always, davilin.marie

I am my mother’s daughter. I am somewhat crazy, artsy, silly, smart, fun, loving, and did I mention crazy?

Being away from my family makes me realize that I actually do care about them. (haha, a joke) Seriously though, my family is a lot more important to me than I realized. Not only have my parents done the official parenting thing but they go above and beyond what is necessary to make sure I and my siblings are taken care of, safe, and happy. My father makes me feel safe even if he is a little scary. My mother makes me smile even if she also makes me angry. My siblings however, are a different story…they are best in small doses.

My younger sister is a sophomore in college and an awesome artist, even if she doesn’t always believe herself to be. She can be really annoying and I admit I’ve often neglected being a good big sister. We are very close in age and so a lot of stress comes from being so similar and yet so different at the same time. She can be kinda cool sometimes even though she can also be very annoying. I know I talk a lot, ask anyone, but my little sister takes the cake. She can talk and talk and talk and it is exhausting to my ears. I tend to forget to listen sometimes which isn’t the nicest thing but we also have some good times. We go on photography adventures, paint together, and have our own slang that no one else knows.

My younger brother is a different story. He is a very difficult person to deal with. I’m not being hyperbolic, he is a very difficult person to deal with. True story. However, he is also very intelligent. This combination gets him into a lot of trouble. Intelligent plus having issues is not always the easiest combination. When he does behave he can be a pretty good kid but its sometimes hard to get beyond his arrogant facade, constant chatter (worse than my sister and I combined), and at times unstable moods. He is driving now so stay away from him on the road…though he drives kind of slow. I know he has a lot of potential and I hope he does a lot with it. In fact, if he doesn’t I will force him to.

Back to my real point. My mother. I have been attending events here in the Capitol city of Austin and numerous times I think to myself: my mother would love to see this. I really found it strange that I think about her all the time. When I went to the state archives I knew she would love to see the original Texas constitution. When I went to Franks for curry-wurst and games I knew her and my sister would have loved to join me in a game of ping pong. Also, every time I walk past a doorway with an embossed hinge (they say State Capitol on them) I remind myself to take a rubbing of it for her. Then, after last night’s event with Texas Monthly when I was thinking that my mom would love to have this chewie pecan candy I realized something. My mother is one of my best friends…she might just be my best friend. We laugh, argue, make vegetables talk to each other at the grocery store, discuss art and music, have knock down drag out yelling matches, teach each other things, and really…we are best friends. Sometimes she is just my annoying mother yelling at me to help out more around the house and other times we use eggplants to re-enact scenes from Courage the Cowardly Dog. We are awesome, be jealous.

My father is the protector, the disciplinarian, and the giant teddy bear I know as my dad. Granted, he can definitely be scary but he also knows how to get the monsters out of the closet and magically make things stop hurting. My dad is also my valentine every year. I don’t need silly trinkets from anyone, just my dad and his annual valentine…he is the best valentine ever. I remember when I was in elementary school he would wake us up and give us our valentines before he left for work and we went to school. As we got older he still always left us a present or a card or a few words, hug, and kiss before he left for work. No matter how much I dislike him sometimes, again he was the disciplinarian of the house, I wouldn’t trade him for another. He has done some crazy things in his life like ride bulls, compete as a boxer, drive semi-trucks, and get run over by a tractor….now he’s a little lot more boring but I know that if anything ever happens to me he will be my superman. All several hundred pounds of him, let’s just hope he never wears spandex.

So, there’s a little bit about me and what I’ve been thinking about lately. Family is killer important no matter how weird or annoying they are being, no matter how much of an ass-hat your little brother is, no matter how much your sister talks, how many hours spent grounded by dad, or how many times mom makes you clean the bathroom. That’s kind of what families do. Every family is fucking strange…but hey, that’s what makes them awesome.

always,
davilin.marie

my hair…
It’s super short to me.
I might like it.

Except for my lack of head-hair to face-mustache ability, which makes me sad…

Today’s word of the day is difficult.

dif-fi-cult [dif-i-kuhlt, kuhlt] 
–adjective1. not easily or readily done; requiring much labor, skill, or planning to be performed successfully; hard: a difficult job. 2. hard to understand or solve: a difficult problem. 3. hard to deal with or get on with: a difficult pupil. 4. hard to please or satisfy: a difficult employer.
Origin: 1350–1400; Middle English, back formation from difficulty

For example:

Why the hell is everyone being difficult today?!

or

Your behavior is making it difficult for me to be chipper today.

Total failure…I forgot. I really need to work on the whole finish what I started thing…wish me luck.

Also, I have the strangest dreams. To include context…one of my dreams from last night involved this guy I was apparently dating..well not dating yet but about to start dating after having not seen him in a (time length unknown) while. So, apparently my dream self gets a text message telling me he’s pregnant. My mind apparently just went with it…men getting pregnant did not even seem incorrect, yet. So, I played the “good girlfriend” part saying we’d get through it together and the fact that someone else had gotten him pregnant did not bother me. Then, I realized.

Men. Do. Not. Get. Pregnant.

Then, realization number two. He got some girl pregnant. This is apparently when I went into secretly angry/jealous girlfriend mode and did not approve of it. I, of course, did not realize this until the end of the dream.

Then soon after that I told myself, in my dream world, that I have strange ass dreams.

So…just a smidgeon of my strange dream land. Men can get pregnant until they can’t. It’s okay for a man to get pregnant but not for the same man to get someone else pregnant. Just….what?!

What I learned: I shouldn’t eat a cupcake before bedtime.

always,
davilin.marie

I was so relaxed I fell asleep. Seriously, I was going to meditate but fell asleep instead.

Nothing new, though I did have a dream where I looked at my phone at it said 11:10am which would mean I was late for work. I freaked out, then realized I was dreaming. Goodtimes.

Always,
davilin.marie

So, I set about this adventure because I need to slow down a little. Stress less and get rid of this mental block I seem to have towards writing and parts of life in general. To get started I knew I could just take twenty minutes to sit and breathe. The key is always to focus on breathing, right? I decided to try a guided meditation and so I downloaded one of many podcasts on Itunes to get me started.

The session started out as expected…the normal get comfortable, relax, don’t give in to your urges to move, new age-y music in the background and an explanation of what will be explored, etc….don’t operate heavy machinery, blah blah blah…

After the three minute introduction by sing-songy alternating male and female voices you get new sounds trickling in. What are these sounds you ask? Birds. Yes, apparently listening to birds chirp for twenty minutes straight is not annoying. I, being the open minded maven that I am, decided to go with it. Let the strangely monotone yet airy voices of my meditation guides set me to concentrating on my breathing. All was well and good, I was breathing and relaxing until they tell me not to focus on my limbs getting stiff, or my urges to move. Seriously? Don’t focus on something you didn’t even notice until I tell you not to focus on it…yeah now my leg is fucking freaking out and wants to stretch. So of course I fought it right? Nope, I moved…I fidgeted…I flopped over to my back…I rolled onto my side. I. COULD. NOT. STAY. STILL. once they mentioned my damn “urges”. 

Finally, I got back to my “center”… all the while I forget to listen or start weaving stories about mind control but somewhere remember to focus. You know what, the birds actually weren’t that annoying. The voices however, started to creep me out. The mostly androgenous man/woman voices that were barely there yet smooth and completely obvious (the point being to guide and not control) were wigging me out. How do they talk like that for twenty minutes straight, how much studio editing was done to their voices, how would this sound if Yoda was guiding my meditation session?… so many questions! I would sometimes remember to focus on my breathing but only for a few minutes at a time. I would sometimes empty my thoughts and just exist… but mostly I was too busy thinking about whether I felt warm or not as the voices told me I would, that my leg wanted to move just a bit this or that way, or if they were going to try to sell me something subconciously. It was like the holy rollers invaded by spiritualists bent on making the world warm and taking deep breaths in a forest for twenty minutes every day.

So what did I learn. I, davilin.marie, can not do guided meditation when smoking weed (note: I do not smoke weed, nor did I during this session). If I ever do then I will probably believe aliens are going to invade my brain via meditation podcasts that an unassuming group of people listen to. All in all, interesting session because I took the headphones out before it was even over…I wonder how it ended?

Things I learned: Day 1

• Yoda should do guided meditation sessions
• Androgenous airy voices are creepy
• 20 minutes of bird chirps isn’t as annoying as I’d think
• Introductions take longer when you’re speaking in sing-song voices
• You should not operate heavy machinery while meditating
• You will want to fidget as soon as it is mentioned not to do it
• 20 minutes isn’t very long
• Breathing is very relaxing
• Trying self guided meditation may be more my speed
• Holy rollers invaded by spiritualists are using mind control via podcasts with small audiences

I’ll try to be a little more serious next time but, it was too much fun inventing various stories that involved mind control, subconcious messages, and The Fellowship of the Sun *cough* *cough* I mean Joel & Victoria Osteen.

Always,
davilin.marie 

I am challenging myself to a month long meditation challenge. Let’s do this!

Someone should inspire me…now.

Oh, and 3.14 is PIE if you put it to a mirror. Mind blown? It better be.

I have a new blog…you should check it out.

Intern Soup
^^ CLICK THAT ^^

That is a wierdly phrased question…what WOULD it LOOK like. Like rainbows, gumdrops, and noodle filled swimming pools.

Ask me anything

Selling rocks in my neighborhood door to door. I was 5 or so and I actually sold a few.

Ask me anything

Pink Power Ranger…though at one point I wanted to be a nun.

Ask me anything

ahhhh, so many choices!!! Noodles.

Ask me anything

For some reason I think my titles to articles are clever…but no one ever gets them…it’s probably because I make up my own songs when I write them. More like mini haikus…and haikus are already mini. It’s an inner struggle I felt the need to share with the world.

I am also a very awkward person.

Always,
davilin.marie