Day 365: Becoming Orgasmic

I have been wracking my brains trying to think of something "big" for my last day but there just isn't much left that I can get rid of. The length of this project turned out to be perfect - just long enough to be challenging yet not unreasonable. I still have objects I need to ship and people I need to meet but I'm satisfied with where this project has taken me. Tomorrow will be the first day in a year that I won't have to account for on this blog.

After struggling with this for months and even calling my mother for her opinion, I have decided to post something personal today. This book is representative of my own journey of self discovery. I'm not sure I spent much time with this particular book but it was books like this that helped me learn to stop worrying and enjoy sex.

It's a delicate balance to talk about meaning without going in to much detail but I want to talk about it a little bit. I think it's important because a better understanding would have saved me years of frustration and thinking I was broken.

I dated my first boyfriend for almost seven years and never reached a point where I was just able to relax. Sex was painful for a long time, more for my boyfriend's enjoyment than me, and I certainly wasn't getting an orgasm from him. The investment in my pleasure was big (usually an hour) and usually made us both uncomfortable. I thought all sorts of things: maybe I was frigid, or something was physically wrong with me. I thought about asking a doctor if there was some sort of medication that would help.

At some point I decided to take matters in to my own hands and took a trip to Babeland for some reading material. I discovered all sorts of things that made me feel better. I learned about most women needing extra stimulation, how to feel more comfortable with my body, the importance of room temperature, and the concept of the plateau (which can take quite a while). All of this information contributed to me feeling better about myself and my pleasure increased proportionately.

I also have a copy of I <3 Female Orgasm available. It is not pictured because I have to retrieve it from my sister's friend.

Status: Dibbed

Day 364: Nylon guitar picks

Someone recommended nylon picks to me so I accidentally bought these. They are way too soft for my taste. I hardly use a pick anyway because I mostly use my classical acoustic guitar but when I play my electric I definitely want some more heft.

Status: Gifted

Day 363: Samsung phone

You don't want this phone. The hinge is broken and it's ancient. I even threw out the charger at some point. At least I think I did because it doesn't appear to be lying around the apartment. I originally held on to it for traveling but I already have another less old phone that I use for that purpose. This is, in fact, my backup backup phone. It has been in my drawer this entire time but I never felt moved to get rid of it until I realized how little I have left to get rid of. I also need to have a couple rolls of film developed, one of which is still in the camera from when I took the photos at least five years ago. I'm not sure if that's going to happen.

Status: Donation pending

Day 362: Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

You have probably noticed the prominent barcode on this book but I swear that I legitimately coughed up the cash for this copy. I thought it was lost and paid for it, only to find it several years later when I moved. I've been an avid user of the library since I was four and I assure you that I wouldn't do them wrong. As a child, my sister and I played library in our house, placing fake barcodes in our books. I was occasionally grounded from the library and my mother will tell you that the water from their water fountain was my favorite. I love the library and I would not do them wrong.

Status: Gifted

Day 361: Odin Sphere PS2 Game

Odin Sphere is not only a great side-scroller but it's OMFG friggin' cute. Now that I think about it, the character Gwendolyn would make an adorable cosplay.

I recently tried to pick this game back up but didn't managed to get much further than the last time I tried.  The problem is I suck at side-scrollers. And fighting games. The only fighting game I'm decent at is Tekken 5* with Xiaoyu. I used to say I could play Tekken Tag as well if they would only let me pick Xiaoyu twice. The reason that I have some skill at this game is that it's much easier. I could play it with much better players and have a chance. With MvC2 I wouldn't even get a hit in so it was difficult to improve.

* I can do fine with Soul Calibur but that game is easy to mash so I don't count it.

Status: Dibbed

Day 360: Tweed pants, vanity sized 4 (closer to an 8)

I've had these pants for awhile but they're in good shape - just a little wrinkled. My iron broke. They're too conservative for my tastes. I'm once again working somewhere where I can wear whatever I please and it feels so good to wear jeans to work if I like, any day of the week.

Status: Dibbed

Day 359: Towers of Midnight by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson

I caved in and bought this because I couldn't wait patiently to get it from the library. It was definitely a moment of weakness but I really wanted to make progress with the story. I have kind of a love-hate relationship with this series. I really enjoyed the first few books and the last three or four but most of the book in between were mediocre. I generally like the story but didn't care for a lot of the long-winded writing and the mass over-generalizations of the differences between men and women. Still, as soon as I discover the newest book is out I have to read it. Fortunately, there is only one volume left.

Status: Dibbed

Day 358: Dictionaries

Today I finally did the math and counted backwards from the end of the year and realized my numbers didn't add up. My numbering was two days short. So I went through all my old posts and I found that I posted duplicate day numbers in February and August. Oops! Unfortunately there is no easy way to fix this so I'll have to think about what I want to do. For now, I've updated the numbers for the items posted in December.

On the other hand, that means I only have 7 days left! Amazing. Looking through my apartment for things I don't use has become really difficult. I can only think of one thing that is for sure going away this week.

Status: Donated

Day 357: PS2

Today I'm giving up my favorite gaming system of all time. My first Playstation 2 was a gift from an old boyfriend. I love the Playstation because they have every style of game covered. The Nintendos of yore didn't have Vib Ribbon or the awesome game where you play a tiny and heavily armed robot on a mission to kill insects. Or my old favorite dancing game Bust a Move 2. Disgaea, Final Fantasy, Grand Theft Auto III, Gitaroo Man, Jade Cocoon 2. I'm a little sad that I don't play video games the way I used to.

Status: Dibbed

Day 356: Scrabble

It feels a little wrong to give away my copy of Scrabble but I have so many other great games I won't miss it. I'm not particularly good at Scrabble although I've gotten better since I dated someone who was. I made the effort to memorize all the two letter words, which helped greatly. I may be a little competitive.

The guy who got me learning words (and loving coffee as well) had a pretty profound impact on my life. We dated for only two months as a kind of experiment. It was like a last attempt at being monogamous for him. He challenged my beliefs of what I wanted out of a relationship and we are still good friends.

Status: Dibbed

Day 355: Not Your Mother's Slow Cooker Cookbook

I'm starting an email repository of recipes. I've been storing recipes in my gmail account but I decided I wanted to keep them in a separate account. I'll email myself any recipes and tag/archive them. With tags and search it should be easy to locate any recipe I want later. I'm going to try to get a few more people involved to speed up the growth.

Status: Dibbed

Day 354: Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance II

I was really hoping my friend and I would finish this before the end of the year but it doesn't seem like that will happen. I'm also really getting desperate for things to get rid of. I have a few more books I can pass on, and I was planning to get rid of my PS2, so that will get me pretty close. Scrabble is also a possibility. I've only played it once since I bought it about two years ago. I feel strange getting rid of Scrabble because it's just the kind of game everyone has in their house but I have plenty of other great games to play.

My sister recently introduced my family (we all love games!) to a game she calls Pictophone. Each person gets a stack of papers equal to the number of people playing. Each person writes a word or phrase on the first piece of paper and hands it off to their neighbor. That person reads the card and puts it at the bottom of the stack. Then they have to draw what they read. Repeat until all the stacks have gone around the table. This game is really fun and a perfect addition to our holiday festivities. We've been playing Apples to Apples for years and it'll be nice to try something new with the extended family.

Status: Dibbed

Day 353: Intermediate Japanese

It may seem like I've been shedding Japanese books like crazy but I wasn't actually planning to give this one away. This was my third year Japanese textbook. I still suffer from this delusion that one day I will pick up my old textbooks and learn Japanese again. The only problem is my motivation for learning Japanese (as opposed to other languages) was my old geeky anime/manga hobby. I like visiting Japan but there are enough other places to visit that I don't think I have a chance of ever reaching competency again. I know a little Spanish so it's more likely that I would work on that skill instead.

Status: Donated

Day 352: Magazine rack

Now that I've given away all the copies of Verbatim, I no longer need something to hold them. It's just a charcoal gray magazine holder from Ikea.

I tried really hard to take a good photo but the light was horrible for photographs today and I'm not a strong photographer anyway. I hardly ever mess with the settings. I remember when I first realized that you shouldn't just stick people's heads in the center of the image. My photography suddenly got so much better!

I used to take tons of photos of buildings and historical artifacts but then I realized that I never care to look at those photos later. Now I try to only take photographs that will preserve an actual memory of people or an experience. I'm much more likely to look at old photos when there is a manageable quantity.

Status: Dibbed

Day 351: Sunglasses

These are my spare sunglasses that I picked up in Bangkok. I assumed it would be easy to buy a new pair of sunglasses but it ended up being a pain because I apparently have particular taste. It takes me time to adjust to a new style so I was looking for a pair identical to the pair I had at home. I spent way too much time trying on sunglasses and felt like kind of an idiot afterward.

Cooking on an organic farm near Chiang Mai

Status: Donated

Day 350: 250 Essential Kanji

This book originally belonged to someone I haven't seen in years. In fact, I haven't seen him since the year he drove me and my cousin down to an anime convention in Oregon so I could sell eared hats. That trip was a disaster. My cousin and I were  watching a Live Action Sailor Moon marathon when I received a phone call from him professing his love for me. I told him it wasn't a good time. When we went back to the apartment we were staying in we overheard him talking about how he could beat up little kids - or something like that. I decided we couldn't stay there and we fortunately found someone to crash with.

Status: Dibbed

Day 349: Green Day CDs

I'm still fond of Green Day but if a day comes when I absolutely must listen to Green Day again it's not like I can't just stream it off the internet. Plus I have a copy of Rockband: Green Day which is pretty darn fun.

Status: Donated

Day 348: Gigantic Stanley Thermos

I bought this to bring spiced cider for Aurigid meteor shower viewing. I didn't drink very much back then so I didn't realize that it doesn't matter how cold it is, people will still just want a beer.

Our meteor shower spot is pretty freaking amazing but it's also a commitment. The journey involves driving north for over an hour, then east for a half hour, and finally at least another half hour driving up a mountain on a road full of switchbacks and potholes. It's totally worth it because the destination is a large parking lot on the top of a mountain with an unhindered 270° view.

The first time we made the trek we totally got lost. We took a wrong turn and were headed down this creepy, dark, dead end, deserted road. It felt just like we were in a horror movie. If I remember correctly, we saw some sort of mannequin limb on the side of the road just before a super creepy truck drove by. Despite all the terribly sensible people in the car I think we all experienced a brief moment of thinking "We're going to die out here!" Fortunately, it turned out to be nothing more than just a creepy old road.

Status: Dibbed

Day 347: Guitar for Dummies

Most of the time this blog isn't really a burden but I've been feeling under the weather for the last week or so. Please forgive me for abbreviated blog posts.

Status: Dibbed

Day 346: 12 issues of Verbatim

Verbatim is an awesome language magazine. Example articles are The Sneeze: More Than Just Ah-Choo and Bless You and The Politically Correct US Supreme Court an the Motherfucking Texas Court of Criminal Appeals: Using Legal Databases to Trace the Origins of Words. You can already tell it's going to be good reading, can't you!

Etymology was an interest of mine a couple years ago and I used to love the podcast A Way With Words. I was also horrible about correcting people - not mean about it but a stickler. Fortunately, I'm over that because I was never a very good authority. I never learned grammar as a kid so Mad Libs was always a challenge for me. I was a pretty good speller but that got worse when spellcheck started getting really good.

Status: Dibbed

Day 345: Sealed bag of Demerara Sugar

I bought this sugar for making simple syrup but it's been around long enough that I'm going to let it go. According to the bag it's good for coffee, and it's definitely good for baking!

Status: Dibbed

Day 344: Yet another skirt

This was dubbed my Thanksgiving skirt because that's pretty much the only day of the year that I wear it. It's a lovely rich brown color that didn't come out to well in the photo. I still think it's cute but it no longer fits my personal style. I am very close to running out of clothes that I don't wear, which is exciting!

Size M

Status: Dibbed

Day 343: Art Supplies

I bought these for a Graphic Design class I was taking at the School of Visual Concepts. I was lucky in that  my roommate was able to lend me many of the supplies I needed. I enjoyed the class but I don't think I'll be taking any more artsy classes. Every week we had to collect samples of design, do a design project, and come up with concept sketches.  The class was way too time consuming and stressful for something I was doing for fun. I should have known because I took one art class in college as well. I had some lovely figure studies and self portraits but it was by far the biggest time suck of all my classes.

Status: Dibbed

Day 342: Aqueduct Power Ballads

Don't get me wrong, I love Aqueduct. But when you really fall in love with an album, sometimes all their other releases fall to the wayside.

I usually get music from friends so I have a rule for myself. If a band I like comes to town I buy a ticket to their show and I try to buy at least an album or whatever else might interest me. I feel good about it because my understanding is that they get a better cut of the proceeds. The only problem is I'm not sure how to reconcile that with my mission to accumulate as little as possible.

Status: Donated

Day 341: Five Cards

In my family growing up, we always made our own cards. We used stickers, or old cards, or whatever was lying around the house. And I loved it. I made some of the coolest cards around. My dad was the master though. He always tried to make cards that suited my tastes. One year there was a Warcraft card, another year it was my head superimposed on Julia Child's head.

I made these cards too but they're different; they were made at my aunt's card making party. You follow directions with a few personal changes and you end up with something like the ones in this picture. I made them but there is almost nothing of me in these.

A selection of cards from my dad. The first one references Iron Chef, the second is when I started playing guitar, and the final is my Warcraft phase. Unfortunately, I couldn't locate the Julia Child card. :(

Status: Dibbed

Day 340: Popsicle molds

I try not to let this blog be my new Livejournal but today I am completely consumed by the knowledge that I am speaking at Ignite 12 tomorrow. This is a big frickin' deal for me because I have been absolutely terrified of public speaking my entire life. I even had a hard time speaking up in groups large than four.

Just over a year ago I decided I was ready to conquer this fear. I started attending a small Toastmasters group in downtown Seattle. I made a rule for myself that I would speak up at least once per meeting but I managed to out do my expectations by far. I only managed to attend about a half dozen meetings before a change in my work schedule prevented me from attending but I had already done a five minute and a seven minute speech.

My confidence improved dramatically after only a few meetings and I noticed myself speaking up more often in large groups. When an opportunity to help teach a class at my company conference I jumped on it. The class was for a group of about twenty people and I was still terrified but after a few minutes I felt fairly at ease. Tomorrow I'm looking at a group of 500-700 people but I know my subject matter well and while I'm nervous I'm feeling pretty confident that it will go well.

Status: Dibbed

Day 339: The Complete Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm

I grew up loving fairy tales. That was my favorite section of the Greenwood Public Library. I'm also completely biased against Brothers Grimm since most of my least favorite tales all seem to be the most prominent in their collections. What I really want is a complete selection of the colored fairy books (The Green Fairy Book, The Red Fairy book, etc...). I loved that series and fortunately all the tales I disliked were pretty much limited to one volume which I avoided. I have also kept a copy of The Arabian Nights which is not going anywhere.

Status: Dibbed

Day 338: The End of Faith by Sam Harris

I still want to read this book but obviously I'm not in that much of a hurry so I don't need to own it. I'm already set in my ways and it's not like I need more convincing in my lack of religiosity. The purpose of reading books like this is to argue better and I'm not so antagonistic that it comes up often.

Status: Dibbed

Day 337: Guitar books

My friend recommended these guitar books to me but they don't seem to work for my kind of learning. I love playing guitar but I'm not serious about it. I don't pick up new songs very often because I only like to play songs I can sing along to. I mostly play my classical acoustic but I also have a beautiful '93 Gibson SG Special that I bought of Craigslist.

I was pretty nervous about buying a guitar that way, especially with so little knowledge about guitars, but I fell in love with it as soon as I saw it. The guy said he was selling it because he had a bunch of guitars and needed money but this was his first and he got it when he was sixteen. I'm kind of shocked that he sold it. The newer SG Specials all have this cherrywood finish that I dislike.

Anyway, the guy came over with the guitar and I was really nervous about testing it out because I only knew how to play like one song. I made him play for me so I could get a better idea of the sound but we ended up hanging out for awhile and I eventually got up the nerve to play. It was wonderful way to get my first guitar. We talked about meeting up for beers but I never heard from him again.

Love at first sight!

Status: Dibbed

Day 336: Skirt

This was another skirt from the now-defunct Boutique Ooh La La. I love the look but I can never figure out what to wear with it. It hasn't made it out often but I usually wore a white button down shirt. I never feel quite comfortable wearing that style of shirt. I love the stripes and the large button details on the side but they always end up covered by my top!

Size: M

Status: Dibbed

Day 335: Dayquil

I love how Dayquil makes me feel, until the next day arrives. I get badly dehydrated, my skin is crackling dry, and it takes me at least a week to recover. I need to get them out of the house before I get sick and think they're a good idea again.

Status: Dibbed