I was just thinking of something, I think I just worked something out, sort of. I'm not sure I can get it down, exactly, but I might make a first stab and then try to develop the thoughts more in later posts.
I was thinking about knitting, and how my Mom knits and got me started. Tonight we were talking on the phone about casting on and casting off, and throwing your yarn vs Continental (I throw, she says Continental is faster, but when I try it it gets way too tight, but she gave me some tips that might help so I might come around eventually). She said, "You're going to be a better knitter than I am." I said in retort, "No, no. I was never a faster typist than you, I'm sure I will always be behind in knitting as well." And I'm sure I will be - she has such precision and regularity. Like her handwriting, always confident and beautiful. I love knitting and hope to advance, but I know I don't have the steadiness and built-in motor coordination to ever do it like she does.
I was thinking about starting out knitting, and the story in family legend about the first sweater she knitted, as a young married person, recently uprooted from home and family and everything she had ever known, to go live in St Joseph, Missouri, where her brand new husband had just been transferred (they moved one month after they got married, and she's never managed change very well, so I can't even imagine. When I ask Dad about it, he just says, "Well, she cried a lot.").
My Mom's side of this family has this thing that has come to be known as "Gaffney Hysteria". It comes down from the Gaffneys, my grandmother, and so it's only in the youngest three of the six daughters, the other three's mother was Mrs. Miller and they just have strong, German stoicism and practical, unflappable attitudes and aren't like the rest of us. Gaffney Hysteria is, well, crying a lot, basically. I have it, way worse than my sister, and I know one cousin's kid who lives in Denver has it, and Grandma had it but not as bad as others, and one of Grandma's brothers had a male version of it where he'd just get stressed out and would have to bring his family home from holidays and things.
From the inside, it's like a coil, like an orange mist in your brain. It's always associated with the future, or actually no, it's always associated with one's performance. It's associated with the future when it's a worry that one is going to fail at something, because of lack of time or a looming deadline or lack of sleep because one is up at 12:55 am worrying about it and has to go in to work, early, for a meeting and outside it's blowing a positive gale and polishing up the new snow so the drive to work, early, will probably entail risking death and mechanical damage and awkwardness and delay, and so one surely won't have time in the morning to do the thing that should have been done tonight, this afternoon, days ago, weeks ago. And so one shouldn't be blogging instead of just sitting down and doing the thing now, but one is because one has Gaffney Hysteria and there's an orange mist in her brain and all she can do it panic and worry and keep herself up later, there's nothing to be done about it.
Anyway, so I was thinking about knitting and thinking about the family story of the first sweater my Mom tried to make. It took her ages and ages, and she finally finished it, in that little house on Lover's Lane Heights in St Joseph Missouri, newly married and newly uprooted from her home and everything familiar. I can now appreciate just how long it would have taken, because sweaters are really hard and have a great deal of real estate. They take a long time to finish. And she finished it, but because she knits too loose, it was way, way too big, would never fit in a million years. "And she threw it across the room," Dad says when he tells the story. In fact, "threw it across the room" is a refrain that's spoken together when this story is mentioned in the family when this story comes up, it's the story's tag line or abbreviation.
I can imagine. The long hours of toil, the hard work that went into the knitting, also the expectation of what the sweater would be like, and then it's finally finished, and it's wrong, and then just the explosion.
I'm her. I have that too (and here I am knitting! will work slowly up to sweaters, though, and make sure to do a gauge). I know just what it would have felt like, and it's not good.
I am my Dad as well. I am the steady intellectual who can love this woman, but is not like her. But only half.
I am also her, I have Gaffney Hysteria, but it's not a good thing. It's not something I value. A therapist once got me talking about this - what qualities were identified with the female, in my house growing up, and what with the male. I don't want to have this orange misty thing. But I do, we all do, it comes down from Grandma. So, I was thinking about being that kind of woman, about my Mom being her back then with the sweater and about me having her inside me, and I was thinking about the men who love them, and it still baffles me a bit that anyone could love them, but they do. My Dad loves my Mom thoroughly, completely, steadily by her side, and for just coming up on 50 years.
And it put me in mind of a particular episode of Star Trek Voyager. I know, I know, but stick with me. There's an episode where Belana Torres is pregnant, having been married for a little while to the pilot Tom Paris. She finds out the baby has a very slight little genetic thingy, and the doctor can just wave a woobly woo device over her belly and fix it. All cool, very routine procedure, done of course on a space ship in the Delta quadrant by a doctor who's a hologram. Anyway, Belana then after hours sneaks in and looks up more about her baby's genetic structure, and finds her daughter is going to have forehead ridges, like her mother does. Belana is half human, half Klingon. The baby will look Klingon like her. She then does all sorts of sneaky and underhanded things to try to get the baby's genetric structure changed again so that she's a version without the ridges. And it's dangerous to do this and she gets caught and yelled at by the doctor, and her husband is outraged and baffled and they have a big confrontation scene toward the end. Belana explains that her father, Mr. Torres, left her and her mother when she was a child, because he couldn't handle two Klingon women in the family. He couldn't manage the temper or the gutsiness or the arguments, or etc. else. There is a tender flashback scene to illustrate this, showing Belana as a confused little girl. The grown-up and pregnant Belana is now terrified that if there are two Klingon women in her own household, that Tom won't be able to handle it and he will abandon them like her father abandoned her and her mother, and so she was trying to change her baby to be more human to prevent this from happening.
Tom realises, and grabs her and holds her and says, "I will love having two Klingons in the family. Or three or four, or even more!" He convinces her that he loves her and is not like her father and has no intention of leaving, ever. They go back to the medical center and look at the holographic projection of what their daughter will look like, and a tear rolls down Belana's cheek as she says, "She's a cute little thing, actually, isn't she?"
This episode just floored me. I sat on the couch and cried and cried and cried. It still moves me, to remember it, and I've only ever seen it once.
So, I've sort of figured out why. I have this emotional thing that has come down through my mother's side, I have it too, and it makes us emotional and hard to live with because we go hysterical, every now and again. But there are men who love us, just the way they are. I'm sure that resonant theme is what I saw in the Star Trek episode, and why it affected me as it did.
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Home ahead of the storm
I left work at 3pm today because the weather forecast called for rain, then rapidly dropping temperatures, high winds, 3-6" of snow, very low visibility and blizzard-like conditions. Uh-huh.
As I left the office I had my first experience of FZRA . Walking out the door the ground was wet - like, with water, liquid, water-like water - but when I got to my car it was covered in little water droplets that had all frozen. I had to get the scraper out and scrape them all off, and the pavement looked like bubble wrap or really bad rubber flooring because it was also covered with little water droplets that had all frozen.
My knitting class was cancelled. One of the managers at the yarn shop called and left a message on my phone last night to let me know, and here's what she said:
"We want everybody to stay home, and stay safe, and keep knitting, and not be out in what they're saying's gonna be, you know, End of the World weather."
The first time through when she got to the phrase "keep knitting", it sounded like she was assigning homework, that we should stay home but use the time when we would have been in class to keep practicing. But then I realised what she meant was "keep knitting", like, live to knit another day.
Noted.
While I've been writing this, the freezing rain has turned to snow, which is falling horizontally in the high winds, it's starting to stick, and visibility has gone down to about 1/2 a mile. Good to be home. My plan for this evening is to keep knitting!
As I left the office I had my first experience of FZRA . Walking out the door the ground was wet - like, with water, liquid, water-like water - but when I got to my car it was covered in little water droplets that had all frozen. I had to get the scraper out and scrape them all off, and the pavement looked like bubble wrap or really bad rubber flooring because it was also covered with little water droplets that had all frozen.
My knitting class was cancelled. One of the managers at the yarn shop called and left a message on my phone last night to let me know, and here's what she said:
"We want everybody to stay home, and stay safe, and keep knitting, and not be out in what they're saying's gonna be, you know, End of the World weather."
The first time through when she got to the phrase "keep knitting", it sounded like she was assigning homework, that we should stay home but use the time when we would have been in class to keep practicing. But then I realised what she meant was "keep knitting", like, live to knit another day.
Noted.
While I've been writing this, the freezing rain has turned to snow, which is falling horizontally in the high winds, it's starting to stick, and visibility has gone down to about 1/2 a mile. Good to be home. My plan for this evening is to keep knitting!
Monday, January 28, 2008
And what do we try to protect from all those giant plush microbes?
I Heart Guts!
http://iheartguts.com/shop/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=72
I Heart Guts!
http://iheartguts.com/shop/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=72
Sunday, January 27, 2008
But how does this affect me, Al Franken?
Inspired by some comments by both Astrobarry and Mystic Medusa in horoscopes about a month ago, I have been reassessing the way I interact with friends. I don't know if this is right, but I'm trying it out as a mental stance.
My new attitude is, I don't want to keep people around in my life who just drain me and make me feel guilty. It's important that when I have people in my life I am getting something from them.
Is this wrong? You will be thinking, this is why I am so lonely right now, because I've become a selfish rat bastard and have forgotten how to give.
Well, yes, okay, but in some ways I think it's a good stance too. It's based in the horrendous experiences I had when I was moving. Everyone, everyone acted just abominably, hysterical, demanding, pouring out their pain onto me and making me listen to them, and they didn't help me at all, one single bit, in my very difficult thing that I was doing. (With the exception of my ex, which is now just confusing.) Total strangers insisted that I meet them for lunch and then they told me their dark, horrible, painful secrets, and didn't at all want to listen to mine - I still have no idea why this happened. Australians never pour out painful personal secrets, ever, because it's considered a burden to the other person to hear them, but since I was leaving the country I suppose they thought I was okay to use as a confessor because I'd be gone and wouldn't come back. But it was horrendous, and has left me feeling battered and traumatised.
When I got here I had all those communication difficulties, and I still haven't got a reliable and easy-to-use phone card for calling Aussie people. And they never call me. And I feel like I should call them, especially the ones who sent me nice Christmas presents, but my feeling is based in guilt more than in appreciation of their company.
Are you obliged to call your "friends" because of how much they like you and the pleasure it would bring to them to hear from you, or is it better to weed people out of your life who you only contact out of guilt and you don't get that much from?
I'm trying to use the same rubric for activities. If I feel I should do something from some stereotype or social pressure or past vision of myself, that's not good enough, the thing has to actually contribute to something of value in my life right now. Like dishes. Dishes never contribute to some positive goal, it's maintenance only, there's always a better way of spending one's time than doing dishes, so they go to the bottom of the list, frequently, and get done only when they start to smell or I'm out of knives or somebody's coming to visit. And decorating. I feel like I should have great taste and vision and be able to choose furniture and arrange it in my place when my stuff comes, but I'm realising that I'm really bad at three-dimensional spacial things, and I'm actually thinking of hiring a decorator and just letting them do it. And writing a novel. I think I have an old belief that I should write a novel, but in fact it may not contribute to anything I want to accomplish in my life in the long term, so maybe it's not something to feel guilty about at all.
Careful readers, are you at this moment spotting the contradiction between this post and the anniversary post below where I claimed to have no goals at all in my life? Okay, well done, you spotted that I did actually make a list of goals yesterday when I was out having lunch post-haircut, and used it to evaluate my to do list. The goals I came up with were:
* hedons (this is a term from utilitarian ethical theory in philosophy, it's a hypothetical measure of a unit of pleasure)
* partner
* money
* community (that is, becoming more connected to my community which is Appleton)
* 85 (this is an abbreviation of "When you imagine yourself at age 85 and look back over you life, what do you want your life to have been like?" This is an exercise I got years ago from a time management book, and I use it because I kind of do have a pretty clear view of what kind of 85 year old lady I want to be.)
Things like doing dishes fall into "basic maintenance" and so have to be done as a baseline but don't contribute to any particular goal any more than to any other. Which is probably why I'm having trouble getting myself to the gym - although that does get a bit of extra credit in the "partner" column.
More on the to do list later, but on friends, if the friends don't contribute to my life or goals at the moment, but I'm only sustaining them out of guilt and about how much it means to them, not me, should I keep that friend at all? You have to have some friends, and I'm a bit short on them at the moment, but which ones should I put energy into? Is it okay to just drop all the Sydney ones, since I moved 10,000 miles away from them anyway? Or am I just being selfish and lazy? Or is it okay because I was traumatised and I have to hole up and bunker down and heal for a little while?
New friends are kind of getting this metric as well - I've met two different people who have close relatives who are very, very, very sick with cancer. I have dropped them off the the potential new friends list. I don't have any resources to help someone through something that awful, right now. I have my own trauma. I need someone happy and strong, in a positive and easy space in their own life, so I can lean on them, and gain energy, and have them help me heal and get established here. Is that so wrong?
Probably. I'll probably go to hell and in the meantime be cursed with permanent loneliness. But these are my current lines of thinking, so if you guys have any thoughts you can put them in the comments. And if I don't write back you know it's because I think you're a boring, draining, selfish bore! Right? No, not at all.
Dear me, maybe I should just hit "delete" on this one.
My new attitude is, I don't want to keep people around in my life who just drain me and make me feel guilty. It's important that when I have people in my life I am getting something from them.
Is this wrong? You will be thinking, this is why I am so lonely right now, because I've become a selfish rat bastard and have forgotten how to give.
Well, yes, okay, but in some ways I think it's a good stance too. It's based in the horrendous experiences I had when I was moving. Everyone, everyone acted just abominably, hysterical, demanding, pouring out their pain onto me and making me listen to them, and they didn't help me at all, one single bit, in my very difficult thing that I was doing. (With the exception of my ex, which is now just confusing.) Total strangers insisted that I meet them for lunch and then they told me their dark, horrible, painful secrets, and didn't at all want to listen to mine - I still have no idea why this happened. Australians never pour out painful personal secrets, ever, because it's considered a burden to the other person to hear them, but since I was leaving the country I suppose they thought I was okay to use as a confessor because I'd be gone and wouldn't come back. But it was horrendous, and has left me feeling battered and traumatised.
When I got here I had all those communication difficulties, and I still haven't got a reliable and easy-to-use phone card for calling Aussie people. And they never call me. And I feel like I should call them, especially the ones who sent me nice Christmas presents, but my feeling is based in guilt more than in appreciation of their company.
Are you obliged to call your "friends" because of how much they like you and the pleasure it would bring to them to hear from you, or is it better to weed people out of your life who you only contact out of guilt and you don't get that much from?
I'm trying to use the same rubric for activities. If I feel I should do something from some stereotype or social pressure or past vision of myself, that's not good enough, the thing has to actually contribute to something of value in my life right now. Like dishes. Dishes never contribute to some positive goal, it's maintenance only, there's always a better way of spending one's time than doing dishes, so they go to the bottom of the list, frequently, and get done only when they start to smell or I'm out of knives or somebody's coming to visit. And decorating. I feel like I should have great taste and vision and be able to choose furniture and arrange it in my place when my stuff comes, but I'm realising that I'm really bad at three-dimensional spacial things, and I'm actually thinking of hiring a decorator and just letting them do it. And writing a novel. I think I have an old belief that I should write a novel, but in fact it may not contribute to anything I want to accomplish in my life in the long term, so maybe it's not something to feel guilty about at all.
Careful readers, are you at this moment spotting the contradiction between this post and the anniversary post below where I claimed to have no goals at all in my life? Okay, well done, you spotted that I did actually make a list of goals yesterday when I was out having lunch post-haircut, and used it to evaluate my to do list. The goals I came up with were:
* hedons (this is a term from utilitarian ethical theory in philosophy, it's a hypothetical measure of a unit of pleasure)
* partner
* money
* community (that is, becoming more connected to my community which is Appleton)
* 85 (this is an abbreviation of "When you imagine yourself at age 85 and look back over you life, what do you want your life to have been like?" This is an exercise I got years ago from a time management book, and I use it because I kind of do have a pretty clear view of what kind of 85 year old lady I want to be.)
Things like doing dishes fall into "basic maintenance" and so have to be done as a baseline but don't contribute to any particular goal any more than to any other. Which is probably why I'm having trouble getting myself to the gym - although that does get a bit of extra credit in the "partner" column.
More on the to do list later, but on friends, if the friends don't contribute to my life or goals at the moment, but I'm only sustaining them out of guilt and about how much it means to them, not me, should I keep that friend at all? You have to have some friends, and I'm a bit short on them at the moment, but which ones should I put energy into? Is it okay to just drop all the Sydney ones, since I moved 10,000 miles away from them anyway? Or am I just being selfish and lazy? Or is it okay because I was traumatised and I have to hole up and bunker down and heal for a little while?
New friends are kind of getting this metric as well - I've met two different people who have close relatives who are very, very, very sick with cancer. I have dropped them off the the potential new friends list. I don't have any resources to help someone through something that awful, right now. I have my own trauma. I need someone happy and strong, in a positive and easy space in their own life, so I can lean on them, and gain energy, and have them help me heal and get established here. Is that so wrong?
Probably. I'll probably go to hell and in the meantime be cursed with permanent loneliness. But these are my current lines of thinking, so if you guys have any thoughts you can put them in the comments. And if I don't write back you know it's because I think you're a boring, draining, selfish bore! Right? No, not at all.
Dear me, maybe I should just hit "delete" on this one.
Yank language school
On an ad for some financial thing, I think it was an insurance company, voice over:
"With policies costing like 500 dollars."
On the screen there was text that said policies cost "from as low as 500 dollars".
So, will "like" replace "starting from as low as" as an official legal term you can use in sales?
"With policies costing like 500 dollars."
On the screen there was text that said policies cost "from as low as 500 dollars".
So, will "like" replace "starting from as low as" as an official legal term you can use in sales?
Happy Anniversary to me
So, folks, as of today (actually yesterday at about 9pm) I have officially been here for three months.
I knew I would hit a three-month wall, I knew it would be about the time the excitement wore off and the tiredness and the view of the very long road still before me would kick in.
There are lots of good things, really. I have already absorbed myself into this new place in lots of ways, and mentally I think I feel pretty grounded and positive.
But there is a wall, nonetheless, and I have kind of hit it, so this post will have some whining in it as well.
Good things - I am really soaring at work. I am so, so qualified for my job, and I do in fact have a great deal of passion for it. I can contribute so much to the company and those sites, I have all the qualifications and life experience to do it. It doesn't just take a book-knowledge of internet best practice, it's also taking my leadership skills, presentation skills, negotiation and persuasion skills, diplomacy (like last Friday when two of my suppliers were acting like three-year-olds, honestly, and I had to referee and calm everyone down). Editorial, budgeting, design, technology, communicating between people in about 20 different disciplines, keeping my eye on strategic matters and not getting bogged down in tactical, going around people while making them still feel like they have power. Working hard without burning myself out and still leaving room to build a life here, because at the moment I have no life. I can do all of it. I'm great at nearly all of it. It's a good feeling, and inspirational. So work, mostly, is a good thing.
The landscape. It still makes me sigh, even though sometimes I wake up in the morning and look out the window and gasp in confusion. Despite that it's really cold and hard to drive in, I love the snow. It snows and stays, for weeks and weeks, because it's so cold. It's really pretty, and stays pretty. It's hard to drive in, but I love it. And the barns! I love the barns. I want to get out in the countryside and drive around and soak up the landscape through my eyes, which I haven't had a chance to do because it's so cold and snowy. It's not like the state does not realise that its barns are wonderful. There is a barn on my license plate. There is a barn on my driver's license. But they make my heart warm, when I see them. Barns are another good thing.
The town. The town has a good feel to it. I was looking for Appleton postcards at a bookshop in town yesterday, and the photos are just ridiculously bad - a picture of Memorial Bridge which is just a picture of a road, with a beige 6-story building in the distance. I imagined sending it to someone and the mental picture it would create in them - a bleak, boring, featureless, semi-abandoned nowhere in the middle of the midwest. This town is not like that. This town is kind of unphotographable, because the main street is so long and the nice impression it makes is derived from driving down it as a totality. There is a set of etchings on display at both the library and the historical museum that depicts the whole main street one block at a time, and it is breathtaking and wonderful. It kind of captures the positive impression of the main street as a single photograph cannot.
I don't know anyone in the town yet, and I am in no way at all connected to my community, but it has a great feel. I get the feeling there is interestingness and people I will want to hang out with. Which is good, because I'm kind of committed to staying here for a while. My stuff isn't even here yet (oh God, how I dread that day, when I have to shop for my own furniture and spend weeks and weeks working out how to arrange things in my apartment). And it was so traumatic pulling up stakes and getting here that I couldn't go through it again in the short term. And I would lose so much time - it would be another three months in the new place before I was thinking of getting out and getting social, and hitting the wall of illness and depression, and having to write stern lists to force myself to do what needs to be done. I couldn't afford the backward step. So, here I am, committed to stay for a while.
But wait, Ellen, what was that you said about illness and depression? Yeah, I'm done with my cold but I think I'm in a state a doctor once called "post-viral". Friday night I feel asleep on the couch (watching bad stand-up on Comedy Central) and finally stirred and dragged myself to bed at 3am, where I slept like a dead thing until 11 the next morning, having dreams about work. Yesterday I went and got my hair cut and then tried to organise all the "shoulds" in my head by working out if I have any goals - someone had mentioned goals the week before, actually two different people, and I was struck by the thought that I don't have any. None. No reason to go on, nothing in particular I want or am working toward, still in this bleak post-apocalyptic limbo of my broken heart. And the broken heart was, actually also as of yesterday, two and a half years ago! I should be over it now. But I'm not. When I did my matrix of things to do, the winner was to come back home and spend time on the computer, but instead I came home and took a long nap and then stayed up until 2am watching a whole series of America's Next Top Model. Again. Having done exactly the same thing last weekend. I am wasting my life.
Today I'm trying, I'm really trying, but I can't move or motivate myself to do anything. I woke up and lay in bed with the radio on for an hour, listening to an NPR show on musical tastes that was talking about Celine Dion and the Roches, both of whom are not to my taste. I dragged myself out of bed thinking, "I should have something different for breakfast. Maybe eggs? Something special, because it's Sunday." And instead had exactly the same precise thing I have for breakfast every single fucking day. And ever since then I have been trying to get myself to stretch and go down to the little gym in the office building of the apartment complex. I got myself there last Sunday, I should do it again. But so far have not. Everything hurts - back, shoulders, hips. Everything is stiff. Every muscle is weak. Post-viral. But also toxins from stress, and also out-of-shapeness from not going to the little gym as much as I planned to. But I can't seem to get myself there. And my mind is in a fight between, "Of course not! You're post-viral! You're tired and achy! Rest, darling! Don't push yourself! You know you will be fit again, and full of energy, one day." And the other side, which is saying, "You know that the only cure for stress-induced depression is aerobic exercise. You can remember how amazing you felt when your trainer in Sydney used to push you beyond your limits. You didn't die, you didn't hurt yourself, and it was exhilarating and wonderful afterwards, and you were getting fit as an added benefit. You know the only thing that will cure your sore back and lack of energy, and low-grade post-viral depression, is to get out there and flog yourself on the treadmill. Don't whine, you know it's true. How do you expect to be a top performer at work without any energy or fitness? How do you expect to ever win a man, you 44-year-old over the hill dried up spinster, how do you expect to keep passing for early 30's and fool them into sleeping with you, unless you go to the gym, right now, and at least three times a week, which you have not done?"
It's not working, as you can see, dear readers, the scoldy voice in my head. I'm here instead writing all this down. On my anniversary - of both arriving in Apple Town, to start my new life, and of my baby done leaving me, to end my old life.
I knew I would hit a three-month wall, I knew it would be about the time the excitement wore off and the tiredness and the view of the very long road still before me would kick in.
There are lots of good things, really. I have already absorbed myself into this new place in lots of ways, and mentally I think I feel pretty grounded and positive.
But there is a wall, nonetheless, and I have kind of hit it, so this post will have some whining in it as well.
Good things - I am really soaring at work. I am so, so qualified for my job, and I do in fact have a great deal of passion for it. I can contribute so much to the company and those sites, I have all the qualifications and life experience to do it. It doesn't just take a book-knowledge of internet best practice, it's also taking my leadership skills, presentation skills, negotiation and persuasion skills, diplomacy (like last Friday when two of my suppliers were acting like three-year-olds, honestly, and I had to referee and calm everyone down). Editorial, budgeting, design, technology, communicating between people in about 20 different disciplines, keeping my eye on strategic matters and not getting bogged down in tactical, going around people while making them still feel like they have power. Working hard without burning myself out and still leaving room to build a life here, because at the moment I have no life. I can do all of it. I'm great at nearly all of it. It's a good feeling, and inspirational. So work, mostly, is a good thing.
The landscape. It still makes me sigh, even though sometimes I wake up in the morning and look out the window and gasp in confusion. Despite that it's really cold and hard to drive in, I love the snow. It snows and stays, for weeks and weeks, because it's so cold. It's really pretty, and stays pretty. It's hard to drive in, but I love it. And the barns! I love the barns. I want to get out in the countryside and drive around and soak up the landscape through my eyes, which I haven't had a chance to do because it's so cold and snowy. It's not like the state does not realise that its barns are wonderful. There is a barn on my license plate. There is a barn on my driver's license. But they make my heart warm, when I see them. Barns are another good thing.
The town. The town has a good feel to it. I was looking for Appleton postcards at a bookshop in town yesterday, and the photos are just ridiculously bad - a picture of Memorial Bridge which is just a picture of a road, with a beige 6-story building in the distance. I imagined sending it to someone and the mental picture it would create in them - a bleak, boring, featureless, semi-abandoned nowhere in the middle of the midwest. This town is not like that. This town is kind of unphotographable, because the main street is so long and the nice impression it makes is derived from driving down it as a totality. There is a set of etchings on display at both the library and the historical museum that depicts the whole main street one block at a time, and it is breathtaking and wonderful. It kind of captures the positive impression of the main street as a single photograph cannot.
I don't know anyone in the town yet, and I am in no way at all connected to my community, but it has a great feel. I get the feeling there is interestingness and people I will want to hang out with. Which is good, because I'm kind of committed to staying here for a while. My stuff isn't even here yet (oh God, how I dread that day, when I have to shop for my own furniture and spend weeks and weeks working out how to arrange things in my apartment). And it was so traumatic pulling up stakes and getting here that I couldn't go through it again in the short term. And I would lose so much time - it would be another three months in the new place before I was thinking of getting out and getting social, and hitting the wall of illness and depression, and having to write stern lists to force myself to do what needs to be done. I couldn't afford the backward step. So, here I am, committed to stay for a while.
But wait, Ellen, what was that you said about illness and depression? Yeah, I'm done with my cold but I think I'm in a state a doctor once called "post-viral". Friday night I feel asleep on the couch (watching bad stand-up on Comedy Central) and finally stirred and dragged myself to bed at 3am, where I slept like a dead thing until 11 the next morning, having dreams about work. Yesterday I went and got my hair cut and then tried to organise all the "shoulds" in my head by working out if I have any goals - someone had mentioned goals the week before, actually two different people, and I was struck by the thought that I don't have any. None. No reason to go on, nothing in particular I want or am working toward, still in this bleak post-apocalyptic limbo of my broken heart. And the broken heart was, actually also as of yesterday, two and a half years ago! I should be over it now. But I'm not. When I did my matrix of things to do, the winner was to come back home and spend time on the computer, but instead I came home and took a long nap and then stayed up until 2am watching a whole series of America's Next Top Model. Again. Having done exactly the same thing last weekend. I am wasting my life.
Today I'm trying, I'm really trying, but I can't move or motivate myself to do anything. I woke up and lay in bed with the radio on for an hour, listening to an NPR show on musical tastes that was talking about Celine Dion and the Roches, both of whom are not to my taste. I dragged myself out of bed thinking, "I should have something different for breakfast. Maybe eggs? Something special, because it's Sunday." And instead had exactly the same precise thing I have for breakfast every single fucking day. And ever since then I have been trying to get myself to stretch and go down to the little gym in the office building of the apartment complex. I got myself there last Sunday, I should do it again. But so far have not. Everything hurts - back, shoulders, hips. Everything is stiff. Every muscle is weak. Post-viral. But also toxins from stress, and also out-of-shapeness from not going to the little gym as much as I planned to. But I can't seem to get myself there. And my mind is in a fight between, "Of course not! You're post-viral! You're tired and achy! Rest, darling! Don't push yourself! You know you will be fit again, and full of energy, one day." And the other side, which is saying, "You know that the only cure for stress-induced depression is aerobic exercise. You can remember how amazing you felt when your trainer in Sydney used to push you beyond your limits. You didn't die, you didn't hurt yourself, and it was exhilarating and wonderful afterwards, and you were getting fit as an added benefit. You know the only thing that will cure your sore back and lack of energy, and low-grade post-viral depression, is to get out there and flog yourself on the treadmill. Don't whine, you know it's true. How do you expect to be a top performer at work without any energy or fitness? How do you expect to ever win a man, you 44-year-old over the hill dried up spinster, how do you expect to keep passing for early 30's and fool them into sleeping with you, unless you go to the gym, right now, and at least three times a week, which you have not done?"
It's not working, as you can see, dear readers, the scoldy voice in my head. I'm here instead writing all this down. On my anniversary - of both arriving in Apple Town, to start my new life, and of my baby done leaving me, to end my old life.
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Minus how many?
Back in May of 2007, when this whole thing started, I visited my family in Denver. It was the first time I was in the US during the spring since I left for Australia, and everything was startling - all the flowers, the green of the new grass and the new leaves on the trees. My parents picked me up at the airport and we went to my sister's place, and I distinctly remember getting out of the car and walking to her front door with no coat on, distinctly remember it because it was the coldest I had been in memory. I found out it was 53 degrees. "Fifty-three!" I cried out. "That's not enough degrees!"
My sister still laughs hysterically at this when she remembers it.
I still stand by what I said that May, fifty-three is not enough degrees. But also, folks lemme tell you, four is also not enough degrees. Not nearly enough degrees at all. It was the number of degrees displaying this evening on both a bank sign and the sign out front of the Walgreens. By the time I got home, in my car, with the heat on full blast, I couldn't feel the tips of my fingers.
And right now it's four below, so not only do I not have enough degrees, I'm in the hole a few, and the universe owes them to me. Negative four, four degrees owed to me, is how cold it is now.
My sister still laughs hysterically at this when she remembers it.
I still stand by what I said that May, fifty-three is not enough degrees. But also, folks lemme tell you, four is also not enough degrees. Not nearly enough degrees at all. It was the number of degrees displaying this evening on both a bank sign and the sign out front of the Walgreens. By the time I got home, in my car, with the heat on full blast, I couldn't feel the tips of my fingers.
And right now it's four below, so not only do I not have enough degrees, I'm in the hole a few, and the universe owes them to me. Negative four, four degrees owed to me, is how cold it is now.
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Pomegranate Cosmopolitan
Much better today! After driving home while it was snowing last night, and driving very, very slowly to work on the snowy streets this morning, and feeling like I was pretty over this whole thing, my day improved substantially with an infusion of vodka. We had a half-day off-site meeting of my whole extended department, about 250 of us, mostly to review the accomplishments of 2007, so I didn't have to do much, just applaud. And then after the meeting four of us went about three doors down to this very nice martini bar. You'd never guess it was there, it was in a strip mall, out on the other side of the freeway, in the middle of nowhere, but the bar was really nice - wood paneling, nice paintings, Frank Sinatra on the stereo, and a vast, vast menu of different sorts of martinis. I went with the Pomegranate Cosmo, with pomegranate vodka, cranberry juice and a bit of triple sec. Very luridly red, and a little bit reminiscent of Campari but with more sugar. The four of us talked mostly about work, and it was good to hear the history of things, and the perspective of people from Promotions and Media, and about some cool things other brands are doing.
It was the first time I've been out for a drink in this town, and I'm so glad. It made driving easier (only one martini, right? and the roads were pretty clear tonight on the way home), and made the town look more beautiful, and when I got home pulling into the garage and unlocking the door and everything seemed easier than it had the night before, and my apartment seemed warmer (although not down by the front door, that seemed colder), and things looked a bit different like when you come back home after a long vacation. Just a little bit of vodka, and some companionship of course, and my perspective has changed!
Oh, I also went to the super-fun first class of Beginning Knitting. Super-fun? There wasn't anything particularly funnish about it that she did, it was just slip knot, cast on, knit, perl. Just exactly what you'd expect. But I love, love, love knitting, and I can't wait to get good and make elaborate cable-knit sweaters and things. So that probably sparkled up my vision of the world a little bit too.
It was the first time I've been out for a drink in this town, and I'm so glad. It made driving easier (only one martini, right? and the roads were pretty clear tonight on the way home), and made the town look more beautiful, and when I got home pulling into the garage and unlocking the door and everything seemed easier than it had the night before, and my apartment seemed warmer (although not down by the front door, that seemed colder), and things looked a bit different like when you come back home after a long vacation. Just a little bit of vodka, and some companionship of course, and my perspective has changed!
Oh, I also went to the super-fun first class of Beginning Knitting. Super-fun? There wasn't anything particularly funnish about it that she did, it was just slip knot, cast on, knit, perl. Just exactly what you'd expect. But I love, love, love knitting, and I can't wait to get good and make elaborate cable-knit sweaters and things. So that probably sparkled up my vision of the world a little bit too.
Monday, January 21, 2008
Sometimes James Wright is what you need
James Wright was a Kenyon poet, and he died in 1980, the year before I got there, so there were many tributes and discussions about him, and I'm glad to have made acquaintance with his work.
Today this is what I feel like:
Lying in a Hammock at William Duffy's Farm in Pine Island, Minnesota
Over my head, I see the bronze butterfly
Asleep on the black trunk,
Blowing like a leaf in green shadow.
Down the ravine behind the empty house,
The cowbells follow one another
Into the distances of the afternoon.
To my right,
In a field of sunlight between two pines,
The droppings of last year's horses
Blaze up into golden stones.
I lean back, as the evening darkens and comes on.
A chicken hawk floats over, looking for home.
I have wasted my life.
But I should always remember this one, my favorite poem of all time (published, by the way, the year I was born):
Two Hangovers
Number One
I slouch in bed.
Beyond the streaked trees of my window,
All groves are bare.
Locusts and poplars change to unmarried women
Sorting slate from anthracite
Between railroad ties:
The yellow-bearded winter of the depression
Is still alive somewhere, an old man
Counting his collection of bottle caps
In a tarpaper shack under the cold trees
Of my grave.
I still feel half drunk,
And all those old women beyond my window
Are hunching toward the graveyard.
Drunk, mumbling Hungarian,
The sun staggers in,
And his big stupid face pitches
Into the stove.
For two hours I have been dreaming
Of green butterflies searching for diamonds
In coal seams;
And children chasing each other for a game
Through the hills of fresh graves.
But the sun has come home drunk from the sea,
And a sparrow outside
Sings of the Hanna Coal Co. and the dead moon.
The filaments of cold light bulbs tremble
In music like delicate birds.
Ah, turn it off.
Number Two:
I Try to Waken and Greet the World Once Again
In a pine tree,
A few yards away from my window sill,
A brilliant blue jay is springing up and down, up and down,
On a branch.
I laugh, as I see him abandon himself
To entire delight, for he knows as well as I do
That the branch will not break.
Today this is what I feel like:
Lying in a Hammock at William Duffy's Farm in Pine Island, Minnesota
Over my head, I see the bronze butterfly
Asleep on the black trunk,
Blowing like a leaf in green shadow.
Down the ravine behind the empty house,
The cowbells follow one another
Into the distances of the afternoon.
To my right,
In a field of sunlight between two pines,
The droppings of last year's horses
Blaze up into golden stones.
I lean back, as the evening darkens and comes on.
A chicken hawk floats over, looking for home.
I have wasted my life.
But I should always remember this one, my favorite poem of all time (published, by the way, the year I was born):
Two Hangovers
Number One
I slouch in bed.
Beyond the streaked trees of my window,
All groves are bare.
Locusts and poplars change to unmarried women
Sorting slate from anthracite
Between railroad ties:
The yellow-bearded winter of the depression
Is still alive somewhere, an old man
Counting his collection of bottle caps
In a tarpaper shack under the cold trees
Of my grave.
I still feel half drunk,
And all those old women beyond my window
Are hunching toward the graveyard.
Drunk, mumbling Hungarian,
The sun staggers in,
And his big stupid face pitches
Into the stove.
For two hours I have been dreaming
Of green butterflies searching for diamonds
In coal seams;
And children chasing each other for a game
Through the hills of fresh graves.
But the sun has come home drunk from the sea,
And a sparrow outside
Sings of the Hanna Coal Co. and the dead moon.
The filaments of cold light bulbs tremble
In music like delicate birds.
Ah, turn it off.
Number Two:
I Try to Waken and Greet the World Once Again
In a pine tree,
A few yards away from my window sill,
A brilliant blue jay is springing up and down, up and down,
On a branch.
I laugh, as I see him abandon himself
To entire delight, for he knows as well as I do
That the branch will not break.
Saturday, January 19, 2008
guess how many degrees?
I've got a little weather station from L.L.Bean that I got for Christmas, that sits in my living room on the coffee table. It tells the temperature both inside and outside, although it's always a few degrees warm because the sensor sits close to the house. I've got that set in Fahrenheit, and then I've got some little weather widgets on my desktop because my new computer runs Vista, and those are set in Celsius.
Guess how many degrees it is right now? In Fahrenheit it's -11, but it sounds heaps better in Celsius. In Celsius degrees it is right now in Appleton TWENTY FOUR DEGREES BELOW ZERO!
And in Sydney right now it's 27 above, so today I'm almost as far below freezing as they are above.
Guess how many degrees it is right now? In Fahrenheit it's -11, but it sounds heaps better in Celsius. In Celsius degrees it is right now in Appleton TWENTY FOUR DEGREES BELOW ZERO!
And in Sydney right now it's 27 above, so today I'm almost as far below freezing as they are above.
More on politics - "voting power"
Last week on the news I heard a story that the members of the teacher's unions in Nevada were upset that the state was going to open polling places in the casinos, because it would give members of the culinary workers' unions "too much voting power".
Once again, I find this concept absolutely outrageous. Each person has exactly the same voting power, which is one vote. The fact that Nevada was making it possible for more people to exercise this power is to be applauded - in fact there should be enough polling places that every single person can exercise their equal power without any trouble or impediment, or disincentive like they might get fired from work or something.
And once again, I am probably finding this outrageous because I'm coming from a land where voting is compulsory. Every person has one vote and they are compelled to roll up to a polling place and tell the government what it is, or risk a fine.
Wish we had that here. It would solve lots of problems, I reckon. And would circumvent ridiculous conversations like the one Nevada is having with the teacher's union.
Once again, I find this concept absolutely outrageous. Each person has exactly the same voting power, which is one vote. The fact that Nevada was making it possible for more people to exercise this power is to be applauded - in fact there should be enough polling places that every single person can exercise their equal power without any trouble or impediment, or disincentive like they might get fired from work or something.
And once again, I am probably finding this outrageous because I'm coming from a land where voting is compulsory. Every person has one vote and they are compelled to roll up to a polling place and tell the government what it is, or risk a fine.
Wish we had that here. It would solve lots of problems, I reckon. And would circumvent ridiculous conversations like the one Nevada is having with the teacher's union.
Thursday, January 17, 2008
Geography by desire
Right now in Appleton it's about 17 degrees and falling (-11 Celcius). We had some snow overnight and a bit more during the day, and when I left work I had to scrape a thick layer of frozen ice off my windscreens, while standing in the dark, alone at the far end of the parking lot, in a chill wind. But I survived. I'm from Wisconsin now.
Before I left work I was talking to my colleague who's also a hybrid, part American and part from the UK. We were talking about how depressing the decor in our offices is, and he said, "But it's better than having an office with a window, because then you have to look out at Wisconsin." He mentioned how his boss's windows currently look out on a blank of uninterrupted white, and how depressing he finds that. And I said, "You haven't really acculturated here yet, have you?"
I was musing about what he said this evening after I got home. I was thinking about how I'm here to be here, and I want to embrace the Wisconsin-ness and learn about it. I want to read the history of the place and meeting typical representatives of it's People (deer hunters, knitters, etc.). I thought, about my colleague, "He shouldn't be here if he doesn't want to be here. He should have some authenticity and go where he wants to be" (which btw is Japan). I thought, "I would never move someplace I didn't actually want to be."
But then an echo of a former thought sounded in my head; the thought was, "When one does a PhD in Philosophy, one gives up having any particular geographical desires." I have thought that thought and said it out loud, many times. I have, many times, moved places where I didn't particularly want to be (San Diego. Brisbane, for God's sake.), because that's where the job was. That's where I had to go to do my thing that I did, at the highest level. So that's what my colleague is doing now.
And that got me to thinking - when one does a PhD in Philosophy, one gives up having any particular geographic desires. I moved to Boulder, San Diego, Brisbane, then Newcastle with my ex, then Killcare because it was half-way in between our jobs, then Surry Hills because our jobs moved and the commute was too far. Have I ever moved someplace because it was where I wanted to be? In my whole gol-durned life?
Ever?
Yes, once. This time. That is a scary thought, and a rather profound one. This is the first, ever, in my life, town that I moved to because I actually wanted to be here, and it wasn't particularly about the job, because the job I had before was better. Oh my God. Appleton is the first town I actually chose.
But, then, no wonder the view of uninterrupted whiteness out my colleague's boss's window doesn't depress me, in fact makes my heart soar.
Wow.
Before I left work I was talking to my colleague who's also a hybrid, part American and part from the UK. We were talking about how depressing the decor in our offices is, and he said, "But it's better than having an office with a window, because then you have to look out at Wisconsin." He mentioned how his boss's windows currently look out on a blank of uninterrupted white, and how depressing he finds that. And I said, "You haven't really acculturated here yet, have you?"
I was musing about what he said this evening after I got home. I was thinking about how I'm here to be here, and I want to embrace the Wisconsin-ness and learn about it. I want to read the history of the place and meeting typical representatives of it's People (deer hunters, knitters, etc.). I thought, about my colleague, "He shouldn't be here if he doesn't want to be here. He should have some authenticity and go where he wants to be" (which btw is Japan). I thought, "I would never move someplace I didn't actually want to be."
But then an echo of a former thought sounded in my head; the thought was, "When one does a PhD in Philosophy, one gives up having any particular geographical desires." I have thought that thought and said it out loud, many times. I have, many times, moved places where I didn't particularly want to be (San Diego. Brisbane, for God's sake.), because that's where the job was. That's where I had to go to do my thing that I did, at the highest level. So that's what my colleague is doing now.
And that got me to thinking - when one does a PhD in Philosophy, one gives up having any particular geographic desires. I moved to Boulder, San Diego, Brisbane, then Newcastle with my ex, then Killcare because it was half-way in between our jobs, then Surry Hills because our jobs moved and the commute was too far. Have I ever moved someplace because it was where I wanted to be? In my whole gol-durned life?
Ever?
Yes, once. This time. That is a scary thought, and a rather profound one. This is the first, ever, in my life, town that I moved to because I actually wanted to be here, and it wasn't particularly about the job, because the job I had before was better. Oh my God. Appleton is the first town I actually chose.
But, then, no wonder the view of uninterrupted whiteness out my colleague's boss's window doesn't depress me, in fact makes my heart soar.
Wow.
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Good day at work
I don't want to brag, although if I'm going to I might as well do it here, right?
Two different people at work today said that they'd been hearing good things about me. And these are people I don't even work with very closely, so I'm not sure who I impressed, exactly. But word is getting around.
I don't mean to brag, but that's pretty nice.
Two different people at work today said that they'd been hearing good things about me. And these are people I don't even work with very closely, so I'm not sure who I impressed, exactly. But word is getting around.
I don't mean to brag, but that's pretty nice.
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Interesting things flowing
So, I've been playing with Salem Tarot again lately, the Free 3 Card Reading. I played with it several times over this past cyber-weekend asked it once about my health and once I think about boys or meeting people.
The cards for the Past and the Present keep being cards about journeys being completed, accomplishments accomplished, balance restored, satisfaction, stability, tranquility. Well, yeah, I guess so. I made it here. My journey is complete. So different from when I used to ask the 3 Card Reading things when I was in Sydney, then it was always past hurt, recent trauma, wounded hearts, etc. Not that I believe in any of this, mind you. I know it's just a random number generator. I know that.
The card for the Future the first time I played with the reader this past few days, the theme that was going to get me forward into my future was "Mastery". Isn't that a lovely word? I've been watching so incredibly much reality TV that I'm already in mind of people working hard to transform themselves and achieve their goals, and become better people (Biggest Loser, Flip That House, America's Next Top Model, Miss America Reality Check, the list goes on and on). (There is a writer's strike on at the moment, you know?) (I mean, it isn't just me, all of the US is hooked on reality TV because it's all that's on.) (They're predicting the new season of Idol is going to absolutely go through the roof, I heard that from the Media guy at work.). I don't mind focusing on Mastery for the time being, here. Dedicating myself to what I do best, to my craft, to excellence, to making sure I take care and do things with care and mindfulness and work hard and strive to do my best. Don't mind doing that for a little bit here, not at all.
The second time I played with the reader the Future card was The Star. The star has a picture of a star (duh) and then a lovely lady kneeling by the water. Here's what it says:
"a beautiful woman kneels with one knee on land and one foot on the water. With a jug in each hand, she pours water into both. She is taking inspiration from her creative, intuitive side (water), applying it to her surroundings and daily life (earth), and using the power it gives her to replenish the source of her creativity (water), making a complete cycle. In essence, she is healing herself with water, the source of all life."
And the advice of this card is this:
"It is time for you to pursue your dream. Go to the source within your mind and heart, and replenish yourself by freeing your spirit. Allow your true self to shine through. Immerse yourself in the things that bring you joy, and inner peace."
The water image has really stuck with me. Combined with "mastery", it is giving me a sense of excellence and my best self, flowing through me. I could already feel it when I woke up this morning - a confidence, a lack of panic, a comfortableness, a belief in myself (went away soon enough, the drive to work in the snow was terrifying as usual and I also was petrified I was going to be late for a meeting and stressed all day about the things I'm not getting done). I've been kind of in the habit of being afraid and sorry for myself, but this morning I could feel that going away.
And the most important thing, which is just a subtle suggestion of a feeling so far but I think is going to be growing into something more important - I can feel the damage to my personality that was done from being in customer service for two years going brittle and flaking off, and beneath it is a robust and richer personality of a real grown-up person. I can feel the "polite" agreeable person that I built to be the customer service person, she has kind of a girly fake smile, she tilts her head at new people and says, "How are yew?" in a high-pitched voice. She squinches up her eyes and her mouth smiles like it's stuck onto the outside of the front of her face. Her eyes and mouth hurt by the end of the day from all the squinching and "How are yew?" ing.
That girl is flaking off, and inside the real girl, the ME, water is flowing. The Ellen is balanced, black and white, reason and emotion, science and art, here at the destination of her journey, and so she can put one knee on land and one foot in water and have the water of her personality flow back and forth and restore her creative, emotional self.
It's only just started, but I can already feel it. I think my voice is going to get deeper. I think my facial expressions might be more genuine. I will stand balanced on this Wisconsin ground and let my truth flow through me and be what I will become.
Don't let me forget.
The cards for the Past and the Present keep being cards about journeys being completed, accomplishments accomplished, balance restored, satisfaction, stability, tranquility. Well, yeah, I guess so. I made it here. My journey is complete. So different from when I used to ask the 3 Card Reading things when I was in Sydney, then it was always past hurt, recent trauma, wounded hearts, etc. Not that I believe in any of this, mind you. I know it's just a random number generator. I know that.
The card for the Future the first time I played with the reader this past few days, the theme that was going to get me forward into my future was "Mastery". Isn't that a lovely word? I've been watching so incredibly much reality TV that I'm already in mind of people working hard to transform themselves and achieve their goals, and become better people (Biggest Loser, Flip That House, America's Next Top Model, Miss America Reality Check, the list goes on and on). (There is a writer's strike on at the moment, you know?) (I mean, it isn't just me, all of the US is hooked on reality TV because it's all that's on.) (They're predicting the new season of Idol is going to absolutely go through the roof, I heard that from the Media guy at work.). I don't mind focusing on Mastery for the time being, here. Dedicating myself to what I do best, to my craft, to excellence, to making sure I take care and do things with care and mindfulness and work hard and strive to do my best. Don't mind doing that for a little bit here, not at all.
The second time I played with the reader the Future card was The Star. The star has a picture of a star (duh) and then a lovely lady kneeling by the water. Here's what it says:
"a beautiful woman kneels with one knee on land and one foot on the water. With a jug in each hand, she pours water into both. She is taking inspiration from her creative, intuitive side (water), applying it to her surroundings and daily life (earth), and using the power it gives her to replenish the source of her creativity (water), making a complete cycle. In essence, she is healing herself with water, the source of all life."
And the advice of this card is this:
"It is time for you to pursue your dream. Go to the source within your mind and heart, and replenish yourself by freeing your spirit. Allow your true self to shine through. Immerse yourself in the things that bring you joy, and inner peace."
The water image has really stuck with me. Combined with "mastery", it is giving me a sense of excellence and my best self, flowing through me. I could already feel it when I woke up this morning - a confidence, a lack of panic, a comfortableness, a belief in myself (went away soon enough, the drive to work in the snow was terrifying as usual and I also was petrified I was going to be late for a meeting and stressed all day about the things I'm not getting done). I've been kind of in the habit of being afraid and sorry for myself, but this morning I could feel that going away.
And the most important thing, which is just a subtle suggestion of a feeling so far but I think is going to be growing into something more important - I can feel the damage to my personality that was done from being in customer service for two years going brittle and flaking off, and beneath it is a robust and richer personality of a real grown-up person. I can feel the "polite" agreeable person that I built to be the customer service person, she has kind of a girly fake smile, she tilts her head at new people and says, "How are yew?" in a high-pitched voice. She squinches up her eyes and her mouth smiles like it's stuck onto the outside of the front of her face. Her eyes and mouth hurt by the end of the day from all the squinching and "How are yew?" ing.
That girl is flaking off, and inside the real girl, the ME, water is flowing. The Ellen is balanced, black and white, reason and emotion, science and art, here at the destination of her journey, and so she can put one knee on land and one foot in water and have the water of her personality flow back and forth and restore her creative, emotional self.
It's only just started, but I can already feel it. I think my voice is going to get deeper. I think my facial expressions might be more genuine. I will stand balanced on this Wisconsin ground and let my truth flow through me and be what I will become.
Don't let me forget.
Sunday, January 13, 2008
New favorite websites
If these don't cheer you up, nothing will.
Cute Overload
http://www.cuteoverload.com/
Kronsh!
Giant Microbes
http://www.giantmicrobes.com/
I totally want to order the "Calamities" set!
Cute Overload
http://www.cuteoverload.com/
Kronsh!
Giant Microbes
http://www.giantmicrobes.com/
I totally want to order the "Calamities" set!
Saturday, January 12, 2008
Comparative Language School
In Australia, to say "expensive", speakers use the first syllable to create the slang term "exy".
example:
"I hear it's a good restaurant, but it looks a bit exy."
Americans say "expensive" by using a variant of the second syllable, and also a verb associated with expensive things: "spendy".
example:
"I wanted to get the iMac with the 24 inch monitor, but it was too spendy, so I only got the 20."
example:
"I hear it's a good restaurant, but it looks a bit exy."
Americans say "expensive" by using a variant of the second syllable, and also a verb associated with expensive things: "spendy".
example:
"I wanted to get the iMac with the 24 inch monitor, but it was too spendy, so I only got the 20."
Puritan in my brain
I have woken up this morning better but with a bit of a headache. I was browsing around the internet just now and had this conversation in my head.
"Last week was a bad week."
"How could it have been bad? You had two days off!"
"I had a cold, though. I was in pain and uncomfortable the whole time. Wait a minute, having a cold is bad! It's not time off!"
Who is that puritan in my head that thinks any time off work is a holiday? It reminds me of the people who told me when I was unemployed for so long, "Oh, you're so lucky! Enjoy the time off!" Unemployment was definitely not time off. For 18 months (and think hard about how long that is, people), every single day, I woke up in immediate panic, thinking, "What can I do to get a job?" Every day, all day, I had to do everything I could that would get me a job, and nothing that did not get me closer to a job. Every day, all day, I worried about money. The long months of repeated rejection ate away at my self-confidence more and more, so I had to lean on my partner more and more for reassurance, and after 18 long months of it, it became too much for him, and he decided it was much more fun to hang out with his hobag imbecile dress designer homewrecking cunt of an ex-girlfriend in the trivial imbecilic up-itself full of shit city of Berlin. Rather than love me.
So, people, unemployment was not "time off" to "enjoy". You bastards. And having a cold is not "time off" either. My head hurts and I'm uncomfortable! Having a cold counts as having a bad week, just as much as being overly busy at work would count.
___
Must be some angry karma in the air this morning, because I just downloaded the Realaudio player and the sample video that was showing in their homepage menu was "woman being dragged underneath sliding car", complete with grainy still picture. Which was upsetting (the still picture was, I of course didn't click to watch the video). And Garrison Keillor's Writer's Almanac poem was all about people who kill kittens and puppies. Argh! I think I need some coffee.
"Last week was a bad week."
"How could it have been bad? You had two days off!"
"I had a cold, though. I was in pain and uncomfortable the whole time. Wait a minute, having a cold is bad! It's not time off!"
Who is that puritan in my head that thinks any time off work is a holiday? It reminds me of the people who told me when I was unemployed for so long, "Oh, you're so lucky! Enjoy the time off!" Unemployment was definitely not time off. For 18 months (and think hard about how long that is, people), every single day, I woke up in immediate panic, thinking, "What can I do to get a job?" Every day, all day, I had to do everything I could that would get me a job, and nothing that did not get me closer to a job. Every day, all day, I worried about money. The long months of repeated rejection ate away at my self-confidence more and more, so I had to lean on my partner more and more for reassurance, and after 18 long months of it, it became too much for him, and he decided it was much more fun to hang out with his hobag imbecile dress designer homewrecking cunt of an ex-girlfriend in the trivial imbecilic up-itself full of shit city of Berlin. Rather than love me.
So, people, unemployment was not "time off" to "enjoy". You bastards. And having a cold is not "time off" either. My head hurts and I'm uncomfortable! Having a cold counts as having a bad week, just as much as being overly busy at work would count.
___
Must be some angry karma in the air this morning, because I just downloaded the Realaudio player and the sample video that was showing in their homepage menu was "woman being dragged underneath sliding car", complete with grainy still picture. Which was upsetting (the still picture was, I of course didn't click to watch the video). And Garrison Keillor's Writer's Almanac poem was all about people who kill kittens and puppies. Argh! I think I need some coffee.
Friday, January 11, 2008
Head cold
Somewhere in Julia Cameron's book The Artist's Way she describes a cria as a great spiritual outcry, a block, a crisis, but also a declaration, a song, an invocation to the universe. I was looking for the page in the book but couldn't find it so I might be adding some things to her definition, but cria is the word I'm after.
I've got a bad cold. When I get colds they're worse than for other people, always, because of the asthma factor. The sequence goes like this, from immediately upon viral infection: I get a few days of feeling frustration, inadequacy and despair, usually around not exercising enough; then I actually get some symptoms and realise that's all it was; the first day is bad with runny nose, cough, sneezing, etc., then the next two days I start to get a bit better, then it all takes a sharp turn down. Things start to be the wrong colour. I feel hot and cold and shaky, I feel a poisoned liquid hollowness in the centre of my body. So then I have to start on the antibiotics, and often it takes two courses, so that's another week, week and a half. And it's probably two more weeks where, with exercise, I get back to feeling like I did originally, pre-viral.
I knew I would get sick here. I was thinking it would be two weeks after my international flight, but since I didn't sit very close to anyone I escaped it. No, it was the Christmas trip that did me in, and the coughing boy who was sitting next to me on the plane.
The Christmas trip was a psychological demarcation point anyway in this whole move. I had to power through the first two months at work, then everyone went away for a week, and I had a whole change of city and environment and companions and everything.
In the last two days of the break I was getting my typical migraines - florid visual spectra and loss of information in the visual field, sometimes with pain, sometimes with a surreal feeling. Migraines often happen to women with stressy lifestyles when they finally relax. Actually, men too - I remember a work colleague telling me his family holidays always started out with his father in bed for two days. So, I think my Christmas migraines were from being relaxed for a whole week, after how many? - six months of very high, constant, mind-squeezing stress.
And then now, I have the cold. I have the infection. I have started the antibiotics. I am home from work to rest. I have a feeling this is going to be a millennial cold, a demarcating cold, a transformative cold. One of those colds, as my sister once described, where you forget all your PIN numbers. Actually, that already happened today, at the grocery store when I stopped to lay in a weekend's worth of chicken soup. I will emerge cleansed, rebooted, different. Maybe more Wisconsonian.
Pray for me.
I've got a bad cold. When I get colds they're worse than for other people, always, because of the asthma factor. The sequence goes like this, from immediately upon viral infection: I get a few days of feeling frustration, inadequacy and despair, usually around not exercising enough; then I actually get some symptoms and realise that's all it was; the first day is bad with runny nose, cough, sneezing, etc., then the next two days I start to get a bit better, then it all takes a sharp turn down. Things start to be the wrong colour. I feel hot and cold and shaky, I feel a poisoned liquid hollowness in the centre of my body. So then I have to start on the antibiotics, and often it takes two courses, so that's another week, week and a half. And it's probably two more weeks where, with exercise, I get back to feeling like I did originally, pre-viral.
I knew I would get sick here. I was thinking it would be two weeks after my international flight, but since I didn't sit very close to anyone I escaped it. No, it was the Christmas trip that did me in, and the coughing boy who was sitting next to me on the plane.
The Christmas trip was a psychological demarcation point anyway in this whole move. I had to power through the first two months at work, then everyone went away for a week, and I had a whole change of city and environment and companions and everything.
In the last two days of the break I was getting my typical migraines - florid visual spectra and loss of information in the visual field, sometimes with pain, sometimes with a surreal feeling. Migraines often happen to women with stressy lifestyles when they finally relax. Actually, men too - I remember a work colleague telling me his family holidays always started out with his father in bed for two days. So, I think my Christmas migraines were from being relaxed for a whole week, after how many? - six months of very high, constant, mind-squeezing stress.
And then now, I have the cold. I have the infection. I have started the antibiotics. I am home from work to rest. I have a feeling this is going to be a millennial cold, a demarcating cold, a transformative cold. One of those colds, as my sister once described, where you forget all your PIN numbers. Actually, that already happened today, at the grocery store when I stopped to lay in a weekend's worth of chicken soup. I will emerge cleansed, rebooted, different. Maybe more Wisconsonian.
Pray for me.
Thursday, January 10, 2008
Up to date
Just filled in all the posts on this blog tonight, and got them all up to date.
Reading them now, I notice a funny oscillation between "I am home" and "I am lost", right throughout the collection.
Well, both are true. Just as I am both American and Australian at the same time, I am also both back where I come from and belong, and in a confusing alien land having an exotic adventure.
Geminis, hey?
Reading them now, I notice a funny oscillation between "I am home" and "I am lost", right throughout the collection.
Well, both are true. Just as I am both American and Australian at the same time, I am also both back where I come from and belong, and in a confusing alien land having an exotic adventure.
Geminis, hey?
Tuesday, January 8, 2008
2008: America Decides
So, Barack Obama won the Iowa caucuses, and Hillary Clinton won the New Hampshire primary. I watched the results for both races come in, and watched the speeches afterwards. Partly out of civic responsibility, since I've been away for a while but have to vote in this one, and partly because the writer's strike is still going and there's nothing else on TV.
Barack is, indeed, a very inspiring speaker. I had the strong realisation when I watched him that I would be right behind him as a candidate if I was still 22. That's a horrible thing to realise, that you're not 22 any more, but they say the over-30 Democrats are going with Hillary, and I find that so am I. I was trying to support Obama, but just as when I watched the Green Bay Packers play the Denver Broncos I just couldn't make myself be happy when the Packers did well, so I find myself following Hillary's campaign more closely, and feeling pleased at her victories, and swelling with an old feminist pride that a woman could be doing so well. She does look "presidential", just as they say. And isn't it amazing that her key problem going into this vote today is that she's viewed as one of the "old boy's network", part of the Washington establishment. How far we've come already.
And another thing. I don't get this "electability" thing they ask people about in polls, or that other Democrats argue about. In fact, I might even object to the very concept and argue that it's immoral to even talk about it. The point of a representative democracy, right, is that I vote for the candidate who I think best expresses my views on a majority of the issues over which the federal government has purview. Right? So, why should my decision of who to vote for be at all influenced by how I think people might vote who don't agree with my views? How can I in good conscience hesitate to vote for Hillary because I don't think Republicans will vote for her? They will or they won't. Depending on how representative she is of their views. Right? Isn't that how this whole democracy thing is supposed to work?
Barack is, indeed, a very inspiring speaker. I had the strong realisation when I watched him that I would be right behind him as a candidate if I was still 22. That's a horrible thing to realise, that you're not 22 any more, but they say the over-30 Democrats are going with Hillary, and I find that so am I. I was trying to support Obama, but just as when I watched the Green Bay Packers play the Denver Broncos I just couldn't make myself be happy when the Packers did well, so I find myself following Hillary's campaign more closely, and feeling pleased at her victories, and swelling with an old feminist pride that a woman could be doing so well. She does look "presidential", just as they say. And isn't it amazing that her key problem going into this vote today is that she's viewed as one of the "old boy's network", part of the Washington establishment. How far we've come already.
And another thing. I don't get this "electability" thing they ask people about in polls, or that other Democrats argue about. In fact, I might even object to the very concept and argue that it's immoral to even talk about it. The point of a representative democracy, right, is that I vote for the candidate who I think best expresses my views on a majority of the issues over which the federal government has purview. Right? So, why should my decision of who to vote for be at all influenced by how I think people might vote who don't agree with my views? How can I in good conscience hesitate to vote for Hillary because I don't think Republicans will vote for her? They will or they won't. Depending on how representative she is of their views. Right? Isn't that how this whole democracy thing is supposed to work?
man-shaped hole
Thinking about what I'm looking for in a partner (after filling in the extensive, time-consuming survey on eHarmony and getting no matches at all). I know exactly what I'm looking for in a partner. As I live my life I can detect the husband-shaped hole in it, and I know its contours exactly. I want a man to shovel my driveway. I want a man to put his arms around me in the evening when I come home from a rough day at work and say, "Don't worry, you are smart and capable and I love you." And when I have too many things to do and get confused, I want a man who listens patiently, frowning slightly with concentration, and then can tell me which three things I actually need to do today, which things I can delegate, and which I don't even have to worry about doing. See? Easy.
The thing that puzzles me is, what would a man ever want a woman for? I suppose I have a history of pining after self-contained loner types who don't express any neediness, much less affection for me, and I have a recent history of the love of my life deciding he specifically didn't need exactly me any more (the Ellen-shaped hole in his life had somehow filled in so I was no longer needed), so that might explain it. But if you think of the above described gaps, what a woman is, what she contributes to a relationship, is to be weak, soft, emotionally needy and with a confused brain. Who would ever want that in a life partner? Who would need something like that to complete them?
I'm sure I'm missing something here, about the whole equation. I'd love for some man to tell me what it is, though.
The thing that puzzles me is, what would a man ever want a woman for? I suppose I have a history of pining after self-contained loner types who don't express any neediness, much less affection for me, and I have a recent history of the love of my life deciding he specifically didn't need exactly me any more (the Ellen-shaped hole in his life had somehow filled in so I was no longer needed), so that might explain it. But if you think of the above described gaps, what a woman is, what she contributes to a relationship, is to be weak, soft, emotionally needy and with a confused brain. Who would ever want that in a life partner? Who would need something like that to complete them?
I'm sure I'm missing something here, about the whole equation. I'd love for some man to tell me what it is, though.
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