On Friday, we brought home two new additions to our family.

Two little kittens!

Meet Sally & Izzy!

OMG! KITTENS!

They’re acclimating to their new home quite quickly. We’ve got them penned up in one of our smaller rooms at the moment to keep them separated from Logan, and it’s a little kitty paradise in there.

Logan’s taking it reasonably well thus far… For the most part he’s been ignoring their presence… but if the kittens get feisty and start mewing and sticking their paws under the door he has been taking notice and trying to put them in their place with a little hissing and growling.

We’ve let them out into the kitchen twice while Logan’s been penned up in the bedroom for a little exploring time, and they seem to love that.

Working on kitten proofing the rest of the apartment!

(Edit: Sorry that some of the pictures had been down… Flickr made some changes this week and they got borked. Let me know if you’re still seeing errors!)

The post Meet Sally & Izzy! appeared first on Authentic Experience.

You know that feeling of when you’ve stayed up two hours past your bed time and you’re still not sleepy?

You try to curl up in bed and you just sorta end up laying there staring up at the ceiling and thinking to yourself, “Nope, this is so not happening.”

You end up grabbing your tablet and laying in bed playing some knock-off of Bejeweled for 15 minutes which normally soothes you right to sleepytown but it does nothing.

You quit the game and browse Twitter and send that “Why can’t I sleeeeeeeeeep?” tweet.

And if you happen to sleep at night, you probably did this at like 2 in the morning and possibly got a solidarity affirmation from a fellow tweep who is also up past their bedtime.

However, if you’re like me and don’t sleep at night and your bedtime is when the sun comes up, sending that tweet tends to result in a morning person saying, “Because it’s time to get up?”

And you find yourself thinking to yourself, “Excuse me while I go punch a baby in the face. I can’t sleep and now I have to deal with the smug superiority of morning people who think this is a reasonable hour to be awake.”

So, you don’t send that tweet. You write a blog post about what would happen if you did instead.

And you start feeling bad for yourself because you’re awake at what everyone considers a perfectly reasonable hour and it’s now closer to 9 AM than 8 AM and you’re upset that you’re awake because you haven’t slept.

You start debating trying to do a hard reset.

You know, when you decide to stay up all day and then go to bed somewhere between 9pm and 11pm like a so-called normal person and then you can wake up in the actual morning and you’ll be all normal again and no one will scoff at your weird sleep schedule and you can stop feeling so sorry for yourself.

And then the other half of your brain is like, “WTF man? It doesn’t matter WHEN you sleep just THAT you sleep, and you know damn well that whenever you do try ‘hard reset’ bullshit the result is you end up so exhausted that even if you were to crawl in bed at 11pm, you’ll just wake up at 2pm like you always do.”

And this is why I never want to see 8 AM….

The post The Uneasy Hour of Eight AM appeared first on Authentic Experience.

When someone would ask me, “Do you have any brothers and sisters?” growing up, it was always a loaded question that inevitably would be rife with confusion and frustration.

So much so that I wanted to lie and just tell everyone I was an only child, but even at 7 or 8 years old I couldn’t bring myself to deny their existence. I was resigned to have to share my family’s complicated history.

I have two siblings.

My half-sister who is eighteen years my senior. She’s my father’s daughter from his short-lived marriage to his high school sweetheart.

My half-brother is actually my half-sister’s half-brother. He’s fifteen years my senior. My father’s ex-wife is his mother and his father didn’t stick around. My father treated him as if he were his own and when I was small my parents just referred to him has my half-brother for the sake simplicity.

We never lived under the same roof, and their visits were so intermittently spaced that I can’t even really recall how often they did come.

It’s a mouthful at 29 to have to explain but at least now it tends to fall on understanding ears.

At eight, not so much. Inquiries about my siblings would send me into an internal panic because my situation just took a gigantic shit on my peers understanding of what constitutes as a sibling relationship and my patience with their lack of understanding was fleeting.

“I have a half-sister and a half-brother,” I would say.

Then someone would try to clarify, “No, you have a step-brother and a step-sister.”

I would counter with the explanation of the difference between a half-sibling and a step-sibling which would usually fall on deaf ears and be followed up with the question, “Well, why haven’t I ever seen them?”

Everyone else had siblings their own age, mine were grown-ups. When I tried to explain someone would shake their head as if it didn’t compute and tell me I was an only child.

Stung by comments by other kids who couldn’t get the relationship right or couldn’t wrap their heads around the concept at all, I would find myself wondering if I should have just skipped the whole ordeal and said I was an only child… I mean, it was half true, wasn’t it?

The post To Be Half of a Sibling appeared first on Authentic Experience.

I’ve been staring down Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity for months now. I read the first chapter over and over and I keep coming down to one conclusion…

I don’t want to go this alone.

In the back of the book Julia Cameron writes of a vision of no cost peer-run circles going through the book together which she calls “creative clusters”.

I decided that I have a need for such a group and have decided that I’d like to start one and want to invite you on a twelve week journey of going through the book together.

I’ve created a group on Google+ where I envision us sharing our thoughts as well as having Google Hangout chats once a week.

If you’re interested in joining me, please go join the group for AuthenticExperience.org’s The Artist’s Way Creative Cluster.

We start on June 1st!

The post Let’s Go Through The Artist’s Way Together! appeared first on Authentic Experience.

I went Michael’s the other day. You know… The big ass chain craft store.

I seldom go to chain stores living in the city, less because of any moral imperative to shop local (though I recommend it) but more because I’m lazy and am loathe to leave the five block radius around my house if I can help it.

However, when I decide that I need an item and I know I can find it at a chain easier than anywhere else, it always kinda blows me away when I go to one and walk in and notice that the store looks like every other one in the suburbs with the notable exception of having to go down an escalator to get to the sales floor.

I went there to buy some scrapbooking paper and cardstock for a bit of an art project that I have rolling around in my head that I’ve still not convinced myself that I’m capable of pulling off…

Hell, I’m not even quite convinced that I’m brave enough to even try.

But after a week and a half of thinking about going to the store, I went and I bought the supplies I would need if I were so inclined to actually follow through with my idea… but not after spending an hour and a half walking through every isle that store just looking at everything.

Somewhere in the middle of my journey I found myself asking myself, “When did I start feeling the need to ask for permission to act creatively?”

I was stumped.

When did I start feeling the need to ask for permission to act creatively?

I have no earthly idea.

The post When Did I Start Needing Permission to Act Creatively? appeared first on Authentic Experience.

If you were to pull up the list of my daily blog reads, you’d find a bunch of people talking about food.

Some of them are talking about what they’re doing in the food department to promote healthy living in their lives, and some of them are giving an abashed middle finger to that and just covering everything in cheese and chocolate just because YOLO.

But it seems like everybody’s talking about food in some capacity or another… and as a result, I think about food and then feel mildly bad about myself because food is one of those areas in my life where I feel like I’m incredibly fucked in the head.

Three words, my friends: Adult Picky Eater.

Also known as Selective Eating Disorder which is one of those under studied disorders that has yet to make it into the DSM so most of the world just believes you had shitty parents who spoiled you too much as a child and you need to grow the fuck up.

There is little that makes my blood boil as hot as that sentiment, by the way. One stray comment on a blog post written by someone three years ago is apt to sent me into a “fuck you” rage and trying not to write reply comments that detail the amount of torture I wish you in hell.

So yeah, the food thing is a touchy subject…

The way it works out for each individual is different, but here’s how it is for me. Certain foods cause me a great deal of anxiety. When presented with these things my first reaction is complete and utter disgust and an extreme fear that if I try to eat a bite of the offensive food that I’m not going to be able to swallow and I’m either going to have to spit it out or worse, throw up.

Basically when I don’t like how something tastes or feels in my mouth, my body has a rather extreme rejection reaction which can be quite embarrassing.

One of the ways that my picky eating limits me is in the fact that the vast majority of the foods I find unpalatable are foods that are considered healthy. Most fruits and veggies are on my no fly list. As is yogurt, sour cream, and cream cheese. Oh, and don’t forget oatmeal.

But if it’s a meat or a bread or a pasta or some kind of processed convenience food, I can probably eat it without much hesitation.

There are a few fruits and veggies that I can eat… Green peppers, onions, celery, lettuce, apples… but I can only handle small quantities before I start feeling the “Oh my god, this tastes like green and I’m gonna barf” feeling.

This is to say that my diet is extremely unbalanced and not healthy.

I’m caught between this paradigm where everything I can find to put in my mouth that tastes good and I immediately like makes me feel slow, sluggish and bloated, but when I look at healthier options I find myself sick to my stomach with fear and thinking to myself, “I think I’d rather starve.”

I look at the food that Cassie from Back to Her Roots and wish I could find the pictures she posts of her food delicious, because quite frankly, they’re beautiful… but I find myself bristling in terror of actually trying to prepare and eat these foods.

Whenever people are trying to reform what they’re eating there’s always this talk about learning how to not “eat your emotions” which I get… I totally do.. because I definitely do that, but when you add the finickiness on top of it? Literal emotional minefield.

So… really… What do you do?

The post The Emotional Minefield of Food appeared first on Authentic Experience.

One of my favorite things about having a blog is getting to see the ridiculous search strings that people use and then end up landing on my blog. When I stumbled upon a linkup about it, I couldn’t resist but to share some of my favorites with you…

My search terms tend to indicate that I’m an expert in two things… Kale and urinalsl… Largely because I once wrote a post about how much I hate kale chips (which was performed live by Blogolouges and once told a story where I got drunk and peed in a urinal at a gay bar.

The Kale Search Terms:

what do kale chips taste like
do kale chips taste good
how to make kale chips taste good
do kale chips taste like real chips
do kale chips taste like seaweed
kale chips are gross
will kale make me poop

The Urinal Search Terms:

gay urinal
peeing in a urinal
experience peeing in the urinal
gay at urinal
gay living urinal
gay urinal pissing
girl pee urinal

Of course, these aren’t the only amusing ones… A few of the other isolated ones I’ve gotten:

yoga themed wine
why do you hate cleaning the bathroom
what to put on my entryway table
what does the american girl series teach children?
thoughts on producing
sex pinterest sexblogspot
pictures of dudes sitting on crates in front of the bodega
leaning into the discomfort
high heels on the subway
how do i spent my valentines day
hanging sound barrier walls
emage 34hh after reduction
corset confessions
boyfriend’s butt
autentik sleep fuck

I swear, my blog seems so much more interesting when I list out the search terms.

The post Because Sometimes You Have to Look at the Search Terms appeared first on Authentic Experience.

This is the face of a killer who obviously thinks I don’t blog about him enough.

Today, he exploded a bird in my kitchen.

For better or worse, we let Logan go outside.

I always feel a twinge of guilt saying that because NYC kitties tend to be indoors only type creatures but our boy was born on the street, a master escape artist and tends to be much happier if he’s let out every now and then… He never goes far and within an hour or two, tends to be meowing at the window to be let back in so I don’t feel so bad about it.

He happens to be an excellent hunter. It comes in handy when mice sneak into our apartment and helps some with the cockroach control.

The super doesn’t mind that we let him out because he curtails the rat population around our building.

He also, on occasion, gets into the local bird population.

There have been a couple of times when I’ve noticed he’s left a dead bird outside by the front door in the past… but today? He was especially proud of his kill and decided to bring it inside for his mama to brag about on the Internet.

To back up for a minute, I have to describe my mental condition at the time this happened… I was on hour ten of a rather nasty anxiety episode that sleep had not done much to relieve. I was sitting at my desk writing in my journal in my bathrobe while Jed was taking a shower and getting ready for work when I heard the cat meowing at the window to come in.

I ignored him, figuring that when Jed left he’d let him into the hallway and then I’d let him back into the apartment and I could avoid the whole opening windows thing.

Which is precisely what happened… What I hadn’t been counting on was the cat to return with a small bird in his mouth.

Now, I don’t know if Jed was just not awake enough to notice that the cat had a bird in it’s mouth or if he consciously thought, “Oh fuck it. I’m going to just let it go and see what ensuing hilarity will occur by unleashing a cat with a dead bird into the house,” but the cat trotted in proudly with something in his mouth and dropped it on the middle of the kitchen floor.

I didn’t handle this well. Shrieking and screaming and crying ensued. I locked myself in the bedroom and texted all of my boys hoping for a white knight while knowing the best I was going to get was someone stepping forward to say, “Nikkiana, everything’s okay and you can handle this,” to which Mike did the honors today.

I composed myself and came out armed with a dust pan, a kitty litter scoop and a cell phone camera and snapped this photo of the slain bird…

I dumped him outside and came back in, vacuumed up all the feathers and thoroughly shamed my roommate for letting the cat in the building with a bird via social media.

So, that was my day… How was yours?

The post The Time My Cat Exploded a Bird in My Kitchen appeared first on Authentic Experience.

I got passed along this tune by my friend Nick last night and I’ve seriously listened to it over and over and over since then… and well… That just seemed fitting for a Music Monday.

Elephant Revival‘s an Americana band based out of Colorado. Check them out!

The post Music Monday: Elephant Revival – Remembering a Beginning appeared first on Authentic Experience.

Somewhere in the past two weeks, I hit the extreme overwhelm point…

I’m not exactly sure when (I feel like my perception of time is skewed), but I remember reading Sarah’s We Used to Speak in Essays and then watching Aubrey’s most recent vlog about her thoughts about blogging, social networking, online communication, etc. and I just went into internal meltdown mode.

My thoughts were already focused on blogging and social media… I just launched the website for a business that’s pointedly focused on such matters and my brain was already focused on deconstructing the practice for blog entries about it…

But when Sarah helped drag up memories of the past and Aubrey brought up some of the consequences… I found my head started screaming, “I want the world to stop!” and in an exercise of futility, covered my own ears.

That doesn’t work when your own mind is the one doing all the screaming.

There was one night… early morning, actually… somewhere around 4 or 5 AM where I realized that I’d been spending the past three hours refreshing Facebook, Twitter, Bloglovin’ and whatever else over and over and over in a loop, just waiting for something new to come in… and at that time of morning, very little actually does. I kept opening up my IM clients and looking at the lists of names…. trying to figure out if there was someone around who I could talk to. At that hour, most of the world is still asleep.

I realized that this is a pattern. The wasting time waiting for something that doesn’t come… The desperate longing for connections that may not even be there.

I did something that seemed almost revolutionary to me.

I shut the computer, and tucked it into my desk on the keyboard drawer.

I pulled out my journal and wrote down my thoughts.

I pulled out books and read (or in some cases my tablet…)

I made up a new rule for myself… If I ever found myself just aimlessly surfing the web for no reason, that was the cue to put away the computer and go do something else.

So far, so good.

It doesn’t solve some problems though. Like, the whole money thing… I have my share of the rent to contribute. I have debts that I need money to pay off.

Personal discovery, unfortunately, doesn’t pay the bills… Unless you manage to write a book or cut an album or something, and even then the pay off isn’t immediate or even guaranteed.

I’m strongly considering inquiring about the dev jobs I keep getting contacted about despite the fact that my body bristles at the thought.

I created a page on my business website that details what I do this week. Do you know someone who needs someone like me? (Maybe you do?) Pass it along, please. I need your help these days.

How are you doing these days?

The post Where I’m At Today appeared first on Authentic Experience.