5 good things I'm doing lately

1. Being nice to service people

Often I’m unintentionally rude to those in the service industry. It’s a tic I’m actively trying to resist. I engage restaurant servers, chat with cashiers. The interactions are easier this way.

2. Homemade salsa

This is fast and easy. Chop the tomatoes, cilantro orange, yellow, and jalapeño peppers. Add salt, pepper and a little olive oil. Delicious and cheap. Store bought salsas are inferior.

3. Writing first thing when I wake

Before anything else in the morning I’ve been sitting down to write. I never tried this before, but I find it is a strategy that works. I’m more intuitive, less analytical. Confident opposed to critical. More productive.

4. Not accommodating others’ bullshit

I’ve been known to suppress thoughts and feelings. The reasons vary. It can people pleasing, feelings of indebtedness or other dynamics of powerlessness. Frankly there have been time I lived for years in a state of foggy guilt. I came to a year and a half ago practically blinking and found I had very little to identify in my life reflected back at me. That feels like lifetimes ago. And lately it is as if I’ve stepped up my ‘authentic’ game even more. Increasingly, if I’m ethically or personally at odds in a situation, I find I’m less accommodating. Depending on your point of view this comes off as: being an asshole, being negative, burning bridges, being assertive, being honest. There are downfalls (such as I’ve had to avoid our landlord because I think he’s a creep and it shows, but we need the reference when we move in 2 months. In that case it’s best for now I keep my ‘authenticity’ to a minimum) but generally this is a good thing. I feel lighter and clear headed. I feel at the helm in my life.

5. Spending less time on the internet

Last summer I axed Facebook. I started a blog based on Miranda July’s Learning To Love You More project in order to fill my internet procrastination void, but eventually even that felt obnoxious and I quit that too. I usually leave my tweetdeck application open so if I’m working at my computer I get a little notification every time something happens on twitter, but twitter is boring so that is like, who cares? Other than this blog and a few I follow, I find these daze the internet distracts me less and less. The result: I’m reading more. I’m writing new fiction. I’m scribbling in all these little moleskin notebooks I leave lying around the house. My thoughts are longer than 140 characters.

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