Addendum: Have you ever spent ten hours doing something? Only to have the spell check, the very thing, you were counting on to help you, screw up totally and take words and make alaphabet salad out of it? I did. I really did.
Think I’m going to get a job at B&N except that I can’t gift wrap to save my life and am sure that it’s a requirement.
Nobody has ever asked me why I named my blog, Courting Destiny, and that’s a good thing as I don’t really know. It sounded better thanFlirting with Life which I used as a screen name.
That sounded as if I were verging dangerously into Hillary Duff country. Wimpy yet girly. Not really what I was going for. And nothing against Hillary, could have easily been Lindsay, Britney, etc.
Courting Destiny sounded firmer, more real, and is exactly what I’m doing. Most of us court at times. Stand at the sidelines, and work out our fears while planning our next move. Or in my case remaining frozen half the time. Frozen with desire, frozen with fear. Frozen with longing. The prior two sentences were the most cliched ones I have ever written, and only used longing, though it’s true, to make it even more cliched.
Love to believe that I can make my own destiny. It’s sounds so strong, so delusional, so purposeful, so scary and maybe doable.
It’s amazing this life I have made for myself in the past nineteen months. If it only paid it would be almost perfect. Almost as I don’t believe in perfection and I could think of a few more things that I want. Won’t say them here as I’m very superstitious.
I believe strongly in second and third acts. Obviously, I watch William Shatner every week and he’s in his fourth at least. Josh sent me a video of him singing Elton John’s “Rocket Man,” and all I could think of was how young and handsome he looked, and that freaked me because I always thought he was born old and Denny Crane-like.
Read so much about later in life talents being discovered, and later turns out to be 35. Yes there was a time that I would have thought that ancient, but I can’t anymore. Nor does that upset me. It actually excites me as any success I have or might have is earned many times over, and will be savored so much more.
Really by the standards of most of the world I am more than a success already. I can afford to indulge in both blogging and writing, and yes I separate the two, and still have some semblance of a life.
Semblance because until Monday, June 19, when the dental goal will be finalized I will be a wreck. I’m fixating on all the things that could possibly go wrong now after successfully having not felt fear for two years because I was so goal motivated.
I understand that I had to put the fear aside in order to achieve the goal and can fall to pieces, a bit for the next two weeks. There’s rain in the forecast every day for the next ten, and my sinuses already feel drenched. Fear a sinus infection that will either cause the procedure to be postponed or me to become severely brain damaged while in one of the dentists chairs. Though I have total faith in them, I have even more faith in my imagination to conjure up every fear imaginable.
In The Pop-Up Book of Phobias dental phobia is either first or last. Should look it up as I own it, of course, but…It’s a great coffee table book. Everybody has a phobia or two, and I think that’s the real purpose of coffee table books. To get people to talk with one another, not to impart phobias.
The something anniversary edition of Valley of the Dolls was my coffee table book for a long time. Jacqueline Suzann was older; she also died pretty soon after…Okay, she had lacquered hair and had an older aura than I do. It might not be true, but I shall comfort myself with that thought.
Now I must go because the sun is out, and I truly resent feeling indebted to the sun.
I will continue to do politics in Courting because we’re too good for this government. June 23rd is the first anniversary of Karl Rove’s speech and about a week later, he was outed for Plamegate. Personally I believe that he, Bush and Cheney should be tried for war crimes.
With each breath they take they prove, once more, that they have no respect and do have much disdain for the American People, the very People they are charged with serving.
As a blogger, on July 4th I won’t be celebrating Independence Day on my blog with the usual flag waving patriotic stuff. I will probably put up the Constitution and The Bill of Rights with a big Danger sign. Would love to be touchy-feely I live in the greatest country in the world, something I once did believe
I began Courting just before the RNC. It’s original URL freenynyfrombushtoday.blogspot.com was a protest.
The title fit the URL. It was perfect. The one perfect thing that I have ever done. Well, there once was a night.
Have to end as I’m beginning to obsess over this post. Never a good thing. I want to be a poet; a person who can take words and make them fly. Oh hell, I will always have the most cleverly subversive original URL written to protest Bush when most people couldn’t have cared less.
Do consider that to be an accomplishment. Was when I began Courting Destiny, in every possible sense.
Hummm. I always think of you as destiny……..i never really though to ask.
I just went and looked at your old blog for the first time.
Love the name.
You speak truth.
ok i quit my comment is gone.
It’s amazing the evolution that takes place in yourself when you blog. I simply just chose the name “Steve’s Blog” only because when I hang with my friends and stuff playing poker or at a barbeque people will be having a discussion and will walk up. They know on each and every subject I will have a different opinion or will suprise them with agreeing with them especially on social issues, sports or music stuff. My blog is a way for me to just vent or chat out loud even when no one could be listening. My evolution as a blogger is still premature even though I have been doing this over a year and a half. I used to obsess over gaining traffic but now I just don’t care. If you stop in and participate, if not oh well. I have really tried to show my personality lately or even some aspects of my personal life because that is what I want to read in a blog. That’s probably why I come here pia. I may not comment often but you are a top ten blogger on my list and i enjoy coming here a few times a week. (Even though we’re such opposites and I am a stinking Republican, LOL!!
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I haven’t been reading this as long as some people but I see an evolving genius of the written word.
Good luck with the dentist Pia. Fear is a healthy response, learning to manage fear is the tricky part. Here is something that works for me:
Take a piece of paper and draw a line down the middle.
write down all the things that could possibly go wrong or things that bother you about the upcoming procedure, on one side
On the other side of the line, write down all the things you can do to prepare for each aspect that you fear.
it can be a very effective yet simple way to face your fears, enumerate them, and chase them away with contingency plans.
First things first, I too fear the dentist! I had braces for 9 years as a child, that’s approx. 550 dental appointments (once or twice a month for 9 years!). Now I avoid the dentist with everything I have, so good luck Pia, I hope it goes well.
For blog title, I chose “ya don’t say…” because it sort of reflects my personality, slightly sarcastic. That’s the long and short of it. I think ‘Courting Destiny’ is an awesome name, and well chosen. I love your blog, it’s very well written and learning about life in NY is fascinating, especially from your unique perspective.
KristynMarie
PS. Since your sidebar indicates that you’d want to know, I’ve linked you!
Hey Pia,
Wow! I would never have guessed how your blogging days began. You go, girl. This read gets more and more fascinating every time I swing by…there’s really nothing like it.
Lol…Just read the previous commenter and realized that I totally forgot, months ago, to let you know I added you to my links as well. Doesn’t mean much, I guess, but…
Yes, definitely best wishes with the dentist!
What is fear really? Is it the unknown? Or the known but awful? Or maybe a little of both? Probably a little of both I guess.
But to submit to fear without examining it is to give up what power you have over your own emotions. To submit to someone else’s fear because they infect you with it through rhetoric is even worse.
We live in a country that is permeated with fear- some real, others not real at all. In the 1930′s, this country succumbed to a fear that is now known as the great depression. From it came all the things people fear from afar- poverty, hunger, homelessness. These fears came home to roost but were eventually defeated too. We had a president then who told us that the only thing we had to fear was fear itself. I agree, and when he showed the people a way out, they found the wisdom of his words.
Hope your dental adventures go well. Still planning to leave NY?
As for dentist, I fear them too. But now I also fear school buses as my last trip to the dentist ended with me being rear-ended by a school bus.
I like your name, there’s something “flirty” about it, but then I also liked the “flirting with life.” THe Bush names were fine, but I sometimes don’t want to be reminded that he’s in the white house.