Rules of My World

Posted on March 23, 2014 by C.A. Jacobs

Anyone who has come in contact with me in person has probably heard me discuss my “Rules of My World.” I feel as though I mention them rather frequently, but I don’t know that I’ve ever publically written them down for reference or for other people’s amusement. So far, I only have four Rules of My World.

Rule Number One: There are two people in your life that you never, ever, ever, ever, ever, EVER piss off – the person who feeds you and the person who pays you. This applies to restaurant staff, waiters, waitresses, grocery store personnel, or anyone else that is responsible for providing you with food. Obviously, the person who pays you applies to finance clerks, bankers, or other people who could make your money magically disappear if you make them upset with you for some random reason.

Rule Number Two: I can be as grumpy as I want in my own office, but I have absolutely no right to bring my grumpiness into your office. There are a lot of people in the world with a variety of different offices. Some people work as highway construction personnel, which means their work areas are their offices. You might see them building bridges and paving roads or doing other things of that nature, and that’s their office. Some people are zookeepers and their office is the animal care facility which you pay money to visit. Some people work in actual offices, some don’t. My point is that everyone out there is just trying to do their best at whatever job they have to pay their bills and take care of their families. Wherever they work is their office and I have no right to bring whatever residual grumpiness I might be having from my own job or life into someone else’s office, whatever their office might entail. Plus, I have found that people are more willing to help someone who is not particularly grumpy versus someone who is angry and frustrated.

Rule Number Three: Be a positive contagion. This is a new rule for me, only created and implemented for the first time because of my recent visit to Hoth. Attitudes and behaviors are infectious, which means that negativity will breed more negativity, which will decrease positive energy. I have been practicing this rule like a lifeline for the last week and it has done wonders to help boost everything in my life. For example, when I was attempting to return home from my visit to Hoth, I had problems at every airport I went to, first with the weather, then mechanical issues, then with attempting to go standby on an overbooked flight. Once I finally arrived at my second airport, I waited in line for an hour to get to the desk to attempt to fix my next connecting flight. I knew it would be a long wait, so I worked to be calm and make those in line around me smile. And it worked. You could almost feel the tension leave people as the agitation and the frustration abated. The same is true with my daily interactions. Those people who work in the areas I frequent now see me and smile and say hello. I am always smiling and so it is contagious to those around me. I wish I could spread my awesome energy out to more of the people I care about, but I do what I can within my current limitations. And part of being a positive contagion is being thankful for everyone and everything in my life, which I really, really am.

Rule Number Four: Interact with the people in your life. I guess in some ways, this goes hand-in-hand with the previous rule about being a positive contagion. I was having such an awesome and amazing day yesterday that I decided to share my joy as much as possible. Anyone who “liked” or “commented” on any of my personal facebook updates were people who had taken the time to interact with my personal life, not just to share a cute picture that someone else had created and posted first, but to read and interact with the words and concerns and joy of my own life. In return for those who took the time and energy out of their day to show me that I mattered to them, I then wrote a personal message on each of their walls that let them know how thankful I am for their presence in my life and how they have had a positive impact on my life. Because I really am unbelievably thankful for all the people in my life and without each and every person I’ve met, I wouldn’t be who I am today. And who I am today really is pretty spectacular. I still have things I need to work on, but that’s the fun and challenge of life. I would go crazy without appropriate challenges 🙂 Humans are social creatures and without some sort of personal interaction, I think the world becomes a much less awesome place. A lot of people worry about how to interact and they worry about being offensive or getting things wrong and so they hide themselves away in their homes. They barricade the doors and interact with their world through the safety of the computer screen, where things don’t have to hurt and they can turn it off and walk away when things don’t go the way they want. But that’s not the best or most healthy answer. People make mistakes. The people who love you might wind up hurting you, but I would rather have one hour with you than a thousand days without you. Your interaction in my life makes my heart soar. Even something as simple s “liking” something on facebook because it shows me that you are out there and you are alive and okay. I figure that if even the simplest of interactions with people in my life means so much to me, than interacting with those in my life could give the same warm fuzzies to them. Don’t be afraid to interact with real people in your life. Don’t let your pride get in the way of a happy future. Forgive the past and start fresh and new. Look at the world with eyes that see beauty and be willing to see the beauty other people see. Above all, interact with the people in your life on any level.

I am sure I will think up and put in place more rules as time moves forward. Overall, I think my current four rules are pretty good. They’ve helped me a lot, especially these days.

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Book Review: Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie

Posted on March 23, 2014 by C.A. Jacobs

After reorganizing my entire living room and setting it up as a library, I wanted to read a short, quick book before getting to work on productive things for the day. Holy buckets of Legos, Peter Pan (Young Adult Fantasy 191 pages) by J.M. Barrie is depressing.

It took me a little bit to get into the flow of the writing style, but everything started reading smoothly around Chapter III with Come Away, Come Away. Maybe it was just the way books were written when this originally came out. In retrospect, there are a lot of times when it takes my brain a little bit to get used to some books and tones.

I guess this story also adequately mirrored the time when it was written, as it had very clear-cut gender roles and a very limited grasp of bigger picture issues or concerns. In some ways, I’m a little bit envious of a simple life where all you have to do is exactly what’s expected of you and you’ll be considered a success. In other ways, I’m deeply grateful every day that I am alive in this era. While I know our world these days has its problems, I at least feel like I have a chance of being my own person and that no one save myself is capable of defining who I am.

This story was not the happy Disney cartoon that I saw when I was younger. There was no animated fun and high-spirited adventure for me. For me, reading this story was remarkably depressing on just about every level. I can’t imagine a more desolate existence than one in which you never really care about anyone except yourself. Yes, I have met and parted ways with many people I’ve loved over the years and I’ve been terribly hurt by the people I care about, but all those experiences and the memories of them have made me who I am today.

And who I am is pretty awesome and amazing.

I used to wish I could forget the parts and people in my life that hurt me the most, but over the years, I’ve realized that I’ve learned so much from everyone in my life and I’ve grown in so many ways that wiping the bad memories away means that I would never really appreciate the good memories. I have a deeper and more thorough belief in love and hope these days than I ever could if I hadn’t experienced what it meant to have my life collapse around me. Because of the pain and the sorrow and the heartache, it’s made me appreciate all that I have and all those people in my life.

Maybe I’m missing the point of Peter Pan. At the end of the story, Peter Pan continues to drop in from time to time, randomly, and pull the next little girl from Wendy’s line into a series of cleaning, care-taking, and adventures. It’s possible that their adventures with Peter Pan help them appreciate growing up and having people genuinely love them in return. I don’t think Peter Pan loves anyone except himself and that makes me sad for him. He thinks he’s fantastic and the best and most brilliant, but he’s just a cocky kid who doesn’t know or understand true love. He doesn’t understand selflessness or consideration or generosity. And he doesn’t understand sacrifice. Life is a game to him and he will kill anyone who mocks him or gets to be too like him. He will let people die because there’s no clever way for him to boost his own ego by saving them. He gets bored with doing the right thing and doesn’t even know what the right thing is. He will hurt whoever he wants, most especially the people who would love him, just because he can and because he is incapable of love.

It seems to me as though Peter Pan is the complete opposite of everything I strive to be in my life. While I do enjoy adventures and having a wonderful time doing whatever I want, I refuse to hurt those I love in order to do it. Overall, I found this book terribly depressing. While I enjoyed the writing and the sense of adventure, I found myself disliking Peter Pan in a very serious way. I would rate it as a two, which is a book (or movie) I would read (or watch) again if someone else told me I had to (or was already watching it), but not something I would seek out again on my own.

Can someone out there please chime in with reasons that I shouldn’t find this book so depressing? I am genuinely interested in hearing opposite thoughts on this.

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Movie Review: Mr. Peabody and Sherman

Posted on March 22, 2014 by C.A. Jacobs

Yesterday was a bright, beautiful, sunny day. I was able to leave work a little bit earlier than usual so I decided to go see Mr. Peabody and Sherman. This is a very puny movie. As in, there are a lot of puns in it.

I didn’t actually know anything about this movie, other than I saw a preview for it I think in Frozen. The story looked interesting and the preview used the song Pompeii by Bastille, which is a song I enjoy. I would guess that this movie is based off a tv series? If so, it’s not something I’m familiar with.

As with most animated movies these days, I was privileged with several previews for movies that are coming out in the next six months or so that I very much want to see, including How To Train Your Dragon 2 and the Boxtrolls.

This is the first DreamWorks movie I’ve seen where they had a short animated film in front of the main feature. As I didn’t know anything about the world of Mr. Peabody and Sherman, this was a little confusing to me at first because I didn’t know if the adorable little alien creatures were going to somehow be part of the movie or if it was something completely different. It was certainly a highly amusing short and I enjoyed it very thoroughly and thought the little alien creatures were really cute.

I kind of wish I hadn’t seen the preview for the movie, though, because the key event that the preview showed didn’t happen until the very end of the movie. It’s kind of annoying to me if I’ve seen the previews for a movie that I’m watching and I keep waiting for this big thing to happen. It takes the adventure and suspense a little bit out of the experience for me.

I feel like I would get a lot smarter if I bought the movie when it comes out just so I can hit pause on all the math and science stuff that gets drawn rather quickly across the screen when Mr. Peabody explains how he was able to solve certain problems.

I am fairly certain that the lead Greek character in the Trojan war is the same voice and character as Kronk from the Emperor’s New Grove. He was highly amusing and I enjoyed his role in the movie greatly.

As for the movie itself, it was interesting and had some very touching parts. I found myself amused throughout much of the movie, but not so much that I was laughing the whole time. Overall, I think I would buy it if it was on sale but I’m not sure that it’s a movie that I can watch repeatedly like How To Train Your Dragon.

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Live = Life

Posted on March 17, 2014 by C.A. Jacobs

This past weekend of fantastic and wonderful adventures was exactly what I needed right now. While I mostly just felt that I needed a break from my life, my job, my apartment, and from facing the end of a friendship that meant everything to me, I also very much wanted to go out and spend time with people who matter to me.

This trip was perfect in every way imaginable.

My flight arrived rather late and the drive from the airport to the house was filled with a lot of the conversations I had with strangers. The roads were covered in snow and more was falling. It was a slow drive, but rather pretty. I hadn’t been in a situation with so much snow in quite some time and it was a novel experience. The drive was safe, but slow and the guest room for me was also the room of books. So many wonderful, glorious bookshelves filled with a plethora of books. It’d been a long and emotionally unpleasant day so I eagerly crawled into the delightful bed and even found that my hosts had thoughtfully placed an electric blanket on my bed. I dislike being cold and that was rather fantastic.

We woke up and got ready for the day’s adventures and then headed out into the world of Hoth for a delicious and fantastic breakfast. We had a window seat where we were able to watch the fluffed up birds play in the snow and a tiny, red-brown squirrel eat food from the bird feeder. With the fireplace right behind me, a giant mug of hot chocolate, a delicious breakfast sandwich, and the best company a person could ask for, the meal was an auspicious beginning to the rest of the day. We spoke of books and writing; we spoke of life and pain; we spoke of jobs and the personal costs of occupations like mine; we spoke of adventures, beginnings, middles, and ends.

The conversation continued as we drove through the snow-covered country of Hoth. Away from the bustle of cities and the press of people, the drive provided a sense of forward momentum and serenity that I had been lacking in the current circumstances of my life. My life back where I live might be totally screwed up in every sense, but the time, space, distance, and companionship of a great person eased the pain in my heart.

We hoped that by going to the water park early in the day that all the skiers would be out enjoying the fresh snow, especially since it was a Friday and most people should be in school or at work. As it turns out, we were correct. The water park was glorious. It was the perfect temperature to wander around in our swimsuits and stare out at the snow-covered world outside the giant windows and skylights. We tried every ride and every water slide. We spent huge amounts of time floating around the lazy river on the inner tubes we procured and then claimed for the duration of our adventures. We Watched the snow cascade off the skylights in sheets like an avalanche, the huge crashing sound unique as only that amount of snow falling and crashing could be. Conversations of philosophy and love interspersed tales of adrenaline while soaking in the hot tub. We tested our courage against a water slide that required an actual launch tube where the bottom drops out. After several hours, there was a break for a tasty snack and splitting a giant chocolate chip cookie. Eventually, we reached the point of saturation with our water park adventure and headed back to the house where we picked up the third member of our party and moved to the downtown area for a delicious dinner of flatbread pizza.

While at dinner, I ordered tea to go with my pizza and it turned out to be a fantastic blend of flavors. The sun-dried tomato on the pizza mixed nicely with the tea I chose from the bin and I enjoyed the mix of flavors greatly. As I spoke of my fascination with the mixing of flavors from my drink and my food, we decided to walk down to the cupcake place after dinner because it was Friday and on Fridays, the cupcake shop offers a wine tasting and treat night. We finished our dinner and took the box with the leftovers and then walked through the streets with remnants of Christmas lights to the cupcake store where I then participated in my first ever wine tasting. The idea of the wine tasting is that the cupcake store prepares three shots and three treats. You are supposed to eat and drink the combinations in order to properly appreciate the flavor. There was a decadent chocolate brownie, a mixed-flavor cupcake, and a cream treat that needed to be eaten with a spoon. As for the alcohol, I think there was some Bailey’s Irish Cream, some Guinness, and something thick that looked very chocolatey. It was a marvelous experience and something new that I had never done and never thought to do.

Saturday’s experience involved facing my fears, my weaknesses, and my pride. We went to the climbing gym to give me a chance to get back on the wall. Before I left on my most recent research trip and subsequently broke my ankle, I had managed to climb walls of 5.9 and even one 5.10. I swallowed my pride and started my climbing experience with a 5.4 and didn’t try anything above a 5.6 during our time at the gym. I managed to get over two overhangs, which are generally parts of the wall that I am very not good at and I allowed myself to feel pride for my accomplishments instead of frustration at my failures. It felt good to climb again, though I reached a point on the last wall I did where I forgot that my ankle was not quite healed and there was a loud cracking sound. I made it to the top of that wall and then was smart enough to realize that I’d met my limit for the day. The old me would have kept going through the pain, but that isn’t me anymore. Now, I actually care about me and I’m doing a pretty good job of taking care of myself. We ended our time at the wall sooner than I would have hoped, but I was still happy and satisfied that I had been able to climb at all.

Our next stop was a tea shop. We were lucky in that one of the classic tea experience sections just opened when we arrived. We spent several hours sitting on cushions on the platform, talking about love and heartache and moving forward. I ordered chai and we shared a vegetable platter with pita bread and humus. The conversation and the atmosphere was the most amazing and perfect day I’ve had in such a long time that it eased the burden on my soul. We discussed the future and the impact my current occupational choices could have on those around me. We talked about the maelstrom that’s consumed my life to this point. We listened with amusement at the pretentious conversations of those who are young and inexperienced in life.

This trip was everything my heart and soul needed. Adventure and quiet, energy and peace. I am recharged and better prepared to face the pain of heartache and perhaps actually go through the true grieving process for all that I have lost. I have a new novel that I’m working on and I think it’s the novel that I need to be writing right now. I’m excited to write it, and I’m excited to start living my life again. There are so many adventures that I want to have, so many places I want to go, so many things I want to see and experience. And it’s time for me to start doing all of them. While I am thankful for all the time that I was given with someone who matters to me more than anyone ever has, having only one person to focus on is destructive to both of us. I still hope and dream of sharing my life, but I have to have a life before I can properly share it. To live is to have life.

The pain in my heart is still there, and will likely be there forever or until things get worked out, but maybe it’s not quite so raw and jagged now. Maybe I can keep the maelstrom I’ve had around me for so long dissipated. I will let go of the storm and no longer allow myself to be the eye of a storm of destruction of that magnitude. So many people have been standing outside the storm, trying to shout and be heard over the fierce and unrelenting winds, but I couldn’t see or hear them because I allowed the storm to control my life. I know that dispersing the storm and letting people close to me is going to hurt. I know that I will care even more and that there will be more mistakes in the future. I am taking charge of my life. That storm will never run my life again. While I know that there will still be days when things will go wrong and the storm will flare, I will not allow it to dictate my life. It would be so much easier to make the storm stronger and block out the hurt and pain, but that can’t be my life anymore. I won’t let it be my life anymore.

This is my life. Sometimes things will go wrong, but that’s all a matter of perspective. Mistakes are times to learn. Failure is time to grow. I refuse to stop caring. I refuse to stop believing in hope and love. Because love taught me more than the maelstrom ever did. Love is worth it. People are worth it. Friends are worth it. YOU are worth it.

And so am I 🙂

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Movie Review: Why We Ride

Posted on March 16, 2014 by C.A. Jacobs

So the last real and planned adventure for the random break in my life was to go to a theater and watch a motorcycle movie called Why We Ride. I’d never been to a motorcycle function like this so it was an interesting idea for an adventure.

I’m not really sure that I had any expectations of the movie or the evening in general, but it was really nice to be surrounded by people who share similar interests. The movie was interesting and showed some really fascinating areas and some really talented motorcycle riders.

I thought the movie was really well done. I was particularly interested in the fact that the movie didn’t really touch on the safety aspects that so often become a part of the motorcycle gatherings in my current life. Those in the movie did discuss that it’s important for those that are learning how to ride to get proper instruction, education, and equipment for whatever style of riding they want to do. Thankfully, the bloody and gruesome deaths and violence that are so often a part of motorcycle gatherings were completely absent.

After the movie, a small group of motorcyclists met for dinner and we discussed some of the more interesting parts of the movie. We all pretty much agreed that it was mildly unfair to show this movie at the current time, when the world is covered in snow and is ridiculously cold, but it did motivate all of us to ride and made us excited for weather and conditions with which to ride in.

I am still uncertain that riding would be in my best interests, as I don’t quite think that my ankle will support that kind of stress at the current time. So as much as I might want to go riding and how I will soon be back in my own normal location and could probably easily go riding, I don’t think it’s the best idea for me right now.

The small group also discussed how the movie encouraged each of us to go and try racing at the appropriate motorcycle tracks. And potentially dirt bike riding. We all easily agreed that the movie was well done and definitely encouraged our desires to be better motorcycle riders. Overall, it was interesting and motivational, but it felt rather confusing because it could have ended at any time.

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Conversations With Strangers

Posted on March 13, 2014 by C.A. Jacobs

I am currently travelling. I decided that I desperately needed a break from everything going on in my life. And I really do need a break.

There aren’t that many people who read my thoughts here that actually know me in real life. So I’m not really sure how I look to those who are on the outside looking in. And I don’t really care because I am here and typing because I need to be; because writing is something that is etched into my soul and the longer I go without putting my thoughts on paper, the harder things tend to get for me.

The last several months have been really hard. I had what really felt like a cascading event failure, where one problem and my inability to deal with things well seemed to create more issues and things I dealt with even more poorly. As the events continued to pile up and I continued to react worse and worse to everything, I did a lot of damage to a lot of things in my life. The biggest and hardest to fully cope with was the destruction of a friendship that meant everything to me.

So I took all the proper steps for a series of significant, life-changing events. I still talk to the appropriate people and I do all the things I’m supposed to do. I follow the instructions that I’m given and I do everything in my power to rebuild and move forward. I started learning about how to see positive aspects of everything and working to not let my brain dwell on the negative parts of my life. For the most part, everything really has been awesome lately. I’ve been getting back on my feet, and then even applies to being able to walk normally down stairs now, which is huge because it means my spectacularly broken ankle is finally healing to the point where I feel like I might be physically superhuman at some point ever.

But last week, I was forced to face the fact that when everything went wrong, I destroyed a friendship that meant everything to me. There was a communication error of epic proportions. All my words were bound to fail and I didn’t even realize it. I didn’t know that the happy, awesome things in my life that I was trying to share weren’t even being heard. That I was still being viewed as the Negative Nancy who is single-handedly capable of destroying all that I touch and hurting those I care about. That it’s easier to stop watching the original Star Wars Trilogy at the end of the Empire Strikes Back because it ends in a less than pleasant place and because it was so unsatisfying that seeing the Return of the Jedi isn’t on the list of things to do.

So right before I left for the airport, I tried to share something amazing. And, as always, it backfired. I need to learn how to listen better. I need to stop talking. I need to stop trying. I have to give up on hope because hope has failed me so drastically that I can’t even begin to talk about how hard the last several months have been and how much things have hurt. I didn’t know I was capable of hurting this much. But I guess that’s just another lesson for me.

I got on my second flight and made a small, menial comment to the gentleman seated in the window seat next to me. And this random stranger started talking to me and told me that I really didn’t look okay and that I looked like things were a bit much for me. I didn’t tell him anything about my history or what’s going on in my life or how it feels like everything has fallen apart. Because, really, no one cares about my shit but me. But this gentleman spent the next few hours on the flight talking to me about things that he has learned in his life about how to deal with life. He went through a bunch of meditation techniques and forced me to remember that day I went to visit my family in the land of sun and how I had a perfect day. They cooked this amazing meal and we had dinner on the back patio next to the pool while the sun set across the horizon. He put me back on the climbing wall and helped me remember how everything goes away on the wall and you can’t think of anything except the wall. That everything just goes away. He talked to me about the food and atmosphere in the place I’m travelling to because his uncle lives there and he spent a lot of his happy youth there.

This guy who didn’t know me, would never hear from me or see me or interact with me again, saw what bad shape I was in and did something amazing. He helped me out. And that really made me unbelievably thankful for the random people out there who are human and help.

There have been so many people in the last several months who have just offered a hand every now and then to help pull me a little bit at a time out of the quicksand that I’m stuck in. The load I carry is still too heavy for me to bear, but people keep helping me out. And I can’t ever express how thankful I am for all those random people who I’ve never met and will never interact with again that are willing to care. I don’t know if I’m ever thought of by anyone and I don’t know if I matter to others. But I do know that others matter to me and I am thankful for all those things and people in my life.

My dreams may be destroyed right now, but I can and will build towards success. I’ll go and have adventures and force myself to keep putting one foot forward. While I could wish with all my heart that things with someone amazing would work out, I can’t keep making the same mistakes. I can be thankful for all the people who have been there for me in every capacity imaginable and I most definitely can get back on the wall and do the best I can.

So if you’re out there, thank you. You’ve made a difference to me. I know that my words aren’t seen by the one I hurt the most. And I guess even if my words were seen, they would be disregarded and seen as not worthwhile. And that’s okay, too.

My life is pretty awesome. I’m fantastic and awesome. And my life will only get better. So thank you. You matter to me, whoever you are, wherever you are. Thank you for being there and for reading what I have to say.

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An Honest Assessment

Posted on March 11, 2014 by C.A. Jacobs

I’ve seen a lot of the people in my facebook news feed these days posting the results of which fictional character they are and it really got me thinking about the way we all view ourselves and potentially those around us.

We all have fictional characters that we admire. Maybe you want to kick butt while coming up with amusing puns or be the scientific genius that saves the day with just the power of their brain. Maybe you wish you were the hero or maybe you wish that you were the villain. I think it’s safe to say that we all have people that we wish we could emulate.

If someone ever asks you who you are, most people who I know would automatically start with their names or potentially even their occupations.

I am not my name.

And I am not my job.

I have used so many variations of my name throughout the years that it doesn’t really matter to me how people identify me in their own thoughts. As long as I can tell that I am the one being addressed or spoken with or however that works, I don’t usually feel the need to attempt to change someone else’s internal perspective of me. I also have one of those remarkably generic names that is difficult for most people I interact with to pronounce incorrectly. And if I travel and they struggle with my name, then I will find a new variation that is easy enough for others to communicate.

While my current occupation is very much a lifestyle and not really a job, I am not my job. There are a lot of things about my occupation that I take very seriously and there are a lot of aspects in my occupation that create complicated circumstances in my life, but when my occupation decides it is time for us to part ways, the job will still remain and just be accomplished by other people. It’s just the nature of things. I have reached a point in my occupation where it’s slightly unhealthy for me to only have an identity related or associated with my job. I have to have a real life and a positive sense of my own identity before I part ways with my current occupation, whenever that might happen.

Which brings me to my thoughts for today.

If someone asked me who I am, I think that I would respond with an assessment of myself. I would probably respond slightly differently, depending on how well I knew the person asking or what information I thought they were asking for. But I suspect my honest assessment would look something like this:

I am a creative and very generous person who will often give of myself before ever asking for anything from others. I am self-sufficient, resourceful, and resilient. I have the ability to withstand or bounce back from most of the things that get thrown at me. Unfortunately, I usually don’t react well in the initial onslaught of things that go wrong in my life which sometimes means that I might make things a lot worse before working to make things better. I am thoughtful and caring and I have a really big heart that loves a huge amount. I see beauty in the sunrises and the sunsets, but I also find beauty and joy in the storms. I like to play in the snow and make snow angels because I like thinking that maybe someone out there needed to see something random and beautiful.

I am a writer, which means that I mostly see the world through my words. I think it would be safe to say that I am an artist on a variety of levels. I write, I draw, I color, I actively play with my Legos, and I like to make things. I have the tendency to be rather unstable at times, but I secretly think and wish that I could have a quiet and simple life where I don’t talk nearly as much. I feel as though a lot of my instability would dissipate or become manageable if I could focus my energy on love instead of insecurity. I continue to strive for a life of dreams, where I share a cabin in the mountains with someone I love and a variety of kitties. I want to spend my days reading, writing, hiking, and just enjoying a simple life where maybe I have a menial day job and I can go home from work every day, share a meal with someone I love after they get home from their day job, and then cuddle up on the couch with a book and a cup of tea or hot chocolate. I just keep thinking that if I could just be quiet and hold the person that I love that things would be okay. I am also a very imaginative and devoted love. I get great pleasure out of massaging sore muscles or drawing random pictures on backs. In this way, I would say I’m a dreamer and an idealist.

I am absolutely loyal to those in my life and will always do whatever I can to help the people I care the most about. I am generous with my finances and I often believe that people would be able to follow their dreams and fill their lives with love if they didn’t have to worry so much about working so hard to be financially stable enough to make ends meet.

I am also stubborn and thick-headed and I’m not very good at listening to what people say, especially if they’re ever trying to say something amazing about me. I’ve believed the worst about myself for so long that it’s been really hard for me to think or believe that other people might find value in me. Part of the point and the process for me these days is that I believe in my own value and that I see myself as the wonderful, spectacular, amazing, talented, loyal, caring, generous, beautiful, creative, and grateful woman that I am. Because I really am all of those things. I’m also so much more than those things.

I have my faults because I am human. But if you ask me who I am, I will tell you that I am awesome and beautiful and I won’t give up on you once I’ve given you my heart and my loyalty. I will tell you that you would be remarkably lucky to have me as a friend and that I’m a very devoted (and imaginative) love. I would say that you’ll never meet someone like me again and in this day and age, finding someone willing to fight and work for you is rare, no matter if that capacity is as a friend or as a partner.

I am just me.

But me is really awesome 🙂

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Movie Review: The Lego Movie

Posted on March 8, 2014 by C.A. Jacobs

So I finally swallowed my pride and saw the Lego Movie today. I can’t tell you how many people have asked me if I’ve seen it or posted links to it on my facebook or otherwise pestered me about it. All this because I enjoy building things. Here’s a tip folks – just because I like something doesn’t mean I’m obsessed with it and need all the paraphernalia. Yes, I like Legos and I have a bunch of them. That doesn’t mean I need Lego stickers and Lego lunch boxes and Lego stuffed animals. Its means I like building things out of Legos. Building things is also a hobby for me and not a lifestyle.

With all that said, I would say that I am either neutral about the Lego Movie or I don’t actually know how I feel about the Lego Movie. From a creative point of view, the movie was stunning and I felt unbelievably jealous of the talent of those involved in building the scenes for the movie. The movie was packed right from the beginning with so many things that I wish I could design and build.

You see, I don’t consider myself to be a master builder. I don’t consider myself to be very good at building creative things. I think it’s fun to put stuff together and to use my Legos to tell stories, but I don’t think I have the talent or the skill to be considered anything other than mediocre when it comes to my building skills. Mostly, I follow the directions and build the sets in the boxes. I guess I’m okay at building boxes and potentially buildings, but I really do absolutely suck at building vehicles, space ships, monsters, things involving gears, and other things of that nature. So when the movie opened up with Emmet’s apartment, I positively drooled at the detail and the interior design. I was jealous of the cars (because I really, really, really do suck at building cars. I can’t even tell you how badly I suck at building cars).

I actually liked Emmet’s instructions for his day-to-day life. Some of those were pretty good instructions as far as working to see your world in a more positive light. And that stupid theme song was actually alarmingly happy and addictive. “Everything is awesome! Everything is cool when you’re part of a team!” There was definitely a large chunk of me that liked the idea of the orderliness and positiveness of the Lego people’s lives. But that didn’t last past the part where you find out what the Kagle really is. I have to admit to a huge sense of horror and shock when the Kagle was revealed.

I really enjoyed Lego Batman and Lego Green Lantern’s interactions. I’m not really very well spun up on the DC universe, so I don’t know which Green Lantern the Lego Green Lantern was supposed to be, but it was definitely amusing to watch. Though, now that I think about it, I didn’t see any of the Marvel Super Heroes in the movie. That was a little odd to me. There were a lot of minifigures that I recognized and I certainly have a selection of the old 1980s space characters. In some ways, I miss the simplicity of the early Lego minifigures because they were non-gender specific. Nothing about my Legos when I was a kid prevented the knights guarding the castles from being female. Now, most of the castle guards have beards and such. It’s a bit frustrating.

But back to the movie.

I think that the storyline and the moral of the story meant well – to encourage people of all ages to build and to build whatever they want. I have a lot healthier of a respect for the Lego sets that support the movie and I might look at buying a couple of them, especially the giant pirate ship. That looks like it has quite a few fairly entertaining parts that I’m sure I could use elsewhere.

The movie had a bunch of super cheesy moments where the redundant aspect of the humor was just on the borderline of too much. Like when Emmet falls down the hole or where he is stuck staring at Wyldside. There were a few other times like that. I think the Unikitty was also on my list of parts of the movie where I couldn’t decide if I was annoyed or if I was amused.

I didn’t see the end coming at all and I might have actually leaked a few tears. I suspect that has more to do with the other part of the storyline where Emmet really isn’t anyone special until Wyldstyle believes in him, which then helps him believe in himself. It really struck me about how much one person can accomplish when someone else believes in them. And I guess that was a bit harder because I had someone in my life very recently who believed in me and I didn’t appreciate them or really understand how much that impacted my life until things fell apart. So now I strive every day to believe in myself and to be thankful and appreciative of the people in my life.

I wrote this on my white board a while ago and haven’t posted it yet: Life is a bucketful of Legos – until you start building something, everything’s a mess. And maybe I would caveat that with: If you build something terrible, don’t be afraid to take it apart and build something new. Maybe with enough practice, you can finally build something wonderful.

That’s where my life is right now. I built something painful and horrible and now I’m working to rebuild. That’s the fun thing about me – I just keep trying when I think something is worth my time and effort. But I guess the lesson I’m supposed to also learn is when to quit when you just suck and can’t get things right.

I felt really badly for Emmet during the first part of the movie because he was doing everything right and was following all the correct instructions and no one even knew who he was and he had nothing that made him special. He did everything he was supposed to and his life was empty. The Lego Movie did a good job with turning him from a zero to a hero, though.

Overall, I think I’m going to remain undecided about how I feel about the movie. I feel like I should like it and support it because of the themes of encouraging building and telling everyone that they’re special. But there wasn’t really anything in the movie that would make me want to buy it. I don’t know. This is probably the first movie where I am still undecided about what I think.

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Book Review: Fire Season by David Weber

Posted on March 1, 2014 by C.A. Jacobs

So the day after I finished reading A Beautiful Friendship, I then started and finished Fire Season (Young Adult Science Fiction 287 pages) by David Weber. I think it was Thursday of last week that I read it. As with A Beautiful Friendship, this was actually the second time I’d read the book. And it was also just as good the second time as it was during my first reading.

Fire Season was another brain candy book for me, where I couldn’t put it down and it encouraged me to spend my lunch break reading instead of eating and then to not leave for work when I should have. There are times when I am grumpy about books that encourage me to be irresponsible, but it’s not quite grumpiness. It’s a little bit of awe and wonder and beauty for being able to be so wrapped up in another world and another life, to allow my imagination to let me experience true friendship and to pretend that I could live in a world with fantastic technology and wonderful explorations.

The gravity belts were particularly interesting for me because it’s a constant, but subtle reminder that Sphinx is not Earth. I think I like the way that subtleness is achieved, too. It’s something that the characters seem to fully accept as just the way the world is. It’s not over-emphasized and it’s not understated. It’s something they understand and work with every day. I think that’s one of the big draws of this series for me. The technology is there and it’s used by the characters in the correct fashion, but it’s not so intense and technical that it makes it hard for me to pay attention. The tone and the narration really gives the story a feeling of authenticity, as though this is their world and they are sharing it with us. It doesn’t feel forced. And even better, it’s not so technical that my eyes glaze over and I stop paying attention. That tends to happen every now and then in the Honor Harrington series, so I’m really glad it’s not happening in this series.

I liked the introduction of the new characters and I honestly felt as though I could tell the difference between the character even without their dialogue tags because they were all very different characters. I really enjoy reading stories that have unique characters in them, not just cookie-cutter paper cutouts. Dr. Whittaker was such an annoying jerk that I wanted to magically appear inside the story just so I could beat him senseless with a very thick, very heavy book. I liked how Anders and Carl were different people, just as Jessica and Christine were completely different characters. In fact, the secondary characters in this book were just as fascinating to me as Stephanie. I think that says a lot about how much I’m enjoying the world and characters in this series.

One of the other key things I’ve been noticing and enjoying in this series is that the story is trimmed down to its bare necessities. There are gaps of time that I’m sure the author would have dearly loved going into vivid and descriptive detail about, but that doesn’t happen. I felt like I got the perfect mix of how much information I needed and how much information I wanted. So while there are a good number of places that could have been expanded, I feel the story is stronger by not having done so. This is one of the things I am still working on learning as an author is to tell just the right amount of information at the right times.

I guess one of the other things I really enjoy about this series is how the potential romantic element is dealt with. It’s hinted at, but not in a huge way. And it’s approached just like most went through adolescent romantic interests – with confusion. It’s not cut and dry and it’s not simple and I think that adds quite a bit of realism to the emotional content of this story.

Overall, this is another book that I was sad to finish because I don’t have any more books to read in the series. I am very happy that I own both books in this series and will buy the next one (if/when there is a next one) when it comes out.

 

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Book Review: A Beautiful Friendship by David Weber

Posted on March 1, 2014 by C.A. Jacobs

I actually started and read A Beautiful Friendship (Young Adult Science Fiction 352 pages)by David Weber around Wednesday of last week. As it turns out, sometimes I’m not very good about posting my reviews in a timely manner. I guess the point is that I post them, not necessarily that I don’t do it as quickly as I would like. Success is still success, no matter how long it takes.

This book was exactly the sort of brain candy that I needed to help make the outside world disappear. This is actually the second time I’ve read this book, and it was just as good this time around. I really like the setting and the world-building. I’m also of the opinion that introducing Stephanie Harrington and Lionheart is a fantastic way to continue telling stories in an existing universe without dealing with the extensive characters and political situation currently occupying the stories of Honor Harrington. Don’t get me wrong, I very much enjoy the Honor Harrington series, but I kind of feel like the universe is just so massive and the political situation so complicated these days that I’m only really comprehending a fraction of all the things that seem to be going on.

A Beautiful Friendship is as much about cross-cultural communication as it is about the most amazing of friendships. I’m always intrigued by how much we can learn about ourselves as humans and our interactions with our surrounding world by reading science fiction and fantasy novels. There are so many people out there who scoff at genre novels and I never really understood why. If anything, I have a lot more respect for genre novels than I do for “literary” novels because of the imagination and world-building that goes along with stories about learning how to get along with people who aren’t like us. The treecats are just as smart as humans, but the humans continue to perceive themselves as the superior race because they can’t find ways to demonstrate that the treecats can TALK. Because, you know. If you can’t talk, you must not be intelligent.

The descriptions and the writing style continue to make this story a fast read. Even though I knew what happened, I still couldn’t put the book down. It’s one of those books that will make you late for work, not go to bed on time, and ignore other tasks in your life.

I liked the characters. I’m a fan of characters who are interesting and intelligent. I think it’s pretty fantastic that Stephanie works hard on her studies and that she is given tasks that engage her on an intellectual level. She approaches the puzzle of the celery thieves from a completely different angle, never once doubting the intelligence of whoever or whatever those thieves are. This gives her a unique outlook when she finally discovers that the treecats are responsible for stealing the celery and that the reason they are so often successful is because humans rely on their technology to detect the thieves instead of doing field work themselves.

I see a lot of myself in Stephanie. I enjoy storms as much as she does. I don’t feel as though I’m nearly as smart as she is, nor do I feel like I am or could be as talented as she is on things like flying or fighting against a monster to save the life of someone she cares about. But perhaps if I spent time working on those things, they would come more naturally to me. I like reading stories with characters I can relate to and ones who seem to have the same sense of moral or ethical purpose as I do. Characters who do the right thing because it’s the right thing to do, not just because it’s convenient or anyone believes in them. And that’s exactly the kind of motivation I need these days.

Overall, I enjoyed this book a great deal. I’m glad I own it. I think I would have been terribly disappointed if I hadn’t had the second book in the series because I enjoy the world and the characters so much.

 

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