Comments on: Self-Improvement http://www.oleoptene.com/2007/12/30/self-improvement/ A blog for Mara Collins Sun, 20 Nov 2011 04:12:17 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.1 By: unreliable narrator http://www.oleoptene.com/2007/12/30/self-improvement/comment-page-1/#comment-1071 unreliable narrator Thu, 03 Jan 2008 11:51:51 +0000 http://www.oleoptene.com/2007/12/30/self-improvement/#comment-1071 "I want to let go of perfectionism as a way of driving self-improvement." Hell, yeah! Back from Baja late at night, shaking beach sand out of everything, the Brujo passed out almost immediately face down in the duvet mumbling things about cacti and salt water and stars and campfires in his sleep, me sneaking in, still carsick, to delete 110 emails down to 25 and to check my blogwomen. Isn't Year of Magical Thinking just grim, grim grim? I think she conveys that creepily serene, functional sense of total insane denial SPOT-ON. Thinking about Christine Kane's (sorry, too wore out to URL her!) suggestion of choosing one word for the year. Or maybe a phrase, for the helplessly verbose. Maybe for me the DBT slogan "innocent and proud"? (to combat shame/guilt) or maybe "good-enough teacher/student/email correspondent/ blogger/poet/girlfriend/daughter/friend/seamstress/housekeeper/cat-mother/ cook"....the Brujo points out how every time I make dinner, we sit down to eat and I immediately find fault with something about it--overcooked, undercooked, this seasoning didn't work, too much something, too little something else--while he's busy clearing his plate and saying how delicious it is. Oh self-deprecation, you are my sneaky, sneaky nemesis. I toyed with the idea of a New Year where I spend a lot less time online? But when what would I do at 4 am when I'm still carsick and can't sleep? (Read 5 blogs, research Baja real estate, count my electronically displayed pennies, devise clever legal schemes to come up with a down payment....) But I think Lunesta is finally seeping into my brain so now I again try sleeping. Aside: LOVE Kingsolver. Love love LOVE her. Essays AND novels. And do you know The Story of Stuff by Annie someone? Still too tired to link. But it's powerfully convicting. The idea of getting read of one thing every day for a year.... Yay! "You hang up." "No *you* hang up"... Ah, we are foolish lady bloggers. “I want to let go of perfectionism as a way of driving self-improvement.”

Hell, yeah!

Back from Baja late at night, shaking beach sand out of everything, the Brujo passed out almost immediately face down in the duvet mumbling things about cacti and salt water and stars and campfires in his sleep, me sneaking in, still carsick, to delete 110 emails down to 25 and to check my blogwomen.

Isn’t Year of Magical Thinking just grim, grim grim? I think she conveys that creepily serene, functional sense of total insane denial SPOT-ON.

Thinking about Christine Kane’s (sorry, too wore out to URL her!) suggestion of choosing one word for the year. Or maybe a phrase, for the helplessly verbose. Maybe for me the DBT slogan “innocent and proud”? (to combat shame/guilt) or maybe “good-enough teacher/student/email correspondent/
blogger/poet/girlfriend/daughter/friend/seamstress/housekeeper/cat-mother/
cook”….the Brujo points out how every time I make dinner, we sit down to eat and I immediately find fault with something about it–overcooked, undercooked, this seasoning didn’t work, too much something, too little something else–while he’s busy clearing his plate and saying how delicious it is. Oh self-deprecation, you are my sneaky, sneaky nemesis.

I toyed with the idea of a New Year where I spend a lot less time online? But when what would I do at 4 am when I’m still carsick and can’t sleep? (Read 5 blogs, research Baja real estate, count my electronically displayed pennies, devise clever legal schemes to come up with a down payment….)

But I think Lunesta is finally seeping into my brain so now I again try sleeping. Aside: LOVE Kingsolver. Love love LOVE her. Essays AND novels. And do you know The Story of Stuff by Annie someone? Still too tired to link. But it’s powerfully convicting. The idea of getting read of one thing every day for a year….

Yay! “You hang up.” “No *you* hang up”… Ah, we are foolish lady bloggers.

]]> By: Marjorie http://www.oleoptene.com/2007/12/30/self-improvement/comment-page-1/#comment-1026 Marjorie Mon, 31 Dec 2007 03:41:27 +0000 http://www.oleoptene.com/2007/12/30/self-improvement/#comment-1026 Mara, this is fantastic. You are inspiring me through all of these connections I feel with you in this post, and my desire to now read these books and magazines has been spurred only by your thoughts on them--not by guilt (which all too often is what gets me going when it comes to working harder on eating, grocery shopping, parenting, educating, etc.). Mara, this is fantastic.

You are inspiring me through all of these connections I feel with you in this post, and my desire to now read these books and magazines has been spurred only by your thoughts on them–not by guilt (which all too often is what gets me going when it comes to working harder on eating, grocery shopping, parenting, educating, etc.).

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