Here In This Diary

I was talking with a friend the other day about what our high school selves would think of us now. I thought it would be a great idea to go look at my old journals to recall what I was like back then.

She said, "For God's sake, why would you ever want to do that?"

Because I'm terrible at listening to advice, here you are - a journal entry from the middle of Selma's high school experience.

This will probably be a fairly random entry; just tossing down things that are floating through my head right now.

I have petit fours right now, and it's making me extremely happy. Probably cos it's that time of the month during which chocolate takes the role of our savior from crass and bloody things. 

Apparently my Philosophy class is to write the schools' updated Code of Ethics. I have to say that I'm not entirely sure how much ethical necessities can change within twenty years. Nonetheless, a class full of advanced students, the biggest group of cheaters in the school(people don't even believe me if, when asked, I say that I don't cheat. I must admit that it's a statistical improbability) is going to decide what the Code of Ethics should include. 

What does a vegan zombie eat? My mother was not amused to learn that it's "GRAIIIIIIIIIIIINS." Then again, she had just come downstairs to see her hopes for the future marching stiff-legged around the kitchen, yelling, "BRAIIIIIIIIIINS! BRAIIIIIIIIIIIIIINS!"

I was surprised to find that my journal was also chockfull of impressively horrible song lyrics. So yes, my friend is smart and I am never looking at my high school journal again.

(That is definitely a lie; I'm a sucker for a cheap laugh, even at myself.)

It looks like high school Selma is crying, but
actually I'm laughing hysterically about
walking into the ocean for the first time ever
and immediately getting body-slammed by
a giant wave.

Anyway, I learned very little about myself at 16 from this experiment. But I can say with confidence from memory that my younger self would be very surprised that I'm getting married, and very pleased that I'm still writing stories.

What about you? What would your high school self think of you now?

Going the Long Way Around

When I was four years old, the riding instructor told my parents, "If you let her ride now, she'll get bored with it and stop. I've seen it a million times. Better to wait a couple years and then give her lessons." But I'd wanted to ride since the first time my Dad set me on a horse's back at eighteen months old, so my parents put me in lessons anyway and led a dozing pony with me aboard in endless loops over uneven sawdust.

Someone asked me once why I wanted to ride in the first place, and I was totally stumped. Like with writing, I started doing it long before I thought about why I wanted to do it, or what I wanted out of it. I just knew what felt right and went for it.

At four and six and ten, going for what's right is as easy as red light or green light. You canter the horse or you don't. You finish ten pages even though your hands are cramping or you don't. You get back up after you fall or you don't.

When I got my first horse, it wasn't a My Friend Flicka decision. He was a powerful, well-bred Thoroughbred, very sweet-natured, and very cheap. Unfortunately there's no such thing as a free lunch, and he was also half-crazy due to some extremely poor previous treatment. I went in with both eyes wide open, fully aware of the fact that nobody else would even go near him. I called him Whirl, which only became ironic in retrospect. But in spite of the fact that sometimes I spent more time on the ground than on his back, I was positive that this would work out best for both of us. I had the patience to work him through his issues, and in return I would eventually get a strong, well-trained horse.

And it pretty much worked out that way! Pretty much.

After about five years of solid training, Whirl had put his fear behind him. He was bright-eyed and eager to please. He didn't bolt in panic at the first hint of confusion or surprise. Carrying a crop didn't make him blink an eye. He let me cross-tie him. We even went swimming, me on his back and him vaguely disgruntled about the whole venture.

But he never, ever lost his fear of jumping.

Even today I don't know exactly what the problem was. Jumping is a risk on the horse's part, yes, but so is swimming, or going down a steep hill, and Whirl never had issues with either of those things.

Oh, he would do it - we were jumping four feet by the time I stopped. But he was on edge and panicky every single time, with never the slightest hint of enjoyment. I'm not a starry-eyed believer in the loving bond between a horse and a rider acting as one yadda yadda, but most animals do appear to get a certain level of satisfaction out of performing a task well. They enjoy it the way that we enjoy going to the gym or playing an instrument. It's an effort, but a worthwhile one.

But no matter what I tried, Whirl never stopped being afraid of jumping.

The day I stopped was the day that I jumped a friend's horse and had the thought: "Wow, this is actually fun!" I realized that after years of work it wasn't improving for Whirl, and it was starting to ruin jumping for me. I never jumped him again.

For the past year I've been training a ginormous, totally green horse that I've nicknamed Giraffe because seriously, ginormous. At first he acted out, used to riders that he could push around by bucking and rearing and generally being a pain in the arse, but once I established myself as the one in command, he settled right down into a surprisingly good nature. (And no, for the record, establishing myself as the one in command doesn't involve lassos or spurs or whatever. It does involve a lot of transitions between gaits to muscle him up, and an awful lot of time patiently pushing him back into place every single time he moves in the stall once I've told him to stay.)

Since I gained his trust, Giraffe's come so much farther so much faster than I could have imagined. He went from running in circles in his stall and bucking when asked for just a walk, to me being able to walk away for minutes at a time with his stall door open without him moving a muscle. A few weeks ago he walked up onto a raised platform just because I told him it's okay.

And then tonight he went and blew past all my expectations again.

He's definitely old enough and strong enough to jump by now, but nobody had tried it yet. We were doing exercises in the ring and I thought... hey. Why not just try?

(I have that thought a lot, truthfully. Sometimes it works out better than others.)

So I dragged out a line of light plastic boxes - much bulkier than the normal poles, but I figured if were gonna do this, we might as well do it by getting Giraffe used to the idea of going over something substantial. Just a foot in height; short enough to walk over with ease, but as with many things, it's all mental.

I let Giraffe have a sniff at the jump, and then hopped on board after tightening the girth and raising the stirrups. I could feel some of that old tension rising up. Whirl would hate this.

Why not just try?

I walked Giraffe up to the jump without rushing; I let him pause in front of it but then urged him onward. Yes, this is what I want.

And I kinda wish there had been someone there with a camera, because damned if he didn't raise up one leg and lift a single hoof out and over the barrier, hovering it there in a silent question. Really?

I bit back laughter and urged him onward. Yes, really.

Bless his soul, Giraffe set that hoof down and stepped awkwardly over the jump. I praised him the whole time. (Some horses are praise-sensitive; some aren't. This one definitely is.)

We did the same thing a second time with more confidence, and then another time in each direction. Then we trotted at it; no big deal. Then we cantered at it - more of a challenge to time correctly, but I've been doing this for a long while, so Giraffe never even realized I was setting him up to go over the jump right.

All of this without a single refusal or attempt to shy away. It was beyond anything I could've hoped for. After we'd cantered the jump in both directions I stood there and stared at it thoughtfully. If he could do this...

Why not just try?

I got off and went to the jump and reorganized it so that now it stood 18" high. Still a joke; something a horse can easily walk over. But it's all about perspective, and this was a test of Giraffe's. The average person can, with extremely rudimentary instruction, dive off a 10m platform with extremely low risk of injury. It doesn't mean those 10 meters don't look awfully high.

I got back on, shoved away the part of me that was waiting for Whirl to bolt, and aimed Giraffe at the jump.

As far as I can tell, he didn't even notice the height had changed. I told him to jump, and he did. After so many years of it being so hard, it was suddenly that simple.

I leaned back to attempt a decent picture, and Giraffe
attempted a thorough investigation of my Coke.

Sometimes things don't come to us the way we think they will, but it doesn't mean they'll never come at all. I never in a million years would've guessed that a green problem child like Giraffe would unquestioningly hand over something I'd been wanting for so long.

I'm going to try to remember this, and try not to panic when I don't get what I want or work for. Not every setback is a roadblock. Sometimes you're just going the long way around.

The Wedding Cult

It's amazing how "I'm not having a wedding" turns into "NO REALLY I'M REALLY NOT HAVING A WEDDING", isn't it?

Even though I'm just going to the courthouse to get married, it's somehow turned into an ~event~. Which was the total opposite of what I wanted, but there's just very little you can say when people are willing and eager to show up to five minutes of you singing your name. But I'll budge on that. What I won't budge on is throwing a party.

In spite of a vast and unabated love for all things Disney, I somehow completely escaped wedding culture. In spite of attending several and being a bridesmaid at several more, I still just kind of don't get it. I like weddings fine, don't get me wrong, but I feel the same way about weddings that I do about model railroads: just fine, if a little odd, but definitely nothing I want to invest my time or money into.

Maybe a big part of it is that I'm just not a very visually artistic person. Even as a kid I didn't really like fingerpainting. I think a lot of people love the idea of creating this design masterpiece of a party, but I'm pretty meh on that idea personally.

Other people definitely enjoy being the center of attention for a day. I never feel particularly starved for attention, lol. I don't crave the spotlight, but I don't go around feeling ignored, so this one doesn't really speak to my soul either.

And of course, some people just want the chance to gather their friends and family together for a big party. But I hate parties and usually spend them supporting the wall, and I already spend a ton of time with my close friends and family (I think it's been about five years since I've gone more than 24 hours without some kind of contact with my BFF), so that's also a non-issue.

I guess this got a bit off track - the point is, there's lots of reasons to have a big fun wedding, but the main one should be that you want a big fun wedding. Which I don't. I can't help thinking it's a pretty silly world when someone asks me, "Don't you want to celebrate your love for one another?"

Well... no?

B is probably the best thing that ever happened to me. But no matter how many times people try to convince me that I'll regret for the rest of my life not throwing a huge party in celebration of our love, I remain unconvinced.

The whole thing starts to take on these guilty overtones, like, if you really loved one another you'd want to have a wedding! Are you ashamed of your love? Is it lukewarm? Is it undeserving of at least thirty five reality shows dedicated to its process?

Well, I guess that's possible. But six months after we initially met (and B immediately lost my phone number), when we met again, we still liked each other enough to give it a go. And six years after we got together (the day before Valentine's Day, which we both summarily ignored because seriously that is awkward one day into a relationship), we still like each other pretty well. Not that you could tell by Facebook - I think we've interacted on Facebook a total of 3 times, to tag the very few pictures we've put up. Even if you were hanging out with us, you probably wouldn't think about it much; PDA is a no-no for us around our friends, many of whom are single and (let's be real) none of whom want to see that.

Much like our relationship, B and I's wedding will take place largely behind the scenes. We just don't need a party.

Six Things You Learn From the Zoo

1. The animals are smarter than most of the guests.

I won't put up a picture since some people don't like bugs, but I passed a board with the shape of a beetle on it, made entirely of pinned beetle specimens.

While standing there, I heard someone ask in all seriousness, "Are those alive?"

Yes, zoo staff and PETA are totally cool with bugs being impaled on pins and dying slowly for days, weeks, years... you had to wonder how new he thought this (clearly old) board was.

2. The sea lions are surprisingly fun. I thought they'd be boring, but they get irritated at everything and roar all the time. Plus, it's obvious they're actively being trained by zoo personnel because they'd come up to the glass and do tricks for their audience before realizing they wouldn't get fed and then zooming off in a huff.

TREEEEEEAAAAAATTTTSSSSS

3. The gorilla house is creepy. I know they live a lot longer and more comfortably in captivity, but dang, anything with eyes that intelligent makes me think of alien overlords shoving us in zoos.

4.  No matter your place on the food chain, you are capable of turning into a troll.

Picture I took of a zebra trolling the cheetahs. "WHO'S TOP OF THE FOOD
CHAIN NOW, HUH?!"

5. There are some awesome parents in the world.

Small child: "The stupid cat isn't moving. I want it to do stuff! Be interesting!"

Awesome parent: "Yes, that is totally how animals work."

6. Actually, there are just some awesome people in the world. You haven't lived until you've heard an audience of 40-odd people pretend that the asian elephant is in a race from one side of the enclosure to the other. "Come on, elephant! You can do it! Yeahhhhh, come on, we're all rooting for you! So close elephant, so close, YOU DID IT! GO YOU, ELEPHANT!"

In or Out?

Something that a lot of people get wrong is what introvert and extrovert really means.

And introvert isn't someone who likes to be by themselves. An introvert is someone who gets their energy from alone time. Being around other people drains them. Whereas an extrovert gets energy from being around other people, and spending too long on their own will leave them lethargic and miserable.

Of course, I'm an introvert who hates everybody, so it's a moot point for me. (Kidding! Sometimes.)

I wonder sometimes how much our talents come from our personal tendencies. Writing is essentially a solitary task - yes, there are critique partners and events like NaNoWriMo, but at the end of the day, you still have to sit down and type x-ity thousand words onto the screen. And if you can hold a conversation while you think of reasons for people to explode things and fall in love, then my hat's off to you. Could you be an introverted theater manager, spending 14-hour-days directing people and overseeing everything? Maybe, but I'm not sure how.

There are probably degrees. Some people are probably fairly balanced between introvert and extrovert. Personally I'm a pretty extreme introvert; I need hours and hours of time alone to recharge after something so simple as a normal work day. And of course, a day is never as simple as just work - we come home and see family and friends and travelling royalty or whatever. In some ways I'm fortunate - I'm able to function on small amounts of sleep and I use my late-night alone time to get the bulk of my writing time. In other ways it's less fortuitous - I'm pretty sure "well rested" is a cruel myth.

Maybe there are some people out there that life comes easily for, but I don't think there are many. I think the "average" 9-5, family, friends structure of American life isn't a perfect fit for most people. We have this idea in our heads of what our lives "should" look like from TV and movies, and we forget that in real life we don't get convenient training montages with complimentary glasses. Things work differently in real life. People work differently. Life isn't a one-size-fits-all.

Tell me - what adjustments do you have to make?

Country Mouse, City Writer

Right now I'm out in the country and experiencing cognitive dissonance. In my imagination, the country is like this:

In reality, I'm more like this...

In the summer you can go raspberry picking or swim in the creek. But in the winter, well, you can be cold. Or you can be inside. And I'm fine being on my computer writing all the time, but I'm around other people, and they don't really understand that all of my thoughts live in Scrivener/Pinterest/Twitter. Which is understandable. But it means that if I sit down to try to write, everyone else takes that as a cue to engage me in conversation.

Speaking of which, time to go.

What about you? Are you a city mouse or a country mouse?