Derivatives, Barbecue Sauce and Mozzarella

If you come here seeking professional grade photos and a gourmet recipe for pizza bagels you will be severely disappointed and you should seek entertainment elsewhere today.  If we share a dry sense of humor with hidden meanings in things, you might be entertained for a few minutes.

Three years ago, I was approached to contribute for compensation to a magazine based in the Pacific northwest on Dutch oven cooking. I chuckled when I read the invite because it was based on my previous posts on a lazy dutch oven pudding cake and some other open fire pit cooking with cast iron. You would chuckle too,  if you read the posts that elicited the invite. 

"Someone is wiling to pay me for this stuff that I call a coping mechanism?!?! SWEET!! " 

(envision my head tipped back in the kind of deep-belly laughter that makes your face hurt) 

 I would have loved to do it, but they had a problem that I would be a regular contributer to a magazine that championed Pacific Northwest things and I lived in rural Vermont. Also, the photo specs required a camera more sophisticated than my iPhone to conform into their online and hard copy publication. Although a tempting invitation for extra cash to do something really fun - dutch oven open fire pit cooking!! - I didn't want to make the investment in a camera for this purpose at that time. And would they ultimately require me to move to Oregon?

Shortly after this, I was invited to contribute to a popular homeschooling blog. The owner gave me a few parameters and a deadline. I was so excited.  I really let my creativity fly.  The topic was - what led me to homeschool - something I have a lot of passion about. I may or may not have weaved into it an important religious conversion story that is ultimately connected to my decision to home school. Ironically yet predictably, the article was rejected and she wanted me to take another go at it but with "less of me" revealed. After I emerged from the fetal position under the bed sheets, I expressed to my imaginary friend: 

"Wait a cotton-picking second!! She INVITED ME! ~And then rejected me...(sniffle)"

I took a couple days to ponder her offer to rewrite to conform to her reader culture and politely declined. I had spent a career with banks and  Wall Street firms using business writing in boiler-plate form to cover my heiny, the firms' heinies I worked for - always running it by legal before sending. Having just orchestrated for myself a major career change from WallStreet  to midwife to allow more of my natural nurturing self to be expressed than the days when I wore Ann Taylor power suits and heels - I was  not about to conform to anything. It was almost like the universe was testing my resolve to stay the course on finding myself.

This is a time in my life to exercise more of ME.... in every single thing I do. There is no budget for a legal department right now.

Okay, maybe there is a guy in a back office somewhere in the recesses of my brain who looks at things after they're already submitted and makes irrelevant suggestions. He knows he'll be fired if he asserts too much rigidity.  In my imagination, I hired him from Apple, where the culture to innovate and create is based in never letting shame or fear be allowed floor time. 

Somewhere out there exists a publication who is willing to pay money for me to write just as I do because it's a perfect fit for their mission and audience. 

 ...I just realized that all of this is a metaphor for dating and marriage... 

I can read your mind.  WHAT THE BLEEP does any of this have to do with barbecue sauce mozzarella cheese. Absolutely nothing (laughing...)  or I'll let you find the irony and your own deeper meaning in it all.  Hint: always add sugar to your recipes

Enjoy my iPhone photo of my latest kitchen and taste bud obsession: Finding as many ways to pair mozzarella cheese and barbecue sauce as I can. It started as a derivative to pizza bagels. 

Big hit with the little people I cohabitate with. Things I would add to this are sautéed purple onions and chicken pieces soaked in the barbecue sauce. 

Ciao. 

Vulnerability and It's Darker Twin ~ Self-Hatred

Seeing other people read, relate to and feel entertained by what I write creates a euphoric state in me that lasts a few minutes but no more than a few hours.  It is interesting that ALWAYS what follows this is a few hours to a few DAYS of critical self-loathing and self-hatred that becomes almost unbearable.  It's so predictable.  So much so, that hitting the "publish" button or pushing my vulnerable side to friends, family and strangers on Facebook haunts me every time because I know what ensues after the fun of seeing my work be read by hundreds of people (blog stats suggest hundreds of people are reading some of the goofy tales I weave) is a really dark period of self deprecation and silence and inner turmoil.  What does this MEAN?

What is the relationship between vulnerability and self-hatred?  Is self-loathing part of the human experience?  Do I ever turn self-hate into self-sabotage?  Most important of all as I embark on a new future, am I sabotaging my own intimate relationships or potential ones? As I am in the midst of self-hatred RIGHT NOW since I floated a couple vulnerable posts the last few days, I decided rather than curl up in the fetal position as per usual, I'd get back in the saddle and dive into this topic and see if I can curb the demon by actually giving it what "it" doesn't want ~ writing more.  {insert getting out of fetal position}

I loathe consuming soda.  But in my weaker moments I may or may not pour an elixir of Coke and Diet Coke in a tall glass with a straw.  

Does art often include elements of doubt?  Does the creative process always involve a degree of self-hatred demons?  I was curious so I started to explore a little in this area.  Try googling self-hatred and vulnerability and you will find a plethora of entertaining articles referencing heroes such as Jane Austen to Elizabeth Gilbert to Brene Brown.  Men are not immune.   

Salon Article - Literary Self-Loathing: How Jonathon Franzen, Elizabeth Gilbert keep it at bay

I daydream that the authors and artists of the best works I admire struggle with self-hatred also.  Did they ever get on top of it?  Or, is it like laboring in childbirth, a pain we have to just allow to be there, stay present with, and let it ride and wash over us while getting out of its way and wait for it to pass on its own?  Does it ever accomplish anything such as greater creativity or is its only service to self-destruct our insides?  Most on my mind, does it affect our relationships with others?  

You want a visual on extreme thumb-sucking, fetal position crazies?  ......I once had a political blog.  Now, that sent me over the top every-single-time-I published... I'll plug the link below.  It's ancient; I can't even remember which email and password address it's associated with to harness it into my current Google fold and give it the rightful death of deletion it deserves.. So it sits dormant in the Blogger cemetery of inactive blogs.  But you might get a kick out of picturing me in the fetal position every time I took a stance on something relating to current events back in 2010 and 2011.  It sends me into laughter to recount.  I'm not kidding.  I would get neurotic over my posts every-time-I-published.  Even if only a smallish group of right wing libertarian, strict interpreters of the constitution were reading.  I'd like to think I stretched my comfort zone on the path toward self-improvement with each article or opinion.  Maybe not.  I clearly had some pent up stuff to express back then. No wonder I'm divorced.  No, seriously.  

Audacity of Compassionate Conservatism

As I have some extra time on my hands to do some self-exploration, I'm happy to report the following as I continue to venture outside my comfort zone:

1.  I'm suddenly noticing the pattern (isn't this 90% of the battle and path toward healing it?).

2.  I'm now detached from it enough to look at it as something that happens separate from myself, and can observe it from outside my body as it's happening (have you ever had a dream where you are observing the scene outside your body?  I haven't...but I've heard about it).

3.  I'm wondering how this occasional self-hatred affects my relationships with others, specifically intimate ones.  

4.  Do others I interact with experience episodes of self-hatred, and if so - are they mirroring me?  How can I diffuse it in others when I see it?  

I ran out to Sugarhouse this Friday night and picked up this best seller on vulnerability and its relationship to shame:

It just so happens this is the book club book my female friends from church are currently reading.  I plan to devour this.  Right now.  Along with some Godiva.... and maybe some Coke.... and maybe some Ellie Goulding on the Bose. 

I either need a life partner who is as creatively crazy on their innards as I am, or is sufficiently anchored enough to let me be a little nutso sometimes in my vulnerability ~ and still love me.... are you out there?

Ciao-ka-delic...