hips

walk in my new-ish jeans.

They are too long and too baggy and are only staying up

by barely hanging on to my hips.

My hips are made for birthing babies,

my AP Bio teacher once said as she had me stand

in front of the class in my junior year in high school.

She never commented on my breasts.

My hips were once a symbol of shame, and I wore

baggy pants to hide them, baggy shirts to hide my breasts

so that I could pass in a man's world.

I walked between the worlds of male and female

In my secret time I learned to dance

like a woman:

tribal dances, hip shaking dances,

with bells and coins attached to my hips to bring notice to them,

to break away from the shame.

I wrap my hips in denim.

I wrap my hips around my love.

back in boulder

I was up at SMC yesterday and today. It was wonderful to be up there, to be on the land, to be able to hike up to the stupa, to to talk to the students and the faculty, to see a student presentation, to ring the big gong (one of my favorite things) and to get to sit and look at my own mind.

I had a great conversation with one of the faculty who is around my age, and she's going through something similar to me. We talked about boundaries and projections and relationships. We spoke of how complicated and amazing and painful life and loving is. How sometimes we want to go back to sleep...to ignore the thruths we've discovered within ourselves. Waking up and moving toward a more authentic life is difficult, and I hope that awakening will eventually lead to less suffering.

It is hard to love yourself when you know that you're causing so much pain to the ones you love the most.

Ani concert in STL

My life is in chaos right now. I'm crashing at my best girl Dol's house for now and trying to sort out what next.

I haven't been on this myspace land in a bunch of days and am now taking a few minutes break before my 4 hours of meetings begin at noon. There was a bulletin post from Ani DiFranco about tour dates, and she'll be in St. Louis on July 20 playing a FREE concert on the riverfront. That's only 4 days after my birthday!

Anyone want to road trip to my hometown of STL to see a free Ani concert in celebration of my 30th Birthday? (or for the folks in STL, you wanna meet up for this?!)

We can even stop at the Oz Museum in Kansas on the way or stay at the fun B&B I visited with my sister Lindsey last summer.

my sister is funny

I got to talk to my sister, Courtney, today for a long, long time. Courney lived with me for 8-10months in San Diego before she moved to her fabulous life in LA. It was so much fun living with her and I miss her (and my other sister and brother) a lot. It is weird sometimes that the 4 of us are each in a different time zone...crazy, modern world.

Anyway, there were several times during our conversation that I started cracking up and just had to write down what she said. I never knew she was such a wise philosopher and a hilarious comedian. OK, maybe I knew she was a comedian (see some other blog where I mention the Mr. Peanut walk). So here are a few nuggets of wisdom from her to me:

"I'm your sister and I won't screw you over. And even if I did, you'd have to like me anyway."

"I'm having a quarter-life crisis and you're having a mid-life crisis". (Please note that I'm not quite 3 years older than this girl who will turn 27 in 2 days!)

"You don't want to be unhappy for the rest of your life because that would just suck."

"In this time of deep stress and despair, do what you need to. If everyone is focused on you, they won't be paying any attention to what I'm doing."

Ok, so I think these are funny. They were probably funnier in context, but they make me smile as I copy them off my little notepaper.

P.S. I looked back over the blogs and realized that the blog that references the Mr. Peanut walk did not tell the original Mr. Peanut walk story. The basic story was that sometime when I was still living in San Diego and Courtney was in LA, we went on a hike somewhere in the LA area and Courtney and I started walking like Mr. Peanut. Imagine leaning way back when you walk and taking big, exaggerated, strutting steps. We were cracking up during our Mr. Peanut hike and well afterwards for what felt like hours and hours.

thanks for the support

I just want to say thank you to everyone who has posted comments, emailed, and called. I really appreciate all the love and support I'm getting.

As you can tell, I'm going through some stuff, some written about and most of it not. Having a support network of ya'll, plus my trio of supervisors at work (and other folks like my best girl Dol and my BFF in Boston who won't touch this myspaceland) has been really great.

I'm not at a point where I'm going to reveal all my stuff for the whole world to see...I do have a filter. But just to say thanks for reading, thanks for keeping me in your thoughts and thanks for letting me know in lots of little ways that you care.

alpaca liquidation

We've started the process of selling off the herd. We've connected with some folks in the area that do alpaca consignment, and our first two animals are going to their place this weekend. With a little luck, they'll sell quickly.

My farming days will eventually end. I loved having a farm and I still really love each of my animals (even the chickens), but farmer jennie isn't working for me, and the truth is, it hasn't been working for me for a while. I need to find a life that is more true for me. I don't really know what that will look like yet. I'm sorting a lot out right now.

The two hour haircut

Today I got my hair cut. Perhaps the last major haircut before I shave it all off later this summer.

aside: yes, I am planning to become the bald miss J in a month or so. I've been thinking (and talking) about doing this since last summer when I finally got my hair down to my waist. Since it was right before the start of school, I opted for short but not too short.

But back to the story. Today I had a haircut that took 2 hours. It is shorter, it is cute, and it was really a bright spot in an otherwise all-around cloudy/glum day.

My stylist, Robbie is awesome. He's sarcastic and opinionated and can hold a conversation with me for 2 hours about politics, religion & spirituality, music and math/science. How often do you find that in a stylist?! The only time we talked about the weather was when we talked about global warming! He is really the first person to ever cut my hair to really want to TALK to me. I usually get the people who only want to ask the same general "I'll ask you about yourself but don't really want to know" questions. With Robbie, I just put it all out there and it got met. When he learned that I have a degree in physics, he responded "cool, my girlfriend is getting her degree in engineering." Not the typical response :)

Perhaps 2 hours is excessive for a haircut, but let me tell you, having someone in constant contact with just you for 2 hours is pretty amazing.

I forgot how wonderful it is to have someone else wash my hair. I get my haircut at an Aveda salon, and they don't just get your hair clean as fast as they can, but they work in a head and neck massage before, during and after the hair washing. heaven.

After he cut my hair, he spent nearly 30 minutes styling it. My hair is wavy on its own and can be pseudo-curly with a little help. He created curls on my entire head lock by lock. I can't even describe how awesome it was to have him brush my wet hair straight and then starting at the back of my neck finger twist every single lock of hair. And then blow dry it with the diffuser! Goodness, I could never replicate the same thing on my own.

Thinking all this over, I'm hesitating about getting rid of my hair completely...there's something really relaxing and therapeutic about this whole haircut thing.