting is wonderful, especially Walter Huston. Three men work together to find gold in the mountains, enduring hardship and suffering. One theme of the movie was how gold changes a person. Dobbs (Humphrey Bogart)is a generous, easy going guy in the beginning who doesn't believe gold will change him. Curtin (Tim Holt) doesn't have much personality in the beginning but gold has its effect on him as well. They are taught and guided by a wise old prospector, Howard (Walter Huston).

This film raised a number of questions in my mind. In the beginning of the story, Dobbs, Curtin and Howard didn't have much money. They took what little they did have and risked it to look for gold. They could have played it safe and used the money to pay for food and a place to sleep for a few months but they spent it for the chance of something more. In the story, you can see they are right because if they had spent it on room and board it would have run out and they would have been exactly where they started without even adventure to show for it. I wonder how often I have the opportunity to risk temporary comfort with for the chance of adventure? How often to I choose comfort?

I also wonder if gold or wealth would change me. I have never been wealthy. Would I be greedy for more like Dobbs was? I don't think so but he didn't think he would be either. You are never certain how you will react to a situation until you are faced with it.

At the end they lose the gold and Dobbs loses his life. Howard and Curtin can laugh in the face of their loss. Actually they both got what they really wanted, Howard, a place of comfort to live out his life and Curtin, a fruit farm. They didn't need the gold at all. The scene in which the two of them laugh and laugh as they realize the gold has been blown away in the wind reminds me of a few lines in one of my favorite poems, "If" by Rudyard Kipling.

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;

The entire poem is powerful, but for me, lately, these four lines are especially so. To me it speaks of being independent of the material world, about knowing you are more than your accomplishments, more than your belongings, more than other people's opinion of you. If you can do as the poem states, risk everything, lose it, and not be concerned enough to even mention it, then you have confidence in yourself and contentment with what you are, in absence of the outer world. Quite an achievement and worth more than 10 burros piled with bags of gold.

---

The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (Two-Disc Special Edition)

Motivation for blogging

There is an interesting article in the NY Times today about blogging. The author discusses the motivation of blogging and how some people become addicted to it, blogging rather than doing their paid work, rather than spending time with loved ones, rather than relaxing on vacation. Reading the article led me to think about why I am writing this blog. What purpose does it serve in my life? Does it matter to me if anyone reads it? I certainly can understand how one can become addicted to blogging. Although I have only started, I feel the pull to post. I have to be very disciplined not to spend work time or every free minute of leisure time working on my blog. I made my first post on May 13th, only two weeks ago. The initial idea was that it would be an online journal of my spiritual path. Although I have kept journals in the past, I have been pretty lax about it for several years and I thought the interesting technological aspect of blogging would keep me motivated. But very soon something happened. I started writing for the audience. I started to wonder what my readers (I think there are a few) would think. Would they think I am interesting enough, intelligent enough, witty enough, dedicated enough. Once again constructing myself based on my perception of other's perception of me.

I know I am not alone in filtering my entries to 'impress' my readers. Elizabeth Thomsen started a reading blog but discovered the blog was affecting her reading rather than being a passive reflection of what she read and thought.

She writes:

But I found that the fact that I knew I was going to post the title of every book that I read affected my reading habits. It made me self-conscious in my book selections and my opinions.

But there is another reason for blogging and I think this is the main reason it is so enticing for me and perhaps others. One of the bloggers interviewed in the article, Gregor J. Rothfuss said:

"I was trying to record all thoughts and speculations I deemed interesting," he said. "Sort of creating a digital alter ego. The obsession came from trying to capture as much as possible of the good stuff in my head in as high fidelity as possible."

I can relate to this. For me, really, this blog is a way to preserve and to organize myself. Humans are complicated and their thoughts--my thoughts especially so. The impossible task I put on myself, hidden in the back of my mind, is to record all these thoughts, separating the precious metals and gems from the common rock, sort, catalog and preserve them for posterity, hoping all the time that my gems are as high quality as anybody else's and actually worth preserving.


So where does this leave me? I will keep blogging and I will try to be honest with what I write. But I can't forget you are out there. Real or imagined, I write for you, too.

Comments on Gibran's "Love"

This poem was very important to me several years ago when I was going through a difficult period of internal and external turmoil in my life. His view of love is very powerful and probably seems extreme to many people. Today, for me, this poem relates more to my meditation practice. My personal life is much smoother, not so many swords among the pinions. But I struggle in meditation. I struggle to allow myself to be ground to whiteness, to be kneaded, to dissolve into my koan, into the universe, to know true love.

Here is a poem I wrote during that difficult time. Perhaps an answer to Gibran while grappling with the uncertainties in my life.

Earthquake

My life is going to change again
I know it
And my mind knows it
Of course
A change like so many before
Another day
A sunrise
A rainstorm
A scar
Or, perhaps,
A caress
She knows it
Sees it for what it is
Another event
Life experience
Nothing less
Nothing more

My life is going to change again
I feel it
And my heart feels it
A small
Tremor, and a deep panic
Tells that another change
A crashing
A shaking
A destroying
Earthquake
Will blow apart
This small, tidy pile
She has made
From the shattered
Fragments
Left after
The change before

Copyright 2004 Tinne

A favorite poem

Love

Then said Almitra, Speak to us of Love.

And he raised his head and looked upon the people, and there fell a stillness upon them. And with a great voice he said:

When love beckons to you, follow him,
Though his ways are hard and steep.
And when his wings enfold you yield to him,
Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you.
And when he speaks to you believe in him,
Though his voice may shatter your dreams as the north wind lays waste the garden.
For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you.
Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning.
Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun.
So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth.
Like sheaves of corn he gathers you unto himself.
He threshes you to make you naked.
He sifts you to free you from your husks.
He grinds you to whiteness.
He kneads you until you are pliant;
And then he assigns you to his sacred fire, that you may become sacred bread for God's sacred feast.
All these things shall love do unto you that you may know the secrets of your heart, and in that knowledge become a fragment of Life's heart.
But if in your fear you would seek only love's peace and love's pleasure,
Then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love's threshing-floor,
Into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all of your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears.
Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself.
Love possesses not nor would it be possessed;
For love is sufficient unto love.
When you love you should not say, `God is in my heart,' but rather, `I am in the heart of God.'
And think not you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.
Love has no other desire but to fulfil itself.
But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires:
To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night.
To know the pain of too much tenderness.
To be wounded by your own understanding of love;
And to bleed willingly and joyfully.
To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving;
To rest at the noon hour and meditate love's ecstasy;
To return home at eventide with gratitude;
And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise upon your lips.

Kahlil Gibran; The Prophet

Shine time

From Creating a Charmed Life by Victoria Moran

Everybody needs some time to shine, time to be recognized, special, admired. It's not selfish, its human.

But if you're not getting enough of your own shine time, it's easy to be needy, whiny and pitiful. ...the shine deficient tend to resent other people's accomplishments and dampen their dreams.

For your own benefit as well as those around you...

Indulge yourself often in what you do well.

Spend time with people who think you're splendid and will tell you so.

Celebrate yourself.

Mark the occasions of your life with fun and festivities. Never get too old for birthdays.

Train those close to you to appreciate shine time by giving them some.

Keep track of their special days. Notice their accomplishments. Never leave an honest compliment unspoken.

Don't downplay your successes.

When you're in the limelight, invite others to share it.

When the world isn't noticing you, notice yourself.

Allow other people unimpeded shine time.

Welcome shine time as a cyclic experience.

---

This is one of my favorite ideas or 'secrets' in the book. I read this in the library and decided to buy a copy of the book for myself. I want to keep these ideas in mind. This week I will encourage shining, both myself and those around me. And maybe we can make this world a brighter place.

Zen and then gardening

I awakened with a start and looked at my watch. 6:40 AM! I am late! I must leave now to go to the zendo. I rushed, getting dressed and was about to walk out the door when I looked at clock on the stove and saw 2:59 AM. I thought it looked especially dark outside and it was very hard to get out of bed. I tried to talk myself out of going several times but I was also proud of myself that I didn't listen. It was delicious to go back to sleep for 3 hours. I woke up at 6, had a cup of green tea and went to meditate. I was shoji again today. Still made mistakes but I felt a bit more comfortable. On the way home, I was driving and just really enjoying the birds, the trees, and then I looked in the mirror and saw a car behind me and I realized I was going pretty slow. (oops)

I am wondering
Is it ok to write a boring entry
In your blog
To show the world
Your inner bland?

I spent the afternoon planting herbs and flowers. The flowers/herbs I planted:

Bleeding heart - one pink, one white
Oriental poppy - scarlet
sedum (I don't know the name of the variety)
basil
rosemary
sage
thyme
curly parsley
Italian parsley

Isn't the Plants Database cool?

Wings of Desire

Today I watched this film with C. It is one of my favorites and I wanted to show it to her. There are many things that I enjoy about the film I love how it encourages, almost demands, that we celebrate life in all its forms. The angels serve as witnesses to everything around them, never touching, never changing for eternity. One angel begins to desire the things that we take for granted, to come home tired from work and feed his cat, to read a newspaper and get ink on his hands. These are things that we can do but they aren't special to us. Why not?

I love the way people speak, so poetic. In fact, part of the naration is a poem by Peter Handke.

When the child was a child,
It was the time for these questions:
Why am I me, and why not you?
Why am I here, and why not there?
When did time begin, and where does space end?
Is life under the sun not just a dream?
Is what I see and hear and smell
not just an illusion of a world before the world?
Given the facts of evil and people.
does evil really exist?
How can it be that I, who I am,
didn't exist before I came to be,
and that, someday, I, who I am,
will no longer be who I am?

excerpted from Song of Childhood
By Peter Handke

I love the grace and beauty of Marion, the trapeze artist. After watching Marion and knowing her thoughts, her strength to each day defy gravity and her fears to feel the joy of flying, Damiel falls in love. Then finally the desire to be human is strong enough.

---

Wings of Desire
(*****)

Weird dreams

I has some weird dreams last night that seemed to be connected to dreams of the night before. I have been thinking about starting a separate blog to record my dreams but I am not sure I want to get that into it. I used to belong to some dream interpretation lists and it was a lot of fun but it really took up a lot of time. These dreams seem to be very related to my daytime life and are screaming to be interpreted.

2 nights ago: The Sweatshirt dream

I was at my place of work (which looked much different than it is in reality. It looked more like the school where I attended 6th grade). A number of people were wearing grey sweatshirts with the work logo and some exotic place name (e.g. Bahamas). I knew that they were the higher ups and they were able to go to a special work retreat in these wonderful places. I also knew that I was not one of the higher ups and I hated them for wearing the sweatshirts, flaunting their specialness.

Last night: Discovery/race dream

I and a colleague made a great discovery and our supervisor (who isn't actually our current supervisor but was my supervisor previously) claimed it for himself and all of his colleagues (the higher ups) went to a bar to celebrate. Some of them (the nicer ones) called me (actually paged me on this strange paging device) to join them since they knew it was really my discovery. I was so angry and bitter that I put the pager under a pillow and ignored it. Later there was a big race (running). I friend of mine won but I was still upset and I didn't congratulate her. She was mad at me and later I found a birthday card and bouquet of flowers she bought me but didn't give me. Oh, and the whole time I was a man (at least I had the parts) and I was only partially dressed so my, shall we say maleness, was displayed for all to see. I tried to cover my nakedness a few times and was uncomfortable about it but could never completely cover it.

Both these dreams had a lot of bitterness and anger with respect to work.

Looking up some of the key objects in Betty Bethards "The Dream Book":

Being nude - totally open and exposed, not trying to hide who or what you are.

But I was trying to hide myself and I was something that I didn't know I was, actually the opposite (male rather than female) of what I thought I was and what I had been 'pretending' to be. Hmmm.

Bouquet - celebration of growth, pat yourself on the back for a job you've done well.

Well I didn't receive the bouquet. I found it discarded in the trash and it was because of my attitude that it wasn't given to me. In essence I rejected it before it could be offered.

Birthday - celebration of a new part of yourself coming into being

Again, I rejected it.

My friend who won the race was older than me and blond, she reminds me a bit of my mother.

Mother - older, wiser, more experience self

That seems to fit. My older self has run the race and won and she wants to give me something, something about growth and a new self but I reject her simple because I am so resentful of the insults and rejection I perceive from 'the higher ups'. I discover this when I am in a bathroom trying to rearrange my less than adequate clothes to hide my newly discovered male body part.

Penis - procreation, power, aggression. That which penetrates, impregnates with ideas.

Am I trying to hide my power, my ideas and creativity? Is this power newly developed, newly born?

a stinky, muddy swamp

If this blog is a path then right now the scenery is not so great. I would say we are walking through a stinky, muddy swamp. Sorry. I am having a crisis which often happens when I start a new project. It gets bigger and bigger in my perfectionist (no. 2 in my 100 things) mind until it is really impossible and then I feel so OVERWHELMED and consequently DEPRESSED until... you know... the stinky, muddy swamp thing. I want it to be perfect and I worry about what other people will think about it (no. 55). I worry that people will read it (no. 9) but I also worry that no one will read it. I feel vulnerable showing myself to the whole world, opening myself for criticism or disdain or just apathy. I have compartmentalized myself. I am one person at work, another at home, another in the past, another with one friend, and another when I am alone. I had ideas of compartmentalizing myself here, only sharing parts of me in separate blogs. Not letting the scientist interact with the poet. Keeping the meditator away from the sore loser--actually hiding the sore loser completely--who would like her? Which one is the real me. I often ask myself what I would do if I didn't consider what others would think? Who am I in the absence of others opinions?

There is a real difference between being who you are without concerns about what people will think and trying to convince people that who you are is ok and should not be condemned. Even when I am trying to be my true self, I am gathering my defenses to prove that you should approve of my true self. That it is worthy of you. I can document it with photos, couch it in wit, surround it with organization and clever technology. But the real question I am grappling with is am I worthy of existence. And that is a difficult question for me, my friend. I think it will take a long time for me to find a satisfying answer. But that is my path.

If I were a poem...

I am heroic couplets; most precise And fond of order. Planned and structured. Nice. I know, of course, just what I want; I know, As well, what I will do to make it so. This doesn't mean that I attempt to shun Excitement, entertainment, pleasure, fun; But they must keep their place, like all the rest; They might be good, but ordered life is best. What Poetry Form Are You?

100 things about me...

I saw lists like this on numerous blogs like these
so I thought I would try it myself. Is it a spiritual practice? Zen teaches me to dissolve myself not enumerate myself. But it is also about self exploration. And fun. So here goes.

1. I could not decide what to put first so I will leave this one empty.
2. I am a perfectionist.
3. I am a scientist.
4. I worry about my weight 70% of my waking hours.
5. I love to eat junk food but I won't admit it publicly... uhoh!
6. Popcorn is my favorite indulgence, sometimes I go to the movies just as an excuse to eat copious amounts of popcorn.
7. I am the eldest of three daughters.
8. I often feel uncomfortable like I don't belong or fit in.
9. I hate being the center of attention.
10. I get nervous when I realize people are listening to what I am saying.
11. I want to take an acting class.
12. I was once skewered by a knitting needle, by accident.
13. I love dark, small places, like caves.
14. I am not afraid of heights.
15. I bite my nails, but not 'til they bleed, just a little.
16. I have my mother's legs. :(
17. I have my father's hair. :)
18. I used to think my eyes were large but lately I realize they are small. Very disappointing.
19. I hate pain. I take ibuprofen at the first sign of it.
20. I am a biochemist.
21. I love to look up things on the internet.
22. I hate perfume.
23. I love essential oils.
24. I have studied Reiki and am a level III practitioner.
25. I have tarot cards but haven't used them for a while.
26. I own hundreds of books, I love each one.
27. I tend to be a collector.
28. I love earrings, I have many pairs, some I made myself.
29. I don't like necklaces (they choke me) bracelets (get in the way) or rings (look bad on my stubby hands).
30. I am married---second time.
31. My husband is Russian.
32. I have been to Russia twice.
33. I used to scare my youngest sister by putting a green superball in front of my left eye and claiming I was Kukulamunga.
34. I also would scare my sisters by pretending I was only a head like that movie "The Head That Wouldn't Die."
35. I was a loving but 'pain in the ass' big sister.
36. My parents are both dead, both had brain aneurysm.
37. I used to really worry when I got headaches, but now I don't. I don't know why.
38. I am not much of a worrier although sometimes I try to be because it seems to show you care (ex-mother-in-law taught me that).
39. I am still on good terms with my ex-husband. We don't talk much but I still care about him.
40. When I look back 20 years, I can see that I was really young.
41. I will be 40 in 2.5 weeks.
42. I am doing this instead of working and I feel really guilty about it.
43. I like my job most of the time but I really wish I had enough money so I could do whatever I want.
44. I drive a Honda Civic Hybrid.
45. I am concerned about the environment.
46. I am a pushover, if you call me and ask me to donate to your cause, I probably will.
47. I believe in giving.
48. I often feel guilty that I have so much while people around the world are starving and suffering.
49. I cry at movies, songs, books, poems, sometimes even commercials.
50. I have learned that if you blink a lot, most people don't know you are about to cry (at least I hope I fooled them).
51. I write poems when I am upset or angry.
52. I have written very few happy, joyful or pleasant poems.
53. I got a C in composition in college and gave up trying to be a writer.
54. I still dream of being a writer.
55. I am too concerned about what other people think of me.
56. I am working on eradicating all my bad traits.
57. I am optimistic.
58. I love Star Trek, it is such an positive picture of the future.
59. I read Star Trek novels in PDF format, when on a roll, one a day.
60. I have published my scientific work in several respected journals.
61. I am not especially proud of my scientific work, its good, clear, reproducible science but not particularly creative.
62. I have trouble accepting praise or believing it.
63. I love lots and lots of things and have many interests.
64. I am enthusiastic.
65. I try to do things I am afraid of.
66. I like to help people.
67. I love being part of a smooth functioning team.
68. I earned money for college by waiting tables in a restaurant in a family owned amusement park.
69. I liked waiting tables, I got into the flow during the dinner or lunch rush.
70. I grew up poor, sometimes on welfare and foodstamps.
71. I want to be compassionate to homeless people but I feel really afraid and uncomfortable around them.
72. I don't feel comfortable around wealthy people.
73. I love organization and neatness.
74. Many times I am not particularly neat or organized.
75. I always hated my handwriting, not as beautiful as Kerri Boyer's (friend in 1st grade).
76. My favorite color is green.
77. My favorite numbers are 4 and 6.
78. I could never name a favorite book or song or movie. I like many for my many moods.
79. I once broke my personality down into 4 different people, two female, two male.
80. I am glad I am a girl/woman/female.
81. I wear makeup--it is like painting only on your face.
82. I love colors.
83. I paint but don't show people my paintings--usually.
84. I love to make CD's of my playlists for friends and family.
85. I love iTunes.
86. I put a lot of effort into choosing songs and putting them in the 'best' order, making my playlists tell a story or becoming sort of a 'song poem'.
87. I played viola all through grade school and high school. I loved being part of the orchestra and string ensemble.
88. I hated tuning my viola because I was never sure it was right.
89. I have always had a depressing suspicion that I am tone deaf.
90. I am vegetarian.
91. I hate it when people ask me why I am vegetarian because mostly they ask to try to argue with me. I never ask people why they are carnivorous and I don't try to convert anyone. Just leave me alone, ok?
92. I love to cook, I love to read cook books and magazines.
93. I subscribe to Martha Stewart Living.
94. I am a magazine junkie.
95. People said it was hard to think of 100 things but I don't think so.
96. I often change my hair.
97. I used to love playing Barbies.
98. I am very competitive and can get nasty when I lose.
99. I am very uncoordinated.
100. I really liked making this list and will probably add more later.

100 things about me...

Really off balance today and yesterday

I have been upset and agitated and aggravated since yesterday. I hate when I get like this. I feel like all my spiritual practice has been for nothing, a waste of time. I don't want to meditate to calm down, nothing makes me feel better. I eat sugar, chocolate, junk food in large quantities and I am still not happy. I can't concentrate at work, I lazed away my time in the gym, just riding the stationary bike at level 1. I can't read a book or magazine. I feel like there is a wild demon inside me and I am just barely keeping him from doing something terrible. I have trouble sleeping. Our neighbors above were their usual loud selves and I almost went up there in my pajamas seething with rage screaming for them to stop their child from running around above my head so I could sleep! I didn't but I don't trust myself to speak to anyone when I am like this. I am alone in my bedroom away from the family so I don't bite their heads off for nothing and have to apologize later. I am angry at everything I have to do - at every situation in my life. Why should I have to work? Why should I have to diet? Why should I have to exercise? Why should I have to make dinner? At the same time, any things that used to give me pleasure don't.