I once was told not too long ago that I needed a mentor.
Usually I just brush it off and laugh: are you kidding me? You're telling me this now after more than two decades have passed?

All my life I've never had a mentor- partially because of my nomadic life, no one knew me well enough to give me guidance and partially because of my non entity-ness that didn't allow many people the 'upper hand' with more wealth in knowledge than I did.

Spiritually, I always flew under the radar at church. I've never had a solid relationship with any pastor thinking I'm just another sheep in his flock to fill a seat on Sunday mornings. Whenever I was confused about the Bible, I just asked someone or read a Christian magazine or just brushed it off. After I read Da Vinci Code months prior to its surge in popularity: I really was a little stumped about my faith and decided to call an elder from the church for clarification (just so happens to be a relative) and what I was told was "not to worry about it" because it's just fiction. She never realized the magnitude at which it would rock the church to the point many of the questions went to the Vatican. But telling me that it's just fiction doesn't answer my question of why John is also portrayed as a woman in the supposed book of Mary Magdalene that was edited from the Bible. It doesn't bring comfort to the fact that someone chose to ignore something I thought was worth examining to sharpen my faith.
Thus I had no spiritual mentor.

In school, in dear old Parsons, finding a mentor who was both ept in sustainable design as well as fashion proved extremely difficult. Having a knowledge in such a field needs someone who is already trying to innovate within the system. Yet I knew more than my teacher who was supposed to... teach me. But I realized all that I learned in my thesis year was self taught fueled by my own passion for systems design.

Mentors. Every hero has a mentor- just watch the movies. I just don't know anyone who I could trust to be one nor know anyone who knows me well enough I could respect enough to see him/her as one.

[pause]

I'm starting to tire of social networks. With the arrival of Google Buzz and in my curiosity, I regrettably became a follower of everyone and everyone became a follower of me. First it was MySpace and then it was Facebook. Twitter is Facebook on crack and for the attention deficit while Google Buzz vies another of your ten second time slot.

Not to mention the rise of blogs- everyone seems to be 'doing it' these days. While the majority of my friends have died off (what happened??) of Xanga, a new crop of friends have discovered new blog hosts that operate like Twitter. I can't help but feel a wave of cynicism wash over as I see the eager anticipation of people asking me to check their new blog which they fervently update every other day for a month and then suddenly dissipate into thin air. Most of the time, all I want to say is "really? is your blog really worth my ten minutes? Can I just visit your domain in three months time to see if it even stays afloat?" But being friends, I need to offer support and encouragement because I'm friend first, blogger second.

But I'm starting to feel dragged down by the frenzy of social networking tools. I really do not care to know what passes through your brain every half an hour as a plea for attention. And what is this all for? To feed the need for self acknowledgement? That every tweet or buzz represents the beat of your heart so that friends recall that you are still of substance?
I know this may sound terribly ironic coming from someone who has had a blog for five years that centers around the self and recently opened another two that branches off into her interests. I think best when I write it out and as a person who lives up to her name as being 'the listener', at times I really don't think people want my verbal reciprocation thus the existence of Anatomy of an Artist. The name was chosen for the purpose of dissecting my own thought patterns.
I am starting to feel a little schizophrenic as I try to address a different kind of audience in the trio of blogs once a week. It means that I have to figure out an outfit and be photographed at least once a week, bake once a week, and puke out something with a little depth to counterbalance the former. Not to mention WRITE and POST it up on the internet.

I see blogging as a discipline. I am the farthest thing from an athlete but I do know that discipline in training sets them apart from us couch potatoes. Blogging, to me, is my way of exercising my creative muscles. Every week I have to make a conscious decision to make sure all blogs are in somewhat of a good shape. You know, the hardest blog for me to fulfill each week is the style one. Because I hate being photographed. Why? Because unlike this blog and my baking one, the style one requires external help and the instability of that makes me worried. But because I can't think of anything innovative right now, I'll start here and hopefully in my discomfort, figure out a new form of blogging with fashion as the foundation. I'm hoping to learn something new from starting a style blog that allows me to tap into something I feel more comfortable with. Baking to me is second nature and this blog has been the easiest to maintain.

Back to the overexposure on social media networks, I've realized the hazards of being so open to everyone about everything. I guess that's why I've kind of drawn the line between audiences across all three blogs. Some people do skip between all three borders but because I let them and because usually those people are avid bloggers themselves. HAhaha I tend to write A LOT so imagine reading this times three. Yeah but no thanks. No one needs to read or know that much about me anyway.

Whoops I accidentally published this rather than saving as a draft. Ooops.