Immediately after I wrote the blog post, A Topic the Never Gets Old — Me and Mine Again,  I wrote the following journal entry which I will share in full (with a few modifications for clarity) here: I was working on a blog about self and self belongings. It is so clear that I collect items, claim them as my own, in order to reinforce my sense of identity, to prove my…

I already had rupa on the brain, so it wasn’t surprising that I found myself on a bit of a rupa roll.  Sitting in my apartment one day, I started looking around at my stuff and I asked myself, “Do you really understand these items? Do you know what they are and what they do?” My eyes fell on my favorite stuffed animal — Grux — a real fur bunny…

In all my contemplations about my ‘shield of special’ and my little bubble world — fabrications of my mind that let me imagine an Alana who is safe and comfortable and exempt from the suffering of the world — it was hard to ignore the obvious: My bubble world is full of stuff.  I pin my ideas of what is ‘safe’ in my environment, on my belongings like houses and money…

As part of our move to New York, Eric and I bought a new home in Lower Manhattan. We had seen it once, while he was here interviewing with his new company, and we fell in love at first sight. As soon as we stepped into the sunny loft space we began to imagine our life there  — Eric cooking in the chef’s kitchen, me lounging by the fireplace, all the…

I was walking along and suddenly got to thinking back on something strange I had seen a few years before: I was at a construction site, filled with tools and equipment, and near the center of the room was a ladder that had a post-it-note securely taped to it. The note, written in big black marker read, “Mine not yours.” I assume the owner of the ladder had put up the…

It was a beautiful sunny day, and since I was already on an errand in Oakland I decided to pay a visit to the historical Mountain View Cemetery, just to check it out. I went into one of the crypts and was struck by how massive it was — hallway after hallway, 4 stories tall, and that was in just one of dozens of buildings. It was like a maze. I looked at one wall,…

Eric had to take a particularly long business trip and I was left livin the single life for several weeks. I was so bored and lonely I decided to take myself on a little weekend getaway to Santa Cruz. I planned the perfect trip: A cute hotel where I could sit by the pool, a ride on the Santa Cruz Mountain Steam Train, Mexican at my favorite Mexican joint, and a…

Wandering around a cute little town in Napa, starving, my yelp app navigated me to what looked like the perfect lunch spot, a restaurant called Ad Hoc. I walked up the front steps  to peek out the menu and I saw a huge sign above the door that read, ” Ad Hoc — for the temporary relief of hunger”. After lunch, once my hunger was temporarily relieved, I started thinking…

I was sitting on the beach in Maui, surveying all the stuff I had brought along on my sun and surf outing: sandals- mine, hat -mine, kindle – mine, beach chair – borrowed, beach towel-borrowed, beach games -borrowed. All these objects –mine and borrowed — just jumbled together, it made me start thinking what exactly is the difference between the two? I know, I know, in a conventional sense the…