Step one: Give yourself a pep-talk.

I'm starting an experiment.
I figure I'm kinda like a scientist these days, and scientists do experiments, therefore I do experiments.

I'm going to write something everyday for the rest of this month. Er...wait. That might be a bit much.
I just checked the calendar and it's only two weeks. I can do this. It's an experiment after all and things usually blow up during testing. Go big or go home right?

Right. So, here begins two weeks of daily happenings and thoughts. Recorded and published. [I still wonder why I do this whole blog thing...?] Hopefully short and sweet, holding some sort of value. [Thus giving purpose to this public sharing of words.]

________

I drove into Sebastapol today in Joy's red subaru, blasting the music, singing loud and ugly. Just what the doctor ordered. I happily butchered Regina Spektor's poetry in On The Radio:

this is how it works
you peer inside yourself
you take the things you like
and try to love the things you took
and then you take that love you made
and stick it into some--
someone else's heart
pumping someone else's blood

It's beautiful. Simple. True. Annoying. Blunt.
I peer inside myself, and the good parts are Jesus. I peer inside myself and there are a lot of parts that aren't Jesus. And those parts aren't so good.

I went to a concert the other night in The City. It was super fun. [sidenote: I fell in love with the fiddle.] It was the first time in awhile I've done something in the "real world" so to speak. And something crept up.

I wanted to be pretty. I wanted to be popular. Seeing those thoughts in black and white make them sound really dumb. Because they are. But you peer inside yourself and try to pull out things, the things you like. And then you think if you can get someone else to love those things about you too, then everything will be good. I wanted to take those "not so good parts", and give them to someone else in the hopes that they would put them into there heart and hold onto them.

At one point I just closed my eyes and whispered to myself: "that's really stupid jen. you don't get your identity from outside sources. so stop being such a dork, remember where you do get your identity from, and hold onto that. share that with people." And I felt a lot better. Sometimes you just need to give yourself a little pep-talk.

To reiterate, I love these lyrics she wrote. Because to me, it seems like a comical social commentary that I'm so quick to participate in. The next verse continues like this:

and walking arm in arm
you hope it don't get harmed
but even if it does
you'll just do it all again

...unless you give yourself a little pep-talk.