My friend Ian once talked about a lifestyle program, actually it was a diet plan, that was based on the Buddhist practice of mindfulness. In our ordinary lives we get into routines and patterns such that we do things out of habit without even thinking of them. The practice of mindfulness is to purposefully do things differently, so that you become aware of them again. Purposefully eat something different for breakfast that you normally do. Purposefully go a different way to work. Purposefully use a different plate for dinner than you normally do. Purposefully go to the movies at a time of day when you ordinarily wouldn't. The way this works as a diet plan is that it makes you aware of portions, how many times you eat in a day, snacking, nutritional content, taste, texture, etc. The way the practice works in general is to make you aware of the world and notice its features, rather than moving through blind and numb.
Another friend I knew in Sydney was having trouble with her new baby, because she wouldn't sleep and wasn't feeding properly. After many months of exasperation, she gained a place in a residential facility (run by the government, for free, including meals and lodging for a whole week - just remarkable) for new mothers who were confronting similar problems. I saw her about a week out, and she was a new woman, with a new life and a new peace. And the key problem was routine. Her baby needed a regular routine, of sleeping, waking and eating. I remember she said, "I had to tell J. (her husband), we just can't take her out to a cafe in the pram at 9 o'clock at night any more." No wonder she was having trouble. The family and the household had now been rearranged so that the baby could follow her routine of waking, sleeping and eating, every day, at the same times, no exceptions. And this made everyone's life better.
Thinking of the mindfulness exercise today, I thought of how I'm craving and requiring a routine here - I have to schedule waking and sleeping (I now have both "wake up and go to work" and "go to bed" alarms that ring on my phone), I have to schedule in exercise and be absolutely relentless and exceptionless about it (long way from that yet), I should also schedule in down-time and knitting time and relaxation time (can you say "Pyjama Saturday?), and so then when I'm in those times I can relax and not worry that I should be doing something else.
People stuck in routines need mindfulness to give them awareness, but babies and me need routine to give structure and avoid the crying and fussing and insomnia. For babies, the world is new, so maybe they need lots of sameness and predictability in their life to be able to cope with the new things. For me, my world is new. I wish there was a residential facility run by the government here that I could book myself into, to establish a calming routine. Knowing that I need one, though (and being more than a foot tall and having my own driver's license and all that), I should be able to put one together for myself.
Friday, February 29, 2008
Weather exceeding expectations
Yesterday it had snowed about 3-4 inches overnight, so I had to shovel in the morning (the apartment complex plows hadn't come by yet). It was clear on the drive to work, but snowed off and on during the day. I was getting ready to go by about 4 and people came by and said, "It's snowing again. They said it was going to be warmer this weekend. I'm about ready to be done with this." I didn't get away until about 5:15 and was imagining the scene outside - low visibility, messy snow that tires had to push through on the freeway, traffic, sliding on the ice, a scene of a whole world all the same colour - grey sky, grey snow, darker grey leafless trees.
Instead, when I came out it was actually sunny. No snow had accumulated so I didn't even have to brush my car off. The roads were wet, but clear, and the world had three colours - light blue sky, bright white snow, and the dark brown of the trees between.
The color combination was so beautiful that I wanted to knit something based on it.
Definitely exceeded expectations.
Instead, when I came out it was actually sunny. No snow had accumulated so I didn't even have to brush my car off. The roads were wet, but clear, and the world had three colours - light blue sky, bright white snow, and the dark brown of the trees between.
The color combination was so beautiful that I wanted to knit something based on it.
Definitely exceeded expectations.
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Freudian Language School
I heard a woman say the other day that in her recent career she felt that she had been "pigeon-held".
Isn't that a great expression?
It obviously starts with "pigeon-hole" and then the past tense, "pigeon-holed", but then you swap "holed" for the homophone "hold", as in holding onto something or holding something back, and then do the past tense again and you get "pigeon-held".
It conveys both the sense of being unfairly stereotyped and of being unfairly constrained or restrained.
Isn't that great?
Isn't that a great expression?
It obviously starts with "pigeon-hole" and then the past tense, "pigeon-holed", but then you swap "holed" for the homophone "hold", as in holding onto something or holding something back, and then do the past tense again and you get "pigeon-held".
It conveys both the sense of being unfairly stereotyped and of being unfairly constrained or restrained.
Isn't that great?
Rock and Roll self
Way back, Matt Groening published a Life in Hell cartoon that had a way to calculate your life expectancy. Sort of a parody of the Insurance Company actuarial health questionnaires, I guess. I came out losing quite a few years for "wearing sun glasses at night". (My sister, btw, I remember, did not lose points for "have worn leather pants" but did for "have slept with someone who wears leather pants".)
A few years later I was suffering the break-up of my first "significant" relationship - why, it had lasted ten whole months rather than one month as usual (that was the one before the 10-year one that I'm always whinging about here). I remember going and hanging out on my own in the Brisbane CBD, and I remember going to see the movie Reality Bites, and I remember wearing my sunglasses into the movie. I had been hanging out with uniformly geeky Cognitive Science staff members (half Computer Science department, half Psychology), all young academics, all just post-Ph.D., all looking for love. I remember when Kurt Cobain died, they said "Who?" So an important part of my post-breakup new independence was reclaiming my Rock and Roll self. And one manifestation of that was wearing sunglasses in inappropriate places. It made me feel great - tough, independent, rock and roll, confronting, cool.
But, but. Asserting my rock and roll self was borne out of pain and fragility.
And last week, I noticed myself feeling exactly that same way - I was wearing black to work, my long black coat, I had a sort of defiant strut when walking in and out of the building, I left my sunglasses on in the lobby when I came in. It made me feel great - defiant, independent, like I wasn't the same as any bland average corporate worker slugs (not that anyone I work with is like that, but there might be some in the rest of building). I'm sure it was, though, similarly, borne of pain and fragility.
I wonder if all Rock and Rollers are the same?
A few years later I was suffering the break-up of my first "significant" relationship - why, it had lasted ten whole months rather than one month as usual (that was the one before the 10-year one that I'm always whinging about here). I remember going and hanging out on my own in the Brisbane CBD, and I remember going to see the movie Reality Bites, and I remember wearing my sunglasses into the movie. I had been hanging out with uniformly geeky Cognitive Science staff members (half Computer Science department, half Psychology), all young academics, all just post-Ph.D., all looking for love. I remember when Kurt Cobain died, they said "Who?" So an important part of my post-breakup new independence was reclaiming my Rock and Roll self. And one manifestation of that was wearing sunglasses in inappropriate places. It made me feel great - tough, independent, rock and roll, confronting, cool.
But, but. Asserting my rock and roll self was borne out of pain and fragility.
And last week, I noticed myself feeling exactly that same way - I was wearing black to work, my long black coat, I had a sort of defiant strut when walking in and out of the building, I left my sunglasses on in the lobby when I came in. It made me feel great - defiant, independent, like I wasn't the same as any bland average corporate worker slugs (not that anyone I work with is like that, but there might be some in the rest of building). I'm sure it was, though, similarly, borne of pain and fragility.
I wonder if all Rock and Rollers are the same?
Sunday, February 24, 2008
Breezes
(Walking up to the movie theatre to do some pre-Oscars scholarship but No Country For Old Men was not on). Today it is so warm that you can pull your unloved hand out of your pocket and it doesn't even hurt your skin. There's a breeze that's just a breeze, not a "wind chill".
Hurry on, Spring.
Hurry on, Spring.
Transcribed from a small spiral notebook
24.2.08
First visit to the funky cafe' on the south side of College Av.
What do I smell?
Coffee. Not much else, nose is still a bit congested from wintertime.
What do I hear?
A blender. Later, the milk frother on the coffee machine. Rattling cutlery. It makes me miss the coffee shop at the [NSW] Art Gallery.
What do I see?
Black round table. Rustic wood floor. Remains of a sesame bagel on a glass plate, and half a generous portion of cream cheese in a plastic container that I'm tempted to put in my pocket and take home (but for the mess and lack of refrigeration). An old radiator beside me, non-functional, purely decorative, cool to the touch. Truck book - almost done. It makes me laugh out loud every few pages and I have to stifle my giggles (they turn into coughs) because I'm in public.
What else do I hear?
Patti Smith.
What do I feel?
Cold air from the door, and the table top is so cold to the touch that when I first rested my forearms on it I thought it was wet.
And I feel like I'm travelling.
And I also feel sad, like I have a big hollow inside me that I miss and will never fill.
You can see a pile of snow out the window, past the footpath and beside the road, where the plow has plowed it up, but otherwise it's all concrete and buildings.
I sometimes look up from the book and out and I recognize the look from the inside as one my friends in 7th grade (8th grade?) made merciless fun of.
I've always been a melancholy and overdramatic girl.
I am probably sad now about the same thing I was sad about in 8th grade.
I also feel a soft coat on my tongue and mouth-roof from the cream cheese, and a rough bitter tang on my teeth from the coffee.
I'm in jeans and a black sweater. I only did powder foundation this morning, not liquid, because it's the weekend. My hair is growing back into shape from the last trim and falling in my face. Yay. The salon called this week to remind me of a scheduled fringe trim on Saturday (yesterday) but my bangs are not yet long enough to trim, definitively proving that she cut them way too short last time. I might postpone my proper cut as well, later. The best way to grow your hair is not not cut it.
What do I feel?
Happy like I'm travelling, sad like I've left my past behind and have a broken heart.
First visit to the funky cafe' on the south side of College Av.
What do I smell?
Coffee. Not much else, nose is still a bit congested from wintertime.
What do I hear?
A blender. Later, the milk frother on the coffee machine. Rattling cutlery. It makes me miss the coffee shop at the [NSW] Art Gallery.
What do I see?
Black round table. Rustic wood floor. Remains of a sesame bagel on a glass plate, and half a generous portion of cream cheese in a plastic container that I'm tempted to put in my pocket and take home (but for the mess and lack of refrigeration). An old radiator beside me, non-functional, purely decorative, cool to the touch. Truck book - almost done. It makes me laugh out loud every few pages and I have to stifle my giggles (they turn into coughs) because I'm in public.
What else do I hear?
Patti Smith.
What do I feel?
Cold air from the door, and the table top is so cold to the touch that when I first rested my forearms on it I thought it was wet.
And I feel like I'm travelling.
And I also feel sad, like I have a big hollow inside me that I miss and will never fill.
You can see a pile of snow out the window, past the footpath and beside the road, where the plow has plowed it up, but otherwise it's all concrete and buildings.
I sometimes look up from the book and out and I recognize the look from the inside as one my friends in 7th grade (8th grade?) made merciless fun of.
I've always been a melancholy and overdramatic girl.
I am probably sad now about the same thing I was sad about in 8th grade.
I also feel a soft coat on my tongue and mouth-roof from the cream cheese, and a rough bitter tang on my teeth from the coffee.
I'm in jeans and a black sweater. I only did powder foundation this morning, not liquid, because it's the weekend. My hair is growing back into shape from the last trim and falling in my face. Yay. The salon called this week to remind me of a scheduled fringe trim on Saturday (yesterday) but my bangs are not yet long enough to trim, definitively proving that she cut them way too short last time. I might postpone my proper cut as well, later. The best way to grow your hair is not not cut it.
What do I feel?
Happy like I'm travelling, sad like I've left my past behind and have a broken heart.
I have Unpacker's Block
So, all my things arrived off the boat from Australia last Friday morning. As the day loomed, I was filled with more and more dread, and had a secret wish that the vessel Eagle II would have an ocean-going accident (all crew aboard rescued of course) and all my boxes would sink to the bottom of the sea, Life of Pi-style. Appleton so far has had a clean, pure, Zen-like simplicity to it. My furnished apartment provides me everything I need, without having to think about it. Once my stuff arrived, I knew I would have to replace all the furnished things with things of my own (not just big stuff like the master bed, but little stuff like the dust pan and the carrot peeler and the shower curtains), and each one of those things would require decisions from me. Price point, new or used, colour, style, what day to deliver, how to deliver if it was used, etc etc. You try it, readers, you try to do a planned, responsible, efficient, cost-effective purchase of a carrot peeler, and tell me how you go. They are available too many places. There are too many options. You can't do it, you just have to end up doing an impulse buy of a carrot peeler, first one you see, based on emotion and convenience rather than price and responsibility. But when you're doing that with a bed, the stakes are a bit higher and the potential lost financial upside opportunities much greater. That is, if I end up just buying the first pretty bed I see and paying extra for delivery, compare that strategy to scouting around and finding someone who can give me their bed for free. Could end up being thousands of dollars.
Anyway, so the day came, the stuff arrived, I unwrapped my big painting right away, before I went back to work, but everything else has just been sitting there ever since. I was away last weekend, but I was here all week, and I haven't cracked one box, any of those evenings.
This morning I made a tiny start. I still didn't open a box, I just unwrapped a small cabinet from the protective white packing the movers had wrapped it in. It was standing on one end, too, and I wanted to get it down on its feet. So, I just did that just now. Took the Swiss Army Knife, cut through the tape, unwrapped the wrapping, stood the cabinet on its feet and dragged it over to a little spot in my entryway where I think it will look okay.
So, if you stand back just a little bit, you can see my big painting and this little cabinet at the same time.
And I'm realising maybe why I have a bit of unpacker's block. We bought that little cabinet at the end of a Christmas trip, the first year S. and I lived in Newcastle. We had moved down together in the old jag in March. We'd scrimped and saved and lived sitting on the floor for months and months. I got my first web job. We lived by the beach. By Christmas everything was starting to be pretty good. We went up for a week to Barrington Tops, staying in a holiday house called Gumnut Cottage. It looked out over a wide hill, to gum trees. It had native bushes outside the front that attracted little bitty native honey-eater sorts of birds (this prompted the purchase of a Birds of Australia guide book that we used all the time the next year when we moved to the Central Coast). A mangy pony came by all the time, and about three little wallabies would stand in the yard watching us carefully. The furniture inside the house was much nicer than we had at home. One night we built a fire in the little grate outside and had a bang-up barbeque feast - chicken, roasted corn, vegetables, nice wine. (We tried to repeat the exact same feast a few nights later but the coals got too hot and everything burned - terrible disappointment and the lesson that you can't always recapture the past.) Also, we had brought the old beige PC (Windows 3.0 on it), with its unweildy big beige monitor, and had found a phone jack that was active, and had the local dial-up number for the ISP that I was working for at the time, so we had internet access the whole time, and that was the first time I saw the original South Park viral video, before the show was even started.
We went on long drives through the rain forest, and parked and walked down to a little waterfall. I had the wrong shoes on, but it was gorgeous and worth the trouble to get there. We at one point went over a rock or something in the jag, and the muffler was so rusted out that it shattered, so we had a hole in the muffler from then until we found a good mechanic in Blacktown, later when we were living on the Central Coast and I was working in Castle Hill, and he put in a glamorous shiny new stainless steel exhaust, which still looked good the day I gave the jag away.
We didn't want to leave Gumnut Cottage, but on the day we did we took a meandering drive and ended up at a little store out in the country, outside of Dungog. I think he saw the little cabinet first. It's low, with two rows of five little square drawers that are about 4" x 4". It looks antique, but it was new. It's pine, finished in a honey coloured stain that didn't match anything else we owned but somehow fits in. The drawers aren't exactly true, some of them stick when you try to pull them out and some don't close all the way. But it was the first piece of nice furniture we ever bought together, and it was the first piece of furniture I ever bought that didn't really serve a purpose, it was just pretty.
Here it is, now. Now, it's here. It sits next to the painting and reminds me of my life over there.
I think that'll do me, for this weekend. I think everything else needs to stay in its boxes for a bit, and I'm going to get dressed and go out into my new town, and live in the future, and make it the Now.
Anyway, so the day came, the stuff arrived, I unwrapped my big painting right away, before I went back to work, but everything else has just been sitting there ever since. I was away last weekend, but I was here all week, and I haven't cracked one box, any of those evenings.
This morning I made a tiny start. I still didn't open a box, I just unwrapped a small cabinet from the protective white packing the movers had wrapped it in. It was standing on one end, too, and I wanted to get it down on its feet. So, I just did that just now. Took the Swiss Army Knife, cut through the tape, unwrapped the wrapping, stood the cabinet on its feet and dragged it over to a little spot in my entryway where I think it will look okay.
So, if you stand back just a little bit, you can see my big painting and this little cabinet at the same time.
And I'm realising maybe why I have a bit of unpacker's block. We bought that little cabinet at the end of a Christmas trip, the first year S. and I lived in Newcastle. We had moved down together in the old jag in March. We'd scrimped and saved and lived sitting on the floor for months and months. I got my first web job. We lived by the beach. By Christmas everything was starting to be pretty good. We went up for a week to Barrington Tops, staying in a holiday house called Gumnut Cottage. It looked out over a wide hill, to gum trees. It had native bushes outside the front that attracted little bitty native honey-eater sorts of birds (this prompted the purchase of a Birds of Australia guide book that we used all the time the next year when we moved to the Central Coast). A mangy pony came by all the time, and about three little wallabies would stand in the yard watching us carefully. The furniture inside the house was much nicer than we had at home. One night we built a fire in the little grate outside and had a bang-up barbeque feast - chicken, roasted corn, vegetables, nice wine. (We tried to repeat the exact same feast a few nights later but the coals got too hot and everything burned - terrible disappointment and the lesson that you can't always recapture the past.) Also, we had brought the old beige PC (Windows 3.0 on it), with its unweildy big beige monitor, and had found a phone jack that was active, and had the local dial-up number for the ISP that I was working for at the time, so we had internet access the whole time, and that was the first time I saw the original South Park viral video, before the show was even started.
We went on long drives through the rain forest, and parked and walked down to a little waterfall. I had the wrong shoes on, but it was gorgeous and worth the trouble to get there. We at one point went over a rock or something in the jag, and the muffler was so rusted out that it shattered, so we had a hole in the muffler from then until we found a good mechanic in Blacktown, later when we were living on the Central Coast and I was working in Castle Hill, and he put in a glamorous shiny new stainless steel exhaust, which still looked good the day I gave the jag away.
We didn't want to leave Gumnut Cottage, but on the day we did we took a meandering drive and ended up at a little store out in the country, outside of Dungog. I think he saw the little cabinet first. It's low, with two rows of five little square drawers that are about 4" x 4". It looks antique, but it was new. It's pine, finished in a honey coloured stain that didn't match anything else we owned but somehow fits in. The drawers aren't exactly true, some of them stick when you try to pull them out and some don't close all the way. But it was the first piece of nice furniture we ever bought together, and it was the first piece of furniture I ever bought that didn't really serve a purpose, it was just pretty.
Here it is, now. Now, it's here. It sits next to the painting and reminds me of my life over there.
I think that'll do me, for this weekend. I think everything else needs to stay in its boxes for a bit, and I'm going to get dressed and go out into my new town, and live in the future, and make it the Now.
Saturday, February 23, 2008
Another Pyjama Saturday
My rhythm for Appleton weekends is pretty regular now, although it doesn't match up with the town's schedule very well at all. I haven't been doing well on my 10pm bedtimes and 6 o'clock starts this week, either, so today was a late arising, but otherwise it's been the same as the past three out of four weekends (and man did I make it up for it last weekend, but that's a different story...). Woke up, had a leisurely breakfast reading the latest New Yorker, did laundry, did dishes, mopped, cleaned bathrooms, dusted. That got me to about 6pm. Yes, seriously, although I did spend some time talking to my sister on the phone. She's back in this hemisphere, and now I'm in it too, which is unique and wonderful. When we first got on the phone I was trying to work out what day it was where she was, and then realised she's only an hour different - freaky and wonderful!
All the fun things to do in Appleton, though, happen on Saturday. There's a market downtown, there's music at the Harmony Cafe, the Art Center is open, all the shops downtown are open. Sunday nothing is open. But in my life I seem to require a Pyjama Saturday to recover from the week, where I do nothing but lie around and potter in the house, and don't take a shower or ever get dressed. Then resume the 6 o'clock starts on Sunday, exercise, go out, be amongst people, do stuff. But on Sunday nothing's open. I keep winding up at the Mall - the only place you can walk any distance, and the main place where people are. I will work this out. My job won't be this hard all the time.
One nice thing, a nice meditative and centering thing, is that I have got back into the knitting. The second panel of the afghan is about half done, and right now I'm working on some homework for class, a gauge swatch. For the afghan, since it's my own project, I knit my way, which is to throw the yarn. Also, the yarn is kind of cheap so when I started a new skein of grey it's quite a bit thicker than the last one, so the finished project is going to have kind of a rustic look. The only problem with throwing is it makes my left elbow hurt - an old "tennis elbow" injury from a combination of typing in a funny position at work and carrying heavy bags of groceries across the street from the Surry Hills Coles to my old apartment. In contrast, when I do homework for class I try to do Continental, like the teacher taught us. Up to now it was always really tight, and awkward to do, with my fists in little tight balls. But I think I've cracked it now, I'm relaxed and much looser, and I've noticed that my elbow doesn't hurt when doing it because you don't really move your left arm at all. Going back and forth will probably work for me. I might even one day be a 100% Continental knitter. I can't see it, at the moment, because it's not as smooth or mindless, but with practice, anything can happen, right?
All the fun things to do in Appleton, though, happen on Saturday. There's a market downtown, there's music at the Harmony Cafe, the Art Center is open, all the shops downtown are open. Sunday nothing is open. But in my life I seem to require a Pyjama Saturday to recover from the week, where I do nothing but lie around and potter in the house, and don't take a shower or ever get dressed. Then resume the 6 o'clock starts on Sunday, exercise, go out, be amongst people, do stuff. But on Sunday nothing's open. I keep winding up at the Mall - the only place you can walk any distance, and the main place where people are. I will work this out. My job won't be this hard all the time.
One nice thing, a nice meditative and centering thing, is that I have got back into the knitting. The second panel of the afghan is about half done, and right now I'm working on some homework for class, a gauge swatch. For the afghan, since it's my own project, I knit my way, which is to throw the yarn. Also, the yarn is kind of cheap so when I started a new skein of grey it's quite a bit thicker than the last one, so the finished project is going to have kind of a rustic look. The only problem with throwing is it makes my left elbow hurt - an old "tennis elbow" injury from a combination of typing in a funny position at work and carrying heavy bags of groceries across the street from the Surry Hills Coles to my old apartment. In contrast, when I do homework for class I try to do Continental, like the teacher taught us. Up to now it was always really tight, and awkward to do, with my fists in little tight balls. But I think I've cracked it now, I'm relaxed and much looser, and I've noticed that my elbow doesn't hurt when doing it because you don't really move your left arm at all. Going back and forth will probably work for me. I might even one day be a 100% Continental knitter. I can't see it, at the moment, because it's not as smooth or mindless, but with practice, anything can happen, right?
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Beginner's Mistakes
I've been thinking a lot lately about a scene in one of the later seasons of The West Wing, to which I was quite addicted before I moved. The cute young guy is running the election campaign for Jimmy Smits, and the old guy who later that season very tragically passed away is counselling him after a miscalculation. The young guy is feeling despair at the failure and thinks he's all washed up. The older, mentor guy says something like "Nobody expects you not to make mistakes. It's about how you recover from mistakes that shows your true character."
I've had a week of making beginner's mistakes. I realize I was too soft on my web development agency at the beginning, all "I'm from the agency side too, I understand you, I will make your life easy." I needed to start out as a hardass and then work with them as things went along. I will do this next time, but for this project the mistake is already made.
I got drawn into the world of a colleague who has a tendency toward the apocalyptic in his view of things. We got a design that was less than what we wanted, and he was ready to fire the company who did it and smear their name from coast to coast and start the project over. But it turns out the next day we got something much better, and they are adequate after all. I got drawn into his world view and lost the reins of the project and forgot that it's my project, I'm answerable, if it slips it reflects on me, and I have to control all the interested parties. I think I'm getting hold of the reins back, but the slip was a mistake, and I can't let it happen again (truth be told, though, my colleague is a new colleague and I didn't know that he always reacts this same way, I trusted that there was a catastrophe but I now think there's probably not).
Also, when I first started the job I had plans to stage a revolution in quality, because my sites' content was not being managed very well, I didn't think. I wanted to read every word, know every page, click on ever link, make sure it was all up to standards. I don't think I'll be able to keep this up. My job is to be strategic and analytical, and I don't have time for details. I'm too senior for details. I have to delegate them, and it's hard because that was going to be the gratifying fun part. I don't yet have vendors I can trust. But I have to figure it out, because otherwise I will be still doing the junior job, dragged down into work that is beneath me, not at my level, and I won't get the my-level stuff done and I won't flourish in my job or career. I know I can do it, but it's hard hard hard. Takes all my strength to lift myself up and be the manager. This is more senior than my last job, and old habits die hard. This focus on details is another mistake, and I haven't fixed it yet, can't quite see my way out of that particular cave, but I have to find it.
Tonight I have just come home, and I'm going to sit and do easy things. No expectations on myself at all. One night off, when I will just sit passive and still and so I am unlikely to do anything wrong. Because in fact the pressure of having to recover from mistakes in a way that demonstrates one's superior character is just too much pressure, and too much opportunity to make new mistakes. One night off.
I've had a week of making beginner's mistakes. I realize I was too soft on my web development agency at the beginning, all "I'm from the agency side too, I understand you, I will make your life easy." I needed to start out as a hardass and then work with them as things went along. I will do this next time, but for this project the mistake is already made.
I got drawn into the world of a colleague who has a tendency toward the apocalyptic in his view of things. We got a design that was less than what we wanted, and he was ready to fire the company who did it and smear their name from coast to coast and start the project over. But it turns out the next day we got something much better, and they are adequate after all. I got drawn into his world view and lost the reins of the project and forgot that it's my project, I'm answerable, if it slips it reflects on me, and I have to control all the interested parties. I think I'm getting hold of the reins back, but the slip was a mistake, and I can't let it happen again (truth be told, though, my colleague is a new colleague and I didn't know that he always reacts this same way, I trusted that there was a catastrophe but I now think there's probably not).
Also, when I first started the job I had plans to stage a revolution in quality, because my sites' content was not being managed very well, I didn't think. I wanted to read every word, know every page, click on ever link, make sure it was all up to standards. I don't think I'll be able to keep this up. My job is to be strategic and analytical, and I don't have time for details. I'm too senior for details. I have to delegate them, and it's hard because that was going to be the gratifying fun part. I don't yet have vendors I can trust. But I have to figure it out, because otherwise I will be still doing the junior job, dragged down into work that is beneath me, not at my level, and I won't get the my-level stuff done and I won't flourish in my job or career. I know I can do it, but it's hard hard hard. Takes all my strength to lift myself up and be the manager. This is more senior than my last job, and old habits die hard. This focus on details is another mistake, and I haven't fixed it yet, can't quite see my way out of that particular cave, but I have to find it.
Tonight I have just come home, and I'm going to sit and do easy things. No expectations on myself at all. One night off, when I will just sit passive and still and so I am unlikely to do anything wrong. Because in fact the pressure of having to recover from mistakes in a way that demonstrates one's superior character is just too much pressure, and too much opportunity to make new mistakes. One night off.
Monday, February 18, 2008
mid-February
This has been the snowiest and coldest winter in Wisconsin in the past 30 years. Madison, just to the south, has had more snow than in any February ever, and it's only the 18th. Here, too, we are equaling records, and with about six more weeks of winter to go, are a good bet to shatter some of them.
A couple weeks ago - Groundhog Day, in fact - I was thinking, cool, whatever, I'm doing just fine in this snowy weather, six more weeks, or eight, that's not many, I'll be fine! This isn't hard, what do people complain about?
Yesterday I very bravely drove back home from Wausau on roads that were safe-ish, but not very clear. I focussed on staying in the ruts and going slow. I focussed on the red tail lights ahead of me and thought of nothing but lining up behind them - which technique almost made me head off to Oshkosh, but at the last minute I took my own bend in the road and became for a while the trail blazer for a line of trucks and cars. Near towns, where traffic slowed down, I guess the heat in the tires was less and the ruts tended to disappear, so you'd just do your best to find a line through the undifferentiated white snow field until some ruts appeared again on the other side of the town. I saw three cars in the ditch - one that looked like it had been there a long time, one with red tail lights still on, newly ditched, and one being elaborately towed out. People go in the ditch because they're going too fast. If you don't go too fast, you shouldn't go in the ditch, but there's always the rogue patch of ice that might sneak up on you unexpectedly. I pressed on, and made it home safe.
The drive to work today was dreadful, and home again pretty bad as well (two more inches fell today). Appleton is out of salt, like everywhere in Wisconsin, and the plow drivers have been doing lots of 16 hour shifts in a row so they're not all that prompt any more. Which is fine, but it makes driving actually dangerous, slippery, inconvenient, tiring.
When I was in college, in Ohio, which is in the "Gloom Belt", I remember February. Even though it's the shortest month it always seemed interminably long. Everyone joked that it was the month everyone contemplated killing themselves, or maybe their roommate. It was dark and cold, the snow had lost its novelty, the ice storms would knock the power out, the slip and fall on Middle Path on the way to classes wasn't your seasonal first one, it was about your 70th. Bah.
And here it is mid-February of the coldest and snowiest winter in 30 years, and yep, I'm there again. I'm tired of this now. I want to see the Melt. I want to drive up to a corner and be able to see around it into the oncoming traffic. I want to walk without worrying about the traction on my feet. I want to leave work when it's light. I don't want to scrape ice off a windshield at 6 o'clock at night, ever again, thank you. I want to just put on my brakes and know my car will stop. I'm getting sick of this.
Bring on the tulips of Spring.
A couple weeks ago - Groundhog Day, in fact - I was thinking, cool, whatever, I'm doing just fine in this snowy weather, six more weeks, or eight, that's not many, I'll be fine! This isn't hard, what do people complain about?
Yesterday I very bravely drove back home from Wausau on roads that were safe-ish, but not very clear. I focussed on staying in the ruts and going slow. I focussed on the red tail lights ahead of me and thought of nothing but lining up behind them - which technique almost made me head off to Oshkosh, but at the last minute I took my own bend in the road and became for a while the trail blazer for a line of trucks and cars. Near towns, where traffic slowed down, I guess the heat in the tires was less and the ruts tended to disappear, so you'd just do your best to find a line through the undifferentiated white snow field until some ruts appeared again on the other side of the town. I saw three cars in the ditch - one that looked like it had been there a long time, one with red tail lights still on, newly ditched, and one being elaborately towed out. People go in the ditch because they're going too fast. If you don't go too fast, you shouldn't go in the ditch, but there's always the rogue patch of ice that might sneak up on you unexpectedly. I pressed on, and made it home safe.
The drive to work today was dreadful, and home again pretty bad as well (two more inches fell today). Appleton is out of salt, like everywhere in Wisconsin, and the plow drivers have been doing lots of 16 hour shifts in a row so they're not all that prompt any more. Which is fine, but it makes driving actually dangerous, slippery, inconvenient, tiring.
When I was in college, in Ohio, which is in the "Gloom Belt", I remember February. Even though it's the shortest month it always seemed interminably long. Everyone joked that it was the month everyone contemplated killing themselves, or maybe their roommate. It was dark and cold, the snow had lost its novelty, the ice storms would knock the power out, the slip and fall on Middle Path on the way to classes wasn't your seasonal first one, it was about your 70th. Bah.
And here it is mid-February of the coldest and snowiest winter in 30 years, and yep, I'm there again. I'm tired of this now. I want to see the Melt. I want to drive up to a corner and be able to see around it into the oncoming traffic. I want to walk without worrying about the traction on my feet. I want to leave work when it's light. I don't want to scrape ice off a windshield at 6 o'clock at night, ever again, thank you. I want to just put on my brakes and know my car will stop. I'm getting sick of this.
Bring on the tulips of Spring.
Monday, February 11, 2008
New Favorite Website
You may not know this about me, because I haven't gone on and on about it here, but I have a difficult-to-fit foot. Well, two of them. All my life once I achieved my full growth I was wearing 7s or 7 1/2s, but in fact, my foot is a 6 1/2 WW. Or 6 1/2 E, in the old money. Feet as wide as they are long. As a friend teased me in high school, I should throw away the shoes and just wear the boxes.
I started buying shoes that were the correct size a few years ago, at great expense, at a specialist shoe store just outside David Jones in Sydney. And now I can't go back - once you've been wearing shoes that actually fit you for a few years and go through life not thinking of your feet, you start to demand it as a permanent condition.
But, Appleton being 1.8% the size of Sydney (Man. It is small. I hadn't actually done the math before), there's not as much demand for shoes to fit Hobbit feet, and I wasn't sure what I was going to do - go back to 7 1/2 regular, at Payless, and have blisters and clown shoes once again?
Fortunately, I am a regular reader of The New Yorker, and had many times seen ads for an online shoe store called Zappos.com. It's also on the side of all the shopping bags full of shoes on my new favorite show, What Not to Wear (US version). I checked it out, actually pretty soon after arriving. I remember creating a profile and adding a pair to my wish list while sitting at the Harmony Cafe, way back before I had internet access at home.
Zappos.com is a magical wonderland. From someone who's been sentenced to sensible, boring Lesbian shoes for years and years, it might actually turn me into one of those shoe ladies. I just got three pair in the mail just now, only two days after I ordered them, and one of those days was Sunday. Two of the pairs fit - brilliantly - and the one I have to return, the girl on the phone was so, so nice and cheerful and helpful, it's really not a problem, it's even easier than sending a clerk at an analog shoe store out here in the world back to the back room to get a different size. Brilliant. When you first call they have two employees who introduce themselves on the phone and say they're hosting the phone menu for that day. In addition to placing new orders, tracking existing orders or processing returns, you can dial 4 to hear the joke of the day. Love it! The menu actually takes a little longer to get through, what with the introductions and the joke, but you don't mind, because they're little touches that make the whole experience much nicer.
And, lest I forget the most important thing, they have loads and loads of shoes in every style in size 6 1/2 WW. They don't frown and wrinkle their brow when you enter that size in, and say, "Hm. Maybe. I'll check the back, but we might have to do a special order. Or would you like to try a 7 1/2 regular?" To Zappos, you say, "6 1/2 WW?" and they say, "Sure! What colour? How high a heel? Is red with a kitten heel alright? How about with some sexy straps all around? How many pairs of each would you like, sitting at your front door day after tomorrow? It's no problem! It's our pleasure!"
I love Zappos.com. I love my new shoes (one boot with rugged tread, fake sheep skin lining, and sexy straps all around; one knee-length boot with an amazingly sexy heel and scalloped top, for wearing with skirts in the wintertime). I love that the shoes I don't love, I can easily send back to them. I even love being a 6 1/2 WW, because it brought me to them. Thank you, Zappos!
I started buying shoes that were the correct size a few years ago, at great expense, at a specialist shoe store just outside David Jones in Sydney. And now I can't go back - once you've been wearing shoes that actually fit you for a few years and go through life not thinking of your feet, you start to demand it as a permanent condition.
But, Appleton being 1.8% the size of Sydney (Man. It is small. I hadn't actually done the math before), there's not as much demand for shoes to fit Hobbit feet, and I wasn't sure what I was going to do - go back to 7 1/2 regular, at Payless, and have blisters and clown shoes once again?
Fortunately, I am a regular reader of The New Yorker, and had many times seen ads for an online shoe store called Zappos.com. It's also on the side of all the shopping bags full of shoes on my new favorite show, What Not to Wear (US version). I checked it out, actually pretty soon after arriving. I remember creating a profile and adding a pair to my wish list while sitting at the Harmony Cafe, way back before I had internet access at home.
Zappos.com is a magical wonderland. From someone who's been sentenced to sensible, boring Lesbian shoes for years and years, it might actually turn me into one of those shoe ladies. I just got three pair in the mail just now, only two days after I ordered them, and one of those days was Sunday. Two of the pairs fit - brilliantly - and the one I have to return, the girl on the phone was so, so nice and cheerful and helpful, it's really not a problem, it's even easier than sending a clerk at an analog shoe store out here in the world back to the back room to get a different size. Brilliant. When you first call they have two employees who introduce themselves on the phone and say they're hosting the phone menu for that day. In addition to placing new orders, tracking existing orders or processing returns, you can dial 4 to hear the joke of the day. Love it! The menu actually takes a little longer to get through, what with the introductions and the joke, but you don't mind, because they're little touches that make the whole experience much nicer.
And, lest I forget the most important thing, they have loads and loads of shoes in every style in size 6 1/2 WW. They don't frown and wrinkle their brow when you enter that size in, and say, "Hm. Maybe. I'll check the back, but we might have to do a special order. Or would you like to try a 7 1/2 regular?" To Zappos, you say, "6 1/2 WW?" and they say, "Sure! What colour? How high a heel? Is red with a kitten heel alright? How about with some sexy straps all around? How many pairs of each would you like, sitting at your front door day after tomorrow? It's no problem! It's our pleasure!"
I love Zappos.com. I love my new shoes (one boot with rugged tread, fake sheep skin lining, and sexy straps all around; one knee-length boot with an amazingly sexy heel and scalloped top, for wearing with skirts in the wintertime). I love that the shoes I don't love, I can easily send back to them. I even love being a 6 1/2 WW, because it brought me to them. Thank you, Zappos!
Friday, February 8, 2008
Message from My Aqua Self
When I was swimming last night and managed to get into that zen state they talk about where you're just going back and forth, staring at the ceiling, I received a psychic message. When I started swimming, my brain was all wound up with its usual preoccupations: "I'm alone I'm alone I'm alone. What can I do to not be alone? Where is he? How can I meet him? I'm not doing enough to meet him! What if I never meet him? I want what I had before. Why did he leave me alone?" etc etc, plus also the stressy situation at work that I was right in the middle of.
But the laps and the view of the beams in the concrete ceiling passing by, one by one, calmed me down enough that I could receive this psychic message: "You philosophers, you're always thinking. You always believe you can work things out, purely by reason. You need to just be quiet, and wait, and listen."
Isn't that a wise message? Sure didn't come from my usual brain, it would never think of something that calm and wise - and non-verbal - on its own. I won't say it came from some extra-corporeal source like God or an angel or whatever. In fact, if it was spoken in any voice, from the sound as I thought of it inside my head, it was in my own voice. My very wise Aqua Self.
I've been trying it today. Tonight after doing my current favourite Friday night thing of going and hanging out in the Starbucks at the Barnes & Noble and losing myself in a chai latte and a book (David Sedaris this time), I drove home when it was just starting to snow. A Christmas Eve kind of snow, not sticking yet and not yet slick on the roads at the intersections. Just beautiful. Someone asked me today if I missed Sydney summers, and I told him actually when I was there I missed the snowy weather. And here it is. So, per instructions from my Aqua Self's voice, I just looked at it, and appreciated the moment, and didn't think about what was or what I'm supposed to make be.
But the laps and the view of the beams in the concrete ceiling passing by, one by one, calmed me down enough that I could receive this psychic message: "You philosophers, you're always thinking. You always believe you can work things out, purely by reason. You need to just be quiet, and wait, and listen."
Isn't that a wise message? Sure didn't come from my usual brain, it would never think of something that calm and wise - and non-verbal - on its own. I won't say it came from some extra-corporeal source like God or an angel or whatever. In fact, if it was spoken in any voice, from the sound as I thought of it inside my head, it was in my own voice. My very wise Aqua Self.
I've been trying it today. Tonight after doing my current favourite Friday night thing of going and hanging out in the Starbucks at the Barnes & Noble and losing myself in a chai latte and a book (David Sedaris this time), I drove home when it was just starting to snow. A Christmas Eve kind of snow, not sticking yet and not yet slick on the roads at the intersections. Just beautiful. Someone asked me today if I missed Sydney summers, and I told him actually when I was there I missed the snowy weather. And here it is. So, per instructions from my Aqua Self's voice, I just looked at it, and appreciated the moment, and didn't think about what was or what I'm supposed to make be.
Thursday, February 7, 2008
good for me
Dear readers, you would be so impressed. I was struggling, a few weeks ago, with it all - the three-month wall - and wasn't sure how I would dig myself out of it, but I've tackled one issue at a time, and it's working. Doing the same thing at work, and still in a bit of a hole, but we'll get there.
I knew all the things I had to do, and decided to focus on the most basic first. My sleep was all messed up, and it made the weeks very long and difficult - sleeping WAY in on Saturday morning, naps on Sunday afternoon, then no sleep until 2am Sunday night, 6:00 starts all week, just devastating. I know that the only way to fix this is to keep the same hours every day. So, yes, even on the weekend, I woke up at 6:00 in the morning. Both weekend days. And it's working - at 10:00pm, I suddenly feel tired, just like all the morning people do. And at about 5:50 am every day, my brain finished us the dream it's dreaming and starts to surface. So the whole alarm thing has not been so jarring. The waking up is still difficult, but I've noticed that the feeling goes away in about 10-15 minutes, so my mantra is, "This is just the transition." Not, "I'm so tired I'm going to die and there's no way I can get through the whole day of work, I know that already," but "This is just the transition. When you wake all the way up you will feel different."
The second thing was exercise. Only just starting on that one, after much indecision and procrastination and deals with myself. My dear friend also acted as sounded board and gave me some recommendations, and techniques for getting yourself out there. So, this week I have, finally, enacted my plan - acqua aerobics class Monday night, swimming laps Wednesday or Thursday night depending (this week it was Thursday), and then I will go to the little gym in the apartment complex at some point on the weekend. Swimming is lovely, and will be fun when I get good at it, and getting the heart beating fast is doing wonders for the stress.
Other thing doing untold wonders is a change of medication. This was kind of big, in different ways. Moving here I've had to try to match all my prescriptions as close as I could, but they didn't have quite exactly the birth control pills I've been taking for, basically, my entire adult life. They are a prescription originally designed as acne medicine, which I didn't really need, but I found they worked brilliantly - leveled out my moods, cleared up what skin problems I did have, made my periods almost unnoticeable. Which is why I stayed on them even though I've had sex...let's just say, really not very many times in the past...let's just say a while.
However. In the US the closest prescription to them wasn't quite close enough. I had a bad cold when I started them so didn't notice, but they were definitely dragging me down with side effects. I was bloated, achy, and depressed. I was getting migraines - two in one week, one while I was driving. My skin was bad. Who would have thought that 1 millgram of ethynodiol diacetate instead of 2 milligrams of cyproterone acetate would make such a difference, but by last weekend I was really not myself. Not only was I really, really depressed, and very hormonal, and starting to think negative thoughts quite a bit of the time, I then started getting these riotous mood swings. I could sit and just watch them come, inside me, for no reason - sitting at the Starbucks, I went from completely morose, staring out the window, thinking about how alone I am in the world, to about a half hour later, euphoric, at peace with the world, feeling grand sparkling benificence toward all the Starbucks employees serving the drive-through customers. Ridiculous. I vowed to finish the pack and re-set after that, but at the end of a whole day like this, I could take no more. Went abruptly off them, mid-cycle, body did what it does when you do that (don't want to get all graphic on you), and I have started again, All-Natural, for the last, what, four years of my years of womanhood I have left to experience anyway. And immediately, the very next day, my head cleared and I had my mind back again. I was probably in that depressed estrogen fog for two months, and let me tell you, that's the last thing you need in Wisconsin in February.
So, took all these health issues in hand, and am feeling much better. I think I'm building a good foundation for all the other stuff I need to do to get integrated into the community and build a life for myself here. Are you proud of me? You should be!
I knew all the things I had to do, and decided to focus on the most basic first. My sleep was all messed up, and it made the weeks very long and difficult - sleeping WAY in on Saturday morning, naps on Sunday afternoon, then no sleep until 2am Sunday night, 6:00 starts all week, just devastating. I know that the only way to fix this is to keep the same hours every day. So, yes, even on the weekend, I woke up at 6:00 in the morning. Both weekend days. And it's working - at 10:00pm, I suddenly feel tired, just like all the morning people do. And at about 5:50 am every day, my brain finished us the dream it's dreaming and starts to surface. So the whole alarm thing has not been so jarring. The waking up is still difficult, but I've noticed that the feeling goes away in about 10-15 minutes, so my mantra is, "This is just the transition." Not, "I'm so tired I'm going to die and there's no way I can get through the whole day of work, I know that already," but "This is just the transition. When you wake all the way up you will feel different."
The second thing was exercise. Only just starting on that one, after much indecision and procrastination and deals with myself. My dear friend also acted as sounded board and gave me some recommendations, and techniques for getting yourself out there. So, this week I have, finally, enacted my plan - acqua aerobics class Monday night, swimming laps Wednesday or Thursday night depending (this week it was Thursday), and then I will go to the little gym in the apartment complex at some point on the weekend. Swimming is lovely, and will be fun when I get good at it, and getting the heart beating fast is doing wonders for the stress.
Other thing doing untold wonders is a change of medication. This was kind of big, in different ways. Moving here I've had to try to match all my prescriptions as close as I could, but they didn't have quite exactly the birth control pills I've been taking for, basically, my entire adult life. They are a prescription originally designed as acne medicine, which I didn't really need, but I found they worked brilliantly - leveled out my moods, cleared up what skin problems I did have, made my periods almost unnoticeable. Which is why I stayed on them even though I've had sex...let's just say, really not very many times in the past...let's just say a while.
However. In the US the closest prescription to them wasn't quite close enough. I had a bad cold when I started them so didn't notice, but they were definitely dragging me down with side effects. I was bloated, achy, and depressed. I was getting migraines - two in one week, one while I was driving. My skin was bad. Who would have thought that 1 millgram of ethynodiol diacetate instead of 2 milligrams of cyproterone acetate would make such a difference, but by last weekend I was really not myself. Not only was I really, really depressed, and very hormonal, and starting to think negative thoughts quite a bit of the time, I then started getting these riotous mood swings. I could sit and just watch them come, inside me, for no reason - sitting at the Starbucks, I went from completely morose, staring out the window, thinking about how alone I am in the world, to about a half hour later, euphoric, at peace with the world, feeling grand sparkling benificence toward all the Starbucks employees serving the drive-through customers. Ridiculous. I vowed to finish the pack and re-set after that, but at the end of a whole day like this, I could take no more. Went abruptly off them, mid-cycle, body did what it does when you do that (don't want to get all graphic on you), and I have started again, All-Natural, for the last, what, four years of my years of womanhood I have left to experience anyway. And immediately, the very next day, my head cleared and I had my mind back again. I was probably in that depressed estrogen fog for two months, and let me tell you, that's the last thing you need in Wisconsin in February.
So, took all these health issues in hand, and am feeling much better. I think I'm building a good foundation for all the other stuff I need to do to get integrated into the community and build a life for myself here. Are you proud of me? You should be!
École de la Langue Nord-Americaine
We don't get much free stuff at work, but we do get free boxes of...um...facial tissue of a well-known brand. I grabbed a new box out of the supply cabinet and noticed it had bi-lingual messages on its plastic wrapping. "Now even stronger!" it said en Anglais. The French said "Plus de Résistance".
Isn't that weird? I was thinking "strong" would be something to do with "la force" in French, but actually they make a distinction between force and resistance. The tissues do not, in themselves, have any active force of strength (releasing that line next year...oops! quick everyone, sign CDAs!). The kind of "strength" they have is to be able to resist other forces. Like blowing la nez on them particularly hard. So, "Résistance".
Isn't that weird? I was thinking "strong" would be something to do with "la force" in French, but actually they make a distinction between force and resistance. The tissues do not, in themselves, have any active force of strength (releasing that line next year...oops! quick everyone, sign CDAs!). The kind of "strength" they have is to be able to resist other forces. Like blowing la nez on them particularly hard. So, "Résistance".
Sunday, February 3, 2008
quote on boredom
Good quote from the New Yorker:
"Being bored doesn't mean that 'there's nothing to do,' as children imprecisely complain to their parents on a rainy day, dragging their feet on the rug and kicking the sofa. It means that something big -- whether it's rain, other people, or our own hot-to-the-touch fears -- is keeping us from doing what we want to do, from playing outside, from expressing ourselves, from moving forward."
- Nancy Franklin, "Patients, Patients (review of HBO's 'In Treatment')", Feb 4, 2008, p. 78
"Being bored doesn't mean that 'there's nothing to do,' as children imprecisely complain to their parents on a rainy day, dragging their feet on the rug and kicking the sofa. It means that something big -- whether it's rain, other people, or our own hot-to-the-touch fears -- is keeping us from doing what we want to do, from playing outside, from expressing ourselves, from moving forward."
- Nancy Franklin, "Patients, Patients (review of HBO's 'In Treatment')", Feb 4, 2008, p. 78
Saturday, February 2, 2008
telephones
I was just emailing a friend (hi, Rick) and was talking about telephones. I'm off them, at the moment. A few things have come up recently to suggest I'm just the opposite of most people, which I'm sure makes it very confusing for people who are trying to get ahold of me. One was when a vendor left a voice mail for me one day last week, in the morning, and I never listened to it, and then she emailed to follow up at about 3 that afternoon and I responded right away. She asked, "What's the best way to get ahold of you?" and I said "Email." And wrote back with some additional numbers in case I'm out of the office and found myself saying, "Voice mail is fine, but it's probably best to follow up with an email to let me know you left it." That's just the opposite of everyone else on earth, isn't it? (Problem is the red "message" light doesn't tell you who it was and what they want.)
I've actually had a problem calling strangers on the phone since I was a teenager. I could argue that it traces all the back to when I was a new talker - there's a comment in my baby book in my Mom's hand that says, "Tends to stutter when she gets excited." I don't stutter any more, very much, and I had three years of speech team training in High School and 11 years of lecturing experience, so I'm a pretty good public speaker now (if I do say so myself). But I will still put off a phone call to a stranger forever, so obviously I still have a resistance to it. I can conjure up with hardly any prompting any number of calls I've made where it doesn't get started very well, it's not stuttering, exactly, but it might be a "ha-hem" thing in the throat, or words getting tangled up, or not explaining who I am quickly enough and getting a gruff and suspicious reaction from the other end. The phone is not my thing.
I'm supposed to be calling everyone back in Australia all the time to keep in touch with them, especially the ones who were the most distraught and crying and guilt-inducing when I left. The writer, whose girlfriend's mother is at death's door and it's all very stressful. My old neighbor, who had gone through a whole series of events that left her in deep grief and sadness, and then I went and did this to her (that's the one I feel worst about, they sent me some lovely Christmas presents that just delighted me but I haven't thanked them at all yet - totally going to hell for that one. She doesn't do email because she associates it with work, so she doesn't even enjoy getting messages from me, much less writes me back). My dear friend in WA who, bless her, calls me every couple of weeks for a long chat, and I never call her back, but she has faith and continues to reach out and has kept the friendship going through large geographic distances, even larger now.
Right now I've got a few fruitful email conversations going, and I'm keeping ties with all those friends. But the phone ones, I feel desperately guilty, but I just can't do it. Or, just won't.
And I had a thought this evening, which went in the email to my friend. In my last job I was a customer relations manager. My job was that whenever any client called me, I had to sound delighted to hear from them, even when they were a difficult customer or were unhappy with us or we'd done something really bad and I was being professional and trying to explain the implications to them. I had to sound delighted to hear from the customer who spent $70 a month with us and I had to spend as much time on the phone with them as they wanted me to, giving them Internet 101 tutorials or helping with basic HTML questions, even though the customer who spent $250,000 a month with us was right in the middle of some crisis emergency that I would have preferred to have been solving instead. This experience has left a certain amount of fakeness in my vocal transactions with people. I know I use it at work, I can be in paroxysms of anxiety, and feeling depressed and tired and sorry for myself, and still in the corridors I answer "How are you?" with "Great!" and my cheeriest and charmingest of smiles. I know I still get overly polite with vendors on the phone, like I was raised in an British Empireal outpost camp in India in the 1930's. I hope it's not putting people off. But I also hope I get over it soon.
Anyway, so the point of that is, I think I now associate the phone with fakeness. Thinking about calling that very friend instead of emailing him, I knew I would adopt the cheery tone and lighten everything up in the conversation like how people do when they're on about day 15 of their new Prozac prescription. So, email is better. I'm being more honest in my typing than in my talking. You guys are getting the very best of me!
Love,
Ellen
I've actually had a problem calling strangers on the phone since I was a teenager. I could argue that it traces all the back to when I was a new talker - there's a comment in my baby book in my Mom's hand that says, "Tends to stutter when she gets excited." I don't stutter any more, very much, and I had three years of speech team training in High School and 11 years of lecturing experience, so I'm a pretty good public speaker now (if I do say so myself). But I will still put off a phone call to a stranger forever, so obviously I still have a resistance to it. I can conjure up with hardly any prompting any number of calls I've made where it doesn't get started very well, it's not stuttering, exactly, but it might be a "ha-hem" thing in the throat, or words getting tangled up, or not explaining who I am quickly enough and getting a gruff and suspicious reaction from the other end. The phone is not my thing.
I'm supposed to be calling everyone back in Australia all the time to keep in touch with them, especially the ones who were the most distraught and crying and guilt-inducing when I left. The writer, whose girlfriend's mother is at death's door and it's all very stressful. My old neighbor, who had gone through a whole series of events that left her in deep grief and sadness, and then I went and did this to her (that's the one I feel worst about, they sent me some lovely Christmas presents that just delighted me but I haven't thanked them at all yet - totally going to hell for that one. She doesn't do email because she associates it with work, so she doesn't even enjoy getting messages from me, much less writes me back). My dear friend in WA who, bless her, calls me every couple of weeks for a long chat, and I never call her back, but she has faith and continues to reach out and has kept the friendship going through large geographic distances, even larger now.
Right now I've got a few fruitful email conversations going, and I'm keeping ties with all those friends. But the phone ones, I feel desperately guilty, but I just can't do it. Or, just won't.
And I had a thought this evening, which went in the email to my friend. In my last job I was a customer relations manager. My job was that whenever any client called me, I had to sound delighted to hear from them, even when they were a difficult customer or were unhappy with us or we'd done something really bad and I was being professional and trying to explain the implications to them. I had to sound delighted to hear from the customer who spent $70 a month with us and I had to spend as much time on the phone with them as they wanted me to, giving them Internet 101 tutorials or helping with basic HTML questions, even though the customer who spent $250,000 a month with us was right in the middle of some crisis emergency that I would have preferred to have been solving instead. This experience has left a certain amount of fakeness in my vocal transactions with people. I know I use it at work, I can be in paroxysms of anxiety, and feeling depressed and tired and sorry for myself, and still in the corridors I answer "How are you?" with "Great!" and my cheeriest and charmingest of smiles. I know I still get overly polite with vendors on the phone, like I was raised in an British Empireal outpost camp in India in the 1930's. I hope it's not putting people off. But I also hope I get over it soon.
Anyway, so the point of that is, I think I now associate the phone with fakeness. Thinking about calling that very friend instead of emailing him, I knew I would adopt the cheery tone and lighten everything up in the conversation like how people do when they're on about day 15 of their new Prozac prescription. So, email is better. I'm being more honest in my typing than in my talking. You guys are getting the very best of me!
Love,
Ellen
Friday, February 1, 2008
OMG! There are knitting books!
I was just over at Barnes & Noble by the mall for a Friday night scone and decaf and a bit of a New Yorker read (it's a lovely place to hang out, by the way, and you overhear some interesting conversations). Before I came home I had a browse around and discovered - OMG - there are such things as knitting books! I didn't buy any, but I'm totally going to go back tomorrow and get them, because I know already I can't live without them and that they will change my life.
The one that caught my eye was "Son of Stitch & Bitch", which is full of patterns for things you can knit for guys. And the things are soooo cool. The argyle scarf on the cover caught my eye initially, but my favourite was a matched set, a hat and sweater, with a pattern all around of red skulls on a black background. This book also had a really cool scarf of black and green stripes but at one end, just very subtly, you could make out the face of a space alien. Can you imagine? And then there was another book with bold graphic patterns that you could work into anything you were making, and my favourite in that one was a sweater in totally 50's pink and black, just a simple cowl neck with 3/4 sleeves, but worked into the front was a two-tone black portrait of Audrey Hepburn. How cool is that! omg, omg.
It got me to thinking, if you do a few skull and Audrey Hepburn projects and get the hang of it, all you need is a bit of graph paper and you could work any pattern you like into a scarf or simple sweater. The Sydney Harbour Bridge. A Hello Kitty cat face. The badgers from the "Badger, Badger, Badger" video. Omg! Can you say "Christmas presents"? Actually, my friends will probably hate me if I start bombarding them with totally weird knitted garments.
I wonder where you can get yarn in space-alien green?
p.s. Actually, I have learned from reading too much on Cute Overload that it is now spelled Oh Em Gee.
The one that caught my eye was "Son of Stitch & Bitch", which is full of patterns for things you can knit for guys. And the things are soooo cool. The argyle scarf on the cover caught my eye initially, but my favourite was a matched set, a hat and sweater, with a pattern all around of red skulls on a black background. This book also had a really cool scarf of black and green stripes but at one end, just very subtly, you could make out the face of a space alien. Can you imagine? And then there was another book with bold graphic patterns that you could work into anything you were making, and my favourite in that one was a sweater in totally 50's pink and black, just a simple cowl neck with 3/4 sleeves, but worked into the front was a two-tone black portrait of Audrey Hepburn. How cool is that! omg, omg.
It got me to thinking, if you do a few skull and Audrey Hepburn projects and get the hang of it, all you need is a bit of graph paper and you could work any pattern you like into a scarf or simple sweater. The Sydney Harbour Bridge. A Hello Kitty cat face. The badgers from the "Badger, Badger, Badger" video. Omg! Can you say "Christmas presents"? Actually, my friends will probably hate me if I start bombarding them with totally weird knitted garments.
I wonder where you can get yarn in space-alien green?
p.s. Actually, I have learned from reading too much on Cute Overload that it is now spelled Oh Em Gee.
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