Change is good...right?

I admit, I'm somone who has always clung to the status quo. Same old same old has always been A-OK with me. In the past 4 years, however, I've pretty much completely strayed from my former anal-retentive self. From having to have just the right colored file folders, just the same PC setttings, just the exact right pen. Flying by the seat of my pants is more the norm now...no two days are ever alike (they used to be cookie-cutter) and even in a given day, I know what is on my calendar as of 8 a.m. will most likely change before day's end.

So...you'd think I'd be ok with change in other arenas. And I am...but for some reason I have this weird thing about inanimate objects. My cell phone...I just got a new one...and miss my old one terribly. It worked the same way, yet I still get teary thinking of it. I know, I'm one cuckoo for cocoa puffs bee! So, within two weeks of the new phone, I up and get a new car. I had the same one for 10 years. I loved that car...it was the less-than-stellar gas mileage and the feeling that at any moment the car would implode as I drove to a client that cinched it for for me...time for a new, safer car. I like the car I got a lot...in fact, a lot of the things about it are better than my other car...yet I can't help looking out the window for my old, dented Mazda.

This, my fellow bees, is why I haven't parted with my VCR. Yes. You read correctly. I still have -- and use weekly -- the VCR I was given as a gift the summer before freshman year of college (and I still use my alarm clock from when I was 16). I love the whole tangible quality of setting it...knowing I will physically have to "handle" a tape...that I can program it in the dark without looking at the remote more quickly than I can get my darned bluetooth to work on my cell. One day I'll have to switch to some form of DVR...but until then, it's VHS all the way for this bee!!

I'm old school. And I love it. I long for the days when filling up your car with gas meant having someone else do it, and heck, check the oil and clean the windows too. My windows and oil haven't been the same since the days of self-serve pumps. Mainly because I refuse to do one thing I don't want to do (when I can get away with it) -- and this Bartleby-ness just doesn't fit well in modern society. Oh well...I'm off to defrost my fridge...the non-frost-free one I have that, to my eyes, appears to be a holdover from the 1950s. Ok, THAT I would part with. I'm taller than the darned thing...good thing I don't cook! Where would I store the food? :)

Peace out on a beautiful Chicago Sunday.

GB

Hi B Community,

This B is buzzin in circles these days. Not sure if it's honey overload or just plain tired-ness at being swatted at all the time. This B is zonked. In human terms...I'm tired. Life these days has been kicking my stinger in a way that's quite unexpected. No huge issues or traumas or ordeals...actually, this B finds she can deal with those quite well. It's the everyday stuff...the day by day sitches...that get her all in a buzz-spin.

I find adulthood a rather lonely and solitary affair. And even though I've finally started "putting myself out there" I find, or rather fear, it might be too little too late. Facebook is a blessing and a curse. I've reconnected with the lost high school, junior high, grade school and college friends who've drifted away...yet it reminds me of whence I came and who I've yet to become.

Every marriage announcement or birth announcement is a reason for celebration and at the same time feels like a knife to the heart. A parade of what I will never have. I'm a good writer, a good person, and a hella creative individual. I don't, in a vacuum, feel at all sorry for myself. I have a lovely life...yet I can't help but covet that which my friends have. Does that make me a horrible person? Perhaps. But in the end, all I want is to be happy...to love what I do...and to love someone else.

My greatest fear is that I'll never love what I do or another person. We've all become so expendable and interchangeable. We all fall for the latest fad or trend. Where is individuality? Or preference? Or necessity these days? Am I a dying breed...she of the VCR and tape deck in-car and NO dishwasher? Am I crazy to be sad and mourn what we've all lost in this digital age? I participate, I admit...but deep down I loooong for 1985.

I just want to do what I love and be hapy with the result...but it appears that will never be possible. So I love the result...and bear the process. Please note...this diatribe refers to life as a whole -- my life -- not just one aspect of it.

Somehow I feel uniquely qualifed to play "the outsider." As an adoptee...I can never be certain of anything or anyone in my life. So I pick and choose. Somehow, I think I've encapsulated the best traits of someone on my lot...and I don't sneeze at that. Intelligence, altheletic ability, creativity and poise...good deal. Being an outsider, that's just just peripheral collateral damage. I love Buffy and Stephen King and Harper Valley PTA and Justin Wilson's Louisiana Cooking...I am the anamoly. And it's ok.

GB

Neverending Test

Ok, I admit. I'm getting tired. Tired of how everything seems to be a neverending test. Always having to prove yourself. If you're dedicated, and it's obvious, why is your dedication constantly tested. And if you're intelligent and hardworking...why are you consistenly forced to jump through an ever-increasing number of hoops? Is it spite? Or boredom? Or a rite of passage? Why can't someone believe that you are capable and trustworthy and take that at face value? Or am I just a cockeyed sarcastic optimist? Ha :)

Case of the Mondays

What can I say...I had to pay homage to one of my all-time FAV movies. Don't jump to conclusions (ok, my dorky banter has run amok...so sorry!).

I guess it figures that after a day as fun as yesterday (went skydiving for the first time and loved it) I would run, head on, into One Of Those Days. Purses forgotten at home. A burnt out headlight on a rainy day. Power outage during a favorite evening show. Arm pain causing me to type this, and most e-mails today, with one hand.

Guilty pleasures of late?

• Facebook
• Iced double shots at Starbucks
• Ice Road Truckers marathons
• The Kinks, Kid Rock and Lifehouse (yet again)
• High Life Adventures
• Gelato
• Reading "The Thing About Life Is One Day You'll Be Dead"
• The Hills (my name is Green Bee and I'm a Hills-a-holic)
• Shopping online
• It's Me or the Dog

I could post about more salient topics. The election. My best friend's awesome talent and huge success as a writer (go Stacey, it's almost your birthday). The environment (heck, Green is in my name). But I won't. Because one-handed typing is hard! :)

Peace out. It's all good...everything always is.

Live like you mean it. That's my motto and challenge to y'all :)

GB

BEEEEEn Silent

I apologize for my extended blogging absence. I plead colony collapse disorder...after all, it ain't easy being a green bee. Ok, end dorky repoirte here :)

There's so much to write about, and at the same time, nothing at all. Which makes for thrilling reading, I'm sure. I'm a study in contradictions (or is it dichotomies? sp? bueller?). I want to get married and have children...yet I don't date. I want to be more creative (write more, paint more, make jewelry more, etc.)...yet all I do is read or watch TV. I want to look more polished...yet I haven't styled my hair in years. I love watching the Food Network...yet I've never cooked a day in my life. Oh well...I digress...or not :)

Ok, I have to give a shout out to Joss Whedon's online-only "Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog!" For those rabid musical-episode Buffy fans...this will SATISFY. It's Neil Patrick Harris mixed with other Whedon-verse usual suspects...singing along to the Joss-iest lyrics ever. It's awesome. 'Nuff said. They, indeed, gave me something to sing about!

My newest musical obsession, other than Dr. Horrible (as of tonight) is Delta Goodrem -- I LOVE her new album...and having never heard her music before (save for her new release "In this Life"), that's saying something in my book.

Ok, that's all for now. Green Bee bids you good night...
GB

Poem Is Me -- Part Deux

Hi all,

For lack of an original post, I figured I'd put another poem of mine "out there" for scrutiny and mocking :) Two of my favorite pasttimes for sure! BTW...it's sunny AND warm here in Chi-town today. Explains those winged pigs I spotted outside my window earlier. Happy reading!

Green B out :)

All Sales Final
You didn't know
I was a knockoff
a copy of the designer
original
almost as good but
not quite
the quality lower
the mechanism slower
a bargain for
a bargain price

Buyer beware
that's what mom said
and the consumer
should heed such
warnings
all sales final
how could I know
you'd fall
hard and fast
for the deal of a lifetime

Things That Make You Go Boo

So...I'm watching "Into the Wild" right now (and LOVING IT, btw, though it is depressing to say the least!) and it occurs to me that giving up every material thing and leaving everyone I know would terrify me. Which naturally led me to thinking of what else scares me in this world, and of course caused me to ponder what scares everyone else. The funny thing is, I'm not afraid of most of what scares my friends -- I love the dark (in fact, I watch most of the scary movies I see in the dark...alone), I love heights (I've bungee-jumped and LOVE all roller coasters at Great America), and I'm perfectly content being alone. Still, I do have few fears (not "frog fear" like Willow from Buffy, but a few trepidations nonetheless). I'll show you mine...I just hope at least one person shows me theirs :)

• Facials -- I'd never had one before. Last summer I went with a group of female family members for a spa day. I must note that in the past few years I've somehow developed a heightend sense of anxiety due to stress. Typically I don't notice adverse effects. Ironically, the one activity meant to relax me and reduce my stress turned out to freak me out. After the inital facial cleansing, the facilist (or whatever the correct term is for a person who gives you a facial) placed a warm towel over my face...completely covering it. For some reason, when she put the towel on my face, I had a panic attack...all of a sudden I couldn't breathe and I literally jumped out of the chair while at the same time shaking the towel off my face. I am now truly afraid of facials and will NEVER have one again.
• Spiders -- I don't jump on chairs or anything...but I'm scared of them IF I CAN'T IMMEDIATELY KILL them. See, if I spot a spider and it then escapes my line of vision, I am afraid of where it has gone and when it will next appear...I imagine it finding its way to my bedroom while I'm sleeping...and that skeeves me out!
• Being a passenger in the front seat of a car -- back in college, a friend of mine took a left turn too fast and hit a tree...on the passenger side. Since then, I've been a less than ideal co-pilot in driving situations. I don't call shot-gun. I prefer the back seat. If I'm forced to be a front-seat passenger, I tend to close my eyes a lot. And I do have curb fear!!
• My breathing, of late -- last summer I had this weird heart/breathing thing happen where my heart began beating irregularly and my breath caught in my throat. Luckily, the heartbeat thing never happened again. But breathing weirdness happened a few months back again, and the dr. said there isn't anything wrong and that it was probably anxiety. But I doubt that...because since then I've had some mondo stressful situations where no breathing issues surfaced, and alternately as things have become less stressful, I've started to notice what I call "breathing blips" again. These freak me out because every time it happens I think "not yet...I'm not ready to stop breathing" (which in my mind translates to not being ready to not live more). Which segues nicely into my final fear...
• Life -- for some reason, I'm afraid to just go out there and "live out loud." I am my own worst enemy. I hold myself back. I scare myself :) Boo!

Ok...so what are you afraid of? I'd love to hear about it! Happy rainy Saturday in Chi-town, folks. Green B goin' bye-bye. Catch you on the flip-side.

GB