On Trying Not to Stagnate

Isn't it interesting how you can feel so inspired and on solid ground, then almost as quickly find yourself once again in a rut?

This is so stupid, but I lost a few followers recently and, as Rob said, "you're stressing far too much about your blog."  I don't know about you, friends, but I take that shit personally and imagine all the things people must be thinking or saying about what I write or how badly I do it or what I could do better.

I could turn this into your typical I-only-blog-for-me-who-cares-what-you-think post, but like me you guys have read tens of thousands of them and thus I shall spare you.

In a lot of ways I feel like I want to take what I write to the next level and I have no idea what the hell that means or how to go about fixing it.  Every time I write I feel like I run into a wall in turns of quality and competence, a wall I can't seem to circumvent.  As a result I settle for mediocre content that isn't thoughtful or interesting because it's easier than trying to identify what could be improved and then, you know, doing that thing (case in point, I suppose).

I don't necessarily want to monetize the blog or write professionally, at least at this point, but writing is something that I genuinely enjoy doing.  I'd like to actually improve at something I do for once rather than stagnating again for fear of failure as I've done many times.  Stagnating is, after all, much easier than actually trying.

Anyway there are my ramblings about writing for the night, and I thank you for listening to them.

As a side note, I'm thinking of sharing the short story I just wrote (eee!) here.  I personally have mixed feelings about fiction on blogs, so I'm eager to hear your honest opinions regarding whether you'd have any interest in reading it or not.

Finally, for those of you wondering, our day today was much better and I will share it with you soon.  Still no luggage though.

Ireland Kicked Our Asses (and Not in a Good Way)

Well friends, I am writing to you today from Dublin, Ireland at 12:36am. And today was really rough.  I'm going to apologize preemptively in case I sound like I'm whining in this post. I also am going to apologize for this post not sounding particular coherent.

The trip started out with me oversleeping a bit, which I've never done on an important wake-up day.  We got out in record time though and had an uneventful drive to Denver.  I'll go ahead and fast forward through air travel because that's universally boring and also soul-crushing, so I'll just say that we landed in Dublin at 5 a.m. or so.

The first discovery we had was that Logan Airport had fucked up our luggage transfer and our baggage won't be arriving until tomorrow. That bag had a lot of our warm clothes and my nice camera.  This isn't a huge deal--at least as far as I assume right now--but at 5am I had absolutely no patience for it.

When we picked up the rental car we found out that apparently Ireland is one of 3 countries in the world which doesn't allow you to transfer your own car insurance to a rental, meaning the price of our car was just about doubled because we had to buy some half-baked insurance.

We drove to the hotel and, as a side note, Rob did really well driving on the left side of the road.  It's a good thing he was responsible for driving because I almost lost it just watching him.  Anyway we couldn't check into the hotel until 3pm so we had breakfast and decided to check out Dublin via the train (keep in mind at this point we hadn't slept in any significant way since we'd woken up at 2am the previous morning).

After waiting for the train outside in the rain, we ended up in Dublin where it--you guessed it--rained even more.  My feet were numb because my warmer shoes were in our lost luggage and BIG SURPRISE I guess that Chuck Taylors don't work in a rain-heavy city.  Prety much everything in Dublin was closed because it was Sunday morning, so we walked around fruitlessly in the rain and cold.  Neither Rob nor I are big city people, so hanging out in an urban environment is totally exhausting for us and this was no exception, especially since we were exhausted, hungry, wet and cold. We trudged our way back to the train station, where we waited for an hour in (GASP) the rain.  When we got back to the hotel our room was still not ready, so we spent two hours sleeping in the car before we finally checked in and totally fucking crashed for like 6 hours.  Then I had yogurt and rice cakes for dinner.

Before we finally got to our room we were both feeling incredibly discouraged but somehow closer to one another even despite (or perhaps because of) the annoyances we dealt with today.  I said repeatedly that I didn't care if the whole vacation was horrible because having Robbie with me genuinely made it all okay.

Now that we've slept and eaten and dried off and are snuggling in bed watching Hulu and Netflix together, we're excited for the next leg of our trip in a much smaller town which I think will be much closer to "our scene."  Vacations can't all go according to plan, but really, how boring would it be if they did?

I hope you all had a great weekend, and thanks as always for your super-sweet comments.

This Week & Heading Out

I started writing this post earlier today and bam, the power went out.  Of course we'd have our first 3-hour-long power outage the one day we need to wash and dry all of our clothes in preparation for packing.  Hopefully it isn't a sign of how the trip will go from here, RIGHT?!

Well I made it back from Boston in one piece, except for the fact that I might've broken my neck trying to sleep on the plane.  Funny story: since I've spent so much time on planes, I've actually developed the ability to sleep through my neck thrashing and falling around.  Instead of waking up I wake up after an hour or so in a lot of neck pain.  Fun trade off, right? I also believe that I've accidentally leaned my head on my seat-neighbor's shoulder before, and leaned my entire torso into the aisle as well.

Needless to say, I bought a fancy-pants neck pillow for our transcontinental flight tomorrow. Unfortunately it's a children's neck pillow (as evidenced by its swirly butterfly pattern) but I'm hoping it'll do the trick even despite my massive head.

In Boston I taught a couple of classes on, well, building classes actually.  They went well other than the fact that one of the participants gave me a "good" instead of an "excellent" on my evaluation and as my fellow perfectionists can attest, it was a bit hard for me to swallow. Pretty crazy, I know, but thaaaat's Caitlin!

The awesome thing about going to Boston though, of course, was seeing and staying with my sister Megan.  We had a few drinks (as usual) and also got to have a really yummy Indian food lunch with some clients (one really great aspect of our jobs).

We leave for the Denver airport tomorrow morning bright and early (like seriously, 2:30am early).  From Denver we fly to Boston and then, finally, to Dublin. We spent all day today packing and shopping to prepare.  I'm hoping everything goes smoothly because or else I might totally lose it.

But no matter what happens, we're heading off to Ireland for 9 days and it's so fucking awesome that that's happening, I can hardly even tell you.  I can't wait to experience such an amazing place with my favorite person in the whole world.

I'm sure I'll be around here during our trip because I doubt I'll be able to resist posting all the photos I'll be taking.  I hope you all have a wonderful week, and be thinking of me shivering in rainy 50-degree Ireland weather!

Links 'n Things

A Foolproof Guide to a Happy Marriage.  I just love Lindy West.

27 Reasons Why a Billion People Should Not Be Allowed to use Facebook.

Princess Vader goes to Disney World. (via Meg!)

9 Ways People Used Radium Before We Understood the Risks.  How crazy this is, huh? Makes me wonder what sort of shit we bombard ourselves with now that might turn out to be fatal.

Celebrities and their Musician Doppelgängers.

I Hate Breast Cancer "Awareness" Month.

Hard truths from cats. (via Meg!)

Things You Stop Caring About After You've Fallen in Love. (via Amanda)

5 Things Only You are Judging About Yourself. (via Amanda)

America: 50 States in 50 Photos. (via Nova)

Portraits before and after death.  Rob and I talk a lot about the Western obsession with making the dead look "alive" in really ridiculous ways (like makeup they never would've worn in real life, etc.) rather than accepting death for what it is.  We've agreed that we won't allow that to happen to whichever of us dies first.  (via Nova) Also did I ever tell you guys that I considered becoming a mortician?

Check out this no-sew Ewok costume! Judah is so adorable.

19 Stars in the Throes of Death.  Real stars, not celebrities.

If TV Titles were Honest.

The Art of Clean Up.

6 Songs Used to Torture and Intimidate.

Real Life vs. Video Games.

I love this list of the 13 Ugliest Phones of the Mobile Era.  I think I had the Ericsson when I was in Russia.

19 Regional Words All Americans Should Adopt Immediately.

Apparently it isn't true that T. rex could only see things that were moving.

How awesome is this: a 100-million-year-old spider attack frozen in time.

Bits and Pieces from the Start of the Week

1. I may not be around much for the next few days as I'm off to Boston to teach a few classes for work. Just like I do every single time I'm about to travel and teach, I've been panicking with increasing intensity every day.  Really wish I could get over that.  I'm convinced that though I've never (knockonwoodknockonwood) had a class go too far south, this next time will be that first time that happens and everyone will jeer at me and chase me through the streets, I guess.  So be thinking of me, please. Despite that bit of stress, I am excited to see my sister who I'll be staying, eating and drinking with.

2. The day after I get back from Boston Rob and I are flying to Ireland so you know.  That's a thing. IRELAND, guys. I'm bringing my computer so I may find some time to do some blogging throughout the trip.  I'm pretty sure I'll take at least 7 million photos, and you guys will get to enjoy every single second of it.

3. I realized that I didn't share some of the photos from our hike in Taos this weekend.  Want to know something weird? Once, for about a half second, I thought we were hiking back in Maine.  Then I realized that I couldn't breathe and was dizzy from the air thinness.  Regardless, it was gorgeous.

4. Last night we headed up to Albuquerque for tattoos, drinks, and of course, the Chang.  Rob chose this tattoo after reading the story "The Rocket Man" by Ray Bradbury, which so perfectly depicts a lot of what Rob and I have both gone through emotionally throughout his various frightening jobs.  Gina captured the essence of what he wanted so well, even I can't stop staring at it.

Drawn and tattooed by Gina Scarkino (@gscarkino on Instagram) at Star Tattoo in Albuquerque, NM.

5. When we get back from Ireland we're hoping to go back to Roswell (I know, I know...Amie really wanted to go despite hearing from me how much I hated it), check out a local hot spring/spa, and eventually drive back home to Maine.  Rob, Cypress and I will be there for a month or so around the holidays which should be fun I think.  

6. Only my husband would have a job that allowed us to return to Maine during the one absolute worst time to be in Maine. 

7. Does anyone else feel like a poseur when you wear something "out of the ordinary"? Like that everyone is thinking that you can't pull it off, just like you are?  I bought some red jeans the other day and I feel exactly like that every time I've worn them (I had the same problem with knee-high boots and red lipstick).  I felt at once ridiculous and also kind of cool in this outfit yesterday:

I also might kind of look 12.

Anyway I hope you all have a lovely week and I can't fucking wait to share Ireland with you.

My Fall Reading List

Yes, I'm still reading this book and yes, our living room/closet/etc. is kind of messy.

You guys, I have been working on this compilation of Bradbury stories for months now.  Just admitting it makes me realize how rarely I read these days, which in turn makes me want to make more time for reading, then I get sleepy from stressing so much and just want to take a nap.

Anyway I figured I'd share with you some of the books in my "To Read" pile.  It keeps getting bigger and I'm hoping the guilt will motivate me to read blogs less and read books more.

1. Rez Life by David Treuer.  Written by a Native American (Ojibwe) novelist, this is a memoir that focuses on the author's childhood and life on the Leech Lake Reservation in Northern Minnesota.  I found this at the one non-chain bookstore in Santa Fe, and bought it because I realized that I know close to nothing about life on reservations or life as a Native American is the modern-day United States.   Plus I love memoirs.

2. Loud in the House of Myself by Stacy Pershall. This is another memoir recommended to me by my therapist because the author is (apparently) anxious/depressed and high-strung and tattooed and quirky, which reminded her of me.  I'm pretty excited about this one actually.

3. The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II by Iris Chang. Can you tell I like nonfiction? I got caught in the Wikipedia rabbit hole one day and started reading about the Nanking Massacre.  I don't know about you all, but I had never learned anything about this horrifying period in Chinese history and reading about it totally fucking shocked me.  I found this book at the aforementioned Santa Fe bookstore and felt like I should probably educate myself on it.

4. Death's Acre by Dr. Bill Bass and Jon Jefferson. This book is about the "Body Farm", a partially outdoor forensic science laboratory that's mostly comprised of rotting bodies.  Scientists working at the "farm" use the bodies to study decomposition and the effects of various climates/environments on human flesh.  Is it weird that I kind of want to visit it?

5. Room by Emma Donoghue.  My only fiction book on the list!  My sister Megan recommended this to me (and I believe it was recommended to her by our mother).  I believe it's about a kidnapping victim told from the perspective of the son she had with her kidnapper, but I don't know much else about it other than Megan really enjoyed it.

The last two are eBooks which don't make for nice photos.

What are you guys reading this fall?

You know...

...that feeling where you hiked 8 total miles, huffing and puffing the whole way because you're out of shape, ate a PB&J sandwich at about 10,000 feet above sea level, laughed and joked with your handsome husband and awesome friend while your legs shook in fatigue, awkwardly peed in the woods, failed handsomely at peeing in the woods, felt triumphant when you made it to the top of the trail and then to the bottom again, tried to go to the bathroom at a gas station but couldn't because someone apparently "wrecked it," sang songs and took a bunch of pictures on the ride back, and came home to eat steaks and and laugh at nothing and sleep because you actually feel physically tired instead of just mentally stressed like you usually do?

And then you realized how special days like this are and chose to share them in an admittedly semi-nauseating blog post?

That's me.

Happy Saturday!