Worry much?

So on Saturday night David and I get into bed around midnight after a day full of adventure, which is pretty close to our normal Saturdays, except that we usually don't stay up this late.
So we are laying in bed, and I start wondering if I shut his cat in his room when we were at his house earlier, and she is an old cat so I am just thinking of how not good it could have been to shut her in there, and I get worried, but there is nothing we can really do at this point.

So the evening proceeds and we are kissing and 'getting in the mood' and I say 'Babe, did you put the feta cheese in the fridge?' I don't remember if he rolled his eyes, but he should have. He says yes he did, but could I please stop worrying about things. He tells me it is really breaking the mood. I tell him I am not good at the mood, and he says he knows.

I really do worry about everything. Here's a short list. I worry about whether or not my cooking is acceptable to the people I serve it to. I worry about money a lot. I worry about my friends and if I have offended in anyway. I worry about what people think of me- socially and morally. I worry about planning things out perfectly. I worry about timing and being late or pressed for time. I worry about David all the time- when he is quiet I think something might be wrong, something he is not telling me, or that I might not be loving enough or responsive enough or kind enough. I am going to stop, because I could go on and on.

So yesterday in the Quaker meeting I thought a lot about worrying and tried to reconcile some of the things I worry about all the time, and tried to gain some peace of mind and resolve about the things I worry about. I thought about how my mom has reminded me in life over and over again that usually the details work themselves out and how generally speaking that is true. I thought about how worrying is kind of a control issue, and by letting go maybe I feel like I am losing control, and maybe that's why I struggle with it. I thought about the fact that worrying could waste so much time and be detrimental to my relationships. I thought about how in America this is a hard time financially and things seems rather uncertain for many people, and how I needed to also let of financial worries, because they don't make me any better in the end, and they cause me to focus on very trivial things that are not worth focusing on.

I tried to focus on my breathe, and I tried to breathe out all my stress and worries, and to accept that things are not in my control and things will work out how they will, and my feeling scared or anxious about it won't really help me change the outcome. I thought about having a relationship that was less weighted by insecurities on my side, and how that would allow me to love and to be loved by David even better, and how it would make things much richer.

So, I think having peace and giving up fear an anxiety is something I need to spend a lot more time meditating on, but I think this was a good start. Realizing the benefits of feeling less controlled by anxiety are at least a beginning. I'll have to see where this journey leads.

I've been kind of s stress ball this week, but

Last night I had the wonderful pleasure of seeing Ira Glass at the This American Life screening that happened in movie theaters across the nation.

And before the show I was telling John and Amy about these underwear, which I apparently saw but didn't read about when I saw them the first time. It's actually a funny story. I actually thought that maybe they sold them at Urban Outfitters or something like that. If so, I certainly would have considered buying a pair.

P.S. Have I ever told you how into customized underwear I am? Ask David about his last Valentine's Day Gift. ;)

Impatience/Beach Patience/Hot

I have been crabby this weekend. About once a month I get super irritable.
One of by biggest character flaws is that I completely lack patience.
And I think that my heightened irritability plus the intense heat has just made me an ultra-pitch.

I also haven't gotten used to the beach traffic on the way to my house on the peninsula yet, so as I sat in traffic twice today I honked, screamed, and cursed as I was sweating in the car and wanting to get home and stay there.

I have lived near the beach my whole life, and beach traffic has always been a major factor in life. When I was growing up I could look at through the woods in back of my house and see the traffic was backed up for three miles and was pretty much stopped on the two bridges that led to the two main ways to get to the beach town. I always went the back way to get to work, but sometimes that was not even good.

Anyway, this was not the ideal weekend to get my traffic zen on, but hopefully I will get used to it and started being more patient within a few days.

At least David is very supportive and patient and soothing and really amazing and I am thankful to have a partner who accepts me having a few off days on a pretty regular basis.

I don't know how ethical this is, but I kind of want one.

There is an article in the OC Register about this cat known as an Ashera, which is a blend of domestic cat, leopard, and serval. Apparently some people in San Juan Capistrano have one, and many animal rights people are up in arms about it. It seems to me that anything that any cat with leopard blood (even though it looks to cuddly) might have some very aggressive instinctual qualities. On the other hand, I think I might be all about having a 30 lb cat.

The truth is that I could never (nor would I want to) afford a $22,000 (at the cheapest) cat. If I got a kitty it would definitely be a rescued one.

Zen and the Art of Un-Jamming the Copy Machine

This morning I got to work and the copy machine was jammed. So I tried to unjam it, but in the process is poked me in the arm, and I hit it really hard. I proceeded to to the normal un-jamming process and it didn't work, so I slammed it really hard and called it a piece of shit because my arm hurt and there is NO jammed paper in there that I can see.

I definitely took the frustrations of really not liking my job out on the machine, and thought that maybe I could possibly stand to chill out a little bit. What do you think?

So now I am focusing on the fact that I have Friday off and that my little sister's radio show comes on in less than 5 minutes, and that it's pretty funny because as Jare said usually people hit the copy machine because it's not working not because it hit them first. =)

College Envy

I decided I wanted to go to Vanguard when I was 15 or 16. I was visiting another Assemblies fo God College for the weekend and felt like God told me that I should go to Vanguard. I am not talking about God speaking in a voice or anything, but I had a feeling. I went to visit the school as a Junior in high school and pretty much had my sites set on it. I planned on being a Math major and doubling in religion and the reason Vanguard worked was because it was one of two Assemblies of God schools that had s Math Major.

The choice to go to Vanguard- while at the time was definitely what I wanted- kind of felt like a let down in some ways because the school was known for being easy to get into, and was not exactly ranked highly in academics compared to other schools that I had dreamed of going to for years. I still have the M.I.T sweatshirt, because for nothing other than the name it was my dream school for several years as a teenager. I think my mom wanted me to apply there just to see if I could have gotten in, but instead I applied to Virginia Tech (good school for math, science, computer, etc.) and got in with little effort. But alas I went to Vanguard because I knew it was what I was called to do.

I am not at all making fun or questioning 'my calling' to Vanguard. I loved the school. I loved my education. I made some of the best friends of my life. I had professors that I still interact with normally. Because of the cost I decided to graduate a year early so I only spent three years there.

The summer after graduation, before returning to California I moved home, and stayed to help my sister move into her freshman year of college at American University in Washington D.C. I remember having a really hard time moving her onto campus, because I felt like I should be going back to school myself. I was also overwhelmed by the size of her schools and the many Gay/Lesbian, Jewish, etc clubs on her campus. There were booths set up for Frats, and College Republicans and Democrats, and I remember thinking that I missed out on all this diversity at Vanguard and feeling kind of cheated by that in a small way. I also felt cheated out of one more year of school, but I think I had had my fill of Vanguard at that point.

Anyway, on Friday night I was having dinner with a fellow Vanguard grad, and her friend who graduated from UCLA along with my UCI Alum David, and I said I felt like my opportunity to go to UC Irvine for grad school was like a chance to redeem myself. My friend from Vanguard commented that she felt like she had a great education there. I told her that I didn't disagree, but I also don't think I will know how well my education served me until I see how well I am able to do when I initially start grad school.

In general I feel like I have something to prove intellectually, and I feel like by going to an academically respected institution like UCI I will have the academic backing that I really desire in my life. I know it sounds kind of weird, but being from another state, it's kind of a big deal to go to a UC at all. I guess what I am trying to say is that I feel like getting accepted and going to UCI is fulfilling something in my life that I have been wishing I had done for the last 6 years of my life, and at the same time I am not saying that I wish I didn't go to Vanguard, I am saying that I am stoked to take this opportunity to feel like I can achieve something I have been lusting after for quite some time.

I cannot wait for school to start in the fall. I am counting down the days. =)

I get around.

This morning when I was doing my sort of morning meditation- which is more like a self gathering then a meditation- I was staring at the wall behind my bed and looking at the Green Day and Harry Potter posters and thinking for the millionth time that I really need to do something new on that wall, and then I looked around and thought that all my walls could use some new (less college-ish) pictures. I have been meaning to get some prints of my photos and hang them up, but just never got around to it.

So in some of my ample spare time at work I decided to take a look through my webshots to take a look to see what art I want hanging on my wall, and then I realized that I truly get around to a lot of places and do a lot of really awesome things.

Since college graduation I have been to London, Spain, Chile, Portland (twice), Phoenix on a trip with my mom, to San Fran (with Jare and AJ once and Dave Matthews band the second time). The picture with me and my sister playing ultra-tourist is when we went to Tijuana for the day during my senior year of college.

But besides long distance travel David and I have gone a ton of local places within the past year or so and I have totally soaked up all the sights of Southern California. I saw the Tar Pits for the first time, and the Los Angeles Museum or Art-which was cool. I have been to the L.A. zoo and the San Diego Zoo and Wild Animal park more than once. We've visited San Juan Capistrano a few times. I went on to separate occasions to the Huntington with my sister (first time) and mom (we had tea). Andrew, Jare, and I also took a really cool field trip to Glen Oak like two years ago and spent time eating apple pie and enjoying nice weather.

I am sure that I have many more things to see in Southern California, but I certainly do feel that I have exploited my location in life to the fullest by visiting local sites and seeing as many concerts as possible (Green Day, Damien Rice three times, Allison Krauss, The Decemberists, Kevin Devine, Bruce Springsteen, Billy Joel, The Pogues, Ben Lee, Ben Folds, John Mayer just to name some).

I don't what I am trying to say other than I am revisiting a lot of really good times and feeling really blessed by all the memories I have made in the last few years. Thinking back on all the adventure surely helps me understand why I have been able to keeping chugging away at jobs I don't particularly care for. I am very much ready to go back to school and think that financial constraints might limit my adventuring, but I guess we'll see.