Technically this quote is about Aruba, but I think it’s pretty applicable to anyone with a dream.

I came to this place in 1995. I pulled over, looked at the beach and surrounding area. I thought, “I could live here.” It was a goal that took me a long time to accomplish. But all that hard work was worth it. The good things in life are worth waiting for. (You’ve heard that one before, I know, but it is true.) Don’t rush it. Don’t get discouraged. Stay the course, weather the storm, and get where you want to go and take the ones you love with you.

Courtesy of Daniel Putkowski and his blog The Bent Page.

In honor of the new month, I created a new masthead, just like I do… every month. :P

I also decided to archive all the previous mastheads, because I like them, and who knows, maybe someone else will too.

This month’s tagline (”let the poverty begin”) is in honor of my new part-time schedule, which starts in two weeks and means I’ll be earning 40% of my current salary (hence POVERTY) but writing a lot, lot more (read: MORE POVERTY). I’m really excited, but scared sh*tless at the same time.

On a related note, I’m sending my short story The Eraser out to a contest today. Wish me luck?

In a recent radio interview, Dooce talks about how a blog must have soul to attract a loyal fan base. Just like with a TV show or book, the writer of a blog must develop characters that readers care about in order to draw the audience back day after day (or week after week, depending on the frequency of the posts).

I think that’s why I realized after just a couple weeks that my blog couldn’t be merely professional. Not only was it unsatisfying for me to write only about writing or reading, but I can’t imagine that those topics would satiate any normal reader for very long. (Whatever “normal” is.)

So that makes me wonder, who are my characters, and what about them is compelling? Of course, I think my friends and family are interesting — that’s why they’re my friends and family! — but do you? Should you? Have I done enough (or anything) to make them interesting?

I think that’s what I need to be more mindful of in the future, both for this blog and for my fiction writing (which features a slightly different kind of “friends and family”). Even if every post or story doesn’t flow as part of some larger linear stream, there needs to be some sort of narrative that holds it all together. There needs to be something that readers can connect to, follow, remember.

I’m not sure that every blogger puts this kind of thought into what they type into their content management system before hitting “Publish.” I know I usually don’t. But I think that’s part of what makes Dooce so successful, and unique.

You know you’re too emotional when…

a cartoon robot love story makes you cry.

PS: That was not me being wishy washy or moody. That was me getting over one bad night. It happens, you know? Then you move on.

And in a complete change of direction, tonight I couldn’t be happier. After a long, productive day at work — during which we also had a jewelry sale, whaaaat? — I left early to meet up with friends and strangers alike. Together we planned fun/educational/inspirational community events, and then we went to the Black Finn to unwind and eat great food! Now I’m chilling in bed with my little Choo Choo Train (because he CHEWS, get it?!) and realizing that hey, life doesn’t get much better than this.

(No matter what you look like.)

Glad to know I’m not the only one:

Yeah, the people-pleaser in me wants to give, give, give all the time in an attempt to make others happy, and I fail to realize the burden I place on the other person to guess what I may want. I naively believe that constantly giving in to others is a positive thing. I also naively believe that expressing my preference is selfish and bad. So now it’s time to abandon the black and white thinking and start swimming in the gray area…joy.

Diane, let’s learn to navigate the gray together. :)

Tonight for some reason I am hit with all my insecurities. I am not what I would call an overall insecure person, but every now and then I have a hard time dealing with my physical appearance. That’s pretty much the only thing that I ever really get insecure about, at least regarding just myself. (Relationships are a whole different story.)

Maybe it’s because I don’t doubt myself in other arenas that I “must” be plagued by my appearance. Maybe it’s because I’ve just asked myself to have an incredible amount of confidence in myself — enough to literally impoverish myself, to quit my job, to put all my eggs in one basket: writing. Maybe it’s because I’ve been brainwashed by society or my parents or whoever else is available to blame. Maybe it’s because I really am not all that pretty.

Does it even matter why?

[sigh]

I’m sure I’ll regret posting this tomorrow, but tonight, I just need to get it off my chest.

I want to be beautiful. I want to be sexy. I want to be well-dressed. I want great legs, a toned stomach, and a nice butt. I want a stronger jawline. I want men to stop when they see me. I want women to be jealous. I don’t want to wonder if I’m one of the best-looking people in a room; I want to know that I am.

And I don’t want to have to put much effort into any of it.

Hahaha, I’m so reasonable, right?

I don’t know where all these desires came from, or when, or why. When I was younger, I wasn’t really concerned about this stuff. I may even have been a little vain. Every boy I liked eventually liked me back (although usually not at the same time). All my family friends said I was pretty, and you could tell that they meant it. I ate anything and everything, and I never gained a pound. I guess I thought it would always come that easy.

Actually no. It wasn’t always easy. In middle school, I swore not to shave my legs until high school, because some guy had made fun of my friend for her leg hair, and I was determined to prove that he was wrong. In high school, I refused to see a dermatologist, because I wanted to prove that I was stronger than my pimples, that I would always be more than just a face, pretty or not. In college, I took pictures of myself mostly naked to get more comfortable with my body. Even today, I sometimes catch myself thinking I should skip a meal to lose some weight, and then I kind of mentally slap myself because I know starvation is not the path to happiness. (Quite the opposite, in fact.)

Just so no one thinks I’m a horrible or delusional person, I’ll say that I am well-aware that I’m fairly lucky. I have good genes and decent metabolism, and I’m not ugly. I know that. But sometimes, like tonight, it’s not enough.

Nights like these, I try to remember the few really good moments that I have and hold on to. Like that time on the bus when those two girls asked that guy who he thought was pretty, and they pointed to themselves and he said no, and they pointed to a couple other girls and he said no, and then they pointed to me, and he paused, and he whispered, Yes. Or that time my friend told me she kind of hated how no matter what I wear, I manage to look cute. Or that time he looked at me and told me I was a goddess.

I don’t have a good memory, but I remember these things.

But the times I have felt truly beautiful have been few and far between, and often things happen later to color those memories, to make me feel like maybe my self-perception was wrong. Like someone telling me my makeup looked trashy. Or someone telling me the top I was wearing makes my boobs look saggy. Or someone telling me I have a big butt.

I don’t have a good memory, but I remember these things.

I guess ultimately the problem resides within myself. Oh sure, the people whose opinions matter most to me could probably do a lot to help me stay strong, but the truth is, beauty is subjective, and apparently I don’t meet my own criteria. How do I change that? How do I look at myself through the same eyes as those I set upon other people? Or is it that I should be looking at myself with different eyes?

How do you change your definition of beauty to necessarily include yourself?

If anyone has the answers, I’m all ears.

The decor8 post that I quoted on Tuesday also contained this little nugget:

We tend to judge others for the roles that they take on as adults, [but] it is not up to us to direct the life of another person. We can only be a good example and be the change we want to see, not force others into a role we think is best for them.

I started to write this big long post about judging and being judged and all the issues I’ve had with both of those things in the past. But then I realized, it doesn’t really matter what happened before. What counts is what happens now.

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I think that to be a good writer, you have to be fearless. You can’t worry about whether or not someone is going to judge you or be upset about something you wrote. If you did, you could never write the truth. You’d always be skimming the surface, never delving into the depths of real human character or emotion.

The truth is not always pretty, but often it is the ugly things in life that teach us the most.

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I’m not there yet. I am not fearless.

But I’m working on it.

If you care about why this bunny is on this Web site, read the previous post.

But does this kind of cuteness really need a reason?