FoMO

Apparently I'm way behind on trending topics in the digital world because today was the first I remember hearing of FoMO - the Fear of Missing Opportunities. As described to me this morning (which could've been taken straight out of a description of how I feel about my life) it's the feeling you get that you're in a great room with many doors leading off it. Behind each door is a different opportunity and experience, you simply have to go through the door. But you're standing there in the center of the room afraid to make the wrong choice. Instead you make no choice. 

This has been my biggest hurdle in getting out of unemployment. After my initial period of self disdain I should've been able to get back up and get back to work, but I swilled around in my pool of self pity and continued to let myself get beat down every time I submitted an application and heard nothing back. Then, after a time I finally started some soul searching to try and find out what type of job I should be looking for, or what type of continuing education I might want to get into. What would I be good at? What do I like to do? What causes do I care about? What jobs would be rewarding? I've come up with a long list. 

Then, just as I'm getting excited about a couple things, my FoMO sets in and I freeze. There are just too many things that I think I would like to do, and I don't want to go down the wrong path and waste precious years of my life. I want to jump on the right track and for everything to be perfect. What if I just get a job as an administrative assistant and two years from now I'm just in the same place I am now, but older? I could've been doing something else in that time that could've furthered my aims in life. I could've/should've/would've something else. But instead I didn't for fear of missing out. 

And I wish I could say I was writing this from a place of clarity where I've overcome my FoMO, but even though I'm starting work and pursuing a wide range of things that may take my life in interesting directions I still feel that sense of "what if this is the wrong thing, what if there's something better I could be doing?". What I have come to terms with though is that I can't simply sit by and wait to figure everything out; primarily because I can't afford to sit around, and secondly because time keeps marching on whether I'm moving forward or not. So, I'm choosing to move forward. 

Ready for love

Since my TV hates me and won't tune in Fox there's absolutely nothing other than garbage on TV Tuesday night (with the exception of NCIS, but I'm not caught up on any CBS shows because they suck and don't put their stuff on Hulu). And at the end of the day I just want to sit around and numb my brain a bit, watching TV was the best option it seemed. So I watched the Voice purely because Adam Levine is a sexy piece of man. At the Maroon 5 concert mom and I went to we actually discussed his sexiness at great length and debated whether we would lick his body after he performed a concert. Even from where we were sitting we could see that he was pretty sweaty. I believe the consensus was that yes, we would still lick him. 

But I digress... because I've had ample TV watching time I have seen previews for the new show "Ready for Love". In the past I have watched and enjoyed watching the Bachelor/Bachelorette. I will tell you that I primarily enjoyed seeing the neat places they travel to. You may however be thinking to yourself that I probably watch it because I'm a sap for romance and/or I am drawn to the dramatics. To which I will not respond as to avoid incriminating myself. 

So, I did sit on the couch Tuesday night watching the lead singer of Plain White Tees meeting 9 women specifically chosen for him by some of the top names in matchmaking. A bunch of girls who were coached on how to interact with this potential suitor, how and what to say, what vibes you should give off, so on and so forth. As if it wasn't bad enough that the 9 of them went on a date with him on camera for national broadcast, they had to follow that with critique from the matchmakers. Nit picking everything the girls had done wrong on the date. 

I find myself singing matchmaker matchmaker make me a match, while I'm writing this, but the show reminds me more of "Honor to Us All" from Mulan. Specifically the lyrics "Scarier than the undertaker we are meeting our matchmaker" seem appropriate. I guess there has been a lot of history of matchmaking, and since moving to DC I've found that it's not easy to meet men, but does that mean I'm completely naive to think that you can just meet someone and fall in love and get married and live happily ever after? 

The obviously silly thing about the Bachelor franchise is that the success rate of their relationships is dismal. Besides that I can't imagine truly and honestly falling in love with someone in a superficial environment that the show creates and while either dating hoards of other men or while he is dating hoards of other women. Although I can't see dating more than one person at a time in any circumstance.  I guess that basically sums up why you'll never see me on that show. But I am curious to see whether the relationships borne from this new show will actually last. They are still creating an unnatural environment, but with successful matchmakers supervising it, will it be different? Either way I think I'll likely still come out from watching the show feeling like Mulan... Maybe I'll pretend to be a man and save the Emperor, then someone will want to marry me.

I feel like I need this beer for when I'm watching any sort of reality relationship show

Do you have a minute?

Damn Neptune's Witnesses... can't escape them anywhere!

So, for the first time in my adult life, I woke up Sunday morning and walked to church. I have voluntarily gone to Catholic mass a few times with a dear friend of mine, but generally I avoid churches. It was one such time at mass, Easter actually, that the members of the church were renewing their baptismal vows. My friend whispered that I didn't need to participate since I in fact was not baptized in a Catholic church, and therefore have taken no such vows, but very quietly I did in my own way. 

And before you get worried that I offended the good Catholics at mass, don't be silly, I whispered everything so quietly that even the person standing next to me couldn't hear. 

Priest: Do you renounce Satan?
Me: (easy question) Yes.
Priest: Do you believe in God, the Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth?
Me: (hard question) Maybe?
Priest: Do you believe in Jesus Christ, his only son, our Lord, who was born of the Virgin Mary, was crucified, died, and was buried, rose from the dead, and is not seated at the right hand of the Father?
Me: (Hmmm, well you had me at Jesus, but you lost me at virgin...) Kinda.

The other part that plays into this is that I've been taking an active approach to changing my life recently. I have been much more proactive about making changes which are so obviously needed and it has given me a sense of hope to do so. One of the things that I've decided needs to change about my life, particularly since I'm facing a possible commitment to staying in the district for many years, is that I don't have a community connection here, and I don't know people other than those I've worked, played (rugby) or lived with. 

Since I have always enjoyed services at my grandmother's church, I did some online stalking to figure out that they go to a United Church of Christ church. I located my nearest UCC church, which was a mere 0.7 miles from my house, and promptly at 10:20 I walked in a sat down near the back. There are two things that I think may have been a sign... First, I love singing in church, and to be honest everywhere else, Sunday's service involved members of the congregation volunteering their favorite hymns and lots of extra singing. I was informed that this is not how it always is, but I liked it. Second there was a meeting after the service for potential new members of the church to get some information about the church locally and about UCC in general. 

I'm not going to make a habit of posting about my "spiritual journey" because I just think that's cheesy. And it's a terrible pun. The real reason that I decided to write this post anyway was so that I would have a good reason to share that photo. 

Bigger is not better

Oh get your mind out of the gutter... (though I guess if you know me, it could be very easy to jump to that conclusion) As far back as I can remember I have loved miniatures of things based solely on the merit that they were little. Perhaps this is a reflection of my own self value being a rather small child, and who am I kidding, I'm not that big now. But anything from miniature baskets, to miniature tea sets, to miniature board games - the list goes on. If it was tiny I wanted it. So it should be no surprise that my new grown up obsession is miniature living spaces. 


Last summer I went to the folklife festival. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the festival it is hosted by the Smithsonian Institute each year and highlights three cultural groups. Last year one of the groups they featured was campus community, and I was most drawn by *surprise* the miniature house presented by the University of Tennessee. The house was the school's entry into the DOE's Solar Decathlon. Another thing you might know about me is that I'm a huge tree hugger at heart. I'm such a big fan of sustainable, green, composting, geothermal, self sufficient buildings. 


If you've been to my apartment you'll know that it is by no means small, in fact for a city it is pretty outrageously huge at ~1,200 sq. ft. Don't get me wrong, I love my apartment, we could probably have a fourth person live in our hall closet, it's just that big (and there's a light in there if you're interested in moving in), but I know I won't live here forever, I'm just not an apartment person. Also being cooped up in my apartment sometimes makes me want to move out into the woods and take up as a hermit. Which of course I could move to Vermont and live in the woods, but I would need to build something. 

So it's my new life goal to build a mini sustainable house. Right after getting a job, and saving up the required financing for building a house. For some cool mini houses check out these websites, you might just be inspired:  http://www.littlediggs.com, 10 Best Sustainable Homes of 2010, and Design Boom's Gallery of tiny houses. I'll be sure to invite you all to see my tiny house when it's done... just one at a time.