Scatterbrained

Did you miss me? Good, because I've been missing me a lot recently. I'm not really sure what I am lately. It's certainly not at the writing table. At least not blog writing. I have so many things I'd like to tell you about but I seriously do not have the energy tonight. I just spent the last two hours looking for my wallet, canceling my credit cards (after realizing it was lost), and trying to remember everything that was in there. I'm sure that I'm not even remembering half of the things that were there.

I keep losing books and keys. I habitually lose my coffee. It's actually an odd day when I don't turn to Jeff and ask, "Do you know where I left my coffee?" I always find it but I live in fear of the day I find a month old cup with some serious mold growth. Nothing grows mold quite as fast as coffee. So I've been scatterbrained. I may never know where the wallet went to. I lost it from my office to the car. That's a distance of less then 30 yards. I just hope that someone honest, decent, and wonderful finds it (the way I know most people are). We'll see what tomorrow brings. In the meantime I'm going to make myself a pot of decaf, and curl up in a ball and read. It's the only safe thing to do.

Imperfection

I've never claimed to be perfect. In fact, I'm not even a perfectionist. Jeff will rip out his knitting over and over and over until he has it perfect. If I find an error in my work I'll go back and fix it if the solution is easy. Otherwise I'm more than happy to just accept that there will be issues with my knitting project. My current mittens (my first pair) have one thumb that is inside out. I still wear them, mostly proudly.

So why is it that when I come to other creative work (writing, drawing, painting) or dieting, I expect myself to be perfect. I sit down to write, put one sentence on the screen, and instantly erase it because the words aren't perfect. I write half a story and then stop because so far it hasn't been the masterpiece I'm looking for. I draw images of small furry animals and then instantly erase them because they aren't perfect re-creations. It's frustrating.

And I'm even worse when it comes to dieting. In November I started writing my food choices down again. I'm trying to stay under an 1800 calorie diet. And most of the time it works well. I'm feeling better, I'm eating better. I've even started walking three to four days a week. And some days I go over calories. And it is a constantly struggle every time it happens not to give up and just eat whatever I want. I have to remind myself to just restart the next day. I'm demanding perfection of myself and that's not fair. No one is perfect. So my first drawings won't be masterpieces, my first drafts will be terrible, and each day I may or may not stay within my calorie limit. The important thing is that I keep trying, imperfections and all. Now if I could only remember that.

Where I Fit

The guild last night got started talking about birth order. Somehow our conversation got around to the topic and I held my tongue. I both love and hate sharing about something I know a lot about. I'm a librarian so I love to spread knowledge. I'm also prone to being a bit of a know-it-all. So last night I erred on the side of less sharing but today I'm feeling expansive.

I'm incredibly fascinated by birth order. Ever since I was young I've been looking at families to see the trends. My mother lent me her copy of The New Birth Order: Why You Are the Way You Are by Kevin Leman when I was in high school and I instantly started looking at my family differently. We fit perfectly within the frame of birth order.

I'm the middle of five with all the middle child syndrome I can handle. Jeff is also a middle child so our house tends to be a quiet place. Middle children tend to be loners which bears out for both of us. We both don't have a ton of friends but the ones we do are good strong friendships that have lasted. We are also peace-keepers and both Jeff and I try to avoid conflict as much as possible. If we do disagree it is most often a quiet conversation. And at the same time we are both striving for each others attention. Middle children often feel ignored and want to attract attention in their own quiet way.

My older brother is the perfect example of a first born child. Successful, disciplined, and dependable. Did you know that most of the presidents of this country have been first borns? They tend to follow the straight and narrow and often are the most successful of all the children. They tend to follow their parents lead and are quick to comply with requests. My older sister is a perfect example of a second born. She was the one who quickly deviated from the straight and narrow path that is normally prescribed. She is the more rebellious of the older siblings and still bucks any authority that presents itself. She is incredibly social, for a long time preferring friends to family. Second born tend to rebel as a way to grab attention from the more successful older sibling.

My little sister is a bit of an enigma. She has quite a bit of the middle child syndrome. She is fiercely independent but is also a peace-keeper as well. She avoids confrontations but is more social and outgoing than a middle child normally is. She too hasn't followed the straight and narrow path and lives very much on her own terms. Perhaps she is a mix of a second born (She and I were often lumped together growing up) and a middle child. The younger brother is a classic baby of the family. Incredibly social and charming, he could get away with almost anything, not just with my parents but with anyone. He's successful mostly using his charm and charisma to get ahead. He prefers to be surrounded by people but is independent when it comes to his family.

I find it interesting to see that other families tend to fit these trends as well. I'm watching my brothers' kids to see these patterns re-emerge in the form of my nephews and niece. I look at my friends families and see these roles filled again and again. There are deviations to the patterns. If there are more than six years between siblings the roles restart. Only children have thier own profile. But this seems to bear out time and time again. Interesting stuff. And explains quite a bit about my family and all the very unique members of it.

Thinking about Drinking

Today I'm thinking about coffee. Not surprising, of course, since most days I think about coffee. I have a serious coffee addiction. But the issue for today is less on the actual drink and more on the atmosphere that it is imbibed in. I am a coffeehouse person. I love the feeling and setting of a good coffeehouse. I feel at home there. I can trace each stage of my life to the different coffeehouses I have been in. I fell in love with a city ones based entirely on its coffeehouses. My older sister is a bar person. And this distinction interests me.

A couple years ago I read Tom Standage's excellent book "The History of the World in Six Glasses". This fascinating book told the entire history of the world through beverages. It includes most of history of the human race starting with the brewing of beer by the Mesopotamians, wine in Greek and Roman time, spirits that brought about a new world, the proliferation of coffeehouses, the tea trade, all the way down to the creation of soda. But it was the section on coffee that fascinated me the most. Standage says that the history of coffee can be linked to some of the greatest innovations and scientific advances of our lives. The rise of the coffeehouse was linked with the exchange of ideas, philosophies, and advances.

One of the things that Standage says is that the coffeehouses were so popular because of their differentiation from the bars. And I have to say that bar people and coffeehouse people are very different types of people. I can see that in my own life. It's New Years Eve and there is no way you'll catch me out at the bars. It is just not my place. I go to bars occasionally but I am never at home there. I just never really feel comfortable. The bars are too social, too loud, and too unpredictable for me. They are places for extroverts and pleasure seekers. They are retreats of night owls where no work will ever get done. Coffeehouses on the other hand are all about industry. Alcohol is a depressant. Coffee is a stimulant. Coffeehouses are all about work and ideas and caffeine-induced writing. :-) They are about productivity and introversion.

I am a morning person, an introvert, and in some instances, a workaholic. People will tell you that I am boring, and it is probably true in their eyes. I am happier reading a book or writing a story, then drinking and playing pool. My older sister had a big influence on me when I was growing up. For a long time I wanted to be her. She was all about going out to the bars and meeting tons of people. She always seems to have way more friends than I do and have more fun than I do. I always thought that was what I wanted. That I was supposed to be like that. It is only in the last couple years that I have realized that I don't want to be her. Not that she doesn't have a great life...but that I'm not like her. She is a bar person...I am a coffeehouse person.

So tonight I am going out to dinner with my husband and a friend. Then we will go back to my house to open a bottle of wine and knit. I'll make some coffee and we'll sit and chat. And that sounds like a great New Years Eve for me. I won't be out at the bars. Call it boring but for the first time in my life, I know where I want to be.