Geeks vs Dorks

So todays fortune is I love geeking out with you...this gave me a good laugh.  I often do call myself a pop culture nerd which neither of the gifters are although I guess one persons geek is another persons passion or cool.  This reminded me of a particular performance that P!nk did the other night when I saw her in concert, which was beyond amazing.  She did the following song telling people to do their worst dancing and she had a dork meter in the background.  This isn't the best quality video but it shows the dork meter  So if P!nk can be a dork, I'll be dork any day.

I was going to stop here but then I thought, hmmm let's consult the dictionary.  So yes and based on the anagram blog, I'm a word geek for sure.  But here is what the internet dictionary says.

geek

Noun

1.  An unfashionable or socially inept person.

2.  A person with an eccentric devotion to a particular interest.

I'll accept number 2 but not 1 (except I can be occasionally shy).  And based on this I'm a spinning geek too.  I may even be a green juice/smoothie geek...  I'm not so ashamed of these... and to prove that mostly I am the word geek...my mind couldn't let it go with that

I assumed that Geeks and dorks are similar.  According to Ask Yahoo which takes the comparison to include nerds.  We have,

Nerds are often aware of their status, but they don't mind. In fact, many take pride in the putdown, as it means they're smart and not wrapped up in superficial worries.
Geek is a more specific term. Back in the day, geeks worked at carnivals, and (according to the dictionary) "bit the heads off live chickens." Thankfully, the term now has a different connotation. Like nerds, geeks are smart, but they tend to focus more on technology. As Urban Dictionary explains, these are the people you make fun of in high school and later work for as an adult.
Being called a "dork" is the biggest insult of the three. There's no way you can spin it into something positive. After all, even the dictionary writes that dorks are "stupid" people. And to make matters worse, dorks assume they're cool." 

I don't think P!nk knew about the smelling comment but I'll be a proud geek.

Treat Your Mind Like an Anagram

So todays love fortune kind of perplexed me.  It was I love how bright you are.  It didn't perplex me because I didn't want to own it but I wasn't quite sure whether they meant because I'm bright and cheery or because I'm bright intelligent.  And I would say yes to both.  So my mind could have gone either way.

This reminds me of something that came to me the other day.  I've been playing a game on my kindle called Words.  To be honest I've been playing it a long time and it's a game about anagrams.  Your given a set of letters and create as many words out of it as you can.  And an anagram is when you can take the same letters of a word a convert it into something else.  A popular one which is just an inversion is stressed and desserts.  That is humorous since, let's face it, most of us like a little of that sweetness to turn our stress around.  However the two that made the aha was poems and mopes.  When I first read it, I went oh no...poems should never make mopes.  But then I said, aha, poems can certainly turn mopes into a happier disposition.

And not that I never got this before but it gave me a better metaphor on the stories our mind tells us.  There are so many times we make ASSUMPTIONS (yes you know what those lead to) about a persons actions meanwhile there can be a million other reasons.  Once a friend told me a story of how her brother had invited her mother and other relatives to something at his house and left her off the invite list.  She was totally pissed off about this and went on about the family dynamics.  Meanwhile she had been the caretaker of her aging and ailing mother and it was draining the hell out of her.  My story was that her brother realized that she was taking on most of the burden on taking care of the mother and by doing this, she was able to have some freedom and time for self care while the rest of them did some mom sitting.  That's just one of a myriad.  Unless we talk it out, we don't know but why do often chose the story that is going to pick the scab of one of our wounds.  Why don't we choose to see people in another way.  Why choose negativity when you can choose positivity?  So let's turn the stories we tell our selves into anagrams and I feel like I should have a really good anagram hear...but let's go on a quest together...

Don't Ever Say Never...

So yesterdays or actually the day before's love fortune was I love your sense of adventure...This makes me think of the Helen Keller quote "Life is a daring adventure or nothing at all."  And lets face it this is a woman who was given some challenges at birth being deaf, blind and mute...so everything was an adventure...and maybe everything is an adventure and we refuse to acknowledge it because we're jaded.  It goes back to looking at life as a child and everything being fresh then life always is an adventure.  Although now my motto is never say never...as I never expected my life to be filled with the from white water rafting in Glacier National Park to shamanic ceremony in the jungles of Peru to being called someones G at at hip hop club the other week (I have to admit I may have sense of adventure, I'm a pop culture nerd and  I had to google that on an online hip hop dictionary.)  Life has become like russian roulette...round and round she goes but where she goes, no one knows.  OK maybe I'm exaggerating.

Although I do take a little pride in getting this acknowledgement in my love fortune as I was a very fearful child and even teen.  More afraid of shame than danger, but fear none the less.  I love the an acronym that Fear is False Expectations Appearing Real.  And what I really loved is this little find from Facebook

I love this for many reasons.  One  is that it shows that everything is a choice in how we face fear.  Remember courage is not absence of fear, it's acknowledging the fear and doing it any way. I also love that they put it on dice (or do you see boggle cubes).  Dice because life is a chance and you never know how they roll.

Although there are lots of stories that exude this I'm going to share too.  One is the one that probably more formative for me in using fear to my advantage.  A new friend had asked me to go rock climbing. Central Park had a wall and was offering a class.  I was intrigued and didn't actually have fear as I saw it more as an exercise adventure.  But the first time we did this I got to a point and then fear set in.  I yelled down at the instructor that I think this is as high as I'm going to go.  He says to me you only have more step to hit the top.  I said really, o.k., and I took it.  I remember the adrenaline rushing a bit and the sense of thrill.  How many times are we just one step from reaching the top and we give up...

So that was the conscious sense of fear actually being a guide that I'm pushing my edge of comfortablity and how pushing it can stretch me in a profound way.  Another experience and it was conscious fear is that I got the idea that I should go to a town called Inferno in the Amazon of Peru by myself to spend a week, well 5 days, with an ayahuascaro that I hadn't met.  Ayahuasca is a visionary plant medicine and an amazing teacher.  I hadn't met but I knew my teacher and friends respected him highly so I wasn't that brave.  But I did know that I'd be sleeping in a sleeping bag, bathing in the river that you had to trudge up and down hill through mud which mad it hard to stay clean, and go to the bathroom in an outhouse that had some rotted planks and was amazed that I didn't wind up in the bottom.  So that certainly stretched my NYC princess gene.  Also the ayahuascero only spoke spanish and actually is was more like a spanish/quechua blend and my spanish is broken at best.  I was speaking to my teacher since I knew he would see the ayahuascero a few weeks earlier as he was bringing a group down.  I told him to put in a word for me and let him know who I was.  During my conversation with my teacher, he turns to me and says "do you know what your doing Lulu.  Your going to Inferno.  You know what Inferno means, Lulu.  It means Hell.  Your going to Hell."  And there is metaphor here as many people have some dark experiences on ayahuasca.  It is called the vine of death.  However, my few light experiences with it were not dark in the least and I was convinced I needed to understand my relationship with this plant teacher.  

I turned to my teacher and say, "I know what your doing.  Your trying to scare me.  And don't worry I'm already scared and I'm doing it anyway."  There was a glimmer in his eye, he smailed and we changed to another topic of conversation. 

I was going to end it hear but just in case your curious, it was an amazing experience.  There were some challenges, some purging and some deep aha's.  I'm glad I faced the fear.  The first night I defnitely had some of those, "Who the fuck do you think you are Lulu, your so brave and now look" and in the end it was great.  And each time I do that, I learn to trust myself and trust what life puts in front of me.

This was never on my bucket list.  Hell if you had asked me 5 years earlier, I couldn't have even told you what a shaman or ayahuascero was...never the less put it on a wish list.    Don't get me wrong, I don't say yes to everything I do but I don't ever say never.  

Back B-logged, Finding My Metaphorical Colonic

After going through this I feel like I need a warning...if you don't like poop metaphors you may want to skip this one...I don't get graphic but want to warn the more sensitive types...but if your really that sensitive your probably not reading my blog

Yes it's been a few days since I blogged and I got stumped...I didn't want to skip but interestingly the love fortune that said I love how you make me blush, kind of got me mentally blushing as I wasn't sure what to respond.  So maybe that's it not everything needs a response, shocking for someone who always seems to have a story or a metaphor.  And yesterdays was I love to hear you speak, and it's got to be the stories, because I have far from a lovely accent and I speak really fast most of the time. Another was I love you more than today...my gut reaction was I hope not...I don't need to be loved more than I just need to be love as much as...I mean today is important and if I'm part of a persons today than it should be all encompassing right...anyway you'd be better off reading the Power of Now than hear me blogging. Still feeling blog clogged...is there a colonic for blogging.

The love fortune that got things stirring (sorry for the shitty metaphor, tee hee, I couldn't resist but let's face it when I start with you can't make this shit up and this girl likes metaphors...) was I love when you introduce me to new things, and new is the spice of life although I always feel like I'm the anti-pop culturist so the new things that I share are probably things that are from my generation that seem new...so I guess nothing is new under the sun, we just re-style it. And that started me thinking about my blogging as it felt like I was about to repeat stories and my inner judge went yikes, are you out of fuel already and it was only 26 days of a potential 365.  What it got me thinking about is that we all probably have a handful even less then 10 but for the metaphor, I'll call them our personal 10 commandments of what is most important to us and everything else comes from that...sharing, gratitude and loving are definitely top three for me...so I'm going to ponder this.  But that was also when I realized I was back b-logged and also back logged as I have also promised to pass on love fortunes and I'm collecting.  I've given away less than half which isn't bad...and the slight perfectionist in me whats to make sure I give them wisely.

So this is my thought yesterday morning and then I had a you can't make this shit up moment.  I wound up going to lunch with a work associate.  I thought it was going to be quick in cafeteria and we had a bit of a comedy of errors as she wanted to go out so we were waiting in different places, yada, yada...  We talked some work but we got into more personal conversation and I'm not sure how we got here but I was telling her about the time I was a bone marrow donor and afterwards I went into existential angst about the potential butterfly effect I could have had...I could have save the 11 year old girls life and she would become a drunk driver and kill someones kid...or I saved her and she marries a man who beats her...no really folks this is where my mind went (see the Butterfly Effect and see if you don't get paralyzed at time).  After my friend told me that I had to separate myself from my dna that was in someone elses body, it helped.  So I shared about the movie.  She said she hates needles and prefers soup kitchens.  And I personally believe that multiple and consistent small volunteer opportunities are more impactful, which led me to sharing about the Love Letter Parties and the world needs more love letters.  We part.   I get the idea to gift her with a love fortune.  And rather than read through the collection in my love fortune purse, I use dharma pole and I get I love how friendly you are and it truly was the perfect one for her...in fact the others only tangentially applied.  But that is not the you can't make this shit up moment.  Rather than get right back to work, I take a peak at good old facebook which I limit while at work.  Well guess what.  The World Has More Love Letters and the post starts that the Butterfly Effect is at work.  Come on it feels like the universe is talking.  To be honest I don't know what this means except to make more love letters...but it was on the heals of another dream which I'm not going to share here about what I'm supposed to do when I grow up...but I also know that if it's not a direct message on the meaning of life for me, it is certainly one of those synchronistic moments that reminds that we're all connected and life is going perfectly even if we don't understand why.  Sometimes we have to get out of the forest to see the trees that were in front of our face...

And interestingly giving a love fortune seems to be my metaphorical colonic...so goes back to when you give and don't horde because your worried about your own shit...shit starts to flow in the best of ways.

My Fellow Aliens

Love fortune of the day is I love how we have so much in common.  Which is funny because I often feel of like an alien trying to figure out the rule book for earth.  If you want to understand more of what I mean check out the movie Green Beautiful (it's got french subtitles, but worth watching, not sure if you want to watch the whole movie from here but worth checking out). It will both touch your heart and make you laugh.  Fortunately I've found some other aliens...not necessarily from the same planet but we resonate.  And I do find that life on earth is more fun when we can share with others that can appreciate...so now I'm sharing and I hope you can appreciate.

Keep the Universe from Tilting Off It's Access...Take In the Sweetness

Still laughing at myself because as I read yesterdays love fortune, "I love how you accept compliments,"  I had the thought this is sarcasm right????  I certainly have gotten better at but know I'm a better giver than receiver...well maybe I need to change that old image because I've gotten better...I used to just turn them around which I may do a little but in truth...must be pretty good at receiving because I've got a lot of love in my life and I know that based on the law of abundance unless you are ready to receive the universe doesn't give it to you.  I remember getting very good advice on this a long time ago.  When someone does or says something kind, just say thank you that's so sweet of you...because when you acknowledge the sweetness, you are actually telling the universe your ready and willing to receive more.    It's about ayni which is the law of sacred reciprocity.  And if you don't acknowledge it, you are out of sync with the balance of giving and receiving...we don't want to have the universe tilt off it's world axis...just accept it...you don't have to believe what they say but you can take it in and relish in the fact that someone cared enough to be sweet to you...

Semantic-full

I really do have to laugh at myself and although yes I did have an awww how sweet moment when I read the love fortune, I love how thoughtful you are (the other day I'm behind...but the reason I may be behind because this one go my mind going)...I went to the word thoughtful.  Yes we all know that thoughtful means to be considerate of others, but to me I get it means to be full of thought...like grateful which is full of gratitude, right (maybe I'm channeling George Carlin)...I think the word originators were off on this one...and of course, thinking of this just activates my mind.  And then I did get myself to thinking of others so in that way I can be full of thoughts on what make others happier...and happier others means most likely they are easier to be around...

Now I'm thinking about prosperity consciousness and how people think of when you think of others you need to sacrifice yourself.  I mean I've gone there but in the end it's actually kind of selfish or knowing that life will be better in turn when you take others into consideration.  If your "thought-full-ness" makes them happier they are more likely to be more cooperative with you and more pleasurable to be around, hence increasing the abundant nature of the world.

Round and round she goes...where she ends you never know...now you know why I've adopted my nickname Lulu...I may have to change it legally.