No fear. Is there such a thing?

Every time I read Penelope Trunk, I get one-ounce more empowered with some of the ideas that I have for writing.

And that's simultaneously awesome and frustrating. Because basically I want to be Penelope Trunk. Well. OK, not literally. But I aspire to be the woman writing fearlessly so as to inspire other women to lead fearless lives.

Problem: I am not fearless.

When an idea comes to mind and I think, "Oh, I should write about that," depending on the subject matter, the next immediate thought is, "What if Dad read it?" followed by an unending list of names: or Tony, or Sean, or Scott, or Ryan, or Ryan…

Wait a second. All those names are men. What the eff does THAT mean??

I guess that's gonna have to be a blog post.

For now the point is that there does exist a host of people whose reaction I worry about. Example: faith. Or politics. What if I write stuff that contradicts the way Dad raised me and then he reads it? Then what? Then I have to face the harsh reality that I'm a 30-year-old woman still seeking Daddy's approval. And what does that say about me? Or, another example: sex. What if I had to write about sex? Penelope writes about sex all the time, but SHE's Penelope.

Penelope also writes about how her fiance's (or ex-fiance?) family prints out her blog posts and mails them to each other. How does a woman even show up at Thanksgiving after that? And then proceed to write publicly about the very family that prints out her blog posts and mails them to each other? I mean, how does a woman continue to write fearlessly after that?

I haven't even figured out how to write fearlessly without any reverb. But considering that my post from yesterday got a mere 3 comments, I guess the only people's reactions I have to worry about are James, Matt and Suzanne's. I just might be able to handle that.

Dear Readers,

Confession: when I sit down to write a blog post, I do not think about you, my readers, whoever you are. (Bad Janna!) It's completely contradictory to what I teach my students about writing. I am forever beating the audience-message-purpose drum with them -- all. semester. long.

Yet, when I write here, I am mostly writing for the audience of one: me. It's kind of a release in some ways. And, as you know, I often forget about important stuff that's right in front of my face. Or, I should say, I just don't make time to blog about important stuff that's right in front of my face.

Perfect example: the $2/day eating challenge I participated in over the last two weeks. The challenge ended yesterday, and did I write about it at all? Nope. Well, I introduced the challenge, but that's it. Nothing about my personal experience or my personal struggle.

If you're wondering, it was a little bit of deja vu for me -- for Lent this year, I abstained from alcohol of any kind. And if you know me, you know how much I love wine. Needless to say that another 2 weeks sans wine was, well…not fun. Not fun because I missed drinking wine, yes, but more so because it's hard to come to terms with the fact that I'm spoiled. Flat out spoiled. Even when I'm making only $1,100 a month sometimes (like this month), I'm still spoiled in the grand scheme of things. And what do I do now, with that realization?

But I digress. The point is that I'm working on a personal plan for 2010, and one thing that needs to be worked into the plan is blogging. Only I don't know where to go with it. So for once I am considering my audience and asking the questions:

Who are you?
Where are you?
Why do you read my blog?
What do you like and dislike about it?
What would make it more interesting?
What do you want me to write about?

How much food can you buy for $2?

Do you ever stop to calculate how much you spend on food in one day? What about for one month? Considering that we live in a culture of consumption and convenience, the answer is probably a resounding "no."

Thinking about what I consume even beyond food is a journey that began for me about two years ago. It was part circumstantial, part spiritual. And I don't believe in coincidence, so I would say that even the circumstances were divine.

At the end of 2007 and into the beginning of 2008, there was a period of about 6 months where I wasn't working. I chose to not work while finishing grad school, but I didn't expect to not find work right away. I payed bills with credit cards (which I'm still paying off), but beyond that I didn't spend money on anything that wasn't an absolute necessity.

Those circumstances forced me to critically analyze the word "necessity." It forced me to ask the question, "How much can I do without?" How many things do you categorize as "necessity," that are actually luxuries? How many things do you categorize as "necessity," that are actually conveniences? A fancy $4 espresso drink that you buy every day. Pizza to-go for lunch. An iPhone. Your car, even.

As it turns out, we pay a lot of money for luxury and convenience. As it turns out, I can do without a lot of things, including a car (which I've been without now for almost 2 years).

Fast forward to now.

Some friends of mine and I are participating in a challenge: to eat for 2 weeks on only $2/day. We will then collect the money we would normally have spent on food during those two weeks (grocery shopping or eating out) and give it to Empowering Lives International, an organization with the mission to empower the poor and oppressed in Africa. We're giving our money specifically to feed starving children that attend one of ELI's schools in Bukavu, DR Congo.

For two weeks, we choose to eat less to provide food for starving children. As it turns out, you can buy a lot of food for $2. But it's not convenient.

Albatross

Debt sucks. And I have a lot of it. I try to not talk about it as much as possible because, well, it's just damn depressing. More than that, I don't want to sound like a whiner. (The only person who hears me whine about money is my boyfriend, and sometimes my family.) I take full responsibility for getting myself into this situation, and I have to get myself out.

But can I just say how incredibly demoralizing it is to be taking care of stuff, setting up automatic payments, getting on payment plans, cutting my expenses to the bare minimum and yet still feel completely helpless when something happens like what happened today:

I own a townhouse in Cameron Park, which is where I used to live. It's currently in foreclosure and I've applied for a loan modification. The payment has to be paid by certified funds, and December's payment was due today. No problem. I walk to Rite Aid, where they have Western Union. Problem: can't pay for a wire transfer with a personal check. Problem #2: because I do EVERYTHING online, I don't have checks or an ATM card for the house bank account. Problem #3: the closet bank is at least 10 blocks away; I don't have a car; and the scooter won't start.

Deep breath.

Call the bank and wait on hold for 15 minutes to find out if I can make a wire transfer over the phone. No. OK, can I make it online? Yes. Back to the computer. Log in to bank account. Click to make a transfer. Have to set up an outside account to receive the transfer first. Click to do that. Need mortgage company's bank account info. Call mortgage company. Get bank info. Back to online banking. Session timed out. Re-log in. Enter info.

Error message: Account suspended from transfer service.

Call bank a second time. Another 20 minutes on the phone only to find out that they can't lift the suspension on the account for 5 business days.

Frik. Frik. Frik.

Decidedly Uninspired

A lot of good things have happened lately. I even remembered to blog about some of them.

I pulled out my list of goals for 2009, and while I didn't accomplish most of them, I have accomplished (with a lot of help) the two that were the biggest, most ambitious and most time consuming:

1. Establish a coworking space. Viola: The Urban Hive
2. Facilitate/host a creative retreat. Viola: Freelance Camp Sacramento

Still. For some reason I find myself decidedly uninspired lately. Why is that? And how do I fix it?

The first question I should probably ask is, what inspires me?

Ideas. Talking and dreaming about possibilities recharges my batteries and makes me want to zoom off into action. But that's the key -- I can only talk about ideas so much before I get antsy. If people just sit around and talk all the time, well, then, nothing happens. And that drives me nuts. Get up and go DO something. What is the thing that gets people to act on ideas? Is there A thing? Or is it hardwired inside a person's brain? For me, a stimulating conversation gets me fired up to go work on my ideas, develop them, make them better, and fine tune them until they are ready to present to the big wide world.

Creativity. I almost labeled this one art, but it isn't really art that inspires me. Besides, art is so subjective. We just had a conversation about this very topic last week at CinemaSpeak -- how do you determine if a motion picture is a film or a movie? Some folks said there's a definite answer to this question, but others argued that there's no way to know the creator's true intent. But anyway, the point is that regardless of the product or end result, it's the creativity of others that inspires me. The process of taking an idea from abstract to birthing it into a tangible manifestation. It relates back to ideas and possibility, because creativity in others gives me hope for the possibility of my own creativity.

Organization. This may sound crazy, but organization inspires me in the most nerdy way. Some nights, I would rather stay home to rearrange my books than go out for dinner. That doesn't mean I actually stay home to organize, but the desire is definitely there. A lot. It works for me on a couple of levels. First, it's something of a challenge: how much can I get rid of? How can I rearrange my closet to make the most use of the space? And who doesn't love a good challenge? Second, organizing is oddly calming. There is something about quietly putting away laundry, folding socks just the way I like them, making sure all the tank tops are systematically folded and stacked in order of color from dark to light. It's a routine and it's comforting. Third, putting things away in their rightful spot moves my mind from chaos to order. It's like after you've been wine tasting all day and you have to clear your palette if you want to keep tasting and distinguish new flavors. So organizing clears my mind and I come up with some of my best ideas as a result.

Now back to the original question: why am I uninspired and how do I fix it? (Side note: I think I just came up with my next blog post.)

In the meantime, what inspires you?