creativity...what is it?

Have you ever seen This Is Spinal Tap? Oh yes, you have? Then you are cultured (yes, the good kind—like yogurt). Anyway, I want you to pronounce the title of this post like they say that line in This Is Spinal Tap: "The Druids...who weeeere they? What were they dooooing here?" The movie as a whole is pretty darn ridiculous, but that scene makes me laugh so hard my stomach hurts. Every time.

This post is about creativity, or the lack thereof. This year has been tough for my creativity. Maya Angelou famously said, "You can't use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have." Well Maya, I haven't been using it. I had a baby right at the beginning of 2020, which ended up being the most whatever year of all time. Postpartum fog coupled with being in a tiny apartment all day writing about mattresses has made it hard to do what I really love.

But I've decided to start anyway.

I've had a childrens' book in my head for years. Actually, I've had the title of this book saved in my phone for who knows how long, and before that, it was saved on my computer—my first computer, purchased in 2007. I think I've been through about three different iPhones and four computers since then, and this book title has somehow survived. I think that means something! So last week, I was putting my baby in her jumper and the first paragraph of this book finally smacked me across the face, or maybe it had been waiting to do that for a while but I was too tired to notice.

So I sat down and wrote it. And then I wrote the first chapter. And I started the second chapter! All of this during my lunch break! Who knew I could do other things during my lunch break besides scroll through Instagram and Pinterest? Maya Angelou knew.

I'm writing this post to remind myself that perfectionism is the enemy to creativity. I've started and finished projects I've hated, sure, but I've also made lots of things I really loved. And guess what, for everything I've made, love it or hate it, starting is always the hardest part.

So here's some things I've made that I'm proud of, and I hope you remember to just make stuff, even if it's terrible. Especially if it's terrible. 

Frida and her flowers

a mini of my favorite place: the Heceta Head Beach in Oregon

I saw this quote on Pinterest years ago (sorry, dunno who said it, maybe Abe Lincoln?)

my beloved American Fork Canyon in the fall

my favorite mini embroidery: Switzerland in a circle frame

I miss sweater weather

a favorite quote, and another face

alta wildflowers!

arizona home

collage: another excuse to buy old magazines (sorry, Houston)

line work is cheaper than therapy

I love drawing faces s'muuuuch

someday I'll blow this up and get it framed

the french countryside from above, for a friend who lived there for a while

work in progress (or "wip" as it's known in the crafting world)

my mom's childhood house <3

to my mom: no, that leaf isn't weed

this shirt was boring, so it needed strawberries

a friend of a friend is a roller derby queen, and I made this for her birthday! (those are her skates)

Tina Belcher 5ever

if you know me at all, you know I lurve old, rickety houses

the shell of every boiled egg to the actual egg: ♬it's gonna take a lot to take me awayyyy from you♬

the classic "I'm out of money" nightmare

That joke went over my head. And yours, too, probably, but that didn't stop me from saying it. This is why I don't have a Twitter, and I'm not a writer for TV shows, which was a dream I once had, but instead, I decided to write a bunch of run-on sentences for a blog nobody reads. 

DREAMS.

Speaking of dreams, mine have gotten pretty strange lately. I'm not sure if it's because the news is perpetually bad, I've been indoors for basically 6 months, I gave birth a little while ago, or all of these things combined, but does the cause really matter? Let's break it down:

• Dream #1: I signed up to bring pie to Thanksgiving (is Thanksgiving canceled yet?). However, in my dream, I procrastined making the pie and realized I needed to buy some from the store instead. For some reason, the pie place I went to was owned by an ex, only sold pie by the slice, and they charged you extra for whipped cream, even if they were out (which they were)? It was one of the worst dreams I've ever had.
• Dream #2: I was in middle school, started my period, but had nothing with me and decided to stay at school. This is actually a recurring nightmare. Still. STILL. It's been 20 years, McKenzie.
• Dream #3: I was back in grad school, and my class was being held outdoors...in the teacher's backyard. We sat on hay bales and the river that ran next to the classroom (lol) started to rise and then flood. I jumped the fence and was in the BYU football team's locker room, of course. Super logical place to flee from a flood, by the way. Thanks, brain, for the tip. 

I can't end this post without explaining the title. You know how when you boil eggs and the shell is like IMPOSSIBLE to take off? Even with the cold water trick?! 

Yeah. It's not funny if I have to explain it. I know.

postpartum things

• I started exercising for the first time in...um...I'm embarrassed to admit but it was well before I got pregnant. Anywho, I finished the WARM-UP and thought the workout was over because I was in so much pain. 
• I cry at anything/everything. Like yesterday, I cried watching an episode of The Great British Baking Show. The day before that, I started sobbing when I discovered a photo of Matilda taken a few days after she was born.
• I have looked at my incision scar twice, and the first time was to clean off the gunk before a doctor's appointment. It helps that a layer of pudge prevents me from looking down and seeing it straight away.
• I get really nervous to take Matilda anywhere. We used to go on walks, but now it's 100+ degrees in AZ, so we stay in our lil' air-conditioned bubble all day. She's been to the grocery store once in her little life, and she was a month old (this was just before the pandemic struck). I think she's an extrovert (can you tell this early?), but she's not gonna know what to do when she sees another person's face NOT via FaceTime. 
• I have a hard time watching movies or TV shows where people die, because now I think "Well that person probably has a mom." Probably.
• I also cannot listen to true crime podcasts anymore. For the same reasons.
• For a couple of months, my hair fell out in such large chunks, I probably could've made a rug with it. Now the shedding has stopped, but I'm growing back small tufts on my head in places I don't think even had hair on them before. I now relate to many of the male characters in the 90s smash hit, Ever After (Drew Barrymore forever):

Too real.

deleting your instagram is the new black

when your anxiety outlasts the nail polish on your toes

So, I deleted Instagram last week or the week before. I can't remember exactly when it was. Maybe that's because I was relying too much on Instagram/social media to mark the time (and pass it). 

When you have a baby, a lot of things change about your life. A lot of this change is expected, like never sleeping normally again, or crying a lot at certain movies (I hate u, Goofy Movie), and ESPECIALLY (most importantly) going through more laundry than you thought possible. You know those huge gallons of laundry detergent you can buy at Costco? We had one of those when we were first married—it was actually a wedding gift, ha. It took us all of 2 years to finish it off.

Well, we bought another one right before Matilda was born and it's nearly gone. No, you didn't come here to read about the amount of puke I deal with now (wait...maybe you did? If you did, sorry, I think you have the wrong blog). The point is, I was expecting most of the change that's come with Matilda. And she's worth it all. But some of the change...a certain....virus....well, that was unexpected. 

I used to write a lot. I used to give myself time for other things, but with the baby and quarantine, every day kind of dissolves into the next. And it's summer in Arizona, which is basically just "stay inside for 6 months you sweaty pug." (I wish I identified as a better-looking dog, like a Golden Retriever, but no...I think I am 100% a pug).

Please bless I never talk about coronavirus again because I'm just sick of reading about it, talking about it, thinking about it, having nightmares about it, etc. Next thing you know, Swig is going to name a drink after it (wait, that would be bad marketing, and also....the beer? C'mon McKenzie).

So anyway, Instagram was the best way to escape these feelings of...being trapped. Whoops, got a little too real right there, but it's ironic, right? So instead of reading scriptures every night I would scroll, scroll, scroll. I don't want to know how many miles I have scrolled through Instagram but it sure isn't equal to the amount I've walked in the past few months (my dead FitBit just rolled in its grave). 

I've always been an anxious person, but in the last 5 years, it really began to flare up. I don't deal with change very well, and if I'm not doing what I should do to keep the crazy anxiety thoughts from spiraling down the McKenzie Brain Drain, it starts to manifest. In lots of scrolling. Lots of scrolling and feeling sorry for myself because...my inner dialogue be like:

• Why don't you have a house?

• Why haven't you paid off your student loans already?

• Why are you using your Master's degree to write about freaking mattresses? (this one depresses me the most)

• Wow they already have 5 kids at your age, you just have 1! (this one...particularly dumb, but I know I'm not the only one who has thought having children is some kind of race) (LET ME TELL YOU THERE IS NOTHING FAST ABOUT THOSE 9 MONTHS)

• Why don't you read your scriptures more?

• Why don't you exercise? You need to lose weight.

• Why don't you cook more? 

• Why do you still have adult acne? *cue the tears of irony*

And on and on! Exhausting. Not to mention, boring. 

No, really. Nobody talks about how boring anxiety is. It gets your heart pumping and you can't breathe, much like feelings you'd get on a roller coaster or somewhere actually fun, like a theme park, but no. It's boring as hell. You're just sitting around (or my preferred position for an anxiety attack, flat on my back in bed with a pillow to muffle my crying so Houston can't hear me). 

And instead of these really awful things happening to you, which would be awful, but also, would be SOMETHING HAPPENING, you're just imagining it all! That's right! It's all in your head. But logic doesn't work, either. See, I'm writing all this down and it sounds stupid, but that won't stop my brain from making me feel lame.

So, conclusion. Instagram made everything worse. I know there's plenty of studies showing the correlation between mental health and social media, and it's still inconclusive, but this is my experience. Instagram just made me feel like a speck of dirt. 

Instead, I'm just gonna blog again because that's fun. And it's not an echo chamber (well, it is, but it's just MY voice, so that's fine) (insert sunglasses emoji).

Now here's some pictures because mom always said never post a blog post without pictures!

(No, my mom didn't teach me that, because I came of age in the 90s, where the highest form of technology I used was a Tamagotchi)

I gave birth to... an extrovert?

her halo 😍😍 (Houston says emojis are for teenagers. I'll show him!)

here my designer eye bags are on fine display (and the reason they exist)

part I: the beginning (and the end of me labeling these posts as "parts")

I realize that nobody, absolutely nobody, really wants to read someone else's detailed pregnancy diary. Especially on a blog where it's labeled in "parts." That's like being on a 1,000 mile road trip and passing a sign every few miles that says "990 miles left....970 miles left....960 miles left."

No. No thank you.

This is the only pregnancy post I'm going to write, but I feel like I have to leave it on my blog somewhere because for years I emo-blogged about completely insignificant stuff... And this is the most significant thing that's ever happened to me. So I better blog it, ya know?

So, when I found out I was pregnant, Houston was in the throes of finishing his last semester. He would often come to bed at 2 or 3 in the morning because of a big project he was working on, plus he was a TA for a few classes. Houston had accepted a job in Arizona, so I was job-hunting there. Loots of changes happening at once.

I took six pregnancy tests before I told Houston because I was in heavy denial. For someone who really wanted a baby, my subconscious sure was like, "Uhhh, no, you do not want this. But what if??? Nah. Unless????"

Right at the beginning of week 5, my pregnancy app informed me that I might begin to feel "morning sickness." It also reminded me that the term "morning sickness" is a farce most likely invented by men because it doesn't come close to describing the actual thing. And yes, it was a thing. The Thing. An alien monster chasing Kurt Russell around some snowdrifts, except one hundred times worse because it was real.

I've never been hungover, but apparently, that's what morning sickness is like. As a joke to keep myself sane, I began to keep track of all the "novel" places I threw up (places besides my bathroom):

1. In the left turn lane on Scottsdale Road on the way home from work during rush hour traffic (technically, I was in the car and I puked in a bag, but I had to pull over in the middle of the road because I couldn't get off the road fast enough).
2. Behind a church in downtown Phoenix, Arizona. I'm pretty sure the janitor or someone saw me barfing. After the first or second time doing this in public, you start to shed all sense of shame. You're just like "Yep. I'm doing this. There's puke in my hair and I'm doing this."
3. In a gas station parking lot in Marble Canyon, AZ. This one is funny because Marble Canyon is a popular spot for river rafting, and there was a huge group convened in this particular parking lot when I lost all the red Gatorade I'd just drank. In the flowerbeds, no less. I took a picture and sent it to my best friend saying "All of these people just saw me throw up." Smiley face?

1. In the Target parking lot, after which I ran inside to get like 5 bottles of Tums. Of course, when I got to that aisle, there were a bunch of people congregated right in front of the antacids. I remember the nausea-induced rage I felt then, but I forgive those people now. They didn't know. Actually, I miss them. I wonder what they're doing now. I wonder if I'll run into them at Target again. Maybe I'll hug them if I see them next????? CORONAVIRUS IS MAKING ME INSANE
2. Outside a pizza place. I did not quite make it far enough away from the people who were eating outside and a girl walking by said matter-of-factly, "I think you drank too much." 

So, after nine straight months of vomit hell, I managed to birth the most beautiful baby I've ever laid eyes on. The birth story was nothing like I'd imagined and I don't need to re-tell it here, but just know, anybody who says the words "JUST WAIT" when you complain about being pregnant....is truly dumb. Babies are hard, yes, but 1,000,000 times easier to deal with than being pregnant. Amen. And Amen.

hello from the void

The girl writing this has spit-up on her shoulder and funky creases under her eyes (they've been there since teenagehood, but they've gotten deeper in the last year).

The messy bun atop her head is always there now; the only thing variance is its position (a little to the left or right) and the color of scrunchie holding it together.

I guess we've been in quarantine...er...indoors for about a month now. When I say "quarantine" I just imagine Matt Damon sitting behind a glass wall for a few days in the movie Contagion (of course it is one of the top 10 movies on every streaming service right now).

After spending a few days (I'm guessing it was a couple of weeks, but the movie makes it seem faster) behind glass and making sad faces at his daughter on the other side, the doctors announce he's immune and can go home. But chaos still ensues everywhere else. People are looting grocery stores (that's kind of happening now?), his daughter's prom is canceled, an anti-vaxxer tries to sell people on an herbal remedy by faking sick, and people are getting buried in mass graves. About a year or so later, Jennifer Ehle (Elizabeth Bennett, of course!) figures out a vaccine, but to get it, people have to enter a lottery. Please let that not be what happens this time.

Anywho, all this virus talk bums me out. Just like you, I scroll through social media every day and hear more bad news about it. Of course, good deeds and hope shine through, but most of the time, the bad stuff seems to only leave a tiny sliver for that light to slip through.

If anything, this virus has reminded me of how important people are. Even though we don't live close to family, I still miss the possibility of being able to visit them. And I don't have many friends in Arizona, but the few I have, well, waving to them from far away just isn't the same.

This is the only droopy post I'm gonna write about the coronavirus. I'm all for keeping it real, but some days (most days) I need a respite. I need somewhere to forget about it for a while, and maybe you do, too. Just assume that everyone around you is a little scared right now and treat them with extra kindness and compassion. If there's anything we need more of right now, it's that. And toilet paper.

mom, what's a quarter teen?

^^Things I imagine my children asking me in 10 or 15 years when I talk about that weird time that was March 2020 (and April...and let's be honest...probably May).

Before we were confined to our apartment, I was still mostly at home all day. I've been working from home since December and before that, I was pregnant and I did not have one of those pregnancies where you post glowing selfies and wear cute maternity clothes. Honestly, I was miserable for all 9 months and I seriously considered burning my maternity jeans after it was all over.

Reading the news right now is only helpful to a certain degree. It motivates me to stay inside as much as possible, but it also stresses me out (lit'rally everyone is experiencing this, I am not unique). So then I escape to Netflix, audiobooks, or some kind of craft.

Right now there's lots of memes circulating sayin' stuff like "I was an InTroVeRT before this, my life is no different." But, like, yEAH it is. I'm an introvert but I still miss going to the store or talking to our friends or going to church. You can't say that staying holed up inside all day is normal for you.

Anywho, I've come back to blogging because writing has always been an outlet for me and I ignored it for a year because #PREGANANANT. I have never spent so much time being horizontal, f'real.

Matilda is almost 3 months old now, so I need to catch up. Hence, the resurrection of Will Write for Tacos (lol).