We’re having a bit of a blog renaissance, non? Clearly 50% of my friends are in Hawaii (bitches), leaving me with altogether too much time on my hands to, heavens, write! Or maybe it’s because change is afoot and this blog and change seem to go hand in hand. Whenever something is shifting in my wee little brain/life, I feel the need for expression far more acutely.
On a less intense ‘change’ note, one thing different in 2011 is my diet. I have officially gone “highly selective omnivore”. At the end of 2010 there were a couple dramatic months, let me tell you. I thought I was gonna go completely veg and the Hamlins just couldn’t give me enough shit about it, I had a complete crisis of faith considering my love of meat nears worship, and it was just all around mayhem. Philosophically, I’ve been on the only humanely raised, free-range, grass fed, lullaby-sung, meat train for a while. But, financially I found it difficult to practice and the thought of just giving it up even in small doses, well, I just didn’t think I could do it. Then I did. For a month (which yes, sister linny is small potatoes, I get it…) For me it was a big deal in the sense that I really didn’t miss it that much, didn’t crave it unless I smelled it, and even then, it wasn’t heartbreaking. In fact, by the end it kind of made my stomach curl to think about the no-name chicken that probably had 26 names in my burrito. So I just didn’t really want to eat it after all.
So anyway, I talked myself into vegging it, talked myself out, and then decided that for me the middle ground is probably best. Fundamentally, I don’t have a problem with killing animals (sorry folks) if, as Michael Pollen says, they’re well cared for animals who have one bad day. I do think the fact that we were able to evolve to our current state because of our nasty little killing habit means that there’s nothing inherently unnatural about the act. However, what is unnatural is the way we are mechanizing the death and consumption of these animals. Not to mention the overconsumption. Blah blah blah. Soapbox. These are not new and earth-shattering views, but they are outside the popular consciousness. So yes, I was one of the pack. Call me a late-adapter. Whatever. It’s just one of the ways I’m trying to be more mindful of my body and my life and all that crap.
Now that all that’s been said, I’d like you to know I’m sitting here with part of a little piggy in my stomach! gaaaah! (Niman Ranch of course). I had a craving and I was at Trader Joe’s and I bought it, which is very uncharacteristic. I almost never have meat at home; if I have at all I have it out at one of those accommodatingly well-sourced San Francisco restaurants that make me so happy. And while piggalicious sure did taste good, I feel kind of yucky right now. Like for reals, I feel like I have a pig inside me. I’m having a moment where I’m like, if I had to think, really think about what a pig would feel, taste, BE like inside of me, this is it. And I have to say, kind of gross. Maybe I just overdid it, maybe I ate a little too much, but more likely than not my animal-eating enzymes have depreciated and my body is reacting in kind. What a bummer. Oink.
That was incredibly long-winded and most likely obnoxious. On to something equally as lengthy but hopefully redeemed by mid-twenties earnestness. So, I exported my entire blog to a text file (697 fucking pages! I wrote a fucking novel on the fucking internet! Horrifying) because I’m thinking about taking it all down and starting over. But that’s beside the point. I read the very first entry, which I haven’t read for a really long time and it made me smile (and not just because of my cutely inaccurate use of the word ‘feint’ and my questionable use of the word ‘sewn’).
“Though great change is not for the feint of heart maybe it ought not be so exclusive a club; If we all took those changes for better or worse to be nothing more than simple notches of time punctuating our lives we would be better off, instead of the idea that once you make a move you're locked in. Last night Nick brought up the age old analogy, life as a game of chess. I don't doubt that is true, the path you take after all will irrevocably change you and determine all other moves. But maybe we shouldn't look at that as such a bad thing. After all, even if you could have a “do–over” in life those choices and decisions would be equally important and weighty as the original road sewn. A choice is a choice, a path is a path, each varied but equal in importance, as far as the long trajectory of our lives goes. That's why I like Vonnegut's concept - if every moment of our lives is equally accessible to us, and we can recall - no, we could be- immediately who we were five years ago with ultimate clarity, perhaps we wouldn't move forward with such hesitation. But then again I could be missing his point entirely. Not that I care so much.”
How amazing is that! It is five (and a half) years later, and guess what, Vonnegut was right. I had a moment after reading this where time telescoped and I was 25 year old me. My next move is to worm-hole to 35 and remind myself to have faith in all my moves, not because they are the right ones, but because they are mine and because I am me and I will make something beautiful out of them, I will continue to build a life I want to live. Just like that 25 year old did. Goddamn it.
More.
“I'm sitting in my cube at work right now, getting paid to blog, which I have to admit I feel somewhat guilty about. It kills me to sit here and work and do something when all I can think about is how I'd rather be reading a book, having a conversation about it and writing some sort of analysis Mostly I don't mind my job, but every once and a while I get the feeling I shouldn't be sitting here with ideas skipping through my brain, aching to detach from the cube run to a coffee shop and let them out of my head. At the moment I'm in attendance but entirely absent. So it goes.”
I no longer sit in a cube, and finally I let the ideas out of their cranium-shaped cell, and sometimes in the middle of the day I read an entire New Yorker and I don’t feel the least bit guilty, because these days I’m my own boss. These days, for better or worse, I’m never absent.
So now I’m left to wonder and dream about the next five years, and what exactly 35 will look like. What do you think, is a sailboat and self-actualization too much to hope for?
