And A Door Swung Open

Last month, Stefani Joanne Angelina Germonatta sat down with Oprah to discuss the past 26 years otherwise known as her life. In this chat, which aired on Oprah's Next Chapter which is nothing like the Oprah Winfrey Show (eye roll), Gaga got down and dirty with O about her creative process. She described getting in touch with her muse as a cold, lonely process where she goes into a cocoon, cutting herself off from all media, people, plants and animals until a door opens. Naturally, being the me that I am, I immediately called bullshit on this. Once again Gaga has proven to be a strange amalgam of Madonna and Holly Golightly, a pop culture phenomenon who really believes all this phony junk she claims to believe in. Honestly I would still be calling bullshit on it had a door not opened for me last night.

She's a real phony...

After another day at work calling shop owner after shop owner while fighting with a terrible sinus headache and running all over town, I was beyond exhausted when I finally got home. On top of being tired I was also terribly lonely, a feeling that has been creeping up on me all month with the hotel hopping, working with people who don't get me at all--that's a whole 'nother story--and spending 99.9% of my day alone at work and alone at home. As I burdened my family and friends with the third break down of the week, I began to feel like I was standing in a hallway with a big black "censored" bar over my face, unable to move or move it. So I got off the phone, took a shower and a nap. Somewhere in there I began to think about what it is that I want in life and realized that until then what I wanted out of life was what other people wanted for me. In other words, I had no idea what I wanted.

Why Zoe? Why not? I just threw it in. 

Pre-relationship, I knew I wanted to be some kind of Carrie Bradshaw like fashion writer killing shit at Vogue for my 9-5. (More like if Carrie Bradshaw worked at Missbehave and was more like Sarah Morrison with Carrie Bradshaw's never ending stream of disposable income minus the "I'm crazy bc I'm over 35 and unmarried" thirst.) As a street wear/fashion/random shiz blogger back in 2008, I knew I was on my way. I'd made connections in NYC with fashion type people and my blog was just about to blow up. Then I met a guy who I fell in love with and while I totally loved him and he loved me for exactly who I was, I always felt ten steps behind him. This insecurity made me constantly feel as though I wasn't good enough, smart enough, pretty enough and for damn sure successful enough to be with him. I stood next to him at parties with PhD virologists who worked on the forefront of preventing the next AIDS epidemic and felt so small when I had to tell them that I worked at the mall. I have to say that all of this was in my head, the person I was dating in no way even insinuated that I was anything less than wonderful actually he encouraged me to stop playing so small when we were out.




Now I know you're all like, "What does you feeling insecure have to do with Gaga and a door?' Everything. You see last night I remembered that while my relationship was filled with many beautiful moments and experiences that I will always cherish, I also felt caged in some way. Like I was trying so hard to be the kind of person that someone else wanted me to be. Again, this person only wanted me to be the best me and not sell myself short and for that I thank him, but I have to figure out who the best me is and want to be her. And for the record, the best me does not write like Molly Lambert--mainly because I'm Anastasia and she's Molly Lambert, I also don't write like F Scott Fitzgerald--and wears ghetto gold with her chambray tops. The best me is obsessed with fashion a means of capturing the zeitgeist of a generation not as something to simply wear. The best me is an amazing story teller because she has an imagination that runs wild. The best me writer because she feels most like herself when she does. Above all, the best me is constantly changing, growing and evolving.

I got picture happy.

As I thought these things out and stopped looking on the past 3 years with rose colored glasses, I felt the blocked, fragmented feeling that had settled in my soul a few weeks ago shatter. I felt the black box in front of my face dissolve, then finally I felt a door swing open. Then I walked right through that beeyatch into a hallway of infinite possibility. Don't believe me? Ask the "coincidences" that followed me all day today, the free danish and hot tea from a guy who didn't haggle me for his number, the 3 appointments I set in an hour after struggling since last Tuesday and the amazing feeling that has settled over me despite the fact that my allergies are tying to do me in. Now that the door has swung open, there is no part of me that would choose to go back...not that I could if I wanted to.

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Lykke Li - I'm Good, I'm Gone

Chew On This

The kid is on to something, trust me.

Recovering B*tch

There is no beating around the bush or tip-toeing around the obvious on this one, I used to be a not so nice girl. Actually, some would have characterized me as petty, stuck up, mean, catty and of course bitchy. My constant rebuttal was that those people didn't know the real me, the real me was like the sweet chocolately center of an M&M and the me they were seeing was the hard candy shell that melts in your mouth not in your hand. Any friend I've ever had can tell you that I'm fiercely loyal,  always there when you need me even if it's 3am and I have to be at work in three hours and there is nothing I wouldn't do for you, they could also tell you that if you don't have anything nice to say that I'm the one to come and sit next to...or I used to be.

I could tell you how in the past 10 years or so I've honed my ability to bring a woman to tears with a few words or how I learned to take pleasure in judging others and always finding them wanting, but then I would be either glorifying rude behavior or justifying my nasty ways and I'm not here to do either. Suffice it to say, I was a mean girl because in my limited experience I learned that it's better to attack them before they could attack you and we all know that eventually they will attack you. (Which by the way, does sound as insane to me as it does to you and I was the one thinking it.) I'm not saying this to make you think that all mean girls are really just scared, little girls crying out for love and attention on the inside--which is true about 95% of the time--I'm just making you aware of my thought process in regards to being a carbon copy of Regina George, Courtney Shayne and Kathryn Merteuil with a dash of Sanata Lopez thrown in for hood measure. 

To be completely honest this whole not being mean thing just came to my attention about a week or so ago. I was sitting at a table with a bunch of lady writers talking about things that lady writers talk about, Oxford commas, what magazines are hiring, boys, and I felt myself falling into my usual shit talking only for the first time ever it didn't feel so good. Actually it felt gross, like 70s porn star mustache gross, and I didn't know what to make of it. Then to make it even more eye opening, last weekend while working market in a showroom with other 20something fashion girls I felt my mind go into Snix mode and I instantly judged one of the girls for not being cute and for wearing Tory Burch flats. The second my mind did this, my big girl mind said "Who gives a shit if she isn't cute her soul is just as beautiful as yours is and those shoes don't mean anything because it's not real. So get dat ass to forgiving."(FYI my inner guide is a bad mamajama and is not to be trifled with.) Inner voice noted, I started to take notice of how I felt when I judged people for the crap they put on Facebook or carrying a fake LV bag and it didn't feel so good. I felt repulsed by what I was saying and thinking and finally got what my teacher Gabby B was saying when she spoke about change happening when you want it in her video blog. 

The only thing is, now that gossipping is as appetizing to me as a steak is to a vegan what do I talk about? (Just kidding, not knowing what to say was never a problem for me. I came into this world with my throat chakra wide open lol.)

How Does It Feel?

Or more accurately, how do you want it to feel is the question Danielle LaPorte posed to readers as the first of her Burning Question series. As a huge fan of Danielle and her ass kicking, spirit junkie ways I have decided to tackle this question and let my burning desires come up to the forefront.

I want my day to feel like a post workout high.

I want kissing to feel like drinking hot chocolate.

I want my next success to feel like Halle Berry felt when she won the Oscar. 

I want my body to feel like a bird flying south for the winter.

I want smiling to feel like sunbeams.

I want my friendships to feel like Girl Scout Cookies that you buy in bulk so that you can have all year until cookie time comes again.

I want my neighborhood to feel like Cheers, where everyone knows your name and they're oh so glad you came.

I want my integrity to feel like the pyramids at Giza.

I want my money-making to feel like a teacher does at the end of the school year when each of her students passed every standardized test with flying colors.

I want my word to feel like an unbreakable bond.

I want my laughter to feel like kids on a jungle gym...and sound that way too.

I want the end of the day to feel like a tall glass of lemonade on a hot summer day.

I want being of service to feel like a an angel getting their wings.

"I want my philanthropy to feel like a cosmic Queen on her best day." I love this so I didn't change a thing about it.

I want my challenges to feel how Rosa Parks felt when she sat down on that bus.

I want my love to feel like a secret garden that only he and I know the location to.

I want my writing to feel like JK Rowling felt penning Harry Potter. 

I want my ideas to feel like cotton candy bliss

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How can you not smile when you see this?

Today's Note From The Universe

I just had to share my note from the universe today just because why the hell not!

It's like you're a fabulously complicated jigsaw puzzle piece, Anastasia, with stunning colors, wildly serrated edges, oceans of emotion, mountains of possibilities, worlds of talent, and complex energies, but for as long as you see yourself as just human, you'll never quite know where you fit in. 


The Universe

You Gotz To Love A Spiritual Girl

Bat for Lashes has nothing to do with this, fyi

So yesterday one of my ladies was arrested on a technicality--keep track of and pay your tickets girls--and she took the whole thing like only a now age spiritual gangster could, in stride. Just as I was gathering up the cash and hunting down a co-signer to post her bail, she called to tell me that she would be out by Saturday morning at the latest, was sharing a holding cell with a woman who practiced reiki and holistic medicine and that the whole experience was super healing. Only a girl super in touch with her higher self could see the healing in being thrown in the clink for driving with a suspended license, talk about seeing the silver lining! After I hung up I thought about something my teacher, Gabby B, said during a lecture she gave last Friday "Being happy is not about being happy all day every day it's about being comfortable   during the times that you aren't." While I know she wasn't happy about where she was--when it went down she called me freaking out a bit so I know she wasn't 100% cool with this--but she knew that she was supposed to be there, accepted her assignment and opened up for healing and growth. And strangely enough, she isn't my only friend that's taking shit in stride and learning from the funky stuff that happens to us in life.

Last week a few my pals and I went out--FYI I have officially retired from the club scene--and while we were out someone stole my pal's Michael Kors wallet from another pal's purse. While she was pissed and hurt as hell, at no point did she play the victim or lash out at the girls who we suspect stole her things. Instead she took a few minutes to get calm and decided that it was time to go. On the ride home she kept saying that she knew it supposed to happen for whatever reason and that it would be all good...Guess what, it was. She called me the next day to say she was fine with everything--thankfully the only thing she lost was some cash, her driver's license and the wallet--and that she was working on getting a replacement wallet. She saw the whole experience as something to learn from and not anything to get hysterical over.

Both of these ladies taught me that no matter what the situation is--jail, stolen wallet, your soulmate taking pots from your house...long story--it's all about how you CHOOSE to experience it that makes it. You can choose to play the victim, get angry, kick and scream, or shrug it off, say all in a day and get on with your life. I know which one I plan on doing from now on. I mean which one feels better to you, honestly?

Shit Yogis Say

So I almost died in yoga class yesterday, maybe I had too much coconut water before I got down with downward facing dog..or maybe it was because I haven't done yoga in forever and I was nomming on chips and chili before going to class. You say potato I say vodka. Either way this so brought my dehydrated yogi in the making body back to life. BTW, I am so not endorsing Lululemon...unless they want to send me some free yoga gear : )

Emotional Hoarding

Watching the show Hoarders it a bit like watching a train wreck. You start off with seemingly normal people who have homes bursting at the boards with years of junk that they can't let go of, without the aid of a therapist. Most of us sit back and wonder how did these people let stuff take over their life and vow that we would never, ever end up in such a situation but most of us already are. Just because our homes look more the something out of Dwell than something from an A&E special does not mean that we are not experienced hoarders holding on to past experiences that no longer serve us. Like the home of a hoarder being choked with odds and ends, our minds are being slowly suffocated with fearful thoughts based on past experiences that we are too ashamed of to ever clear out on our own, or with help. 

In the 27 years that I have been alive, I have latched on to quite a bit of unhealthy thoughts that stem from experiences I refuse to let go of. Honestly, at 27 most of these experiences seem foolish to have impacted my life but at 12 they were for sure make or break. That tiny instant where a group of girls in middle school made me feel like I was wrong or bad or different because I was my authentic self was planted inside me and lived there until, well now.

This is what your untrained mind looks like.

How did I get over this tiny mad idea that has been controlling my every move ever since middle school? Well not by checking facebook and realizing that the girls who mercilessly teased me and made me feel small aren't shit. Of course catching up with my "bullies" and seeing that by and large they are fat, married without meaningful-to me-careers, only made me feel good temporarily because these thoughts were based in judgement and judgement is based in fear and unloving thoughts. Eventually I would still revert back to the 12 year old girl who cried in the bathroom because her "friends" wouldn't talk to her or because someone called her nasty names. Entertaining thoughts like that were like me acknowledging that I was a hoarder and not hoarding any new stuff without throwing the excess baggage away.  The only thing that allowed me to throw out that feeling of not being accepted was to acknowledge where it was coming from, forgive and release the people I resented for not accepting me and to start loving and honoring me for being me.

Honest to blog, I love me. I love that I can quote Clueless and enjoy music that ranges from top 40 to college radio and everything that isn't only hip-hop. I love that I can spend hours in a museum or library all on my own. I love that I love the smell of books and freshly printed paper and Harry Potter and The Fountainhead and The Never Ending Story and David Bowie. I love that I am uniquely ME! And anyone who does not accept that can pick up their walking papers. Does this new found sense of self love and acceptance mean that all of my drama has been cleared from my mind and that everything is neatly organized? Hell no! I still have times where I feel like I do not belong but those times are few and far between, and when they come up all I say is "I am pure divine love living and breathing  in action and anyone who does not accept that...well that's not really my business who does or doesn't accept me."

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I was going to post Feist's I Feel It All but this spoke to me out of nowhere and when I say spoke I mean it got stuck in my head as I was setting my intentions for 2012...notice I did not say making resolutions, I haven't made a resolution since 2006. Anyway...enjoy!

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Let your inner badass out!