Day Two

Today, the happiness came in the form of peanut butter m&m's. (I wish I were awake enough tonight to be clever and make my sister laugh, but ladies and gentlemen, I am about as pooped as a dog park. So, I'll just be straightforward and try to be extra endearingly funny tomorrow. Deal? Deal. Thanks for the obedience.)

This was the second day of my new job. I still really like it, which is a source of unending surprise to me, but I gotta say that some of the stuff that the lowest person on the totem pole has to do can be exhausting. Today I had to go through a gajillion and one account numbers and match them up to trades. The print on said gajillion and one account numbers was maybe five point, so I had to lean really super close to the paper to make out the numbers. I'm sure the paper was thrilled beyond words that it was not an ant, particularly when I had to use a magnifying glass to even make out whether that squiggle there was an eight or a zero. In any case, this job took me about three and a half hours. I never got up from my chair and the only breaks I got were when the phone rang, so you can imagine how sore/cranky/exhausted/perilously close to tears I was by the time I FINALLY reached the end. But since I am the lowest critter on the totem pole (what does that make me, anyway, on said totem pole? A squirrel? Or perhaps an ant under a magnifying glass?), I maintained a professional attitude and blandly remarked to one of my coworkers (that still sounds cool to me) that I would probably need a masseuse after work. She then did one of the nicest things ever by saying, "Hey, we've got some chocolate over here. Do you want some?"

Are baboons butts blue?

So I walk over and she has a bag of peanut butter m&m's. I've had the peanut kind before, but never peanut butter. Can I just tell you that it was an orgasmic symphony of flavors, textures and happiness hormones?

I guess the lesson is that sometimes happiness is chemically based in your brain. But what delicious chemicals they are!

Day One

So I decided to begin today's happiness experiment right. I woke up earlier than I needed to -- today was the first day of my new job at a financial planning company. It was TOTALLY outside of my comfort zone. Anything with numbers immediately begins an assault of the heeby-jeebies and I start looking for a flea collar or something. But I dutifully got up, took care of my dogs, ate some oatmeal, read my Bible. Geez, I even made my bed, and usually that takes something major for me to do. Like, the pope running his cassock along my floorboards.

In any case, I'm all dolled up, fed properly, and ready to face the day. I bounce out to my car and am all the way at the end of the street before I realize I've forgotten something vital. Like, say, my contacts. I hightailed it back to the house, dashed upstairs, put in my contacts (doing this WITHOUT damaging your eye make-up is a highly undervalued skill, folks) and got back on the road again. I was almost out of the neighborhood when I realize that I've forgotten my lunch. Same thing, rinse and repeat, just without the fear of mascara runnage.

In the end, I found that I loved my job. The numbers make my eyes glaze, but my co-workers are top notch. I'm serious, it's insane how nice they are. One of them, Jamie, is a British lady who moved to California in the eighties and actually worked with the writing and broadcasting of such small items of pop culture as "E.R.", "Fraiser," Seinfeld," and "Friends." Holy crap. It also turns out that she's a huge fantasy fan -- we spent half an hour discussing Miyazaki's interpretation of "Howl's Moving Castle." Needless to say, we bonded.

I wish I had some huge revelation to go with my first day of the happiness/gratitude experiment, but let's keep in mind that this is, in fact, only the first day. I did notice that I was a lot more content today. It was nice to be out of the house, working with people, learning new things, being stimulated. I also learned that I sound really professional when I say, "Good morning, Waddell and Associates. This is Katie. How may I help you?" Go me.

I guess finding contentment in the workplace is built up of a lot of little things, like learning to transfer a call to someone's voice mail, a bowl of oatmeal in the morning, and the truly AWESOME shoes that Kay was wearing. We'll see if this all holds up tomorrow. Day two of the experiment and of Katie's introduction into the wild world of finance continues!

The Gratitude Experiment

I was recently reading an article in Reader's Digest about people and the benefits of gratitude and happiness in their lives. Even though "happiness studies" and positive psychology are all the new rage in today's climate, I was struck by a couple of facts. Did you know that people in their early twenties are the unhappiest age category? I didn't, but it makes sense.

Even though there is a lot of exciting stuff happening at this age -- the establishing of careers, finding life partners, spreading those dadgummed wings and flying high or whatever is on the latest motivational poster, all of this can be equally bloodcurdling. People my age are learning about the less pleasant bits of being adults, like taxes and insurance (and all the crap that happens when you DON'T have insurance) and being terrified that they'll fly too high and plunge to the ground in a fashion that would make Icarus proudly wipe a tear. Or they're experiencing social problems, like learning to deal with the realities that they might not be married by the time they're twenty-five or they'll be stuck in a cubicle rather than rescuing orphans in Africa or signing autographs.

Reality, my friends, suck.

But as I was reading this article, I realized something. I, a young twenty-something, am not happy. I am not happy that I am not happy. So I decided to conduct an experiment, which while being by no means an original undertaking, is something that could prove to be fairly eye-opening.

Okay. So I'd decided to conduct this experiment and post my thoughts on it daily on my blog. But for how long should I do this? My first instinct was thirty days. You're always told that habits take twenty-one days to form, but I've always been a bit of a slow learner. Okay, you can stop laughing now. I know that's an understatement. But then I decided to do some research and came across this article. The author states that psychologists actually believe forming a new habit can take up to sixty-six days.

Phew. This is gonna be a lot of gratitude. I find myself becoming faintly ill at the thought of all the approaching Pollyanna-ness, but maybe this is my grumbly young twenty-something self talking. I smash down the contemplation of wading in a pool of sticky-sweetness and continue on with my plans.

So now I'm left with deciding the parameters of this gratitude experiment thingy. I think it should be more than just counting my blessings, although this will undoubtedly be a huge part of the upcoming (weep, weep!) sixty-six days. I think I shall decide on a specific small goal every day to see if it improves my happiness level, such as smiling at every person I see or singing in the shower or playing my piano. I'll also decide on larger goals once a week, like learning a new piece, writing a chapter of my book, or dropping a bad food habit. This all seems very reachable to me. And maybe by the end of these sixty-six days, I'll be happier with me and you'll be happier with me.

Let the sticky-sweetness commence.

I would SO do this....

Paleoanthropology Division
Smithsonian Institute
207 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, DC 20078

Dear Mr. Owaya:

Thank you for your latest submission to the Institute, labeled "211-D, layer seven, next to the clothesline post. Hominid skull." We have given this specimen a careful and detailed examination, and regret to inform you that we disagree with your theory that it represents "conclusive proof of the presence of Early Man in Charleston County two million years ago." Rather, it appears that what you have found is the head of a Barbie doll, of the variety one of our staff, who has small children, believes to be the "Malibu Barbie". It is evident that you have given a great deal of thought to the analysis of this specimen, and you may be quite certain that those of us who are familiar with your prior work in the field were loathe to come to contradiction with your findings. However, we do feel that there are a number of physical attributes of the specimen which might have tipped you off to its modern origin:

1. The material is molded plastic. Ancient hominid remains are typically fossilized bone.

2. The cranial capacity of the specimen is approximately 9 cubic centimeters, well below the threshold of even the earliest identified proto-hominids.

3. The dentition pattern evident on the "skull" is more consistent with the common domesticated dog than it is with the "ravenous man-eating Pliocene clams" you speculate roamed the wetlands during that time. This latter finding is certainly one of the most intriguing hypothesis you have submitted in your history with this institution, but the evidence seems to weigh rather heavily against it. Without going into too much detail, let us say that:

A. The specimen looks like the head of a Barbie doll that a dog has chewed on.

B. Clams don't have teeth.

It is with feelings tinged with melancholy that we must deny your request to have the specimen carbon dated. This is partially due to the heavy load our lab must bear in its normal operation, and partly due to carbon dating's notorious inaccuracy in fossils of recent geologic record. To the best of our knowledge, no Barbie dolls were produced prior to 1956 AD, and carbon dating is likely to produce wildly inaccurate results.

However, we gladly accept your generous donation of this fascinating specimen to the museum. While it is undoubtedly not a hominid fossil, it is, nonetheless, yet another riveting example of the great body of work you seem to accumulate here so effortlessly. You should know that our Director has reserved a special shelf in his own office for the display of the specimens you have previously submitted to the Institution, and the entire staff speculates daily on what you will happen upon next in your digs at the site you have discovered in your back yard. We eagerly anticipate your trip to our nation's capital that you proposed in your last letter, and several of us are pressing the Director to pay for it. We are particularly interested in hearing you expand on your theories surrounding the "trans-positating fillifitation of ferrous ions in a structural matrix" that makes the excellent juvenile Tyrannosaurus rex femur you recently discovered take on the deceptive appearance of a rusty Sears Craftsman 9-mm automotive crescent wrench.

Yours in Science,

Harvey Rowe
Curator, Antiquities

Declaraction of Independence: A Rather Narcissistic Post, but a Necessary One

I've been doing a lot of thinking lately. Life's gotten weird, particularly since graduation. I'm having to reexamine who I am as a person yet again. I thought I'd already gotten through this crap during high school, but apparently not. Who am I as a person? What direction do I want my life to go? What can I do to alleviate some of the consequences of mistakes made years ago?

Some of the godawful soul searching has been helpful -- I'm applying for a job at Starbucks, which I'm really excited about. It's going to pay for my trip to Ireland with Alyce and pay back some debts and eventually help me purchase a new car. I'm trying to make small steps to get back to the joyful person I once was. For some reason, this involves painting my nails green, which makes me absurdly happy. I'm going out to dinner with friends and sitting in coffee shops reading and planning out my book and swimming a lot.

I've been doing some more thinking today, though. I tend to compare my life to Howl's Moving Castle a lot, mainly because I admire Sophie's character so much. I have a picture from Miyazaki's film as my desktop background. It's from the beginning of the film, when Sophie is sitting at her long hat-making desk, sewing, watching the train travel by in billows of smoke and dreaming of an escape, of a time when the magic will be real and will reach out and grab her. There's something so mournful and resigned in her posture, but the fact that she's sitting in front of a window, open to possibility through her observations, strikes me as being hopeful, too. I always imagined myself in a similar way; sitting in front of a piano or a school desk, watching the world around me and waiting for the magic to sweep me away. It happens to Sophie, after all. Howl comes along and takes her walking in the sky and she is snatched up and away from the doldrums of her life and tossed headlong into magic.

The point of all this is that I'm not going to passively wait around anymore. All that's brought me has been pain (the "'tis but a flesh wound" variety, only emotional), an obscene amount of angst that should only belong in a teenage drama, and antidepressants. Magic isn't going to sweep me up, up, and away. That's why I'm getting a job and moving to South Carolina next year and taking control of my life. If I don't take charge of myself, nobody else will.

And that's another thing. I refuse to be some guy's damsel in distress. I hate those girls that are never complete without some guy to fulfill their lives and give them a purpose. That's putting an awful lot of power into someone else's hands. I'm not saying this in a morbidly bitter way, please note. I'm just not interested in waiting for my Howl to get off his butt and lazily decide that I'm worth taking a stroll in the sky with. If he wants me, he can meet me in the sky. To use another metaphor, I will climb out of my tower when I am damn good and ready and I'll do it without some nut-job using my bloody hair to get there. I don't want to be rescued, because all that does is say that I am weak and incapable of saving myself.

I look at the people I most admire -- fictional characters like Penelope Garcia and Abby Sciuto and real people like Alyce and Shelby -- and the common thread about them is that they are unashamedly themselves and they don't apologize for it. I'm tired of being afraid all the time that something I say or do will be the thing to push me away. I'm exhausted from the fear. If you try to please everyone, you eventually break. In the end, all that matters is that I please myself and I please the God I love.

So here's the bottom line. You want to be around me? That's fine. But don't be around me unless you plan to stay around me and don't feel like you have to rescue me. I'm all right. And I plan to stay that way.

Leading Ladies and Best Friends

In the movie "The Holiday" there are many great quotes. It's one of my personal favorites, to tell you the truth. I really identify with the character of Iris particularly -- she's such a real and earthy character and I LOVE Kate Winslet's on screen chemistry with Jack Black. However, the lines that have always haunted me the most have been during Iris' conversation with aged Hollywood writer Arthur Abbot:

Arthur Abbott: He let you go. This is not a hard one to figure out. Iris, in the movies we have leading ladies and we have the best friend. You, I can tell, are a leading lady, but for some reason you are behaving like the best friend.
Iris: You're so right. You're supposed to be the leading lady of your own life, for god's sake! Arthur, I've been going to a therapist for three years, and she's never explained anything to me that well. That was brilliant. Brutal, but brilliant.

I tend to share Iris' trouble; I don't see myself as being a leading lady. This has already bothered me fundamentally. I tell myself, "You need to be more assertive!" or "You always let people run right over you!" Then, the other night, a thought occurred to me.

So what?

Let's examine the quintessential leading lady role for a moment, shall we? In the movies, the leading lady typically follows these rules:

1.) She likes an amazing guy, but...
2.) ...there is always some sort of problem with her relationship with said amazing guy.
3.) She goes through an incredibly rough period, generally towards the end of the film just before the happy ending. This can involve heartbreak, the loss of a job, the death of a dear friend/family member, jail time, ect.
4.) She goes through a TON of drama and sad music before she finally manages to land aforementioned amazing guy.
5.) She can be somewhat of a drama queen and thinks that the entire world revolves around her.

Some examples of this kind of leading lady would be: Bella Swan in "Twilight," Jane in "27 Dresses," Cameron Diaz in "The Holiday," Mary Fiori in "The Wedding Planner," and Rose in "Titanic."

Now, let's examine the quintessential best friend role. In the movies, the best friend typically follows THESE rules:

1.) She is very often the comic relief, meaning she gets the wittiest lines.
2.) Most of the time, she is either married or in a stable relationship with an amazing guy. Usually the best friend's amazing guy isn't quite as handsome or as witty as the leading lady's amazing guy, but I reiterate, STABLE RELATIONSHIP. Low drama, and he's home at night when she gets there.
3.) She doesn't usually go through a really sad time just before the ending. Instead, she is there for her best friend, the leading lady, through thick and thin, further endearing her to the audience because of her selflessness and comic relief.
4.) She is allowed to have a quirky sense of fashion.
5.) She is often exceptional in some way, like as a fashion maven or a cook or having superior guy crushing skills.

Some examples of this kind of best friend would be: the girls in P.S. I Love You, particularly Lisa Kudrow's character, Sookie in "Gilmore Girls," Angela Weber in "Twilight, Paulette in "Legally Blonde," and Penelope Garcia in "Criminal Minds."

So, let's review, shall we? Drama vs. no-drama, steady relationship vs. trials and tribulations, and quirky fashion sense vs. classic yet all too often drab?

Yeah. No brainer.

Thoughts?

Tadpole Baptismal

He is pruning the rose bushes, like he’s supposed to.
Homework has been done, like it’s supposed to be.
Everything is as it is supposed to be,
and yet he jabs savagely with the scissors.
The sky is gray, the thorns are sharp, and the roses are dull.

Mosquitoes buzz above the pool while spiders lounge on forgotten floats.
The sand filter is broken, and the water is stagnant,
the perfect incubator for bellowing toads and brown water insects
that buzz busily on the seedy skim of their biohazard kingdom.
He snips above the grouping of five leaves, as he is supposed to.

Then he hears a voice from heaven, just as he’d always imagined it,
and he sees an ordinary looking man, dressed in blue shirt and jeans.
The man’s face is blurry in its plainness, and the man’s head reflects the sun.
He drops the scissors, dead rose petals pelting the hot concrete.
The toads are silent, and then begin to complain.

Kneel the man says, and he does what he is told,
on the white plastic side of the teeming pool.
The man does the same on the opposite side of the pool,
looking at him across rotting water noodles and skating bugs.
He finds himself rolling up his sleeves for some reason.

The man begins to splash his lower arms and face with the lukewarm water
and he does the same, washing himself with the filth of the broken pool.
I baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Where the disgusting water has touched him, he feels clean.
The sky is still gray, the roses still dull, but he is new.

With no theatrical flash of light or even a dove, the man disappears.
He stares down at the same old pool, noting with interest
the plethora of tadpoles and brown crawling spiders.
He picks up the scissors and keeps clipping above the clusters of five leaves.
He has been baptized in tadpoles and filth, so different from the “supposed to” and is cleansed.