Thanksgiving Solo...Not Bad At All

As suspected, I ended up spending Thanksgiving alone.

Somewhat by choice. I was hit with a terrible flu on the Monday of Thanksgiving Week, and I thought that would be a good time to go get a flu shot. Then, the flu shot just exerted the flu and it got worse, filled my lungs, uurggh! So I couldn't travel and I couldn't go visit anyone, for fear that I would give their entire family my flu/sinus infection. I just had to stay home and nurse myself to health. Good thing CVS was open otherwise I would have been shit out of luck.

How was it staying home alone on Thanksgiving? Not bad at all. I watched so much TV on the Wednesday that I had all the Black Friday ads completely memorized. It was intense, my couch and me, sitting still watching non-stop TV and my favorite foreign movies. I did a lot of soul searching, reflecting on the single life, questioning some of my personal decisions, wondering, when this solo trip would end. The world was suddenly very quiet on Thanksgiving Day, you could hear a pin drop all morning. Good day to just grab a cup of coffee and sit out on the balcony and commiserate - which I did. Inasmuch as I love my peace and quiet and solitude - I don't get to argue with anyone about anything trivial or otherwise - I don't know if the reverse would be so bad. It would have been nice to have someone nurse me back to health. But what can I say, the peace and quiet becomes so addictive at some point that when I visit family I feel like I am cheating on my alone time.

I would say this, if you by chance find yourself alone on Thanksgiving or any holiday of some sort, take that time to reflect, meditate and become one with yourself. Like a famous painting write up once said, "Sit with yourself." In that you'll find a peace that would fill you more than any Thanksgiving meal. And by all means treat yourself to your favorite thing ever. I think in all the hustle of Black Friday shopping frenzy we neglect the most important person of all, ourselves, knowing ourselves and what we want out of the holidays. I've always wanted to have peace in my home and I guess this is my way of having it, double doses of it.

So in the short span of a year, I've succeeded in spending Thanksgiving and Christmas alone. If that was a life goal, I surely didn't know about it.  

Solo Thanksgiving

As suspected, I ended up spending Thanksgiving alone.

Somewhat by choice. I was hit with a terrible flu on the Monday of Thanksgiving Week, and I thought that would be a good time to go get a flu shot. Then, the flu shot just exerted the flu and it got worse, filled my lungs, uurggh! So I couldn't travel and I couldn't go visit anyone, for fear that I would give their entire family my flu/sinus infection. I just had to stay home and nurse myself to health. Good thing CVS was open otherwise I would have been shit out of luck.

How was it staying home alone on Thanksgiving? Not bad at all. I watched so much TV on the Wednesday that I had all the Black Friday ads completely memorized. It was intense, my couch and me, sitting still watching non-stop TV and my favorite foreign movies. I did a lot of soul searching, reflecting on the single life, questioning some of my personal decisions, wondering, when this solo trip would end. The world was suddenly very quiet on Thanksgiving Day, you could hear a pin drop all morning. Good day to just grab a cup of coffee and sit out on the balcony and commiserate - which I did. Inasmuch as I love my peace and quiet and solitude - I don't get to argue with anyone about anything trivial or otherwise - I don't know if the reverse would be so bad. It would have been nice to have someone nurse me back to health. But what can I say, the peace and quiet becomes so addictive at some point that when I visit family I feel like I am cheating on my alone time.

Since this is not a pity party blog but one that celebrates the single status, I would say this, if you by chance find yourself alone on Thanksgiving or any holiday of some sort, take that time to reflect, meditate and become one with yourself. Like the painting said below, "Sit with yourself." In that you'll find a peace that would fill you more than any Thanksgiving meal. And by all means treat yourself to your favorite thing ever. I think in all the hustle of Black Friday shopping frenzy we neglect the most important person of all, ourselves, knowing ourselves and what we want out of the holidays. I've always wanted to have peace in my home and I guess this is my way of having it, double doses of it.

I, thankfully, have a couple of trips planned.

Raise The Maccallan Event on December 1.

Dahlonega for Winter Wine Highway Weekend this Saturday, December 2nd.

I'll let you know how they all work out. Until then, by all means, do "YOU" this Xmas, because if you don't, no one else will. :-)

2011 Promises (contd)

One of the 2011 end of year promises was to try YOGA for the first time. And yesterday morning I got a chance to do just that. Like I said about these promises, these are just items I've often wanted to do but never got around to, I just got distracted or lazy but now with a clear mind, I want to do them, as a promise to me, yours truly. 

So, back to Yoga. Why Yoga you'd say, not boxing which I've been wanting to do, but more on that later. Well, from having sex (a lot) this year, I realized that I am not as aware of my limbs as I would like, I want to be able to move flexibly in bed (and out of it) most importantly, to be feminine and elegant in seducing my lover whatever size I may be. What else will help you do that, except for Yoga. I mean, I do, Spin, aerobics, and kickboxing, but never done Yoga, so obviously my body needed to be aware of its limbs not only when it's lifting weights. In bed, where it's important (say this in a British accent and it's just brilliant). 

Back to Yoga on a Saturday morning after going out on a Friday night. Aaargh, torture! Not recommended. And I made the mistake of not informing the instructor that it was my first time so she kept coming to adjust my pose, and I kept muttering to myself, "Girl, I am still hungover, you need to back off me." But I made it. And my body hurts like shit. In the end, I coughed up that it was my first time and she asked me to try it again and hopefully my poses (or my center in Yoga speak) would be better, I hope. Everyone in the class was so friendly and non-judgmental, I found that so pleasing especially for a beginner like myself. It was a nice way to start the Saturday, get the weekend rolling, I would most certainly do it again. After that I treated myself to Brunch, yum! 

A day later and I still hurt in places that I never knew could hurt. If I had a lover I would tell him I am taking the night off to recuperate. Will this help for future lovemaking prowess? I am hoping it does, and I am willing to invest a couple more Saturday mornings to figure it out. So my next lover better beware, I'll be slithely and fit. And he better be packing (fingers crossed!)

I think this picture says it all!

Yelp's Stylin' Shindig

I keep meaning to blog about Yelp's Stylin' Shindig event that I attended on November 13, 2011, but it's just skipped my mind.

There's really nothing much to say. I had an awesome time. Was having a crappy day via uncomfortable evil ex drama (some evil exes just do not want to go away) and I needed the boost to lift my spirits. The sign in this picture I took in the OMG Booth and the pout explains it all - Help Me - screaming, "Dear Life, save me from relationship drama."

However the event did it's job. I didn't drink quite as much of the free beer and rum as I should have considering (I don't know why I must be loosing my touch) but I danced my ass off on the dance floor as DJ DiBiasie controlled the 1's and 2's (and my mindset) for a full hour.

The thing I love about Yelp events is simply this: when you attend them you just have to bring your childish fun loving self with you, leave the responsible (otherwise heartbroken) adult at home and just let it all hang out. That way you are guaranteed a wickedly awesome time.

Definitely recommended for singles in need of a good time.

Thanks to Yelp and OMG Booth for these wonderful pictures!

End of year promises

You know how people make New Years Resolutions, well, I've decided this year to make some end of year promises...to myself. I even made a nice nifty list of things I want to accomplish before the year runs out...all 6 weeks of it. Each week I tackle one thing, or with the scarcity of weeks until the end of the year, I might have to take on more than one item per week. These promises are mainly personal goals that I always meant to tackle all through the year but never got to...was too distracted, or heartbroken with the direction the year was going. This time I get to choose how the year ends, knowing that I've made a list of what I to accomplish and promising myself that I will keep to it. 

One of them being to rid myself of all negative people, people that make me think negative thoughts, or just irk me in the worst possible way. A friend of mine once said, "Don't talk to people on the phone unless you know that phone call will leave you with a smile on your face." That way you are guaranteed of some peace and tranquility in your dealings with people. I know when it comes to work this cannot be accomplished, but in your personal life, just strive to keep the positive influences closer to nourish you. I've tried this along the year and failed here and there, what can I say, the negative suckers just keeping making their way back to your lives, persistent fuckers. But this time it will be different because now I am promising myself...me who is the most important person in my life, because truly I know I can never disappoint myself. I made a promise to me to rid myself of the craziness and to keep to it.  Here's looking at me...Anita!   

Bill Lowe Gallery - Irascible Muse Opening

I spent the evening of 11-11-11 at the opening of the Irascible Muse at the Bill Lowe Gallery. This is the second time I've been to one of their openings in the last quarter, and some things are pretty much the same from my last visit. But I won't bore you with the details since this is a repeat location for an event that is somewhat the same. You'd think it'd be somewhat of the same observations from the last visit, and more or less it was, same swanky Buckhead art elitist crowd, except for the following:

1.  Those same swanky Buckhead art elitist crowds can actually be very rude and obnoxious when there's a buffet table in front of them on a Friday night. My oh my, was there a scramble for the buffet line, the only thing ignored was the wine, (which sadly was still Trader Joe's), but everything else was devoured with reckless abandon, with no courtesy to other less-hungry guests. People saw food on a Friday night and their manners were quickly thrown out the window, jumping in front of me in line, reaching for the mini sandwiches by hand without using the pitchfork, double dipping into the guacamole dip with the crackers...this last one just blew my mind. It was a food frenzy art event. One time I stood still and observed from the 2nd floor as a new tray of mini triangular sandwiches and party crackers were laid out and in less than 15 minutes, the tray was all gone. Phew! I guess everyone had nothing better to do on the sanctimonious 11-11-11. 

Buffet Table - Scene of the crime

2.   In between my observation of the food fetish (mildly-interested-in-art) crowd, during that 15 minutes of respite that I mentioned above, I happened to have a conversation with a nice British chap who was here on vacation on a stopover from his trip around America. He was couch-surfing his way across America. He had quit his nice cushy job as a Risk Management executive to, I guess, "find himself". His trip had taken him through New York, where he lived on a couch for 6 weeks, Knoxville TN and now Atlanta, from where he'd head to Coral Gables, Florida or something. For that 15 minutes where we stopped to talk it was quite illuminating, like a breath of fresh air, amidst the food frenzy at an art event. We talked about feminism (his sister is a feminist), the war and how the Newspapers try to make us "pro-war" as he termed it,  and how his ambition as a wartime blogger may be fun and fulfilling but not financially rewarding. I agreed with that one. Wouldn't I love to leave the 9 - 5 to do this blogging schtick full-time? I feel bad I never got his number or his blog address just so I can observe his blog musings of his trip across the US. I didn't even take a picture with him! I found him really intriguing...wish I had requested that information. Don't be like me, when you meet intriguing people, ask for their information. Please. You might never get to see them again! It's so funny the people you meet at these things, you might want to meet them again but can't. At least this way, you can at least hear from them again. 

Bird's eye view of the art

3. Then, there was this piece. I had been thinking of this all through the week of 11-11-11. I had been thinking of sitting still, being one with myself and just observing the quiet of one's life, taking a breather from it all to just exhale. Then, I attend this opening and bump into this...it just made everything stop for a second just so I could assimilate and exhale. If we could only tear ourselves from the food long enough to appreciate the art, there were quite a few moving pieces.

Of course, it won't be an art event without THE ABSOLUTELY FAVORITE PIECE OF THE EVENING. There she is below...so perfect, so sublime, so pristine, so bourgeoisie, so breathtaking! Oh, how I just love her breasts :-P

11-11-11

Still

I am still even though my heart speaks a trillion languages.

It beckons me to take heart at the solitude 

I have confined myself to. 

It asks me to make friends with myself 

To meet me in a form 

I never knew existed. 

It speaks as if I were someone else 

Who had no hand 

In the destiny 

That the voices 

Have convinced me to partake. 

It begs me to be still 

That its’ guiding light, 

Is for one who has no stake 

In the confusing loss 

Which our rambling hearts forever partake; 

It is a voice speaking in the dark saying: 

Do nothing. Be still. 

To which I respond:

I am still. 

Please be still with me. 

This is one of my favorite poems written by yours truly. The highlighted section is actually inked on my body. Just to remind me to be still and wait on God to tell me something, a sign, provide some direction that may alleviate the confusion and anxiety of life. In light of the events of this past year, I always have to remind myself that perhaps I am doing too much at once, that perhaps I should just chill and let God do his work and not force it. But this reminder mostly occurs after I've made a hasty attempt and gone on and done too much. But there's peace in waiting, however, I keep thinking, so what if nothing happens? Or what am I waiting on exactly...to be honest, I know I am not good at it, and it's shocking that my rowdy self came up with this poem. It just goes to show you that I've been thinking about it for awhile.


So on this momentous day that occurs once every century, it begs repeating that now is the time more than ever when we need to be still...I ask you all to be still with me.

Weird defeat

Today is weird. 

Had a dream about Trouble. Don't remember much about the dream except that he was super skinny and he was in sales (which he is) but he was selling something weird. Then the dream kinda woke me before the alarm went off... it led to the morning so to speak. I woke up and then watched the sunrise...which he had asked me to do once upon a time. This time I actually got to do it. Weird.

Then, looked at some job positions for my friend at work, bumped into the profile I had created for him back in April ...uncanny right. With all this weirdness what comes over me, gulp, the urge to call. Yep, I did after 5 months, on a weird Friday in November I dialed that motherfucker's number. You go through all these months without being so much as tempted to dial that ridiculous number and all it takes is a series of unforeseen events to offset that, to offset your seemingly unshakable root. I just thought maybe God wanted me to reach out to him somehow. I know...that's reaching.  

Yep, it's been a pretty weird day so far!