Possessions = desired identity

So got a reasonably cheap (about half the amount of my current rent) apartment in solana beach last week, and have been slowly moving things up -- last weekend was the couch, midweek was the bed-topper, and today was the mattress and box spring (interspersed with various sporty equipment and clothes things.)

After randomly thumbing through "Fung Shui for Clutter" (sic) at Jamba Juice, they had a theory that held true for me, which is that too much stuff around fucks with your focus. Which makes a lot of sense. I think I'm holding on to a bunch of this crap in the hopes that I can maintain my eclectic identity through all of these hobbies that I *used* to do, and I tend to get distracted (and feel vaguely guilty) that I'm not doing them. So the current idea is to not have hobby equipment that I'm not currently into, and indeed, get rid of most of it, since I haven't used it in years anyway. And if I start up again, I give myself full permission to buy new stuff, but hopefully I'll just get new hobbies.

So this weekend was spent at the beach -- yesterday was surfing at LJ Shores and today was checking out Cardiff Reef (potential location for regular morning surfing with L, the other SD gal in my surf class). Today's outing involved L and J, a guy I met on one of the online dating service things who is a cool enviro-geek and surfer, so we were scoping out the beach. I'm pooped though, and am going out to see the play Mother Courage in a couple of hours with I, another guy from online.

Ah, a social life.

This week will be spent shuttling things back and forth to the apartment, as well as packing for a trip up to Oakland for a day of business workshop followed by a girly weekend at a house with a pool. I'm very thrilled. I also turn 35 on Friday, so that's a little wierd, but it will be nice to be in friendly company for that.

Twice in one night

Ok, so occasionally I get bowled over by the small world thing. Usually it happened in Seattle, which was one of the reasons why I thought it was a good idea to move -- I have since had more evidence that the world is getting smaller when the "girlfriend of the husband of my ex-roommate (open relationship) is the ex-girlfriend of a friend I met in the personals in 1995 -- and this new couple has been hanging out with a DIFFERENT friend I met in the personals also in 1995 and his girlfriend. The husband of the ex-roommate used to work with one of my ex-boyfriends, and they are working together again."

My first small world encounter was when "The younger sister of my ex's ex's fiancee was the best friend of my college boyfriend."

So, I had two similar, although not as complex, encounters this evening.

The first was going out to sushi with a random social group. As I'm sitting there, a gal and her date walk in, and as we're going around the table giving introductions, I realize that the guy is someone that I've just started chatting with via an online dating service.

The second was coming home, checking an old social networking site (I had received a random ping and wanted to see who it was from), and noticed a familiar picture in my linked "community". A different guy that I've been hanging out with (also from the online personals) is linked directly to a friend of mine from Seattle (the friend of an ex-friend of my g'usband who bonded with my roommate at the time, who was the g'usband's boyfriend).

It's one thing when the worlds collide and it's somewhat logical, but some of these situations are completely random.

Walking the snake

Time passing, time for an update. With the artist's way stuff, I've been channeling my writing into the morning pages, so it's been a little difficult to synopsise everything into blog-esque form. Lots and lots of stuff -- I've been keeping up on the fitness thing, doing Kettlebells twice weekly, racewalking, the occasional bike ride (I need to get more diligent on this), and just finished a week of surf classes (yay for taking half days!). I'm also looking at new apartments, and trying to move up to Solana Beach, which has a lot of tri-stuff going on, as well as great beach access. Yes, I am getting the pull to become a morning surfer. Watch out.

Other things have involved an impromptu salsa class (thereby reviving the dormant dance brain cells), a flurry of online dating (met a few nice guys that I think will be turning into friends at least), motorcycling in baja, and I just got back from a couple of hours of kayaking and chatting at La Jolla Shores, which was a great opportunity to get out past the breaks and feel the swells coming in. Which was nice after a week of getting beat up by whitewater during the surf class.

Last but not least, I got the storage unit and am currently going through and tagging things for sale (the ugly lamp! the armoire! 8 garbage bags full of clothes! the tv!). I'm seriously considering clearing out the stuff I want to keep and selling the rest in a big batch to an estate sale/auction house. I am so freaking over it.

So I think things are going pretty well -- getting plenty of exercise, building the social network, learning new things -- so it's definately an improvement over Montana. :)