a negative identity

everyday you hear of 17-year-olds making big, bold steps and trotting off to the big apple to become fashion designers or to los angeles to become the next heidi klum, and there’s an element of glamour in all of it because everyone in the whole world secretly wants to be a fashion designer so somehow eating saltines in empty apartments is considered beautiful. but what if the 17-year-old wants to run a bed and breakfast in a sleepy city instead of pursuing the spotlight, and what if the 17-year-old is actually 25? is there any allure in a twentysomething spoiling any and all chances of ever owning a condo in the city? and if owning a condo in the city would be, for me, the epitomy of personal failure, why am is so fucking afraid to run in the opposite direction? laurence boldt says: until we have taken the time to discover and affirm who we really are and what we really want, we are left with only negative identities and negative passion. we define ourselves by what we are against, and so have negative, not creative, passion. we are comfortable with rebelling but fearful of creating. [but] genuine creativity is never the result of a defensive reaction against something.

i guess i'm afraid that everything that i think i want is just a response to what i know i don't want. and i know allllll about what i don't want. i know i don't want to "manage" or "coordinate" anything. i know that i don't want to work hard to make someone else rich. i can rapidly fire off a list of things i find banal and uninspired, for instance:

guys who refer to themselves as "outdoorsy"
flannel in the city
skinny jeans
flannel in the city with skinny jeans (please, seattle, STOP!)
fretting about the economy
the phrase “work hard play hard”
broadway and the surrounding pike/pine area
mustaches/finger mustaches
95 percent of feminist theory (please don’t hate me, tyanne)
pine furniture (especially in kitchens with periwinkle curtains)
articles of incorporation
guys who leave ski lift stickers on their zippers
the seemingly endless obsession with pirates
jazz/blues/fusion bands in bellingham
western’s “take back the night” march
english majors who read harry potter

but i'm done running away from things i don't like. i don't want to define myself by not liking pirates. i want to pass out and see stars from running so hard towards the things that i do like and fall down slick with sweat, thinking wow, thank you, universe.

also, i really love this

southbound

for all of the plane rides i’ve taken, and books i’ve read, and rockets of desire i’ve ridden lately—it turns out that happiness was waiting for me in a little coffee shop in phinney in the form of cayenne hot chocolate and a good friend. and right now my mom did a little dance around the kitchen to please, mr. postman. and today the skagit valley rained frosty purple raindrops that rolled down the windshield like tiny waving wrists. for all of the fear news anchors pour nightly into our living rooms about economic instability, and to all of the folks lapping it up like cats, i suggest turning of the television and treating yourself to a 3 dollar hot chocolate at the neptune.

i brought more clothes home from bellingham today. i took pictures of my apartment and will put them on craigslist tomorrow morning. moving back to bellingham was something that needed to be done. and even though i hooked up with a republican and took a job as a cog in the kicking-people-out-of-their-homes machine (ahem, I mean foreclosure process), i’m so grateful that i had the chance to put the bellingham baby to bed. plus, i reconnected with matt and tim, saw some beautiful sunsets, and watched obama win the election in the same city in which i've thought all of my best thoughts. mmmmm.

i had a crazy good time with caitlin this weekend. we're going to be roomies! we’re looking at the greenwood/phinney/ballard neighborhoods and i think i’d like living in any of them. capitol Hill, i will not fall into your hipster trap again! but seattle, maybe, just maybe, you will give birth to some of my best thoughts yet.