Taurus-Gemini (and Vacation-Brain)

I am coming to the sad – or perhaps resigned – conclusion that what it means to be a taurus-gemini, if these things are to be believed, is that I exist in one of two modes, and they tend to be mutually exclusive.

Either I am travelling to popular places, spending lots of money, dating everyone, drinking all the drinks, smoking all the smokes, eating divine food, losing my belongings, etc.

Or, I am at home, alone, with my two cats, eating my favourite meals on fixed rotation, and working long, regimented hours. Like a pendulum I swing, one mode relieving the other before exhausting itself in its extremity. 

I have built my lifestyle to accommodate both modes; I am self-employed as a musician. I spend many weeks teaching students on a very steady schedule, and playing regular gigs at downtown bars. I’m highly organized and take pride in managing several facets of my business – teaching, performing, composing and recording, and part-time modelling.

For my gemini side, I tour alone (bliss!) and meet all the strangers I like. The moment I pull out of my driveway and head to the airport on some dark early morning, I enter what I’ve come to call “vacation-brain”. The brain that wakes up and says, “What would you like to do today?” immediately answering itself with a hearty, “anything you want!”

In this state of mind I am so far from depression, that I’ve begun to return home in tears that start on the plane. I’ve begun to wonder what I can change about the structures of my Taurean existence that might allow vacation-brain to come closer to my permanent state of mind. After all, this is my one shot at life, and if I want to be on vacation brain I have a right to try with all my might.

I’ve condensed my teaching schedule to four days a week so that Friday, Saturday and Sunday are vacation brain days. This doesn’t mean I don’t work; in fact, what I’m finding is that in vacation mode, I am remarkably driven and productive, and fluidly open to my own creative whims. But by Sunday night, I’m typically hungover and exhausted because I reward myself so heartily for each week’s hard work with hard drinking and dancing all night. That’s when I’m grateful for structured responsibilities that kick in Monday afternoon.

Dealing with myself as an adult is very much like how it must have been for my parents to try and raise me. Really fucking difficult. I have to carefully construct fences around my own tendencies, but only gently, as I tend to rebel against any wall too obtuse.

Meditation seems to have an impact on my volatility, but I rebel against that, too.

Sigh. Off to more workaholic shit! (Piano practise and a funding application. No heavy lifting.)

xo

Arsoniste

insomnia

I’ve been sleeping like an idiot lately, which is to say I’ve been staying up very late (occasionally to sunrise) doing nothing productive, feeling anxious and scattered and empty all at once.

Insomnia is a habit I began when I was 15, when I started staying up until the occasional sunrise, eating mini croissants and nutella and binging on fantasy books in bed, or sneaking onto the family computer to play Sims, write ridiculously meandering livejournal posts, or watch porn. (truth!)

Over the years, my insomnia has worn different masks according to the various hangups in my life: binging-and/or-purging, drinking, smoking weed, netflix, videogaming, feeling pain in my wrists, pain in my bowels, arguing with a partner, arguing with myself…

At this stage in life, I find myself free of most of those things, most of the time. And insomnia lingers, perhaps unmasked for the first time.

In its purest form, insomnia is the feeling of indiscernible thoughts jetting around a vacuous space, a white-noise buzz, the din of which prevents me from turning off the lights and even trying to sleep. It’s like I don’t want to go to sleep, although I love being in bed, and have vivid and exciting dreams. It’s like I’m craving a substance that doesn’t actually exist. Or maybe I get some masochistic pleasure in denying myself the pleasure and relief of falling asleep.

In the morning, or shamefully met afternoon, I wake up and vow to go to bed earlier. But as the sky darkens outside the kitchen window I feel the buzz coming on, and the hours slip by, and I do it all over again.

Tonight I googled “tips for insomnia” and got this quick list of advice.

Here are some tips for beating insomnia.

• Wake up at the same time each day. … GOD I do not do this. I have a consistent alarm, but consistently snooze it until I’m actually ready to get up. I enjoy being up in the morning, but hate waking up. Perhaps my alarm is too ambitious. Will reset to a bit later!
•  Eliminate alcohol and stimulants like nicotine and caffeine. … I sometimes smoke when I drink, which is something like Thursday – Saturday, 1-3 nights of those, depending on the week. Caffeine I’m careful with, sticking to only one small coffee or green tea per day. If even that is too much… come on!
• Limit naps. … I do nap if I’m exhausted. Which is once or twice a week, for under and hour.
• Exercise regularly. … nope. nope, nope, nope. but walk everywhere.
• Limit activities in bed. …  Oh dear. I do watch netflix in bed. Especially on insomnia nights. Oh, and am currently sitting on my bed as I type. K… moving to dining room.
• Do not eat or drink right before going to bed. … I almost always eat right before bed. Or in bed… fuck! K. Stopping that, I guess.
• Make your sleeping environment comfortable. CHECK. Bed is the comfiest place in the world. That’s why I eat and watch TV there… so perhaps I need to make the rest of the house more comfortable? Sigh.
• Get all your worrying out before you go to bed. … Okay, I’m pretty good at journaling a list for tomorrow if I find I’m running through it in bed.
• Reduce stress. … Yeah I need to meditate and take baths. But don’t. Because I’m lazy like that. (running on autopilot is easier than being mindfully present!)
• Consider participating in cognitive therapy. … Yeah, I do. Took the summer off, but heading back soon.

Okay, so no netflix or food in bed tonight. I am also exhausted just having thought about sleep for the past 20 minutes. Like chronic yawns. So things to do to help this: set later consistent alarm, no more tv & snacks in bed, and make some goddamn time for meditation and baths.

Goodnight!

ready for whatever.

ready for whatever. by arsoniste featuring Alexander Wang

MANGO sleeveless shirt
33 CAD – johnlewis.com

Alexander Wang jacket
1,425 CAD – stylebop.com

Calvin Klein leather legging
660 CAD – veryexclusive.co.uk

LoveStories lace bra
84 CAD – lanecrawford.com

Sport shoes
120 CAD – etsy.com

Lulu Guinness man bag
390 CAD – yoox.com

Lime Crime lipstick
26 CAD – dollskill.com

Lime Crime lipstick
26 CAD – dollskill.com

Sneaker Season

Sneaker Season by arsoniste featuring flat shoes

Studded shoes
71 CAD – superette.co.nz

Adidas Originals flat shoes
165 CAD – luisaviaroma.com

Nike sneaker
155 CAD – mytheresa.com

Adidas Originals flat shoes
170 CAD – shoescribe.com

Converse blue shoes
54 CAD – shoebuy.com

Keds sneaker
74 CAD – keds.com

Keds sneaker
40 CAD – keds.com

Converse flat shoes
85 CAD – harveynichols.com

Keds canvas shoes
38 CAD – jcpenney.com

Nike mens shoes
135 CAD – bloomingdales.com

The Soft Break – a new alternative to breaking up

Ever since my boyfriend and I decided to break up, things have never been better between us. We’re more affectionate, tolerant, good-humoured, passionate, and sexy than we were when we were together.

Not technically together, not yet broken, I’m calling our new relationship status a soft break.

A soft break requires mutual resignation towards your insurmountable challenges as a couple, a genuine acceptance that it’s not going to last forever, and a desire to continue to be in each other’s lives to enjoy what is there.

A friend of mine recently went on a soft break with her boyfriend, and she reports similar benefits – resurged sex life, heightened excitement in public (less PDA equals more sexual tension), more casual dates, less stress, and no more fights. He was pent on marriage, she was not. Now they can enjoy each others’ company without worrying about conflicting longterm goals.

It’s a fluid approach to increasing distance in a relationship; a warmer, kinder alternative to the clean-and-cold breakup. Think of it as guiding apart two branches, so that they can flourish in separate directions, versus snapping the whole branch off, spilling sap and wasting energy.

Like other fluid relationship types (think poly and monogamish), communication and respect are paramount. The soft break is not for the insecure, the jealous, the passive-aggressive or the dishonest.

A soft break can’t work if either partner has lost desire; it’s not a sympathetic gesture, an “I’ll let you down easy.” It’s about letting go of perfectionism, accepting what you are not, and moving forward from there. (It’s remarkable, when I stop trying to make this relationship more than it is, how much love is there.)

Part of me – the boss part of me – scoffs at the soft break, accusing me of weakness for clinging to something that’s never heading towards marriage. Life’s too short! Must heal and keep hunting! Biological clocks are ticking!

But everything else in life has taught me that moderation is key for leading a balanced life and reducing emotional crises. When I overcame bulimia, it was about gradually replacing unhealthy habits, like binging and restricting, with healthy ones, like relaxing and eating regular meals. Any drastic change was sure to rebound.

In August, I tried to end things with my partner in the old-fashioned way: it’s over! Sleeping at a friend’s house that night, overcome by the pangs of broken attachment, I realized I was in no way ready for this. My boyfriend is my best friend, and I want his support. We decided to get back together the next day, despite dubious prospects for our longevity. It was just too painful to be apart.

Two months later, I can’t deny it: I am positive he is not marriage material for me. A happy marriage requires financial stability (we are both in debt, and have conflicting financial goals and values), common interests (ours are limited, despite efforts to grow together), and shared family and spiritual values (our are often misaligned). And yet, our love defies reason, as love tends to do. Neither of us believes love is sufficient to make this relationship work; we have tried to high heaven to problem-solve around recurring conflicts and ended up exhausted and spiteful.

A soft break is exactly what we need. Remove the pressures of perfecting our dynamic, take marriage and children off the table, and just do what we’re good at: sex, food, friendship and affection. Let the rest go. And gradually move towards the prospect of finding new partners.

He’s going to move out, because living together was a logical step towards marriage, and likely exacerbates our differences, and damaged our sex life. I don’t know what will happen from there. I’m not committing myself to any outcome.

Maybe this space will give me room to grow the way I’ve been craving to. Maybe we’re just putting inevitable heartache. Maybe this is us letting go of our critical outlooks in life and moving towards a greater love.

Whatever we’re doing, I’m satisfied to be doing what feels right, rather than following the prescribed path of “signs your relationship is blah blah” articles I’ve read in the last month. A friend, who is a far better writer than me, said love is a train that lets you off in its own time. This train has changed destinations, and we’re still riding.

fall fashion 2015 (summary & must-haves)

As summer clearance racks dwindle to scraps and fall stock comes in, it’s time to do my seasonal review, and identify personal must-haves before I go spent my money on an inferior purchase. I will consider colours & prints, materials, cuts, and end with a must-haves shopping list.

If I was a true fashionista, I would use swanky connections to attend hip runway shows previewing garments several seasons in advance. I would use the word “sartorial” later in this post, and henceforth on a weekly basis.

Truth is, I am an ordinary, mostly internet-informed self-stylist, with a moderate interest in fashion that falls in behind more important pursuits, like music, and drowning my late-twenties anxieties in sci-fi and mid-week drinks. My thoughts on fall fashion this year come from working retail at a local boutique, scanning Pinterest, google image searches, and reading my favourite emails from @FashionRedef.

Here we go.

COLOURS & PRINTS

Working at Biscuit, I’ve been keeping an eye on new fall clothes coming in by the boxload. This fall is full of feuillemort shades like rusty red, olive green, mustard, burnt orange, taupe, and brown. Darker pieces include dried-blood burgundy, forest green, and warm navy. The less traditional colours dominating the scene are teal and eggplant. This Pattern Curator sums it up nicely.

Spring ’15 pastels linger here and there with mint green, rose pink, purply blue and lavender. Summer white has gone ivory, often making a sophisticated contrast with black, especially in patterns.

PRINTS

I’m seeing three styles of prints. Dark bohemians (the aftermath of a potent festival season), a whole stream of digitally enhanced patterns that combine real photography in kaleidoscopic visions of natural landscapes, graffiti, jewels, etc. (they remind me of internet culture); and ivory-and-black combinations are going to be huge. Check them out here.

MATERIALS

Transparent, floaty fabrics are still cool, especially when used with crochet and thick lace that reminds me of kitchen curtains from the 70s. Not a whole lot of leather or glitter (goodbye, 80s pop revival). Lots of touchable, vintage-inspired cottons and polyester blends, and FUR. Overall: textures are mixed and matched, really diverse, so pick things that are either uniformly and deliciously soft, or make a bold statement.

CUTS

Conservative high collars, turtlenecks, long sleeves, mid-waist crops, culottes, and long hemlines for coats, shirts, and tunics. Flared pants have been making a stab at a come-back for a few years now, and this fall they’ve made notable headway. They haven’t made skinnies uncool; but extra fabric around the legs, whether tapered or flared, is classy. Same thing goes for sleeves, which are either extra-long and tight, or flared à-la-70s flower child.

MUST-HAVES

– a long, oversize, neutral coat
– a fur outerwear item (purse, scarf, coat, hat)
– an ivory-and-black combo
– a long tunic-style shirt
– mid-rise, flared pants
– a turtleneck
– neutral heeled booties
– thick-soled slip-ons

x0x0 Arsoniste

A Scrupulous Look At My Late-Twenties Self

On a slow and rainy Tuesday night, sipping Jameson’s with the owner at a Halifax bar in May, I turned 28, and felt shivers of responsibility settle my chest.

I have long believed 28 would be an auspicious age: the end of early-adulthood, a checkpoint for progress along an anticipated path. I planned to be engaged if not married, planning my first pregnancy, traveling the world, and enjoying occupational security established during early post-university years.

If dreams and plans, hopes, fears and expectations can be said to bear any impact on the course of the future, my life after 28 is unchartered territory, naked and virginal. (Twenty-eight year-old me was so far in the future she could deal with it.)

One-and-a-half months in, I am neither married nor engaged. I have not left the country more than once in five years, and have never been on vacation. I pay my bills with an income that hovers near the poverty line, and longterm savings have yet to be established. The prospect of mothering a child is unfathomable, for now.

The nice thing about turning 28, tattered goals aside, is freedom from the teenage ideals that taunted my every move until now.

No more running from the clock; I passed the finish-line. I didn’t win the race. It’s done. There’s nothing to do but look ahead and reassess, well, everything.

It’s embarrassing to admit I used childhood dreams as a shelter, clinging to them like a life-raft in a storm. The farther and farther my life veered off course from outdated blueprints – conversations with childhood friends on swings in parks down the street where I grew up – the more I sought to deny this reality, to point the finger and blame the bad-guys who screwed it all up.

I’ve rehearsed this part a million times. I wanted to be an actress. I woke up every day and practiced emotions and faces in the mirror. I stared in school plays and musicals. I researched top schools and took extra courses. And then, I changed courses and went for philosophy and journalism, chasing my first love to Halifax, Nova Scotia. I broke all ties with close friends and family in Ontario and dove into the darkest years of my existence. Suicides and self-harm, bulimia, drug abuse, alcoholism, sexual assault – it’s all there. Life reared up and smashed my red carpet plans to pieces. Or perhaps that was me; I was the beast.

Either way, I’m tired of living life backwards, obsessing with cause and effect while careening blindly into the future.

While a younger me was content to blame unfortunate life circumstances (flawed parenting, abusive relationships, mental illness) for my disappointments, I’m turning towards a new perspective: my life is my responsibility. Mine to create, shape and control. As an educated, healthy, attractive middle class woman, I have every opportunity available. My friends in similar circumstances have achieved excellence. If I’m not happy with my life, maybe it’s because I’m not being the person I want to be. Maybe it’s time to change. Awareness opens the doors to change, so step one, I’ve got to acknowledge my biggest personal flaws.

My Biggest Flaws (oh god!)

1. Tardiness

2. Extremely Emotional

3. Capricious

4. Defensive / Hyper-Sensitive

5. Escapist

6. Lack of Self-Discipline

7. Prone to Self-Doubt and Depression

It’s shaming to look over this list. I think, oh my gosh, how am I even functioning! Of course I have many strengths, though they are not the focus of this blog series.

in the coming summer months, I propose to research each of these flaws, reviewing relevant literature for insight and coping strategies. I hope to gain insight into my shortcomings, feeling better equipped to move beyond this much-anticipated year.

Maybe twenty-eight isn’t the year I bask in glory. But it can be the year I take control. That begins with a scrupulous self-analysis.

Next post: Tardiness.

xoxo
Arsoniste

festival packlist

festival packlist by arsoniste featuring writing pens

Free People sequin mini dress
440 CAD – shopbop.com

Alice Olivia special occasion jacket
1,365 CAD – harveynichols.com

Gold sequin jacket
630 CAD – 1stdibs.com

Dolce Gabbana underwire bikini
725 CAD – net-a-porter.com

Miss Selfridge floral printed pants
72 CAD – missselfridge.com

Leather travel backpack
39 CAD – mygreenbag.co.uk

Linda Farrow mirrored sunglasses
1,395 CAD – marissacollections.com

Missguided
13 CAD – missguidedus.com

Beach sun hat
7.58 CAD – amazon.com

Round circle sunglasses
9.96 CAD – amazon.com

La Roche Posay sun care
46 CAD – net-a-porter.com

Baleri Italia furniture
720 CAD – connox.com

Monica Rich Kosann Hand-Stamped Leather Journal
120 CAD – bergdorfgoodman.com

SP Black liquor flask
32 CAD – eflasks.com

Dot Bo glass stopper
29 CAD – dotandbo.com

Strawberry 5 Artificial Fake Food Fruit Strawberry
15 CAD – marcelhomedecor.com

Crate and Barrel artificial centerpiece
4.99 CAD – crateandbarrel.com

Writing pen
0.58 CAD – usimprints.com

Poler Stuff The Two Man Tent
315 CAD – rockcreek.com

Late 20s, Time To Grow Up

Ugh. It finally hit me. Physiologically speaking, I am an adult.

I don’t dress like an adult; I wear fashionable footware, patterned leggings and oversized T-shirts. I don’t sleep like an adult; I go to bed around 1am and get up at 10, 10:30 if I can wrangle it.

But there, softly illuminated in my tiny bathroom mirror, I can just begin to make out the first wrinkles on my face. Crows feet by the eyes, the barest trace of laugh lines falling towards the corners of my mouth.

If I was to rate the satisfaction I feel towards my life as a whole, including relationships, finance, home and health, I would give it a solid 4/10.

My apartment is smaller and shittier than I’d like. I’m far from getting married and having kids. I have aches and pains that need physiotherapy and massages, but my measly music teacher income can barely afford that. I want to increase my base income, a lofty ambition in my line of work. (Singer-songwriter, private lesson instructor.) I could invest more in this career, but the ceiling sits so low, it’s not much to aspire to.

I just spent a few hours browsing jobs in bigger cities, trying to figure out where to go from here. Every remotely appealing job requires 2-5 years of previous experience in a field I don’t have, technical skills I don’t have. I feel worthless and very lost, like I’ve wandered into a particularly dead-ended region of a vast maze.

I can boast many qualities as a prospective employee: extremely personable, good eye for fashion and design, strong writer and editor, clear communicator, keen attention to detail, dedicated, ambitious, artistic. But I really have no experience working in any jobs besides restaurants, and being a musician. Neither job leads to anything else; serving leads to restaurant management (no thank you), music teaching leads to… more music teaching. At my age, even a two-year program to up my eduction will leave me 30, with no professional experience.

One time, a guy at a party said, Rachel, you could get any guy in this city. You just need to pick one.
Maybe he was just flattering me, but it resonated. I’m full of potential and woefully non-committal. When I put my eggs in one basket, I tend to get bored and forget the basket in favour of some new challenge.

I need to figure out what it is I want to do so that I can do it. Seems like a simple concept, but it doesn’t feel like it today.

law school VS not – Pt 1

Well, this well-written blog post summed up all my misguided reasons for wanting to go to law school.

I have been sitting on the fence since I got in. No, before that. Since I massaged my aching temples and blinked back tears lest they fall on my 38th LSAT practice test, I have been questioning this course of action. God, how I loathed studying for the LSAT. It was an absurd challenge, one too grand to deny.

Applying to law school and writing the LSAT twice cost me $1300. A mere heap on the mountain of debt I will incur should I embark on the actual path of getting a law degree.

What do I want to do?
I want to be an actress, a musician, and a writer. These are my passions. I’m getting sick of denying their professional merit.

But I’m also sick of being so goddamn poor. I calculated my annual income from music teaching last year: just over $21,000. What an abysmally low number. Embarrassing. No, mortifying. I’m scraping the poverty line in Canada. No wonder I live paycheck to paycheck. And here I was giving myself shit for my spending habits.

If I want to make it as a musician, I think I need to leave Halifax. That goes for acting, too. (Writing, I can do wherever.) And I need to get over my insanely deep habits of self-doubt. As I walked to the bus stop today I realized more of my life’s decisions – micro and macro – are motivated by fear, than by inspiration. Fear has moulded the adult I am. I think of inspirational posters and viral videos about living to the fullest, and finding your path, your destiny, and I feel like an alien to those ideologies. I can’t imagine what it would be like to wake up and think, “What do I want to do today?” instead of, “What MUST I get done today to avoid fucking up completely?”

I must have voiced my concerns about Nova Scotian political culture to dozens of people over the past year. I find maritimers cynical, fatalistic, or totally blazé about personal finance. And the mindset is… well, not contagious, but certainly permissive of my tendencies to avoid financial planning. Jobs are so hard to get here, it’s an achievement to have full-time work, period. I brag about making $30 an hour teaching music, while my friends and family back in Ontario are pulling $60,000-$100,000 a year. I’ve had nightmares about marrying my partner and realizing there in my wedding gown that we have no money for a honeymoon, no new house.

I don’t even know what I’m afraid of, beyond the typical shit. Failure? Loneliness? Age and decay?
My best friend in Toronto always talks about following your gut. I texted her today saying, “I don’t have a ‘gut.'” But that can’t be true. I think I’ve just been smothering mine with a pillow of fear, and doubt, and habit.

I am free, right now, to go forth and be an actress. For the first time in my life, I am free to do this, and typical me, I am creating insurmountable obstacles to avoid following my dreams.

More on this later. Goodnight.

❤