We Want To Be Free! To Do What We Want To Do!

Cecilia Dean

Finally, finally, finally. I seem to have figured it out. I've enrolled in beauty school and each time I've visited (first for info and a tour -to see if I liked it, second to enroll) just being there makes me feel incredibly happy and energized and mellow at once. I knew it was what I wanted to be doing but had worried that it wouldn't be much different from my previous beauty school experience which kind of sucked -the environment, the "education", and sadly even most of the people. I have been assured, in fact, that I had previously attended one of the worst schools in the area. Super.
This one, however, is amazing. Or at least it seems to be so far. The space alone is dreamy: a big open warehouse. The director is young and very nice. The program is intended to provide you with training enough to go straight to work as a stylist after your licensing exam rather than getting stuck as an assistant for years after you finish school. Small to many, perhaps, but a very good sign to me of "what's really important" is that there is no uniform or crazy dress code either. I love this because I've always felt that uniforms and dress codes have no place in creative schools or professions. I really do believe that people telling you what not to wear infringes on your creative urges on a daily basis and grinds them down over time. Not to mention the obvious message of mandatory conformity. This could be a whole 'nother post for me but instead I'll just keep on with it here for a minute longer: When I was growing up and all through my 20's I wore some pretty wacky things. I even sewed some not-quite-right pieces and wore them unapologetically and often. Dresses with unfinished hems, necklines and arm holes. Tops that were nearly perfect had it not been for them being ever so slightly crooked or lopsided. Oh well. Once I was promoted high enough at work that I became "visible" on a new level I had to alter what I wore. It became a source of stress for me, to find an outfit that was both appropriate for work and that I still felt like myself in. Something that wouldn't create a nasty expression on my bosses face. I despise all attempts to control me on any level. After a while I fell into a rut of bland basics. All of this has a lot to do with my unemployment obsession of wearing whatever I want to. Not only did I actually get excited to get dressed in the morning but I sometimes even felt a little confused about what I might want to wear and whether most of my clothes suited me anymore. So these days I think I am back to feeling like myself and wearing what feels natural to me on any given day and I kind of promised myself that part of finding a happy occupation was to find one which allowed me to be truly myself at all times. I didn't want a job that made me go out and buy more clothes that I didn't actually want to wear. It's just not for me. Style is a big part of having complete freedom of personal expression. So after a week of weighing options and feeling concerned about making the best commitment for myself and my unknowable future I've chosen a career that encourages me to be me and I seem to have found the best possible place to start. I couldn't be more excited.

I am back to having crazy dreams and last nights was exceptional. I don't think I'll be able to describe it in a way that truly relates the bizarre spectacularity of it but I'm going to try to at least give a few parts of it in detail. First of all, a man who in the dream was supposed to be the father of someone who, again: in the dream, was a friend of mine. For most of the dream I regarded him as a man, though I did notice and find a little peculiar (for an average straight man) that he was wearing eye shadow very obviously, although for some reason it really barely registered. But then a little later I saw him from a distance and thought he was a woman. I remember this whole part as I first thought he was a woman and then realized, no, that's her dad... He was wearing totally ambiguous jeans and shirt, plain wire frame glasses, the eye make-up ofcourse and then a pair of suede platform flip flip style sandals that really seemed a little more suited to a woman but were, again, kind of ambiguous. (And he was wearing socks, by the way.) It seemed he was there, as well as a few other people, to see my garden (I think he may have helped me with it) which was gorgeous and had many plants that absolutely do not exist in nature. Next we're joined by a few gay guys (one was actually someone I used to work with) and suddenly it seemed I was hosting some kind of party slash weird custom truck rally. All of the trucks arriving were completely unusual: the one I remember distinctly was covered in tweed rather than, oh I dunno -paint? All had been designed by the gay men who owned them and each one was intended to pull into a particular spot for judging or something as they arrived. It was freaking weird! I'm really curious what it means to dream about a transgender (as I believe that would accurately describe the father of the friend), not to mention the rest. The only thing I could find was about dreaming of a garden which ofcourse generally represents paradise. Here's a little more on the symbolism of the garden in dreams, "...gardens are often regarded as agreeable expressions of pure desire free from all anxiety. They are places 'of growth and for the cultivation of vital internal phenomena.' " Sounds great to me and gave me some new ideas for adding large containers around the yard to grow flowers and decorative plants raised about two to three feet off the ground for variation and to keep the dogs out of them.

Escape Into Life

Eduardo Recife

I will freely admit that I prefer to live in a world that probably seems like a fantasy to anyone else and ever since I saw all those scientists in What the Bleep Do We Know? talking about how we create out own reality I see no reason why I shouldn't. That being said, I'm trying to make decisions about my future while following my self prescribed advice, see below for the new moon collage: What makes me come alive? I am having such an amazing time these days that I'm having a harder and harder time trying to decide what I want to do next because doing whatever I want is pretty brilliant but I still haven't figured out how to get paid for it forever. I don't mind doing something in the meantime -until I can decide, whenever that is... But what? The idea of that terrible creeping feeling that I'm working off some kind of jail sentence returning, should the choice I make begin to feel that way (God forbid!!!), is whistling around the back of my head. Right now I'm trying to decide between taking a job walking dogs and playing with kitties or going to school full time for the next ten months. Or somehow doing a variation of both -if I must. And that's where I get confounded: must I? I don't HAVE to do anything. What's my other self prescribed advice? Something about not making plans for the future so that the future can create itself. But it's hard. You don't want to see too far ahead, you CAN'T see too far ahead and yet you want to make choices that will be good for your unknowable future. So I guess I'll just keep investigating until the little whistle in the back of my head screeches: Not that!!!!

My Garden Grows

Here are some of the veggie plants I've started that will be planted in the raised beds in the near future. Peas, lettuce, spinach, celery and carrots here. I've also started some chamomile, kale and broccoli and have even more seeds still to come! Sadly I got myself a painful sunburn the other day while I was building the beds -just in the area's on the back of my shoulder blades (foolish of me to change shirts and not think to touch up the sunscreen application) and it's excruciating to wear a shirt much less use my arms for much of anything which causes my skin to move. Ugghhrrrrrr. So until the pain subsides I am carefully tending my sprouts. I got them started using compressed pellets that expand with water and a tray that holds them and has a clear plastic lid to create kind of a mini greenhouse. Yesterday, to satisfy my need to continue on the project, I transfered the already sprouting ones into peat pots with soil which stinks like hell which then promptly led to me taking them outdoors for the first time. Coincidentally I just read that you should move indoor started seedlings outdoors into a shady area first before planting them in full sun so I considered that this was their first step toward the garden. Because I don't have an area that's shady all day that can accommodate them I left them out overnight and let them get the morning sun but brought them in before the mid-day sun burned them. It seems to have agreed with them  as they all straightened up nice and tall while previously they'd begun leaning at almost a 90 degree angle toward the window. Anyway, brought them in for the middle of the day and took them back out once the sun was behind my building and the porch was shaded again. They'll stay out tonight and we'll do the same routine tomorrow and on until it's time for them to be planted. So exciting!!! 

Considering how far along this part of the yard and garden project is, I've begun to obsess about the rest of the dusty lot. I love succulents and have quite a few potted and would love to have some beds of succulents in the yard but that's a lot of plants. To get me started I decided to prune my flapjack plant which I've had for probably ten years. It was all of about three circular leaves when I first got it and now is crowding and overflowing from a large pot. I used to start new ones all the time from cuttings and used to have a pretty sizeable container garden but I guess I was too generous and gave most of them away to friends. I generally hate to cut plants up (beyond just taking one piece off here and there) but as I began pruning the flapjack I found that there were just as many babies underneath that wanted to come out but had nowhere to go. Also, the plant was crammed with dead leaves that had fallen underneath where I couldn't see or reach them so I'm sure it's a lot healthier now, too. Look at all the clippings I got just from that one plant! 

And just a few more from another plant.

I'll still have to invest in some echevaria, as any of the variety are my favorites, and some of those that look kind of like cabbage (don't know their name) -both grow long stalks with beautiful bright flowers on them. And I'm also entertaining the idea of making them all their own (lower) raised bed once the vegetable garden is up and running. We'll just have to see. 

New Moon in Taurus