Adjusted Reality

I’ve disabled the need-to-log-in option on the comments and I’m not getting spammed YET, so I have high hopes that the spammer has left the building.  Gonna leave it off for a while and see how it goes.

I’ve also needed the break from the blogging – I felt like I had nothing original to say.  Now I’ve got lots to say!  Also, both March and September are my tough months – both have lots of birthdays and music festivals/conventions/etc.  Adding on top this time craziness at work with the recording, I was good for one less thing to think about.

I’ll save the March recap for another, longer post, but let’s just say that I have kept up with the workouts I promised to do, and found out a lot less deep and meaningful things than I would have hoped about the sweet spot.  I either feel like I’m eating not enough or working out too much.  Fancy that, I’m trying to burn more than I’m taking in.  My body cannot be fooled as easily as it used to.  Fancy that, I’ve been spending the last year and a half trying to get in tune with it.  Ah, well.

As long as the spammers stay away, normal postings should resume on Monday-ish.  Have a great weekend, and here’s a drink if you need it!

So between the spam-a-thon of doom, the beautiful weather, and work life being crazy, I’ve been away from the blogosphere and with next week being a full studio week, I don’t anticipate it will be any calmer.  I’m doing great though!  I’ve been doing such things like running outside, riding my new bike, and generally revelling in the beautiful Austin weather.  I am still at my low weight of 153, but haven’t yet dipped below.  Curses!

I’ve got a lot of stuff rattling around in my head, but no time or motivation to get it down.  Plus this spam bot is making me sad, so I am boycotting…something.  More like throwing a e-temper tantrum because my toy (site) isn’t working properly!  I hope everyone out there is having a fantastic week and take the time to do something fun outside.  The graphics are super realistic, but the death penalty is pretty harsh.

For now, enjoy this awesome video Zliten linked me!

I wish it was Sunday (woah, oh)…ok, snapping out of my 80s flashback.

Just a note for everyone – due to the 1000 or so spam comments I got on my blog last night, I had to turn on a setting that only lets registered users (through wordpress, I presume) post.  I’m going to leave it like that for a day or 2 and hopefully change it back because – well, that’s just annoying.  Additionally, all threads will close for comments in 2 weeks after posting and that’s a change that will stay in place (the only comments I get after 2 weeks are spam anyway).  I also changed the default avatars, I think they are much cuter!

I’ll try to investigate how to register to post on the site here with the new rules in place and update this.  We absolutely cannot have nice things or someone will ruin it, can we?  Bah.  I do have to say it was amusing.  I mean, there was a lot of disgusting crap in there but there was funny stuff too.  I mean, there was everything from “Lesbians in the Woods” to “Disney Goes Gay” to “Gay GI Joe” to “Costa Rica Guided Tours” to “Cordless Detector Escort Radar” (which doesn’t even make sense) to “Dwarf Gay Porn” to “Gay Hugs” (now that’s just nice!) to “74 Dodge Dart Swinger” (great, who wants to buy an unfaithful car?).

If anyone CAN register and post a comment, please let us all know how you did it.   In the meantime, this is for the spammers…

EDIT:  Went ahead and disabled the login required.  Comments can be posted again!  If spammers take over my inbox again, I’ll let everyone know.

EDIT2: *Sigh*, within 1 minute I had 4 more spam comments.  Guess I’m going to have to leave the comments as login only (which apparently no one can do), and I’ll have to take some time to figure this out.  We truly cannot have nice things.

I have been searching my brain all day for a post topic, and it just doesn’t exist.  So 5 random things it is!

1.  I got to see Doug Benson at a local comedy club Wednesday.  I’ve been to a couple shows there, and even mediocre comedy is pretty entertaining!  This, however, was a fantastic show.  The local guy that started the show was great, Graham was HILARIOUS, and Doug, well, was stoner Doug and great at it.  I kept wondering why we don’t go more often, and the 70 dollar tab at the end of the night reminded me!  Good thing the tickets were free!

2.  Monday and Tuesday, it was beautiful here.  A little cloudy but mostly sunny, nice and humid, high in the 80s and low in the upper 60s.  Then, Wednesday, some fresh hell blew through here and it’s been no warmer than the mid-40s with 30s at night, and constantly raining or about to rain.  I hate this weather!  We had also planned Zliten’s birthday fancy pants dress up cocktail party tomorrow night and it’s supposed to be cold.  Blah!  The weather is so not fair!  At least it will be a little less of an exceptional drought here…

3.  I have fallen in love with Kashi Go Lean Honey Cinnamon hot cereal.  However, I eat it like I eat all oatmeal, straight from the package, no water.  I love the TASTE of oatmeal but can’t hang with the texture.  It’s been on sale the last two times I’ve been to the grocery store so I’ve got 2 boxes of it but I am scared to see what regular price is…

4.  It’s been a rough week.  I’ve worked quite a few extra hours and it’s been stress stress stress.  On top of that, I’ve had this extra 50 minutes of cardio workout to contend with.  Yesterday I got out of work at almost 7, convinced myself to hit the gym after a lot of mental negotiations, completed my cardio and was almost finished with my weights when I started feeling a little dizzy and shakey.  I wish I could say that I stopped immediately and went home, but I didn’t.  I made it through about 3 more exercises and then finally decided – screw this.  I drove home and immediately ate some fruit and felt better, but it was like 8:30 by that time and I hadn’t had dinner, or anything since lunch besides a small nectarine.  I usually keep some emergency chocolate in my gym bag but I’m out.  Need to replenish!

5.  Spent the evening testing out the drink recipes for tomorrow’s fancy pants martini party.  All totally delish, we are now totally drunk.  I forgot what fun it is to be a bartender.  Tonight I tested out my recipies for a cosmo, martini, peppermint paddy, chocolate coffeetini, lichi green tini, blue lemontini,  and  more, and it was all delicious.  Tomorrow, being bartender, I must make sure I stay sober enough for the task!

Take care, internetz, see ya next week!

Once again, Charlotte makes me think.  This post didn’t quite go where I thought it was going to – but I’ll try to tie it in a little at the end.

I am a recovering perfectionist.  I still fantasize occasionally what my life would have been like if I had shunned everything and decided to really try for elite gymnastics.  I wonder if I would have given it another 6 months of 100 hour weeks at my last job, if I could have finally turned it around and got the support and recognition we needed and deserved.  I wonder what fitnessy pursuits I could have undertaken in my 20s if I wouldn’t have been so anti-athletics and gained a billion lbs.  I wonder what life would have been like if I really dedicated myself to pursuing the acting bug that really caught me in college instead of being scared of being another diet-pill-addicted waitress in LA looking for her big break for the rest of my life.

Don’t get me wrong, I love my life.  Really.  Sure, I could pick out 10 or 20 little things I’d like to change, but mostly it’s the lazy stuff like more money, less stress from stupid shit at work that could be avoided by communication, a maid, a butler, a helicopter, etc.  I love that I have a stable job in an industry I love and I get to do amazing things like audition, cast, and then direct professional actors.  I love the wonderful Zliten I ended up with and nothing in the world could make me happier.  I am proud of taking this big lumpy lump of clay that was my body 2 years ago and molding it into a pretty darn nice sculpture (if I may say so myself), and it can do things like run races and lift heavy things and dance for 3 hours and keep up with anyone doing just about anything.  I have a group of great friends who are a hell of a lot of fun.  I have a house which I am still seeming to be able to pay mortgage, so that’ a bonus.

But, truth is, I am not a beautiful and unique snowflake.  I guess I’m lucky enough to have a variety of hits on my name that are actually me.  I’ve enjoyed some mild internet fame as Sapphyra the drunken barbarian being interviewed on gaming websites and participating in podcasts.  The pinnacle of my fame was a for real magazine distributed nationwide in the millions interviewed me and did a 2 page spread on my 3 year old game – which is actually a miracle.  However, I really had (have) this big huge desire to be famous in some way.  I want to leave my mark on humanity, and I want people to know my name as being truly excellent as…something.  This drive is what causes me to really dig into something I love and want to be good at, and can make me crazy because I WANT TO BE THE BEST AT IT.

Instead, I am not the best at anything.  I never got past level 8 in gymnastics.  I never even got to state in diving (argh, by one place, both years!) and didn’t get an athletic scholarship for college.  I had mostly bit parts in college theatre and sometimes didn’t even get cast.  I’m middle management instead of overlord of my own project.  I don’t have the fanciest car, best decorated house, and I can’t make it to all the cool parties I see and want to attend because I really enjoy my sleep in my old age.

After many years in life of wishing I could be really, really good at something and berating myself if I couldn’t, I came to a realization.  I found that to be the best in the world at one thing (or even attempt it), you have to also give up being even moderately good at mostly everything else.  Elite gymnasts have no lives outside the gym.  People who live and breathe their jobs usually end up burnt, unhealthy, and sometimes alone.  If you want to be good at something, you have to work for it.  Extraordinary results require extraordinary effort (or something like that), and effort = time.  Time is something we have a finite amount of, even if we are, in fact, perfect.

In the wisdom the comes with old age (yes, I’m going to milk this until it gets old…like me…zing!), it is apparent that I can only control what I do with the 24 hours I get every day, and just about nothing else.  If I want to become a better runner, guess what I need to spend some of those hours doing?  If I want to sell jewelry on Etsy, guess what I need to spend my time doing?  It’s certainly not watching Iron Chef and drooling.

I’ve already realized that if I am NOT something, there’s no use dwelling on it.  Instead of saying that I’m a horrible person because I forgot to get my doctor visit in before 30 and I’m lazy and stupid and I’m now probably going to die because they didn’t catch a rare disease with no symptoms early enough (ok, now I AM starting to freak myself out so I should stop that…tee hee), it’s first on my list of things to do and I’ll get to it when I can.  Same with running a 10k.  Same with finishing 10 jewelery items and selling it on Etsy.  I’d say same with getting myself some new clothes/workout clothes, but I really don’t seem to have ANY problems with that.

If more people could treat themselves like their friends treat you (or they should treat you if you have crappy friends), then we’d be much better off.  Next time you start having perfectionist thoughts berating yourself for not being something you think you should be, start coming up with a plan to become it.  You can’t change the past, so it’s useless to lament over things that are there and only there.  Chances are, it will either seem silly once you start scheming about how to become an elite gymnast at the age of 30, or it will lead somewhere you never thought you could go.  I’m still working on it, but I’m not perfect.  And that’s becoming more and more ok with me.